Author's Note: All right, important note! If you have not read my other story SOLAS THE CIRCLE MAGE, go forth and read that one first! You need to read that one to understand the full context and background of this one because I broke canon! You have nothing to lose in reading that one, either, since it's finished. If you have read it or are also reading the alternate version of this, "Rosa Stands Tall" where Rosa is Inky, worry not. I'm not abandoning that story for this one. I won't update this one as often as Rosa's unless I get huge demand for it. If I do I'll just alternate weeks so this one would be updated once every two weeks, on Friday or Saturdays, same as with Rosa. But for now I'm not promising regular updates. Anyway...enjoy!

One

The Sky's Shitting Demons

A swirling vortex of green flickered in the sky, lightning licking its edges. Gloomy clouds half-blocked the sun, spitting snow, but Tal couldn't help but feel his stomach drop at the thought that the hole was trying to swallow the world. Just like the Seeker said when she first cut his bonds and started leading him up the mountain in this suicide mission.

"We call it the breach," the Seeker's voice repeated in his memory.

More like a giant asshole shitting out demons, Tal thought. The cold air bit at his cheeks as he puffed, trying to keep up with the Seeker as they walked uphill through the snow. Tal tried breathing into his hands, still chafed from the manacles and the rope bindings.

The high-pitched squeal of a burning, green Fade stone tore through the air then. Tal gasped, his body rigid as he froze, reaching for mana to fight. The Seeker's hand flew to her blade and she jerked her head left, staring into the little gorge they walked alongside as the stone smashed itself on the ice and rocks. Grotesque shapes crawled out of the green-black muck it left behind.

Demons.

"Keep moving," the Seeker shouted over her shoulder. Her pace picked up to a jog.

I should just run, Tal thought. Really, that was the smart thing to do. Whatever in the void happened here, it wouldn't be good for Tal. The place had already exploded once according to the Seeker and the redhead who'd tag-teamed him during a brief interrogation when he first woke. Who was to say it wouldn't blow up again? What if the strange, painful magic in his palm was the spark this shithole breach needed to tear wider?

You cannot run. That is the coward's answer. You are not a coward.

"Says who?" Tal muttered, then stopped dead in his tracks and scowled. Had he lost his mind? Why was he talking to himself?

The Seeker had stopped a few paces ahead, noticing he'd stopped. "Get moving, mage."

Tal blinked and stared at the human woman, taken aback. She was pretty, curvaceous even through her armor, with black hair and keen brown eyes. A nasty scar ran on her jawbone and Tal wondered how she got it. He blurted, "How'd you get that gnarly scar?"

The Seeker snarled and pivoted round to stomp toward him. Tal didn't miss the threat of violence in her angry march. The bizarre desire to stand his ground and challenge her to a fight flitted through his mind. Tal sat on it as entirely irrational and an utterly stupid idea. She looked like she could eat him for breakfast—and not in the fun way.

"All right! Okay! I'm moving!" He lifted his palms in a gesture of submission and started jogging. "Sorry about the question, just curious."

The Seeker followed him now as they walked forward on the path. A gate stood open, flanked by guards wearing the new heraldry of the Divine's secret group-thing. Tal recalled seeing them walking about the temple of Sacred Ashes in the days before the explosion, when dignitaries from both Templars and rebel mages were still filtering in. The other mercenaries in the Valo-Kas hadn't cared about this new group and Tal had followed suit in that lack of interest. Still, their heraldry seemed to appear more and more often. The guards in Tal's cell had been wearing the same armor with that symbol of the eye and the sword.

Thinking of the Valo-Kas made Tal's eyes get hot and his heart hurt. He'd been with them only a few months but he made friends with most of the Tal-Vashoth quickly, sometimes preferring their company to the other Dalish who'd joined with him. How many of them had been on duty when the Conclave blew? Herah? Kaaras? Sataa? Shokrakar? What about the dwarves, Edric and Malika?

He swallowed hard as his thoughts kept going: Mahanon, Lerand, and Arvin. The names of his fellow Dalish were like cold ice chunks in his belly as the certainty solidified inside him that they must all be dead. Shokrakar had had them all on duty at about the same time, preferring to use the elves with their greater experience in combating magic during the mornings when the Divine always saw the rebel mage leaders. Tal's last memory was of being on duty with his clansman Arvin inside the courtyard, trying to avoid the older man's endless lectures on Tal's duties to the clan. In that moment he'd wished more than anything to get away, escape Arvin's watchful, judgmental eye…

And now the old man was probably dead. Those ice chunks in Tal's belly seemed to grow heavier. He didn't let himself consider Mahanon. No, that could wait.

