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Ciri plummeted headlong, her heart in her throat. The stony gray ground sped toward her at a dizzying speed. Stomach churning, she pulled on her magic, desperate to do something, anything, to avert disaster.
Before she could risk teleporting, she came to a gentle stop inches from the ground. She reached out hesitantly to touch the harsh gray rock face.
"Oof."
The last few inches fell away with an unceremonious drop. Ciri picked herself up off the ground and gazed around in curiosity and trepidation. Far above her head, the rift she'd opened snapped shut in a sickly green sky. Craggy boulders floated in the air, slowly spinning and bobbing in place. The whole area seemed wet, almost flooded in places. Wraiths drifted idly in the distance. They hadn't noticed Ciri or her companions yet.
"I know I ignored Sebastian when he went on about the Maker's embrace, but I don't think he ever mentioned it looking like this," Hawke joked shakily.
"We're not dead, Hawke," Stroud said. He turned a stern look on Ciri. "The Inquisitor opened a rift as we fell. We are in the Fade."
"Better than falling to our deaths in the physical world," Olgierd said. "Though I'd rather not stay if I can help it."
Solas looked about in wonder, a small, delighted smile on his face. "This is extraordinary, lethallin. I never thought I might come here physically."
"For good reason," Blackwall said darkly. "The last time people walked the Fade, they started the Blight."
"A good point," Varric said. "Chuckles? You're the expert here. Any idea how to get us out?"
Solas inclined his head in thought. "This is unlike any territory I've seen claimed by spirit or demon before. The being that holds this place is powerful. Some variety of fear, I would imagine. In order to leave, we may need to convince it to let us pass, or defeat it. Lethallin, do you think you can create another rift from within the Fade?"
Ciri shook her head. "No."
"Then we should seek out the one Clarel and Erimond had opened in the courtyard."
Olgierd pointed to the rough-hewn stairs leading up to another level. "We'll be better able to get our bearings up there."
Blackwall cocked his head and held up a hand. "Hear that?"
Ciri did. Sounds of fighting came from beyond a half-melted looking pillar some ways away. A man's voice grunted and exclaimed amidst the noises of a sword connecting with flesh. Olgierd stiffened.
"It can't be."
He turned and strode toward the ruckus, water sloshing around his ankles. Ciri followed him closely, the others trailing behind.
As they rounded the pillar, the man they'd heard let out a triumphant "Ha!" and struck down a shade with a saber dripping with ichor. He looked familiar to Ciri – the half-shaven dark brown hair and moss green silk robe of a Redanian noble were distinctive markers, but she knew him from somewhere. Then it came to her. She'd seen him in Redcliffe in the future, running to warn them of an attack.
This was Adventure, tall, broad, pale, and lightly freckled, smiling at them in good cheer.
"What are you doing here?" Olgierd demanded.
"Oh, that's nice," Adventure said, gracing Olgierd with an unimpressed eyebrow. "I followed you, as always. Got stuck in this mess some time ago. The demon who claimed this patch has its edges locked down tighter than a virgin's petticoats. Better question, what are you doing here?"
"It's my doing," Ciri said. "We were going to fall to our deaths. I opened a rift into the Fade to save us. Though I'm not certain I've done that."
Adventure caught her hand and lightly kissed her knuckles, his light brown eyes intense. "You're as stout of heart as any of the Free Company, and thrice as lovely. You've my thanks for saving this lout, my dear moon-kissed maiden."
Olgierd cuffed him lightly across the back of the head. "She's not one of your milkmaids."
"Nay, I can see that plainly," Adventure said. He looked Ciri up and down with admiring eyes.
Ciri pulled her hand away, fighting a smile despite the dire circumstances. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Adventure."
"Oh, none of that," Adventure dismissed. "Call me Vlodimir."
"Vlodimir, then."
Solas looked disapproving at that, but said instead, "What do you know about the demon who's laid claim to this territory?"
"Dangerous bastard. Powerful. Fond of a good taunt," Vlodimir said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "I'm as in the dark as the lot of you. Though those wraiths struck me as odd. A hair too substantial. Don't you think?"
Ciri squinted in the direction he pointed. The wraiths did seem brighter than usual. "Shall we investigate?"
"Gladly!" Vlodimir agreed.
Olgierd introduced him around quietly as they sloshed their way toward the wraiths. Stroud and Blackwall gave him wary greetings, but Hawke and Varric were friendlier.
"You were the one who helped us out in Crestwood," Hawke said.
"That I was, my beauteous bird," Vlodimir said cheerfully. "Quite the scrap we got into down in that old outpost. A lesser man might have been pulled through! Not old Vlodimir, though." He flexed his arm and winked.
Hawke snorted. "Easy, big fellow. I'm not in the market for another man."
"Hardly the time or place for flirting," Blackwall said.
Solas spoke up, a censorious note in his voice. "Ad – Vlodimir. Do you speak to women so because of the human you choose to emulate, or because you were once a spirit of desire?"
Vlodimir scratched his chin in thought. "You raise a good question. As Desire, seduction was all about finding what a dreamer wished to be wooed with and making myself fit that mold. There's something much more unfettered in my flirtations now. It's freeing, not having to bend to anyone's whims."
"But have you not made yourself fit into another mold?" Solas asked. "Do you not feel that you deny your nature in taking on a human identity?"
"Ha!" Vlodimir threw back his head and laughed heartily. "I challenge you to find any man or beast who embodies desire or adventure more than Vlodimir von Everec. You'll not succeed, for there isn't any. I don't deny my nature. I revel in it."
Whatever Solas had to say to that was lost as the wraiths caught sight of them. Ciri drew her sword and dodged left, narrowly avoiding a wave of corrosive gas. A gleeful shout rang out as Vlodimir threw himself at the wraiths, saber at the ready. Olgierd, shaking his head and chuckling, followed after him.
