"––fuck?" Kadram finished weakly.
Arya glanced up at the man from her perch on the side of a gnarled pillar. Kadram stood upside down on a floating rock, a good twenty feet above her.
The Inquisitor's companions and other agents stood in varied positions on pillars, on floating rocks.
"Where are we?" Vry asked, worry tinging her tone.
"Shiny!" Sera exclaimed from the other side of the field of columns, her arms wrapped around her knees. The luminescent green sky made it appear that she was crying. Perhaps she was. "Are you okay?"
Vry nodded and finally called back, "Yeah."
"Amazing!" If Solas's eyes grew any wider, they might have consumed his entire face. "It appears we're in the Fade. Physically!"
"Really?" Sulahn asked, wonder overcoming her tone as well.
Several murmurs of "shit" rang through the columns.
"WHAT?" Sera shrieked, unslinging her bow and nocking an arrow. "Did you say in the Fade? Like, if we die, we really die? With demons? And––And demons?"
"And spirits," Solas added cheerfully, apparently enjoying her dread of all things magical.
"Magic crap. Demon crap. Fade crap," Iron Bull muttered. "Why can't we just fight dragons to save the world?"
"Well," Arya said, lowering herself from her column, "the only way out is through. Let's go."
Hawke groaned, but she joined Arya in moving. "I hate the Fade."
"Same, sister. Same."
After the Warden and Hawke landed on solid, horizontal ground, several splashes ensued behind them.
"Ugh." Vivienne. "These boots are ruined." Sera landed beside her, further spraying Vivienne's white armor with muddy water.
"Oops."
A stave crackled with a forming ice spell.
"Put your weapons down," Sulahn commanded as though ending a sibling squabble, "or I put you two in the front."
Sera grumbled and shuffled over to Vry. The qunari wrapped her arms around Sera as if to protect her from Vivienne, demons, and the Inquisitor's punishments.
"I don't like it here," Cole confessed as he half-heartedly splash through a few puddles in their slow trek across the green and black wasteland.
Blackwall squinted at him. "I thought you were a demon, or a spirit or something."
"Not a demon. And not . . . quite a spirit. Anymore. It's . . . hard to explain."
"Hmm."
"Hey, Blackwall?" Arya called over her shoulder.
"Hm?"
"How long have you been a Warden?"
"Oh . . . long enough," he replied with an uneasy chuckle.
"Have you heard the Calling yet?"
"I can't say I have."
"Even from Corypheus?"
Blackwall hesitated. "Still no, ma'am."
"Hm." Alistair had mentioned Blackwall once, that he was a friend of Duncan's.
"Do you have any stories about Duncan?" she asked, maybe too abruptly. She added, "He was the one who recruited me into the Wardens, you see. He was killed at the Battle of Ostagar."
She realized that last admission no longer pained her. Was it time or endless destruction that desensitized her to Duncan's death, and that of so many others close to her?
"I––"
Before Blackwall could answer, Arya noticed a woman standing ahead on the path. A member of the Chantry, by her robes. The Divine.
Arya drew her sword and remained back with the rest of the group as Sulahn and Solas investigated what was surely a trick of the Fade.
The Inquisitor went through the motions. "Are you really the Divine?"
No straight answer.
"What are you?"
No straight answer.
"How do we get out?"
Somewhat of a straight answer.
Great.
They fought their way through demons while the Inquisitor picked up weird glowing balls that talked, and then the Inquisitor collapsed in pain.
"I read the reports," Cullen murmured to no one in particular, "but does stuff like this really happen this often?"
"Yes," both Arya and Hawke replied, and they smiled at each other.
At last, the Inquisitor straightened, and they moved on to another section of the so-called memories, the group catching brief glimpses like an uncompleted puzzle.
Corypheus had killed the Divine, and the Inquisitor's acquiring of the Anchor was all just an accident, not holy at all.
Arya glanced at those around her, wondering why they were disheartened at the revelation. Didn't everyone know that already?
"So," Varric began as they walked away from the last set of memories, "editor, huh?"
Hawke nodded proudly. "Excited?"
"You know you don't need to understand what alliteration is to be an editor, right?"
"It adds to it, though, doesn't it?"
