The screams were hideous and continuous. They rose from the length of tenting hastily constructed after the Temple of Sacred Ashes exploded in a flash of green fire. Sinead ran where she was called as master alchemist Adan directed anyone with training and free hands to the most critical survivors. The burns were unlike anything she had encountered before – they still burned with power, and no cooling spell could put them out. One had to dispel the burns of the arcane magic before treating them, and to do that without succumbing to exhaustion took concentration.
There was little time to think, however. As the jagged rip in the veil that hovered over the temple grew, so did the burns on the survivors. Sinead moved from victim to victim, removing the strange, fade-touched energy as quickly as she could before moving on, letting another healer take over to treat the wounds. As fast as she and the other dispellers moved, the wounds of the injured moved in faster for the kill. More than two thirds of the victims passed over to the Beyond within a day.
Just as the last of the Conclave survivors were being treated, another wave of patients came down from the temple - Cullen's soldiers and Leliana's scouts, suffering all sorts of battle wounds.
"Andraste's tits, it's a war up there," one woman gasped as Sinead worked to close the lacerations scratched into her back and chest. "Demons are pouring out of these...splits in the veil. Like doors made in the side of a wall with an axe, they are. Three of 'em took out half of my squad before we could move to cut 'em down!"
Sinead was on her feet for two days, sleeping once in her cloak at the edge of a tent and eating whatever quick snack of bread or cheese or dried meat that a young cookboy handed to her on the run.
Finally the rush ended. A scout seeking aid for an arm nearly twisted off his torso claimed that a woman marked by Andraste herself had stopped the hole in the sky from growing. Sinead allowed the man to babble, assuming that shock had addled him. But then a unit of soldiers came carrying a stretcher down the mountain pass with a deep reverence. Sinead thought it was the body of the missing Divine, but the woman on the stretcher was clearly too young. And her left hand was glowing. She was sequestered from all but Adan, reluctant leader of the scrappy crew of healers that had been gathered at Haven by the Inquisition.
Two days later, Sinead was set to the task of ripping old clothes for medical rags with healer Edith, a slight young woman without a lick of magic but with gentle hands and an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs. She was good at her job, but Sinead could not help but find her perky demeanor grating.
"They're calling her the Herald of Andraste." Edith picked up a piece of old yellow plaid and gave it a firm tug, splitting it in two. "I heard from one of the burn victims that she saw the Herald come out of the fade, the glowing form of Andraste so bright behind her that she had to hide her eyes."
"If she hid her eyes, how did she see Andraste?" Sinead wound rags together in a neat roll. "I don't know, Edith. If Andraste was there, why didn't she send someone to keep the breach from being made in the first place?"
"Maybe she did! Maybe the Herald tried to stop…whatever happened, and just, ah." Edith paused.
"Failed?" Sinead shook her head. "Not much of a Herald then, if she needed Andraste to swoop in and save her during her first mission."
Edith tsked. "So cynical. Why wouldn't Andraste send someone to help us in our time of need? She has done so before."
Sinead tired of the debate. "Perhaps she has. There." She stacked their new rolls of rags in a small chest. "I think we're due dinner and sleep, don't you think?"
As they walked the muddy path from the medical tents to Haven's gate, a cry went up inside the town.
"The Herald awakens! She awakens!"
Edith shot a delighted look at Sinead and ran toward the gate. Sinead grumbled as she followed, her aching feet not appreciating the movement. A crowd had gathered outside the hut the woman called Herald was assigned. As Edith pushed to the front with Sinead following, the woman emerged. There was a ripple of whispers through the crowd, murmurs of "Herald." Sinead couldn't help but notice how bewildered the woman was. She walked forward a few steps, and the crowd split for her.
"She's Dalish," Edith breathed. "No one told me she was Dalish."
"An odd choice for a Herald," Sinead muttered.
The woman walked on, toward the Chantry, toward the leaders of the Inquisition who beckoned to her. The crowd followed. Sinead was still, letting the people stream around her, then pulled the hood to her cloak up and walked to the hut that she shared with three other women. Right now, she needed sleep far more than she needed Andraste or her supposed Herald.
