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: And we are back to where we began. Thank you for reading. Review, please.

Chapter 37

Arcelle met them at the inn as promised, small body cloaked in heavy plate armor dyed black and splattered with old blood stains, a large axe thrown cross her back. In a way, it was sort of like having Oghren at her side again—a slightly distant, less odorous Oghren that was also female. That morning, Zevran had rewrapped the bandage on her hand that was once again soaked in her own blood. Elda feared infection, coating it again with a number of herbs and poultices that would hopefully stop the bleeding and allow the dead flesh to heal. She was certain that pregnant women were more susceptible to diseases, so she was watching it carefully. In a way, it was the perfect lure to make sure she did visit Delthea. A mage could heal the hand, a doctor would most likely cut it off.

She and Zevran were dressed lightly, he in his drakeskin leather armor and she in her old robes with a thick, black cloak thrown about her shoulders. Though it was hot, Zevran assured her it was the best way to keep the sun from burning her light-colored skin. Where they were going the sun would burn them like a fire, and the undergrowth and bugs would quickly get on her nerves. She trusted him and so dawned the horribly tawdry cloak, slightly reveling in the way it touched her skin. When she was using magic, she was nearly hypersensitive to everything. Without her powers, however, the heavy clothes didn't bother her quite so much.

After eating a heavy breakfast of dried meats and bread, they set off toward the rising sun. Elda didn't pay much attention to where they were going as she couldn't understand when they stopped to ask directions or when they spoke to each other. She learned that Arcelle could speak Ferelden but preferred Antivan. Zevran was kind enough to be the hero and translate key sentences for her until she lost interest and shuffled forward with her head down, nearly asleep. Zevran hadn't allowed her to get much rest, so afraid that she would get sick from the infection that he insisted upon changing the bandages around her hand every two hours and washing it with warm water.

Eventually buildings and people turned into dirt roads and trees, the sun indeed hot upon her back. Everyone once in a while, they would stop to sip at a riverbed and bask in the shade, her head in Zevran's lap. She even managed to get a few moments of sleep before being kicked in the shin by Arcelle and being gruffly ordered to get a move on. It was probably the pregnancy that was making her so tired, she finally considered after feeling another twinge of exhaustion flow through her. She forced herself to press on, though, refusing to be the one to slow them down. She'd walked through the frozen lakes of the Wasteland pregnant and barely surviving on the carcasses of dead wolves for the longest time. She could survive a simple walk with the right equipment and a slightly pleasant warmth from the sun.

It was in the very deepest part of the woods that the mage attacked. Of course, Elda might have been able to prevent it had she had her powers. But then, they wouldn't have been in the woods in the first place. Arcelle had paused a mile back to say she felt something following them. Zev had made a similar remark earlier, but no one could pinpoint the location of any enemies. They were in the middle of a dense patch of trees when Arcelle stepped in the trap. Elda saw it but couldn't get the words out fast enough. The sharp, pointed teeth of the trap bit down deep into the dwarf's leg, blood gushing as she let out a guttural scream and fell to the ground. Elda felt the air crackle with electricity, the clouds overhead swarming darkly as if in preparation for a storm. A ball of pure lightning energy exploded from the trees, vaporizing falling leaves and heading straight for Zev. Elda shoved him out of the way just in time, the lightning smashing against the trunk of an old oak and dissipating upon the bark with a deep scorch mark.

Arcelle hissed in pain as she tried to pry open the bear trap with her fingers, the sharp edges cutting into her gloves and leaving them slick with blood. Zevran was about to get up when Elda pushed him down. "No! Don't move," she whispered and lowered herself to the ground, crouching beside the dwarf and helping her with the contraption. Only silence and Arcelle's whimpering filled the air, birds having long flown away after sensing the magic crackling in the air. Leaves were gently blown across the ground. No other attacks came until Elda wedged her dagger between the bear trap and twisted.

Fire exploded all around them, singing Elda's hair as she scrambled back, the heat intense. Overbalancing, her head smacked the ground as she fell. Arcelle was cursing in her own language, the creaking bear trap chomping over and over, deeper and deeper into the soft flesh of her ankle. Elda couldn't imagine the agony, but the dwarf kept working it. Elda moved again as another fireball scorched the ground where she had been sitting, the singed grass throwing up smoke. She coughed and covered her mouth with a sleeve just before another explosion erupted behind her, throwing up a miasma of thick fog that was not natural.

