Chapter 1
Was this was it would be like in the future? No matter what they did? Could she have stopped this if she had just tried a little harder?
Slice, melt into the shadows as a blade nicks perilously close to an artery, leap from the shadows behind them, cut into the brain stem at the back of the neck- next enemy. Battles were flow charts, one thing flowing naturally to the next. It was a long line of- Enemy, ally, strike there for optimal damage, roll backwards onto the balls of your feet, spring at an enemy attacking your ally, knife finds throat, dodge arrow nearing your heart- and it was a flow Sayul had gotten intimately familiar with.
Sayul had joined the Valo-Kas as soon as she was strong enough to hamstring a man with a butcher knife- which was apparently too young to get taken seriously as a mercenary. It had taken years and years of practice and experience before she was even half as powerful as she wanted to be. Then she got assigned to the protection detail of a mage-templar ceasefire meeting and the world had exploded.
She may not remember what had happened during the conclave, but after? No one forgets going from prisoner, to self-preservation-fight-for-your-life, to Herald of Andraste in one day.
Knife knocked from fingers, pain in shoulder, roll away, ledge!
Torn from her thoughts she caught herself from falling over the edge of the metal grating, shifting her weight to roll the other direction. She hated playing bait. She was wait-in-the-shadows and strike-once-and-it's-over, not keep-the-Venatori-from-the-squishy-mage.
The Venatori that had attacked lit up like a bonfire and suddenly there was screaming and burning flesh and a trail of flames sloshing off of a human body. Flashfire was terrifying. She retrieved her knife and tried not to think of how much Dorian's zeal for destruction matched Naarul's. That way led to thoughts of blinding green lights and halfheartedly searching through black corpses for the hulking Quinari mage at a temple smothered in whispering red lyrium.
"Well, that's that then. Where to next?" The Tevinter mage had a startling charisma to him, like a Dalish third Shokrakar had rescued from execution, all poofy hair and wide eyes with scorched eyebrows and singed skin- but a wide impish smile regardless.
Sayul ignored him for the moment, rifling through pockets and picking up anything of value. Inquisition work didn't pay like mercenary work, and sometimes enemies carried more than money on them. She hummed at the sight of a key ring in the pocket of the charred one. He was precariously close to the edge of the metal grating, obviously planning to throw himself from the edge rather than face a flaming end. Lucky for them, he'd expired too soon.
"Prisoners." She mused and Dorian hummed behind her.
"It does bring up the question of what happened to the rest of your bait party." He wondered and the dark tone of his voice had her grimacing. Maybe not like Elros then, the little elf never knew when to stop joking, at least Dorian had enough tact to realize it wasn't appreciated. Not that calling Bull and Solas bait was by any means tactful, but it was better than Elros would have done.
"If they're still here that's… bad." For a number of reasons. If it wasn't far from their time, then this destruction and lyrium boom had taken no time at all, and that was dangerous. If it had been a long time, then who knows what had happened to them in that time, what tortures they had endured.
"Yes. Bad." Dorian reiterated heavily, obviously catching the same undertones she had.
"Right. Let's go." She decided. There was no time to waste. The more time they hesitated, the longer Alexius had to realize they were there. They made their way downstairs, deeper into the ruined basement.
The state of the mansion had Sayul frowning heavily. Had there been an earthquake to cause such destruction? Alexius was obviously still residing here, so what could his reasoning be for allowing such a defensible mansion to fall into ruin. Attacks? Derangement? Lack of any real enemies? Just how far in the future were they?
They didn't need to wait long to figure out the answer to that one. At the end of a hallway, coated in red glowing lyrum a familiar figure was hunched against the wall. Sayul narrowed her eyes. Was her lower half encased in lyrium?
"Grand Enchanter Fiona?" She questioned carefully and the woman, though obviously startled, was slow to turn her head in their direction.
"You. You are… alive. How…?" Her voice was choked and slow and heavy and Sayul clenched her fists at her side. Dorian opted to answer after her silence had stretched.
"We didn't actually die, you see the magic of the amulet reacted with my magic and poof the two of us appeared unscathed in the future." His explanation was lacking, but it brought up a point she'd wanted to discuss so she cut in before Fiona tried to answer the rhetorical statement.
"How long were we gone? What is the date Fiona, it's important."
The woman coughed, leaning against the wall, her face turned just enough to watch them. "Harvestmere… 9:42 Dragon."
