"Welcome back to the Imperium," said Dorian grandly, flinging his arms open in the manner of a dinner host greeting his most valuable guests. And that was true, because in the Imperium, a man's greatest enemies were always the guests he cherished most highly.
Solas's eyes snapped up, violet and feral, and Dorian felt the Fade wrap around him like a cloak that was too tight. He smiled, lazily, and sliced through the pressure with a flicker of earthen magic.
"I'm glad to see you. You left in such a hurry, we had no chance to make our farewells," he continued.
Sera smacked him with her bow, hard enough that his teeth rattled. "Oi. Sky tear, dragon, Qunari, bunch of soldiers ready to stomp us. Ring a bell? Stop the noble crap and get him out of whatever this is," she said. She gestured at the ground, where Fenris and Solas were both still struggling to move. "He's shit at most things but this green glowiness is right up his street."
Solas growled, deep in his throat, and she snorted. "Andraste's ass. I was kidding, you tit. About the being shit thing, not about you helping."
Bull crossed his arms. "I think he's helped plenty already. Full of help, this guy."
"Ugh. There's some other stuff going on here, isn't there?" asked Sera. "Some big boots stupid shit. You people are worse than Orlais."
"Magister," said Fenris, ignoring her. He shook his head. "Dorian. Release us. The Qunari invasion force is massing. Their vanguard is here to destroy whatever remains of the armies, and then they'll destroy Tevinter. Our people. We need to rally them to a common cause."
"If only we had a council of powerful mages to defend our land," said Dorian. "That would certainly be of use right now."
Fenris nodded wearily. "Yes. But we do not. Should we speak of all of the other things we do not have? One of them is time," he said. "For our shared future. Please. The Inquisitor can -"
"Maxwell is dead," said Dorian, and it cost him his heart to say it so smoothly.
Fenris stopped, newly wary, and Dorian spared him only a glance before looking back to Solas. Solas, who was angry and wild, but not surprised. Not sorry. Not anything, anymore.
"He's dead because of you," said Dorian. The rage boiled deep inside of him, bloody and Tevene, and he knew exactly how he would be Archon. "The armies are here, because of you. The Qunari are here, because of you. The demons are coming, because of you. The world is ending, because of you!"
He tightened his grip on his magic and sent a new wave of a pain. Fenris howled, but Solas flung out his hand in a wide circle, slapping it away with the Fade.
"Not ending," said Solas. "Being born."
"For whom, exactly?"
"My people."
Sera snorted and nocked an arrow. "I'm not one of 'your people'. I don't want any of this shit."
Solas shrugged. "No. You are not."
Dorian should have been surprised at the fire that rose to Solas's hands, tinged with lightning and leading ice. He should have been shocked that pacifist, bookish Solas would strike without warning like a hunter at a halla. But the new part of him that lurked, waiting, had no capacity for surprise, and the earth rose in a wave to block the killing blow.
Sera flew back, stunned but alive, as the earth continued to pulse beneath her. Bull shouted, a battle cry that attracted the attention of the Qunari phalanx. Their heads swiveled into the sound, scenting, and Bull froze under their considering stare. Cullen carried out something martial at the top of the hill, some grand negotiation, but the movements broke apart into screams when they saw the earth roiling, and Dorian was powerless to stop it.
The Fade pressed into the sky above them, groaning louder, and the world was still a sickly green.
"It's unraveling," said Solas, unperturbed. "Your alliances. Your friends. How easy it is to turn them against one another. To sow fear. You've built such a fragile world, you mortals. The Inquisition was the strongest united front since the time of Arlathan, and still it falls so easily. In a world without gods, you cannot help but fall. I failed to understand your lack, all those years ago. A mistake I will rectify, this time."
Another crackle of power, another clash between them, and Solas laughed. It was the low laugh of a predator, and Dorian wondered how long they'd been sleeping with the wolf at the door. "Leliana's dreams of the Maker, so quickly formed. She wants her god, more than she wants you. Your Black Divine, desiring the power of having His voice, and I gave it. The Qunari, so desperate to see their gods again. I found their dreams as well. Your father…"
Dorian lashed out again, and Solas broke off. Bull hadn't moved, but he said in a loud voice, "The Qunari don't have gods. We have the Qun."
