.8.

And I cross into dreams, the hero

.x.

27 Kingsway

9:41 Dragon

I have walked physically in the Fade.

I will admit I've been ignorant. I assumed the Fade was a pleasant dreamscape, save for when you cross paths with demons. What I experienced was not pleasant. It was horrifying, a landscape tortured and twisted, rife with things I still see as lingering shadows when I close my eyes. And the Black City—we saw it, suspended above us, a terrible, blackened citadel that promised nothing but despair.

I have never been as frightened as I was in the Fade. Even in the company of my companions—Varric, Dorian, Blackwall, Hawke and her friend, the Warden Stroud—I could not shake the terror, could not take comfort in their presence. It clung to me the way an insect might, intent on sucking from me all confidence, all sense of solace I've ever known. Demons lurked in the periphery of my vision with every step I took, reminding me that I was not worthy of the Anchor, nettling me with whispers that echoed my deepest fears. It seemed the entirety of the Fade had been created solely to enlighten me to the fact that I would fail the Inquisition, and in doing so, destroy the world.

I cannot speak of what other nameless horrors I saw. I will not speak of it. Our escape from the Fade came only through sacrifice; Warden Stroud lives no more. Erimond has been dealt with. Hawke has left for Weisshaupt. And the Inquisition still exists.

I wish it would have ended there, but the Fade refused to relinquish its hold over me. I don't speak of simple memories of my time within it; I speak of something literal, something real. My steps were shadowed by a creeping enmity, horrors partially obscured during the day by my duties as Inquisitor, by the conversations I shared with others, by something as regular as the light of the sun.

But at night … ah, at night they converged on me in force. Sleep was no longer a welcome reprieve from the tediums or frustrations of the day. Sleep became a prison, because that was when the horrors were able attack me with unmitigated focus. What started as vaguely disturbing dreams grew into something substantial, something so vivid it bled into the waking world. It was the Fade—once unimaginable, once only a theory to me. It had attached itself to me as I walked physically through it, an abhorrent parasite intent on torturing me to the point of insanity.

The nightmares … they will never leave me. They are much a part of me know as every other scar I bear. Fully realized, they always played out the same. I would always be in the Deep Roads, alone. I would wander, cautious and afraid, following the roads wherever they might lead. And always they would swarm me, catching me unawares, darkspawn pouring out from hidden fissures in the cavern walls that I hadn't seen. They wouldn't kill me, though always by the end I begged them to.

I was to become their Broodmother. Captive in the nightmares, I relived nightly the darkspawn efforts to change me. They forced my mouth open as they ripped pieces of flesh from their bodies before shoving that flesh down my throat. They choked me with streams of their blood, thick and vile and black, so black. They defiled me, a horde intent on one purpose and driven with mindless determination to that end. And always in those nightmares I could feel as the Change began, as the taint took hold, as my body began to alter itself into a monstrosity so abhorrent that even the Maker could not bear to look upon it.

In very short order I could not bear to relive the hellish dreams that were always the same. Sleep became an occurrence I avoided at all costs. My exhaustion quickly became apparent to everyone around me. I was irritable, emotional, incapable of clear thought. I was not the only one affected by the Fade—Blackwall, Dorian, and Varric all confessed to me the malevolent, lingering effects of our journey through it. But if any of them were experiencing what I was, they were keeping quiet. And what could I do? Confess to my companions that I feared I was going insane? Confess that the bearer of the Anchor, the leader of the Inquisition, spent her nights huddled before the hearth, wrapped in blankets and desperately attempting to stay awake?

In the end my secret was spilled for me. Cole, by virtue of his being a spirit, was able to sense my dreams. In truth he sensed a great deal more than that. My suffering drew him as ever it did, his inherent compassion driving him to be a balm to my wound. And so it was one night I was wrenched from the vice of another nightmare to find myself perched precariously on the balcony outside of my room, a hairsbreadth from plummeting to my death, Cole's hands on my waist as he frantically pulled me back.

I could hardly speak. What words left me were broken gibberish, convoluted by my terror and confusion. Cole spoke to me quietly, soothingly, begging me to remain awake while he went for help. I was trembling, numb, appalled by how close I'd come to inadvertently ending my own life. How long Cole was gone I don't know, but when he returned it was with Solas in tow.

I was where Cole had left me, collapsed in front of the fire. Solas had knelt swiftly before me, bidding me look at him. He was speaking to Cole, disbelieving anger coating his every word.

"You knew and you did not tell me?"

"She did not want you to know. She did not want anyone to know."

"She was suffering!"

"It was her suffering and she wanted to keep it that way. But it kept growing, wings unfurling, and now it won't let her go."

