The tension simmered in the air, making it crackle with heat despite the ice clinging to every surface. Maria's breath came in great clouds illuminated by the street lights above her.
She hadn't found a way to get the lyrium into the small town turned refugee camp turned holy peace talk site. The Divine seemed to have found a small, dedicated band of security, all wearing the burning eye of Andraste on their shoulders like badges of honor. They stood vigilant at every entrance to town confiscating both weapons and an astonishing variety of magical artifacts. She saw a bin full of switchblades, guns, rings, amulets, pencils and pens, cell phones, sunglasses, pins…
One had to admire the resourcefulness of witches and warlocks on the run. Who would think to fight a big ass templar with a cell phone and a pin, no matter how fucking enchanted it was?
Of course, that meant when she slipped in with the refugees, she also had to enter unarmed. Cole, thank the Maker, refused to stay in Ostwick with Bea. He stayed at a shitty motel off the highway with the lyrium and Maria's own stash of weapons and black market enchanted items while she hitched her way up to Haven.
She hadn't been prepared for the cold or for the long wait to get inside. By the time she slipped through security with a fake name and a sob story about witches mugging her on the road, it was nearly evening. She wouldn't be making it back to Cole until the morning. Hopefully she could find somewhere warm to bunk down for at least a little while, she didn't have enough cash for a room but the thought of spending the whole night in the biting cold wind…
She needed a thicker coat, the baggy old bomber jacket she wore had seen better days before she even bought it from her favorite thrift shop and the soles of her old boots were worn thin. Neither would do much to keep her fingers or toes from falling off. At least she looked like a refugee with nothing but the clothes on her back, she thought. It was a darkly amusing thought and really, she could laugh or she would cry.
Dwyka's buyer, when she found him, offered her a place to stay with a cold, hungry grin that reminded her of staring down a wolf's dripping maw. He promised a decent meal too, better than the sugar-free gum she chewed to distract from how hungry she actually was.
Maria would rather be hungry and cold.
"You look like you're freezing." A soft masculine voice called from one of the doorways. A tall human had his hands clasped in front of him as he surveyed her. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"
He sounded concerned, almost gentle, which eased the sudden warning itch on her shoulder. Still, she pulled Cole's cap further down to obscure as much of her bright hair as possible. The man held himself like a templar, even leaning against the door frame, but he had that badge on his left sleeve.
"I haven't found one yet, but if you've got a proposition handsome, I've gotten worse offers tonight." She wouldn't actually do it, but even going in and flirting for a bit to stave off the chill…
"Maker's breath!" She couldn't see his face well, but she got the impression he was blushing as he ducked his head and rubbed briskly at the back of his neck. "Andraste, no, I… we just got in ourselves and there's no room here, but they're keeping the temple open all night. Some of the refugees are sleeping there until… until they're…"
Forgotten, she thought coldly. Ushered out into the cold and told to return to homes torn asunder in someone else's war. Who would take responsibility for feeding them, clothing them, healing their illnesses or educating their children?
They said the thirst for justice started this whole war, but there wasn't any justice for the poor and downtrodden of Thedas. Maria knew had that lesson inscribed on her heart like a brand.
"Are you hungry?" The man offered, not unkindly. "You can come in if you'd like and…"
"No thank you." Maria allowed herself a small smile, one intended to disarm and redirect. "You've been very helpful." A night without dinner wouldn't kill her, but the cold could. Without another thought, she turned and began the climb to the fabled ancient temple, the one they said housed Andraste's ashes once upon a time.
It was quiet while she climbed the steps, a strange thick quiet that muffled the world around her. The lights from the town below seemed to fade, the stars shined brighter. Everything seemed too still, too perfect, as if the entire continent balanced precariously on the edge of a knife right before disaster.
One of her card castles the moment before Bea laughed and toppled it with a flick of her manicured fingers.
The guards on duty opened the door for her with smiles that were both helpful and serious, pointing to the left. "Down the hall and take the steps, miss. They've got blankets down there for you."
She nodded quietly, hunching her shoulders as the door shut behind her with a definitive click. Almost as soon as the latch fastened, she heard them resume their quiet conversation. "Nightingale says the Divine plans to hold a vigil all night and pray for guidance."
"Hope she finds it." The other voice answered wearily. "Can't keep this up much longer, can we?"
"Have faith."
"I'm trying."
