Thirty-eight

Donal's skin was now a pale white and it looked so dry and brittle that it might crack and flake away from his cheeks.

The fat, bald-headed mage looked peaceful, content almost, as he lay on the stones of Adamant. In the gentle light of the rising sun, he almost looked as if her were sleeping after the long night of battle.

He was one in a line of dozens of bodies the Inquisition had collected and lined up next to each other. Some of them were wrapped from head to toe, likely due to wounds too grave to look at. Many of the others, like Donal, were left unshrouded so that people might come to identify, inventory and pay respects.

For the moment, Vell was the only one in this part of the line, left alone with the bodies of the men and women who had given their lives to seize Adamant fortress. She stood at Donal's feet, ignoring her own bloody bandage at her shoulder where she had been stabbed, instead only focused on his body.

Lying on his back, with his hands crossed over his stomach with his staff held between them, there were no visible wounds on his front, nothing to suggest that he had been hurt at all. And yet, he was clearly, undeniably dead.

Was it her fault?

She didn't want it to be her fault, but as she stared blankly at his body, there was a creeping sensation rising in her that told her yes, she was to blame.

She had gotten the sensation from the beginning that Catlyn was trouble. She had dismissed it as standard human racism, mixed with a bitchy ambition to supplant her as the leader of the rift mages. Catlyn didn't like her. That had been clear since the moment they first laid eyes upon one another.

But she didn't expect that would mean the woman would harm someone else. If Catlyn had come after her and her alone, it would have been different. Vell could have handled that. She had handled that, in fact. If no one else had gotten hurt, she wouldn't be standing here now, feeling as she did.

If she had sent Merin with Catlyn instead, would he be the one dead now? What if she had sent both Donal and Merin into the tower? Would they both be alive? Would Catlyn have still tried to strike, or would she have held the bloody knife and waited for a different opportunity?

When the fucking enchanter had told her what he needed her to do for the mission, he had left it to her to decide how to attack the tower. It was her call. She was the one who put Malcolm and Jac on the wall to get their foothold. She was the one who took it upon herself to clear the walkway toward the tower. She was the one who decided that Catlyn's rage and Donal's practiced skill would make them the best to clear down the tower. She was the one who decided not to drag the foot soldiers into it, for fear that they would get in the way or that they would get hurt in the process.

Solas had said this would be her trial. Adamant would show whether the rift mages were a threat or if they could be added to the list of the Inquisition's assets. Maybe that had been in the back of her head, too, when she gave the assignments. Maybe it was her pride and her desperation that made her put so much of the burden on herself and the others. Had she not been worried about whether they would have Templars at their throats upon their return to Skyhold, maybe she would have made a better decision.

She was their leader. They were hers to protect.

And Donal was dead.

She hated the way his face looked. For a dead man, he looked too fucking at peace. He didn't need to die. He didn't need to get stabbed in the back by one of his own in some mad grasp for power. His lips should be downturned, his eyebrows bent inward in a captured anger that would carry him to the pyre and beyond. If he crossed into the beyond and met Andraste and the Maker as the Chantry said he would, they should both be able to look upon his face and know that he was pissed and that his death was unjust.

Why didn't she know this was going to happen?

It had all happened once before.

"Tiptoeing, creeping in the darkness. Quietly, quickly slipping through the night-black hall. Not a second to waste. Templars changing their guard. She knows their rotations better than they do."

The quiet whisper tickled Vell's left ear, like a puff of cold air coming through the tiny crack in the wall during winter in White Spire. She remembered the small sliver of light that came in through the crack in the rafters above the library, in the special hiding place where she would meet Angelo.

"Door creaks too loudly as it opens. Sleeping on the bed. They all are sleeping but the dormitory is silent."

Vell glanced to her left. There was no one there. She could have sworn she felt someone coming around the corner. She turned her head to the right, but there, too, was no one. Her skin prickled, like the sensation of being watched.

"Beaten, bruised, bloodied but never broken. She wasn't alone any more. He made her feel wanted."

The whisper came into her right ear now and she turned her head again, expecting to see someone at her side. Still, there was nothing but air. Her heart quickened, a sudden anxiety pushing its way through her bloodstream. "Hello?" she asked quietly.

When she turned her head back, she jumped backward at the boy crouched just before the wall, poised above Donal's bald head. His clothes were ragged, his hair pale and straw-brittle. The large cap over his head shadowed his face as he reached his hand down, his fingertips touching lightly on the dead mage's forehead.

