Chapter 20

Another nightmare

Sorry guys, another Hawke memory chapter! Hope this is not too annoying and you're enjoying reading them. I'll have the Hawke memory chapters closed off very soon!I hope you're all enjoying this, I've been having some writer's block recently and my beta Enchantm3nt has as always been helping me out! (Also, you should check out some of her stories because they're amazing!I value all of your opinions so please, any ideas for act two please let me know! If it works I'll of course fit it in!

Thank you for your reviews, follows and favourites!

X

I close my eyes as Olivia brushes my hair, ridding it of the grime that has coated it for the past few days. For a moment, I can almost pretend that I am back with Mother and she is brushing my hair like she usually did every evening. She would have a fit if she saw it in its current state; she adores my hair more than she adores me.

Olivia is a blood mage; I can smell her power as it rolls off of her in waves as she brushes my hair silently. Each mage has a different taste of power and it is how other mages can sense their kin. I ache for the days where I could smell my father's metallic aura; I miss him now more than ever. It is my fault. I know it's my fault he's dead. He should not have tried bartering with them or hoodwinking them or whatever it is that he had done; the Templar wasn't very specific on what happened whilst he defiled my body.

Olivia stops brushing my hair and the room goes silent and my stomach swirls waiting for whatever hell that I am to be introduced to. Silence is a limbo where I stay in between torture and being left alone. The silence makes me on edge, like a dagger on its point; ready to fall.

"You know, if they even tried to do to me what they have done to you I would have burnt them all," she spits, moving herself to my view and looking at me with intense cruel eyes. It feels as if she is scanning me, looking into my soul and assessing my very being.

She waits for a reply, but I've forgotten how to talk. I don't know what to do.

"You have a very wild aura about you, yet you sit here weak and caged. I was like you once, and then I saw the world and the plight of the demons," she says, a serious tone taking hold of her.

I say nothing, for I have forgotten how to care.

I wonder if my family have stopped looking for me. Have they even realised that I am not coming back? I remember before I left for a walk hours before, mother and I argued and I told her I was going to find the Dalish where I felt as if I had a family. Would she believe me? Would Carver and Bethany hate me? Would I live long enough to tell them how sorry I was?

The door opens, and Derek enters the small office and sits himself next to the desk. He stares at me for a moment and nods his head to Olivia, obviously signalling that she should leave. I am stuck in limbo once again, and my body becomes as stiff as a wooden coffin as he stares at me.

"You look much better now, Aria," he says, a smile shining on his face as he looks at me like I'm a shining jewel in his collection.

I don't say anything, but he doesn't seem too bothered. He almost seems excited, giddy in fact like a young child waiting for their name day. It makes my stomach twist in anticipation. I know what ever is to come will most likely be just as bad as what I have just had to endure before his arrival.

"Have you ever heard of Golems before, Aria?" he asks me, it is completely random to say the least. Here I am sat waiting for whatever pain is to come next and remembering every sordid detail of what my body has gone through the past few days and the man wishes to know if I have ever heard of the stone warriors created by the dwarves.

"Y-yes," I stammer out, for my body and my mind are now two separate beings, where my mind is overthinking my body is slowly trudging along, battered and bruised and broken in such a way that I know that another man will never be able to touch such dirt.

"Well, the golems are made to serve by means of a control rod, they are still alive and were once dwarven kin but they have become immortal; they will live forever because of the stone," he continues, and I sense he is not quite at the point he wants to discuss with me, so I do not reply.

"Do you know why we brought you here?" he asks, looking at me from the desk, his cold molten grey eyes bright and menacing as he looks at me.

I shake my head, my voice is gone. I can almost feel the tension, the calm before the storm thrumming in the office. I want to leave; why can this not just be some disgusting vile dream? Why can I not wake up in my bed, with my dignity and virginity still intact? Why can I not wake up to the smell of my father's steaming hot coffee and warm bread with honey?