Varric and the mages took on the bulk of the fighting, staying out of range of the wraiths' gas, though Olgierd and Vlodimir waded in without a care, slashing and cleaving through the insubstantial bodies with grace.
"Oh ho," Vlodimir said as the final wraith dissolved under his blade. "This is passing strange."
In place of the wraiths, four gleaming orbs of emerald light hung just above the ground, somehow both solid and gaseous all at once. They shifted and twisted as Ciri looked at them. Something about them seemed to beckon to her.
"Solas, what do you think these are?" she asked.
"I believe they are memories," he told her. He walked to one and brushed his hand across its surface, and he pulled back, frowning slightly. "The magic is similar to mine, but not close enough that I can read them. I suggest you try."
"Is it safe?"
"As safe as anything is in the Fade."
Carefully, Ciri held her marked hand over one of the gleaming orbs. A spark leaped from her palm to its swirling surface, and a dark, foreboding voice filled the air.
"BRING FORTH THE SACRIFICE."
She yanked her hand back as the orb vanished into her palm. "What was that?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say it was your memory," Olgierd said. He gave her an encouraging nod. "Perhaps you'll finally get some answers."
She nodded back and moved to the next one, laying her hand on it with less hesitance. Again the connection sparked, and this time her voice echoed around them.
"Release her!"
"That's what we heard at the Temple of Sacred Ashes," Varric said. "Nothing new yet."
Ciri touched a third, and the Divine's voice rose into the air, desperate and frightened.
"Why are you doing this? You, of all people?"
Varric shook his head. "I stand corrected."
She shot him a small smile and reached for the last one, only for her knees to buckle as a half-familiar scene began to play out around them. The Divine, suspended in the air by ominous red magic. Corypheus, holding aloft the corrupted Elvhen orb. And –
Ciri took a step back. Dull-eyed Grey Wardens flanked the Divine, directing the magic keeping her captive. She looked younger, middle-aged at most.
"Why are you doing this?" Divine Justinia pleaded with the mages. "You, of all people?"
Nothing flickered across their blank faces.
"KEEP THE SACRIFICE STILL," Corypheus ordered the Wardens as he brought the glowing orb closer to Divine Justinia's face.
"Someone, help me!"
Corypheus' small, cold eyes glittered as the orb began to drag at the Divine's life force. Her skin sagged and wrinkled, and she writhed against the magical bonds, pain etched on her rapidly aging face.
The door slammed open. Memory-Ciri stormed in, sword drawn. "Release her!" she cried.
"Run while you can!" Divine Justinia called to her. "Warn them!"
Anger flooded Corypheus' face at the intrusion. "WE HAVE AN INTRUDER," he said, pointing at Memory-Ciri with a long, blackened finger. "KILL HER. NOW."
And in his moment of distraction, Divine Justinia wrenched her arm free of the magic binding her and slapped the orb from his hand, sending it rolling across the floor to come to a stop at Memory-Ciri's feet. Memory-Ciri snatched it up, then cried out in pain. She fell to her knees as foreign magic flooded her.
Corypheus shouted in rage and ran toward her, and magic flared out in a blinding wave of light. The scene went white, and Ciri blinked to see harsh gray stone and a green sky, and her companions' stunned faces.
That's how I received this mark? That explained things far better than a Chantry folktale. Though they'd need to be quite careful in who they told once they were out of the Fade. Orlais' opinion of her was only just beginning to recover. Learning it was accidental magic might sink the Inquisition's efforts entirely.
And that poor, brave woman… Even half drained of life and in mortal peril, Divine Justinia managed to foil Corypheus' plan. She was the hero of the tale. Not Ciri.
"I wasn't the only one who saw that," she surmised.
"We shared your vision," Stroud said. He looked grim. "Your mark was not bestowed by the Maker. It came from that orb Corypheus used on the Divine."
"In case you haven't been paying attention, it's the Chantry that's been telling everyone I'm holy, not me," Ciri retorted.
"He must have intended that Anchor for himself," Olgierd said. "Alexius called it a 'stolen mark.'"
"And with the power we saw in the memory, he could have ripped open the Fade and entered it physically once more, as he did when he was human," Solas said.
"Given the way he spoke at Haven, I think that's likely," Ciri agreed.
"We have more immediate problems," Hawke said. "Or did you all miss the Grey Warden mages in the memory?"
Blackwall frowned. "Aye, I saw them."
"Their actions led to her death," Hawke said sharply.
"I'd assumed Corypheus had compromised them, as the mages at the ritual tower and Adamant were," Stroud said.
"That's how it looked to me," Ciri said. "But Stroud, that means the Wardens were compromised long before Erimond offered his 'help' to Clarel. Who knows how long they've been vulnerable to his influence?"
Neither Blackwall nor Stroud had an answer to that. Ciri looked to Solas as a thought struck her.
"I don't believe this was my memory," she said quietly. "I wasn't there for most of it. It can't have been mine. But the Divine – she was there. And she touched the orb, too. Perhaps I was able to unlock her memory somehow because she left an imprint on it."
"If that was the case –" Solas broke off, looking frustrated. He took a breath and nodded. "Yes, you're probably right."
"Nice to think she's still looking out for us," Varric said. "We could use all the help we can get."
With that, they began walking up the rough steps. In the far distance, hanging in the sky, the rift leading back to Adamant's courtyard churned. Behind her, Varric struck up a conversation with Vlodimir, a note of keen interest in his voice.
"So, Vlodimir…"
"Yes, my good dwarf?"
"Are you happy in the Fade? Just following us around, only seeing Red in dreams?"
"Ah, but such fights you get into!" Vlodimir countered. "And such excellent dreams! Racing on horseback through fields of shining grain, carousing all night in the city, drinking in the garden, stealing dumplings from the kitchen, singing and playing music loud enough to wake the dead –"
"Fair enough," Varric said, chuckling.
"You're remarkably complicated for a spirit," Hawke said. "Most of the ones I've encountered are very straightforward about the virtues and vices they embody. You're much more like a person."