It was almost stifling warm inside the old church, but Maria didn't take the cap off her head. Instead, she craned her head up to look at the constellations dashed onto the ceiling by an artist hundreds of years dead. She wondered if she'd ever stood in something so old before, mind reeling as she tried to fathom how many footsteps echoed in these halls before her scuffed combat boots traipsed past the silent statues of martyrs.
Wasn't there a book about this place? By Genetivi, she thought. She wondered if she could find a copy cheap in Ostwick when she got back. She needed something new to read anyway. She peered at the beautiful, elegant frescoes illuminated by faint light as she walked, bypassing the stairs she'd been directed to and continuing to hungrily examine the scenes from the Chant. Andraste singing and drawing the Maker's attention in a field of beautiful flowers, her vision of his grace, her husband glaring down at her jealousy as the people sang her praises on the Valerian Fields…
The shout dragged her from her reverie, startled her into flinching. The hair rose on the back of her neck as if someone stood behind her maliciously. She half expected a switchblade across her throat. She froze, listened to the ominous silence.
"Someone! Help me!"
An old woman's voice, accented, Orlesian. Her cry pierced the holy silence like a shotgun blast, and yet Maria heard no other footsteps beyond her own, moving quickly into the darkness to the door with the eerie, flickering light emanating from underneath it.
Maria didn't think. She simply placed her palms flat against the heavy wood and shoved as hard as she could.
xx
"You alright Curly?" Varric looked up from his thin tablet computer to take in the man's flushed cheeks. Varric thought it was simply the freezing air until the former knight captain ran an aggravated hand through his hair.
"That woman thought I was propositioning her!" He exclaimed, blushing even more furiously. Varric immediately sat the tablet down, much more fascinated by Cullen's reddened cheeks.
"Commander! I didn't think you had it in you." He tucked both his hands behind his head and kicked back, rocking precariously in the spindly wooden chair.
"I… I simply offered…" Cullen stammered. "Maker's breath, dwarven women always look so… small."
"Well now I'm even more interested, Curly." Varric grinned widely. "Tell me all about this dwarven damsel whose honor you offended and then point me in her general direction so I can make up for your deficits."
Cullen simply sighed in defeat and rubbed the bridge of his nose briskly with his hand. Before Varric could continue to interrogate the poor bastard, the stairs behind him creaked under heavy booted feet. "I'm going to try to get some rest. Most holy and I can debrief after her vigil in the morning." Cassandra muttered.
"I think I will return to the temple myself." The left hand of the divine moved like a shadow at Cassandra's side. "Perhaps prayer will also help clear my mind and allow me to extend compassion as Divine Justinia does to our enemies."
"If someone needs to learn how to extend compassion, I think you should take the Seeker with you." Varric grumbled under his breath. He had a wicked bruise on his shoulder attesting to a distinct lack of kindness.
"What was that, dwarf?" Cassandra's voice barely concealed the threat. Varric sighed and readied himself to repeat the statement. Let no one say he allowed the woman who dragged him by the chest hair out of Kirkwall to get off easy.
He was opening his mouth when his tablet screen shuddered, wavy black and white lines like old TV static obscuring the article he was reading on the Divine's colorful past.
His brow furrowed, but he continued to speak. "Well Seeker, I said…"
The ever present earbud that carried Bianca's voice directly to him in the most sensitive situations screeched, a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Immediately, he flinched and brought his palm up this ear, ripping the device away from his sensitive eardrum. "Shit!" He swore, standing so quickly he knocked the tablet with the wonky screen right off the old wooden table. "Fuck, fuck."
"What is…"
This had happened once before. Just once. He'd been standing behind Hawke then, she'd been wearing that red dress that laced up the sides, the one Broody couldn't tear his eyes away from when she donned it. The elf's arm had been linked through Hawke's and she'd pulled away just before, grabbing the collar of the unkempt man in the ripped coat with one fist. Varric's friend, Hawke's friend.
"Anders, what have you done?"
Then, before the warlock could even answer, his earbud had screeched and he'd ripped it out of his ear, swearing and cursing and then…
Then…
"Seeker, you've got problems." A part of him scrambled, there was a way this time. He knew what it meant, maybe they had time. There had to be a way out, a way to…
There had to be.
