Author's note:

Disclaimer: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition and all related characters and trademarks are property of EA/Bioware. Rated M for language, violence and suggestive and explicit themes.

Changes were made to previous chapters regarding lyrium. Because in my AU adaptation lyrium isn't actually used to enhance magic but rather to fight it. Never understood how mages could use it to cast more spells or spells of more power and the templars use it as a means to gain resistance against magic.

So, to spell it out, in my story lyrium is anathema to magic.

Enjoy.

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The Sword's Edge Every Hero Treads Upon

Chapter X

Blood With Blood

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The hesitance of the ferryman and the shouts penetrating even the thick doors of the tower supported Alistair's queasy state of mind. Wrongness tinged the very air.

Like a slab of moving stone, emotionless to the distraught surrounding them, Ringil pushed open the twin set of wooden doors with a single push.

Templars in full plate armour turned at the creaking sound, lyrium-reinforced shields raised and blades drawn. Within a matter of a few heartbeats the templars nearest to the entrance banded together and expertly formed a wall of steel.

Alistair blinked at their reaction. That Ringil somehow managed to unsheathe his longsword faster than the templars' reaction didn't do anything to soothe the tense situation.

Both sides stared at each other, silently.

Clamour from deeper within the Circle of Magi and the shield wall parted. An elderly figure stepped to the front, pushing down raised weapons with both his arms. Alistair spotted the insignia on his armour, marking him as knight-commander. He carried himself well, albeit a bit hunched as if the weight of steel plates dragged his shoulders down.

'What is the meaning of this!' The knight-commander shouted, not even at the front of the templars' ranks. 'No one was supposed to be-'

He stopped dead in his tracks, stared at Ringil with a turmoil of unconcealed emotion. His skin turned the colour of dry parchment.

'I see,' he said, clipped. 'What do you want, freak?'

Alistair frowned, thoughts halting at how the knight-commander addressed Ringil.

Ringil disregarded the slight. 'We come to you in a time of great need, Knight-Commander Greagoir. The Blight ravages the lands of Ferelden and by the tithes signed after the First Blight I hereby demand the support of the magi and the templars.'

'You demand?'

'As is my right, knight-commander.'

Greagoir scoffed. 'Be that as it may, I fear you'll find no support for your cause here. The Circle has fallen to the machinations of maleficarum.' He gestured around. 'What you see here before you are all that survive of my men.'

At a hand sign of the knight-commander, the rallied templars dispersed and went back to their immediate duties. Their weary group stepped further into the foyer, a makeshift infirmary at the moment. Moans and pleas crowded the otherwise silent hall.

'So the Circle has been annulled?' Ringil asked.

Greagoir gave a tired laugh. 'Far from it. I am sure there are many blood mages still stalking these halls once filled with the faithful.'

'You haven't routed them?'

The knight-commander stared strangely at Ringil, grabbed his elbow and steered him into a quiet corner. Alistair followed hesitantly, feeling like an intruder. Ringil looked over at him, beckoned Alistair closer.

'Look around you,' Greagoir hissed, low. 'My men are dead on their feet. Without knowing what lingers beyond these doors I will not simply send them to their deaths.'

Ringil gazed around lazily. 'Is that not their duty, knight-commander?'

The knight-commander grew visibly agitated, let out a growl. Again, Ringil ignored his reaction. 'You are waiting for reinforcements from Denerim, yes?'

'Correct,' Greagoir pressed out between tight lips and bared teeth.

'How long till they arrive?'

'A few days. Maybe a week.'

Running his tongue over his teeth, Ringil slowly shook his head. 'Give me permission to enter, knight-commander. My companions and I shall purge every blood mage. In response the templars shall vow their allegiance to the Grey Wardens in the battles against the Darkspawn to come. You'll have no charges to look over, after all.'

Greagoir mulled it over. His sunken eyes darted around. With a dirtied hand he combed through his dishevelled hair.

'Maker fend,' he breathed. 'Very well. The templars will fight for the Wardens.'

