Chapter 1 - So The Story Goes
9:11 Dragon, Harvestmere
They came in the middle of the night, towering figures with brightly polished armor and gleaming swords and the weight of the entire Chantry behind their deeds. Some hailed them as saviors, stalwart defenders of Andraste's faithful against an onslaught of power that could be contained no other way. Others held this view only under public scrutiny while terror flayed them alive behind closed doors. In truth, the soul rending void left behind when heavily armed men and women ripped children away from their families at a moment's notice was shared by more of Kirkwall's population than anyone dared admit aloud. Whispers of their imminent arrival had rippled among the servants for days, but tonight the rumors became something far more frightening. And Maker be damned, Revka Amell was not going to let them take her daughter.
It began with a pounding at the door followed by a quieter knock at her bedchamber. Revka awoke to her maid shaking her awake with a sense of urgency. "Templars, Messere, at the door."
She glanced over at the empty side of the bed normally occupied by her husband, Silas. Maker, how she missed him. His sister had been a mage, an apostate who had somehow managed to avoid the Circle's leash through her fifteenth name day. He didn't speak of her often, but when he did, it was with the highest regard coupled with that sad, faraway look in his eyes she had come to recognize as equal parts longing and regret. She wondered if he would feel a tinge of pride at his daughter's gift in spite of it all. Her face hardened in determination. His ship was certainly docked at some port in Antiva by now, laden with wines and spices on his return, and Andraste help her, he would not return to find his child missing and his wife in mourning. "Are you certain, Lilah?" The question fell from Revka's lips drenched in fear and desperate, pleading doubt.
"Yes, Messere. Saw them through the sitting room window." For a moment, Revka saw a flash of pity flicker across Lilah's face.
"Go to her and bring her to the cellar, quickly now." Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, some other woman of prestige and privilege, imperious and commanding and not at all in line with the crippling fear that gripped her as the pounding on the door intensified. "I will meet you as soon as I am able." She collected herself and forced her face into the poised expression people would expect from a woman of her standing. They will not have my daughter.
"At once, Messere." And then Lilah was gone, bounding quietly down the halls of the Amell estate with the practiced grace of a girl intimately familiar with the art of secrets. And Maker, did this family have those in spades.
Revka had hardly wrapped the cloak around her shoulders when she heard the main doors creak open. "Good evening, Messere. Ser Tamryn, on behalf of the Circle of Magi," she heard an unfamiliar voice say. His tone was polite enough, but the greeting sent chills down her spine. "Our deepest apologies for disturbing your family at this hour. Is Lady Revka present?" She slipped out of the room and crept down the corridor before she could hear the response. It didn't matter who answered the door, just like it didn't matter now which traitorous bastard of a family member had sold her daughter out to the Chantry. Her father's pathetic grabs for power in her uncle's shadow, her hypocrite brother's self righteous speeches regarding the Chantry's idiotic stance on magic, or even her uncle - the great Lord Aristide himself - growing increasingly dour since her aunt's death and prickling with increasing prejudice towards mages after his perfect daughter eloped straight to Ferelden with an apostate; they could all rot, as far as she was concerned. She did have her dear cousin Leandra to thank, though, for the lack of resistance on her family's part when she brought a common born merchant prince from Tantervale into the family; at that point, everyone was probably just relieved he wasn't a mage too and left it alone.
She crept around the back corridor and down the stairs into the kitchens. Salted meat, dried corn cakes, and two skins of water from the larder would be enough to hide in the sewers until she formulated an escape plan. They could hide in Darktown, wait until Silas returned, and then depart on his ship before anyone found them. It wasn't exactly the best formed plan at the moment, but getting her daughter out of the estate unnoticed was the only priority on her mind right now. The door to the larder let out a rusted groan when she unlatched it just as footsteps echoed down the hallway beyond the top of the stairwell. She froze, suddenly very aware of her increasingly panicked breathing. No. You cannot come undone. They cannot have her. Her fingers gripped the cold stone of the wall behind her as she flattened herself against it, trying to blend in with the shadows until she could melt away into the servants' corridors. They willnot have her.