"And what has the outcome been of this new method? Has your world provided the clarity you desired?" asked Solas. When Bull fell silent, he nodded. "The Kossith were more necessary than your ancestors realized, my friend. The Arishoks came here on their promise, the dreams of the wise women persuading them, and it was simple for me to bestow."
"You manipulated their dreams?" asked Fenris. "Took on different forms within them? I thought only demons could do such things."
His voice was easy and interested, but Dorian felt his sharpened consideration. A flame of suspicion. The spark he needed. Fenris was Tevinter, and that made him his. Dorian slid rage into the elf's dangerous silence, feeding the fire, and prayed Solas wouldn't notice.
He needed have worried. The floor was taken, the master giving instruction, and Solas's arrogance flowed around him like a cape. "I am Fen'Harel. I am the Fade. I created a world, long ago. A shape is nothing for me."
The fire leapt and caught as Fenris breathed.
Dorian needed a distraction. He thought to Razikale, commanding her aid, but she didn't answer from her lazy patterns in the sky. So he asked a question, instead, an opening that Solas would be smart enough, and foolish enough, to take. "And Maxwell's dreams? Did you manipulate them?"
Solas turned away from Fenris and smiled. The wolf circled and jumped. "His dreams were only ever of you. There's no need to trick such foolish prey. They sacrifice themselves."
He'd been prepared for it, had seen the strike coming, but some defenses could never be built, and Dorian's rage crumbled into grief. At the same instant Solas's power found him again, another tightening noose around his throat, and Dorian clawed at it with a shaking mind.
"You cannot stand against me, Dorian," said Solas. His voice was almost kind. "You have great mastery over your magic, and it does you credit. Many of your kind have burned up before they learned half so much. It's impressive, truly, but I've been alive for centuries. I fought against your greatest magisters, in the war long ago. The earth cannot touch me, not with my own magic pouring down to meet me. And I will not tire. You will. Let us end this."
Dorian shook his head, fighting away the blackness, wishing for Maxwell's steady presence to bolster him once more. He closed his eyes and willed the memories to return.
"You can live," said Solas. "You would be valued. My people need your strength, for all you are human. I would reward you for what you've done. There will be other men, those who desire you. I watched your dreams as well. They could be satisfied by another."
"I love him," said Dorian, choked and broken. "There are no others."
Solas shook his head, but before he could reply Fenris spoke. "Hawke."
Dorian's eyes flew open, and Fenris was glowing. Every line spilled Fade fire, branding his vision with painful light.
Solas turned impatiently. "Yes, Hawke will arrive soon. The Fade is not yet open."
Fenris nodded. "Hawke. In my dreams," he said. He looked up at Dorian, and the grief in his eyes was almost enough to balance the madness of his fury. Like falling into the nightmare of the Fade, where there was nothing but desolate loss and the end of all hope.
It was a relief when Fenris turned back to Solas. "He really is dead."
The two elves stared at each other, Solas in dawning horror, Fenris with deadly temper. Before Solas could say another word or spin another lie, Dorian released his circle of power, freeing them both to move.
And Fenris reached into Solas's chest and crushed his heart.
Two sounds rose above the chaos, and they silenced everything. The soldiers stopped shouting, the earth settled into place, and even the torn sky stopped to watch. Dorian touched his throat, breathed the blessedly cool air and tried to make sense of it all.
Razikale's roar, triumphant and proud, echoed across the battlefield. The Qunari answered it, shouting in one voice, and Dorian saw Bull sink to his knees. He had no sense of his feelings - Bull was not Tevinter - but it was oddly terrifying to watch so much strength collapse in on itself. When the dragon wheeled around and made for them, Bull flinched back, made himself small, and Dorian stepped forward, ready to help.