A year. She vaguely heard Dorian exclaiming over the date, but the harsh reality was sinking into her bones. They'd missed a whole year. Abruptly she fumbled with the keys thrusting open the cage door.
"It's… no use… Can't… use legs." Fiona explained, not moving from her hunched position. Sayul dithered. Should she try anyway? Could she afford to? Could she afford not to?
"Listen… Alexius… serves the elder one. More powerful… than the maker. No one… challenges him and lives." She mumbled and Sayul backed slowly out of the cage. It wasn't just around her legs. The lyrium had become a part of her legs, like the stories of merfolk except it wasn't a tail it was glowing poisonous rock growing out of her hips.
"I- we'll find a way to fix this." She said, voice cracking. The flow of battle was easy, it was one movement after another, it was orders that your body gave, that didn't leave you thinking. But this? All she could do was think, and she didn't know what to do.
"Our only hope is to find the amulet Alexius used to send us here. If it still exists, I can use it to reopen the rift at the exact spot we left." Dorian put in. Maybe he saw her distress and was trying to cheer her up. "Maybe." He added, his confidence faltering and she held back a sigh. Or he was just trying to make himself feel better.
"Good." Fiona whispered, body slumping further.
"I said Maybe. It might also turn us into paste." Dorian pointed out.
"You must try. Your Spymaster, Leliana… she is here. Find her. Quickly… before the Elder One… learns you're here." She lapsed into silence, her final words trailing off and Sayul clenched her fists so tight she heard her knuckles crack.
She barely knew Fiona. If this is what Alexius- or whoever this Elder One was- had done to her, then what had they done to her friends?
"Come, let's find the others." She said, turning quickly from Fiona's cell. There was nothing they could do for her. She was fading, and she would just be a liability. Dorian followed her wordlessly.
It was only when they were out of Fiona's possible earshot that he spoke, "It was a wonder she was coherent with Lyrium that close to her body." He hadn't noticed it then. She didn't want to tell him, she didn't want to even think the words, let alone speak them aloud. That Fiona was a part of… No, it was time to move on.
The next cell they found was Bull's which turned out fractionally more humorous than Fiona's meeting, meaning Dorian joked half-heartedly, Bull made a flat comment and groused about magic and Sayul nearly had a heart attack at the red veins bulging in his face that glowed ominously.
Solas was as upright as ever when they found him, even going so far as to further explain Dorian's crappy explanation, with a light to his eyes Sayul had immediately noticed was missing. The red veins on his temples popped out from his face, leeching down to the base of his throat and her breath caught in her throat.
She was not a bleeding heart. What happened happened, and there were just things you had to live with. This? Somehow she could have fixed this. If only she had been there Solas wouldn't be dying, Iron Bull wouldn't be this cynical and Leliana…
They found Leliana in a torture chamber rather than a cell, and she could readily belive it had been a full year since she last saw her. Burns, malnutrition, obvious lack of sleep, lyrium poisoning, infected cuts and stab wounds. And somehow, she still had the strength to strangle a man with her thighs alone. Sometimes Sayul wished she was as strong as Leliana.
"So you're not curious how we got here?" Dorian wondered warily as the bone-thin woman retrieved her belongings.
"No." She responded, clipped. Sayul made to leave, accepting that, but Dorian insisted on explaining anyways.
"-this, his victory, the Elder One, it was never meant to be."
"Dorian thinks we can go back, to make sure this never happens again." Sayul offered firmly, hoping that would help. She knew torture victims; they wanted revenge, not solace that it will never happen again, but Leliana was pragmatic, perhaps the truth would help.
"And mages wonder why people always fear them." She said acidly. Dorian obviously felt threatened by that remark and defended himself hotly.
"Until the breach-"
"Enough!" Leliana growled, swiping a hand across the room. Bull and Solas shared a glance then took half steps back and let her speak. "This is all pretend to you. Some future you hope will never exist. I suffered, the whole world suffered. It was real."
And Sayul saw it. She might claim that she would die before breaking, but they'd already broken her. She wasn't the cold headed, cold hearted mistress of spies. She was broken and hurting and she wanted them to hurt as much as she did, and if she needed to use subterfuge to do so she would, but it wasn't the elegant plans and elaborate network that she used to boast. She had nothing now.
"Yes it was." She agreed. She was starting to vaguely grasp the possibility that the amulet wouldn't work. That maybe, despite Dorian's almost insistent reminders, it probably wasn't likely they would manage to send themselves back in time to right when they left. They might actually be stuck, a full year out of time, with this world to worry about.
What would she do? What could she do?