I don't normally do author's notes, but this submission needs one. This was my entry for the Asunder Creative Writing Challenge over at the BioWare Social Network. My screen name there is trampledpixie. Congratulations are deserved by ALL writers who submitted entries-not just those that got listed. So, good work, everyone, and KEEP WRITING! \o/

Blessed are the Pure in Spirit

He shouldn't even be here.

Tomas watched in horror as the gates to the Circle in Ayesleigh erupted into flames yet refused to burn. He stood with the other Templars, filed into their meager ranks behind the newly promoted Knight-Captain Ferdinand. Bets had been placed that morning. Any remaining valuables had been dropped into the pot. There was a forty-to-one chance that Ferdinand would be promoted again before the end of the day. The Knight-Commander was still held captive inside the thick stone walls and warded windows, and from what Tomas had seen, negotiations weren't going very well.

Andraste be damned, he was too young for this. He was still just an initiate, barely a squire let alone a soldier. He'd yet to even have his first taste of lyrium or learn to properly steel his mind against the corrupting forces of blood magic. Yet, here he was, yanked from the Chantry barracks and shoved into heavy armor much too big for him. Their numbers had been decimated since word had ripped through Thedas like chain lightning. The Circle and Chantry in Kirkwall had been overthrown, pulverized into dust...by a mage. One mage, one man. The fallout had been bad enough that the Divine was frantic, commanding the Templar Order to draw from all their ranks—all of them. Tomas had only just seen his thirteenth nameday, and he never felt his dying childhood so keenly as he did in this moment.

Missives had been sent to the Divine many times in subsequent weeks, the Rivaini Templars practically begging for more aid, more men, more lyrium. By the time they had gotten any word back, their ranks had been reduced by nearly half, and it was only insult to injury to have the Office of the Divine (not even the Divine, herself, but some scribe) tell them that Orlais held priority. Supplies could not be spared. Tomas remembered Ferdinand's comment as he tossed the shredded note into a signal fire.

"Have they never met a Rivaini mage?" the man had fumed, his own twenty years feeling more like fifty. It had showed clearly in his face. "They don't just channel the Fade here. They embody it. Even now, Orlais plays at politics."

The remainder of the rant had been lost on Tomas, but he'd heard all he had needed to. Ferdinand had been talking about the hedge witches. Some were in the Circle but most weren't, and the magic they knew was ancient. Some said their knowledge predated blood magic and even Tevinter, that the Rivaini witches were among the first mortals to touch the fringes of the Fade and share in its wonders. All Tomas knew was that they could speak with the spirits, even those of the dead, and many a Templar had fled in the face of such danger. Only the other day, one of his fellow new recruits had quit the field after thinking that his dead grandmother was chastising him that he hadn't properly cleaned his nethers that morning, and she was going to tan his backside. Fear and embarrassment. It was enough to fell any youth.

Now, all they could do was wait. They no longer had the numbers to storm the Circle. The mages, now, were also few in number, but the ones that remained, they knew, would make themselves willing abominations in a heartbeat.

And the Knight-Commander's life was in the balance.

It was hours before anything happened. The Templars had maintained their post in front of the Circle, some walking rounds through the quiet streets that surrounded the sprawling, domed building. It was leftover from the Qunari occupation, some said, but local Rivaini lore claimed it was much older, a remnant of their faith before the Chantry took hold. And when the Chantry did come, it acted as it always does, turning places once sacred and changing them into prisons in the name of Andraste. Tomas had heard venom behind the words on occasion. Some Rivaini still insisted on living like Qunari, meshing the lifestyle with what the Chantry impressed upon them. Others kept to themselves and to the Old Ways, paying homage to the spirits with ritual and libations of wine and lyrium.

History meant nothing to an orphan, especially an orphan who felt he was watching his life burn away in the flames of the Circle doors. The doors that still refused to actually be consumed by those magnesium-bright flames. Tomas crouched beside the signal fire, a pitiful blaze in comparison. He didn't need the warmth. Part of him thought he needed the comfort. But he found it difficult to be comforted by the very same thing that so terrified him, even when the source was mundane and well under control.