"Elda, where are you?" Zevran demanded. She couldn't see anything, though she was certain that Arcelle was just a few feet away. Staggering away from the bear trap, she leaned against a tree.

"Right-!" she was cut off abruptly as a hand clamped onto her mouth, yanking her backwards. She stumbled, turning to jam her elbow into the hip of her attacker, pain exploding along the length of her arm as she struck cold steel. The arm moved from her mouth to choke her throat, pulling at her awkwardly as if trying to take her away as quickly as possible. She flailed, throwing her weight against the attacker and clawing at nothing but armor. Zevran was calling out for her, hearing her struggle, but he could do nothing with the suffocating miasma rising from the ground.

The strap of her ratty pack ripped as she bucked, contents rattling as they fell to the ground. Angrily, her attacker whipped her around about face only to strike her harshly against the cheek, the pain exploding in her jaw. Blood welled up from a busted lip as she stumbled back, dazed. She caught only the faintest smell of lyrium potion and saw the wispy hair of a female before she was struck again, lightning fast. The palm of the woman's hand connected right under her jaw, sending her sprawling backwards, hands flying out protectively, instinctively, over her swollen belly. She never hit ground, though, a hand darting out to catch her and yank her forward. She reached for her knife in that instant only to realize that it was gone, fallen to the ground somewhere during the struggle.

"Zev—" she tried to scream, but the fingers slammed over her mouth and chin, pulling her head back roughly and dragging her along, feet leaving a distinguishable trail in the leaves. She groaned and kicked, disturbing the dirt in as many places as she could, hoping that Zevran would be alive and well enough to follow. He could track anything. She had seen it done.

Deeper and deeper into the woods she was taken, quickly losing the strength to fight as the toll of walking all day sank in. In fact, she was becoming so tired that it was hard to keep her eyes open. A comfortable warmth was burning through her veins, the hand on her mouth no longer cold, the sharp angles of armor stabilizing her rather than torturing her. A haze settled around her vision, and she felt herself relaxing into the embrace. So much was she relaxing that the attacker was forced to pick her up rather than drag her. She did not fight. She couldn't. The strength had gone out of her limbs, and her eyes were slowly shutting as if being weighted down by iron. It was only as the woods faded into black that she realized it was a spell she had used many times.

Sleep…

She woke to sharp rap on the head, startling awake. Immediately the scent of blood hit her hard, making her nearly gag with the intensity of it. A fire was burning incense in the corner of the small hut, but it hardly drove out the smell of death. And that was the other thing. Death permeated the air along with the scent of lyrium. She blinked several times, forcing herself to breath through her mouth, and took in her surroundings. As far as she could tell, she was bound to a chair. Coarse rope rubbed against her wrists. In front of her was a rickety table with a ratty tablecloth thrown over it, a single cup sitting in front of her. Over on the bed was the source of the smell. The rotting corpse of what appeared to be a small child was dismembered, blood running in rivulets over the sides of the bed and onto the floor. The child appeared to have been burned, the flesh back and cracked.

That was nothing compared to the woman crouched by the fire. Elda tilted her head, hardly believing her eyes. The woman was pale, paler than the washed out moon, and layered with tiny cuts and scars on every last bit of flesh visible save for her face. Long, filthy white hair trailed down her hunched back, stained ribbons of what was once a black cloak hanging off her skeletal body. She reminded Elda at once of an insect when she turned around, a blood-stained cloth tied around her head over her eyes. The fingers of her hands were clenched side by side and pointing down like a praying mantis. The woman tilted her head and thin lips pulled back over black teeth. Elda nearly gagged.

"Awake! She's awake," the woman crowed in a hollow, ghostly voice. She craned her neck to stare at something over Elda's shoulder. "We told you, didn't we? Yes, we did! Of course, we did." Nodding to herself, she reached into the fire, spindly fingers closing around the handle of a tea kettle. She hobbled over to Elda and began pouring a green tea into the cup in front of her. "Tea is good for mothers, don't you know that? Drink lots of tea and stay out of the sun. Bad girl to be running around in the woods." Something struck Elda's leg, and she winced in pain. It was a knobbed cane that appeared to made of some type of dense wood.