"I guess you're right."
They settled into silence again until a voice boomed above them, shattering the sky like thunder. Sera yelped and jumped at Vry like a monkey leaping to a tree.
"Hawke," the voice crackled and splintered like wood struck by lightning. Slowly. A demon luring them into its lair. "Where is your sister? Your brother? Your mother? Where are all the mages you 'saved'?" The templars? Kirkwall is burning. You can smell the corpses. And Fenris . . . he's in the mouth of the dragon now. He's going to be a slave again, and you can't save him this time. What will he do when he learns what you've been doing to yourself? He'll leave you when he learns you're exactly what he's killing. He'll kill you next, rip your heart out, and grin."
"SHUT. UP!" Tears wavered in Hawke's eyes, and she shot a blast of some sort of magic into the air. Red. Blood.
Blood magic?
The group stared at Hawke, but there was no time for words. The demon started again.
"Sulahn, do you know what your wolf is planning?"
Solas stopped walking.
"One day the magic will come back. All of it. Everyone will be just like they were. The shadows will part, and the sky will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see." Arya could sense the demon's grin.
"Holy shit," Hawke murmured. "Sandal said that!"
The demon went on, "Your heart will betray you, Inquisitor. Your rise will be the world's downfall."
"Your words mean nothing, demon," Sulahn spat, and she took Solas's hand subconsciously. Solas stared at her, terror in his eyes, but she did not look at him.
"Morrigan will leave you again, Aaron," the demon went on. "One day, you will not return to her, and she will never know. She will hate you forever. Kieran will hate you when he learns you are not his father."
"I pity you," Aaron said. "You know nothing of love."
The demon scoffed.
"Do we have to listen to this?" Renan asked. "Can't we just magically plug our ears or something?"
"Now there is a spell for that," Dorian pointed out, "in Tevinter. But I don't know it. I naturally excel in ignoring people."
"Renan," the demon hissed, "what will Dorian do when you die? What will happen if . . . if . . . That's what you're scared of?" The demon went on as though unsure. "If you have to wear wet socks while traipsing about the Fallow Mire?"
"Ew!" Renan shivered. "That hit the spot!"
Dorian beamed at him. "So brave," he mocked, clapping his hands slowly.
Grumbling, the demon moved on. "Vry. You can't protect Sera. You can't even protect yourself." Vry's face paled by several shades. "When the qunari invade, they'll chain up your mother. And you. They'll kill Sera and make you watch."
Blood draining from her face, Vry sank to the ground, huddled in on herself, pressed her hands tight against her ears.
The demon finished, "And then they'll sew your mouth shut, cut off your horns, your hair––"
Sera knelt beside Vry and threw her arms around her. "Stop it! Stop it, you friggin demon!"
"Sera, Sera, Sera," the demon went on. "If you shoot an arrow at me, I'll know where you are."
"Good!" Sera shouted back. "Then I'll know where you are!" She paused in thought, realizing it didn't necessarily work that way. "I'll still shoot it up your arse!" she managed to get out, and then she returned to comforting Vry.
"Arya," the voice seethed, "no matter how much you sacrifice, the world crumbles more. What will Thedas do when you die soon? Will you go to the Deep Roads with Alistair, leaving Ferelden without its monarchs, an heir? What will your precious mabari do, when his owners leave and never come back? Oh, wait. He's still waiting for you, never knowing, always sitting by the front door. How many more people will you lead to their deaths while you remain unscathed? When you die, you'll come here, and you'll face everyone and everything that's ever died because of you. Your mother. Your father. Your brother. Sage. Loghain. Mhairi. Connor. Isolde. Ser Cauthrien. Duncan. King Cailan. The darkspawn are waiting here. The demons you've sent back. The cult at Haven. The werewolves. The broodmothers. Dragons. The archdemon." He chuckled. "My what a list of fears. You'll die in the dark, and you'll stay there. Forever. And Alistair will be there too. You'll watch him rot, be torn apart by the darkspawn, gnawed on––"
"That's enough," Arya said quietly, but the demon did not protest. "I know you fear me more than I fear you. I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to survive long enough to say goodbye to Alistair." She ushered everyone onward. "Let's go." From there on out, they walked in silence.