But the second noise stopped him, as Cole screamed in agony over the hills. Another creature without fear, who weakness never seemed to touch, but the cries from his throat were devastating anguish, the voice for everything Dorian still felt buried under the weight of his duty. Like an endless sea of acid dragging across the soul, and Dorian considered what it would be like to have no human filter against that pain. To have no way to push it down inside himself until the lie that it wasn't there became almost truth.
Compassion had an amulet that kept him safe from malignant manipulation. Dorian wondered if it worked against himself.
When the slight figure appeared above them, staring down at the scene, there were knives in his hands. Cole held them like extensions of himself, and he swept his hat off with a blade that danced inches from his ear. The spirit had never cut an ally in battle. But his eyes now were hooded, unreadable, and Dorian considered that perhaps they were no longer allies.
Like rabbits stunned into motionless terror by the gaze of a hawk, no one moved. Maxwell would have turned them all into compatriots again as easily as breathing, with whatever magic he'd held. But he was gone, so eventually Dorian stepped forward, and lifted his arms, and said, "Cole."
That was enough to shatter things. Cole broke into a run towards him, jerky and frantic, and Sera lifted her bow.
"No," said Dorian, with as much command as he could summon, and to his mild surprise she obeyed.
And then Cole was close enough to see clearly, and the streaming tears on his face broke what little heart Dorian had left. Rivers of aching, wells of sorrows, seas of misery. Dorian knew he would gladly accept death to ease them. After all, Cole had saved his life just long enough to give Dorian joy. It would be a worthy sacrifice to save him now.
Metal flashed in Cole's palms as he threw his daggers, but they traveled behind him and vanished into the tall grass, He closed the rest of the gap at speed, and Dorian grunted as the boy's head crashed into his chest. When he settled his arms around Cole's shaking shoulders, he thought to himself that dying might have been easier than this.
"I don't know where to put it," said Cole, barely intelligible. "It has nowhere to go. I want to forget!"
The last words rose into a new wail, and when Dorian closed his eyes he saw, wildly, a star flickering and wavering in the darkness, alone. "We can't always forget," he said softly. "Sometimes we never forget."
"Never is evil. Never is starving in the dark, tied up and dying. But I don't die. Dorian, I don't know how to die. It can't be never."
Dorian squeezed tighter. "We'll help you. I'll help you. I swear it, Cole. These things won't be your burden alone. If you're angry, I'll take your rage."
"I'm not angry," said Cole. "How can I be angry? There's no room for it." He leaned back and swiped at his face, staring up at him with watery, cornflower eyes. They were tinged with the madness of Gereon Alexius, watching his son die. "You can be angry, if that will help you."
"No," said Dorian. "I'm not angry either. Not anymore."
"I wanted to help him. He was my friend."
Cole twisted to stare at Solas's body, already stiffening on the grass. Fenris sat next to him, staring at the bloody mess in his hand, in the attitude of a person who would never move again.
"I wanted to help, " said Cole, "but I did it wrong again. I didn't learn. I let things out badly. I hurt you. You're my friend, and you're afraid of me."
"Yes," said Dorian, because it was true, and Cole deserved nothing less.
Cole nodded. The understanding was almost worse than the madness. "You have to remove my amulet."
"No."
"Yes. I'll be a demon, and you'll kill me, and it won't be never anymore."
"There's been too much death today. We need you, Cole."
"I'll ask Vivienne to do it," said Cole. "I'll ask her, and she'll hurt me. She wants to hurt me. That would be okay. But I would rather it was you."
Cole started to pull away, tried to vanish, but Dorian focused his will and drew the earth once more to hold him in place.
As though he'd been shocked, Cole froze, then frowned. "That shouldn't see me." The sky above them groaned and sputtered, and Cole nodded as though it had spoken words. Perhaps it had. "Yes," he said quietly. "That would be better."
He stepped back, dragging his feet like man through mud, and Dorian wasn't enough to stop him. Cole smiled a little hesitantly and asked,"Dorian, what am I?"
Before he could come up with an answer, Sera muttered, "You're a right creepy bastard, that's what you are."
