Chapter 1, in which the faithful learn that Heralds come in different packages
"The prisoner is awake!"
"Fetch the Hands of Divine!"
The doors slammed. Klara was pulled up and dragged for several paces, landing heavily in the wooden chair, conveniently placed in her way. Her groggy mind slowly connected her uncomfortable state with the shouted statements. Klara was the prisoner the sharp voices spoke off. She tried to move, to get up from the chair, but as it turned out she was already securely fastened to it.
A sharp slap landed on the left side of her face.
"Look at me!" The accented voice demanded.
She recognized this voice even if she'd never heard it this close before. She, along with her fellow scribes and sisters at the temple spent many evening meals gossiping about Divine Justinia's top advisors. The voice, without a doubt, belonged to one of them. Sure enough as she raised her head, the face of Cassandra Pentaghast, the Right Hand of the Divine, the Divine Enforcer, was barely a breath away from her own. The usually stoic and impassive features we're stormy, pinched, eyes fiery, shooting daggers. And at this moment they were shooting daggers at her.
Klara swallowed hard and tried to recall what she could have possibly done at the days leading to the conclave or perhaps during the conclave itself that caused the Hand to be so displeased with her. Given the headache she had at the moment she must have drunk too much and made a fool of herself. Why she was tied up and why the Hand herself was disciplining her for such minor transgression was a mystery to her… unless… unless the transgression was not minor. Klara frowned and tried to recall exactly what got her into this situation.
Klara opened her mouth to ask, and closed it with a snap.
To Klara's horror several steps behind the face of the Right Hand of the Divine, which was taking up the majority of her blurred vision, she spotted the Left Hand of the Divine. Everyone knows you don't get to see the Left Hand of the Divine this close unless you have an official business with her or if this is the last thing the Maker planned for you to see in this world.
She swallowed loudly and tried again.
"Whatever you think I've done I am so sorry and it won't happen again! I didn't mean it! I don't even remember it!" the words poured out of her.
Her panic was taking her on the fourth recital of the I didn't do it speech, when Cassandra's hand went up to slap her again. She shut her eyes in anticipation of the blow. Yet the blow never came.
"Cassandra, wait." Quiet but firm voice stopped the blow.
The Left Hand of the Divine, the Divine Spymaster, came closer. The blue eyes narrowed in contemplation. The steel behind the gaze was unmistakable, and the threat in them was more real than any blows from the Right Hand.
"What is it that you think you've done... but didn't mean to?"
Klara released the held breath, and blinked at the Spymaster.
"Ah I must have drunk too much after the conclave, I do not remember my actions, but I am deeply, deeply regretful of them!"
The noise from the Right Hand was halted by the gesture from the Spymaster.
The blonde's face moved closer to Klara's. The lips slightly smiling, stormy dark blue eyes narrowed attentively.
"Why don't you tell us what you do remember of the conclave"
Absent-mindedly Klara noted that gossip at the temple didn't give the Spymaster enough credit. The woman was stunning, and stunningly terrifying. She didn't buy this friendly chat approach, not for a bit. Something truly horrible has to have happened for this woman to take interest in the lowly clerk from Divine Justinia's entourage. She thought back to the conclave, and with the rising alarm realized try as she might she couldn't remember the conclave.
Her duty was to greet arriving conclave participants and direct them to their assigned sections.
"My duty was to greet the arriving participants"
The sections were established so that warring groups didn't intersect too much outside of structured talks. She was waiting outside the temple for the mages representatives who were late, when a runner came saying none of the scribes was nowhere to be found and that she must fill in for him.
"The mages were late. The talks have started but I was waiting outside for them."
"And how did you end up at the conclave?"
"... Uh the runner. He said my services were required because none of the scribes were present..."
Klara fell silent.
"Well, what happened then? What happened at the Conclave?" The Right Hand was losing her patience again, and yet the Left Hand was as impassive as before.
This was as much as Klara could recall. Her next memory was waking up in this nightmare, and since she has never dreamed in her sleep, this has to be real.
"I… I don't remember the conclave…" hazel eyes opened wide with confusion stared into the blue of the Spymaster. "How is it possible?.."
A long silence fell over the room. Right and Left Hands exchanged glances and frowns as if talking. Eventually, Cassandra nodded as if reaching some decision.
"There was an explosion at the Conclave. The Temple is in ruins. Everyone who was there is dead." Cassandra's voice broke at the last sentence and she paused to compose herself.
At the same time the quiet voice of the Left Hand picked up the story.
"Everyone is dead but you. Our soldiers found you falling out if the Fade rift in the middle of the temple… and a woman was seen inside the rift helping you out. She disappeared after you were out and in safety. Do you remember any of it? Do you know who the woman was? Was it Andraste?"
Klara's eyes widened even further, the hazel irises fully framed by the whites around them.
"..uh Andraste?" For a moment she thought they were fooling her, but both appeared quite serious. "Oh no no no!"