"We're all people, my comely kestrel," Vlodimir said, lightly chiding her.
The steps evened out into a wet landing. High, jagged walls enclosed the area, oppressively tall. They began to slosh their way forward.
"Yes, but still," Hawke said. "You seem different."
"Of course I'm different!" Vlodimir said with another wink. "You'll meet none braver or bolder than I – or more virile."
Blackwall and Varric laughed.
"He is a spirit of adventure who was once a spirit of desire, Hawke," Solas said. "His personality is based on Olgierd's memories of his brother. He is wholly unique."
They rounded a half-hidden corner to find weathered stairs almost worn away by nonexistent feet. At the bottom were two massive metal raven statues identical to those that sat in the main hall in Skyhold, though these were lit by an eerie green glow. Milling about before them were two shades.
"I suspect we're on the right track," Ciri said, and started forward, drawing Gynvael.
The shades swooped toward them, claws outstretched. Ciri lashed out with her blade, drawing ichor, and danced back as it swiped at her heavily. She feinted to the right, and it took the bait. She lunged at it straight on, scoring deep in its side. It died with a high, pained screech.
The other shade fell beneath Olgierd's blade, and Vlodimir beamed with pride.
"Well struck! You're as fierce as ever, I see."
Olgierd shook his head and laughed under his breath. "Nay, I'm practically tame these days."
They wandered on up the next set of weathered stairs. Vlodimir affected a sorrowful look and slung an arm over Olgierd's shoulders.
"Many a fearsome man's fallen afoul of that most vicious predator."
"Vlod."
"A gentle lady's touch can tame even the deadliest of men."
"Vlodimir."
Vlodimir looked at Olgierd and winced. "Ah, still not going well? I told you, poetry, compliments, empty promises, and a pretty bauble or two –"
"Some things cannot be so easily forgiven, nor so quickly forgotten." Olgierd gave Vlodimir's arm a quick pat and shrugged it off lightly, ignoring the speculative looks coming from Blackwall, Varric, and Hawke.
As they reached the top of the stairs, a deep, darkly amused voice echoed through the air, sending shivers down Ciri's spine.
"AH, WE HAVE VISITORS. SOME SILLY LITTLE GIRL AND HER PLUCKY BAND OF FRIENDS COME TO STEAL BACK THE FEARS I SO KINDLY TOOK FROM HER IN HER HOUR OF NEED. YOU SHOULD HAVE THANKED ME AND LEFT THE BURDEN SAFELY IN MY HANDS, FORGOTTEN."
"Come down here and call me that to my face!" she challenged the voice, her hand tight around Gynvael's hilt.
"PAIN DOES NOT MAKE MORTALS STRONGER. IT'S A LIE THE WEAK TELL THEMSELVES TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEIR SUFFERING. YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT THE ONLY ONE WHO GROWS STRONGER ON YOUR FEARS IS ME."
Hawke growled under her breath, glaring up at the still green sky of the Fade. "Where are you, you bastard?" she whispered.
"BUT YOU ARE GUESTS HERE IN MY HOME, SO BY ALL MEANS, ALLOW ME TO RETURN WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN."
"I'd say that's confirmation we're dealing with a fear demon, Solas," she said as the voice subsided.
"Yes, and a powerful one," Solas said. "Nightmare, or perhaps Horror. Fear is a very old, very strong feeling. It predates love, compassion, pride...every emotion save that of desire," he added with a nod to Vlodimir. "We should be wary. This demon will do anything in its power to weaken our resolve."
"My resolve is strong enough," Blackwall declared.
"Be certain," Solas warned him, "for we're in its territory. It can likely pry into our deepest fears and lay them bare for all to see."
Blackwall blanched and swallowed hard. "Aye," he said. "It's strong enough."
The stairs led straight down again, into a flooded open-air chamber. Rocky columns and half-melted pillars held up the green sky, and wraiths and shades drifted about just above the top of the water. Hawke and Solas swept their staves forward, Hawke making a small circular gesture, Solas jabbing.
The movements of the demons slowed to a crawl as lightning arced down from the sky to strike them, blindingly bright. As they shrieked and hissed in pain and anger, Ciri and the others rushed down the steps, weapons drawn.
They waded through knee-high water to strike at the wounded demons, graceless and encumbered in their attacks. Luckily, the wounded demons were likewise handicapped by Hawke's spell, and the fight, clumsy as it was, managed to be mercifully brief.
"What do you think that is?" Hawke asked, gesturing to a strange metal contraption looming in the center of the chamber.
"It appears Tevinter in origin," Solas said. "I would not wish to begin to guess at its purpose. Whatever it was used for originally, it must have evoked a great deal of fear to be reflected here."
"Great!" Varric said with patently false cheer. "This place just gets better and better. Any more words of wisdom, Chuckles?"
"Don't drop your guard," Solas said simply.
"Right," Varric muttered. "Shit."
They sloshed up to the staircase at the other end of the chamber and headed up again. Ciri held Gynvael in her hand, not bothering to sheathe her blade. Solas' words filled her with caution. She would keep her guard up, as advised.
The stairs leveled out into an uneven gray outcropping, still slightly slick from the water. Rough, craggy walls lined their path, and another pair of the metal raven statues lit the way, leading them further down, further in.
"This place," Hawke said as they started down again. "I think it has Kirkwall beat for staircases."
"Is the physical Fade usually so strange?" Ciri asked Vlodimir. "This seems like a mad architect's fever dream mixed with an inhospitable landscape."
"The Fade is usually whatever a dreamer dreams it is, my silvery blossom," Vlodimir said. "Or it's whatever memories hold fast in a place, with spirits reenacting them and shaping the surroundings to suit. Like Ostagar, or Weisshaupt. This is the raw Fade. Horror, or Nightmare, or whatever it wants to call itself, shapes its surroundings by reflecting memories of fear, nothing more. Someone fled in a panic in the physical world down every staircase we travel, I'd bet my sword on it."