"You should have come to me, Cole!"

"It's my f-fault," I managed to stutter. "I t-thought it would pass."

Solas's expression was so severe that under any other circumstances I would have shrank away from him. "You've been most foolish, Inquisitor."

I ducked my head, unable to endure the reproach in his gaze. With three fingers beneath my chin he tilted my face upward again. He said, "Cole says you've been dreaming."

"They're not just dreams!" I clutched at his wrist, desperate, imploring him to understand. "Solas, these are more. And there is something else. It follows me when I'm awake. I see it always from the corner of my eye, in the shadows of a room. It never leaves me!"

"Ever since you returned from Adamant?"

"Yes!" He'd let his hand fall, extricating it from my grasp. I couldn't read his expression as he regarded me and I began to panic, worried that he was thinking the same thing I had been thinking for weeks. "I am not insane. I'm not imagining this!"

"I have seen it too," Cole chimed in unexpectedly. Both Solas and I looked at him in surprise. "Glimpses of it, at least. It looks like … like tiny, skittering things that run from the light."

Even as rattled as I was it was easy to see the thunderous fury gathering in Solas' eyes. "And you never thought to speak of it?"

"I thought—"

I interrupted Cole, giving voice to a question that had been lurking in the fringes of my mind for weeks, a question I'd been to afraid to give consideration to. "Am I possessed?"

Solas rocked back on his heels, studying me. He raised one hand toward me, palm out, as though attempting to sense something. Abruptly he checked his movement, as though a sudden, unpleasant thought had occurred to him. His expression became grimmer still.

"It could be a possibility," admitted after a long moment, "though it would be a highly improbable one. You are not a mage. You have no magical abilities to draw a demon's attention."

My left hand was resting in my lap. I turned it over, palm up, so that the Anchor was clearly visible. "But I do have this," I said.

"I had not thought—" Solas said, and then broke off, his eyes upon the mark I bore. "There is only one way to be certain if a demon has attached itself to you, Inquisitor. I must see your dreams."

"No. No! Solas, I cannot bear it again! Please," I begged him, my words shrill with dread, "you don't know what you're asking me."

His hands were on my shoulders, steadying me. "Inquisitor," he said in a low, even voice, "There is no other way for me to know. Whatever happens, I will be there with you. You won't be alone."

"I can be there, too," Cole chimed in.

"No, Cole. You said that when you came to help the Inquisitor tonight you found her prepared to leap from the balcony. I need you to remain here, to stop either of us if something like that should happen again."

Even knowing Solas would be there, the knowledge of what horrific desecration awaited me in the depths of the nightmare was enough to drive me to my feet, to pace an agitated line from the hearth to my bed and back again. "I will not be able to sleep again tonight," I said tersely.

"You will," Solas said at my back. "I can make it so."

I turned to face he and Cole both. Thinking of voluntarily plummeting back into that abyss made it hard for me to breathe, terror constricting my lungs in a relentless vise. The thought of living this way any longer, however, was terrible enough for me to relent.

"Very well," I said. My voice wavered badly. "But please, Solas … please don't let them take me again."

"I will keep you safe, Inquisitor," he replied softly, glancing at Cole. "We both will."

And so it was.

The dream had not altered itself. I stood again in the Deep Roads, cavernous and dark. I did not want to move, but I knew that even if I remained still the darkspawn would come for me eventually. They always found me, regardless of whether I ran or walked or hid.

"Inquisitor."

Solas' voice startled me; I'd forgotten, in the transition between awareness to sleep, that he would be here. He was standing beside me, clad in his adventuring gear, staff in hand.

"What will happen?" he asked me.

"Darkspawn."

"And then?"

I shook my head. How could I explain to him what I'd endured so many times now? The shame and the abject horror that had become so familiar to me, the absolute defilement and pollution of my body and soul?

"Inquisitor?" Solas approached me, laying a hand on my shoulder. He squeezed gently, a gesture meant to be comforting. But I could find no comfort here, not here, not when I knew what was imminent.

It took me more than one attempt to spit the words out, cloying and thick with loathing as they were. "They drag me away."

"And?"

"They feed me their flesh."

Solas inhaled sharply. "What else?"

But I shook my head again. I would not give voice to what else would be done to me. "You already know. Valta and Renn spoke of it."

When he spoke next, horrified disbelief had crept into his voice. "And you—you've endured this every night? For how long?"

I rubbed a hand over my eyes, eyes that felt gritty from exhaustion. "I don't know. It's been weeks."

"Inquisitor …"

The odd inflection in that one word prompted me to look at him. He looked stricken. "If you would have just come to me," he said softly, "I would have done anything I could to help you. Why didn't you?"

