29 th day of Solis

He was told a nightmare for a story the first time he learned about the Qunari. These large people with horns on their head that killed or converted every person they found. But he had been called "beast" before too. He had been called "creature". He always wondered if the similarities stopped there.

Carin and him sat in the bushes watching the crackling fire of Kellis' pit. With a ball of pressure, and their dinner spinning at the bottom of his stomach, he tilted to the side of the fire and spewed sick onto the grass. Carin covered her nose with the collar of her mage dress.

In Kellis' camp was the strewn dead bodies of their comrades, all nine of them were dead.

"Shit. Fuck. Shit." Carin paced the edges of the camp and mumbled. She pulled her hands out from her sleeves and nervous sparks snapped from her fingers. "This is bad. We have to warn everyone."

"Calm down." He hissed. He leaned forward, moving the weight on one of his legs to the other as if he wasn't fidgeting but moving rather strangely, like a puppet. "This may not have been the Qunari."

"What?" Carin swiveled to him. "Look at them! Their chests are ripped out."

"Yeah, but look closer at the bodies." He gestured closer to the open wound of their chest. He dabbed a hand and the twisting sound of shifting flesh sounded. Carin immediately turned on her side and copied his action of earlier, getting sick all over the grass. He pulled his hand back and his fingers were dry. "Their blood is missing. It's like someone drained them of it."

"Maybe they eat blood."

"I don't think so."

"You don't know. You don't know anything." Carin hunched over in the grass paused only to get sick again. "We have to leave. I can't take this smell."

"Check the area around here. I'm going to see if there's anything that can tell us what happened."

"Fine," She answered but stood back up unsteadily.

He watched her wobble outside the camp until her shadow blended into the darkness. He whispered lowly, "Don't go too far!"

She didn't reply but he was sure she heard him. He had wanted her to leave anyway. Something in the air was disconcerting. He had never felt like this like eyes were watching him or as if there was something in the air hovering that he couldn't see. It was like someone bottled fear into the air and left an imprint of it behind. It was making his skin itch even worse than before.

He turned back to the bodies of their fighters. Four of them were still in their beddings. Three of them were in random spots with blood drippings on the grass near them. One was twisted on its side—like they had been fighting something or someone. But the last one—

He twisted around and recounted. No. He had been right. Someone was missing. He wanted to feel hopeful that one of them had survived, but something wasn't right about this. Half of them had been killed in their sleep and a few of them had died fighting but not as seriously as they would if someone larger than them had attacked.

Someone they trusted had killed them.

He brushed through a loose stray curl as if that could silence his rampant thoughts. There was only two possibilities. Kellis betrayed them or one of their own had turned on the clan. Neither of those events sounded very good. He heaved a heavy sigh and scavenged around the camp for any weapons, potions, and anything else that could help them. He shoved his jittering hands to be held behind his back. He couldn't let Carin see him like this.

They had to be strong.

He pushed through the thick foliage around the camp and called as both loudly and lowly as he could. "Carin, where are you?"

"Over here." She hissed.

He followed her voice to find it in a tree above him and Carin sitting in the branches of a tree. She gestured above herself to the higher branches. He climbed on the sides of the thick bark, hooking his hands until he reached the higher branches.

"Tell me what you see." She said from below him.

He nodded and inked ever closer to the edge of the branch until he could see the lights of lanterns, hundreds and thousands of lanterns. His hold went slack.

There was an army out there.

"What do you see?" She called up.

He didn't reply. He swallowed harshly and then opened his mouth but no words came out.

She repeated. "What is going on out there?"

"They're going to fight."

"What?" She hissed. "I don't understand. Who is going to fight?"

"The Qunari and the Imperium. There's an army, and—

"Pull me up! Now!"

He hung his body down over the branch and dropped his hand for her to catch. He pulled her up and she leaned forward towards the thousands of lanterns lit up as the groups of Qunari huddled together in the forest miles ahead.

"Carin," He said carefully, buzzing burring in the background of his mind like static. "We can't fight an army."

"That's obvious stupid. We have to tell everyone."

"We won't get there in time."

Carin huffed. "This place has always been a warzone. This isn't anything new."

"But—" He realized he hadn't told her of what he had found out at the camp. But the thought. . . no. Carin was right. They had to go back to the camp. He shook his head. "You're right. Let's go back."

She tossed him a strange look and then slowly crawled the branch to the next nearest branch.

He could see the flickers of flames waver in the distance and, although he couldn't hear the sounds of their feet, he could pretend to hear the loud stomping against the ground. The heavy footsteps of armor slamming into the ground and marking their terrain as finally being overrun.

The war had finally reached them. Was there nowhere safe in Seheron now?

He swung below the branch and let go.