"Thank you for your haste, Ser. The girl's father is away on business, currently, but if you'll allow a moment, I'll have someone fetch my dear sister to make the arrangements."
Rage gripped her when she recognized her brother's voice. Damion. That spineless traitor. If she weren't so intent on escaping the estate unnoticed, she could have had his head right then and there. Void take him and the rest of this wretched family; Leandra had been wise to disappear the way she had. Her anger fueled her, fanned the flames of her boldness as she skirted the wall until she reached the door to the servants' quarters. She couldn't afford to risk getting caught for supplies, but she supposed she did have the family's crest around her neck, a pendant of silver and sapphire, an almost gaudy thing Silas had commissioned during his last trip to Rialto before their wedding that she had only worn to humor him at first. His first attempt at a wedding gift, no doubt, though he would never admit that out loud. The gesture, at least, was a thoughtful one, and over time she had even grown fond of the wretched thing. Parting with it now would be a sad thing indeed, but she steeled herself and continued through the servants' corridor. She could not afford sentimentality now, not when her daughter's future as a free woman was at stake.
The stairs to the cellar were within view, a mere ten paces away, when chaos broke loose. "Get upstairs, fan out and find the girl! Lord Damion requires her presence at once!" Her brother's bodyguard, she thought, her lip curling up with disgust. Arrogant swine. As if he were important enough to require constant protection. She ducked behind a half empty barrel of soiled towels and focused on steadying her breathing. Dashing into the cellar was not an option now, not with people searching this close by. And so she pressed her back to the wall, hugged her knees, and waited. After what felt like an eternity of silence, Revka took a deep breath and crept through the last door and down the cellar steps. The hidden exit to Darktown was almost in sight, and if they managed to disappear into the streets, the worst of it would be over. And then, she bumped into a tall, solid, imposing figure at the bottom of the stairs.
"Revka." Her father's voice was laden with disappointment. Lilah clutched at the toddler asleep in her arms, eyes wide in what Revka knew to be expertly feigned terror, shrinking away from the sword currently pointed at her face.
"You would dare?" Revka was livid, and her voice dripped with the acidity she could no longer hold back. "You would point your blade at your own granddaughter rather than ensuring she grows up outside of the chains of a Chantry that would cast her aside or cut her down the moment she tries to deviate from the path they determine for her?"
"I would ensure my granddaughter grows up in a place built to protect her," he hissed. "Who do you think will train her when her powers grow beyond her capacity to control them? Maker, girl, she's barely over her second nameday and her fingers already glow when she laughs. She'll be tossing fire about with those hands soon enough, and when her tantrums begin to burn buildings to the ground? When she swings a stick at a friend in a child's game and sends a shard of ice through his ribs? When she gives in to a demon's whims on nothing more than an adolescent's folly? Who would be accountable then, Revka? Who would protect the people she cares about from the storms she's bound to unleash? Those lives, that blood, will be on your idiot hands, you foolish, reckless girl!"
"Would that Silas were a mage so I could follow in Leandra's footsteps," she spat. The seconds of silence between them seemed to stretch into hours until his hand whipped across her face. The force of the slap sent her stumbling back into the stairs. She clutched at her cheek, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth from the cut now open on her bottom lip, as she glared at him in defiance.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet, steady, and filled with the icy, calculated tone of a man sentencing a criminal to the gallows. "Were that wretched, low born husband of yours possessed of the same curse the two of you inflicted upon your daughter, I would have struck him down long before he set foot in this house." She could see Lilah from the corner of her eye. The elven woman was slowly creeping away from her father's threatening arm and toward the Darktown exit as he seethed at her in his rage. Good girl, she thought. Keep moving. I only need to distract him for one more moment.