How could I reveal to him the reasons? How could I tell him that after the Fade, spurred by the malignant whispers that had dogged me there, I'd been so worried that I would fail the Inquisition that I felt I could no longer afford to show any sign of weakness? As he waited for my explanation, as I struggled to formulate a reply, a sound rose in the distance.

The darkspawn were coming.

Solas stepped forward, his staff held defensively out before him, assuming a stance I'd seen him take hundreds of times before combat. The sounds became louder: the furious pattering of footsteps, the clamor of armor and weapons, the guttural vocal discord of the darkspawn as they descended upon us in force.

I watched as they spilled forth from hidden caverns and cracks in the rock face. As always, they were many and as always, they were varied: genlock, hurlock, shriek. I watched as they filled the corridor, watched as they surged toward me—

watched as they halted when Solas stepped forward to confront them.

An eerie hush had fallen. I watched, astounded, as the horde that had savaged me night after night, fell back before Solas as he advanced first one step, and then another.

Despite every nerve in my body screaming at me to run away from the darkspawn, I moved closer. "How—?

"It is a dream, Inquisitor. It is your dream. Because I am a trespasser here, I am able to insert some influence."

I drew even with him, but jumped back when a hurlock at the vanguard fastened its foul gaze upon me, hunching its shoulders and lunging in my direction before jerking to a halt as though tethered by a leash.

"They will not hurt you," Solas reassured me. "I can hold them."

I crept forward again. "Is there—can you tell if there's a demon?

He did not answer me for several moments. "There is," he said eventually. His voice had changed, becoming notably tense.

"Where? I cannot see it."

There was another pause before he responded. "It is back there." He gestured with a thrust of his chin. "It is attempting to disguise itself."

He took a deep breath, and then another, as though preparing himself. Without warning he slammed his staff against the ground. I stumbled back as sudden flames erupted, a wall of fire horizontal to Solas and I that quickly moved forth. The confines of the Deep Roads were filled with the screams of dying darkspawn and the stench of burning flesh. With a deliberate tread Solas advanced, trailing the destruction of his arcane fire.

I saw it then, as the flames ravaged the last of the darkspawn that had gathered. It was a fear demon, hovering further down the stone corridor, well beyond the reach of the fire. Although it kept flickering in and out of my sight, I could recognize its shape, the six spider-like limbs attached to its back and the appendages that framed its head. It was not our first encounter with this type of demon, but something had to be different about it that it had been able to affect me the way it had.

Well ahead of me now, Solas began his attack. Every movement with his staff was precise, skilled, as he sent a barrage of fireballs hurtling toward the demon. His aim was true; a screech so loud it hurt my ears echoed throughout the cavern as the demon was forced to materialize. The creature floated nearer and the battle bean in earnest.

I had always been fascinated by magic users in combat. I envied them their skill, their ability to manipulate energy and elements in order to defend or assault. Solas worked his magic with an easy grace, a familiarity that made it clear he loved his craft. The demon lunged; Solas disappeared only to shape himself out of shadow several feet away. The demon sent a swarm of large spiders surging forth; Solas retaliated with another wave of fire. So intensely pitched was their struggle that I found myself creeping closer, entranced.

Solas suddenly looked in my direction. "Inquisitor!" he shouted.

I knew before I'd turned, knew as I felt their hands on my arms and my legs, their fingers twisting painfully into my hair. I was hoisted aloft among a horde of moving, writhing bodies, passed from one to another as they carried me back toward their lair.

Already they were preparing as they ran, ripping and slicing off pieces of their flesh, tearing at my clothing, howling their infernal triumph.

We had tried to alter the nightmare, but it would not be diverted from its path. I'd heard myself screaming this way before. I'd cried out like this as they cast me down. I'd pleaded and sobbed as I was pinned to the ground, as rough hands grabbed my jaw and forced it open, as they crowded around me, so eager in their purpose—

But the blinding light that filled the cave I'd never witnessed before, and as it spilled over me, harsh and unrelenting, the hands holding me fell away. Shrieks erupted all around me, dying darkspawn stumbling over my body, falling on top of me.

And then between one heartbeat and the next, it was over.

"You are awake, Inquisitor."

It was Solas' voice. My eyes fluttered open. I was cradled in his lap, staring up at his face. My hands were clenched in the fabric of his shirt. My throat felt raw and scorched as it always did after I awoke from the nightmare, made so by the screams I'd been unable to contain. I could feel the wetness on my face from tears, could feel too the lingering sensation of darkspawn fingers on my face, my neck—

The dam burst. I wept, knowing only shame and guilt because the Inquisitor had come undone.

