I own nothing of the copyrighted material present.

I previously posted the first two chapters of this story, but later removed them for correction.

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Dragon 9:14, 13 Drakonis

We…no, I was foolish.

The magic in the air flared as the blood began steadily draining out of us. I, along with four newly made Laetans, had been fools to except this deal.

Magister Marian Amladaris, if only we had never listened to his offer.

The five of us had gone through some of the most grueling apprenticeships I had ever heard of, serving beside our respective masters in campaigns against Qunari, bandits, and even darkspawn.

We had made it through more battle fields intact, than most Altus will ever see, but it doesn't matter now, because where our enemies failed, it seems our attempts to gain more power will succeed.

His offer…it had been too tempting to pass up.

That a Magister was even willing to strike a deal with a group of newly minted Laetans just out of apprenticeship, when there was plenty of Altus who would have been more than willing, should have told us something wasn't right. Even lesser positioned Magisters would have chomped at the bit to get into the favor of the political juggernaut of House Amladaris.

The Amladaris family was surely not the richest in Tevinter, even if they were among the oldest. Marian's eccentricities and obsession with old Arlathan magics and ruins had nearly drained the family.

I suppose previously being the last of his house left little care in him for his houses future, his new son had brought a change in that.

I had seen him once, with his elven slave-turned-wife. Given his obsession, I suppose it shouldn't have really shocked any of us. There had been outrage when the news of her pregnancy had reached the Magisterium though, a child of elven blood would one day inherit a seat on the highest level of the Imperial Senate.

I had had a hell of a laugh at that one.

The stories say she had died in childbirth, though some had whispered he had had her killed once the child had been delivered. Given my current situation, I can see the conniving man murdering his own wife once he had want he wanted of her.

I watched as Walton, my Ferelden born friend who was brought to Tevinter as a child by slavers, fall to his knees. His face sunken and pale as the dead, the last of his blood was drawn from him as his body finally crumpled to the ground, and it joined the swirling torrent of crimson above us.

The ritual was supposed to be simple, a small bit of blood magic from a ritual Magister Amladaris had found deep within an ancient elven ruin in the Arlathan Forest. We had asked to see it first, of course, to understand just how deep we were really getting ourselves into the Magisters plots.

His answer should have been all that we needed to know that something wasn't right, "I destroyed it" he had said, to make sure that no one else could perform it but him, he had destroyed the rituals details.

Blood magic always came with risks, but it seemed so minimal that we hadn't protested initially. All he needed was to put a drop of his son's blood into a small cut on out palms, and the magic of the ritual would take care of the rest.

It was supposed to empower the child, by giving a minuscule piece of our power to the boy, we had protested at that, of course. Only a fool consciously gave away a piece of their own power, especially in Tevinter.

He had had an answer to our concerns, of course, he would give each of us a single favor that could be used however we wished.

Just like that, we had been bought.

With the backing of one of the oldest living houses in the Imperium, even getting the rank of Altus wasn't impossible. It was too good to resist, and now it seems we'll pay for that greed with our lives.

The last of my friends had gone fallen to the ground, the only one left among the living now was me. I had been fighting the pull of the ritual since I had realized something was wrong, but it had already been to late then.

The minute we had stepped into the cellar beneath the Amladaris estate, we had already sealed our own fates.

The focus of the ritual, the small baby Irian, laid in the middle of the lyrium lined ritual circles, crying for all he was worth as the mass of blood and raw magic circled above him.

The boy only a few months to him, but Marian was already taking great pride in pointing out just how powerful the child would be, not even a year old and already the babe was showing signs of his magic.

If only the child hadn't taken entirely after his mother in appearance, then the Magisterium might have applauded the birth of such a promising mage to an ancient, and nearly extinct, family line.

Marian stood by the wall to my right, a table with the rituals various instruments and ingredient's sat beside him.

I gave a small sadistic smirk as the idea settled in, I was going to die here, but I wasn't going alone.

It was beautiful, the sight before me was all the proof I needed that my life's ambition had succeeded. The swirling mass of blood and magic would soon belong to my son, all that power, all that might, it was all I could do not to weep for the horrible truth…

It could never have been mine.

I was too old by the time I had discovered the crowning jewel of my life's pursuit of lost magics'. One had to be but a babe for the ritual to work, once the first year of life had passed, the ritual would kill any who attempted it.

I was entering my fortieth, and there had been no wife or child to speak of when the ritual had finally been uncovered. There were slaves enough at the estate to rectify that easily enough, I took the daughter of a family that had been slaves to mine for generations, and wed the old elf's daughter.

The child had settled inside Elisa quickly enough, though the child being a male had caused me no end of headaches from my fellow Magisters, I couldn't exactly tell them that the child was only temporary.

House Amladaris was an old and powerful family, that last living decedents of the Archon Almadrius. As if I could let some half breed whelp, even if it was my own, take possession of that legacy.

Elisa dying in childbirth had been a stroke of fortune, removing her would have been a messy endeavor otherwise.

With her gone I could simply take another bride, one from a proper family, and then when a child came from the union, a proper child, I could use Irian in the ritual just as I had used the fool Laetans shriveled on the ground.

They had been strong enough mages, in terms of raw magic they might have even surpassed me, but they were unused to the politics and schemes of Tevinter's courts. Their masters had done them a disservice, they taught them all they would ever need to know about how to survive a battlefield, but nothing of how to survive their own home.

Their deaths would go a long way in fixing my houses financial struggles, the fools had signs writs of bereavement. All but absolving me of any harm they might receive in whatever "research" they might actively participate.