Ciri looked behind her, then ahead. "I won't take that bet," she said. She hoped the people who'd fled in a panic had survived.
The jutting walls grew taller, more forbidding, their peaks jagged and bleak. The green sky seemed darker somehow, though Ciri feared it was a trick of her imagination. An eerie, familiar howl rose ahead of her, and Varric swore.
"Andraste's ass, what's that?"
Hounds of the Wild Hunt, jaws agape and small blue eyes gleaming, bounded toward them on grotesque, muscular limbs. And at their sides –
Ciri's stomach dropped. Geralt, his face gray and his eyes lifeless. Coën, slack-jawed with blood dripping from the puncture wounds in his chest. Yennefer, battered and bruised in death. And Vesemir, broken and bloody, relentlessly advancing on her with his sword drawn.
Ciri froze in fear and despair for a heartbeat, and then she leaped forward, a strangled yell escaping her. Snarls filled the air as she slashed and dodged, terror fueling her anger. From behind her, fire and lightning flew through the air to lend her aid.
At last, they fell, and she turned back to her companions, her heart still racing. "Solas. What was that?"
"Smaller fear demons, feeding off the Nightmare," he said calmly, though he too looked ever so slightly disturbed. "They reflect that which we fear the most."
"So that's why they looked like giant spiders," Hawke said. "I thought I was seeing things for a moment."
Ciri looked at her. Hawke's smile had a brittle edge, and as their eyes met, it slipped, and Hawke looked away.
No, Hawke's fear was worse than spiders.
"Spiders?" Blackwall echoed. He shuddered. "That's not what I saw."
Everyone but Vlodimir looked unsettled to Ciri's eyes. Olgierd in particular looked grave, his lips a bloodless line and his knuckles white around the hilt of his sword.
"We keep moving," she declared.
No one objected to her suggestion. As they walked past the green puddle that used to be the fear demons, the Nightmare's voice rang out again, smug and amused.
"AH, THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A GREY WARDEN, IS THERE, BLACKWALL? AND YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE A GREY WARDEN."
"I'll show you a Warden's strength, beast," Blackwall muttered, glaring up at the sky.
"ONCE AGAIN, HAWKE IS IN DANGER BECAUSE OF YOU, VARRIC. YOU FOUND THE RED LYRIUM. YOU BROUGHT HAWKE HERE."
Varric gripped Bianca a bit tighter. "Just keep talking, Smiley. We'll find you."
At the base of the stairs, it spoke again. This time, it sounded different – harder, angrier, less smugly amused.
"DIRTH MA, HARELLAN. MA BANAL ENASALIN. MAR SOLAS ENA MAR DIN."
"Banal nadas," Solas called back.
Ciri very carefully didn't let her shoulders tense at the words the demon spoke. 'Harellan.' She'd heard that before, in her dreams. The shadowy figure she could never remember upon waking called someone close to her that, and insinuated they had terrible plans.
Solas had taught her some Elven. 'Dirth ma,' that meant 'talk to me.' 'Banal' meant 'nothing' and 'enasalin' meant 'victory.' 'Ma,' that was 'your.' 'Solas,' amusingly enough, meant 'pride' and 'din' meant 'dead.'
'Talk to me, harellan. Your victory is nothing. Pride…something…dead?'
She didn't understand. What she did understand was that he'd responded to it.
'Banal nadas.' Nothing is...something.
She needed to know what 'harellan' meant.
The endless stairs finally stopped at a narrow, mist-strewn corridor with wet, pitted rock walls. Strange things protruded from them – statues, perhaps, or monstrous egg sacs frozen in time. They proceeded forward cautiously, only to stiffen as an eerie howl broke the silence again.
Ciri reined in her fear and struck hard, half expecting to see skeletal helms rising behind the hounds and her family's corpses. She whirled away and darted back to slash at a hound's spiny back, icy blade meeting icy body. At her side, Olgierd fought with fire and saber, battering back something else with muted rage and desperation in his eyes.
The last one fell, and the Nightmare's voice called out again.
"YOU LIE TO EVERYONE, HAWKE. EVEN TO YOUR BELOVED ANDERS. DO YOU FEAR HE'D BREAK IF HE KNEW HOW MANY HE REALLY KILLED THAT NIGHT? OR DO YOU FEAR HE'D LEAVE YOU FOR KEEPING THE TRUTH FROM HIM?"
"Go fuck yourself," Hawke snarled.
The Nightmare laughed, dark and satisfied. "YOU'RE A COWARD, HAWKE. HE'LL FIND OUT ONE DAY, AND YOU'LL BE ALONE. AS YOU'VE ALWAYS KNOWN YOU'D BE."
"Hey!" Varric said sharply, catching Hawke's wrist. "Ignore the bastard. Anders will never leave you. He loves you too much."
Hawke wrenched her wrist from Varric's grip and stalked ahead, the set of her shoulders stiff with anger. Ciri watched her, pity rising in her chest. Her fierce defense of Anders, and her denial of the death toll, made much more sense now. She hoped Varric was right.
She looked to the side at Olgierd and Stroud. Both looked grim and wary, casting occasional glances up at the murky green sky above.
Ciri felt it, too. What terrible thing would the Nightmare say next? What would it say to her?
The misty corridor narrowed at a pulsing red cluster of crystals, taller and wider than the Iron Bull. Varric swore beneath his breath.
"Is this…real?" Ciri asked Solas. "This is just a reflection. Right?"
"Correct," he said. Nonetheless, he appeared troubled by its presence.
Beyond the red lyrium cluster, the corridor opened out into a wide space, a rough shelf of rock that dropped into a water-filled basin dotted with a few tiny stone islets. Within the wet basin, wraiths and shades milled.
"Great," Ciri muttered. "Come on."
"Say no more!" Vlodimir said eagerly as he pushed past her. Hawke was close behind, her staff already moving.
