Victory, Origins Theme, Saturn, Freeze You Out
Disgrace of Redcliffe
Big Steps
His Royal Majesty King Alistair Theirin of Ferelden, Lord of the Arls and Master of the Landsmeet, had Lady Isolde Dufort of House Guerrin stripped of her title as Arlessa of Denerim and then publicly flogged in Redcliffe Village square. She was given three days to recover from the livid splits and tears down her back, and then banished back to her homeland of Orlais. She was not permitted to meet with or speak to Teagan before Alistair ordered the damning punishment, but the Arl did manage to put together a party of the few remaining servants and guardsmen loyal enough to go with Isolde and protect her.
Teagan himself only suffered public defamation from the King, a continuation of what the Landsmeet had already given him when his brother's name had appeared on two official Crow contracts targeting the Arling of Amaranthine and the Grey Wardens. As House Guerrin's primary home, the Arling of Redcliffe was saddled with full responsibility for the war including the reparation payments to be made to both the Arlings of South Reach and Amaranthine. On top of the damage to Redcliffe Castle and Village, House Guerrin was commanded to pay the wages of every soldier and servant who had marched against them.
The Banns of Redcliffe were to meet on the first day of spring to hear the entire mess laid out to its smallest details, and then they would vote on the final fate of the Arlship of House Guerrin.
Eamon was dead, his wife shamed and whipped, his son had denounced them, and his daughter…
His niece, Rowan Guerrin, did not go with her mother: she was already en-route to South Reach with her brother and the Warden Commander before the whip cut its first crack across Isolde's spine. Teagan did not know what would become of the poor child now, she had no home in Denerim and no say in which one of their enemies would hold her hostage from this point on. Either she would remain in Surana's care and journey to Amaranthine, or Alistair would keep her in Denerim to sit at Anora's knee as a to-be-trained court mage. Or, of course, there was the third option: that the child's family had been ripped apart and the final word would be to package her off to Nevarra for the mages there to strip her of her name, obliterate the final shades of her noble birth, and turn her into just another quiet servant of the Maker…
Teagan was not certain he would make it to see spring at this point. He was summoned to meet with Alistair again and oh, he felt like a shadow of a man when he stood there.
"You have one chance, Teagan." Maker, when they'd first put him on the throne of Ferelden he had seemed such a small, uncomfortable thing. All his Warden prowess drained dry by the responsibility of ruling a nation. Now he was sitting in naught but a wooden chair, but it could have just as easily been the same great throne from Castle Denerim. "And only one, to fight for yourself before your Banns meet."
"I…" It felt wrong to speak, he felt so old, the echo of Isolde's screams still following him in his waking hours. She'd cut her hands on the chains used to hold her for the whip. "I give praises to the Maker that my King still has mercy to give his lessers."
"I don't," Alistair cut him with the words and Teagan flinched. "But people stop being useful when they're dead, or in your case: disgraced and standing to lose the right to ever show your face in Denerim or Redcliffe ever again. Prove to me that you've still got an ounce worth of value wrapped up under all the complacent abuse and sickening cowardice, because if you can't then Connor really will lose his father this time, and maybe Rowan too."
"Alistair-" Teagan's heart burned and he didn't know how to make the younger man see how much he- "I never loved Isolde and she did not turn away from her husband!" He had explained this before, painfully, shamefully, but maybe this time Alistair would actually choose to hear him. "She was desperate for a child and you know that feeling!"
"Bad approach, Teagan." Alistair growled back. "And I don't care how it happened, it doesn't mean a damned thing to me because Eamon is dead and his widow isn't to trespass into Ferelden again until long after I'm good and dead as well. I'm angry that Connor knows, and I demand you tell me how that even happened."
"I…" had told him. Teagan had made that mistake years ago and never known how to correct for it. "It was during the war between the Mages and the Templars, before the explosion at the Conclave. I'd finally found him in Redcliffe Village and tried to convince him to come back to the castle with me, to come back to his family and accept our protection. He just kept refusing and saying he deserved to stay in the tent city, that he would never dare disgrace his parents a second time by scuttling back to them for protection after the horrible things he had done as a child. We argued and it went on and on until finally- Maker Take Me, Alistair, I just wanted him to come back."
"'Come back to your family, and by the way: you're a bastard.' How the hell did you think that would work?" The King bit into him and held tight as Teagan bled.
"If he wouldn't let me speak on behalf of Eamon and Isolde, then he had to know how much it mattered to me," Teagan pleaded, desperate to explain something that didn't make sense because it was all so painful and knotted up in itself. "Isolde loved Eamon, only the Maker Himself knows who actually fathered Connor because she and I were never lovers, it was simply a desperate attempt to produce an heir for Eamon. He never knew, and Connor never should have either! That's why I- I…"
"Finish that damned sentence, Teagan, before I have it beaten out of you."
He didn't want to admit this part, but between Alistair's barely contained anger and Teagan's own throbbing guilt, it needed to be said:
"I didn't tell them he refused to come back with me. I told Eamon and Isolde that Connor was dead."