Dorian glared at her, but Cole only waited. Eventually Dorian said, "You're a creature of the Fade. You're a spirit given human form. You're compassion. And you're Cole."
"Yes. When I came through, I didn't fit, but I needed to fit. The boy needed me to fit. He pulled me, twisted me, gave me a shape that meant belonging. Cole. Water in a jug is not the same water as it was in the stream. It will always be in the stream, unless it changes enough to move."
Cole looked up. "They won't twist. They've shattered the jug so they can stay the same, but what they are is death. Solas knew the secrets to moving the world. He heard me, tried to help me. My home and my here, two hands touching." He raised his own hands and pressed them together in a mockery of prayer. "Without him, the stream will be too much. I can't have home now. They have to stay away. I can still help."
"Did you know that I almost never know what you're talking about?" asked Dorian.
"I know. Only one person did," said Cole. He shook himself, like a tree in high winds ridding itself of leaves, then knelt to the ground. His delicate, deadly hands traced the lines of Solas's face, softer in death. "I'm breaking. It has to be now."
"What has to be now?"
"Be sharp," said Cole. He turned his face upward, a small line in the middle of his forehead. "And be kind."
Before Dorian could ask another question, Cole vanished. But this time he didn't become a hole in reality that Dorian's mind helpfully filled with nothing at all. Instead he melted like colored glass under heat, bleeding into a mosaic that rivaled any in the atrium of Skyhold. The story of Cole swirled in the air, from the beginning to the end, and Dorian would have sworn he saw the whole of the Inquisition inside its patterns.
The Fade and the Imperium combined, whispered Cole's voice, and Dorian felt the boy's essence wind into his palm as the rest of him stretched towards the tear in the sky like a kite string.
The earth beneath him rumbled as the power flowed once more, waiting to be shaped, and Dorian suddenly saw the plan. Be sharp. Him as the needle, and Cole as the thread, and the sky above ready to be mended. A lock on the Veil, one of Elvhen and Imperial magic that could only be breached by the two together. And after today, Dorian was quite sure, the Elvhen would never be willing to work with him again.
You know I've never so much as sewed on a button, he thought to the spirit in his hand, but there was no answer. He sighed, thinking back to Shayla's careful movements over his shirts, and sent his will spiraling upward as tightly as he could. He twisted a little of his own Fade magic into it, complicating the lock further, and tried to herd the power to a single point.
It was like riding a dragon - so large, so terrifying, so absolutely insane that the mind refused to comprehend that it was happening. Instead he thought of creating magelight, and small fires, and the ease of simple spells, and vowed that he would never, ever wish for more power again.
He felt Razikale drifting around the edges of the thread, catching the magic that escaped his control, and he wondered what Maxwell would think of the picture they made. Probably something conceited, like the fact that it took a Fade spirit, a necromancer using blood magic, and an invulnerable dragon to replicate what he could do with a single wave of his hand.
And he would have been right.
Afterward Dorian understood how the Inquisitor had always been so casual about saving the world. It seemed to take no time at all to heal the sky, though the rumbling in his belly and the sun's new position told him it had been hours. When he finally blinked out of his trance, Fenris, Bull, Cullen and Sera had taken up guarding positions around him, though from the cautious distance the soldiers and Qunari were keeping, they hardly needed to worry about his safety.
The denizens of the Fade were a different story, and Cole's strength had flickered wildly as they'd thrown themselves against the strengthening barrier. But Compassion was edged with blades, and he'd fought back with the memory of steel as he wove. The strikes were stormless lightning, and their thunder deafening until the last seam was closed.
When Dorian swayed, Fenris gave up his guard position and reached out to steady him. That terrible, visceral rage was gone from his eyes, and they looked like dead pools in his face, but there was an acceptance in his grip that Dorian hoped was a good omen for his continued survival. The fact that Sera was still there at all was even more hopeful.
Cullen eyed him warily without turning around. "Are you finished?"
"I don't know. I'm still not entirely sure what I was doing."
