Prologue

She lay in the darkness, chest heaving, eyes reeling. Her fingers dug deeply into the mattress of her bed and the sheets clung to her fragile, shaking body, damp of sweat. Awakened by images of an endless black, fire and blood, of the Blight reborn, and the gaping maw of the arch demon closing down on her; no amount of time passed lying awake in the darkness of her quarters could convince the Warden Commander that she was awake, that she was not in danger, or that she was alive. Her heart thundered against her ribs like the wings of a great caged bird, she trembled as she sat up and drew the blankets in to her chest.

Over the decade or so since her induction to the Grey Wardens and the defeat of the blight, she had experienced nightmares of darkspawn and the battle of Ostagar, of the Deep Roads and the monstrosities lurking in its depths nearly every time she closed her eyes, but the years had dulled her to the fear. Newly acquired duties and responsibilities, new troubles and old heartache had moved in to replace the old nightmares. The potency of the terror that gripped the Warden now, however, still dug into her sharply, stinging her fingers and toes with an unfading adrenaline as she pressed her bare back against the cold headboard, wishing with all her power that she might melt into it and be rid of whatever she was convinced was lurking in the shadows just beyond the edge of her bed.

There was a quiet rap at the door that tore through the silence, causing her to recoil in alarm.

"Commander, is everything alright?"

She recognized the familiar heavy cadence of Nathaniel Howe almost immediately and found that she was disinclined to respond. His voice was thick and grating from sleep, but was tinged with a sharp urgency that cut through the deafening silence that filled the Warden's chambers.

After a moment, she realized that the roaring in her ears was not from a lack of sound, but the lingering echo of the shriek that had startled her into waking, and a low, nagging hiss running down the length of her spine. There were no words, but she could feel the sound pulling at her, the beckoning darkness offering a weighty proposition.

The Warden Commander's lack of response was cause enough for Nathaniel to repeat himself once…twice…still the voice lingered. Soon she could make it out clearly, a singsong proposal, a summoning to fulfill responsibilities that she, as a Grey Warden, could not in good conscience ignore.

A cold sweat broke on her brow.

She could barely hear Nathaniel's attempts to raise her from the hall.

"Guenevere, may I come in?" It sounded strange to hear her birth name as for the past decade everyone she encountered referred to her by her surname, Amell; she had almost forgotten the sound of her first, let alone…

"…Guen?"

Her heart lurched; the name went through her like a blade. She had not heard that name uttered in close to twelve years, and never by anyone but the man who had sent her to Amaranthine when she was still but a girl.

Suddenly, she is eighteen years old again, locking herself in one of the many guest rooms of Arl Eamon's estate in Denerim, and sitting with her knees drawn into her chest. He is standing on the other side of the door, the soon-to-be-King hovering in the hall, the one who calls her "Guen". He is attempting to convince her to unlock the door to the room they had shared until an hour ago.

"Guen… please." He begs, "Open the door,"

She can hear the pain voice, the tears he is fighting because he knows that if he cannot gain entrance to her room, he is going to lose her. His anguish makes her hate him. He has no right to tears, he is the catalyst for both their pain; after all, he chose another woman over her for his queen. He calls to her again; his voice breaks as he begs her forgiveness and she hates him all the more for it. Her heart is tearing itself apart to do it; she wants to love him, to throw open the door and take him into her arms. To cradle the future King and tell him that everything will be all right the way she did after Ostagar, before he was royalty, but she won't. She has to hate him. He is the King and she is nothing but a mage, not to mention that he is an engaged man, completely off limits to her in every way. She does not even consider the idea of being merely friends; it will be easier to simply cut all ties from him, so she makes herself hate him. To feel any other way for him would surely kill her.

Nathaniel's hand was on the handle, and the light of a candle bled through the crack in the door. Guen was not eighteen, she had not been that girl in nearly twelve years, and she had to remind herself of this as the light brought her wits back to her. She was Guenevere Amell, the Commander of the Grey Wardens, Arl of Amaranthine, and Hero of Ferelden… and she was, at the moment, not at all decent.

Guen exploded from her bed, quickly pulled on her silk robe and threw her weight against the cold, wooden door, stopping Nathaniel from opening it wider than the crack that illuminated her room and sent long shadows dancing across the walls. There was a moment of rigid tension as they stood in a cumbersome silence. The son of the deceased Arl Howe, it seemed, had found himself at a loss for both words and actions in the sudden presence of his commanding officer.

"What is it, Nathaniel?" Guenevere asked a little too forcefully.

He hesitated.