The piercing screech of another burning Fade stone hit Tal's ears. He flinched, realizing his mind had wandered, and tossed a barrier over himself and everyone nearby on instinct just before the rock struck the stone bridge. Tal fell in a jumble of tumbling gray stones, dust, and screaming humans. Cold ice met him and he landed in a clumsy sprawl, cursing through gritted teeth.

Ahead a green-black wad of Fade ether bubbled until two shades pulled themselves out of the muck. The Seeker, having landed on her feet, catlike, drew her sword with a ring of metal. "Stay behind me," she ordered and then charged forward.

The sight of it made something quiver inside Tal. He blinked, baffled, as he realized that was…excitement? He admired the way the Seeker advanced on her quarry, holding her shield raised to protect herself and then strike when opportunity presented itself. She had excellent form and timing. It was a wonder anything had ever managed to slice her to give her that scar.

A gurgling noise drew his attention and Tal saw the second shade break off and come slithering over the ice and snow and debris, heading toward him. "Shit sticks," he cursed and scrambled his way up to his feet. Mana came to him easily, bubbling and energetic. Tal lobbed a fireball at the demon and then switched to winter's grasp, using one arm to make the spinning motion without a staff.

As the spell slowed the demon Tal's eye caught the glimmer of metal in the rubble a few paces away. His heart leapt as he recognized a staff. Lunging over to it, Tal snatched it up and spun it as he summoned storm magic. Lightning arced between the demon closest to him and the one the Seeker fought. Tal whooped with a thrill as both demons dissolved, dying at his blow. "Fuck yeah!"

The Seeker wheeled around to face him, sword and shield still drawn. "Drop your weapon!"

Tal stared at her, frowning. Bad idea, he thought. He didn't want to be disarmed but…fenedhis, wouldn't it be thrilling to show how brave he could be by fighting weaponless? His fingers twitched, as if some invisible force kept him from letting go but also kept him from refusing outright.

"Uh…"

The Seeker glared at him, waiting.

Finally Tal blurted, "Do I have to? Really?"

The Seeker's posture eased. "No." She sheathed her blade and let out a little puff. "I cannot expect you to be weaponless with the sky raining demons."

"Glad you see it my way," Tal said, smirking. He spun the stave, getting a feel for its balance. It was anything but balanced, wobbling awkwardly, and the wrapping at the handle flopped and felt sticky. He winced when he caught a rough patch and got a splinter.

"Creators dammit." He sucked on his palm, trying to pick the splinter out with his teeth. "Maybe you were right after all, Seeker. I should drop this thing." When he felt the little wooden burr between his teeth he turned and spat. Looking back, Tal saw the Seeker frowning at him almost quizzically. But…was that a little glimmer of amusement? Or was it just annoyance?

He grinned and explained, "Splinter."

The Seeker grunted in what might have been acknowledgement or maybe amusement, then turned on her heel and started marching again. "Come, mage."

"I've got a name," Tal told her, trotting to walk at her side.

"I never would have suspected," she replied grumblingly.

"It's Tal," he said, ignoring her sarcasm. "Short for Talassan. I was named after my father." He smirked at her, though she didn't meet his gaze. I am going to make you laugh before we die, he thought and set the goal. Best to think about that rather than the shit-storm his life had become.

The green light in his hand crackled, aching bone-deep. Tal shook it out absently and tried not to think about that either. Never liked that hand anyway.

"You know what my name means?" Tal asked, determined to keep chatting even though the Seeker clearly had no interest in anything but marching them both straight to the asshole of the void itself. She didn't answer or acknowledge him, but Tal didn't let that stop him. He'd had lots of one-sided conversations in life. Like the time he chatted up snails as a child, alone and shunned by most of his clan at the Keeper's orders. Or the time he'd talked to the Enavuris river, singing it a little tune his father sung for him before leaving in the night on some mysterious errand as usual. Or when he walked with Templars in a caravan as a captive, a Circle mage they had to escort from Hasmal to…well, he forgot where, exactly, because he escaped and never got there. But he'd chattered at the Templars then, too, just to ease the tension and boredom. He wasn't about to stop now.

"Talassan means two-hundred arrows," he said. "Nice, right? Don't you wish your soldiers had two-hundred arrows each right now? You know, I am a mage, but I am killer with a bow. I had to be. My clan trained me up as a hunter because our Keeper was an ass."

The Seeker said nothing as they marched on.

Eventually the Seeker led Tal to a bit of ruins where a greenish blob hung in the air, groaning and dripping Fade ether, spewing demons that a handful of soldiers fought at its base. "A rift!" she cried and drew her sword, leaping down to join the fray.

Tal hesitated, considering how easy it'd be to slip away now. He could take on invisibility and then—he flinched as something jerked inside him, repulsed. Coward.

