Leliana

"Do not kill him!" Salem screamed the order, legible even amid the clanking of armor and the metallic shriek of drawn weapons. "This is the demon at work!"

I dropped my bow and pulled my daggers, better suited to fighting in close quarters. My entire body ached; Redcliffe held nothing but battle after battle. We'd fought our way up, through the dungeons, into the courtyard, only to enter the main hall and discover Bann Teagan prancing about like a mindless fool. The arlessa was a broken woman, helpless as her husband lay dying and her child…her poor child. When Jowan accused him, the boy's features changed, his voice altered to a chilling mezzo, and then the dead guards reanimated and Teagan drew his sword.

I ripped into the nearest corpse, shredding through the leather of his hauberk, through the decaying flesh, into the heart that the demon bore the power to reanimate. The stench was appalling and immediately reminded me of Val Royeaux. I froze as the body fell with a sickening squelch, watching the walls move closer. My breath solidified in my lungs, my joints locked in place; the din of battle became the screaming of the tortured before smearing to a single, defining cacophony of indeterminable torment.

A hulking soldier moved towards me, his sword aimed in a high arc. His helmet obscured his features, but I could sense the purposeless destruction driving him and his weapon. I parted my lips, attempting to cry for help. I could not move, not even to roll away. I could not breathe as memories flashed behind my eyes in nauseating recollection. Every scar staining my body lit with fire, a very real pain that sent me to my knees as the soldier's blade came down.

I readied myself to face the pain, the blood, the sharp cold of metal through flesh. Instead, I heard the sharp, biting tang of steel against steel and I lifted my eyes to see Salem standing before me, her twin blades held aloft, blocking the soldier's broadsword. She ripped her blades outward, throwing his sword backwards and offsetting his balance. In a movement as poetic and deadly as an eagle's wingbeat, she crossed her arms again, slicing the enemy's head from its body. Blackened, congealed blood spurted from the stump of his neck and he crumpled.

"Salem, behind you!" Morrigan shouted and the warden turned.

I heard the decisive twang of a crossbow string and saw Salem step to the side, not fast enough. The quarrel ripped along the outside of her right thigh, leaving a bloody weal in its wake. Her bitten back scream and the sight of her bleeding again burned through my paralysis. I got to my feet and faced the enemy, seeing the curvature of the crossbow he carried attached to his wrist. His blade flashed out and I stepped into the swing, evading the strike. I flipped my dagger in my hand and slammed the pommel into his temple, breaking flesh. Blood sheeted down his face, his sword clattered to the ground and I made to slash his throat when a strong hand wrapped around my wrist.

"It's Teagan." Salem's voice, harsh with exertion, whispered. "Leave him be."

Her words rang in the new quiet and I gazed around, seeing nothing but fallen corpses and my companions, splattered with gore but otherwise unharmed. Save for Salem. Save always for Salem.

She is bleeding for you again, pretty thing. Marjolaine's voice rang in my thoughts, taunting me. How long will it be before she remembers that her blood is far more precious and carries a much higher price? How long will it be before she tires of saving your pathetic self and lets your own weakness destroy you, glad to be rid of the burden?

Salem moved past me and grasped Teagan's unconscious body, hauling him away from the bodies strewn on the floor. She dragged him to the fireplace beside Isolde, who knelt down and began tending to the wound I inflicted.

"It seems the demon has calmed." Jowan mused. "But who knows how long this will last. We must act swiftly in order to destroy the demon."

"And what is it you suggest?" Morrigan asked, her tones acid and harsh.

"The simplest way is to…to kill the boy." Jowan admitted.

"No!" Isolde shrieked, her voice echoing across the stones, filled with a wretched pain. "No, you monster! You brought this evil upon us, but I will not let you take my child!"

"But…"

"No one will touch a hair on his head, Lady Isolde." Salem promised, her voice tempered, even. "I know next to nothing of magic, but even I know that there has to be another way."

The room fell silent once again, the situation a dire, living thing pressing in against us. I noticed that Salem leaned against the mantle above the fireplace, easing the weight on her wounded leg. I wondered what injury the bolt had done to her, but refrained from saying anything. Now was not the time for such worries, and perhaps my mind was not the place for them.

This is the second injury she has taken for you in less than the span of a day. You are going to get her killed, Leliana. If you cannot stay out of your own mind, you are going to get them all killed.

"If a mage were to go into the Fade," Jowan spoke up, "then…then it would be possible, in theory, to defeat the demon that has a hold on young Connor there. It would not harm him physically, but it would require…it would require a great deal of blood."

"What the fool is trying to say," Morrigan chimed, "is that the power required to send a mage into the Fade to confront this demon would cost a human life."

"Also no." Salem shook her head, defiant. "Find another way."

"Well, we could send to the Circle for a full group of mages and a cart full of lyrium." Jowan sneered, his tone condemning the very idea. "But in that time the city might be wiped out. The demon will not rest forever and when it wakes, the undead will come again, and are you willing to bear the stain of that on your conscience to preserve a few lives!?"

"When you are not a blood mage turned assassin, then we can speak about the stains on one's conscience." Salem hissed, her blue eyes sparking in the light of the fire, a deep fury that should have unsettled me as anger always did…but it was something that went beyond mere anger. Something deeper, something driven, something…purposeful. "Morrigan, keep watch on Jowan. If he so much as breathes in the wrong direction, I trust your discretion as to his punishment. Leliana, speak to Ser Perth, and find a way to get a message to the Circle. If they refuse, remind them of the debt they owe us. Isolde, care for Teagan, and get Wynne to find a way to keep him sedated. If the demon has any control over his mind, it is too dangerous to allow him to wake. Direct anything you may need from us to Alistair, and he will help you."

"What will you do?" I asked, at last breaking my silence.

"Jowan is right about one thing." Salem glared at the mage. "We do not know what the demon will do when it returns. I am going to find Connor and remain with him until we receive help from the Circle. If the demon returns, I will distract it so that the city and the people need not suffer."

"That is suicide!" Jowan scoffed. "You'll never survive! That boy has the power of a demon full, and you are no mage!"

"That matters little." Salem's voice darkened with words she did not say.

"It…it does!" Jowan argued. "If anyone should stand in that place, let it be me! I…I owe it to the boy."

Yes, please, Salem, listen to reason. Let the man seek his redemption in this way. And if…if he is killed, we have lost nothing. This is the strategy that makes the most sense.

"You do owe the boy, and his family." Salem nodded. "So spend your time helping where you are able. My mind is made up on this matter, and you will not change it."

"Why?" I demanded to know, wondering why she would throw herself into a fight that she could not possibly win. "Because you are determined to suffer every blow; because you are determined to break yourself before we even hear a word of the archdemon? Are you so determined to suffer?"

"No." Salem's eyes filled with grief as she looked at me, a profound sorrow, horrific in its endlessness and ferocity. "Because, if I am right, the demon plaguing this boy is one of desire."

"And there is nothing you desire?" Morrigan asked.

Salem pinched the bridge of her nose. "There is much I desire." She spoke, low. "But I also know that, everything I desire, I cannot have. All that I want is gone, and nothing can restore it. That is why I am going. Do as I have asked you, please."

Salem turned her back, preparing to find Connor and meet an abomination with nothing and no one at her side. Alone.

"It will take a day by boat, if the mages come!" Jowan shouted. "You cannot possibly hold out for that long. You will not win this!"

Salem looked back, but her eyes did not meet Jowan. Instead, she looked to me, offering that small half smile that I'd come to know quite well.

"I know." She murmured. "But I will not lose."

The door slammed behind her and I stood there, in shock.

What…what does that even mean?