Title: Snow and Ice
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Sexual content, minor language, violence, blood, use of alcohol
Summary: Once upon a time, a maleficar had stopped the blight. Afterwards, she'd left for the colder North, leaving love for a life of loneliness and wandering. No one was to look for her. So why was Alistair calling her back? Zev/Surana
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. Review please.
In my darkest hours I could not foresee
That the tide could turn so fast to this degree
Can't believe my eyes
How can you be so blind?
Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
-Our Solemn Hour, Within Temptation
Chapter 28
Loud, echoing laughter erupted from the demons, a cacophony of phantom noises that put a chill in the air. Alaeze dug her hands into the earth languidly, trying to move away from them. At best they would eat her alive. At worst, they would take her to the Fade to torture for all eternity. Elda didn't care anymore. As they descended like jackals, she walked slowly to Zevran's corpse and sank to her knees.
The knife was embedded deep within his chest, buried to the hilt and all the way to the other side. No signs of life were visible at all. Even his face has lost all color, the decay already setting in. A choked sob escaped her chest as she looked at him. A hand flew to her mouth as she glanced away and back again, face twisted in agony. Ferias met her eyes, face grave. He was dead. There was no doubt.
With trembling fingers she curled her hand around the hilt of the dagger and pulled it out, tossing it to the side. More blood spilled from the gaping wound, and she bowed her head, sucking in sharp gasps of breath. Sinking her teeth into her bottom lips, she mentally scolded herself. How many times had she toyed with dead bodies? How many times had she seen them? What was so different about this one?
Because it's Zevran.
Something snapped in her as hot, salty tears spilled from her eyes. She scooted forward over the dirt and cupped his face with her hands. "Come on, Zev," she whispered. "She's gone now. You can wake up. Wake up." She shook him, but he didn't move.
Elda moved a bit of hair out of his face and shook him harder. "Zevran! This isn't funny, you know. Wake up! We've got to...we've got to save," she cut off with a choked sob and buried her face into his chest, the blood smearing across her left eye. Her head snapped up. "Wake up, damn you! I won't put up with this! You can't—You can't leave me! You can't...not again!" she was screaming at him.
Ferias began to walk toward her across the burned expanse of camp. The non-hunters of the clan were coming out of tents and hiding places. The smoke was nearly overwhelming as the last of the demons dispersed and faded into black piles of ash in the ground. Only a bloodied puddle of Alaeze was left where she had been lying.
"Please," Elda whispered. She shifted her hand behind his neck and moved him forward, crushing his head to her chest. Slowly, she began to rock him back and forth. "Everything was...going to be so perfect. You can't be gone. Not you, too."
Ferias paused above her before crouching and gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "Elda, maybe we should get you cleaned up. Move the...the body."
"No!" she snapped at him. "Zevran has to wake up first. He's going to wake up."
Trying to be as gentle as possible, Ferias cleared his throat. "You've...seen more death than I have. You know what it looks like. He's...he's not coming back, Elda. He's gone."
Violently she shook her head. "He can't be...can't be gone." Her voice broke on the last word.
Behind her, Ferias gestured for Vrinda and the other hunters to come closer. He patted her shoulder. "Come on. You're covered in blood and ash."
"What does that matter?" she demanded softly. "What does that matter now? When I've lost everything? Everything I've ever cared about." Salty tears spilled over into his hair. His heart was never going to beat again. He'd never make another perverted joke or kiss her or make love to her again.
Vrinda fell down beside her and wrapped her arms around both Zevran's corpse and Elda's shoulders. "We're here, Elda. We're here with you." She was crying herself. The three of them rocked together, beautiful Vrinda with her dark eyes and hair, Elda with her strangely sharp features and bloodied, bruised skin, and the paleness of Zevran, yellow hair tinged with blood and gone forever. What a trio they made.
Ferias was whispering to the hunters. One of the darker-skinned ones nodded. He tapped Vrinda on the shoulder until she looked up and understanding flooded her eyes. They had to get the body away from her before she could be tempted with necromancy. Elda was already whispering nonsense against his hair, a mixture of Tevinter and Dalish.