"You did what!?" Alistair thundered, on his feet livid with his hands raise to strike out or wrestle Teagan to the ground before at the last moment he regained control. "You snake, Teagan!"
"If I'd told them we'd argued I would have had to explain why and over what!" Teagan yelled in his defense and it hurt, oh Maker it hurt… "I couldn't do that to Eamon- I could not! You don't understand how much he loved that boy…"
"And when he turned the fuck up in Skyhold and you had to explain yourself!?"
"I blamed it on bad information-"
"And when Eamon had that boy he loved so much disowned at the drop of a hat!?" Teagan had to lower himself to his knees, he was being shouted down and if he didn't answer it submissively he was moments from being run through with a sword.
"Connor refused to cooperate," he babbled from his knees, hands up to shield him. "He threatened to attack us by exposing Rowan as a mage to Surana- Eamon never knew!"
"He did! He had to have!" Alistair roared more loudly still. "Either you told him or Isolde did!"
"You have punished her enough!" He pleaded.
"But not you!" Alistair was so angry his eyes had turned a pale, radiant blue colour, their after-image hanging in the air when he turned his face away and walked from Teagan over to the table resting to the side of this terrible encounter. "Get up."
"My king…"
"Get on your damned feet!" Alistair shouted and Teagan's legs wobbled but they moved. He stood, he wanted to run.
"You are Ferelden's ambassador to the courts of the world…" The king's voice was rough with hatred and anger. "You spend more fucking time in the Free Marches than your own Arling. If you want to save your fucking skin, Teagan Guerrin, and go back to that pretty little childless mistress of yours in Starkhaven, then you're going to give me the only possible excuse that would spare your life at this point…"
"Alistair…"
He was handed- no, he was hit with, a thick vellum bundle. It was shoved into his chest and he staggered at the rough treatment, looking down numbly at the seal of Divine Victoria resting next to Alistair's own crimson ribbon and wax.
"Divine Victoria has called an Exalted Council to clarify the purpose of and perhaps rule on the very existence of the Inquisition. I couldn't give a fuck which way it goes at this point. Your Queen is warry of its sudden and swelling influence within our realm, and the man who just blew your keep to ashes considers the Inquisition a far more powerful and threatening force than anything the Grey Wardens have mustered in over four ages."
"You're sending me as ambassador…" Teagan said in a slow, breathless voice. This was not what he had wanted and he was pleading when he looked at Alistair again, head slowly shaking. "If I leave the Hinterlands after so much chaos, I'll never keep my Banns from voting me out of my Arling." He would lose Redcliffe. He, Teagan Guerrin, would be the last link in the family chain. "Alistair-"
"You will represent Ferelden at this Council," His King growled down at him, forcing Teagan to shy back, hands wound frail and nervous around the papers he was holding. Alistair had brought these with them on purpose, he had had this plot brewing in the back of his mind before they even left… "And if you don't walk out of the Winter Palace with a decision which benefits if not empowers our nation then don't bother coming home at all. You will lose Redcliffe, Ambassador, but fail me now and you'll lose your fucking life. Are we clear?"
"I…"
"Are we clear, Teagan?"
Teagan closed his gaping mouth, swallowed thick and dry down his parched throat, and ruled his spine until it stood straight, shoulders set. He felt as though he'd aged ten years just standing in this room.
"His Majesty is as merciful to his enemies as his Highness is just in his dealings. House Guerrin is deeply honoured to serve as envoy to the Divine and her Exalted Council…"
"Good. Now get the fuck out, uncle."
Teagan left with a broken heart, but a renewed will. The only armed force in Ferelden that had been in the right place at the right time to stop Surana had refused to come to his family's aid when they'd cried out. House Guerrin had suffered a damning defeat against the Grey Wardens and Amaranthine, but the Inquisition would not face the same fractured force.
Teagan would end them.
Connor slept almost the entire way to South Reach. When he did wake up, he was uncomfortable, cold, and too ill to speak more than a few words at a time, but he survived the journey. Velanna had obliged him with a glyph of warding on the carriage floor that blocked his mind from entering the Fade as he slept, sparing him the terrifying plummet through nothingness as he was moved while sleeping, but during the three nights they spent on the road the glyph was pulled apart. It helped him keep track of time and keep a sense of where he was. He was thankful to be away from Redcliffe, but the food was cold, his medicines were cold, and the air was cold. But he survived.
The first time he woke up, he didn't even draw attention. He was laid across the blanket-strewn floor of the carriage rattling down the Imperial Highway, smothered in thick clothes, cloaks, and blankets that made it impossible for him to move. His eyes barely fluttered, his ears were what told him he was awake:
"Nug."
"Gullet."
"Twist."
"Treetop."
"Patch."
He fell asleep again to the sound of Jylan and Rowan playing the word-game together. The next hazy memory he had was Jylan's monotone voice explaining… what was he explaining?
"-were then gathered into separate cohorts of three or four apprentices each. Warden Connor, myself, and a third human apprentice were one such collection. Our lessons began after prayer, and were followed by lunch, chores, and…" He fell asleep again with memories of the early years at Kinloch Hold filtering through his dreamless mind.