"That's just what we want to hear, thanks," said Sera. "Magic freak."
"Your compliments remain charming as always," said Dorian, his voice giving out on the last word. He cleared his throat and tried to focus. "Why isn't anyone attacking me? I assume I'm ruining someone's day."
"Because the only thing worse than magic freaks is demons," she said. "We can kill you now, maybe."
Bull gave a more coherent answer. "It seemed like it was working, and no one wanted to interrupt. The Chantry forces are trying to pray their Maker in here to take care of you, since you're either the holiest man in Thedas or the most demonic. Inquisition forces are too nervous to get close, since whatever you did took away the Inquisitor's mark in the middle of this whole shit show. Vints think this is just a usual night out in the country, probably about ready to slice their own hands open to join in. And the Qunari, well… an Arishok finally showed up."
Dorian's head snapped up, and he studied the careful neutrality on Bull's face. "You should have left."
"What the fuck good is that going to do?" asked Bull wearily. "They know where I am. If I'm gonna fight, better to fight them here. At least the rest of you might soften them up a little."
"I'll help," said Dorian. He raised his hand and found the Fade inside of himself, strong and vital. It was still harder to reach than it had been, harder to take that softer path, but the pool was deep and flowing once more. A jet of fire shot from his finger, and he frowned. It felt different now. Metallic, with flashes of steel. Compassion's weapons lived inside of that pool. Maybe they always would.
The fire died as he swayed again, and Bull snorted. "Yeah, if I need someone to take a nap on them, I'll be sure to shove you out to the front lines."
Dorian tried to roll his eyes, but he couldn't summon up the energy. "Did you say Maxwell's mark disappeared?"
Just saying the name ripped a new hole inside of him, and he wondered if he needed to stay together anymore, or if the world was finally done using his grief.
"In the middle of your… spell," said Cullen. "It faded away. Or melted away. Leliana was as alarmed as I've ever seen her. She wanted you protected after that. It's why I came down."
"Solas was the Maker," said Dorian, then winced at his choice of words.
He looked at Fenris, who nodded minutely in understanding. Solas's history of the world would stop with them. There was a difference between needed honesty and hopeless chaos. Dorian hated the Chantry, but they were better than nothing at all.
"The Maker she heard," he amended. "In her dreams. Solas was manipulating her. Us all."
"Fenris told me," said Cullen, and his cold voice was another reminder of the piety that the Inquisition was founded on. Another reminder of the need for silence. "Solas is lucky he died before Cassandra learned of this blasphemy."
"Indeed. Lucky," echoed Dorian. Fenris's hand squeezed briefly, and Dorian looked back up the hill. He felt suddenly unmoored, like a boat free of its line, and there were so many things he didn't want to do. "I suppose I need to go back up there."
Not yet, said Razikale.
The world filled with winds as she settled behind them. Sera scrabbled away, and Cullen tensed to fight, but Dorian just stared at her. "Haven't I done enough? Haven't I given enough to you? Or do you want my life now, as well?"
Not yet, she said again, but her belly rumbled with fiery laughter as she did. Be steady, little Tevinter. This requires only your eyes. You must bear witness.
"To what?" asked Bull.
Dorian whipped his head around, then immediately regretted it as he nearly lost his balance. "You can hear her, too?"
"Just now." Bull's face was hard, and Dorian remembered a gravestone that whispered madness. "I'm not Qunari anymore. Fuck with someone else's head."
Razikale answered with a roar that flew across the fields, and the Qunari phalanx moved as though they'd been waiting for the signal. Lines of war snaked towards them, led by a fully-kitted warrior Dorian assumed was the Arishok. Confused shouts came from atop the hill once more.
"Stop them," said Dorian to Cullen, and fortunately the man was smart enough to know he meant their own forces. The man raced to his troops, barking orders, and Sera followed him in a display of military interest she'd never shown before. Dorian raised a ridge of earth at the base of the hill, just enough to spook everyone again. The last thing he needed was a bloodbath after he'd bloody saved them all.