With Hawke's slowing spell cast again, the odds tilted in their favor once more, and they forded out into the water to slash at the sluggish demons, parrying claws and ducking slow waves of corrosive gas.
In the aftermath, more orbs of dense emerald gas hovered where the wraiths had been. She shot Vlodimir a questioning look, and he nodded to her in encouragement.
"Go on, snowdrop."
She went to the closest one and laid her marked hand over it. A connection sparked instantly, and the Divine's voice rang out over their heads.
"Tell Leliana I'm sorry."
Ciri pulled her hand back, unsettled. This wasn't from the Conclave. Would she finally learn how she and the Divine escaped the Fade? She moved to the next orb.
"Tell them yourself!" Ciri's voice snapped.
"This is getting interesting," Varric said. "I take it back, Songbird. Provisionally. You can touch the creepy shit with your magic hand while we're here."
Ciri let out a small laugh and walked over to the third one, resting her hand above its shifting surface.
"The demons!" Divine Justinia cried out.
Half hoping, half dreading, she went to the last one and reached out. As before, her knees buckled as the memory overwhelmed her. This time, though, it felt more real, truer. More hers.
Memory-Ciri clambered up a sheer rock face, the hounds of the Wild Hunt snapping at her feet. Above her, a frail Divine Justinia watched in worry, an open rift at her back. Memory-Ciri hauled herself over the ledge and cleaved the first hound's neck open with her silver sword, kicking the other one clear off.
"We must go through!" she urged the Divine.
The Divine nodded, then her eyes widened in fear as she stared beyond Memory-Ciri. "The demons!"
Memory-Ciri whirled around. Half a dozen hounds clambered over the edge, slavering and growling.
"Go!" the Divine ordered her. "Tell Leliana I'm sorry. Tell them all what happened here."
"Tell them yourself!" Memory-Ciri snapped, and she grabbed the Divine unceremoniously around the middle.
With a mighty leap, Memory-Ciri threw them both through the rift. The memory winked out as the rift flared bright, then closed.
"So, it was as straightforward as it seemed," Solas said. "You kept the Divine alive in the face of great danger."
"And she rewarded me with a title that was neither wanted nor deserved," Ciri sighed.
Blackwall spoke up for the first time since the Nightmare had taunted him. "Maker's balls," he said. "What were those demons chasing you?"
"Dogs," Ciri said shortly.
Varric whistled, long and low. "Some dogs."
"CIRILLA," the Nightmare called to her, self-satisfied and darkly entertained. "DO YOU REALLY THINK YOUR FATHER BELIEVED YOU DIED? HE'LL FIND YOU, CIRILLA. HE HAS PLANS FOR YOU."
"Fuck his plans," Ciri spat.
Hawke looked past her and swore as the Nightmare laughed. "Inquisitor!"
A baying howl filled the air as a hound raced around the corner, followed closely by three more. Lambert and Eskel's corpses came in their wake, with dead, sunken eyes and half-rotten cheeks. Ciri grasped Gynvael and readied herself.
The hounds flung themselves at them, eyes gleaming and jaws agape. One tried to sink its teeth into Ciri's throat, and she pirouetted out of range, darting back in to slash at its muscular neck. Hawke and Solas tossed spells crackling with power. Blackwall and Stroud battered them back with shields to hack at them from safety. Olgierd and Vlodimir placed themselves in the thick of the fighting, slashing and cleaving, while Varric shot at the demons from a distance.
"Is everyone unhurt?" Ciri asked as Eskel's corpse dissolved into green ichor and muck.
Olgierd held up a hand. "I could use a potion. One of them nicked my arm."
Ciri looked at the wound in question as Solas passed him an elfroot potion. The cut went straight through his enchanted robe, a thin, neat line that bled heavily. No hound had done that. He shook his head at her raised eyebrows.
"Don't pry, dear. You know my fears."
She could guess, at least. "Let's go on."
They waded past the islets into a narrow channel lined with heavy gray boulders. Olgierd slipped the empty potion bottle into his belt pouch and flexed his arm carefully as the bleeding slowed to a trickle.
"WARDEN STROUD. HOW MUST IT FEEL TO DEVOTE YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO THE WARDENS, ONLY TO WATCH THEM FALL? OR WORSE, TO KNOW THAT YOU WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION? WHEN THE NEXT BLIGHT COMES, WILL THEY CURSE YOUR NAME?"
"If the Wardens fall, it won't be your doing," Ciri told Stroud. "That's nonsense. You're doing your utmost to save the order."
Stroud glared up at the sky. "Maker willing, we will end this wretched beast."
The walls grew higher, craggier. One of the unnerving Ferelden statues of a kneeling, faceless man gripping his head appeared against the wall, green fire at its base. A strange demon ran out from around the bend, chittering loudly. Ciri caught a good look at it – a matted ruff, a scaly body, powerful hind legs and smaller forelimbs, and long, strong jaws – and braced for its attack.
Vlodimir intercepted it, swinging out hard with his saber. The demon dropped into the water, turning it a virulent green at his feet.
"Gibbering horrors," Vlodimir said. "Simple things. There's never just one of them."
On they went, past a glowing, humming cluster of red lyrium crystals. Ciri edged around it carefully. Even if it was just a reflection, it still made her uneasy. Triss' words about lyrium being somewhat alive were worrisome, and the red kind was ten times worse.
"SHE WON'T FORGIVE YOU," the Nightmare taunted Olgierd. "THE MAN OF GLASS WAS RIGHT. YOU'RE A DEGENERATE MONSTER, VON EVEREC, AND YOU ALWAYS WILL BE."
Olgierd just nodded silently and kept walking. Vlodimir growled at the sky, his hand on the hilt of his saber.
"Besmirch the character of the best man I know? Say it again, you overgrown spirit of timidity, and do it properly, facing me with your sword in your hand."
"Vlod," Olgierd sighed, "how did my brother die?"
"That's beside the point," Vlodimir huffed.
"That is the point. Nightmare's not wrong on this count."
