Prologue

When I was a child, I remember the tales the Brood Mothers used to tell us, before we were tucked into bed at night. Tales for the Urgal cubs; of great war chiefs from long ago when the horned giants went to war with the other races. Stories of brave humans and gallant acts of valor. But the stories I loved the most, were those from long before the Order of Riders; before the men, horned giants and children of the stone had come to these lands. Back before the Veil; in a time none now remember. A time when immortals of incomparable beauty and power lived in cities beyond imagination, and the god-like beings that ruled them.

I had dreamed, like so many of us, of seeing the day when the magic would be returned to the lands of Thedus. When the Veil would be torn down and the Order would have finally fulfilled their purpose, to preserve the races cursed to mortal lives until the magic was returned. It had been theorized that with the Veil in place the land and it's people would change, with the Order in tact the deterioration had been slowed to nearly none existent.

I had never thought I would live to see the fall of the very Order that I had expected to live out my years in, barely two decades out of my apprenticeship. Or to witness the slow death of the races, the very ones I had sworn to uphold and preserve. To watch as the world I had been born into changed under the tides of time and war, into something barely recognizable. The land itself was dying, not just the races who had been tied to the old magic. It was not an obvious illness, the Blight was thought to be a foreign thing brought on by power hungry magisters, a curse from the Maker. For one who has lived in these lands century after century, it had become clear as the Taint spread beneath the land. Like a body without an immune system, the land without magic had grown weak without notice until it had been exposed to something foreign and vile and it sickened under the influence. The Tainted ones spread under ground like poison under the skin, searching for those few beings left that old magic ran strong in.

With each passing Blight my hopelessness grows, I had been meant to protect this land and it's people not sit back and watch it all die. The elves are nothing like they once were, history and culture stripped from them even as their bodies withered under the influence of time. Dragons had become dumb beasts, all but a few and now there were only two of the old ones left; the only ones that could possibly continue on their race.

I never hoped, after all these centuries of searching, to meet the one being who could allow me to fulfill my oath; before all could be irreversibly lost.

Never even in my dreams, believed that I would fall for him...the one they called The Dread Wolf.

~574 years Pre rise of the Tevinter Imperium.

"Don't you ever wish we could have lived back then?" A red headed human child asked, bare feet kicking the air as she lay sprawled on her bed, chin resting on upturned palms. Around the room the other assorted younglings were in various states of readying for bed after the evenings story.

"Not really," replied the urgal cub in the next bed over who had pulled the blanket up to his nose.

"You're so dull Rues." Complained the nine year old girl as she wriggled under her own bedding when Herdall Sif turned out the lights.

"I'm not dull," grumbled the cub.

"Sure you are, sheep." Quipped up an elfling across the aisle, his mirror image in the next bed.

"Baah Baah dumb sheep, have you any brains?" Sung the other elfling.

"Hey, take that back!" The human shrieked jumping out of the covers to the end of the bed.

"Make me, round ear" goaded the second elfling. His brother sticking his tongue out at her in mockery.

"Enough," Hahren Turielis ordered catching the human girl by the collar before she could jump across the aisle, "to bed with you Da'len."

"But-" the girl started.

"To bed!"The elvish matron ordered sternly.

"Yes, Hahren." She mumbled obediently. The matron then rounded on the twin elflings. "Feriel, Seriel I want to see both of you before breakfast."

"Yes, Hahren." The pair replied meekly as the room settled into silence that soon filtered into soft snoring and the patter of rain echoing from outside the stone walls.

"Rues, are you awake?"

"Hmm." came the reply and the human took it as consent to slip out of bed, tugging her blanket along. Climbing into the cub's bed as he shifted over as the storm began to pick up outside, thunder rumbling like clashing titans. The two children snuggled back to back, a mutual comfort on a stormy night now that they were to old to go running off to seek the comfort of the Brood Mothers.

"I'm sorry I called you dull," the human child mumbled burrowing her face in the borrowed pillow and took comfort in the heat radiating off the cub.

"I's okay," rumbled back the cub. There was silence again between the pair until the cub rolled over to stare up at the arched stone ceiling overhead. "Nervous?"

"No," the girl said rolling to her back as well, flashes of lightning making the mural painted there visible for brief moments. Figures of all shapes and sizes; some massive and horned, others slight and ethereal, even a few with obviously blunt ears. All astride scaled mounts who's hides glittered like the purest of gems amongst the clouds. The bronze skinned cub glanced at her without a word, nubs of barely formed horns just beginning to sprout from amidst his short locks. "Maybe a little," she admitted in such a low whisper it was barely audible.

"Same," Rues admitted. He was never a very talkative cub, usually answering questions in the least amount of words possible. Most took this as a sign that he was slow or simple minded, which could not have been further from the truth; Rues Grugson was one of the brightest members of the Azure Clutch. Something his closest friend wouldn't hesitate to take offense at, and vocally defend when brought up. "We'll be fine."

"What if we're not picked? You're definitely going to be, they would be crazy not too, but I'm not smart like you or know any magic like the twins." The human admitted desperately, tears welling up in her eyes before they were wiped away roughly with the back of a hand. "I don't want to end up in the wards or worse, apprentice to one of the archivists!"

"We'll be fine." Rues replied adamantly and rolled over to sleep.

"Night, Rues."

"Night, Ciri."

NOTES

Brood Mothers-the women in charge of raising the children in their designated Clutch.

Clutch- a designated group of roughly ten children about the same age containing a mixture of races. A Clutch remains together from toddler to the Age of Selection(9 for Urgals and Humans, 25 for Elves)Elves tend to be raised in separate Clutches and merge with another two years before the Age of Selection.

Urgal- Kossith who predate the Qun.

Herndall(Urgal)-Urgal Dam who rules over tribe. Or the title I am giving to Urgal(race) matrons that look out for the children in their Clutch.

Hahren(Elvish/dalish)- elder among dalish tribe. Or the title I am giving to Elvish(race) matrons that look out for the children in their Clutch.