Author's Note: I know I need to apologize for how long it took me to write this chapter. My life went haywire. It's too much to explain. I hope I can make up for it. Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 10

Fenris was furious. He'd stayed furious well into the first leg of my plan. Despite the gravity of what we were to face, he chose to stand behind me and glare me into oblivion. There was a constant crawl around my neck. Dorian had managed to meet with Felix and the news he brought back to the Gull and Lantern was dire. Felix had confirmed that Alexius had finally perfected the art of time magic. He'd managed to literally warp the fabric of time itself. In fact, Fiona invited the Herald in hopes of acquiring her aid, but Alexius altered everything to conscript the mages before the Herald could arrive. Fiona had no idea she'd been manipulated to that extent. The Magister had planned to invite the Herald to Redcliffe and eliminate her. It was fortunate that the Herald approached the Templars instead. We need to find a way to distract the Magister so that Dorian could destroy the amulet before he used it again. He could not be allowed to alter anything else, there was a reason such magic is forbidden; even in Tevinter.

Dorian said Alexius was toying with forces that would rip apart the very fabric of our reality.

Fenris, however, decided to remain angry throughout our meeting. He was not only angry at me for resorting to a strategy that made Anders infamous in history, but he was livid that I trusted Fiona after she'd torched Haven. No amount of logic would convince him; even when Fiona offered information of a secret entrance into Redcliffe Castle.

He strode ahead of me as we headed towards the hill up to the Castle. I let out a defeated breath and finally gave in. "Will you at least talk to me?"

"No," he retorted gruffly.

Fiona politely continued to walk ahead.

Blowing the front bangs off my forehead I wondered what I was getting into with this elf. "Will you then listen?"

"No."

Glaring at the offending girth of his shoulders as he strutted ahead, I took a faster stride to come beside him. "Aren't you being a tad unreasonable?"

"No."

I caught his arm before I could rethink my decision and he spun on me with a ferocity that froze me in my spot. His lyrium tattoos flared with light as he snarled low under his breath, nose almost level with mine. "Don't touch me!"

My mouth parted in surprise at the venom in his tone, as Fiona paused a distance ahead of us. Swallowing my sudden flash of fear, I was about to step away when I realized how idiotic this whole thing was. Huffing out a frustrated breath, I lifted my chin and crossed my arms, letting him stay in my personal space as I met his gaze. "Didn't seem much opposed to it in that shed back in Minrathous."

My deliberate jibe had its desired effect as he flinched and turned his eyes away, a flash of pink on his ears. "I…it was different. I wasn't…Bah!" Throwing up his hands he paced away from me before glaring at me down the line of his shoulders. "You confound me woman."

I raised an eyebrow. "You just figured this out now?"

"No." He grumbled and ran a hand through his silvery hair. "I only meant you shouldn't touch me when I am like this."

"Broody?"

"Perhaps." Rolling his eyes he walked back to stand before me and finally seemed to lose a bit of the anger. "This is not your fault. I am angry; yes, but not at you."

"At a dead man then?"

"No." I assumed it was Anders, but he shook his head, eyes downcast for a second. "At myself. I am disappointed that you managed to scheme behind my back."

"You were asleep!"

His eyes cut back to mine. "And you couldn't have awoken me?"

"You looked exhausted! It was just a few minutes and we were back before you were awake."

"And if something had happened to you while I was not there, what then?"

I frowned up at him, my arms falling away. "I'm afraid I'm confounded now. You realize who I am?"

"Yes!" His hands caught my forearms and he shook me for a second until I gasped. "It is who you are that I am concerned with Hawke. You are too important to lose."

A little breathless I stare up at him. "I can take care of myself."

"As you did in Kirkwall?"

"Precisely."

"And how many times were your mad quests attempted without backup?"

I opened my mouth then closed it. Several times. Until what he said finally seemed to sink in and the wind went out of my sails. "Take away my thunder, why don't you?" It was true. The seven years I had been in that city, I had always managed to find someone to fight beside me. Carver, Avaline, Varric, Anders, Fenris, Merril, Isabella, Sebastian. Even at night when I merely walked the streets after a big meal my trusted mabari had stayed by my side. Poor Kang. He was stuck in my old house with Gamlin and my cousin Charade.

"You will not do any fool thing without me again Hawke, do you understand?"

Taking a deep breath, I softened in his hold and nodded, hands resting against his armor chest plate. "Yes. I do."

Mouth tilting up at the corners, Fenris seemed to lose all of his anger as his hands rubbed gently against my arms before setting me back on my own feet. "Good." With a node and a smirk he turned back to Fiona. "Lead on mage."