Waking up was easier. Connor realized now that he could do it on command again from the Fade, not every time, but often enough that he came very close to annoying Jylan with it. If he fell into the Fade after taking the embrium during the evening stop, then he could wake back up again at least twice within the first half-hour of the draught. Evie scolded him on Jylan's behalf, but Connor just smiled warmly and dropped back into the Fade with good news for Kindness. If he kept the prospect of waking up in mind, then he could push his way out through the warm fog and wake up just before dawn. It was so cold it felt like his eyes were frozen shut when he woke up at night, but it was worth it to reach out cautiously under the thick blankets and squeeze Evie's hand, or Carver's. The simple fact that he could choose to wake up was enough.
He was still taking too much of the drug, and the journey to South Reach set him back. The cold could have killed him but he was never told if his situation ever took a dive to make that threat a real possibility. What he did know was that waking up on the fourth day, when they were meant to arrive in South Reach, he couldn't do it. He was in the Fade, meaning he wasn't in the carriage, and the Fade was only shifting about a little bit, meaning if he was moved it was neither far nor fast. But he could not wake up and neither Surana nor Velanna appeared in the Fade at any point to tell him what was happening.
Connor woke up what felt like a long time later in a room he could not see, but it was not the carriage, and he was not as cold as his last foggy memories told him. He was given warm food and hot medicine and the glyph was cast and he fell back into dreamless dark.
The next time he opened his eyes, he could see, albeit only after a few minutes of blinking and trying to settle his throbbing head. He was in a warm, well-furnished room with stone walls and tall ceilings hammered in place with thick wooden beams. It was hardy Fereldan construction that made him feel safe, the windows covered up with thick tapestries to hold the heat inside even if it meant sacrificing light. There was a large fire and several lamps burning to make up the deficit. His walls were covered in images of farmers and fishers and craftsmen going about their labours, a few scenes from the Chant of Light visible here and there. His bed was swathed with blankets and he felt very warm under them all, wondering if the few strongest points of heat he felt might have been hot bricks slipped under the layers of wool…
He was awake. He was also alone: a novelty. Connor found he was quite comfortable with the idea of being alone, of not being immediately smothered with attention and coddling. He could see one of the glyphs spinning over his bed and watched it with a bit too much focus to be healthy, then remembered himself. Right. Awake.
What would get him in trouble with Evie, Carver, or Jylan if they walked in unexpectedly? Standing up would definitely get him scolded. Shoving the blankets off would do the same thing. Connor decided not to get out of bed and do cartwheels around the room. Doing a hundred push-ups on the cold stone floor would probably not be worth the scolding.
He moved his arms. That felt like a safe place to start. Connor was patient with it because he was awake. He flexed his fingers, then his wrists, then tried to shift his hands around and bend his elbows. There was a lot of resistance but most of it was from the weight of the blankets. He managed to work his arms free and stared at his wrist with bleary eyes for a long, long time, eventually remembered that wool was warmer than linen and that was why he was wearing wool now. Right. Made sense. Wake up.
He caught himself looking at his magi ring for far too long right after that. Wake up. Get up. Move!
Connor moved hi- ow. Oh no, he was definitely going to muscle through this part. His legs hurt. He hushed the mild complaints in his feet as he curled his toes, his ankles unbearably stiff until they cracked and it made him jump but oh… at least they felt better after that. He could roll them, a little, the next was-aah! AH, oh- oh Maker his knees… He bit his lip with a grimace, made his right leg bend and that made his hip move too and ow, ow, ow… No, he was going to do this. He threaded one arm back down under the blankets, rubbing his thigh and hip trying to sooth the tense, cramping muscles. He bent his knee as far as he could with his foot flat on the bed, then extended again. He made the other one move the same way and hissed, grimacing at the ceiling, but did the deed.
'I want to sit up…' He did. He really did want to sit up. He'd done it a few times but not since leaving Redcliffe village. 'I'll sit up and then go back to sleep…' Because he was sore and he was hurting but at least he was moving. The sooner he could move the sooner he could get out of this bed all together. Bend one leg again, bend the other again, stretch them both out. He was awake and Connor was moving.
Sitting up was hard, sitting up was hard, hard, hard- ow ow ow! No, get up. He was going to sit up if it killed him- this was killing him, ow-!
His back popped, his gut pulled, his shoulders were hard-pressed to take any weight when he braced his elbows and then his hands on the bed. But he sat up. His head was a lead weight but it was off the damned pillow. He was bent over his knees, or as far as he could with all the bedding in the way, and this should have been very uncomfortable but really it wasn't. His back was cold, certainly, but not frigid, not frozen. He could breathe. His spine was in a new position and honestly that felt good. He could stretch…
And then he felt dizzy.