"Fuck off," he grumbled, glaring out at the snowy patch where human soldiers fought shades spilling out of the green…rift? Tear? Mini-breach? Tiny demon spewing void-asshole? Whatever it was, it was dangerous and Tal really preferred running. His left hand had crackled, gleaming the same green as the thing spewing the demons. Fade-magic, or Fade ether related, somehow. He scowled down at his hand, wondering if the invisibility spell would hide the glow of the damnable mark or if the Seeker would be able to track him down when he glowed like a firefly.

Then Tal's eyes landed on two nonhumans fighting below and his mouth fell open with shock as he recognized them. The dwarf was a writer he'd met in the Hasmal Circle, who'd also been detained by Seeker Pentaghast. The other was an elven mage, bald and tall and surprisingly broad for one of the People.

Revas. He frowned, hands clenching into fists. You son of a bitch!

He leapt off the ledge now, hurrying as he cast at the demons. His crappy stave gave him another splinter and he cursed it with pain but kept on casting. Lightning, fire, and spirit in rapid bursts. He wished he had his sister's talent for summoning Fade rock because it was so satisfying to clobber demons with the stones, but his fireballs were powerful enough as they burned the shades into ash.

Then, suddenly, Revas was at his side, grabbing his wrist. "Quickly, before more come through!" He pulled Tal toward the green blob in the air and thrust his left palm up to it. Pain tore at Tal's bones and muscles. He squirmed, gritting his teeth, trying to brace against it and endure it. Finally an instinct—or maybe it was just that that asshole Revas released his wrist—made Tal clench his fist and jerk down. The green blob hissed and flickered, diminishing with a spurt of green ether.

And then it was gone. The ruins and the mountains directly around them were suddenly silent except for the ragged breathing of the soldiers who'd survived. All of them stared at Tal, eyes wide with some emotion that made him fidget.

"What?" he blurted. Did he have a booger hanging out of his nose? He had sneezed earlier and shot out a bit of snot. The Seeker had noticed and sneered with disgust and that made Tal wonder if maybe she couldn't laugh. Blowing out snot was always funny.

"It is as I suspected," Revas said then, breaking the silence with a tight smile. "I theorized the mark on your hand could close the rifts that have opened in the breach's wake. It seems I was correct."

Tal bristled and shot Revas a glare. Words bubbled up inside him, curses mostly. Why are you alive? It would be easier if you were dead, you bastard. Then all the times I defended you to Rosa wouldn't feel like I betrayed her. Forcing a smile onto his lips, he said, "Hi there, Revas. Long time no see."

Now Tal saw the remorse darkening the other man's blue eyes a moment before he looked away. "It is good to see you," he said, though he sounded hesitant and his expression was almost wary.

Tal forced a smile onto his lips; though doing so made his guts twist up to the point of pain. It was as if something inside him actively fought his feigned friendliness. "Sure is," he said, though he felt his mouth quirking down and knew his eyes would give him completely away. A heartbeat later he blurted, "Where the fuck were you the past year?"

Revas stared at him, brow furrowed slightly and his blue eyes pained.

Tal wanted to curse himself. Where was his usual charisma and charm? Usually he could fudge and schmooze his way through encounters far more awkward and tense than this one. Now it was all he could do to bite his tongue to keep the resentment he felt toward this man for abandoning Rosa from boiling over into murderous rage.

"I had other responsibilities," Revas replied in a low voice, somber and sad.

A little dizzy spell made Tal grimace and shake his head, trying to clear it and suppress the anger. That righteous indignation and rage was so…odd. He opened his mouth to answer only to break off when Varric came trotting over. The dwarf puffed, winded slightly from the battle, and carried his infamous crossbow still in his arms. "Stoic!" he said, grinning. "Revas said you were the Seeker's prisoner, the sole-survivor. Andraste's ass. I didn't believe it!"

"Well," Tal said, spreading his arms. "Believe it, I guess. Though, honestly, I'm not sure I believe it most of the time." He grinned now. "Do you still have that flask of whiskey like you did in the Circle?"

Laughing heartily, Varric holstered his crossbow onto his back and opened his coat. A second later he produced a silver flask and lifted it, shaking it to let Tal hear the musical alcohol tinkling inside. "You know me so well, Stoic. I always come prepared."

"Creators bless you, man," Tal said and grabbed the flask from Varric. As he unscrewed it he caught Revas eyeing him with a small frown. The broiling rage rose up again. Tal pivoted and took a step closer to Revas, mana bubbling with eagerness and his free hand clenching into a fist. "What's your problem?" he snapped.

He glowered at Revas, daring him to respond as he lifted the flask to his lips and took the first few mouthfuls of precious, liquid fire. Then the Seeker barreled into their little reunion, having finished chatting with the soldiers. Her brow furrowed as she spotted the flask and, fast as lightning, she grabbed Tal's wrist. "Give me that."