"She only does that when…"
He didn't even have time to finish. There was no chance to plan, to save the situation. The explosion happened first, a rumble that started low and seconds later was a cacophony of sound, like Titans below the ground pushing up to reclaim Thedas from the assholes who ruined it. The lights flickered once. Twice. Then the house the Seeker appropriated was plunged into darkness.
The only light was the white logo of the tablet rebooting, an eerie glow under the table. There was a shattering moment of perfect silence. Then the first shrill, piercing scream echoing against the buildings, followed by a second, a third. If he heard Bethany start sobbing, it would be that fatal day in Kirkwall all over again.
"Stay here!" The Seeker ordered, pushing past him with Cullen on her heels. The Nightingale flew after them, leaving Varric alone with a rising sea of dread. He cautiously slipped the earbud back into place as he approached the front door, palm flat against the solid wood as he shoved it.
He almost wished he hadn't. The entire town was pitch black, illuminated only by the dimmest of stars shining above them. Except, on second look, an entire section of the stars were blurred out, missing from the night sky, hidden behind a raging, twisting pillar of… something. Smoke?
His earpiece beeped. "Technical malfunction due to large expenditure of magic energy in the vicinity. All communications systems linking Haven to Thedas appear to be disrupted, forcing me to use the backup satellite link, but service with the satellite also appears endangered due to the vortex."
"Is that what I'm looking at?" Varric reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, pulling out a pair of nondescript silver rimmed glasses, the kind many of his peers wore in business meetings to make themselves look smarter. He slipped them onto his nose and pressed the clever button to the right of the frame.
"I am unable to access the feed from your glasses due to wireless connectivity issues, Varric." If an AI could sound exasperated, Bianca pulled it off pretty well. "Judging from your current GPS location, it is statistically probable that you can see the vortex. From satellite footage..."
From space, he thought with a chill. Bianca could fucking see it from space. "It appears that the vortex is unexplained and most likely the creation of a witch or warlock acting against the peace talks. I would suggest attempting to use the filter the Champion assisted with designing?"
That filter always gave him a damn headache. No market value in it, he complained when Hawke suggested it. Yes, through a combination of delicate runes and a bit of a solar powered charge, he could use it to see the world like Hawke did for a limited period of time.
It also made him want to rip out of his eyeballs and explained why all of the witches and warlocks he knew, with the sole exception of Bethany, were fucking insane.
Still, he couldn't argue with Bianca. He tapped on another clever little button and blinked twice as the lens began to flicker with a shimmery layer of magic, revealing a whole new level of hell.
The vortex through his lens was no longer a towering pillar of roaring black smoke, but a stack of green flame reaching to the heavens. Splitting off from it were howling invisible creatures, falling in fiery balls of energy to the ground below.
It was a damned black hole to the other side, to the place where witches called their familiars and demons from. "Oh baby, we have problems…"
"I am still unable to access the video feed from the lenses." Bianca reminded him. "Your statistical chance of dying because I am unable to access potentially relevant information is growing."
He wasn't sure there was an AI clever enough to pull him out of this one, but he wouldn't dare tell his baby that growing suspicion. "Bianca, I need you to send an emergency message to Bianca Davri and Hawke." He muttered, ducking back inside. He popped the lid of the suitcase the Seeker watched him pack while she glowered over him.
She hadn't thought to search the suitcase before he started packing and nobody dared search the Seeker's prisoner. Thank Andraste's blushing asscheeks that Varric liked to be prepared.
"Whenever you're ready, Varric." Bianca offered. Varric wasn't sure he'd ever be ready to send this message.
"Tell them to stay where they fucking are. And don't auto-correct my cursing." He ordered tersely. "Tell them…"
Goodbye? That he loved them both in such wonderful, different, complicated ways? No, he couldn't send the same message to both of them. They'd be pissed if they ever thought to get together and compare notes. "Tell Bianca Davri I'll see her in Rivain someday."
She'd understand. She'd know what he meant.
"And the Champion?" Bianca asked.
"Tell Hawke her damn tower came crashing down." Because of course it did, when were Hawke's damn cards ever wrong? They weren't usually quite so literal, but sometimes, the universe lined up as if to give Hawke every portent of doom she ordered on a silver platter. "Tell her she owes me a damn pint."
Varric's hand closed on the thin leather case hidden in the lining and he nearly ripped it free, scattering the rest of the contents of the case as he unrolled the elegant rifle with the runes lining the barrel.