"Are you…Delthea?" Elda asked, finding it difficult to belief that the ugly, old forest witch could really be so feared.

"No!" the witch turned sharply. "Silence, else you'll call in the harpy. Delthea's shell, her crust, maybe, but not Delthea. Now be silent and drink your tea!" She threw back her head and cackled loudly. Elda regarded the tiny teacup in front of her and raised an eyebrow. How exactly was she supposed to drink her tea when her hands were tied?

"Don't make that face at me, Circle mage," Delthea struck her again with the cane. "We has our ways, don't need eyes, Circle mage. Oh, we can smell it. We know them circle mages. You stink of incense when you should smell of blood! Fine, coddled little children! Hah!"

Elda couldn't help it. She snorted. "You think the circle mages are coddled? Never been there, have you?"

The witch turned back to her. "Ah, smart mouth. You've got a pretty face and a smart mouth. Must be why you've got such a full belly. The men like that. Men like a woman that's got a smart mouth. Your man especially."

"And what would you know of Zevran?"

The witch sneered, lips turning up in the corner. "Know him, know his heart. He runs from things he cannot understand. Love, fatherhood…a son of a whore does not know such words. Men lie. Mark my words," she leaned in close, the blood stains directly over empty sockets where eyes should have been, "men lie."

"You loved Ikilai, didn't you?" Elda asked softly, but it wasn't a question. Pity moved her heart as she looked at the woman.

"Love," the witch sneered. She threw up a hand dismissively and hobbled back over to the fireplace. "Demons feel no love, no sympathy, nothing but greed. Why should we love a demon? Not a man, but yes, demons lie. Liar. Destroyer."

The door opened suddenly, breaking the tension. It was Chorise—the woman from the inn—that entered with a fire burning slowly in her hand, blue flames illuminating the questioning look on her face. Heavy, metal armor dwarfed the human woman's body, clattering with each step she took. Elda knew immediately that it was Chorise that had kidnapped her and glared. The witch sniffed the air before shrinking back as thought frightened. Snuffing out the flames in her hand, Chorise cast a bored glance at Elda. She took a few steps forward.

"Delthea, I told you to come get me when she awoke," she said calmly as though gently reminding the woman rather than chastising her.

"Back, harpy!" the witch snapped, cutting the air with her cane. "Interruptions! Why come back? You have your eyes, so why come back?"

"Calm yourself, witch," Chorise said. "Stir your pot if it will calm you, we will not need you for a moment anyway."

"So smart," the witch crooned sarcastically. "Thinks she knows how to calm Delthea! Ungrateful daughter in life and in death. We treat ourself with such scorn!" Nevertheless, the witch hobbled back over to her pot suspended over the fire and grabbed it from the flames without a thought, proceeding to make more tea. Chorise gave a sigh.

As Delthea went to work grumbling, Chorise took the chair across from Elda and leaned back. "Tell me, elf, does it sadden that if you had your powers, you could escape?"

"I think you know the answer to that, kidnapper," Elda spat. "What have you done with Zevran?"

Chorise chuckled. "He is alive and well, just as you are. I suppose he might have a few bumps and bruises. The female dwarf is maimed and bleeding to death at this very moment."

Elda struggled against the chair. "Where are they?"

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, seeming suddenly weary with the topic. "In the woods, where I left them. They are unimportant. What is important…" she trailed off for a moment before leaning forward and pressing a hand against the swell of Elda's belly, "is this. So many futures I have seen, all of them are including the death of the child. A child cursed by darkspawn taint is unlikely to live in this world for long. You have my sympathies."

"I'll spit on your sympathies," Elda snarled. "I refuse to accept that. My daughter will live if I have to destroy all of Ferelden. It belongs to me, anyway. I saved them."

"So much death cannot bring life," Chorise said sagely, taking her hand back in a slow gesture. Her fingers curled beneath her chin, slumping so that she was staring intently at the elf in front of her. "You misunderstand, anyway. Your daughter will die young, and by your own doing, you will be alive to see it."

"My own doing?" she balked. "What do you mean by that?"

Chorise laughed, and the witch behind her cringed, mumbling about noise. "Did you think when you took my hand and I took your flesh, I did not gain a little bit of insight into your life? I saw your traverse into the Fade, the steep price of eternal youth. You destroyed much, didn't you, for your vanity? For your envy of their love?"

