Chapter One
-Hear My Call-
There was a stir within his blood
And the dreams lay thick upon him.
A call did beat within his heart.
One road was left before him.
—Codex entry: Shred of Blue
Aeva? Aeva you must open your ears. Your eyes too, for that matter. We don't have much time. The Calling is deafening your spirit. Your soul.
You must awake.
Aeva Celena Lavellan was certain about a familiar voice talking to her. And yet, she was also certain about the whispers, those which seemed louder to her than a screaming voice. Her mind was overcast with what could only be The Calling. She could hear the legendary song, tantalizing and terrifying all at once. It filled her with both dread and a sense of fulfilled duty. The Calling could only mean one thing: her time as a Grey Warden was coming to an early end. It consumed her thoughts making her obsolete to the world. It was so compelling that she could hardly question why it was taking her so young.
Think about where you are, Aeva. You're a Grey Warden. You are a mage. Why are you here?
That was a great question. She pondered the muffled, desperate voice trying to get through to her. Why was she here amidst a temple full of mages and templars? Why was she in a temple meant for the center of negotiations? Why was the Divine—Divine Justinia—being restrained by that . . . Thing? A faint hint of duty harbored within Aeva echoed against the Calling.
A part of her knew this was the Conclave.
A part of her knew something was wrong.
A part of her ignored it.
Aeva, recognize me. Anders. Your friend. Someone you probably hate now after Kirkwall. I don't have much time Aeva. I only came here to make you awake. To get you to stop this. So do it. Stop it.
Be their guide.
Right my wrongs.
Tell Hawke . . . Tell her I am sorry.
The Divine needs you now, Aeva.
It was a voice she thought to be long dead, passed on in an explosion at the will of his own madness. And yet, here he was, talking to her as a spirit. Begging her to awake. She did not feel asleep, though. Aeva, if anything, felt compelled by the song seeping through the veins in her body. She had heard nothing like it. She had felt nothing like it.
She had been gifted with a song to overlay any thoughts crawling to the surface of her mind. Thoughts of wrongness and fear were muffled.
It was all hidden with the Calling.
Her heartbeat soon mimicked the song and she felt ready to die.
She felt ready to surrender her life as a Grey Warden.
Ba dum . . . Ba dum . . . Ba dum . . .
"Now is the hour of our victory," a strong voice boomed.
Ba dum . . . Ba dum . . .
Aeva knew his voice well.
"Why are you doing this, you of all people?"
Ba dum . . .
The song of the Calling was thinning. Aeva did not know whether she wanted to hang on to it or let it go. A voice in the distance was afraid and Aeva felt guilty. She felt responsible for the cry of terror sounding in the distance.
Ba bump . . .
But she was afraid, wasn't she?
She should have been.
"I am . . ." Aeva started to speak feeling as if she had just awoken from a long sleep.
"Someone help me!"
That voice, strained and afraid, muted Aeva's song, Aeva's Calling. It came from the mouth of Divine Justinia.
Aeva, with a renewed self-awareness, blinked and the room around her flooded her previously suppressed senses. She did not know why she was surrounded by her fellow Grey-Wardens or why they in turn surrounded a captured Divine. Aeva especially did not know why that Thing was here, holding up a glowing orb at the Divine.
Corypheus, the name hummed through her mind.
He was everything: a darkspawn, a magister, a monster all in one.
She was disgusted with herself as memories became clear, memories of following Corypheus' will. In this moment, she found herself standing at his left. For days, for months, for nights he had liked to keep Aeva close and near to him.
When he moved, she moved.
Such as it was.
"What's going on here?" Aeva said when she found her voice.
The Grey Wardens, her friends, all looked at her in unison as if she broke a communal silence. It stopped Corypheus in his tracks. Aeva, his favorite of the Grey Wardens, had spoken out of turn.
Aeva, staring at him, did not know amongst the anomaly of his body, of his mouth, whether he was surprised or enraged.
In this moment, Divine Justinia knocked the orb from Corypheus to Aeva.
When it touched her hand, she could not let it go.
And all at once, she was engulfed by a blinding glow.
In the distance, she could hear the remnants of the Calling as it was becoming lost to her.
Aeva Celena Lavellan's time as a Grey Warden was not over just yet.