"Bianca, I need a map of Haven and access to any security systems still online."
"One moment." Bianca began smoothly. Varric reached back into the lining for the bullets, fingers brushing a thick, slick playing card as he dug for them. Impatiently, he grabbed for it to shove it with the rest of the cards, except…
As if mocking him, The Lovers stared up. Varric grunted in disgust and threw it back down.
"Seeker, I must have misheard you." Varric jabbed his rifle up towards the place where the Temple of Sacred Ashes once stood. In the eerie dawn light, Varric could see the inky pillar of darkness clearly. If he put his damn glasses back on, he'd see all the demons flocking out of it like they were late for happy hour. And surrounding all of it, floating in midair, pieces of what used to be the temple forever frozen and suspended in some kind of nightmare. "Because there is no way someone walked out of that."
The Seeker scowled pointedly at his weapon, but didn't ask where he got it. She wasn't in any position to turn down help, he saw what they carried down from the mountain. Corpses of soldiers, templars, witches, warlocks, bystanders, refugees. Some drained of blood, others sliced cleanly in half by claws they didn't see until they were covered in their own guts.
Maker's ass, Varric didn't know how any of them were going to get out of this. They packed the remaining innocents in cellars and hoped for the best, but there wouldn't be anywhere to even run if they didn't stop whatever the fuck was happening.
"She… she stepped out of the pillar." Cassandra lips twisted. "Reportedly. I did not witness it myself."
"She's a witch?" Varric asked, cursing Anders to the ninth circle of hell.
"No." Cassandra glared down at him. "She's a dwarf."
Oh great. Somehow, that was going to be his fault. Cassandra looked like she'd had it up to her ferocious eyebrows with dwarves in general. "Seeker, we don't all know each other. That's racist."
He was being facetious, but she didn't need to know that.. The dwarven population in Thedas was a small enough group that if he traced the lines, he'd find he knew this dwarf somehow through business or family.
"Also," He continued blithely. "If she's a dwarf, there's no way she's responsible for this. Dwarves can't do magic Seeker, whatever the fuck that is, it's magic."
"That remains to be seen. She could be a demon, or possessed by one." Cassandra snarled. "She could be working for the person responsible. She was certainly involved."
"How do you know?" He asked, exasperated. Cassandra frowned, finally looking a bit unsure of herself.
"Perhaps… perhaps it is easier to show you. I ask that you inform us if you recognize her or can help identify her, but it may be folly regardless. She is not expected to live the day." Cassandra admitted wearily.
Of course she wasn't, Varric thought with a pang of sympathy. Who could survive being at the center of that?
Cassandra led him back through the frightened, silent streets of the town, stopping at the little chantry and leading him through the main nave, back into a smaller office, a private chapel for the Mother in residence, perhaps.
Leliana was there already, scouts scattering as she gave brisk orders. Cassandra ignored her, beckoning Varric over to the figure curled in on herself, laying on what he was fairly certain was an altar. She looked half blood magic sacrifice, particularly with her hands cuffed in front of her waist.
It didn't help that she shook as if she was freezing, despite the warm air. And, Varric couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if she was flickering between solidness and transparency, too quickly to tell, but…
"She appears to be fading in and out of our plane of existence." Cassandra stated bluntly. "An aftereffect of the magic. One of the warlocks who stayed to help says he believes it will kill her, that it is ripping her body apart atom by atom."
Cullen was right, Varric thought despondently. Maybe not about all dwarves, but this woman looked so very small.
"Is that necessary if she's dying?" Varric asked, irritated, waving to the cuffs. Cassandra nodded, grim and determined. Varric sighed, taking a step forward and gently turning the woman onto her back. She didn't respond, didn't wake or move, didn't acknowledge him at all. Her eyes fluttered though beneath her eyelids, as if she was in the middle of a nightmare. Hell, they all were.
She had the brightest red hair he'd ever seen, falling to her shoulders from underneath a thick woolen cap pulled down her forehead. It was the color of cherry candy, of bright fall apples. It had to be dyed, that color didn't just naturally occur, but judging from her threadbare coat and boots worn thin… well, this wasn't a woman who had money to spend on a salon.
He remembered Hawke's coat had been that threadbare when he first met her and two sizes too large on her skinny frame. She constantly kept pushing it up from her wrists where it dangled to her fingertips, giving her the appearance of a child in her father's clothing.
