"I won't let you hurt them!" Cole dropped the lantern with a clang.
Donna gasped, drew further back into the shadows just as Mihanin's hastily cast barrier flashed against the spirit-boy's assault.
"Maker's arse!" Fiann cussed behind her, his grip on her arm nearly hurting.
"We don't have any weapons!" Donna hissed at him. "Gotta stay back. Find a way around."
Orders were yelled out. Men cried in pain as Cole's twin blades found them instead of his intended target.
Evan seemed rooted to the spot but Donna plucked at his arm and got him moving too, as they shuffled along.
Only then did she realise Seith was missing. She began to straighten, his name blooming on her tongue, but Fiann shoved her down. In the dim gleam of the cavern Evan's eyes were wide and white-rimmed.
Seith's voice rang out from a distance away, in a string of elven curses that promised pain and death. Then an actinic flash all but blinded her, followed by the overpowering stench of ozone. The sound that followed was more a reverse-implosion that sucked the breath from her lungs.
The fool! He was drawing off the elf so that—
"Come." Fiann's hand found hers and the three of them continued to pick their way around the rubble and ancient, tumbled masonry.
Torn between watching the unfolding battle and keeping her focus on the uneven terrain lest she sprain an ankle or worse, Donna followed Fiann. Evan's hand remained clamped to her shoulder, whether it was to keep her going or for his own reassurance, it didn't matter. They weren't going to leave anyone behind. Not this time.
Mihanin was limned in red flames as he cast crackling sheet lightning that spidered out to Seith, whose barrier repulsed the attack. Of the ancient elf's minions, all that remained were the twisted bodies on the ground, discarded like toys that no longer served a function.
"We need to do something," Donna said to Fiann when they sheltered behind the base of a pillar.
"He's got the bag," Fiann said. "I let him carry it."
"What?" Donna nearly choked on the word.
"It's a heavier burden than it looks."
"But he's…" Donna crouched so that she could peer back where the conflict took place.
The light strobed, alternating between blinding flashes and sucking darkness, the air booming as if giant drums thudded, making her ears pop. Seeing mages engage in battle, with no holds barred, gave her a new appreciation for exactly how insignificant she, a powerless dwarf, really was. Now, if she'd had her knives, or even her bow, she might've been able to do something.
Fiann grimaced, peered around a pillar then turned back to her and Evan. "We can do our best by surviving. Seith's a canny lad. He sorted out that dragon."
"You're only saying that because he's saving our arses," Donna bit back. "Again, I might add." Not to mention that if he failed, Mihanin would get what he'd wanted after all.
"Now's not the time," Evan muttered.
She wanted to point out to him that he only ever thought of his own arse, but she couldn't disagree with either of the men. Deep down here, they were so far out of their league.
They dashed to another point, about eight feet from the stairs. Each step Donna took she feared that a stray bolt would strike her, send her arcing through the air. All the small hairs on her arms and nape prickled, and her lungs were tight. Next to her, Evan wheezed for breath. Fiann's mouth was pulled into a rictus of terror.
What if this entire cavern collapsed? What then? They'd be buried forever, crushed beneath piles of rubble.
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Only forward. They could only go forward. Her chest was tight, and she struggled to breathe, because it would be so much easier to cower like a nug cornered by a hunting dog.
That empty space between their last hiding spot and the stairs leading to the first level beckoned, but there was so much open space. Nothing to protect them should Mihanin see them. Even Fiann hung back, undecided. Donna turned in time to see Cole attempt another strike at Mihanin's barrier.
"Run, you fools!" Seith stood atop a truncated pillar. He had no staff, but crackling green light played across both his palms and painted his face in ghoulish shades.
Mihanin shrieked as his barrier imploded, but he flung his arm outward with an expulsion of force that flung the spirit boy clean across the chamber. If he landed, Donna couldn't tell, but then Seith let loose spattering ball of green energy that knocked Mihanin off his feet.
"Now!" Fiann shouted.
Evan shoved her hard, from behind, and Donna's feet obeyed.
"You think you can—" Mihanin's response was cut short.
Donna didn't turn, didn't look. If she did, she'd falter. She'd be dead.
The air behind her stirred, grew hot and cold in quick succession, and her left side turned to ice. It was as if a thousand tiny wasps had stung her but she didn't have time to worry about the pain.
Even so, as she stumbled up the crumbling stairs, falling several times, she expected the whine-crackle of power to disintegrate her world completely.