"Damn it, no!" Ciri cried. "That's wrong, it's a lie! Don't listen to it, you…you…"
"And what am I, then?" he asked her.
"You're my friend, you ass!"
A half-smile tugged at the corner of Olgierd's mouth, reluctant amusement lighting his eyes. "You've terrible taste in friends."
"My taste in friends is beyond reproach," she corrected him. "Stop letting a demon get in your head."
His half-smile turned into a small but genuine one. "As my friend commands."
Vlodimir slapped him heartily between his shoulders. "Listen to yon argent nymph, brother. She's far wiser than you."
Ciri shook her head at Vlodimir, smiling a bit herself, and walked on, her companions at her side. Above them, the Nightmare's voice boomed out again, an edge of frustration coloring its words.
"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN FIGHT ME? I AM YOUR EVERY FEAR COME TO LIFE! I AM THE VEILED HAND OF CORYPHEUS HIMSELF! THE DEMON ARMY YOU FEAR? I COMMAND IT! THEY ARE BOUND ALL THROUGH ME!"
"Well," Hawke said, baring her teeth in a fierce grin. "If we weren't planning on killing it before…"
"Will that work?" Ciri asked Solas. She looked to Vlodimir as well. "If we kill the Nightmare, will it free the Warden mages?"
"With nothing tying the Warden mages to Corypheus, they'll be free to regret their actions at their leisure," Solas said. "It will work."
"The mages are not themselves," Stroud argued. "Their minds are not their own!"
"Their minds were clear enough before they slit the throats of their fellow Wardens," Hawke retorted. "If my brother had been at Adamant, would his neck have been next in line?"
"That's enough," Ciri interrupted. "We'll decide what to do once we get out of here and the Wardens are free again."
She looked ahead to where the path split. On the left, worn stairs led upward. On the right, rock and dirt sloped down toward a wide plain filled with jagged stone outcroppings. Above the plain, enormous broken boulders hovered.
"Left or right?" she asked her companions.
Varric dug a sovereign from his belt pouch and flipped it in the air, catching it and slapping it on the back of his palm. "Right."
"Down it is."
They followed the steep, winding path downward, shooting cautious glances up at the boulders slowly spinning above their heads. As they got closer to the bottom, a faint light began to glint off part of the plain, and Ciri realized she was staring at a wide, shallow lake butting up against a gray shore. She wondered if all this water was a reflection of the physical world, too – or if the massive rift beneath the lake in Crestwood had somehow played a role in flooding the Fade.
Two gangly terror demons stalked the uneven ground below, kept company by a pair of drifting wraiths. Solas swept his staff out, and lightning shot down to strike all four squarely. As the terror demons shrieked in pain and anger, Hawke and Varric were close behind with spells and crossbow bolts. Olgierd lobbed balls of fire from a distance.
The demons fell without ever getting within sword range. They descended the rest of the way down to the misshapen ground. It rose and fell strangely beneath their feet, making the crossing hazardous. They stuck close to the odd shoreline, avoiding the jutting rocks and the roaming horrors they could spy in the far distance up against the high, rocky wall.
"There's a spirit in the Inquisition, you know," Hawke said to Vlodimir. "He's very like you, in that he seems more real than most spirits, but he's a bit…strange. He reads people's thoughts."
"Curiosity?" Vlodimir guessed. "Empathy?"
"Compassion," Solas told him.
"And he doesn't mind all the fighting?"
"He wants to help," Ciri said.
Vlodimir considered that for a moment and shrugged. "Seems an odd fit, but anything called 'the Inquisition' could likely use a bit of compassion."
"Why don't you leave with us?" Varric asked.
Vlodimir looked between Varric and Olgierd. "Can't say I've considered it before. Leave the Fade?"
"You'd be welcome," Olgierd said with a small smile.
A wide grin broke across Vlodimir's face. "Now that's a worthy adventure! Leave the Fade! Very well, I'll come with you, brother. The von Everecs ride again."
"Poor Josephine," Ciri said, shaking her head. "She'll have to find some way to resurrect you from your noble death in Ferelden fighting darkspawn."
Olgierd winced. "Poor Josephine indeed. Perhaps we can say he suffered a blow to the head and lost his memories for a decade."
"And we found him at Adamant?" Solas asked, his voice thick with skepticism.
Hawke waved a dismissive hand at him. "We can work out the details later."
Up ahead, a small pack of horrors clustered around the entrance to a little fenced-in area. Just beyond them, a despair demon swooped about slowly, clusters of ice crystals scattering in its wake.
"Shall we investigate?" Ciri asked.
Blackwall frowned. "It looks like a cemetery. It could be a trap. More taunts from the Nightmare."
"Our graves?" Varric wondered. He grimaced. "Great. It's going to bug me for ages if I don't see what this asshole put on my headstone."
Ciri felt the same terrible curiosity. "Then let's take a look, but be careful."
The horrors broke off from the entrance to the cemetery at their approach, yipping and chittering as they swarmed their group. One lunged at Ciri, and she slashed at it, cutting it down with a high-pitched yelp. The temperature dropped precipitously. Ciri whirled from the fallen horror to see the despair demon abandon the headstones and float over. It covered them with tiny shards of ice as it screamed hoarsely.
Olgierd drew his saber back and flung a whip-like line of fire through the air. It coiled around the demon, burning and smoldering, drawing loud, pained screeches from its gaping jaws. Solas took advantage of its distraction and cast one of his powerful green spells, pummeling it down against the rutted earth.
Blackwall dispatched the last horror and sheathed his sword. "Let's see what trick this Nightmare has for us."
The graveyard was small and bleak, with only seven headstones. One for each of them, Vlodimir excepted, Ciri supposed. She took only quick glances at the epitaphs as she searched for her own, feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic. Still, those brief looks seared the words into her mind.