If they had read closer, they would have seen that the writs also made House Amladaris the sole heir to their unimportant, if not moderately wealthy, estates should they die with no legitimate heir.

They were all unwed orphans raised from slave stock due to talent, their wealth made through the bounty taken from battlefields and investments in ventures by barbarians outside of the Imperium.

The coin will serve well enough, though the new entanglements with the southerners will have to be severed posthaste.

I will never let it be said that an Amladaris would consort with such...filth.

"Marian!"

I turned to the sharp shout in enough time to see the knife coming down, Belen, the strongest of the five I had assembled as sacrifices for the ritual, had somehow mustered the strength to not only move, but to strike.

I managed to shift just enough to the right that the small dagger missed my heart and instead impeded in my shoulder.

I cried out in pain as I shoved Belen away, I caught the smile on the young man's face as the last of his strength failed him. I turned to the Irian, to see the last moments of the ritual as the power of the blood of the sacrifices seeped into his small body.

There was nothing though, just the continuing volatile swirl of the accumulated blood above him.

Then I felt it, something was very wrong.

I looked to the dagger embedded in my shoulder to see the blood being dragged from the wound and toward the mass.

I shot a quick glance to the table I had set the blooded dagger on, it was gone.

"No! No, no, no, no, no!"

I took off toward the door to the ritual chamber and through it open, I had to get away! I had to run!

I felt myself getting weaker with every step I took, the stairs up to the estates main floor from the underground ritual chamber had never felt so long.

"Help!" I screamed as I continued to try and flee, I couldn't die this way, not me. Not me!

"Help..." My voice was little more than a hollow whisper as I continued to try and claw my way up the stair case. I tumbled as my legs gave out and I came crashing down, but still I fought to get away from magic stealing my life from me.

My arms wouldn't move now though, the weight of them so impossibly heavy. I couldn't yell, the effort to speak was too far beyond me. I could only weep in despair as the darkness took me.

"Leras, you have to settle down. At this rate you'll wear a path into the floor with all your pacing."

I turned to Saris, the new slave our master had purchased to replace the position of gardener that my daughter, my precious Elisa, had once held. I had lost her to the Master's ambitions, just as so many of the staff had lost their lives in his "experiments".

"My grandson has no place in the ritual chambers alone with six mages, a babe has no place in such things." I kept on pacing as the worry inside my heart continued to grow, the master had been vague about what his plans for Irian's future were.

Master Marian promised me and my daughter our freedom when they wed, he had showed me the writ granting me my freedom himself, but he still had yet to actually place it in my hands. I could live with continuing on as a slave though, what I couldn't live with is seeing the last of my family come to harm from the sadistic bastard.

From his first moments, I had watched over Master Marian, he was a kind child once, but somewhere along the way, the kind, if eccentric, boy had gotten twisted into the cruel and capricious man that he had become.

I had such high hopes for what he could have become as a child, that all seems so far away now…

"Help!"

I froze in my pacing at the sudden sound, I looked to Saris to see if he has heard it as well. The shocked look in his eyes was all the validation I needed, I bolted toward the stairway that led down into the ritual chambers. I could hear Saris sprinting behind me.

My old body carried me as fast they could to the stairwell, my breath caught at the sight awaiting me.

Master Marian was spread over the stairs; his body looked drained and emptied. His face seemed to have sunken in to his skull, I rushed over and checked for a heartbeat, there was no real surprise when I felt none.

Wait…he had just come from the ritual chamber…

"Irian!"

I took off in a desperate sprint down the stairs, I couldn't have lost him too.

Please Irian, please be safe…

Bodies were strewn about the room, but the sight that truly left me speechless was the massive swirling veil of blood, it was covering the middle of the room in a thick roaring mass.

Getting any farther into the room than a few steps impossible.

A quick glance around what was visible of the room told me my worst fears were correct, the only place left where Irian could be, was inside the heart of the storm. Every attempt I made to get through the swirling wall of blood was met with a painful refusal.

"What is that thing?"

I turn to see Saris standing in the doorway, a look of utter terror on his face.

"I don't know, but Irian is inside of it." I did notice, however, that the walls were slowly shrinking. It was diminishing in size by the minute, "Go get tell the guards that our master and his guests are dead and we need the Chantry and the Templars here, but tell them nothing more."

Saris nodded absently to me as he hurriedly raced from the room, I can't honestly say that I blamed him, it reeked of the strong coppery smell that could only be found with blood. I could only hope he doesn't go through the details to thoroughly with them, I don't want my grandson associated with blood magic of this scale so young.

I've seen enough of the politics of the Magisters to know what would happen to Irian if they were to find out, his father's enemies would try and have him saddled with Marian's crimes.

I had to wait several minutes until the torrent finally subsided, the blood that had been surrounding him had disappeared without a trace.

Only the bodies of the dead remained as proof of whatever horrors had taken place here.

It was nearly an hour before a group of four Templars, a Chantry Father, and what looked to be whatever Laetan had been on duty at the Guardhouse. I had Nesinne, the slave acting as his wet-nurse, take him to his nursery when I was informed of their approach.

Irian wouldn't be anywhere near the scene for them to scrutinize, I had nearly seventy years' experience in watching Tevinter politics play out, my grandson would not be made a victim of them.

The Templars entered first, followed by a tired looking mage, and a Chantry Father with a grim expression. "You, slave. Where is you master?"

I gave a deep bow to the mage before I spoke, "He is in the stairway to the lower chambers messere, if you will follow me?" Getting the gesture to lead on, I began to make my way through the estates halls and into the oldest section of the house.

I showed them the stairway down, and the first sight that greeted us was the shriveled body, of Magister Marian Amladaris.