She did not regret joining the Inquisition. Even in the first few months, when it was nothing but mud and tents and suspicious looks from soldiers and pitching in help for any duty, it felt marvelous to be out in the world again among trees and grass and rivers and lakes. And when the Inquisition took over Haven, rebuilding the old cultist village into a small outpost, she began to feel hope for the future. That hope grew when the Conclave was called, and mages and Templars from all corners of Thedas arrived to argue before the Divine.
But then the sky tore open. Rifts in the veil popped like seems in a worn shirt. And an unknown woman, a mage from a Free Marshes Dalish clan joined the inner circle of the Inquisition because she was the only one who could close the rifts, and she was called Herald. The whole thing made Sinead's head ache. Suddenly she realized how tired she was. How little time there was for reading, or really how little material the tiny village had to read. The Chantry had a small library, but it was made up of devotionals and copies of the Chant.
Edith was the only person who spoke to her beyond her daily duties (aside from the occasional respectful nod and small talk from Cullen). She did not mind this so much before the sky was sundered. Everyone's first questions were always "Where are you from?" or "I heard you saw Kirkwall's Circle fall. What was that like?" and the panic would come and take away her words. Her short, clipped answers never seemed to please them, and it was a relief when they labeled her surly and left her be. But now the old creep of loneliness filled her, and there wasn't enough to read to keep it at bay.
At first, when she had the time, she tried her hand at writing to chase away the solitude. "If I have nothing to read, then I'll make something instead," she muttered. She gathered up paper, an ink well, and a quill, and she sat in the back of the Singing Maiden and scribbled out whatever came to mind.
Unfortunately, she was terrible at fiction. Her writing was filled with long, dull descriptions of the inner workings of a fake world, clipped, choppy dialog that did not sound like what people actually said and plots that she could not figure out how to join together. And frustratingly, everyone sounded exactly the same. Reading over her drafts, she realized she was missing something about storytelling – some sort of essential ingredient. She was a reader, not a writer, someone who put together puzzles with text, not someone who created the puzzle pieces.
At first it hurt to know there was a skill she had no hope of learning, like when she realized that she had no eye for sketching or talent for gardening beyond pulling weeds. Then she felt ridiculous – she lived in a world where the sky was literally falling. Her lack of talent in one field was not something to mourn. So in order to regain a little sanity, she went back to her old expertise. She pulled out the book Norwin had given her long ago, cracked it open, and started making notes of her observations of the text, reading it as if it were the first time.
One evening in the Maiden, as she was pondering the connections between the story she was reading and an old Tevinter book on the origin of the world she had read while researching her thesis, a mid-aged elf pulled up a stool at her table. She had seen him around Haven, heard talk of him, though she forgot his name – a mage who helped the Herald understand her mark, assumed to be from a city due to his unmarked face, and completely bald. Not even a fringe around the skull as a reminder of what had once been. She found it unnerving, like someone who shared too much information about their upset stomach.
"Hello to you," the elf said, leaning his staff against the wall. "I'm Solas. I hope I'm not intruding on your studies, miss…"
"Sinead." She set down her quill and closed her book. "And no worries. I should probably eat my stew before it goes completely cold." She picked up a bowl at the far end of the table and stirred the mess within to break up the already congealing fat.
"I have seen you about the village. You're one of the healers?"
"If you have questions about the surgery, I'm not the one to ask, I'm afraid." She took a bite of stew. "Mother Giselle is lead healer now, and though she's still settling in –"
"I have no questions about the surgery. My question is of an academic nature." He picked up the book and flipped through its pages. "I've seen you carry around this book, and thought it nothing but a trifle. A copy of the Chant, perhaps, or an herbal – both common reading materials for a healer. But then I caught sight of this." He brushed his fingers over the embossed wolf on the cover. "This is no herbal, and it's certainly not the Chant of Light. I wouldn't expect a healer in training to be carrying such a treasure. Where did you find it?"
Sinead avoided the question. Norwin had become yet another name her tongue refused to say, and simply saying 'I took it from the Gallows's library' left too much that needed explanation. Instead she said, "You know First Enchanter Ovidius's Fifteen Dreams of Elvhenan? I thought most copies were long since forgotten or lost given its lack of academic appeal."
"You are not wrong. A copy of a copy of a translation of an old Tevinter vanity publication based on the dreams of an unnamed slave?" Solas turned the book around in his hands, smiling. "I can understand why it's been deemed too unimportant to save shelf space for. Tell me, do you believe the elven slave's dreams are based on actual old tales of the Elvhen?"
