Trigger warning: mentions of self-harm in a fantasy context.

Dragon Age and the Circle of Magi Heraldry belong to BioWare.

I can remember the first time I used blood magic, when the templars were dragging my twin brother away to be made Tranquil. Perhaps if I had not been Harrowed but a scant day ago, it would not have happened, for before that time I was an apprentice and, apart from fleetingly, in dreams, had never heard a demon's insistent whispering before. Only the really desperate demons - like hunger and rage - will ever seek to possess a fledgling, unharrowed mage.

"I have no wish to engage your power," the desire demon had purred. "Nor should you be so quick to engage mine. This trial is unnecessary. Perhaps... an agreement can be reached? Surely you want... no, need... something?

A supplement to your power, perhaps?"

I didn't vanquish the demon like I should have; I'm not even sure I would have been able to. Surely, my trial was yet to come? Surely, the First Enchanter did not expect me to face a demon so strong on my own? No - the real test must have been elsewhere. I suppose that confusion is what saved me from becoming an abomination, because I can't for sure say that I would not have agreed to the demon's preposition.

Oh Maker, I can remember the fear in his eyes - brown eyes, always too trusting, firm in his belief that the templars exist to protect us, and that the Circle is only a prison if we make it so. Religiously, in fact. Never, not even for a moment, had he once doubted the templars (nor the Chantry), up until they took him by the arms and tore him from me.

He believed in his sister, too. At least she delivered.

It only occurred to me that the demon may not have been listening after the blade had parted my flesh - it hurt, Maker, it hurt, but for my brother? it was worth it - and dark, such dark, dark blood bubbled forth, bringing with it its curse, drop by drop on to the stone floor. I was right to wonder. That particular demon wasn't listening... but others were. Small, parasitic things, the Nameless Ones, demons unworthy of mention; they chattered in my ears, eager, clamouring for a Summons, promising freedom. Oh! How I'd longed to taste it! Everything that I'd ever wanted but, for a curse of birth, could not have... yes, that could be mine, and my brother's, too. I could protect him. I could save him from being stripped of all he was just because First Enchanter Irving had decided that he did not have enough magical potential to risk him turning into an abomination. I could be his saviour and show him, as I'd been trying to for years, what a lie his precious Chantry was and how they only sought to subjugate us.

'The Wilds are not so far away, after all,' I'd thought. 'We could easily lose ourselves there.'

I had called them and they burst forth using my spilt blood as a gateway, a flood of demons so horribly stunted the vertebrae showed, moving just under the skin which was a dark, reddish-brown. They had pointed ears, like elves, but their faces looked more like bats. They fell upon the blood, feasting on it, using it, turning those innocent red pearls into a bloody haze that soaked the clothes and skin.

'Yes,' they encouraged in their soft, hissing, clicking voices, scuttling all over the floor. I recoiled from them. 'Yes, yes, more... we need more!'

I sliced open my wrist again, biting down on my lip hard enough to draw blood there as well. The bat-demon-creatures squealed with happiness and lunged for the templars, taking them down, their forms becoming more solid with every red gem that sluggishly dribbled from my wound.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and I whirled around, unwilling to go down without more of a fight, and was met with my brother's eyes. Brown, wide.

And full of fear. Fear. Fear... of me.

"How could you?" he whispered. The betrayal in his voice... I could not understand it. Hadn't I set him free? Hadn't I helped him - helped us both?

"No," he sobbed. "No, sister, you've just made things worse. The templars... they'll kill you!"

"Not if we leave now. We can be gone before the mist clears," I said, making to grab his arm, my voice full of ridiculous hope; cruelly dashed when he flinched away. I dropped my hand in disbelief and stared at him, at the blood wetting his hair and the red glaze on his skin... a glaze of my blood. The blood I had shed for him.

He stared to babble about how I was only steps from becoming an abomination, and about how the Chantry preached against exactly this. The screams of the templars and the wet, tearing sounds that surrounded us, coming from victims unseen, as well as the sound of metal plate grinding against metal plate as more templars rushed towards the scene served as a macabre soundtrack to my brother's zealously demented religious rant. 'Twas then that I made my decision. Three feet of stone was all that stood between me and freedom, and if my brother would not join me, then so be it. He may have been so eager to surrender his one chance at freedom for tranquillity at best, but I was not. I would go.

With or without him.

I'd bolted, then, melding into the crowd of mages running away so as not to be implicated. I was under no illusions about my fate. I am a maleficarum, and the Chantry spares no mercy for those like me, who use and abuse blood magic. The one lone templar guarding the entrance I bewitched - another cut was needed - and he had Kester ferry me out under the pretence of 'collecting a shipment of lyrium'. I don't tend to think about what may have happened to him after I released his mind and he found himself standing, for no reason clear to him, outside The Spoiled Princess. I like to think that I don't care. That's what I tell myself. I fled, following the Imperial Highway - sometimes on it, sometimes off - until I reached Lothering, then I delved deep into the woods. I tried as hard as I could to stay hidden - taking out the templars who got too close with more cuts - in the forests if I could, but considering I'd never left the Circle Tower before and they have my phylactery (which seems to me like blood magic in itself) it's no wonder I slipped up.

And so here I am, crouched in the dark listening to the chattering sounds of the demons and the templars who hunt me. Every time I use blood magic the demons get stronger, so much so that I no longer have to summon them. They wait, they chatter, because they know that soon I will need to use them again. Every time I give them blood they demand more.

I don't believe that the templars protect us - they guard us, and when we stray from our path, they are duty-bound to kill us. I can understand why the Chantry fears blood magic, however; not only because history (and the Tevinter Imperium) have taught us that blood magic is best left unused, but because eventually, the magic comes to rule you just as the Chantry preaches it should not. I thought I could control the bat-demons but I now know I can't; already they are stronger than me. I lay my head back against the tree behind me cradling my bleeding arm, blind and guided only by the shouts of the templars as they grow ever closer. I could try and run - maybe I will - but I know now that the free life I am living is not the same free life that I sought. I am a hunted animal.

One little cut started this, one almost-deal with a demon. I have doomed my brother and myself to the point that he can consider being made Tranquil a mercy and not a punishment. I have ensured that the rest of my life, which will be undoubtedly short, will be spent running from the templars and running from myself. Running the demons that now own me.