'Jean-Marc Stroud – Futility'
'Varric Tethras – Becoming His Parents'
''Gordon Blackwall' – Himself'
'Solas – Dying Alone'
'Marian Hawke – Losing Her Loved Ones'
'Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon – Losing Her Family'
Ciri and Hawke's eyes met above the gravestones in perfect understanding. A little way away, Olgierd stood in front of a grave she hadn't seen yet.
"Ah," he said quietly.
She went to his side and looked down at his epitaph. 'Olgierd von Everec – Gaunter O'Dimm.' She blinked, and it changed. 'Olgierd von Everec – Himself.'
'Gaunter O'Dimm'
'Himself'
"In fairness, I'd rate them equally," he said, his voice still quiet. He turned from the grave. "Come. We've a demon to kill."
Ciri followed him out of the little graveyard, cursing herself for indulging her and Varric's curiosity. This place was affecting him worse than the others. His current relationship troubles with Josephine were likely not helping matters, either.
They climbed a short flight of rough-hewn stairs just past the graveyard. The murky green sky seemed to darken further, and Ciri tightened her grip on Gynvael's hilt. They were nearing the end. She could feel it.
The ground trembled slightly underfoot, and something roared ahead. Ciri took a steadying breath at the sight of the massive pride demon stomping about, shedding sparks of lightning as it went.
"Careful," she warned the others.
Solas nodded and tossed a barrier over everyone. Hawke thrust her staff forward to cast her slowing spell. As its movements slowed dramatically, the warriors raced up the stairs to attack. Its heavy, armored limbs were easy to dodge, and they surrounded it, hewing and cleaving into the gaps in the thick plates.
Blackwall cursed as a rope of lightning caught his wrist. The demon laughed, painfully slowly, and raised its arm to do it again. Ciri darted behind it and thrust Gynvael between two armored plates, shoving with all her might.
It roared and fell to its knees. With a last burst of lightning, it dissolved into green ichor.
"Are you alright?" she asked Blackwall.
He shook out his arm with a wince. "I'll manage."
"Through there, you think?" Hawke asked. She pointed to a dim passageway between two more of the unsettling faceless statues lit by green fire. With the pride demon dead, the path was clear.
"There's only one way to find out," Ciri said. "Let's go."
The green sky disappeared entirely as they passed the statues. The passageway felt oppressive, a grim, narrow tunnel with shallow puddles of water and clusters of red lyrium jutting from the walls. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, a faint light appeared from between another pair of statues.
"The rift!" Hawke called out as she drew ahead. "I can see it. We're almost there."
"Yeah, but guess what else I can see," Varric said.
Ciri almost missed a step at the sight of the gargantuan white spider the size of Skyhold's main hall looming just beyond the passage. It blinked its dozens of milky white eyes at them and flared its giant fangs with a rattling hiss.
She reached for her agate pendant and hesitated. Alzur's Thunder would likely not do more than anger such a massive demon. Even if they all fought it together, there would be casualties – many casualties. They were well and truly trapped by that thing.
"Well." Vlodimir sounded eerily calm. "Looks like I'll not be going with you after all."
"That's not an option," Olgierd snapped.
"You'll not survive that," Vlodimir said. "I'm the only one who might."
"Not a chance."
Vlodimir grasped Olgierd by the shoulders and shook him lightly. "You'll get out of here and you'll make up with your lady. Read her some poetry. Marry her. Live a good, long life."
"Vlod." Olgierd's voice was raw. "I can't lose you again."
"Keep an eye on your dreams," Vlodimir said gently. "I'll come back. Ciri? Don't let him do anything stupid."
And he shoved Olgierd into Ciri and Solas' arms and ran out, sword in hand. With each step he took, he seemed to change, growing taller, lovelier. His pale skin deepened to a beautiful shade of lilac. His shaven head on either side of his long lock of hair grew curling, jeweled horns. His silk robe shimmered with unnameable colors and his saber flashed brightly.
Ciri and Solas strained to hold Olgierd back as he fought to free himself. "Damn you both – release me! Ciri!"
Ciri held him tight, tears stinging her eyes. "No."
Vlodimir yelled as he charged the spider, the cry echoing through the passage. The spider demon hissed back. He swung his sword at its leg, and Ciri watched in agony, not daring to look away.
There was a blinding flash of light and a deafening thunderclap. When she could blink the spots from her vision, neither the spider demon nor Vlodimir were there.
Olgierd slumped in Ciri's hold. "Let go," he said again, his voice dull.
"I'm so sorry," Ciri whispered as she released him.
He pressed his lips together and rested his hand on her shoulder, giving her a wordless squeeze.
"As am I," Solas said solemnly. "It is apparent you shared a true bond. I apologize for misjudging that."
Olgierd nodded to him, still at a loss for words.
"Shit, Red," Varric said as regret crossed his face. "I liked him. He was –"
"Genuine," Hawke said, her voice soft. "A good spirit. A good man."
He'd saved them. And it only cost Olgierd his happiness and Vlodimir his life. They stood in silence for a long moment, Olgierd's hand a damning weight on her shoulder. This was her fault. If only she'd left him behind.
"Hate to be the one to say it, but we're not through yet," Blackwall said at last. He pointed past the opening. "There. I bet that's the bastard that's been taunting us."
Ciri looked. A tall, humanoid demon hovered just off the ground in the pit beyond the passageway. It appeared strangely spider-like to her eyes. Four spindly black legs stuck out from behind its back, and an eyeless cowl covered half its face that looked like the abdomen of a spider, with four more legs dangling down in front of its bare chest.
She cleared her throat to rid it of the lump and answered him reluctantly. "If we kill that, then we can free the Wardens and leave."
Olgierd's hand fell from her shoulder to drop to the hilt of his saber. "Good."
They left the questionable safety of the passageway and descended into the pit, weapons drawn. The Nightmare bared its teeth at them and raised its arms, and howling filled the air as hounds of the Wild Hunt pelted into the pit.
"YOU CANNOT STAND AGAINST ME!"
