Alive
She doesn't know if she is killing or dying. All around them the world has gone still, the blade she clutches the only link to the reality that must still exist outside the searing white light that's melted away all sound, all sight, all meaning.
She tightens her grip on the hilt in her hands as if she would obliterate the boundary between woman and blade, and pushes all her body's strength against the tremors of the creature underneath her.
It would throw her off if it could. It would crush her in its jaws. It would take her body for its own, and that, in the end, would be what kills it. Is that what is happening now? Both of them in the throes of death, their souls intertwining in that last, fatal embrace.
She isn't certain. The knowledge of her own impending survival tugs away at the fraying edges of her mind—something, she did something, or somebody did—but it too succumbs to the awful, beautiful white. There is so much of it, a blazing, brilliant whiteness all around, working its way inside her skin. Even the creature's death spasms have lost their fury. It gives one last shudder and her body at last opens up to the burning light.
"It is not to be, little wolf-child," says the dragon.
She would know its voice from beyond the Veil, for it has sung to her in her dreams. She never understood it before, if it even spoke with actual words, but that one short sentence has the feel of a familiar lullaby. "I— I am sorry," she answers without knowing why.
They are standing amid ruins, two rows of toppled marble columns once carved with intricate swirls of flowers and leaves. The dragon is perched on an enormous, chipped dais, watching her with bright, golden eyes. Black shadows seep out of its body, dissipating into curls of smoke the moment they touch the gleaming white marble of the dais, and leaving behind scales so bright and perfect, they look to be made out of sunlight dancing on water. Just at the edge of her vision, everything blurs and curves.
She looks down at her hands, half-expecting to find herself still holding that blade, but they are empty and clean. She is still wearing her armor, but it feels lighter somehow, almost weightless. When she moves, the leather does not creak. The Beyond, then.
Her memories flood back in an instant and she knows: this is the Archdemon, a tainted Old God, she is the Grey Warden who has killed it, and Morrigan's ritual should have worked, shouldn't it have?
"That it did," says the Archdemon with its musical voice. "We have little time."
She doesn't stop to wonder that it knows her thoughts. Along with her memories, the ever-present tension and wariness of the past months have returned. She can even feel the knots in her shoulders, the aches in her muscles, even though she knows her real body is probably bleeding profusely somewhere at the top of Fort Drakon. "Time for what, creature?"
"This is your path, wolf-child. Mine also. I would give you something in thanks for my freedom."
"No gift is without price from those like you."
The dragon's shoulders shake, sending ripples into its wings. Another shadow trickles off and wisps into nothing as it makes contact with the dais. She realizes the dragon is laughing. "Clever wolf-child. That is so, thus you must decide whether you want what I offer."
She knows she should be surprised, but all she feels is relief. If the dragon is offering her something then Morrigan succeeded. The ritual worked! All she wants is to bask in the feeling, have it last forever. "Why do you call me that?" she asks, stalling for time they do not have.
"Do you truly not know?"
But she does know, has known it from the moment Keeper Marethari cast her out, though she has never admitted it to herself until now. When she returns, she will be able to walk freely among both the People and the humans, kin to one, honored by the other, a hero to both. She has defeated the Blight, so she will make them accept her as one of their own, and then—
"Just so," says the dragon. "The Wolf has claimed you, and so must walk the Wolf's path. That is the reason you allowed the witch to cast her magic."
"No! I did it to—"
"Protect your lover?" Another ripple runs from the dragon's shoulders to the tips of its wings, sending more wisps of black shadow to disintegrate against the marble floor. The atmosphere bends and shimmers all around the creature, now nearly free of the putrid blackness. "Love, you will find, is but a poor feast when you have nothing, and you, little wolf-child, have nothing but my death to cling to. Take it. Make it yours."
"If we are here, I have already done this." She bares her teeth in a mirthless smile. "This is your gift?"
"No. This is the truth, and your fate. My gift is something to aid you in the path you have chosen."
Something in the dragon's tone feels unbearably familiar, and again she wonders whether it did not already tell her all this, sang it to her in one of the many feverish nightmares she had on the road. She can almost feel the heat of Alistair's body next to hers, his warm, rough hand stroking her forehead as her mind struggles to escape the reality of dreams. "What do you have to give?"
"My memories, such as they are. My knowledge, also. You will never recall everything perfectly; it will never be anything more than fragments lurking at the edge of your understanding, but they will be enough. When the time comes, they might aid you."
She thinks she can discern an undercurrent of bitterness in the dragon's words, even though its voice has remained soft. She doubts she will get the complete truth, but she must ask her question. "What do you mean? What time?"
The dragon flicks its wings back with an audible snap and lowers its head until its great, gleaming maw is level with her. "Fate and change are two edges of the same blade, wolf-child. Two vials of the same poison, if you will. Only when the moment comes will you know how to use it, or even what it is you behold."
"And the catch?"
"Your mind may not be able to contain what I offer; it may simply... unravel. But you already guessed this."
She nods slowly. She had known as much from the moment she first beheld the Old God shedding its taint, much as she had known that it would only tell her partial truths and let her intuit the rest. She looks at the creature before her. The last of the blackness is gone and it stands there, gleaming with its terrible beauty, like sculpted sunlight. It watches her watch it, waiting.
The thought is clear, a perfect understanding between woman and dragon, belonging to both, originating with neither: all that Morrigan bargained for was the Old God's soul, and that is all she will get. She will lie to Morrigan a second time. "Very well," she says evenly. "I accept."
"We are each other's fate, it seems." Its voice is a shimmer that envelops her. "Come, wolf-child."
The Old God is nothing but a coruscating dragon-shape on the gleaming marble dais, its scintillating form pulling her forward. Or maybe she is running toward it, as she did atop Fort Drakon, bracing for the inevitable impact.
There is no time to decide what the truth is. Their bodies collide in a soundless, blinding flash, the force of which sends the ruined columns flying like sticks. She can no longer tell where the woman ends and the dragon begins. Undefinable visions flicker into her consciousness, ripping her apart from inside her very bones. Words without meaning in a language she does not understand bloom like burning flowers inside her mind. Every syllable is a brand, every image sears a bit more of her away until she is pure burning light. She is on fire and all she wants is to be consumed and consume. All she wants is to burn, burn. She is weightless. She disintegrates like black smoke until all that's left is a white-hot core. The pain in her bones is the only sign she yet lives...
"She yet lives! You're alive! It worked, thank the Maker!"
Alistair's voice is ragged. He is cradling her head with one hand, the other supporting her battered body. Everything hurts, even her the opening of her eyelids. His eyes are red with unshed tears and there is a dark red smudge across his left cheek. She can smell smoke, hear the clang and clash of swords, the shouting of men, and all she can taste is the metallic tang of blood.
It is on the tip of her tongue to rasp at him that the Maker had nothing to do with it unless the Maker's name is Morrigan, but his expression is so blissful, so full of love, that everything outside of it becomes inconsequential. There will be time later for that and more, plenty of time to confront the aftermath of what they've done. They have bought themselves the luxury to repent or rejoice at leisure.
For now, the only truth in the world is this moment: their glances locked, his arms around her, the distinctions between human and elf, monarch and Warden, inconsequential. Smiling against the pain, she pushes herself as close to him as she can, as if the proximity to one another could stop the future from descending.
