Prologue
It felt like thousands of nails that were cast through my heart. He betrayed me! My best friend, my only friend I had in the Circle during all these long, lonely years, lied to me and betrayed me. Why did he learn blood magic? Did he have so less faith in his abilities? Did he think it would stay undetected?
But after all, Jowan could easily delude me. I called him my friend, but he wove a net of lies, and I failed to see them. Memories rose now, memories of happy times when we laughed together, times when we could nearly be separated when we were much younger. And I tried now to suppress these memories that betrayed me to believe Jowan. They were opening the wound he had left more and more. Tears arose in my eyes, tears of disappointment but also of wrath – wrath on myself that I made it possible that his phylactery could be destroyed and he could escape in the end. Rage that I couldn't see his plan after all. I was blinded by our friendship – something that never would happen again, I swore.
My eyes wandered to Lily beside me and I saw that the same questions were written in her eyes. She nearly fell down to the floor. There was no strength left in her to fight the disappointment, the lost faith in her love. She was broken. It wouldn't make a difference what the Chantry would do to her. Lily lost all she possessed in a short instant. But what will I lose? Will they tranquil me for what I have done, for what I made possible?
Irving's eyes looked down on me. He seemed to think about what next had to be done. In all his movements and gestures I could see the disappointment – the same disappointment I felt deep down inside myself as well. But it was Greagoir who spoke first:
"So this is how you repay us. We should have made you Tranquil from the beginning. This seems now a too small price for what you have done!"
I didn't answer. There was nothing I could say that would make this better. I felt ashamed. It seemed like irony that I gave the Chantry more reason to distrust the Circle, the magi and all apprentices within. Consequences will arose from my fault – I was sure about this. I closed my eyes. I didn't want Irving and Greagoir to read my feelings, to read in my shocked, wide eyes that I agreed with their decision, that I felt dangerous myself. And there was now a deep wish inside myself to feel no more. No pain, no disappointment, no wrath. I simply wanted to feel nothing at all, to be free from what emotions can do to a person.
But then there came the Grey Warden. Duncan was his name and he dragged me out of this situation, out of my life as I knew it. He spoke the Right of Conscription. Neither Irving nor Knight-Commander Greagoir could do anything about it, they gritted their teeth and let me pass. And so I followed the stoic, silent man leaving the Tower for the first time in my life with the every time watchful templars and priests behind, sure never to return to the place I called home for my whole life. But I didn't realize at this moment that to be a Tranquil would be so much easier...