Part Thirty-Seven: Leap of faith

Morrigan isn't coming.

Dorian watches the truth break over each of his companions in turn. Cassandra's mouth presses into a grim line. Bull bares his teeth in a silent snarl of defiance. The Inquisitor meets Dorian's gaze and holds it, and the farewell in his eyes is as clear as if he'd spoken the words. Then he turns back to his enemy, head high, shoulders set, and Dorian is so proud of him he could cry.

The corrupted dragon rumbles again, its gaze raking over them as if to decide which of these puny creatures it wants to devour first. As though the outcome of this little game of roulette is in any doubt. Yellow eyes settle hungrily on the Inquisitor, and the tattered wings start to spread.

Barrier. Now.

Dorian reaches for his power – and it's not there. Instead of a thrumming pool of energy, he encounters only a void; where vibration should be, only stillness. He reaches again, a clumsy grasp for something, anything, but the air around him is utterly… tranquil.

The breath leaves him in a strangled cry of disbelief. The elf turns at the sound, distracted at the worst possible moment as the dragon leaps from its perch. Bull throws himself bodily into the Inquisitor, knocking him aside a heartbeat before the dragon crashes down in a cloud of black dust. It snarls in irritation at having its meal snatched from its claws, but this is a minor setback, and it pivots toward the figures lying prone in its shadow. Cassandra charges the creature's open flank, but she's no more than a nuisance, a horsefly on a druffalo.

And Dorian? He's nothing at all. An empty husk where a mage used to be.

Fear washes over him, dizzying in its intensity, but it's chased with something else. Something that feels an awful lot like rage.

Don't just stand there like a stunned rabbit. You're meant to be clever, aren't you? So diagnose the fucking problem and fix it.

Closing his eyes, he does his best to shut out the deadly scramble taking place a few feet away, to draw his focus inward where it will do the most good. He can feel his own mana – he's practically boiling over with it – so the problem isn't him. Corypheus's power is there too, radiating out from him in waves, and… wait. There. So faint that he'd missed it before: a glimmer of magic lying just beyond his reach. It's being pushed back, repelled by Corypheus's power, almost as if he's creating a Veil of his own then and there. Dorian can sense the stillness at the centre of those waves, the source of all this pulsing: it's the orb, the elven artifact Solas told him to be wary of. Corypheus holds it aloft, and it's like a magnet pushing at an opposite pole, holding the Fade at bay.

Extraordinary, Dorian thinks. How is it possible?

No matter. It explains why he can't draw on his power – and also why Morrigan hasn't arrived. Whatever the nature of this dampening field, she's obviously caught up in it too, unable to shift forms. And yet Dorian can still feel Solas and Vivienne casting far below – faint, but unmistakable. Somehow, they're outside the range of Corypheus's dampening spell.

Which means…

Dorian hesitates, watching his friends battle the corrupted dragon while Corypheus looks on with a triumphant sneer. The darkspawn magister doesn't even need to expend his own power. His pet is more than a match for them. The elf is a blur of motion, ducking and rolling and diving, but he'll tire soon enough, and that will be the end of it. There's nothing Dorian or Bull or Cassandra can do to protect him. They need Morrigan.

And so, fighting down every instinct he has, Dorian turns and runs.

Down the stairs, back the way he came, calling out Morrigan's name. If she were down below with Solas and Vivienne, she'd be able to cast, which means she's somewhere on this Maker-forsaken floating rock. He ducks through ruined arches, races between crumbling walls, doing his best not to fall off the edge and plummet to his death as the world spins like a sickening hangover under his feet.

"Morrigan! Kaffas, woman, I know you're—"

"Here!"

She startles him so badly that he loses his footing and very nearly pitches right over the edge; only the witch's quick reflexes prevent him from getting that flying experience after all.

"Something is wrong," she says as she drags him away from the edge. She's out of breath and flushed from racing up the stairs, and there's a gash on her arm, though it doesn't look deep. "The spell. I cannot—"

"I know. It's some kind of dampening field. I can't cast anything either."

Her golden eyes widen. "What do you mean? How is that possible?"

"I don't know. But the range is limited. That's why Corypheus tore the ground up by the roots." He'd thought it a bit of showmanship, a dramatic flourish to suit the creature's pride, but that wasn't it at all. He was trapping his prey, preventing them from escaping the suffocating influence of his magic.

She scowls. "I don't understand. Speak plainly!"

An ear-splitting screech sounds from up the path. Dorian squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to think about what's going on up there. "There's no time. Just answer me this: How long do you need?"

"What do you mean?"

"If the dampening field were lifted, how long until you shift?"

"Seconds."

"And once it's done - do you need to sustain it? Is it active or passive?"

"Passive, but why-?"

Dorian takes her by the shoulders and locks eyes with her. "Morrigan, do you trust me?"

"What?"

Close enough, he decides.

Wrapping his arms around the witch, Dorian throws them both off the edge of the world.