"Lethallan, you must let go of the body now," Vrinda whispered against her ear, hands attempting unwind Elda's arms. Elda only held on tighter. The hunter glanced up at Ferias and shook her head. "All at once, like removing an arrow."
They understood.
Ferias slipped his arms around her waist while the hunters held onto the body. Vrinda braced an forearm against Elda's chest and all at once they pulled them apart. Elda immediately fought against them.
"No!" she screamed frantically, reaching out for him. "He's not dead, don't you understand? I can bring him back. I can bring him...he's not dead!" Hard nails dug into Ferias's arms, drawing blood. When she refused to walk, Vrinda ducked down and hugged her legs, standing up so that they were carrying her completely off the ground. She twisted and reached out, but they were pulling her away, the dark-skinned hunter closing Zevran's eyes respectfully and bowing his head. "Ferias, don't you understand? He's not dead!" she roared and lurched forward.
Ferias caught her around the waist and pulled her to him, feeling her sob against his shirt, the blood smearing against the soft cotton. "Shhh," he hushed her. "It's all right. We'll take care of you."
She hit him with her fist. "You can't take care of me!" The ash and blood had mingled with the tears so that it was nearly paint dripping down her face. "Zevran was supposed to do that!" she cried. "And I was supposed to take care of Rinna! Why do I...why do I always have to lose everything?" She punched him in the arm and stalked away before falling to the ground again. Pain shot up her leg, and she languidly reached to touch her ankle. It was swollen and bruised, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the torment inside. In fact, she preferred it. She slumped the rest of the way in a puddle of limbs, face pressed against the scorched earth. The ashes were still warm.
Distantly, she could hear Ferias and Vrinda talking. Plotting against her. But they didn't understand. The bond that she and Zevran had could never be broken. She could bring him back, and she knew just how to do it. Not with necromancy, no. That would be too easy, and besides the body would begin to decay. No, she was going to change everything. Ferias had given her the idea almost unconsciously earlier that day.
When life becomes an all-consuming darkness, the demon shows himself and makes an offer.
She wasn't going to wait.
What would you give to throw back time, to redo a part of your past knowing what you know now?
She stared at her hand as though it were someone else's. The appendage was slowly coming closer to her face, and without even thinking about it, she sank her pointed teeth into the unfeeling flesh. Blood trickled immediately from the wound and welled in her mouth, hot and salty and disgusting. Familiar, it tasted of her humanity, her mortality. The scent of pungent and powerful magic filled the air.
As drops of blood fell to collect in the ashes, a red smoke drifted about her as though dust coming off the liquid. She was bleeding in earnest then, but she bit down harder, breaking more blood vessels in her hand and spitting the crimson mixture on the ground.
Vrinda cried out as soon as the rising red smoke caught her attention. Startled, Ferias began running toward her. He knew what she was doing. They both did. And she knew they'd try to stop her. She flung out her bloodied hand, whispering a spell under her breath, and suddenly Ferias ran into a wall. It was a wall made out of pure mana and laced with blood magic, nearly two miles long and completely impenetrable. She'd made the wall before during the fight with the archdemon. It was one of the reasons that Denerim was still standing. Electricity snapped between the thin walls, coalescing shadows of red and black blurring his view of her even as he cried out.
"Don't do it! The cost is too steep!" he screamed, throwing his fist against the shield.
"Elda, please!" Vrinda's dark eyes were pleading. "I know you're hurting. We all do. But you can't bring the dead back!"
With a trembling finger, she began to draw the pentagram, whispering more to herself those hissing words.
"Elda! Don't you see all that you'll lose? Your very powers, that which makes you a mage! Your life, you fool," Ferias roared, throwing all of his weight against the shield and being thrown back. "And you'd be releasing this entity on the world!"
"We won't know you anymore," Vrinda cried, tears in her eyes now. "Destroying the very fabric of time for your own needs! Please don't do this!"