There was nothing childlike about this woman beyond her size and the fragility of her health. She had curves built to bring a man willingly to his knees, pink lips made for teasing kisses, an adorable splatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose softening her sinful appearance just enough to blend her into the crowd. But her fingernails were chewed down short, a nervous habit he assumed. And there was something weary about her, even in repose.
Still, she was alluring, a fairytale princess trapped in enchanted sleep.
Maker, he must be tired if he was getting that damn sentimental.
"I swear, I'd remember her face if I saw it before." Varric tore his eyes away, back up to the Seeker. "Personal effects?"
"Nothing beyond a cell phone. It… did not survive the explosion. It was smoking when it was pulled from her pocket, the screen cracked, parts of it melting." Cassandra pressed her lips into a thin line. "She is a ghost.'
"You can take fingerprints, run them if…" He nearly slipped and said 'if Bianca gets communications up', but he didn't quite want to give away the little ace in his ear. Cassandra shook her head.
"We have no way to check them. We are isolated, cell phone communication is lost. Internet access is gone." Cassandra scowled. "If we knew what she was doing here…"
Varric had an idea, but the Seeker wasn't going to like it. "Did you check for gang tats?"
"You believe she is with a gang." Cassandra grimaced. "A criminal, then."
There was a world of difference between 'criminal' and 'magical terrorist', but Varric wasn't going to argue "There was one on her left wrist." Cassandra continued. "I saw when I cuffed her. I did not recognize it as a gang symbol, but perhaps you will."
Varric ignored the jibe and gently rolled up up the sleeve of her coat, exposing the simple tattoo. It was an arrow, the point directed towards her fingers, the end trailing a few inches up her skin. It was in black ink, with two sets of letters. One set, above the shaft closer to the point spelled out FD. The one on the bottom, closer to the feathers, said MC.
"That's a lovers tattoo." Varric sighed, tugged the sleeve back down. "I can guess she's either FD or MC, but it's not a solid lead."
Stupid thing, to get a tattoo with a lover's initials. A youthful, silly indiscretion belonging, he suspected, to a more carefree version of this woman lost many years ago. He wondered what happened to her youthful fancy, if he or she still carried around this woman's initials.
"Uncuff her so I can take off her jacket." Varric ordered tersely, but the Seeker wasn't paying attention. She'd been waved over by Leliana, leaving Varric alone with their sleeping survivor. He reached into his jacket, again, pulled out a fine set of lockpicks and quickly popped the cuffs off, dropping them on the altar before shooting the sleeping woman's face an apologetic look.
"Sorry, Princess." He didn't know why he called her that, but it suited and he kind of liked it. Sleeping beauty in a nightmare world. "I'm a gentleman, promise." Although, he wouldn't lie and say he didn't think, just for a brief second, about undoing her jacket in a cozier, more private way. He quashed the errant thought like a stray spark, shook his head.
He slowly tugged both sleeves off, revealing the soft, worn cotton shirt underneath. It hugged her figure, but was cut low around her shoulders. Thank the Maker, he didn't want to make this more awkward than it had to be. If she had a gang tattoo, Varric had a couple reasonable guesses where it would be. Hopefully, he wouldn't need to try taking off her pants. If it came to that, the more reasonable thing might be to let the Seeker strip her.
Gently, he rolled her onto her side again, pulling up her shirt from the jeans she wore just enough to examine her lower back. Nothing, but he thought he saw…
He let the cloth drop back and changed his focus, shifting the neckline of the shirt to the right, ignoring the creamy pale skin dotted with freckles, revealing a plain black bra strap and a hint of spiraling ink. He pulled the shirt away again, just enough to reveal the three black intersecting triangles of the Carta, the letters OW in the center. It decorated the back of her right shoulder like a brand.
"How did you get her shackles off?" Cassandra demanded as Varric smoothed the shirt back over her skin with a sinking feeling.
"They fell off." He grumbled, jerking his chin at the sleeping woman. "She's Carta, from Ostwick."
The Carta in Ostwick was a mean bunch, ran by that bastard Dwyka for… what, six years? They had a chokehold on that whole section of the free marches, weren't afraid of getting their hands bloody.
His sleeping princess didn't look like a woman with bloody hands, but neither did his former favorite blonde healer. "You may want to get those back on her." The words felt like ashes in his mouth, but they needed to be said. "Just in case."