Fenris stayed, and Dorian whispered to him, "You won't be able to hear what's going on."
"I stand with my Archon," he answered dryly, and Dorian nearly smiled. "And it would be a relief to die."
The nascent smile faded, and Dorian blew out a breath. "Yes, Magister Fenris. It would be."
Dorian had never seen an Arishok up close, and beyond a terrifying number of scars and an intriguing amount of muscle, the man was the polar opposite of Bull. Bull's strength was warm and deceptive, buried beneath charisma and debauchery. The cold power radiating from the Arishok hid nothing, shaded nothing, and practically froze the air around them. His horns were massive, curved and deadly, and Dorian made a mental note to stay low to the ground.
"Do they breed them with the stick up their ass or is that part of the training?" he whispered to Bull.
The Qunari didn't answer, and Dorian gave him a worried look before turning to the invaders.
"Welcome to the Imperium! Please wipe your feet at the door and refrain from murdering anyone, at least until we've had a bite to eat."
The Arishok was similarly silent. Dorian sighed. Uphill work all around, it seemed.
Your host greets you, said Razikale, as archly as a dragon could. Have you no manners?
The man answered in Qunari, a string of sibilants that Dorian had no hope of understanding, though Fenris inhaled sharply next to him.
A common tongue is protocol.
"Are we really learning our courtesies from a dragon?" asked Dorian, huffing a laugh tinged with exhaustion and madness.
"The Qun has no manners. The Qun is duty, not courtesy," said the Arishok. "We seek ancestors, not gods. We do not desire protocol."
Razikale beat her wings, and a fury-tinged gale rose around them. The Qun is ended. The Kossith care not what you seek nor what you desire. You summoned. I have answered.
"Who are the Kossith?" asked Dorian into the new silence. He looked at Bull, then Fenris, then the Qunari horde in turn, but there was no answer. Finally, he spun to Razikale and said, less calmly, "Who are the Kossith? You said I'm the supplicant. Answer me. I command it."
The sound of metal unsheathing came from behind him, and the gravelly voice of the Arishok said, "No Tevinter commands us."
This Tevinter commands all he sees, said Razikale. Her mouth moved like a smile that wasn't. If he so chooses. Who are the Kossith? I am. As are you, little Tevinter.
Angry mutterings churned around them, but Dorian only stared upward.
In a distant age, the Kossith conquered the northern world. We flew over its lands with impunity, and there was no place our eyes touched that was not ours. When the war ended, we mated with the two-legged people we ruled, as was right and just, and they began to take our form over the centuries. They raised priests in our name, we raised them even more highly, and for a time there was perfection.
But perfection was not enough for these ones, said Razikale, a note of disdain creeping into her voice. They coveted our magic but were too frightened to understand it. They desired our power but were too cowardly to take it. They sought a new path. One of order and laws, where we had given them nothing but freedom. The Qunari, they called themselves, these spoiled children, and we left them to their folly with glad hearts.
The dragon sounded anything but glad, putting Dorian more in mind of a child who hadn't gotten every sweet in the shop, but this seemed like an impolitic time to point that out. "So you came south," he said instead. "You found Tevinter."
Yes. A new race, one with greater understanding. The wingless race in the north had needed guidance. Patient shaping. But we had no need to conquer you. Your race took our magic without asking and worshiped without hesitation, said Razikale. She paused, then added, You were dragons under the skin even before we arrived. Those oldest spirits were worthy of our name.
The Qunari phalanx rumbled again, and Dorian recalculated the odds that he would survive this conversation. Definitely low. Might as well make them worse.
"I'd believe it. Corypheus certainly had quite a temper," he said. "But Solas said we betrayed you. Rejected your magic, trapped you in the earth. Surely that's lessened your regard for my humble race."
Razikale's eyes gleamed. Perhaps. But surely you are not so credulous as to believe a trickster. Fen'Harel, self-styled ruler of the Elvhen, laid his plots more carefully than that. Even as his empire fell to our power, he devised them. He knew he could not stand against us and win, but eternity is ever-flowing and not so long as all that. He knew there would be a time where things were become anew.