It took them far too long to reach the camp-nearly a day and a half. The main army splintered off to their luck but a small group still marched on towards their camp.

"The wards!"

Carin ran forward through the hill near the village entrance. The fog, their only protection from the outside, was gone. They slid down the hill and bulleted forward into the village only to meet with utter silence. Carin breathed heavily, hunched on her knees panting. When she gathered her bearings, she hissed, "Look around, see if you can find anyone." She ran forward towards the Clan Head house, leaving him to stare at the vacant inner village centre.

His feet rubbed against the grass and he could hear the sounds of the forest for the first time within the village. The snap of branches and the chattering of insects in the air. The buzz of humidity. He had always wondered how the village always stayed cool during Wintersend.

He reached his parent's hut and with sweaty palms opened the door. It creaked open in the silence. But as was with the rest of the village, no one was to be found. He checked the foyer where his mother's shrine of Falon'din and Sylaise sat on the table with paintings on the wall of the Great Hunt of Andruil. His hand brushed against the textured paint, the cold wood.

How was it still so cold? Or perhaps that was him and not the wood at all.

Salted fish sat on the racks in the kitchen as chunks of ice melted in the carrier below it. He tilted his head in confusion. There were spells placed on the carrier to keep the ice cold. Someone had removed them. He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a dagger. He slowly creeped around, through the kitchen into the main area where a miniature fire pit sat. His mother had left books and pens lying around, while his father had left maps scattered on the table nearby. The untidy mess was an unwelcome sight.

His parents never left a room like this. The sharp sense of knowing something had gone very wrong tickled in the back of his mind. There was no blood. No fight. There was little else to be happy about.

The wood flooring creaked down the hall and he measured his steps as he pressed his back against the wall following the creaking sounds. He pushed passed his parents' locked door and his own closed door to the storage closet directly at the end of the hall. He heard someone rifling through the storage and speak, "Where is it? It has to be here. I know it. Kaffas!". A human stood in front of the closet tossing things out of it. Heavy and hollowed thin metal objects hit the ground, rolling out into the hall and knocking into his feet when a globe flew out smacking into his lower knee. The rustling froze.

Kellis' head peeked out from the closet and he wasn't sure what possessed him to stride forward, striking the dagger close against Kellis' throat.

Kellis wasn't a short man but those frilly-collared tunics he always wore made yanking him down so much easier. He slammed Kellis' head into the wall next to the closet and scowled.

"Wait! Wait! I swear, I'm totally innocent." Kellis said with hands raised up in surrender. "I swear it."

His lips curled into a feral twist. "Eight of our warriors were slaughtered in your camp."

"Ah," Kellis paused. "That is true, but—"

Carin's voice called from outside. "Did you find something?"

He yanked Kellis out the house, dragging him violently until kicking him to the dirt floor of the front of his home. Carin paced back and forth. He watched her and wondered if she was going to be able to handle much more of this. He kicked the back of Kellis' knees and raised the dagger against his throat again. "Where is everyone?"

His throat jumped and graced the dagger's edge. Kellis said, while licking his drying lips, "Well, okay, that I can't answer."

He hissed. "What were you doing in my home?"

Kellis tilted his head, opened his mouth, and then shook his head. "Well, I know, for sure, that I can't answer that."

Carin breathed heavily. She pressed her fingers against her nose bridge. "What can you tell us?"

Kellis opened his mouth and then closed it. He opened his mouth again and then made a throaty, buzzing sound before closing his mouth again. He opened his mouth again but this time the young elf pressed the blade tight against his throat.

"Wait, listen, wait." Kellis squeezed out as his dagger drew tighter. "Lyrium. I was here for lyrium."

"Lyrium?"

Carin nodded. "Lyrium. Mages use it."

"Are you a mage?" He asked Kellis.

Kellis squinted his eyes and made that strange sound again. "Yes and no?"

Carin rolled her eyes. She questioned, pressing, "How can you be a mage and not a mage?"

"There is people with weaker magic who are sensitive to it, the fade that is, that can do things. I come from a long line of mages, you know." Kellis added. He cleared his throat when all Carin did was raise a brow. "Nevermind, guess I'm not home, now, am I?"

"No. No you're not." The elf was starting to feel twitchy. He didn't like this. "Tell us where they took everyone."

Kellis looked at the young elf and then at Carin.

Carin slapped a hand against her forehead and groaned. "I don't think he's going to be able to help us."

The blade pulled away from Kellis' throat. "What? Why not?"

Carin said pointedly, "Look, lyrium does weird things to people. I think he's sick from it."

"If it means anything," Kellis interjected with a nervous tone, "I also need some shoes."

Carin took a look at the man's bare feet when Kellis wiggled his toes. The young elf bit his tongue. "Fine, we'll find some shoes or boots to give him."