Except the world seemed to grow soft round the edges, and it was as if Donna struggled through air turned to treacle. She managed to drag herself behind a banister, Evan collapsed in a heaving pile next to her. Fiann peered over the edge, and she sidled up next to him.
Where Seith had been, a rip formed in the very fabric of reality. Of the boy there was no sight, but the figure that stepped out of that pulsating tear, even at that distance, filled her with an unreasoning sense of dread. A coldness, for lack of better description. Elven, no doubt, his hair severely pulled back in short locks.
He looked down, to his feet, and even from this distance, Donna could detect his faint smile. Then he turned his regard to Mihanin, who crouched with his back to the stairs, facing the new arrival.
They argued, or rather Mihanin hurled invective, but the stranger merely smirked and stepped forward, hand outstretched. The tarnished gold of his armour gleamed in the swirling green light from the rip in reality.
That's the Fade gleaming through, Donna realised.
Her fingers tightened on the banister, slick with liquid. She glance at the dark stains. Maker's breath, she must've gashed open her hand.
But then Mihanin shrieked unintelligible curses, and she watched in horror as he rushed the tall elf, the blade of his staff pointed at the new arrival's chest.
The elf's eyes flashed once, and Mihanin stopped in his tracks. And this was the part where Donna shivered; Mihanin didn't just stop because he'd taken fright. Even in the hectic, weird light, she could see that he'd stopped because he'd been… It looked as if he'd been turned to stone.
"Andraste's arse," Evan murmured next to her.
"Well, shit," Fiann said.
Donna shivered, and it wasn't just because she was feeling so cold all of a sudden; in fact, her world was tilting just ever so slightly, and she couldn't quite keep herself upright.
The burning pain down her left side grew worse, and she glanced down at the warmth that tickled her side. Then immediately wished she hadn't. What remained of the ratty linen shirt she was wearing had been shredded. Her skin was…lacerated. Whether from the blast of magic or the tiny shards of stone she could see embedded in her flesh.
Her blood oozed out in a steady flow, with every breath, with every heartbeat. Up until now, she'd kept going because she'd simply had to survive. This isn't only a scratch, rang in her head.
Fiann noticed her dilemma the moment she turned her face to him, which was why his arms were ready to catch her when her fingers slipped from the banister and she slid into nothingness.
What may have made things worse was that Solas betrayed no emotion as he regarded the statue that was Mihanin.
"I did not expect I'd ever see that fool again," he said without any rancour.
Seith crouched in the rubble near his father's feet, and he didn't know whether to feel triumphant or terrified that has last-ditch attempt to summon some sort of help had worked. Against all expectations. It'd been like that time he'd dragged that dragon with him into the Fade. Only this time he'd sought to draw certain victory out of the Fade.
And he'd brought Solas.
Fen'Harel, he reminded himself.
That was the curse that had died on Mihanin's last words before he'd been turned to stone before Seith's very eyes.
Solas stepped down from the chunk of fallen masonry and held out a hand to Seith. "I suppose I should thank you, but I do believe you and your friends have found something that belongs to me."
Seith scrambled to his feet. "What? No inquiries as to my health, whether I've not nearly died a hundred times over?"
He regarded Seith mildly. "You're an adult. You are my son. I wouldn't expect anything less of you. After all, you did deem yourself sufficiently experienced to shrug off my guidance when you did. That you are still alive now can be credited directly to your talent. You value your freedom and autonomy, and I respect that."
"But you don't respect Teniël," Seith spat. "Why do you keep her trapped then?"
A brief twitch that might be construed as torment marred Solas's brow before the mask slid back in place. "She is dangerous. She would destroy everything before its time."
"She loved you."
"Her love is…misplaced. I'm saving her from—"
"What? A life of pain? And then you doomed me, doomed others to suffer for it? I know who you are, what you are."
"And there is nought that you can do to change it," Solas said. "It is regrettable, but one must move onward, work within the paradigm to convert mistakes into opportunities." The way he regarded Seith turned his bones to water.
How had he not seen this all those years?
"But I am in your debt, it would seem," Solas said after a breath. He glanced at the flickering hole in reality then turned to Seith again then eyed the makeshift bag that Seith cradled protectively. "You are a marvel. Ones who can manifest such power are priceless beyond compare."
"I am but another tool for you then?" Seith said.