The betrayal was always his. He whispered to your race, became your Maker, and turned you away from the weapons that could defeat him. He supplanted our magic with his own, chained our blood with his Fade, and his conquerers became his fiercest protectors. For while the Fade sustained his spirit, the Kossith could not destroy him as we needed. Only his own magic could destroy him, and he was quite good at convincing his enemies to fight on his behalf.
The dragon inclined her head towards the sky. Had he opened the Fade, lost his protections, I would have been able to move against him. Still, he might have survived. Fen'Harel saved his strength quite carefully. The outcome was unclear. But he forgot to guard against his friends.
Dorian looked at Fenris, his face blank and waiting. "I'm not sure Solas ever had friends."
There was no response in the elf's eyes.
"So what now? This has been a fascinating history lesson, but if you're planning to exact payment for old grievances, I'd prefer a fast death, thanks all the same."
Payment was exacted. You destroyed the last of our ancient enemies. You are full of the magic that few but the dragons know. You are Kossith. We do not kill our own, said Razikale. No. The northern race has called for me again, has turned against their adopted Qun, and we will begin again. I will raise what brothers and sisters I can, and we will return to their education.
This is your charge to witness. The dragons fly north, and while you live, little Tevinter, we will not stand against you. Only one matter remains to be settled before I go.
Before Dorian could reply, the Arishok drew his weapons and settled into a warrior's stance. "We did not come to be ruled. We are the Qunari, and you will serve us."
Bull muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Idiot," as Razikale turned in a lazy quarter-circle.
You are what I tell you to be, she said. And you are children.
The Arishok bellowed and charged, weapons flashing in the afternoon light, and Razikale stood motionless in the face of his approach. The Qunari warrior leapt smoothly, drawing his axe across her throat with a savage roar. To Dorian's astonishment it actually cut into the hide, an angry line that welled with blood.
A drop fell, running over the Arishok's horns where he stood, straight-backed and defiant.
That will do, said Razikale. She rose into the air and made a graceful circle around the huddled Qunari, dripping more blood and whispering words just beyond Dorian's hearing. When she was done, she looked at him and winked, by far the most disconcerting thing she'd done yet. Now you see it.
A howling sound came from the center of her circle, with a light too bright for the world, and Dorian threw his hands in front of his eyes. His blood roiled and burned as the world screamed at the intrusion that seemed to last forever. But after only a few breaths the chaos vanished as quickly as it had come, and Dorian blinked open his eyes to see that field empty of Qunari. A field that was now a hundred yards away from where they stood, on top of a hill, in a circle around the body of the man he loved.
Razikale was settled beside him, as smug as a dragon could be, and Dorian wondered how persuasive Solas had been, exactly, to convince his Tevinter ancestors that Fade magic was the more powerful source.
Bull shook his head, horns glinting in the sun, and glared around him warily. "Where in the fuck did they go?"
Home.
"Par Vollen?"
Razikale tossed her head in an echo of Bull's gesture. A truer home than that.
"Well, shit then," said Bull. He hefted his weapon casually and added, "So why am I still here?"
Are you Qunari?
Bull laughed, an incongruous sound in the fading day. "Hell no."
As you say. Razikale paused. And you are more dragon than the rest. You will serve the new Kossith well from here.
Dorian couldn't bring himself to look away from Maxwell, who was so very small and so very still. Razikale was nothing more than another ancient fool, some being who would never understand that the endless expanse of eternity was a bitter wasteland without Maxwell Trevelyan. He didn't want these people to know how little anything mattered to him, now.
So he stared at the thing he'd been trying so desperately to forget and said in a low tone, "I'm not one of you. I'm not one of anything. I'm barely Tevinter. But I am Archon. Go away. Leave my lands, and my people, to our own folly. To our own ruin. Follow after your new race and leave us alone."
Instead of anger, he sensed amusement. Soon. But there is a matter yet to be settled between, little Tevinter. And the world will be our witness.