Tal spluttered, choking as the Seeker took the alcohol away with a sneer. "Have you no common sense?" she asked as she thrust out one gloved hand, waiting for Tal to hand over the cap. "We will be fighting for our lives. None of us can afford to be inebriated." Tal, stupefied, handed the cap over to her and watched as she screwed it back on and then shoved it at Varric. "Do not give the prisoner alcohol again, Varric." She spat the dwarf's name like a curse.

"What?" Varric rejoined, tucking the flask away. "He just closed the rift! I'd say he's earned a little celebration. Besides, there's not enough left to get anyone drunk."

The Seeker huffed disgustedly and then looked at Revas, asking him about closing the rift and the mark on Tal's hand.

Tal clenched his jaw and stared down at his boots, waiting for this suicide march to continue as he debated with what, if anything, he should say to Revas about Rosa…and then he wondered why neither the dwarf nor Revas had asked about her…but the answer was obvious, probably. The Seeker and her people must have questioned Shokrakar and the other Valo-Kas who didn't die in the Conclave explosion. They would know who was and wasn't a member of the mercenary party. Revas and Varric must have learned Tal was here without his sister.

But…did they know why?

As they set off again, heading for the Seeker's forward camp, Tal fell behind to walk beside Varric. Revas and the Seeker trudged on ahead. He didn't trust himself to talk civilly to Revas so it had to be Varric—even though he felt queasy and kept hearing a voice cursing him for being a "coward" and taking the "the coward's path" in avoiding his sister's cold, aloof lover.

"So," Tal said, clearing his throat as they walked, crusty snow crunching underfoot. "Want to hear the most awkward thing?"

Varric smirked. "I'm all ears, Stoic. I love gossip."

"Well," Tal said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "Revas and my sister were an item last year. He left her for Dirthamen knows what and why, but he promised to come back and…" Tal snarled to himself, shaking his head.

Varric grunted. "I never would have taken Chuckles for that kind of guy to be honest." His brown eyes searched over Tal, keen and observant. "You okay there, Stoic?"

Blowing out a breath, Tal scowled. "I'm…not sure." He wrinkled his nose, staring off at Revas. "I kinda want to punch him in the face. Like a lot, actually." He swallowed. "What, ah, what exactly do you and shithead up there know about the Valo-Kas? The mercenaries I came to the Conclave with…?"

Varric shrugged, sobering. "I know a lot of them are dead now." He smiled sadly. "Actually, funny thing, Revas was the one who watched over you when you were unconscious. He did mention Violet when I asked. She didn't come to the Conclave with the mercenaries…?"

"Yeah," Tal admitted, grimacing. "She…wasn't feeling up to it." He wanted to spin a lie but saying the words felt like chewing glass. Coward. He should march up to Revas, challenge him to a duel, and reveal the truth to the honorless bastard.

There was that…oddness again.

"Well," Varric said, chuckling darkly. "Seems like Violet was smarter than all of us. Luckier, too."

"Yeah," Tal agreed, trying to breathe deeply to ease that volatile anger still burning inside. He needed to fight something, anything…

Almost as if in answer to this thoughts, Tal heard the groan of another of those green blobs…the smaller tears in the Veil. Little demon-spewing assholes.

"All right," he shouted, heart thundering with raw excitement as he drew his staff. "Let's do this bitch!"

Varric had only just reached for Bianca as Tal Fade-stepped forward into battle, charging past both the Seeker and Revas. When a wraith flung caustic spirit magic at him Tal let it smash into him, burning. He embraced the pain, gritting his teeth, with no thought to a barrier at all. He flung fireballs and dodged, spinning about to use his stave like a sword so he could thwack the nearest wraith. "Die, filth," he shouted.

And then a shade came slithering for him. It pounded Tal with its fists and Tal took that blow too, heedless of the pain even as he felt a little trickle of blood flow from his nose. "Is that all you've got, fuck face?" he yelled and then sent a lightning bolt crackling over the battlefield.

More caustic spirit magic slammed into him and Tal staggered, almost falling to his hands and knees. He blinked down at the snow as he felt the tingle of friendly magic wash over him and realized Revas had tossed a barrier over him. Turning round, Tal hurled more fireballs at the wraith that had attacked him, uncaring that his nose hurt from the shade's blow or that his skin burned from the spirit magic hits he'd taken.

He was dizzy from the frenzy of attacking when the last demon died. Revas shouted at him to close the rift and he had to swallow his rage all over again, sitting on the impulse to go over and try to get Revas to fight him. With great effort, Tal lifted his palm to the rift and let the strange magic of it close the green blob off with a gurgle of Fade ether.