Sinead finished off her stew and shrugged. "I don't see why not. If you read closely, you can see how much they resemble Dalish tales in structure, though the stories of the gods are quite different." She thought for a moment. "The true question is whether he experienced true memories in the Fade, or if he simply told Ovidius old tales passed down to him as a child. If the latter, then it's a direct connection to the Elvhen. If the former, then the stories may not be 'true' in a historical sense, but they may be true in emotion."
"You forgot the third and fourth possibilities." Solas tapped the cover with a long finger. "That he made it all up to please his master. Or that Ovidius did to please his readers."
"I didn't forget. I didn't mention them," she said, waving a hand in dismissal, "because those possibilities are boring."
Solas let out a small, breathy laugh. He tapped the book again. "Are you interested in the Fade, Sinead? Of the knowledge one can gain from studying it?"
Sinead leaned back in surprise at the question. Not many mages she knew openly discussed the Fade as a place to study. She paused before answering. "I…know many people fear it, but I admit that I don't. I've been there lucidly a few times, and while the last visit ended poorly, for the most part I found it a fascinating place. Everything a reflection of reality, but more. The way the sky never settles, the way light seems to come from everywhere at once. It's beautiful, in its way."
"Then can I offer you an exchange?" He placed a hand on the book. "There is little to read in this village, and I would like something to distract myself during my waking, idle hours. When I sleep, there is no idleness, for I am a Dreamer. The Fade, for me, is a place to explore, a place of discovery. If you let me borrow your book, I'd be happy to share some of the things I've witnessed in the Fade."
Sinead's fear that Solas would ask to borrow her only means of diversion was instantly replaced by the anticipation of hearing tales of the Fade from a Dreamer. "Would you let me take notes?" she asked eagerly. "The Fade is so rarely explored by those in the Circle – that is, former Circle. It's considered the realm of demons. If I could take notes –"
"What will you do, publish a tract on Dreaming? Convince the Circle mages not to fear the unknown?" Solas cocked a brow. "Take notes if you wish, but I fear you'll gain nothing from it but your own enjoyment."
"That's good enough for me."
"Very well, then. The deal is set."
Solas took the book and the two began meeting a couple times a week at the tavern, Solas patiently answering Sinead's many questions on the Fade before launching into long, detailed stories of what he witnessed while Dreaming.
It had been only a few months since the woman called the Herald of Andraste joined their ranks, but the mood of the Inquisition had changed. Mother Giselle, acquired as an agent by the Herald, was a blessing after months of Adan's surly and reluctant leadership of the healers. She was kind, attentive, but also firm enough to demand space in the Chantry for the infirm. They no longer worked in tents, no longer had to worry about exposing the ill to the elements.
Supplies also became more regular. There was talk of the Herald's clearing up of the mess that was the Hinterlands, still mired in the remnants of the Templar/Mage War, of her seeking out bandits along the Storm Coast. She was also gaining interesting allies – a Grey Warden, one of the few who had not gone missing. Lady Vivienne, de facto leader of the Circle loyalists (Sinead made a point of avoiding her lest she catch the grand woman's attention and end up drawn into an interview she did not want). An elven woman with a terrible haircut (practically a girl, Sinead thought) who made the Singing Maiden her personal outpost and now and then received little notes from the stable boys and the kitchen girls. A qunari mercenary leader who did not have the demeanor of the qunari she had seen in Kirkwall. This one was overweight, drank heavily, and more than one of the healers, male and female, was seen leaving his tent at dawn.
Sinead found the whole experience strange, like she had become a member of a rowdy carnival. But it was not unpleasant – the different faces, the better food, the hope that people had, all of it held back her worst fears. Fears that the world was nearing its last days, that the Beyond waited for them all. And when the Herald recruited the rebel mages to the Inquisition, her fears were stifled completely. For all intents and purposes, the mage rebellion was finished and the mages had found a suitable victory.
Sinead searched the tents where the mages camped, looking for familiar faces – specifically, Avery's face. But she was nowhere to be found. She asked around, but no mage had heard of a healer by that name. Then again, the rebel mages treated her with a good degree of suspicion. If she was with the Inquisition so early, was she not a Chantry-loving loyalist?
