The only father I had ever known was a Templar. And I was a mage.
I came to the circle when I was too young to remember. Everything had been frightening me back than: The scary men in the even scarier armors, looking at me through narrow slits where their eyes should have been. The Enchanters with their strict and pitiful faces. The first night in a room with unknown other children, same as afraid as I had been, others already used to living in a place with no way outside.
When I became older I got used to this place as well. I learned to use and control my magic and to even like and trust it.
Edward was one of the Templars assigned to watch over the young apprentices' quarters. Whenever the children passed and looked too carefully and even frightened at him, he took of his helm, twinkled and smiled. When I fell and cried for the first time, he helped me up with gentle hands and calmed me with even more gentle words. We all liked him, and sometimes he told us stories about outside and where he was born, nearby a wood, where his father had taught him to hunt before he had died and Edward had been given to the Chantry.
We aren't so different from each other, he told us. Each of us has a gift he needs to train and control and use for something good. My gift is that I am able to be here und take care of you. Your gift is to do powerful, but also sometimes dangerous magic.
He was never talking about a punishment of the Maker. Of course I know now that it was his try to make it easier for us and to avoid that we became rebellious like others.
Cavin was one of them. He was a powerful mage, but I was afraid of him. When I saw him using magic, a look on his face so focused and determined, I already knew that one day he was going to be trouble. He called me and others "Templar lover" as he realized that we were close to Edward. In the middle of the night he and others came to us, hit and even choked us and threatened us to say anything.
Of course we never did. None of us wanted to risk that one of them was made tranquil. There were things worse than being treated badly. A fate all of us shared, the fear of losing our humanity.
I knew there had been some who had chosen this fate voluntarily. And sometimes, when I looked at their calm, peaceful faces and thought about my own nightmares and my fears that Cavin or one of the others might come back, I was thinking if it was really as worse as everyone said.
Of course I never said anything like this to anyone. Especially not in the last years when words about freedom spread within the circle, an idea which seemed as wonderful as it sounded frightening.
It happened shortly after my Harrowing. Shortly after Edward welcomed me back, proud in his voice when he said that I had passed the Harrowing successfully. The circle in Kirkwall had fallen, and Cavin as well as others – the resolutionists – wanted to achieve the same.
There were no negotiations. There was only blood and dead.
Did I want my freedom?
Yes.
Did I knew what that meant?
No.
Was I willing to fight or even kill for it?
Not at all.
But I had no chance to choose. And in the end, when I left the tower and smelled for the first time after fifteen years the fresh air, there was only one thing I was thinking about: Edwards dead eyes behind the slit of his helmet. He had been lying next to the entry, killed by Force Magic, the bones in his body twisted and broken.
After we left the circle, we split and escaped into this world we did not know. Soon the first were captured and brought back. In the end I found myself alone at a road to the only place I had ever heard about: The wood where Edward grew up.
Was this really freedom?
Yes, it was. It felt good. I learned to live on my own. I was able to control my magic outside of the circle as well as inside the circle.
Had it been worth all the deaths?
Yes, probably.
Had it been worth Edward's death?
I always hesitate when it comes to this question, but I guess in the end his loss was the price of my freedom.