If the Hands thought she was a mage, a mage who entered the Fade in person, it is no wonder she was tied thought it was surprising she was still alive. "This is not possible! I'm not a mage! You have the wrong person! Please! I don't even dream. Ever. You can ask my parents! Actually you cannot ask my parents, as they are dead.. But you can ask my roommates! If I didn't look human I would think I'm a dwarf that's how nonexistent my connection to Fade is!"
Cassandra stared at the panicking prisoner. The woman, Klara, was not familiar to her, but then she didn't spend much time socializing. Leliana, on the other hand, recognized her as one of the Chantry people right away, and spent the several days that Klara was unconscious collecting information about her. What they learnt was surprisingly unremarkable.
Klara grew up in Ferelden in a travelling merchant family. She was the second oldest and the only girl of the four siblings. During the Blight both of her parents along with the oldest brother died at the hands of a thieving gang while the family was fleeing the Dark Spawn. Timely intervention by the travelling Templars saved the three teens. They took Klara and her surviving brothers to the local Chantry.
As one of the older merchant children Klara was taught reading, writing and numbers at the young age. The skills came in handy at the small Chantry, and she was asked to serve as an unofficial scribe and clerk from the very first day there. Soon after, her youngest brother, Stephan, ended up in a Circle, a mage of very weak abilities. Her other brother, Adrian, joined the Templar Order, and eventually arranged to be stationed at the same Circle that the young brother was staying in. He was awarded the rank and duty of Commander for the same circle just before the Kirkwall incident sent the world into chaos. The three siblings stayed in touch and if letters were a good reflection of familial affection, all three were quite close. Nothing in the correspondence that Leliana uncovered hinted at ill will or resentment toward Chantry, toward the Divine or toward anyone else. Letters cut off several months ago. Leliana's sources listed both brothers as missing. This was the only thing of note in the prisoner's life.
Klara left her local Chantry several years after both of her brothers. She asked and was granted the move to serve as a scribe in the Divine libraries, and she did so for the last six years. Her service was without any reprimand or impropriety. Her peers spoke of her as a peaceful and nice, even if a bit boring, person.
Leliana sighed. People started calling the temple survivor The Herald of Andraste, on account of the ghostly figure sending her out of the Fade.
She learnt as much as she could about the woman over the last several days and still was mystified as to what was so special about her that Andraste would choose Klara as her Herald. She couldn't find anything special or at least noticeable about the woman. This blending-in quality would be great in a spy, but Leliana was fairly certain that in Klara's case it was due to lack of any secrets or hidden desires rather than skilled manipulation of people's perceptions.
The Herald wasn't looking very heraldry right now. The woman was working herself into a panic. Her hazel eyes looked wildly around the room. The chestnut hair stuck out in all directions.
The pale and plump frame spoke of years spent primarily indoors, and currently was even more slouched and more pale than normal.
"Perhaps, it is better to show her?" Leliana looked at Cassandra and shot a look at Klara's hands bound behind her back.
Cassandra took a step forward and pulled a dagger.
The second the pressure on Klara's wrists lessened she pulled her hands from the uncomfortable position behind her back, and started rubbing the circulation back into her hurting wrists.
"Oh this is so much better!"
Both women stared at her.
"What?.."
She finally focused on her hands and froze. Her left palm was glowing green, the shades from pale moss to bright emerald to dark forest danced within the glowing mark.
Eyes as wide as saucers blinked at the Hands, and slowly as if expecting her hand to jump off her wrist and do something horrible, Klara extended her arm as far as it would go from her body.
"What...what is this?!"
Leliana let out a sharp puff of air hiding the unexpected bark of laughter, which tried to break forth. It was completely inappropriate after all. So much tragedy and uncertainty since it all happened, her mind might be going a bit.
Cassandra shot her a reproachful look but couldn't suppress the rise of her eyebrows at the still sticking out limb.
"Put it down. It doesn't bite as far as we can tell. And follow me. We have a theory we want to confirm."
Klara sighed. She would have preferred to stay inside with The Left Hand. Now that she was fairly certain the woman didn't mean her harm, Klara felt she was a safer bet than the grouchy Seeker.
She carefully lowered her arm but kept it as far away from her body as she could without it being too noticeable.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see. Stay close."
The snow on the ground was recent. The right amount of bite in the wintry air made the walk energizing and fresh. If not for the huge green swirling hole in the sky, the day could have been called beautiful.
"That thing in the sky looks exactly like the mark on my hand."
"Indeed." Seeker's voice was sarcastic but she didn't say anything else.
"I can see why you suspected I had something to do with it."
"And did you?" Cassandra asked out of habit. As a Seeker she could feel the lyrium in others blood, and this woman had none, not a trace. The hole in the sky was pure magic. No way Klara had the ability to create it. Of course she could have been the accomplice in the act.
"I swear I did not. I…"
Klara's next statement froze on her lips as the creature she never saw before appeared seemingly out of thin air and slid towards Cassandra.
"Stay behind me!"
Cassandra saw the Shade at the same time as Klara and had her sword drawn immediately.