When it was over the Seeker called for the men on the other side of the gates to open. They did so, shouting and cheering at Tal's success. Tal grinned, beaming at the recognition even as a niggling worry grew in his mind. He wiped at the moisture trickling from his nose and scowled at the sight of red blood on his hand.

"You fight like you have some anger issues to work off," Varric told him, clapping him on the shoulder as they walked onto the stone bridge of the ruins that must be the "forward camp."

"Yeah," Tal muttered, sniffing. "Maybe I do." Except he didn't. Rosa and babae—Felassan—had taught him to fight and it wasn't like that. Sure, Tal had hurled fireballs and lightning, but he hadn't bothered defending himself at all. Now he could already feel his body's fatigue from the fight. He had plenty of mana still, maybe even more than usual, but that was not the right way to fight. Yet, for some reason, Tal had lost all sense when fighting the demons. It wasn't like him. How could he forget everything he'd been taught just like that?

He considered it while the Seeker talked with the redhead who'd questioned him when he first awoke and a pompous old man from the Chantry. Tal phased out most of their conversation until the old man was stabbing a finger in his face and demanding he be shackled. Fire leapt into Tal's hands before he could stop it and everyone around him gasped with alarm. The Seeker's hand went to her blade and the redhead woman looked as though she would draw the bow strapped to her back.

Tal sniffed at the blood oozing from his nose, clenching his jaw as he forced himself to release the magic and grinned, trying to disarm everyone. "Sorry. You startled me Roddick."

"Roderick," the Chantry man retorted with a sneer.

"Dick," Tal said with a shrug. "Close enough."

"Why you—"

"Enough," the Seeker interrupted, moving to stand between the old man and Tal. "The prisoner is the only one who can close rifts. We need him."

We don't need the old man, Tal thought but bit back the words. The mana still frothed in his core, overeager. Fighting the demons from the rift outside the gates hadn't been enough.

This isn't right, he thought, frowning. This isn't me. He'd never had trouble with impulse control, never lapsed in self defense during a fight. Creators, he halfway felt as though he'd challenge a high dragon herself to fight just for the thrill…

Then realization hit him and he cursed aloud, blustering. "Shit. Fuck. Shit-fuck-shit-dammit to the Void."

The humans, Varric, and Revas were all staring at him with varying expressions of dismay, annoyance, or suspicion. Tal felt his cheeks flush hot with humiliation—but also horror. "Sorry," he muttered and then, though his stomach twisted with an impotent rage that wasn't his own, he turned on his heel and started to stomp away, back the way they'd come.

"Stop!" the Seeker shouted. "Stop, mage!"

"I have a name," Tal grumbled, but he kept going. He had to, even though that other inside him writhed with loathing. You are a coward, da'len. Turn back. Face the threat. You must do what is right and what is brave!

"Kiss my ass," he snarled at that other inside him and then dared speak its name: "Rogathe."

Somehow, sometime, he managed to wind up possessed by his sister's friendly spirit of bravery.

He heard and sensed magic behind him then. A cold air burst on his back from Fade-stepping. He whipped around; fire in his hands. Sure enough he saw Revas reaching for him. Tal snarled and flung a fireball at the other man. "Son of a bitch," he yelled. "Fuck off! Run away and leave just like you left Rosa!"

The fireballs were ineffectual, breaking on Revas' powerful barrier. Shit, Tal thought. Revas had grown a lot in power from their last duel in the Hasmal Circle when he'd barely had enough mana to fight at all. He didn't think to use a barrier of his own in the brief scuffle as Revas grabbed his wrist. Tal almost laughed with triumph when he saw the other man grimace with pain from the fire burning in Tal's hands. But then he felt familiar magic hit him. It was the sleep spell his father had taught him, long forgotten by others.

Well, that basically confirmed what Rosa wouldn't tell him about her lover. Revas had to be Elvhen like their father to know that spell. Or the son of an Elvhen survivor.

"Fuck," Tal cursed and then the blackness closed over him.

Tal woke with a jolt to the slapping sound of flesh on flesh. Gasping, he opened his eyes and saw red crystals and stone around him. He lay against cold gray rock and Revas was knelt at his side. Past the other elf Tal saw the green tear of the breach. Stones hovered impossibly in the air and Tal's skin prickled with the strange magic here and the thinness of the Veil.

His cheek also stung from both a physical blow and a spell. Revas had cancelled out the sleep spell with some other magic to waken him.

"You bastard," Tal growled, glowering at the older man.

"We can speak later," Revas said, his brow furrowed and his lips pinched. His hand snatched up Tal's left wrist. "You are needed now. You must seal the breach." His blue eyes softened with a touch of desperation. "Please."