Ciri cut down a snarling hound and kicked another in its slavering jaws. She glanced around wildly. The damnable Nightmare had used the distraction to disappear.
"Find it!" she called out above the fray.
A gray-faced Geralt caught her blade with his, and she broke away, feinting and darting back in to strike at his side. The demon had none of her father's grace or instincts, but the sight of her sword slicing into him brought tears to her eyes.
"YOU ARE NOTHING!"
Another hound lunged for her and yelped as it caught fire. Olgierd nodded to her as he struck out at his own foe.
"I GROW FAT ON YOUR FEAR!"
"There!" Varric called back. A twang from Bianca's crossbow accompanied his words.
Ciri dashed across the pit to strike at the Nightmare, fury and rage lending her tired arms strength. Stroud and Olgierd followed her. The three of them slashed at it as it summoned more fear demons with terribly familiar faces, harrying it with all they had.
"YOU WILL DIE IN AGONY!"
"Better than you have tried," Olgierd sneered, and he shoved his saber through the Nightmare's chest, wrenching it free with a violent jerk.
A noiseless wheeze escaped its mouth as it slid off Olgierd's saber to the watery floor of the pit at their feet. Its form held for a breathless second, then dissolved, leaving behind nothing but ichor and muck.
The demons fighting the others turned tail and fled at the Nightmare's demise. They stood in the pit for a moment, just catching their breath as the water bled green around their ankles. Then Hawke stirred.
"We should hurry. Maker knows what's been happening at Adamant while we've been here."
They clambered out of the pit and made for the rift. It flared bright and active just ahead of them, and they broke into a tired jog as they drew closer. Blackwall jumped through first, then Varric and Solas. Hawke and Stroud followed next.
Olgierd looked back in the direction they came, pain in his eyes.
"He said to look for him in dreams," Ciri reminded him softly.
"He did." Olgierd sighed and jumped through the rift.
Ciri threw herself in last. She could feel the change instantly, as the still, oppressive air of the Nightmare's territory changed to a cool, fresh breeze. She landed on her feet and turned to face the rift, raising her hand to forge a connection. It sparked to life instantly, and she willed it shut for good.
The chaos that had reigned when she'd last seen the courtyard was nowhere to be found. The Warden mages stood apart, quiet and shamefaced. Someone was throwing up in a corner. Puddles of green ooze covered the flagstones. Warden warriors and Inquisition soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, staring up at Ciri as if she held all the answers.
Owain pushed through the crowd, relief written across his face. "Thank the Maker," he said with quiet vehemence as he looked her up and down. Louder, he added, "The Warden mages have stood down. What would you like done with them?"
Ciri shoved down her lingering turmoil and glanced at Stroud. "This was beyond foolish, though I respect what motivated them. Enough lives were lost here tonight due to treachery and short-sightedness. I'll not add to that count with exile and executions."
"Your Worship?" a Grey Warden asked, hope and trepidation warring on her face.
"It's not my place to decide what to do with the Grey Wardens," Ciri said. "I'll leave that to Warden Stroud, who fought so diligently to save the order from itself and from Corypheus."
"Inquisitor," Stroud said with a shallow bow. "The Grey Wardens would be honored to assist you in your efforts against Corypheus and his followers. They nearly destroyed us. Allow us to return the favor."
"Gladly, though I'll not send your brothers and sisters against Corypheus or blood mages," Ciri said.
"That's probably for the best," Owain agreed. "We'll coordinate with their people to work out where to send them. If you're certain, then we won't take anyone into custody for this travesty."
Ciri wasn't certain at all, but she squared her shoulders and nodded. "I am. It's been an honor, Warden Stroud."
"The honor has been mine." Stroud bowed to her again. "I'll need to make my report to the First Warden. Weisshaupt must know what has happened here. Take care, Inquisitor. I wish you well."
He disappeared into the crowd. A soldier spoke up as he left, a streak of ash on her helmet and a deep scratch marring her mail.
"Inquisitor, we captured the mage what started all this. That Erimond. You want us to take him back to Skyhold for judgment?"
Ciri froze for the barest moment, then scanned the crowd. A broad-brimmed, raggedy hat caught her eye, and she called out. "Cole. Is there anything good in Erimond? Any shred of decency, any scrap of remorse?"
"No," Cole said plainly. "He's an arsehole."
Ciri looked at the soldier and shook her head. "Give him to the Wardens."
Solas frowned, but the Wardens murmured in appreciation, and a grim smile crossed Olgierd's face. There. Let that be the last of it.
She walked into the crowd, letting her hand sneak out to surreptitiously squeeze Owain's briefly, and she pushed through to start the long walk back to the gates. Hawke and Olgierd fell into step beside her.
"I should leave as well," Hawke said. "Anders and I agreed I'd only help with the Wardens. I shouldn't have left him on his own for so long."
"Bring him to Skyhold," Ciri said quietly. "I'll extend temporary amnesty for the visit. Cullen will stay away."
Hawke gave her a suspicious look. "Why?"
"Solas and I think we can help him – help Justice. Separate them. And Olgierd knows magic that's different from most."
"Volunteering me for something?" Olgierd asked, matching their quiet tone.
"Curing an abomination," Ciri told him. "Saving two people."
"Hm."
Hawke was silent for several long minutes as they walked back through the broken and bloodied fortress. Finally, with the damaged gates in sight, she spoke again.
"We'll see."
Campfires flickered on the dark horizon. Ciri yawned, her weariness catching up to her. Her bedroll beckoned. She looked up at Olgierd. Exhaustion wrote lines across his face and etched purplish circles beneath his eyes.
"It's been a long day," she said. "I'm more than ready to get some sleep, if I can."
He smiled at her faintly, the expression not quite making it up to his eyes. "Think I'll stay up and watch the stars for a while."
It was her turn to squeeze his shoulder silently as apologies and platitudes caught and tangled in her throat.
I never should have brought you to Adamant. I'm so sorry. For everything.
