Prologue

9:31 Dragon

Tristan could not help but lower his blade. Too much of his mind was occupied, trying to cope with the shock, for the young Templar to keep up his guard. In search of aid, of some sort of support or confirmation, his eyes thought those of Balian, the Knight Captain, a mere few feet across. But in the Antivans eyes, he could only find the same confusion, the same perplexity that stirred up his own thoughts.

The templars had been out, searching. Investigating reports of apostate activity. Rumors with little credibility to them. This village they had passed through couldn't have held more then a dozen souls, a mere three hovels and a few shacks holding cattle. No one had expected to find anything more then upset farmers. It had been a shock to everyone in their small hunting group, when they had encountered the... anomaly. Their senses attuned by the Lyrium, it had been easy enough to pinpoint the source of the magic yet none of them had been able to tell just what they were about to face. A templars nightmare, going up against the unknown, the forgotten magics of old. While approaching the shack that harbored the anomaly, Tristan had seen himself standing before the Maker already, struck down by a bloodmages sinister creations. He'd been willing to face that, he had sworn to do so. But he was ill prepared for the sight that he had encountered.

Before him stood a girl, half his age at the very best. A frame, merely skin and bones, marked deeply by a life of poverty. Her untamed hair, blonde as hay and covered in sweat and grime, a toy of the merciless wind. The rags of cloth, covering her body, the stripes of raw hide wrapped around her hand and feet, would have offered little protecting from a summers rain, much less the harsh weathers of the Orlesian winter, and the steady snows.

When Tristan and the Knight Captain had charged around the hovel, arms raised to strike, the girl had been dragging a sled of firewood, easily more then her own thin bodies weight. A pathetic sight, by any definition.

And yet, there was little doubt that this girl, looking up to the templars with big blue eyes, the cheeks reddened from the cold, was the anomaly. A mages intend is always unknown... and yet, could this be an illusion?

"Captain... what do we do now?"