"For years, apostates like you have become an issue; Olivia is an excellent example of this. She is not under control or monitored and thus has resorted to feed from the breast of a demon. I hope you haven't become too attached to her, I'm afraid she will be most likely dead by now. A shame, she was quite beautiful, not like yourself but in her way. I must admit her rebellious spirit was quite attractive, but order must be kept…" he starts to ramble, and he knows he has and stops for a moment and looks at me with a warm encouraging smile.

"In an ideal world, Aria, where do you see the mages fitting into it?"

His question makes me falter from my fear for a moment, and I think of the question. In an ideal world there would be no such thing as demons.

"I-I would hope there would one day be a world with no-no demons," I reply, my voice shaking as I try my best to speak.

He looks at me politely, as if we are merely chatting upon the quality of the decorating in the room, but his voice is grave as he continues, "there will never be a world without demons, nor a world without mages like Olivia who would abuse their power and yet I find myself admiring your kind; Olivia practically destroyed Eric in a heartbeat. Eric, who has served the Maker since he was a boy and is one of the most experienced Templars in Thedas, and that is where we finally settle onto you," he says, his warm smile growing wider as he reaches for the teapot on the desk and pours tea into two cups. I do not know how to act around this man, for he contradicts himself at every turn. His smile is warm and inviting but his eyes are molten steel that is frozen and yet burning at the same time.

"Are you going to kill me?" I ask, wishing he would just get it over with.

"On the contrary, I am going to make you more alive than you've ever been! I was in the order for many years, my dear Aria. And every time I saw a mage rebel, I saw more and more of my comrades fall all to take down a single mage. I remember one lad, a young apprentice who had been in the tower all his life and had successfully escaped five times without any of us even noticing!" he chortles, looking at me with good humour, "it's why I admire you, because for everything that we Templars were gifted with, it seems you were gifted with something better."

He takes a sip from his tea cup whilst offering me a drink also; I take the cup and take a deep swig of the warm drink, letting it soothe my burning throat.

"After seeing the capabilities that your kin could do when they truly put their mind to it, I thought of a revolutionary theory: how would an apostate fair against their own kind? How would they fair against a soldier that was trained in every possible arcane art? A mage hunter that was too, a mage!" he jeers triumphantly, almost as if he impresses himself more than me.

Vomit comes rocketing up my throat at his words, and I feel myself ready to vomit my tea straight at him. What sort of a man would even suggest such a thing, and more to the point not even a lowly blood mage would hunt his own kind! I can feel a fog in my mind, the pieces are there…

Golems are made to serve by means of a control rod, they are still alive!

I can't help it now; the vomit comes up and splatters on the floor. I will not become a slave, not to no one I would rather lose myself to the demons instead. I am sick and I am tired, all it would take is just a simple yes, a simple yes and it would all go away.

He does not even seem shocked that I have thrown up all over the floor; he looks at me pleasant as ever, completely indifferent about the sea of vomit that is slowly spreading around the room and the disgusting scent that is accompanying it.

"Imagine it, Aria, you would be beautiful. You would be trained in every art of magic, your mind free unless you proved yourself to be unfaithful to your cause, you would save thousands of lives from your kind who upset the balance," he says, passion burning in his voice.

"I will not become your pet, you sicken me," I spit, hatred boiling my words and giving me the confidence to deny them what they so desperately want. I will not be dominated no longer; all it would take is a simple yes…

"It is too late to argue," he states simply, a smile on his lips.

"I would rather succumb to a demon!" I try to shout, but my voice is not even slightly threatening, it is more of whine than anything else.

"Your tea has been spiked, Aria," he says and just as he says it, my body slumps to the ground with a loud thud, and I cannot move a single part of me apart from my eyes. I look up at him as he peers over me, my vision blurry yet his smile so bold I can see it through my impaired vision.

The darkness encumbers me, until I know nothing more.