"It's not your fault," he whispered to her as he lifted his head up, his face nearly as pale and wan as the dead man's beneath him.

His words, when spoken, calmed her heart. She knew she should be alarmed, at a strange boy who appeared out of thin air and looked and felt as cold as death itself. But her body was not tense and the anxiety that should have been there was not.

"Who are you?" she asked as she tried to see his face. Even as she looked at him, the features of his face seemed indistinct. She could see his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, his mouth, but every time she blinked it was if she were looking upon him again for the first time.

"You didn't do anything wrong," the boy said. "You couldn't have helped him."

That seemed… right? No, it wasn't right. She could have done many other things, made many other choices that might not have ended with Donal dead.

"I could have saved him," she said.

"Not him," the boy said as he lifted his hand from Donal's forehead and and shook his head. "Him."

"Wha-"

"The pillow soft and fluffy. Mouth closed. Soft, pink lips. She kissed those lips. She kissed those lips and they kissed her back. He always tasted like cinnamon."

Vell could remember it, she could remember the moment he was describing. How could he know that? How he could know how she snuck through the unlit halls, sneaking up the stairs to the Tranquil dormitory, skulking through the darkness until she found bed where he lay? No one knew that. She had never told anyone.

Her eyes had been so heavy with tears the last time she looked upon Angelo. She couldn't bring herself to bend down to kiss him one last time, because she knew that he was already gone. She bit her own tongue bloody and pressed her lips together so that she wouldn't make a noise and be discovered by the Templars.

Angelo didn't even move when she pressed the pillow down over his face and pushed it down as hard as she could around the sides of his head. He didn't make a sound. His arms didn't try to fight her off. She held it down, gagging on the blood that trickled into her throat as she forced herself not to scream aloud and wake the entire fucking tower as she watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, then stop.

His entire body jerked on the bed, twitching for just a few seconds as she maintained the pressure, until, at the very end, his entire body grew still and moved no more.

She put the pillow back under his head as silently as she had pulled it out from underneath his oily, black, hair, and sprinted out of the Tranquil dormitory. The Templar coming into the end of the hall saw her bare feet kicking up as she reached the stairs and he shouted for her to stop.

She flew down the stairs, trusting her feet to find each step in the darkness as she tossed her head from side to side, throwing the tears out of her eyes with each shake. She could hear the Templar raising the alarm and the sounds of him chasing after her.

Vell scrambled up the bookcase in the corner of the library, moving aside the broken piece of ceiling as she slipped into her hidey hole and moved the piece back into place. The midnight air was nearly frozen inside the drafty crevice as she pushed herself into the corner, pressed her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms tightly around her shins.

She rocked back and forth, her mouth open as wide as she could stretch it as she screamed in silence to herself. The entire tower was being roused, Templars shouting as they searched the stairs, the library, the apprentice's dormitories. She could hear them shouting orders to one another, the yelling from the upper floor that the Knight-Sergeant wanted whoever it was found, now.

It was hours before the broken piece moved to the side and the Templar stuck his head up into the ceiling. The faint red light glowed off the phylactery bottle as he spotted her, curled up and shivering in the corner with red and sore eyes.

He grabbed her and pulled her down. She didn't have the strength to fight as he carried her down from the top of the bookcase and led her, still sniffling, down the familiar winding staircase down to the dungeon below White Spire. He led her into one of the cells at the top-most level, pushed her toward the thin bed in the corner, shut the door and locked it.

After three days with nothing but a plate of food pushed in once per day, the door opened again to the same red-robed Senior Enchanter Timeo and his thick black moustache. She rolled on the bed, curling back into a ball and facing the corner, not wanting to see the many who had tormented her by parading Angelo and his tranquility in front of her.

He didn't seem to mind that she didn't acknowledge him as he stood in the doorway.

"And here I thought you might actually change. I suppose that was foolish of me," the Enchanter chastised. "The Templars have finished their investigation. And although they came to the conclusion that they can not definitively say who smothered the Tranquil in his bed, I think both you and I know who is responsible."

Vell whimpered quietly to herself as she bit her lip, pushing her cheek further into the mattress.

"Maybe you hoped you'd get caught? That we'd execute you when we found out?" The Enchanter laughed. "You're gravely mistaken. Death would be too easy, too lenient."