"Just to be clear. So you will also stand vigil if I need to bathe?"

Fenris stumbled but did not turn back as he grumbled about forward women.

Snickering I followed him up to the gates of Castle Redcliffe.

Everything had turned inside out. The plan had gone swimmingly up until Dorian had tried to take the amulet from Alexius. Everything had gone wrong after that. The explosions had been bigger than I expected. Fenris would gloat once all of this was over. The ingredients had probably been a little off. Anders' legacy had sunk half the main hall into the dungeons along with most of us. There was dust and splinters everywhere. But the void that sucked me into oblivion was a horror I would remember for life.

The last of the guards collapsed into the flooded chamber and I lowered my staff. "What in the Maker's name was that! I thought the rifts sprout demons not Venatori!"

Dorian was leaning in the end of his own staff, his breath a tad unsteady. He had tried to counter Alexius' magic amulet and I could tell the rebuff had taken the wind out of him. "As did I." Looking around, he took a deep breath. "This is bad."

"Oh you don't say?" I squinted up into the gaping hole we'd fallen into and wondered why Fenris hadn't just jumped down after me. I would have expected that of him. I would have yelled at him for being reckless, but I would have expected it. A part of me was disappointed that he didn't, but another was glad that I wouldn't have to tend to his broken bones if he had fallen wrong. "How far exactly did we fall?"

"I don't think it is a matter of how, but when."

My head snapped back to stare at him. "You don't mean…"

"I'm afraid the rift has carried us through time. Judging by the presence and well-being of the Venatori guards and the great big crater you created, I'd say we are somewhere in the future."

Cackling madly, I secured my staff on my back and grinned. "Hilarious. Now tell me what you really think?" When Dorian merely held my gaze, I groaned. "Balls."

"For once, I agree. But first, we should find a way out of here. " Bending down he began to search the fallen Venatori guards. "Aha!" Lifting up a rusty old key, he grinned. "Let's see what mischief Alexius has managed to brew in our future."

A shudder went through me as the worst case scenario began to play in my head. But it couldn't be that bad. The Inquisition was still out there. Dorian, Fenris and I missing from the timeline couldn't have altered much – could it?

As we headed up a flight of stairs to a larger room and more guards, we realized just how much had changed. We found Lysas in one of the cells. His delirium and the red light in his veins set the mood for what was to come.

Slowly and steadily we found them all.

Varric was the first.

"Hawke?"

I'd nearly fallen to my knees when I saw him. I struck down the chains bound to his arms and feet and wrapped my arms around him. "No," whispering into his soiled chest, I held him tightly, the red light of the tainted lyrium scratched across his skin. "You were not supposed to be here! Why!" I yelled as I shoved myself away from him. "WHY are you here?"

With a half chuckle, half groan the dwarf rose and flexed his wrists. "As always, you can blame me."

Shaking my head, eyes cloudy with unshed tears I socked his shoulder lightly. "You came to look for me."

"You brought the Inquisition!?" Dorian exclaimed.

Varric sighed and shook his head. "None of it mattered. Alexius has magic we cannot counter."

"Time magic, I know!" Dorian snapped and began to pace. "My worst nightmare is now my reality. I couldn't stop him."

"Hey," I placed both hands on Dorian's shoulders and ducked down to look at him. "It is not your fault. Dorian, look at me." Touching his chin, I lifted his face to meet his stormy obsidian eyes. "You did not do this."

"Corypheus took us by surprise," Varric began, his voice cracking now and then as the red lyrium pulsed in his skin. "Everything was so absurd. He knew all our moves before we made them. He had people infiltrating our ranks before we were aware. Nothing could stand in his way once he killed Empress Celene. Not even the Inquisitor."

"The Orlesian monarch?" I frowned. "Why is her death important?"

"He had Tevinter in his sleeve and the Celene's kingdom under his thumb, eventually Fereldan fell as well. Death is all that was left. Look at me."

"Bite your tongue Varric, you're not dead yet. Not if I have something to say about it."

"That's sweet Hawke, but red lyrium makes death look good. I manage to look good in everything."

I sighed and ran a weary hand through my hair. "I'm going to regret asking this. Who else is down here?"

"I can't really say." Varric winced and stepped after us as we exited the dungeon. "I have heard screams that were…sometimes…familiar. But to be honest, I can't really tell if isn't just the damned red stuff messing with my head."

As my face contorted with pain imagining my friends in various states of torture, Dorian grabbed my arm. "Do not go there Hawke. We can fix this! We need to find a way to Alexius and I will find a way to send us back."

"You couldn't counter it before."