It was still a victory. He'd moved and he'd sat up: he'd accomplished both of his goals and feeling a little nauseous for the exertion was a simple fine to pay for the privilege. He laid back down on the bed, but he took the great labour of putting one arm down first, and swinging his sore, protesting leg as hard as he could until his hips shifted. Connor not only moved around and sat up, but he managed to roll over. He settled back down on his side, facing the room's only door, and even though his blankets were a strewn mess he was warm again. He slept deep and easy.
"The Grey Wardens are very well regarded in South Reach." Jylan explained to him a few days and a few more exercise attempts later. His spirit felt brighter and appetite better when he was given a bowl of thick potato soup with chunks of rendered ram meat and winter radish. His teeth felt soft, but the food was softer and given enough time he was able to chew through it. Sitting up, he was able to hold the bowl and feed himself, a dramatic improvement that he was thankful for. "This room is close to the Warden Commander's, and is similarly decorated."
"It's big," Connor said. His voice was husky and the breath often left him when he spoke, but he wasn't mute and Jylan never discouraged him from using it. They were both certain that the more he used his voice the sooner it would come back properly. "Thank you."
"Will you eat more?" He was asked.
"Not-" Connor had to cough when something felt thick and cloying in his throat, his lungs shuddering with moist discharge. "Not now…"
His days were dull, honestly. When he was awake he wanted to move, but depending on who was with him that became quiet the challenge. Carver fussed the worst of anyone and it was slowly becoming obvious that if Connor woke up and Carver was there, he probably wasn't going to be allowed to do anything more stressful than eat and talk. If it was Evie, she would at least let him sit up without Connor having to argue for it, but she'd put this tense and uncomfortable face on whenever he tried to stand.
"Please be careful," she cautioned with his arm either around her shoulders or threaded through hers.
"I could walk in Redcliffe, I will walk now…" He grunted, and he stumbled, but he walked.
If Nathaniel were there then Connor could rejoice: movement!
"Up you get, boy." Happily, yes. He couldn't go outside against the cold yet, but he went as far as the whole top floor of Caer Blackwood's guest wing the first time. The next time Nathaniel appeared he even made it as far as the collection of rooms the other Wardens were staying in. It over-extended him and he had to sit with them for an hour or two to get his strength back, but he was happy for the change anyways.
"But… why are you apologizing?" He got to have a very strange conversation with An'eth and Hassick while he was down there too, shoulders wrapped in a thick wool blanket and Jylan hovering not far to the side to make sure he didn't faint away. "I don't understand." The Dalish warden and the marksman looked guilty and uncomfortable, leaving him at a loss.
"We promised, Athras and I, to be there at the battle to help rescue you." Hassick explained in a heavy voice, his blond hair braided out from his temples to keep it back. "But we weren't able to fulfill that vow." Oh…
"Where were you?"
"Fort Connor," An'eth told him with regret tugging at the lines of her Dalish tattoos. "We were with Master Arainai and we helped him rescue the Warden Commander's son from the last Crows hiding in the Hinterlands. We wiped out the entire cell with his and Lady Morrigan's help, but we weren't able to hurry back for the battle like we promised."
"Wait…" Okay, maybe Connor shouldn't go walking this far so soon. Something was either affecting his hearing, or these two's grasp of things. "So you're apologizing to me… for rescuing a young boy from the same people who did all of this to me? Do I have that right?" he asked, rubbing his eyes with one hand for a few moments. "Because if so then… no. No, that's not how this is supposed to go. The way it's meant to be," and he looked at them again, aware that his voice was going and his focus was going, and Maker this chair was comfy and warm… "Is that I tell the two of how humbled and honoured I am to wear the same armour as those who rescue children from murderers and restore them to their families unharmed. Thank you, Warden Athras. Thank you, Warden Hassick."
They both pulled faces at him like smiling hurt, but they nodded and oddly enough he couldn't hear what they said. But he had plenty to thank them for because he hadn't yet reminded them that they'd found his amulet and ring, the two most important… Where did they go?
Oh, this was the Fade now. Damn it.
Nathaniel got him to move around the castle, Evie and Carver kept him confined to his room and to bed. The rarest person for Connor to wake up and see was Commander Surana, but when he did come it was a mixed blessing.
"Focus, if you can." With his body screaming at him Connor found magic so hard to make work. It was easy in the Fade, it was breathless and simple and a part of him. Here with his body still weak and a thousand different pains to ruin his concentration, magic was astonishingly difficult… "Breathe and try again, Warden. I'm not testing you on knowledge or power, this is simply an exercise in control." And it was hard.
It took him an hour just to cast light in perfect shapes again: circle, square, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, pentagram, and a dozen others. It was almost as hard to visualize what he wanted through the film of embrium than it was to physically cast the magic out from his shaking hands.
"Much better." Don't encourage him, this was miserable work and the glyph he finally wound up with couldn't even channel its energies properly. "You're no Apprentice, Warden. You'll get through this soon enough."
"I just… have to want it enough, sir?" He asked stiffly, hands shaking and it felt like his face and back were drenched in sweat.
"There is nothing wrong with your magic," Surana told him simply. "Strong bodies make for stronger spells, you're getting there."