She could hear his footsteps approaching and feel his breath as he leaned down over her curled body on the bed. He laughed quietly again as he held his face just inches from her upturned ear.

"No, I want to make sure you live," the Enchanter hissed. "You will live, knowing every day what you truly are, you foolish, stupid, worthless girl.

"You, murderer."

He left. The Templars came shortly afterward and took her back to her bunk.

She couldn't recount how many times she thought about trying to end her own life.

She could have broken into the alchemy lab and drank all of the chemicals. She could have ripped her bed sheets, lashed them around her throat and hanged herself over the door to her chambers. She could have attacked the Templars until they had no choice to cut her down, or climbed to the top of the spiral staircase and thrown herself down several floors to the bottom, or surrendered to the demons that haunted her dreams nightly.

But if she gave in, they won. What Angelo had done to protect her, it would have meant nothing if she threw away her own life.

She chose to live, day after day after day, waiting, surviving, fighting. And when the time finally came, when the mages rose up in White Spire, she charged through the corridors and laid bare the full force of her suffering upon each of the six Templars she ended on her bloody exit from the tower.

It had never felt exactly like justice even as she rode the high coursing through her from kill to kill. Watching them die at her hand, while necessary and exhilarating, had done little to soothe the gaping ache inside of her.

"You don't have to hurt any more," the boy said. When Vell lifted her eyes up again, he was gone from above Donal's head. He reappeared just in front of her, slightly to her left side as he held his palm in front of her chest, just above her heart. "I can help you."

"No one can help me," Vell said.

"I can," the boy insisted. "I can make the pain go away. I can make you forget."

Vell watched as his hand began to glow and she could feel that same calming sensation settling across her body. She could feel the rot in the pit of her stomach, as if years of torment had all been collected in a concentrated ball.

Her childhood, trying to survive on the unforgiving streets of the capital. The Circle, the prejudice of her peers and the abuse of the Templars. Angelo, the love he had given her and everything that happened to tear him away from her.

She had carried it all inside of her for years, knowing that the longer she held it within, the more and more deeply it would seep into and stain every part of her existence. But she held it close, tattooing the memories into her soul until it grew cold and hard.

Somewhere, deep inside of all of that pain, were those few golden months she had stolen with Angelo. The way they would sneak around the Circle together, the stories he told her of ships and the sea, the hours he spent teaching her his forms, the exotic heat of his body as they held each other and exchanged their passions.

Even the horror she experienced as he smashed her Templar's head into the wall, inside of the bloody flower on the wall and the way the Templars beat him and dragged him away, she knew he did it because he truly believed that she was worth more than nothing.

"No," she said to the boy, taking a small step backward away from his hand. "I don't want to forget."

He looked confused almost as his fingers curled back into his palm. "But you're hurting. I can make it better. I can-"

"No!" she shouted more forcefully the second time. "Get away from me!"

Vell swiped her arm across her body to knock his hand away. As it passed before her, it struck nothing but air. Her body turned and she noticed she wasn't alone.

"I apologize," Inquisitor Trevelyan said as he took a step back away from her. He was ten feet away. When had he come up? She hadn't noticed. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Vell blinked and looked at her outstretched hand. What was she doing? Wasn't she talking to someone else just now? She glanced to her right and behind her, but didn't see anything. Her stomach felt tense, but she couldn't recall exactly why.

"Inquisitor. Wait, fuck," she said and shook her head, realizing she probably shouldn't have said "fuck" to the leader of the Inquisition like that. Was she going mad? What was she doing before he had walked up?

"Not you. I, I thought it was someone else," she said. She must have sounded insane. There was no one else there. There had been no one else there. "I'm sorry. I must have been seeing things. You don't have to go."

Trevelyan had shed his breastplate, pauldrons and gauntlets, revealing the sweat-soaked shirt underneath. He still wore his greaves and armored boots, but he didn't have his two-handed sword now either. His eyes were heavy and filled with fatigue. He looked exhausted, same as everyone else in the fortress. His left hand glowed dimly and she could feel how the Veil seemed to pull away and scatter from the mark across his palm.

She turned back toward Donal again, taking note of the orange glow that rose up his left cheek as the sun crept higher over the walls of Adamant. The other side of his head was still shrouded in a shadow.

Trevelyan stopped at her side and glanced down at the body before her. "Was he one of your mages?" the Inquisitor asked.