"This time I don't plan to counter it, I plan to wield it." I shot him a worried glance and he squeezed my hand. "I also plan to destroy that thing once we return."

Taking a deep breath, I silently put my mind to the present and crossed the drawbridge to find our way up into the castle itself. But before the final stairwell, we found Fiona.

The horror of all that would come to pass struck us with the force of the tableau she painted. In the cell, she stood half molded and mutated into a growing vine of red lyrium crystal. The largest slab seemed to have grown right out of her torso and held her immobile facing the wall. She could barely turn her head as she stared at us in surprise.

"You, live?"

Responding to her raspy voice, I reached through the bars and caught her hand as Varric went to work on the lock. "How…what happened?"

"It's the red lyrium," she grated out with effort. "It consumes you as you come into contact with it, until you become…this. Then they mine it for more."

"Barbarians!"

Dorian stepped forward. "Can you tell us what date it is? It is very important."

"Harvestmere. 9.42 Dragon."

"A year!" I stared at her in horror. "A year did this!"

Varric stood away from where he'd been examining the red crystal growing out of Fiona. "I can't even begin to wonder where to start separating her."

"You must leave me here." Fiona groaned as another wave of red grew out of her shoulder. My gut twisted when I realized what horrors Fenris must be going through. The mere thought of how I would find him sent my mind spiraling into panic I could barely hold at bay. "You must stop Corypheus." Fiona implored weakly. "He has become more powerful than the maker. Nothing can stop him now."

"If I find the amulet, I can use it to open a rift that could send us back before any of this could happen."

"Good," Fiona offered Dorian a smile. "Then there is hope."

"I said maybe." The Tevinter mage crossed his arms and huffed. "I could also turn us into paste."

"I'd rather not be paste," I wrinkled my nose.

"Yeah," Varric grinned. "Paste isn't really my color."

"Your spymaster is here," Fiona informed Varric.

I looked up startled. "Who?"

"The Nightingale is here?" Varric stepped up excitedly. "That's great! Leliana was the Inquisitions spymaster! The woman is scary with how she knows everything there is to know about everything. She would know where Bianca is."

It didn't feel right leaving Fiona, but I had no choice. All I could offer her was a promise that I would fix this. I had no idea if that were even possible. The building dread in my gut was slowly cutting off my reason and logic. It was hard to keep my mind on the goal when red lyrium seemed to be growing out of walls and people. Because eventually we found them all. The mage Solas, the Qunari, the elf girl, the grey warden, Cullen, Cassandra – everyone infected with red lyrium.

Everyone except Fenris.

A scream made us pause. "Oh no," Varric went pale.

"Leliana?" I ventured a guess as we turned the corner and sprinted towards the direction the voice came from.

"In all the years I've known her, she has never screamed with pain. Never!"

We went up a flight of steps as another rougher voice came through the walls. "The Maker is dead. Say it!"

The door opened under Dorian's stonefist and we rushed in to see a Venatori zealot choking in the death-grip of a bruised and battered woman. As far as introductions went, I had respect for the woman who fell to her feet after being released despite the many arrays of torture she had survived. The room was littered with bloodied tools and signs of obvious intent. They were still trying to get information out of her. A year later! I had serious respect now.

But Leliana wasn't in the mood for talking. She asked if we had weapons then told us where we would find Alexius. As she handed Varric his precious Bianca after we raided the guard room, I asked the one question I didn't want an answer to. "Have you seen an elf; with white hair?"

The cloaked rogue frowned as she secured the bow on her back. "An elf?"

"He has markings on him, like tattoos, but not."

A light seemed to spark in her eyes before she shrugged. "Not really."

I narrowed my gaze at her a slow fire beginning to burn in my fist. "You're lying."

"Hawke, this is not the time," Dorian pleaded.

"Tell me where he is."

Leliana seemed to bristle at my command then met my eyes resolutely. "Perhaps it's better, I show you." She started along a metal walkway. "Alexius will be in his chambers. We need to go now while he is unaware of our presence."

My dread finally exploded in full-blown terror. Varric and Dorian spoke to me; they bantered and tried to lighten the mood. Even Leliana spoke a few words, but my mind was in chaos. I only needed to climb the steps faster as we opened a gate to enter into the castle proper. Everything was red. With blood and tainted lyrium.

I realized just how accurate that was when we entered the throne room.

Because, while it was true, we had taken Magister Alexius Gereon by surprise, the reason for Leliana's silence took the very breath from my lungs.

"Shall I rip out their hearts for you Master?"

Beside his throne on his knees and collared was the red glowing form of Fenris.

To be Continued…