'Good,' Ringil said, flatly. 'But I expect more than this sad bunch, knight-commander. You'd better be able to convince the Grand Cleric.'

Greagoir nodded tiredly. 'Now get out of my sight, Ringil.' With that he dismissed them and walked away, shoulders even more hunched than before.

Alistair up until now able to contain the pool of questions bubbling up in his mind, spoke up, 'You two know each other?'

Ringil gestured the rest of their group over. 'Yes. We met a few years back.'

Ringil, forthcoming as ever. Alistair decided to dig deeper. 'He called you, uh, freak.' Alistair rubbed his neck. 'Why?'

Ringil rested his flat gaze on Alistair. 'Greagoir never was fond of my presence.' And, there, in those inhumanly pale eyes Alistair found an answer that revealed more than words ever could.

Silver fountains, endless and absorbing, so cold, never disturbed by what they witnessed.

Leliana arrived at Alistair's side, touching his arm she peered up at him with concern. He placated her with a false smile.

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With a sense of finality, the door closed shut behind the group of five. The sickening stench of freshly spilled blood filled the air.

Ringil led the group through the empty hallways and rooms of the apprentice quarters, his unshipped longsword languidly held at his side. The hulking, copper-skinned frame of Sten just a step behind, hefting his massive broadsword. Morrigan, secluded from the rest of the group, sifted through the odd trinket lying around and occasionally drove her fingers over leather-bound tomes. Alistair and Leliana formed the rearguard but also to entertain a hushed conversation.

'We cannot stand for this, Alistair,' said Leliana, leaning towards him. Her scent wafted up and entered Alistair's nose. Everything seemed better right now than the coppery smell of blood used for dark rituals and dangerous incantations, even the scent of female sweat and the tang of oil Leliana used to keep her leathers supple.

'But if they turned to blood magic and let themselves be possessed by demons than there's nothing we can do, Leliana.'

'I will not believe that there isn't at least a single soul in here that did not.'

'What if you're wrong?'

Conviction oozed into her calm answer. 'I am not.'

'I hope so,' said Alistair.

All of them covered themselves in the solace of silence until they happened upon a group of ragged apprentices, sprawled on the floor, trying to catch their breath and regain their energy. A bony looking woman spotted them first. Alistair wasn't even sure if she'd any flesh underneath those clothes left, so sickly she looked, so old and weary.

The elderly enchanter whirled around, dimly glowing staff aimed towards them. Alistair recognised her from Ostagar. Wynne, one of the healer's cadre.

She spotted him in return, relaxed her stance. 'Alistair, what are you-'

Her head parted from her shoulders in a spurt of blood. Screams of terror echoed up onto the high ceiling and bounced back down, the youthful apprentices wailed their shock.

Ringil had crossed the distance in a heartbeat, his blade too fast to see.

The rest of them fell quickly underneath Ringil's mercilessly guided blade. Some of them barely adults, others children not older than nine summers, it didn't matter.

Alistair could only stare, as much in shock as the dead flapping out their last electrical pulses cursing through their nervous systems.

Leliana recovered quicker. 'What have you done! They clearly weren't possessed by demons.' She pointed, accusingly. 'They were children!'

Ringil wiped the blood off his blade with the hem of a magi's robe, the girl's throat opened, still gurgling.

'It matters not. Not any longer.'

'How can you say such a thing!'

Ringil went on, calmly, as if Leliana weren't screaming at him. 'Even the threat suffices for the templars to call for an annulment of the Circle.' He shrugged. 'Besides, there'll be too few mages left once this is finished – with or without our doing – and they'll be of no use to us against the Blight. The templars, however, are.'

Inhuman.

Freak.

Monster.

Abomination.

The whispers returned. Shared by his now fallen brothers and sisters whilst camped in Ostagar. Always silent, always behind his back.

But, now, they started to make sense.

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Isn't Ringil a nice, easy going guy? What else can you do but fall in love with him.

Thanks for reading!