Finally she gathered the courage to ask the Grand Enchanter herself, but Fiona was just as unhelpful. "There are many mages by that name," she said. "But I can't think of any that match that description. I am sorry. If I hear word of her, I promise to send it on to you, healer Sinead."
It was a time of celebration. Music, drink, singing, bonfires, dancing – the village was aflame with joy for the breach had been closed. The Herald had achieved the impossible. Sinead walked the village with a mug of strong mulled wine, winding through revelers as they pursued their most hedonistic desires – why hold back now that the world was safe from ruin? Her heart was glad, but she felt at a loss as to how to show it.
"Are you enjoying yourself, healer Sinead?" Solas walked up to her and kept her slow pace. "You look to be deep in thought when you should be joining the other young people." He waved to a group of young carousers flinging themselves around a bonfire erratically to the music of drum and lute and flute and reed.
"I would not mind dancing," she said, almost to herself. "But the only dance I know is a strange Orlesian court thing that Avery showed me. She said every young noble must learn it, and she always complained that she never had the chance to show her skill at a proper ball." She glanced to another bonfire, where people were singing old folksongs. "I suppose I could join a song," she said. "But that would mean singing in front of other people, and the very thought gives me jitters."
They passed a couple kissing heatedly between two huts. "There are other pastimes besides singing and dancing," Solas said archly.
Sinead laughed and blushed a deep red. "I – that is, I'm not –"
"Not a comment meant to fluster." Solas nodded to her as they reached the steps of the Chantry. "The young are meant to be young. Go be young tonight, healer, wherever that leads you." He left her, joining the Inquisition advisers.
She walked on, now determined to join the revelry. She stopped in front of the bonfire of dancers and took a breath.
The warning bell rang, a clangor that broke the happy mood. Music came to an abrupt halt, dancers broke apart, and songs petered out. "Look!" someone cried, pointing at the mountains. The winking, flickering flames of hundreds of torches blanketed the range. A cry went up, a call to arms. Fiona broke from the group of singers and bellowed for her mages. Any soldier who was not on duty ran for the gates to gather their gear. Everyone else ran for their huts, their stores, the Singing Maiden, the Chantry, anywhere with four solid walls.
Sinead was frozen, her mind spinning. It clicked in place after a moment, as people streamed around her: time to run again. A hand grabbed her arm.
"Sinead, to the Chantry!" Mother Gizelle turned her around. "We will soon be overrun by the injured. We need every hand!"
"We also need supplies," Sinead said quickly. "Adan has far more in storage than the Chantry. I'll be right back!" She shook loose of the Mother, ignoring her calls, and ran for the apothecary's hut. Halfway there she took a detour, wound around the tavern and into her hut. She grabbed her staff from where it was propped against the wall, then opened a small chest at the end of her bedroll and pulled out her pack, hugging it and sighing with relief. Then she realized her copy of Fifteen Dreams was not in the pack – Solas had not yet returned it.
"Maker damn it all," she said, throwing the pack over her shoulders, running from the hut and right into Edith. They tumbled to the ground, rolling over each other. Sinead pushed Edith off her. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard you tell Mother Gizelle you were getting more supplies," Edith said, her voice shaky. "I followed you, but then you didn't go to Adan's and – is that your pack? Did you run away from the holy Mother for your pack?"
The women looked to the mountain as a deep rumble echoed over the valley. An avalanche brought on by a trebuchet poured down the side of the mountain, smothering the torchlight.
"I have time to get my things and get supplies," Sinead said shortly, jumping to her feet and jogging toward the apothecary. "The army seems to have things under contr-" There was a roar. Sinead skidded to a halt, her breath stilled as a massive dragon swooped down just outside the village wall.
"We need to get the supplies! Now!"
She took off at a sprint, Edith following behind while loudly repeating lines from the Chant. The dragon rose and roared, spewing forth a burst of red that engulfed a nearby hut. Sinead threw a barrier around them both as the hut exploded, raining burning debris around them and catching a few more huts on fire. They stumbled over the rubble, Edith screaming over and over again. Sinead slapped her, took her hand and forced her to keep running. There was still screaming all around them, villagers trapped beneath the burning debris of their homes.
"There are people in the huts!" Edith screamed. "There are people!"
"I know," Sinead panted. "And Maker knows I'd help if I could." She slid to a halt in front of the apothecary.