"Cole." Solas said, a clear dismissal. It was several moments before he spoke again. "I am so sorry, Evelyn."

His words surprised me enough that my sobs receded somewhat. My bewildered gaze met his own to find that his gray eyes had darkened with remorse. "We should have realized—I should have realized. The lure of the Anchor is potent, particularly so to the denizens of the Fade. When you walked physically through it, you likely attracted the attention of a great many of them. When it became apparent that you would escape, one of the more powerful demons took drastic measures. It attached itself to you by merit of the energy the Anchor emitted, clinging to you as an eldritch shadow as you passed from the Fade to this world. Its intent was to feed off your fear by haunting your every moment, waking or dreaming. Your fear sustained it as blood sustains a parasite. Ultimately it would have driven you to kill yourself, as you almost did earlier, by manipulating you through waking nightmare."

I was still shaking and I knew he could feel it. I felt his fingers then, lightly grazing through my hair once, twice, a gesture meant to soothe. "I should have known the effect the Anchor would have in the Fade. Had I been there with you, I may have been able to sense what had happened. As it was, I knew you'd been changed by your trip through the Fade. I did not realize …"

I lifted a hand that quivered to wipe at the moisture on my face, trying not to recall everything I'd felt, night after night, in that dream. I knew the memory might fade with time, but it would always be there. It would never leave me.

"Inquisitor," Solas said quietly, "Why didn't you come to me?"

I moved, arranging myself into a sitting position beside him. His hand fell away. "I heard voices the entire time I was in the Fade," I explained. My voice was thick and watery, the aftermath of my crying. "They told me I was unfit to lead the Inquisition and that I would fail to defeat Corypheus and close the Breach. That I was too weak to fill this role. That I would disappoint everyone around me."

Solas understood immediately, his perception like that of no other. "And because nobody else seemed to be this badly influenced by the Fade, you worried that it was because you were somehow less than the rest of us."

To hear it that baldly made me realize just how stupid I'd been. It stung. "Yes." I said, and then to my dismay felt more tears welling up. I twisted my head away, trying to sniffle in silence and failing.

"Inquisitor," he said, with what sounded like fondness but surely couldn't be, "you're a fool. There's no better person to lead the Inquisition. You are a stronger woman than you realize."

"Then how do you explain what just happened?" I demanded, looking back at him.

"An unfortunate incident, stemming from sheer bad luck."

I was torn between laughing and crying even more. "W-What if its still there when I sleep? What if there are still darkspawn—"

"There aren't. This I promise you."

I took a deep, shuddering breath. "I am afraid to sleep."

"Come here."

He got to his feet and once standing, held his hand out to me. I gripped it, confused, and he pulled me to my feet. Still holding my hand he led me to the bed and gestured for me to sit on it. Releasing my hand, he sat down beside me, turning in my direction as he did so.

"Now. You will sleep, and I will watch over you. If anything happens, I can enter your dreams as easily as I did before."

I wanted him to remain—Maker, but I wanted him to. I wanted to know I had a guardian beside me should the nightmare come to me again, wanted to know I had a savior ready to pull me from that hell. But—this seemed like something an Inquisitor should not need. The expression on my face seemed to tell him as much.

"This doesn't make you weak, Evelyn."

"You're only saying that because you're in my bedchamber and I'm in my nightclothes."

My unexpected attempt at humor earned me a wry grin. "This is not the way I'd imagined it, but I suppose I will have to take what I can get."

I laughed. It felt good to do so; I hadn't had reason to for a long time. My smile faded and I held my hand out to him, intending to shake his in a gesture of gratitude. He surprised me by reaching for me, pulling me into a sure yet hesitant embrace, as though he was not accustomed to such displays of affection.

"It pains me to know you suffered so," he said, his breath ruffling strands of my hair. "You must promise me here and now that you will come to me if you are in distress, no matter the reason."

"I promise," I told him. I'd been rigid in his embrace, startled as I was, but I reached up with one hand and awkwardly patted his back. My own affection for him—clearly more developed and deeper than his was for me—was flooding back now that the threat of the nightmares was beginning to disperse. I could feel heat flooding my cheeks and so I began to pull away. He relinquished his hold and rearranged himself, settling into a sitting position against the headboard on the other side of the bed.

"Sleep, Inquisitor. You need it. I will remain here until you wake."

I laid down, turning onto my side with my back to him, feeling weariness drag at my eyelids. By some manner of miracle, my thoughts as I succumbed at long last to sleep weren't of the darkspawn, or the Deep Roads, or the demon that had leeched my life from me.

They were of the fact that I had felt, for the briefest of moments, Solas' lips press against my brow.

.x.