"I want to go home…" Connor admitted stupidly to himself. Of course, standing over his bed the way he was, the Commander heard him and answered.
"When you're strong enough to ride a horse, we'll be on our way within the hour." That meant everyone was waiting for him. Brilliant.
He was getting better but it was so slow, it felt like ages since leaving Redcliffe Village and Connor just wanted to go home. He wanted to see the Vigil again. His room, his workshop, the courtyard, the mess hall, the library, all of it. He wanted to go home and stop seeing liveried servants wearing South Reach orange everywhere.
"You are gaining back your appetite and weight." Jylan was his primary caretaker and Connor was quite pleased with that arrangement most of the time. It still left at least a few questions needing answers however, and sometimes he just watched his friend work quietly and tried to figure out how or if he even should speak his mind. He knew Jylan wouldn't take offense, but Tranquil were conditioned not to resist when something was asked of them regardless of what it was. He was not a mage accidentally or traumatically given the brand during the war: Jylan had lived as a Formari in the Ferelden Circle for nearly three years before the outbreak of the war, and been that way for another four since then.
Seven years was a long time.
"How did-" His throat closed up when he spoke, prompting him to cough again and look up sheepishly when Jylan returned to the bedside only to stand there and look down at him blankly. It was about as close as his friend could come to asking him if he was alright. Eventually, the coughs subsided and Connor could work enough air through his lungs to speak. It was always hardest to speak in the morning. "How did you come to be with the army? And the not at the Vigil?"
"King Alistair ordered my appearance in Denerim Court." Jylan explained in his flat voice, eyes and face unchanged as he watched Connor. "My skills were to be employed in the case of your sister falling ill. However, that was not the case."
"No, but… it's a long ways from Denerim to Redcliffe."
"I remained a member of Commander Surana's entourage."
"Wars are dangerous, Jylan. And you don't travel easily- why did he bring you?"
"He carried a strong suspicion that you had been poisoned, a suspicion which proved correct." He was certainly right about that, but Connor still wasn't seeing things clearly.
"So he just… dragged you across the country in mid-winter? I'm so sorry…"
"That is incorrect. I was not dragged, Connor."
"I don't mean literally, I mean- boxed in without a way to safely take yourself home. Ordered to do something you didn't want to." Connor closed his eyes briefly and gave a cough, his hand waving with a nonsense gesture. "Not that you want things, I know, but the language is clumsy."
"I understand your meaning. I was not dragged."
"I'm still sorry you were put through this, Jylan."
"That is incorrect. I was not put through anything."
"Were you ordered to come south?" Connor asked, his throat starting to go raw, but he pushed through it.
"No. I was given the choice between remaining with Commander Surana's entourage or returning to Vigil's Keep. However, my return would have involved another apothecary of unknown skill attending to the Warden Commander, and made it impossible for me to oversee your recovery as I have thus far. It was preferable that I remain with the army despite my difficulties with travel and the uncomfortable weather."
"I…" The others were right: Jylan was speaking more than usual these days. He was speaking more and what he was saying was all important and all things that needed to be given voice. Connor felt warmth curl under his tongue, brush behind his eyes, and make it difficult to breathe- but this was a good struggle. He lifted one hand up over the covers and gestured for his friend to come closer. Jylan approached and even took Connor's hand in both of his, either mimicking or remembering the gesture of comfort, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Thank you… Thank you, Jylan, just- thank you."
"You are welcome, Connor."
He was crying but it felt good. These were good tears. They felt like the ointment Jylan spread in his eyes to clear them from the embrium, like the clean water used to wash his face and shave away that awful beard he had so hated wearing. He wept and he felt relief, holding his friend's hands tightly with his own, thanking him, and keeping him close. Jylan didn't have to feel the same things he just had to recognize that Connor still needed him and stay. Just stay.
Tranquil didn't get bored, they didn't feel anxiety, couldn't get antsy when something unpleasant was taking too long to end. Jylan sat and he stayed and he was patient. He let Connor cry and didn't interrupt him, didn't make any attempts to sooth or stop something that was honestly alright just happening the way it was.
Only when he felt himself calming down again did either of them speak, but first Connor had to decide if this was really something he wanted to say or not. Was this really something he wanted to ask or not. The question was not an easy one and did not come with a clear answer.
"You should drink something." Jylan took the silence as permission to speak, which wasn't wrong of him but Connor shook his head no and kept his hold on his friend so Jylan couldn't leave.
"I have another question," he said, voice thick and cheeks still damp from crying. "But Jylan: you don't have to answer this one." His friend watched him for a quiet beat, then nodded.
"If I know the answer then I will-"
"No." Connor interrupted, something he knew Jylan didn't like but that didn't matter this time. He squeezed his hand tightly for a moment. "No, that's not how it works. You do know the answer but Jylan you do not have to tell me. I'm not entitled to it, but I have to at least ask."
He wasn't certain his friend understood, but honestly that had more to do with Connor being unclear than with Jylan being Tranquil. His friend looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to settle his face in a way that made him seem more open. It showed he was listening for whatever this odd question was going to be. Foolish Connor, he got lost on the way and started on something else instead.