"Why can't we help them?" Edith pulled away from her. "You saved your pack but you won't help save the people? Andraste's flames, the others are right. You are mad." She turned to run back for the burning huts.
Sinead yanked on her arm hard, turning her around. "I know the power of flames," she said angrily. "And I know how far my power can go. I could protect myself and pull one or two from such a fire, heal some of their burns so they could survive their injuries and run for the Chantry." She gave Edith a hard look. "But now I have to protect you."
Edith went pale, and Sinead immediately regretted her words. What she said was true, but it did not make it any less awful, and the girl did not need such a reprimand now. She threw open the door to the apothecary, which was still untouched by fire, and found Adan tossing goods into a chest.
"Damn it all, did they send no one but two thin-limbed girls?" the alchemist growled as he worked. "Useless!"
Sinead ignored him, picking up a canvas sack and sweeping potions into it. She handed it to the silent and pale Edith, and filled another sack.
"Leave the chest, Adan, we don't have the time." She took him by the sleeve. "There's a Maker damned dragon out there spitting fire."
"Leave me be girl." He shook her off. "I have a cart to pack. Get to the Chantry for Maker's sake!"
Sinead hesitated only a moment before nodding, gathering up the pack and pulling Edith from the hut.
"Oh, Maker, he's going to die," Edith whispered as Sinead pulled her into a run up the path. "He's going to die."
There was a screech, a high pitched squeal ahead of them that made Sinead's heart stop. She had heard that sound before, ran from it, was forced to fight the creatures that made it.
It can't be darkspawn. It's impossible.
She pulled Edith around the back of the last hut before the clearing in front of the Chantry, peeking around it at the yard where the Quartermaster's tents were set. Soldiers fought horrible creatures there, grey, armored creatures with giant red crystal growths growing out from their bodies and shining red veins branching over their skin. The Herald was there, her staff aglow with power as she fought alongside the soldiers.
"Maker, they are demons," Edith whimpered. "Abominations."
"No, they feel wrong," Sinead said, her stomach roiling. "Even abominations aren't so twisted."
One of the red things caught sight of them – an ugly, helmeted thing, hunched with spiked red crystals for arms. It broke from its comrades, running for them, shrieking and pointing an arm at them. Sinead increased the barrier and pushed Edith back with her as three long crystals shot past her, burying in the ground to her right.
"Maker save us please, please save us, please Maker," Edith repeated frantically as the thing closed in on them.
Sinead squared her stance, dropped the sack, raised her staff, building up her power as quickly as she could, staring down the thing. Its eyes were rabid. Just as it reached her, pulled back its arm to strike, just as she readied the fire to consume the thing, a young man appeared from nowhere in a flash of steel, old leathers, wide hat and lanky arms and legs. He ran, leaped, and plunged two daggers into the thing's back. It screamed and stumbled back as he wrapped his legs around its torso, pulled his daggers free, then jammed one in its neck and used the other to slice its throat open.
The creature fell, and the young man rolled free of its corpse, crouching with daggers held before him, ready to strike again if necessary. There was something about him, a glint around the edges that felt familiar to her.
He looked up at Sinead. "Run."
She did not need to be told twice. She picked up the sack, took Edith by the hand, and ran as fast and hard as she could for the Chantry door. The battle on the lawn was nearly finished, one or two of the creatures left. They ran into the Chantry followed by the last of the surviving villagers and soldiers. The doors slammed shut, and Mother Giselle left the side of the injured to greet them.
"That was a foolish thing to do," she said, eyeing Sinead's pack and staff. "If we survive, we will talk of this. Go now to the others. We have many injured."
Sinead nodded, dragging the whimpering Edith after her. Edith pulled her hand from Sinead's grasp and slapped her hand away. "Don't touch me!" she said, backing away from Sinead like she was a snake readying to strike. She took the sack of supplies roughly from Sinead and ran off to the other healers.
Mother Giselle frowned. "Tell me what happened."
Before she could reply, Cullen called out "Everyone, prepare to move! The Herald has agreed to serve as a diversion as we follow Chancellor Roderick to safety through the tunnels beneath the Chantry. We must not let her sacrifice be in vain!"
"Quickly." Mother Giselle took her arm and led her to the injured. "Heal as many injured legs as you can and heal as they walk. May the Maker protect us. This will be a long night."