Tal swallowed, trying to contain the dangerous heat of rage simmering inside. "It's Rogathe," he said, using elven in case anyone could overhear him. "Its inside me. I don't know how or when."

Revas' eyes widened. He went still for a moment and then his gaze flicked to the rocks off to Tal's right and left, as well above them. "I see," he murmured, muscles in his jaw flickering. When he looked down to Tal again he nodded as though he had come to a decision. "I will stay close to you in the battle to come and I will ensure we send Rogathe back to the Fade—assuming we survive this."

Tal managed to dredge up a smile. On this topic he knew Revas was trustworthy. He'd helped Rosa when Rogathe possessed her, too.

But to get to that he'd need to survive and redeem himself from when he lost his nerve at the forward camp and tried to flee. His nose ached. The shade from earlier had really walloped him, apparently. Nothing but to get to it. "Okay. I'll take that. Not like I want them to kill me as an abomination."

Revas nodded again and extended his hand out, ready to help Tal up. "I will ensure it does not come to that."

Tal snorted at the other elf's confidence and then grabbed his hand. He drew out his shitty stave and faced the breach high above. He expected to feel a twinge of fear or trepidation at whatever was about to happen—and his gut promised it wouldn't be good—but his heart thundered in his ears with excitement only. A fight!

He sighed. "Fuck you, Rogathe," he grumbled and then thrust his left palm up to the rift, wincing at the pain. "Let's close this bitch!"

After Tal stabilized the breach he lost consciousness. Solas volunteered to carry him, as he had when he had knocked out the young elf. This time the Seeker, Sister Nightingale, and the Commander of the fledgling Inquisition didn't try to suggest Tal be manacled. Solas had tried to explain away Tal's brief flight on the bridge at the forward camp with moderate success, but it was stabilizing the breach and closing the rifts that truly protected Tal and impressed the humans.

The Anchor had stabilized miraculously with the breach, mirroring one another like conjoined twins. Solas managed to convince Leliana and Seeker Pentaghast to allow him to stay near to Tal, to tend his mark as needed. The reluctant and crotchety herbalist was happy enough to let Solas take over caring for the young elven mage, but Leliana often placed one of her scouts in the room with him during his visits with Tal. She knew Tal and Solas had a past history, having both been members of the Hasmal Circle around the time it rebelled. The Seeker knew of Tal less than she did Rosa, but the coincidence that these two mages from Hasmal should be here at the Conclave was indeed suspicious. Solas was grateful all over again that Rosa wasn't present. Had she been here at Haven and somehow managed to survive the explosion too, it would have cast another layer of suspicion on himself and Tal.

He tried not to let himself consider Rosa. After discovering—to his utter shock and complete horror—that the Anchor had been bestowed on Tal, he'd immediately searched the Fade for some sign of Tal's sister. Dread and shame had already been heavy on him, not just for abandoning Rosa and now inadvertently condemning her brother, but also for all the lost life at the Conclave for no reason. All of his plans had gone awry. The orb was gone. Corypheus showed no sign of being dead ad he'd intended. But the Divine and hundreds, perhaps thousands of others were.

It was a mercy he did not deserve, a relief had had not earned, when he felt Rosa in the Fade. As two Dreamers they often felt one another as distant echoes. Solas could block himself from Rosa with techniques he knew from Elvhenan, when Dreamer warfare and subterfuge had been everyday affairs. Rosa did not know those tricks and so she was as easy to detect as the moon in the night sky for Solas. He had only to look.

He never approached her and didn't dare enter her dreams. The moment he did that he knew he would falter and give into temptation. The past year had been torturous as he fought his own intense desire to return to her, take comfort in her presence and share pleasure. But happiness, even fleeting, wasn't something he deserved and he could not deceive Rosa knowing who and what she was—the daughter of his long time friend and agent, Felassan, whom he'd killed last fall.

Watching Tal as the youth slept only twisted the dagger pain of loss and shame in his chest. Tal had dark hair where Felassan had pale blond hair, but otherwise he very much resembled his father. Now that he knew what to look for Solas saw the familiar lip shape, ears, eyes, and long, Elvhen featured face in the youth's profile. He'd thought Tal resembled Mythal's sons and grandsons when he'd first met the siblings in the Circle. Now he knew why.

Ir abelas, he thought at Tal's sleeping form as he held the young man's left hand and brushed his thumb across the Anchor imbedded there. You and your sister do not deserve any of this.

After six straight days with no sign of her brother or Mahanon in the Fade, Rosa started bursting into hysteric tears at any quiet moment she wasn't distracted. Deshanna and Ashani, clan Lavellan's healer and mother to Mahanon, advised she relax and drink calming teas. So she did, huddled in halla and bear pelts as she sat around the hearth fire and listened to Negan, the clan's hunt master, tell the children stories of the Creators.