"Jylan there was- a spirit…" He blundered, but now he was committed and he took this path. "At the battle, when the Veil tore open and the army was swallowed up by it. I was approached by a spirit who helped us, one that offered its friendship to me, but… But Jylan, it took your face." Jylan didn't respond to the comment. He'd been told Connor wanted to ask him a question and he was waiting to hear it. "Jylan, did you ever commune with a Spirit of Loyalty when we were apprentices at the Circle?" Because Loyalty had never pried into Connor's mind to find his friend's face or voice or long-lost mannerisms. Loyalty had never probed or asked or dug around in Connor's memories for so many little quirks and possibilities. The only way Loyalty could have known Jylan so well was if Jylan himself had…
"Yes." Connor felt his heart break. Jylan gave his answer and nothing more, his expression open enough to say he was listening again without anything further to add.
"How?" He asked, "How did you even…? We had summoning lessons, yes, but- but connecting to gentle spirits was something reserved for Mages and Enchanters, not apprentices like us. How did you even start?" Jylan took the question and he held it for several moments, his green eyes drifting without focus until he had his answer and looked at Connor again clearly.
"There was a book in the library, one mis-placed by a ranked mage and left where apprentices could find it." He explained. "Amara brought it to my attention and we agreed to hide it in one of the piles of workbooks near the younger apprentice tables. Due in equal part to your past experiences with demons and the Fade, along with your notorious fashion for abiding by all rules without hesitation, we did not include you in our studies." Connor took this information in very slowly, not sure which part to focus on.
"I was not notorious," he argued weakly.
"I have clear and varied memories of arguing the point with you." Connor had those too!
"I have clear and varied memories of arguing with you not to climb the bookcases not because it was against the rules, but because they were massive things that would have crushedyou to death."
"…I concede now that your point was valid."
"Thank you." Connor said, but without tears this time. "I'm… honestly surprised to hear you were studying. You never studied anything." Not unless Connor or Amara had physically wrangled him down in a seat and read the books aloud to him. Jylan had been an absolute pest trying to-
"I could not read." Connor- stopped. His thoughts screeched and slammed into one another, end-to-end in a twisted heap. His memories withered and turned rank with sudden meaning. "To study was embarrassing and a source of great frustration. The subject of spirits was suitably enticing to see me confess the deficit to Amara, who held it in confidence."
"Wha-? But why didn't you say anything before that?" Connor gasped, staring wide-eyed and shocked at him. "How could you not read?"
"I was from the Alienage." Jylan answered him so simply Connor actually struggled to remember that he was Tranquil and not angry with him. He continued on in his monotone voice, either because it was something had gone unsaid for too long, or because he knew Connor was taking too long to understand and needed it spelled out more clearly. "Amara was a clerk's daughter who was taught letters at her father's ledger. You were from the nobility and had been instructed by many tutors. My family did not have such opportunities. I could not read until Enchanter Petra taught me." His mentor…
"Maker, I just…" Years and years this had gone unsaid. Connor just wanted to fall back to sleep and pace the Fade, try to figure all of this out. Maybe he would speak to Loyalty, there had to be something the spirit could tell him that would help with all of this. "I didn't know… I thought you- that you just hated the Circle and its lessons. That you didn't take magic seriously not that the books- Maker how did that never come up? How did I ignore something like that?" Jylan offered him no answer, and Connor just covered his face with a hand to try and keep himself calm. "And that book… I just thought you and Amara were… off together hiding in empty classrooms." It wouldn't have surprised him, honestly. Apprentices had made and broken intimate bonds with one another more often than most of them changed socks. Something about the thrill of having to hide, the fear of people just up and vanishing for Harrowings or for infractions the Templars never had to explain. If you wanted to avoid it then you could, and Connor had.
"We were." Jylan's voice drew him back to the conversation. Oh. "That was how we discovered the book."
"And the book was how you met Loyalty," Connor filled in.
"Yes." And then, quickly: "I am unclear as to which of these questions was your primary query. You expressed great caution before speaking, however this conversation has not warranted such levels of care." Jylan was still sitting next to him, still holding his hand, but somehow still very, very far away.
"…I don't know if I can ask it anymore." He answered hesitantly.
"I do not understand."
"I… I'm trying to figure something out, Jylan, and I can't." Learning higher level magicks in the library was an offense but not one that warranted being made Tranquil. Jylan's poor reading was something his mentor had known about, so she would have been able to argue that he hadn't even known what the book was about. There had been no demons, only a benevolent spirit. He could have been beaten or locked up or starved or something else but not Tranquiled. It didn't make sense for Jylan to be made Tranquil for speaking to spirits while Amara had escaped without any censure, despite being the one who would have read most of the pages to him. It didn't make sense. It had to be something else.
Connor didn't want to know anymore. He didn't want to force Jylan to explain how and why he had been made Tranquil when he was genuine enough to earn Loyalty's attention and friendship as an apprentice, and skilled with so many other small forms of magic beyond that. Manipulating elements, controlling lights, memorizing details. He should have been given his Harrowing. Why had Jylan been made Tranquil?