"No way I'm moving anywhere other than behind you" Klara mumbled more to herself than to her companion. She moved to be as far away from the flying sword and the blurred shade tendrils as possible.
Before Cassandra dispatched the first Shade completely, another appeared. This time right next to Klara. Frantically Klara looked around and grabbed the long wooden stick from the ground. It looked like a broken shaft from some farm tool.
The Shade moved in and Klara felt a very strange weight as if something out of the grave pulled her in. She extended her arms and poked the blurry shape in the midsection. Her awkward lunge connected, and even though it didn't cause much distress to the creature, it kept it at bay. The Shade tried to reach her again and again. And again and again Klara used the stick to keep out of the reach of the creature but her arms were getting tired. This was more exercise than she saw in the library in a year.
Absentmindedly she wondered whether this was the type of creatures that haunted her brother Stephan's dreams before he learnt to keep them at bay in the Circle of Magi. She understood that he was frightened but could never relate, as she never saw a dream or a nightmare as far as she could recall. This experience was certainly giving her a new perspective.
Whether the wandering thoughts or the deviousness of the creature or possibly just bad luck, her heel met the twig and suddenly she found herself on the ground with the Shade towering over her.
"Help... Help! Help!"
Cassandra just dispatched the annoying creature when the first shout came.
She whirled around. The picture before her was amusing even if very dangerous for their supposed Herald. The Shade similar to the one she just dispatched was trying to get to the woman. Klara was prone on her back, clearly frightened, but stubbornly poking at it with the spade shaft intent to keep the creature away.
Attacking the unprotected back of the creature, Cassandra did a quick work of destroying the Shade.
Klara really wanted to be back in her old life. In the LIBRARY! Reading and translating old texts, and not here in the village of Haven freezing and scared.
The Hands of Divine, if they could even be called that now that there was no Divine, were now convinced that Klara didn't cause the explosion. Yet Klara was not truly free to leave. For one, there was nowhere to go. Without the Divine and with the glowing thing on her hand she doubted she will be able to blend in. The Anchor as the mage Solas called it shined through the cloth and leather gloves, and was sort of dimmed down by metal. However something told Klara that walking around with a metal glove which had sort of a tint to it was not a commonly accepted state either. Questions will rise. Eventually she will be found out. In the current state of mage rebellion and general alarm and hysterics around mages, she might be mistaken for a mage with connection to the rift. Apparently the rifts smaller but similar to the one they sealed were opening all over Thedas. People might be inclined to destroy and ask questions later.
Both Cassandra and Leliana at least were now convinced that Klara was not a guilty party. Of course now they were convinced that Klara or more specifically Klara's left hand due to the ability to close rifts was the savior of Thedas. Sure, they gave her the free choice to stay or to leave, but leaving given the state of her hand was not a real option.
A shudder went through Klara after she reached her decision. The demon guarding the large rift was horrible, and the shades from the smaller rift she closed as a test before going to the Temple we're horrible too. Without a doubt more of the same waited for her in the foreseeable future. She wanted to cry and run and disappear. She settled for crying.
"Where's the Herald?" Leliana glanced at Cassandra.
"She needed some time for herself." Cassandra couldn't help but feel protective of the woman. She went to fetch Klara for the strategy meeting. Through the window she saw her sitting at the desk, eyes staring unblinking at something far away, lost in thought. Then suddenly the pensive mask crumbled, and the form bent over crying. The Herald made it a point to keep the glowing hand as far away from her body as she could without bringing attention to the act. Yet at that moment of unhappiness, she seemingly forgot about that and both hands flew up to cover her face and muffle her sobs. Cassandra didn't enter. She ordered the guard at the door to give Herald space till the woman emerged on her own and backed away. "I do think she came to the same conclusion we did, and will stay to help the Inquisition."
"Very well." Leliana glanced up at the warrior. "I have plans in place to bring in an Ambassador and a troops Commander for the Inquisition. Rallying the people and bringing in backers into Inquisition will heavily depend on the Herald. We must discuss the strategy with her soon."
Cassandra nodded.
"Herald is not a fighter… of any kind. We must put a plan in place to ensure her survival during the excursions she will surely have to take. I hate to say this but I alone might not be enough to keep her in one piece"
Leliana hummed and smirked at the Right Hand.
"Oh please, you saw my unedited report"
"Yes, you mean the one where the Herald hid so well between the rubble while closing the breach, that it took some time for you to stop looking for her among the corpses." Unconcerned by the cold look from Cassandra, the Spymaster smiled thinly and continued "Well, at least our Herald has a strong survival instinct."
Cassandra sighed, it would have been so much simpler if Andraste's chosen had some type of battle or at least self-defense skill alas she didn't. Cassandra trained numerous recruits and Klara was the type that she would have sent back home immediately for everyone's sake.
"Please keep an ear out for strong battle mages or warriors who'd want to join our cause."
"I will. I believe the dwarf, Varric, is staying. As you well know he traveled with the Champion of Kirkwall and is known to be formidable with his bow."
Cassandra just sighed.
End of Chapter 1