"I sacrificed nothing," Elda sighed. "Lily was already dead, and if they had been reunited? What then? What chantry maiden can love a mage? What future did they have? Jowan was an apostate, and he belonged to me."

"Your love is consuming," Chorise sat back. "It is a painful, necrotic thing, isn't it?"

"What love isn't?" the smaller woman countered.

The witch—the maddened Delthea, Elda decided—dropped a steaming pot of tea in the middle of the table. "Drink, then!" she spat in hatred. She addressed Chorise. "You bring her into my house, you ungrateful harpy, wanting then to couple our souls once more! We cannot be whole."

"Silence, Delthea," Chorise said with an air of superiority, gripping Elda's tea from across the table and bringing it to her lips. "And what of your wicked ways? Drag that rotted corpse out of here. The smell is awful."

"Oh, to be the mad one!" Delthea exclaimed. "What is it like to be the working side of the soul? To watch over yourself as a child? What you do not understand is that the maddened side of you is the sanest!" She whacked Chorise's leg with the cane and hobbled away. Chorise didn't flinch when the cane smacked her leg, but Elda certainly did. For a crippled woman, she was quick with a weapon.

"Ignore her, she is unimportant," Chorise said simply. "The only thing I require of her is her power, and when we are one again, she will be gone. I have found a way to eliminate her control entirely. For the best, I assure you."

"Destroying a part of yourself is for the best?" Elda inquired.

"Bloodmage, they call you," Chorise ignored the question. "Apostate. Murderer. You know the value of sacrifice as one of us. Do not attempt to judge me."

"I think your crimes are greater than mine, don't you?"

"Oh, most certainly," Chorise conceded.

"Then what do you want from me?" Elda demanded furiously. "You offer to parley and then snatch me from my entourage. I'm bound to a chair, tell me what we can accomplish!"

"I snatched you from their care because they are unimportant," the witch told her. "The dwarven gangster is of no importance to you anymore than she is to me. Zevran I have not touched. He would coddle and console you, defend you when I need you defenseless. He is useless to you now, and so I took you from him. This ceremony is no small thing. It requires tact, a mage's will." She smacked the table with her hand. "Ikilai will not be overthrown easily!"

"He has a mortal body now," Elda said.

"Because of you," Chorise snapped. "I'm well aware. He cannot be exercised like a demon; he must be murdered like a mortal. And so we will take your powers from him to give you that advantage. You will not be powerless, and he will be weaker. You've tamed him before."

"So why don't you kill him?" she demanded heatedly. She kicked her legs out from the chair, wanting more than anything to be free from the bindings.

A low, rumbling chuckle from behind. The sound of soft satin moving over skin, and then the smell of decay was overwhelming. Delthea put a crooked, spindly hand on her shoulder and squeezed, breath across her face stinking of rot and musk. Elda turned her head and grit her teeth. The witch had removed the cloth around her eyes, two gaping black holes staring at her from a gaunt face. Blood oozed out of the sockets, ripe with pus green slime.

"We wish we could," Delthea chuckled again. "To tear out his heart and feast on it, but that is not the way."

"We will steal his power, and you will become his queen. Sink your talons into his heart and give him your corrosive love and then we will destroy him," Chorise grinned.

"You're both absolutely mad," Elda spat. "If you think I'll become a part of your sick game, you're absolutely mad. I came for the chance to regain my powers, not be wrapped in some warped revenge scheme."

Chorise's eyes softened, and she stood up. Lightly her fingers touched Elda's cheek, the faint scent of perfume wafting from her skin. "Do not worry. You will have all night to think about this. In the morning, you can give us your true answer, when we are whole again." She made a gesture to Delthea, and the old witch grumbled.

"Wait," Elda growled, "you're not taking me with you?"

Chorise blinked. "Why would we do that? We know how to join ourselves. There is no need to take you, and without your powers, you are quite helpless here. Also, I warn you that if you do manage to get out of your little chair, you best not go outside. My wolves are hungry. Delthea let their supper rot on the bed, you see."

Bile rose in Elda's throat. The lightest whisper of cloth and the clunking of Delthea's stick on the floor reached her ears as they left without another word.

I've actually had this typed up for days now. Sorry. Thanks for reading. Review please.