"Was it blood magic?" Connor wondered aloud, his voice falling to a whisper. Jylan was watching him but didn't react to the hushed words. "Did you ever use blood magic, Jylan?"
"No."
"Were you ever accused of it?"
"No. Yes." Jylan's focus left him, gaze drifting just a little higher than Connor's eyes, his thinking face. "I was not accused of using sacrificial blood for magical casting. But I was accused of forbidden arts and the term blood magic was frequently used as an over-arching definition."
"What were you accused of, exactly?" Connor asked breathlessly.
"Summoning demons." Oh, Maker… Connor shook his head slowly, too tired to weep again as he squeezed Jylan's hand. "It was untrue."
"It was a book about spirits." He hushed. "It wouldn't have had information about demons in it except how to stay away from them or to tell the difference. They would have punished you, yes, but not with…" No, no, no… Jylan fell into silence for several seconds, but he was looking at Connor and focused on him.
"Are you attempting to understand why I was made Tranquil, Connor?"
"Yes." This was hard, it was so much harder than he'd thought it would be. He wanted to go back to sleep. "I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense- were you just afraid of your Harrowing?"
"Everyone was afraid of the Harrowing. That was not the reason."
"Then what was?" Connor asked. "Why did they do this to you?" He wanted to say please, to beg for an answer from him, but Connor had already said that if Jylan did not want to give the reason then he did not have to say it. He would not go back on that pledge now.
Jylan was quiet. He was quiet for an uncomfortably long time. He would stare straight through Connor's eyes and then lose focus, then come back and look at him again, and then go off again in his own mind. Connor just wanted him to make up his mind over whether or not he would speak but didn't want to interrupt if he was about to come up with a response. Please. Please.
"The official reason," Jylan finally said in his toneless, blanketing voice. "-as was signed by the First Enchanter and Knight Commander of Kinloch Hold, was that I had trespassed beyond my knowledge as an apprentice and had willfully attempted to summon a demon into the Circle. The charge was supported by my frivolous use of magic throughout my time in the Circle and my well-known disregard for the authority of higher-ranked Mages and Enchanters within the Circle's hierarchy. The proof of the accusations was in the form of testimony provided by another Apprentice, who claimed to have witnessed the malevolent summoning."
Connor went cold. Not from embrium or his own condition, but by the word proof. He felt his eyes widen with horror, knew he was clutching tightly at Jylan's dark fingers. He searched, pleading, for anything that would tell him his friend's words didn't carry the meaning Connor heard behind their simple sound. Proof. Witness. Only one other person had known about the book.
"Why would Amara do that?" He gasped again, his breaths tight and difficult to find. "It was a shared secret, you were together, she- why?"
Jylan stood up from the bed, not quickly, but he was deliberate and pulled Connor's hand up into both of his again as he found his feet. He turned and regarded Connor for a moment that was quiet for the Tranquil but loud for the Mage. He could hardly breathe, mind spinning.
He remembered Amara, her talented magic, her short-tempered manner, her endless drive to study more and understand more and do more and be thought of ever-more highly by their instructors. Amara's twisted red hair and her heart-shaped face and her dark eyes and her freckled nose and her sharp voice and her scolding and her sharp elbows when one of them fell asleep in lessons.
"Why would she accuse you of summoning demons when you weren't?" Connor pleaded. "Why would she do that to you? Why? Jylan, why?" What had happened between them? What had Jylan done to enrage her to the point where she'd made up a horrible lie that had landed him in a fate worse than death? How had she lived with herself after it? How had Connor never known? Why had he never asked?
He remembered Amara crying for weeks after Jylan had vanished from the bunk above Connor's and returned a shade, a blank-eyed, flat-voiced shadow of no one either of them really recognized as their friend and cohort. He'd been there in the hall one evening, and the next morning gone. Connor hadn't even seen the Templars take his belongings and clothes away. He'd assumed it was a failed Harrowing until they saw him in the tower store-room several days later… The Circle had never announced these things, it was always rumours chasing rumours and whispers hidden behind more whispers. The rumours said Enchanter Petra never took another Apprentice after Jylan, the whispers suggested it was her fault. Connor had never asked. Never pried. Never seen it as his business beyond one or two attempts to ask Jylan if he was alright, if he'd done something wrong, if it had been frightening or had it hurt to have Jylan's connection to his magic and his dreams severed both at the same time.
"Jylan, answer me, please…"
Why, Maker why, had he never asked until now?
"It is apparent that this topic is stressful to you, Connor." No- "Therefore, as you implored me several minutes ago, I exercise the right to withhold the answer to your question."
"But you didn't do anything wrong! She-!" He shouted and- and pain- lungs-! The air went out with his scream but he couldn't get it back. He tried to gasp and it felt like his ribs cracked and seized sharply in place, spearing his chest with pain that forced him to grunt and lay flat on the bed instead of struggle to sit up and reach out. He hadn't shouted before and his throat closed up tight and thick, his face flushed and tears stinging his eyes. No, stop it, not like this- not now! He didn't want to be sick now he wanted-!