"Commander, I… you screamed. I thought… I was just…"

He trailed off, and the tenderness of his tone caused a hot wave of shame to pass over the Warden Commander. Guen immediately regretting having spoken so harshly to what may have been her dearest friend and fiercest ally. Nathaniel had only ever had Guen's best interest in mind (overlooking the attempt he had made on her life at their first meeting, thought it occurred to her that she had met a good deal of her friends over the years in such a manner.) With her allies, close and distant alike, spread widely across Thedas, busy living their own lives, Nathaniel seemed the one person who would always remain her faithful companion. Guen, though thankful for his loyalty, was weary to trust that his presence would last; she always found herself on her own in the end. Her parents had rid themselves of her burden long before she could remember, and after a short seventeen years she was cast from the Circle Tower; she had not known any of the ranks of the Grey Wardens long enough for their presence to feel like home and when it came down to her joining she was the sole recruit to survive. The year spent combating the Blight had given her false hope, as though she'd formed some of the strongest bonds of friendship she would ever know, in the end even the man who had professed to love her with all his heart and being betrayed her trust, married another woman, sent Guen away, and kept her faithful dog.

Over the years that followed, half of her recruits had moved on to greener pastures, and save for Oghren who was for the most part away from the Warden Keep, Nathaniel was the only one of Guen's original Warden recruits from her first months in Amaranthine. He was indeed, her most loyal and fiercest friend; his fidelity and affections, however, were things he intended to be deeper than friendship. This was a fact that once was known to her, Guenevere had tried to ignore over the long years he had served at her side. She could never return his affections; try as she might, as she was doomed to forever be desperately in love with the man who had sent her away.

She held the door firmly to prohibit Nathaniel's entrance; there were only two men who had and ever would be permitted to enter the Warden Commander's personal chambers: the healer (ever the occasion that her extensive healing abilities failed her) and the man who now occupied the Ferelden throne.

Guen quickly banished the thought from her mind, as it was cause enough to strike tears in her eyes. She brought herself back to the matter at hand. Nathaniel had confirmed what she hoped had not occurred, she had awoken herself by screaming aloud, and she thanked the Maker that the only other person to hear and investigate was in fact Nathaniel. Any of the others would not have been so prudent in checking in on their Commander. She cringed at the thought of Oghren kicking her door down, axe flying, and eyes glinting with the light of battle, ready to depose of whatever it was threatening the Warden.

She sighed inwardly, thankful that she would not have to explain sheepishly that it was only a dream…

A dream.

Just a dream despite the burning in her bones and the hissing at the back of her mind, calling her to slip away forever into the darkness. The terror was gone.

No.

She knew the fear had not left her as she became aware of a heavy ambiance in the room. A tangible representation of the taint, the same feeling she experienced when in the Deep Roads, an alarming sensation of the presence of darkspawn. This sent the fear creeping back slowly as she told herself that there could not possibly be a single darkspawn for hundreds of miles in every direction. There was nothing in the darkness covering the halls of the Keep save for herself, Nathaniel, and the voice in the back of her mind.

It gripped her like a vice; sending gooseflesh crawling across the bare skin of her arms and legs.

All at once anguish washed over Guenevere in a thick and heavy wave, she had to stifle a sob as she came to realize what was causing her senses to go haywire. She could feel the taint, not in Darkspawn or any Blight infected creatures, but in the dozens of Wardens who made their homes in the Keep, in Nathaniel standing in his nightshirt an trousers outside the door, and in herself. It made sense to Guen perfectly, the dream, the hissing sound, and the cause for her fear.

"Commander Amell?" Nathaniel murmured,

"It's fine, I'm fine…" She lied, "I'm sorry to have woken you Nathaniel, go back to bed."

She shut the door and waited, listening as he lingered, muttered something to himself, and finally padded back to his room down the hall at a sluggish pace. Guen turned and retreated to her bed as well, but she did not fall victim to sleep as she curled into the familiar grooves of her mattress and pulled her blankets up and over her head. She merely stared into the darkness that reached for her, yearning to consume her. She waited for what felt like the inevitable claws to close around her and drag her screaming into the abyss until the first light of dawn stabbed at the sky and spilled into the windows, bathing the room in a honeycomb glow.

When all the darkness had ebbed and faded, the fear and the memory of the dream were still fresh in her mind. Even when she dragged herself from the bed, washed, dressed, and made her way to the mess hall, the awareness of her comrades' tainted blood did not leave her. She knew that no amount of time would cleanse her of it; to ignore it would only serve to amplify the feeling until she succumbed to the madness that awaited her if she failed to fulfill her final duties as a Grey Warden.

She had agreed to this with her joining. She signed a contract in blood, drank from the goblet and survived, and now she would have to reap what she'd sown.

Guenevere Amell, Warden Commander, Arl of Amaranthine, and Hero of Ferelden was being called to the Deep Roads to forsake the world she knew, the light of day, all bonds of friendship and fellowship, and ultimately her own life. She had been summoned to her doom… and she would answer the call.