"Fortuitous, I'd say rather. Never a tool."
"But we were in the right place at the right time, to your advantage, it would seem."
His father offered him a small smirk. "I won't deny that, and I will warn that there are those who will seek to use you for their own ends."
"Like you." Bitterness burned at the back of Seith's throat.
"I'd rather you come to me of your own free will."
"Yet you'd allow me to roam about, vulnerable. In the meanwhile."
"You are most certainly not vulnerable, da'len. Reality is torn asunder when you are in your most dire need. Why, you are able to summon the Dread Wolf himself. Sometimes the sharpest blades need to be tempered in the harshest flame."
"I never asked for this."
"Do you think I'd allow you to walk free if you had?"
"Free her then," Seith said, not quite sure where the impulse had sprung from. "I'll do what you want if you just let Teniël go."
Solas shook his head, his smile sad. "You know I can't allow that."
"Why? Because she's the one person who can control you, is that it? You think I'm stupid, that I don't know what you've been looking for in all those ruins. Those ancient devices where the Fade is weaker. That you've been turning them off, one by one. A little bit here, a little bit there. You're up to something, and I swear I'll find out what. Dreaming a little more, to uncover more artefacts, more whispers from the past in a broken world." So much of what his father had been doing was falling into place. And that he was here now, dressed in armour like some ancient Elvhen arcane warrior from the past. If only he had all the pieces of the puzzle that remained tantalisingly outside of his reach.
"My mother was the only one who would stop you," Seith whispered through numb lips. "And you betrayed her. And me. You stole away my mother."
And poor old cuckolded Cullen, who pined after a heart he'd never be able to claim. All collateral damage to this imposing being who towered over Seith.
"And for that I am deeply sorry. It was unavoidable."
The bitterness in Seith's mouth turned rancid, and his anger bubbled up from deep within. "I hate you."
His power surged through his blood, and a high-pitched singing started in his ears.
Yet Solas regarded him sadly, with such gentleness. He raised his fingers to his lips in the universal gesture of silence, and a curious numbness crept up Seith's legs. A curious lassitude settled over him as Solas reached for the bag that Seith had slung around his shoulder. He barely felt his father remove the burden.
"There isn't much time. Ir abelas, da'len. Fen'Harel ma ghilana."
The rip in reality was sputtering, even as Seith watched. Beyond that fissure, he could see blue sky, broken arches of pale stone reaching upward. Pine trees shivering in a wind he couldn't feel. Then his father was silhouetted for a heartbeat, and the vision sputtered out. Gone back to wherever he'd come from, arrogant in trusting that Seith's magic would hold the portal open long enough for him to depart.
Seith crumpled, the breath knocked out of him as whatever power had held him place, released. Sharp stones dug into his knees, and he'd skinned his palms as he'd gone down.
For a while, all he could do was drag in ragged breaths, his lungs like a punctured bellows while his heart hammered a panicked tattoo against his ribs. Whatever had happened now, was huge, bigger than anything. His father, a god of tricksters, was now in possession of a powerful artefact that possibly matched the one he'd lost all those years ago. His father, who had locked away an entire pantheon of gods, if those stories were true.
Seith wasn't sure what to believe anymore.
No matter what he did, what he tried to do, he only made things worse, every step of the way.
"Lad!" Fiann called from a level above. "Lad! Are you all right?"
He look up, but the daylight that streamed from the opening to this thaig blinded him.
"I'm alive. He took the orb."
"That can't be helped now. You gotta come, lad. We need to get out of here. Donna's been hurt bad."
Evan called out. "I could really use some healing magic, if you've got any spare."
"Coming!" Seith staggered to his feet with a groan. He cast one, morose glance over his shoulder at the spot where the rift had formed, but there wasn't even so much of a ripple in the air to betray where he'd torn reality.
He turned back then flinched as he made eye contact with blind Mihanin, whose mouth was open in a silent, eternal scream. A hellish statue for all eternity. Seith shuddered, as he felt the ghost of his father's paralysing magic linger in his bones. So close. Solas could have done to Seith what he'd done to Mihanin, but he hadn't.
Seith couldn't quite shake the idea that somehow his running about, with this wild magic unfettered, was doing exactly what Solas wanted. That each time he lost control or let his anger get the better of him, he too was weakening the Veil, making it easier for…
What if the Veil came down? What then?
No time to worry about that now. His friends needed him.