"Donal," she answered with a short nod.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Trevelyan said.

"I wish I could have been there to help him," she said.

Trevelyan nodded to that, as he glanced down the line of bodies of their soldiers. "A feeling I'm all too familiar with," he agreed.

There was a moment of quiet as Trevelyan shifted, clasping his hands behind his back as he looked over Donal's body, studying the dead man's features just as Vell had been doing for the however long it had been after she lost track of the time. At least an hour. Maybe two.

"I was informed that you disobeyed your orders," the Inquisitor said as he turned his head to the right to look at her.

"I-" Vell began to defend herself. This wasn't the time and she wasn't in the mood to be scolded, not even by him.

Trevelyan cut her off as quickly as she began. "And in doing so, you saved several lives, including those of Templars, I'm told."

Vell swallowed. Was that, praise?

"It felt like the right thing to do."

Trevelyan smiled. "That it was."

He looked back down at Donal again. "I know we can't save everyone," he said. "But we should always save the ones we can. The Inquisition is better for people like you."

Vell felt a knot in her throat. No one, no one besides Angelo, had ever said anything was better because of her. From the Inquisitor, of all people, that meant something, she knew.

In that moment, she knew this trial was a success.

They lost Donal, but she has successfully ensured the safety of the others and herself.

"Thank you."

He gave a nod. "I'll leave you to your mourning."

Trevelyn turned and began to walk away, but after two steps, Vell called out to him.

"Inquisitor?" Trevelyan turned his head. Vell glanced back down at Donal, then back to him.

"I never paid attention in the Circle," she said, somewhat embarrassed to have to admit that to the Inquisitor of all people. "Do you… do you know, any... any prayers? Or anything like that? For the dead?"

Trevelyan turned back, coming back to Vell's side at Donal's feet. He lowered his head and clasped his hands before him. Vell followed his lead, lowering her gaze and folding her hands together.

Though all before me is shadow,
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.
I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond.
For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light
And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.

I am not alone. Even
As I stumble on the path
With my eyes closed, yet I see
The Light is here.

Draw your last breath, my friends.
Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky.
Rest at the Maker's right hand,
And be Forgiven.

As he was praying, Vell had lifted her left hand and placed it over her mouth, holding her chin in her hand as tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. Her chest shuddered as a small sob escaped from between her lips into her palm.

With each verse, it grew in intensity, the stream of tears falling thicker down her cheeks, her chest convulsing up and down with choppy breath, the quiet wailing that she couldn't seem to hold within her any more.

When the prayer was finished, she felt Trevelyan's hand lightly stroke her back as she wracked with sobs. She didn't recoil at his touch, his fingers unknowing of the hundreds of scars she carried beneath her clothes, permanently rent into her flesh. After a moment's consolation, the Inquisitor took his leave, without a word, leaving her to her grief.

She wept for Donal.

She wept for Angelo.

She wept for herself.

Vell rushed ahead, jogging up the long walkway and under the gate. She cut quickly through the yard, dashing up the steps into the main hall. She cut left, ignoring Solas' study as she hit the stairs, taking them two at a time until she entered the library.

She marched ahead toward the Grand Enchanter, who was sitting quietly in her chair reading another dusty book. Fiona glanced up from the page, closing the cover as she noticed Vell approaching.

"Vell, I'm glad to see you are back," Fiona said as she placed the book back onto the shelf and stood from the chair. "I had received word of the Inquisition's success at Ada-"

"Give me another assignment," Vell demanded as she stopped in front of the Grand Enchanter.

Fiona hesitated for a second, her eyes glancing at the tear in the leather in Vell's jacket at her left shoulder and taking notice of a new golden earring in her left ear that made it seven total.

"You should get some rest. It had been a long journey," Fiona said. "Then we can talk."

"No," Vell said firmly, although it didn't appear to shake the Grand Enchanter's poise. "I don't want to wait. Give me another assignment, now."

She curled her fingers into fists at her sides. She remembered Donal. She remembered the soldiers she saved atop the walls of Adamant. She remembered the Inquisitor's kind words and the prayer he had said for her to honor the fallen.

There was no time to waste. The enemy had been crippled, but not defeated. There were still Venatori and Red Templars, demons and darkspawns, rifts and the Elder One to stop.

There was still so much uncertainty, but there was one thing now, more than ever before, that Vell was sure of as she made her demand to Fiona once more:

"I want to help people."