"Thank you. Thank you so much. You're both so kind, too kind to be Fog Warriors, that's for sure." Kellis sighed in relief.

"Fog Warriors?"

It was the first time he had ever heard the term when Kellis said it. But he would hear it many, many more times after.

Kellis drew a glance at the young elf. "You. Elves, generally speaking, that paint themselves white and, well, fight from the fog. Those fog things you guys do is impossible to copy. Scary stuff."

"But," the elf scrunched up his nose. "It's magic."

"Well, whatever it is, it's not magic Tevinter or even the Ox-man can mirror. Very admirable, might I add."

Not magic. . . they can mirror. It was like a rush of icy water churned into his chest.

Kellis tilted his head towards the elf, watching his hands clench and unclench. "You know, I'm not sick with Lyrium. A mage would know that."

"If you say one more thing, I'll cut out your tongue." The elf gritted his teeth at Kellis.

Kellis huffed but said no more.

Carin, as if distracted, said, "What was that?"

Kellis gave a perusing glance at the elf and then turned away, whistling as he stared up at the sky.

"Nothing." was all he said.


He raised his eyes and watched Carin as she became a different figure—a creature that looked more malformed than a Qunari ever could.

Carin said, slowly, "Well, we'll still have to do something with Kellis."

"Can you get his boots first? I think Halesta is about his size."

Carin looked over her shoulder and then back at her "friend". "That's almost on the other side of the village. He doesn't really need it."

Kellis added, "I beg to differ."

The young elf shrugged. "No one is going to come back here. They got what they wanted."

"Of course," Carin blinked. "I'll be right back."

She took a look over her shoulder and he smiled. She returned the smile before disappearing down the dug path.

His smile fell from his face and he dropped to Kellis' level. "What do they want?" He pulled the dagger against Kellis' throat just enough to create a line of red.

Kellis swallowed harshly. "They're here for the Hand of Thoth—the Tevinters."

"And the Qunari?"

"To kill us? Look," Kellis said when the dagger tightened against his throat again, "The Qunari really don't like us. We've been fighting for, what, two and a half centuries. I swear to you that, that's why."

The young elf stood up and outstretched his hand. "What does it do? This Hand of Thoth. Some kind of magical bomb?"

"What? No, it's nothing like the Gaatlok. We're talking magical additions to mages and non-mages. Every single person will be able to do the littlest of magic. A pure, uncorrupted piece of the Fade."

He rolled his eyes at Kellis' excited voice. Blandly, he said, "Sounds great."

Kellis continued, "The only issue is that no one knows what it looks like. We don't even know if it's an object or a spell. We might be looking for a book for all we know." He stood up and dusted his pants.

"Kellis, keep this between us."

"What?" Kellis said, while still dusting his clothing. "Kaffas, I got swamp on my pants."

"I mean, Carin doesn't need to stress about this, got it?" He quirked a brow and Kellis nodded slowly.

"Sure, whatever rocks your boat." Kellis rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. "For a kid, you have a crazy punch, you know that?"

"I didn't even hit you."

"Huh?" Kellis shook his head. "Felt like you did. It felt like a touch of electricity. You're sure you don't do magic?"

He ignored Kellis and watched as Carin made her way back to them with thick brown boots in hand.

Kellis gave a disgusted look and held the boots by the tip of his fingers. "Is there—?"

"Take the boots, Kellis." He warned the man.

"Fine. I'm putting them on, see?"

"You can go."

Kellis shot him a look. He took a peek at Carin and then back at the elf. Carin nodded.

"Well, I would say this was fun, but, then I would be lying. Be safe, kids." Kellis said over his shoulder as he walked back into the forest.

"I'm surprised you let him go." Carin said. Her face dropped into a sad smile.

He pressed. "Why?"

"It's just—sometimes, I really wish you were a mage. Then you'd understand." She sighed.

"Yeah," He said, knowing that every fiber in his being wanted to scream, 'No. No, I wouldn't because I would never betray my family, my friends, for what?', "Maybe I would but Tevinter doesn't equal mage. Mage doesn't equal Tevinter."

"You're so naïve, you know that?"

He sniffed. "Look, I know where we have to go next, follow me."

Carin frowned. "I don't think we should leave. We can't do anything by ourselves."

"I think we can. If you want to stay here, fine, but I'm going to find my parents. Don't you want to find yours?" He pressed again. He checked her eyes for a reaction. Her stance. Her breathing.

"Of course, how could you say that?" Carin said, annoyed all of a sudden. She breezed past him.

His eyes followed her walk up the hill. "Good."

Carin stilled.

For a second, he wondered if she knew that he knew. "What?"

"Which way are we going?"

He swallowed a laugh and a well of sickness sat in his stomach. His chest twisted when he grinned. "Keep going straight. I'll tell you when to turn."