- Chapter 11: The Revelation, Part I -

"Glad to see you're alright," Alistair said to Yavana.

"Yes, isn't it just great?" Elissa muttered, not very thrilled with being in the same place as the witch again.

"Watch your tongue, child," Yavana retaliated. "One would think you do not owe me a thing."

Alistair looked back at Elissa, whose face became as angry as when he surrendered a few hours before. I wondered what happened between them while I was being held captive… He shrugged it off, as it was unimportant what kind of quarrels both woman could have. He turned back to Yavana to get to the point. "You were saying the truth is never out of reach, I believe…"

Yavana hinted a smile from her dark lips. She turned to the bloody corpse of Claudio Valisti and waved her staff in the air. "We begin. His spirit lingers in the Fade."

Once again, an eerie mist suddenly appeared. It was neither grey nor purple, but something in between, and it had a faint glow in the fading moonlight. A skull-like figure made from the same mist erupted from the witch's staff and it went around the campsite in circles until it faded right in the middle of it, and above the rotting corpse of the once Prince of Antiva.

Varric stepped out of the woods just in time to see the show. He stood next to Isabela, feeling anxious about being in the presence of powerful magic once again – maybe forbidden magic, even, an ancient one that was meant to be used never again.

Yavana let the end of her staff rest on Claudio's right eye. "Who are you?" she whispered, unsure if her spell had had the desired effect now that the mist was gone.

Claudio arched his body upwards and Yavana took her staff from his eyeball. Claudio stood up in such an unnatural way that made Isabela get shivers all over her body. Fresh blood still splashed from his chest wound and the same mist that had surrounded the camp was now inside of him, pouring out of his mouth in slow motion. When he finally stood, his mouth begin to move. "I am Claudio Valisti," he said in a voice that wasn't his – it was guttural and sounded as if his words were trapped inside his mind, being ripped out of it by force. "Prince of Antiva, and third talon of the Antivan Crows. I am… dead?" These last words had a hint of fear – if it was even possible for a cadaver to feel anything at all.

The witch's face darkened. "Yes, you are," she blankly replied, annoyed by stating the obvious. She wanted to get information out of his lingering soul. "Tell me the name of your master."

Claudio's remaining eye darted at the floor, without really seeing anything. "I… cannot."

Yavana was starting to lose her patience. "You can and you will. Tell me his name, Prince Claudio Valisti." Seeing him unresponsive, the raven-haired woman grabbed the corpse by the neck as if she was choking him. Her eyes went from golden to yellow with rage and she spat over his face. "Tell me or I will pin your spirit to this rotting body for eternity!"

Elissa watched passively as horror spread across Claudio's face. Is she projecting images in his mind? She didn't know how powerful this witch was, and even though she didn't reveal it and tried to act tough, she was terrified of her. Elissa was unsure if Morrigan was more powerful than this woman, but she certainly had had much bigger plans. Despite that, Elissa had managed to break through her walls and they became friends – sisters even, she once told her. She had respected the apostate, and never feared her. This woman, on the other hand, was menacing; Elissa just wanted to kill her for the simple threat of her existence.

"Tell me, or I will let maggots eat your essence as they eat your flesh, and protect only enough of your soul to keep you aware!" Yavana's rage was so grand that Claudio's hair caught fire. It rapidly spread to the skin on his head and he tried to say something. "Your master's name!" Yavana ordered one more time.

Claudio was nothing but a skeleton when finally a name was spoken in a faint, dying voice. "Aurelian Titus…"

The skeleton then burst into flames, leaving nothing but ashes and memories of what Claudio once had been behind.

Isabela and Varric looked shocked, but both Alistair and Elissa stood in place without any change of facial expression. They had seen worse, like the time when they went to the Deep Roads and found out where darkspawn came from. Elissa had been particularly affected by it, as she knew she would hear the Call when her time came, and she was determined not to become what she had seen. Alistair promised her they would go together, no matter who got the Call first, and she agreed; no matter what had happened to their relationship in the meantime, she was still going to hold him to that promise – and herself, for that matter.

"Who's Aurelian Titus?" Alistair finally broke the silence.

Yavana was still shaking off some ashes from her clothing. "For now? A name. But it is a name I have sought for a very long time."

"So this was your price, then?" Elissa asked fearlessly, or at least that's how she tried to sound.

Yavana looked at her. "I never imagined you could be so bright," she teased with despise for the rogue. "You drew out his servants, as I thought you might. Come, you have earned another chance."

Once again the party walked back to the Silent Grove, leaving some space between them and the witch. Elissa didn't say a word, while Varric and Isabela discussed what had happened in the camp and in the wilds, as they were not together when the pirate murdered Claudio. Alistair just listened, wondering what went wrong with Elissa to make her so mad.

When they reached the Grove it was almost dawn. They stepped inside the great building once again, and for the first time Alistair saw the huge pit that laid in the middle of the room. He wasn't sure why that hole was there, and he wasn't sure he'd like to find out.

Yavana was waiting for them at the top of the stairs that led to that bottomless pit. "Your future lies below," she told Alistair once they got close enough. "Your… friends cannot follow." Elissa snickered at that remark and the witch's golden eyes locked on hers. This woman thinks she can defy me? Yavana thought, remembering of thousands of ways she could kill that pestering woman right there. She ignored her and started walking down the stairs, her cloak pausing at every step before disappearing for a moment and reappearing in the next.

Alistair stood still at the edge of the curvy stairs, deciding if he should go or just turn his back and walk away. He was curious, though, but he wanted reassurance. "Any idea what's down there?" he asked while he turned to his comrades.

Isabela shrugged and Varric showed no expression whatsoever.

"Apparently 'your future'. If that means anything at all." Elissa still had her angry face on and now she had crossed her arms. "If you don't go there, you'll never know. However I'm not particularly fond of you going somewhere dark with a witch, again."

Alistair couldn't quite figure out why she was bringing up the Morrigan issue again. When it had happened she never mentioned how she had felt, and the only reaction he had gotten out of her was that one time he heard her crying in her bedroom a few moments after he had disappeared with the witch – and that cry was the only reason he hadn't burst into that bedroom and begged for her forgiveness, the only reason why he hadn't tried to make things right before the battle with the Archdemon. He felt he should leave her alone to avoid causing her any more pain. But now, every once in a while she took the opportunity to hit him with hurtful remarks regarding that night, even though that it had only meant the survival of both remaining Fereldan Grey Wardens.

He was about to retort something to her when Varric decided to speak his mind. "You've come this far for answers, oh King. Planning to stop now?"

The dwarf was right: he had faced death many times to get his answers, and now he was very close to them. All he had to do was walk down that stairs. He started doing so, but then he spoke out loud to himself without stopping, "What if I don't like what I find?"

When Alistair was gone, Elissa let out a confession to her companions. "I've met witches before. I've even befriended one. But this one… I don't trust. And that's saying a lot, considered I could more easily trust Flemeth than this one."

Varric just stared at her. "Flemeth? How could you ever trust Flemeth?"

"She saved our lives. And I'm not saying I trust her, I'm just saying I didn't have this urge to kill her like I have with this one."

"She gets in my nerves too," Isabela added. "There's something about her… I mean, it's obvious she is not revealing her whole plan, but there's something else."

Varric sighed. To those women there would be something wrong, no matter the situation. "Women…"

Author's note: My sincere apologies for keeping you guys waiting for so long. To tell you the truth, I've been writing not so regularly, but I'm planning on picking up the pace. This chapter was supposed to be written in one post, but as I was reviewing it to post it here I decided to make some changes, so it is now in two parts. Hope you like it, and sorry for being shorter than usual!