Mage fire.

Kindled fire.

Somehow, to him, there was absolutely no difference.

As he watched, the living flames of the doors gradually diminished and died. The great portal yawned open with a tired groan to reveal the slight form of a young mage through the smoke. Her hair hung in abundant black curls of ebony. The dusky skin of her hands was a contrast to the pale blue of her apprentice robes. Tomas should have said something, given a shout, but the breath caught in his throat. His voice would not come.

But he was not the only one to see. The weary ranks had pulled themselves together, even the patrols returned when the sign came that some sort of progress had been made. Who was the girl? A messenger? Where was the Knight-Commander? With every ounce of authority he could muster, Ferdinand posed these questions and more.

At first, the mage girl made no response. She stood as still as the statues of Andraste that flanked the doorway. Her head bowed. Her hands folded.

Ferdinand pressed.

She maintained silence.

Finally, frustrated and consumed by his duty, the Knight-Captain drew his sword and took two steps toward the Circle entrance.

"Then, it is clear we are at an impasse, and there is no choice. By the power entrusted me and by the will of the Divine, I hereby invoke the Right of Annulment on the Circle of Ayesleigh. May it be noted-"

He got no further. The girl had lifted her head to look at them all. Scorching white light shot forth from where soft amber eyes should have been, burning to look at yet soothing, calming. Tomas, like the others, could only stand there dumb and staring.

"You, like so many of your kind, have already done enough." The voice, like velvet thunder, rumbled through the square. There was no way it belonged to the young apprentice. It was a spirit. Or a demon. "You have brought death and chaos. Destruction and suffering. The Veil...it rends and tears, and you who were entrusted to maintain it...have failed."

She held out her hands, threads of that same white light sweeping out to weave through them. The men could only watch, stunned, as the silky ribbons coiled around them, touching them, entangling them. Tomas stared, horrified, as the light played through his fingers, tickling his fingertips like minnows in a stream.

"You have tasted of the Fade—what was not yours to taste! Gorged yourselves on the lifeblood of the enlightened. Slaughtered our children and called it keeping the peace." Her voice was vicious, the light more furious. The Templars were now trying without success to get away. "You have failed."

There was an explosion. Tomas felt it more than saw it. There was a dull thud, a gust of wind, and the soldiers around him went flying as if from a concussive force. He shut his eyes. When his fate came for him, he didn't want to see it.

A moment went by. A minute. An hour. Nothing.

"Except for you."

Tomas opened his eyes, slowly, hesitantly. The apprentice stood before him, her eyes still glowing but less furiously. Her face was soft, her hands at her sides.

"Yours is a pure soul. And you must find the others. Teach them."

He tried. He really tried to find his voice, to reach for his sword—something. The abomination was close. He could feel her breath, see the Fade in her eyes. But he was helpless, in thrall, lost. He was too young, too inexperienced, and he was going to die here.

"Teach them another way."

The light went out. The girl wilted, and Tomas suddenly found himself in full capacity of his person. Instinctively, he dove forward to catch her in his arms. She was so small, so slight, and couldn't have been any older than he was. They sat there in the middle of the square, the haunting silence of a war-weary Ayesleigh closing in about them. The only light now was the small signal fire in the brazier.

After some time, the girl groaned and opened her eyes, the soft amber working hard to focus on Tomas' own. "I..." her voice was weak, barely a whisper and gloriously human, "I am...all that remains."

Tomas looked from her to the bodies strewn around them, the Templars lying there dead and in unnatural positions. They had been killed by the very lyrium burning in their blood, the taint the Spirit of Purity had sensed and was keen to destroy. He had been too young, had yet to have his first taste of the lifeblood of the Fade. He looked to the dark windows of the Circle, the gaping door, and his gaze fell back to the girl in his arms.

"As am I," he said, his voice as hushed as hers. "As am I."