"Once, long ago, Andruil, great goddess of the hunt, grew tired of chasing everyday animals for sport and meat," the old man said in his rasping voice. "So, she decided to take up her greatest weapons and to stalk the Forgotten Ones and the terrible beasts in the Void itself."

Deshanna, sitting beside Rosa, hummed in the back of her throat. "My dreams have been troubled lately," she commented, her breath fogging out. "I look to the southwest at night and there's a glow there on the horizon since the day we heard the thunderous crack in the cloudless sky." She turned her head, her brown eyes glittering orange in the firelight. "Have you noticed anything in your Fade-walking, da'len?"

Rosa sipped at her tea, swallowing before she nodded once. "I would say that light is the borealis, the sky lights I used to see with my birth clan in the Brecilian forest but…" She frowned. "It's not natural. It doesn't feel right."

In fact, the Fade itself didn't feel right since that crack of thunder in the cloudless sky. The Veil seemed turbulent as the Waking Sea in a storm now. Rosa often felt it thinning around her, stretching and straining. Sometimes she could feel demons and spirits on the other side, straining toward her. As a Dreamer she glowed brightly to them, a beacon in the physical world.

Deshanna's expression went heavy with remorse. "I'm sorry, Rosa." She didn't say what she apologized for, but Rosa already knew.

She swallowed the sudden aching lump in her throat, finding it hard to breathe. Her father was dead, gone for over a year now. Her brother had gone southwest to the Frostbacks for the Conclave to represent his clan alongside Deshanna's envoy of two hunters to act as spies for the People. Mahanon went with Tal, determined to safeguard and watch over Rosa's brother while she could not. Lerand, another Lavellan clan hunter, left as well. Taehon, Lerand's father, looked increasingly miserable as the days passed. Like Rosa, he feared the worst. Rosa was their connection to the outside world and the Conclave as a Dreamer and her sense of all four of men had gone dark.

How much longer would she deny the obvious?

They were dead. All of them.

With trembling hands, Rosa shifted in her furs and extended one hand out to set her cup, half-consumed, onto the bench at her side. "I need to sleep, Keeper."

"You need to eat, da'len," Deshanna chastened her in a soft voice, tender and sympathetic.

"I'm fine," Rosa said, dismissing the concern. Her stomach felt hollow and shrunken, unable and unwilling to accept nourishment with the grief looming over her.

Deshanna frowned, clearly disagreeing, but she said nothing further as Rosa got to her feet and started shuffling her way toward the aravel she and Mahanon had shared until he had left a few months ago. She kept the furs wrapped tightly about herself as she climbed into the aravel and pulled the hatch shut behind her. Sniffing and swallowing constantly to keep her grief at bay, Rosa went to her pallet and lay down. She was careful to position herself, her sling, and her furs before she rested her head and let the Fade take her in.

And almost immediately she felt Tal's presence. It was faint, hard for her to locate, but it was there.

"Tal!" she shouted as the Fade ether swirled around her, thick and impenetrable. She made out rocky projections. The ground glowed green in eerie, jagged shapes. Reddish crystals circled overhead.

Rosa wrapped her arms around herself. "Tal!" She shut her eyes and gripped the Fade, willing it to bring her brother's consciousness to her. The Fade warped, moving and twisting as it acquiesced. Then she heard her brother's voice croak.

"Rosa?"

She opened her eyes and saw Tal standing in front of her in his green mercenary armor. His feet looked huge and bulky, unbearably awkward inside boots when he normally went barefoot. He looked pallid and thinner than she remembered, with gray circles under his eyes. Rosa didn't care as her heart swelled with relief and love. She ran for him, throwing her arms around him in a crushing bear hug.

"Da'isamalin!"

Tal chuckled, feigning a choking noise as he patted her back. "Rosa! Great to see you, but can you not choke me, maybe?"

"This is the Fade," she said, pulling back from him to playfully cuff the back of his head, mussing up his dark curls. "You don't need to breathe here."

"Could have fooled me," Tal said, grinning as he shrugged.

"Tal," she said, gripping him by the shoulders. "What happened to you? We heard a crack in a clear sky and at night in the southwest there's a glow in the sky. It's been six days since I talked with you last." She broke off, blinking as her eyes went hot with tears. "I thought you were dead."

"Well," Tal said, smiling wanly, "I'm not."

Rosa's heart clenched in her chest with dread. The way he'd said that made it clear something terrible had happened. "Tell me," she said, steeling herself for the worst.