But it was too late. Her finger paused over the last stroke of red, glancing back at them with something like regret and sadness in her eyes. "I have to do this," she whispered so low that she was sure they couldn't hear her. "I'm sorry." Hesitating only a moment, she connected the last two lines and felt the explosion of power deep within herself.
Thick, white fog flowed out of the pentagram almost immediately, swarming around her bowed form and caressing her like warm fingers. It was in her hair, trailing down her back, enveloping her. The white-hot lava that seemed to make up Ikilai's entire body came next, flooding the ground with its power. His presence almost choked her, and she was certain he'd been making other deals behind her back. But it didn't matter. She had already made up her mind. No matter the price, she would throw back time and set things right.
Folding in on itself and building up, bubbling from the very ground, Ikilai's shape began to take form. Slim waist, long, slender limbs, flawless white skin and startling blue eyes. White hair sprouted from his head. For some reason, he seemed even more magnificent. Vrinda gasped behind the shield, falling to the ground and crawling backward. Members from the clan were screaming. Ferias was begging her to close the pentagram quickly.
A wise smirk graced his lips, cocky as any human despite how old he was. When the last bit of mana had fallen into place, Ikilai crouched on the ground with his human legs and reached beyond the pentagram to touch her cheek. Where his thumb swiped, the cut on her face healed, disappearing completely when he pulled back. The same amount of pleasure and pain flooded through her. She only wished she could stand instead of sitting like a supplicating servant. There was nothing she could do about that, though. He ankle was most definitely twisted if not broken completely.
"You know what I want," she whispered to him, ignoring the pleas from behind her wall. Nothing mattered but him. Nothing mattered but seeing her daughter's face and holding Zevran again in her arms, warm and alive.
"You know the price," he hissed pleasantly, holding out his hand. Before he had seemed faded, weaker. Now he was completely whole and solid as any human being. For a moment, her mind wondered what he would do when he was free. She wondered at the price, but it was only for a moment. The second it came, it was gone.
His flesh was smooth and hard as she put her hand in his. The skin began to blister, but she couldn't feel it. With a smile on his perfect face, he stepped beyond the pentagram and put an arm around her waist, heaving her to him. The fire burst against her skin, heat and the smell of burning flesh in the air. She knew she had to endure it, though. His voice was whispering to her over and over again.
My queen...
My queen...
And the spilling lava on the ground shot up like tentacles come alive. One of them wrapped around her ankle, the other around her wrist. The same thing happened on the other side, a particularly large strip of white substance curling around her neck like a snake. She gasped, the pain almost unbearable as the substance wound up, sealing her legs together, covering every last bit of her with the goop. Though it wasn't burning her physically anymore, it felt like it was. She wanted to struggle and push it away, but there was nothing she could do. Besides that, Ikilai was reassuring her, whispering seductive things in her ear and dark promises in his husky voice.
All of your powers will become mine, my queen, he growled in her mind, thrilling at the thought. A decade's hunt is at an end.
"Just do it," she spat before the substance clamped over her mouth, snaking upwards over her eyes as they widened in surprise.
You will fall into the past, powerless creature.
She felt sick to her stomach, the pain fading into something different, a warm sort of pressure, but it was a strange sensation. It wasn't as if the pain had gone away, only that she had become stronger in facing it. Everything went dark as the last bit of white covered her eyes and hair. She was being lifted up, an explosion of lights and colors and sounds penetrating the veil of her mind to the point of madness.
I will be reborn as a human in your world with the potential to end it.
The white was melting off her, falling to the ground with thick slaps as though she'd just cut loose venison from a hook. The sound was sickening, and she doubled over in mid-air, hands going about her waist, the sounds getting louder and louder to the point where she could barely hear Ikilai's taunting voice anymore.
Change what you will, child. Live with the consequences.
Suddenly she was falling, but she couldn't open her eyes. Couldn't move.
You will gain back what you have just lost, but in so doing you will lose everything.
Hmm..did you guess what was going to happen? Didja? Probably did. I wasn't very subtle, was I? Thanks for reading. Review please.