"I will inform the Wardens that you are unwell and my presence unlikely to improve the situation," he was just talking at him over Connor's own struggles, untangling his hands, moving away without taking his gaze off the bed.
What had she done? What had that stupid girl done to theirfriend? Come back and tell him!
"They will attend you momentarily, Connor. Please try to calm yourself. It was many years ago and Amara did not survive as we did." That bitch!
He couldn't breathe but Connor did feel something he had not known in a long time. He opened his eyes at the ceiling and from a place next to the spearing pain in his chest there came a sharp, needling, scratching anger that nipped at his insides and clawed its way through his blood. The taint beat and burned its way from his heart through his gut, devouring the embrium and leaving a cold wake behind as it roared through his chest and forced a deep breath to cut through his teeth, relieving some of the immediate strain. Taint gnawed on his bones and howled in the back of his head, limbered up his arms and planted a quick and dirty plan that his frayed temper and broken heart both leapt for.
He clapped a hand to his chest, felt over the wool covering his skin, the hard lump of something he wanted gone where it was resting high and large next to the disk of his oath pendant. He couldn't grab it for the fabric and felt up, walked his shaking, tense fingers up to his throat, his neck. He scratched himself trying to hook his fingers around the cord, around the right one and not the chain holding the warden amulet. He found the woven cord, he bent his neck so hard it almost popped, and ripped the damn thing up over his head.
He threw Amara's wooden chantry locket as hard as he could at the floor and he prayed it snapped in half! He couldn't see where it landed and couldn't rise again after flinging it down. What Connor did see, what he did know, was that Jylan was at the door and came back into the room with a fast and long stride. He knelt down to pick up the last existing piece of the woman who'd betrayed and destroyed him, and then left the room far more quickly than his usual gait would allow. Jylan should have burned the damned thing after finding it!
"I trusted her… I trusted her… I trusted her-!"
"Warden." It was Mistress Howe who lorded over his bedside and tried to restrain him and no! "You will master the taint, Guerrin, because there's no point giving you embrium to help you breathe until you-"
"Drink that poison yourself!" He wanted to shout, to roar, to let his voice out past the whirlwind raging in his mind and get it through the thick phlegm of his throat. Instead all that came out with his hands up and arms bent close to his chest, Velanna's thin hands clasping his wrists and trying to force him to lay still again, was this stupid awful garbled hiss. He wanted his voice back! "Get off-!"
"Connor,"
"Leave!" he shouted again, the taint there to fill his lungs and rip them open again painfully so the air could come back. That he hissed the rest didn't matter to him; "It's what you're best at, isn't it? Go away!" His gall shocked her hands off of him, the insult biting deep and hard enough to send her two steps back from the bed. The taint let him twist and roll until he struggled to fold himself over, sitting on the bed with his head and shoulders low over his knees. It was easier to breathe this way. Easier to shout.
"Leave me alone!" She tried to touch his back again, tried to give him embrium. He slapped the cup from her hand and chased her off with more hurtful words. The door clattered shut and he formed a glyph of locking and barring in his mind, held it there strong and white and brilliant- but it faltered miserably and fell like limp threads from his hands.
No.
No.
He wanted his magic back.
He wanted his magic back.
He wanted his magic back.
He wanted his magic back.
His entire life had been torn apart again and again and again by magic, Connor was going to get his back if he had to burn his own soul to an ugly red smear with the taint grinding his bones to a bristly pulp. He wanted his magic back, and with taint howling in his blood: he took it back.
Lock the door. Bar the frame. Repulsion on the floor. Paralysis along both walls. Lightning cast across the ceiling just to terrify whoever was enough of a damned fool to break through the rest. Connor was used to building walls of traps and barriers to keep the unwanted away. Magic that muffled noise, sealed off the voices, made the outside stay out there. He knew where the windows were and he barred those just as soundly. No black shadow creeping over the sill and inviting itself in to scold and lecture him like a child. Leave him alone.
He healed himself, he hated every hurt and missing piece and gummed up broken ruined something he found in his body. He hated his flesh for its scars and his gut for its failings and his limbs for their weakness and he hated this. He hated being like this. He would not stay this way and he would not let himself take months and months and months to wean himself bit-by-bit off the poisons that had done this to him!
Connor wanted to send a burst of magic under the table and shatter every jar, pot, and beaker resting there- but held off. Knowing the embrium was there made him angry. Anger kept the taint going. And there was food on the table as well, untouched by embrium. Water and soup and herbs that would keep him alive. He didn't destroy the table, he just hated it. He hated South Reach. He hated this damned castle for being Redcliffe's sister.
He hated his sister too, just for good measure.
The last magic Connor worked was to bar his mind from slipping through the veil and into the Fade. He was ready for when the taint finally wore itself out and his flesh realized the embrium it so cherished had run thin hours ago. He wasn't going to drink the damn poison anymore. He wasn't going to die for his stubborn decision either.
He just had to be left the hell alone.