And as Tal told her about it—the explosion at the Conclave that destroyed the temple and probably killed all the Dalish who'd accompanied Tal as well as hundreds others, the strange mark burning in his left hand, his status as a quasi-prisoner of the shemlen, and that somehow Rogathe had possessed him—Rosa gawked at her brother with mounting shock. And then, finally, Tal scoffed and said, "Oh, but the best part of all this?" He edged closer, a knowing look hardening his features. "Revas is here."

The name hit her like a slap to the face. Her heart hammered against her breastbone. She recoiled from Tal, letting him go as if just the mention of Revas—Solas—had contaminated him. "Have you said anything?" she asked, stilted.

Tal snorted. "No. Of course not." Then he looked away and frowned. "I mean other than calling him names and ragging on him for being a right shithead. I couldn't keep it from popping out because I was just so mad. It's Rogathe, but…"

She let out a choking laugh before she could stop herself, feeling a flutter of affection all over again for her brother. She knew all too well how hard it was to watch one's tongue when Rogathe shared the space and assumed control of the reins partly. "At least Revas can help you with that."

"Yeah," Tal grumbled. "But…did you want me to say something? Rogathe thinks he should know."

Rosa stared down at the sandy soil of the raw Fade, watching the ether drift by on invisible currents. She sucked in a breath and shut her eyes. "Han is dead," she said, feeling a lump in her throat as she faced that. She hadn't loved him, but he was a good partner and utterly devoted. He'd been so determined to protect Tal for her that he'd wound up dying and now Rosa was a widow.

"Probably," Tal admitted, sniffing.

"And the sky's torn open and S—Revas is there," Rosa muttered, shaking her head. "Somehow I don't think that's an accident."

"He isn't just some flat-ear," Tal agreed. "I mean, I know you don't want to tell me what you know, but it seems obvious." He growled back in his throat with irritation. "I don't see why you bother keeping that rat-bastard's secrets, asamalin."

Rosa sighed. Silence fell for a few moments and then Tal asked, "So, what do you want me to do?"

She lifted her head, smiling at him. "I want you to stay safe until I get there."

Tal blanched and raised both hands as if to ward her off. "Oh, no, no, no. That is a bad idea. Varric and I were just talking about how lucky it was you weren't here. And you can't make the journey with—"

"The clan should bury our people and mourn them properly," Rosa cut in firmly. "And you're the only brother I have. I'm not about to sit idly by out of fear."

"See," Tal grumbled, smirking. "This is why Rogathe gets along so well with you. You sound like a spirit of bravery even when you're not possessed."

"Well," Rosa said, smiling. "I have to live up to my name, don't I?" She nodded, more to herself than him as the idea solidified in her mind. "I need to go to you. To bury our dead. And I need to confront Revas."

"About what happened at the Conclave or—"

"All of it," Rosa said and then, before she could say more she felt the Fade ripple. A sharp cry cut through her mind. She grimaced. "I have to wake up now." She stared at Tal seriously. "Stay safe, little brother."

"I got this, asamalin," he said, winking at her. "Now go take care of Elia."

Rosa woke with a sharp gasp. The sound of her baby's cries echoed through the aravel. She knew the shrill sound of her hungry daughter now like she knew the sigh of the wind through the trees around Wycome. Shifting under the furs, Rosa pulled the baby's sling closer and stroked her downy brown hair. In the light she knew it glinted with highlights of red, a color she assumed came from Solas.

"Shhhh," she said, trying to hush the baby's cries and get her to nurse. Eliana took her nipple quickly, suckling vigorously. She was always a hungry baby, plump and growing fast at about five months now—and already a Dreamer. Rosa had felt her presence in the Fade even before the baby was born. Rosa had spoken with her mother in the Fade and learned that she had done the same thing, so it wasn't apparently unusual. Still, Rosa couldn't shake the concern that Eliana might grow to be more of a handful than she could handle. Eliana might need someone more experienced in magic and Dreamers than her grandmother and mother. She'd need an Elvhen mentor, just as Rosa had had in Felassan.

Solas might not wish to be a partner or father, but she suspected he wouldn't be able to turn his back completely on their child.

All the more reason she had to go to Haven and confront him.

Next Chapter

"Are you trying to tell me Tal isn't behaving himself?" Rosa asked, arching a brow.

"He is…" Josephine seemed to fidget, blushing. "Rather too fond of drink."

"That is putting it mildly, Josie," Leliana cut in playfully. Looking to Rosa, she said, "We're glad you're here. I believe the Herald needs a steadying hand. Cassandra has not been able to provide it. She's…too overbearing."

Oh, Tal, you're in for a wild and crazy ride! Next time...a certain "Fade expert" meets a certain infant in dire need of a father-figure, or a teacher at the very least...

I'm undecided how this story will ultimately progress as far as Tal's romance(s). I'm leaning toward Dorian, though, and I will update the pairings when I've made up my mind.