"Spare me your self righteous lectures." She was taunting him now, goading him into focusing his attention on her and not on the maid silently moving away from them both. "You spend every waking moment seething in Uncle Aristide's shadow, and were it not for Mother's good graces, you would have thrown my husband and our daughter both out on the streets long ago for daring to besmirch what little reputation you've managed to maintain. It was made abundantly clear to me from the moment I came into my womanhood that the only important thing about me to you was the faint hope I would ensnare some pompous fool from a powerful family to strengthen our family's fucking legacy. And it was by the grace of Andraste herself that I married my husband when I did, when the chaos of Leandra's hasty departure to Ferelden cloaked the choices I dared to make of my own free will, and that Mother cared enough about her only daughter to shield me from your rage when the dust settled. No doubt I owe her my life, as you seem so quick to endanger those of your own flesh and blood. I cannot imagine the shame it must have brought on your head when your own daughter produced a mage child from her cursed womb, but Maker preserve me I wish I could so I could revel in the taste of your bitter disappointment."
The sword was at her throat in an instant. "You presume too much, you arrogant girl."
She raised her head to meet his gaze, a challenge in her eyes. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it, Father?" Lilah reached the door and slipped into Darktown's alleyways, and Revka ducked under her father's arm and bolted after her.
The stench of the city's filthy underbelly hit her nostrils even before her feet had made it through the threshold. She could barely keep up with Lilah's silent, graceful scamper, but in this moment she was thanking the Maker she had hired the girl to be her ladies' maid. To many highborn women, it would have been a questionable choice for sure, keeping a maid in her employ after discovering the girl quietly breaking into the family's vault one night, but Revka had been around enough Orlesian nobility in her lifetime to understand the value of a quiet arm in the shadows. She had increased Lilah's pay instead, an added price she was more than happy to fill for information. For discretion. Secrets. Lilah was happy enough with the arrangement; her salary was more than enough to keep her from the grim necessity of seeking loose purses to fill her belly every night, and Revka had soon found herself regarding the elf as a trusted friend and confidante.
That trust was certainly being put to the test now, she thought, feeling a sudden pang of worry, but she was sprinting through the dark alleys after the one woman she knew could keep her daughter safe, and so she buried those thoughts and simply ran. Lilah's sudden cry of pain jolted her out of her current set of worries and replaced them with other, more serious fears. Revka rounded a corner and saw Lilah's body sprawled across the stone, an arrow buried in her shoulder. Her daughter was awake now, secured tightly in Lilah's other arm and wailing in terror. Six heavily armored templars surrounded them wordlessly, blades drawn as she knelt at Lilah's side, and even as Lilah handed over her daughter and yanked the arrow from her breast with barely more than a grunt, Revka knew in that moment that they were beaten.
She was not a woman prone to tearful displays, but she felt her eyes filling as a crushing ache wound its way through her chest. They're going to take her. The reality of the situation, colder than ice and far more brittle against her desperation, wounded her far worse than her father's hands ever could. "Please," she sobbed, her voice barely a whisper now as she took the child from Lilah's arms and cradled her against her breast. "Please, don't take my daughter."
One of the templars stepped forward and removed his helm. To his credit, his eyes were filled with concern, though right now it really didn't matter. He could have promised her the entire fucking city on a silver plate, and she would have spat in his face for it. "Mistress Amell, I swear on our vows, we will not harm the girl," he said softly. "The Circle is the safest place in Thedas for her as she grows into her powers. She will receive training of the utmost quality. We will keep her safe."
"A gilded cage is still a cage, Ser," she felt herself say, her voice breaking. "You cannot do this to my daughter, please, you cannot." The tears were falling freely now as she clutched at the one person in this world she would trade her very soul for in a heartbeat. "Please," she wept. Please don't take my little girl.
She remained collapsed onto the pavement long after the templars had departed, her wails of anguish muffled only by her cloak. Lilah ripped a wad of fabric from the bottom of her shirt and pressed it to her chest with a pained groan. "I'm so sorry, Messere. I should have been more careful, watched the streets more-" She trailed off when she realized Revka was beyond understanding words, that her grief was aggressive and single minded and so damn heavy with guilt of her own. She gathered the woman into her arms then despite the sharp pain in her chest and held her, and they sat there in silence until dawn drew its glow from the sky through the scaffolding that separated them from the cliffside and water below.