Chapter 1 - In Search of Sisters

A soft wind blew over the Fields of Briarvale, picking up fallen leaves, which it carried towards a large estate just outside of Highever on the Coastlands of Ferelden. The leaves fell onto the windowsill of a large house, where inside upon a bed of finely woven linens slept a young woman. But her rest was not calm and peaceful as the breeze outside her window. Instead she awoke in her bed short of breath, choked by visions of darkness and monsters the same as she had seen many nights before. She had struggled to stop the many visions that had passed in and betwixt the passages of her mind, but had been unsuccessful in preventing them from finding their way into her very soul. She sat up in her bed, and the air around her was chilled causing her to shiver. She looked about the room to make sure that she was alone before she opened her hand. Small strands of fire leapt from her fingertips and intertwined until they created a small flame to illuminate the still darkness. Her heart jumped and she was gripped with a sudden fear as she heard footsteps which drew closer to her door.

"Bethany, Bethany, are you ok?" She heard between knocks on her door.

She quickly extinguished the flame in her hand before the door cracked open and the light of a lantern crept slowly onto her bed. "Who is there?" Bethany questioned as she squinted and tried to shake away the sleep.

"It is Lady Longwell," the voice answered as she stepped into the doorway and lifted the lantern to show her face. "I thought I heard a scream, are you ok?"

"I am well Lady Longwell. I just had a disturbing dream, sorry to have woken you," Bethany apologized.

"It seems that you have many disturbing dreams," Lady Longwell replied before she approached her, set the lantern upon a table, and set down of the side of the bed. "Could your nightmares be caused by whatever it is in your past that you are running from?"

"Lady Longwell, I don't know…"

"What I am talking about," Lady Longwell cut her off before a loud sigh. "I only allowed you to work here because you arrived on my doorstep with a request from Nathaniel Howe, whose family has been a dear friend of ours through the years," she explained. "But I do not know anything about who you are or where it is you came from."

Bethany's thoughts always drifted to her mother when she spoke to Lady Longwell because her caring, motherly voice reminded her of that of her mother.

"And I thank you for taking me in my lady, I hope I have earned my keep," Bethany thanked her.

"That you have my dear, better than I could have ever imagined," Lady Longwell praised her as she nodded her head. "You accomplish your tasks in such ways that sometimes I swear it's by magic," she joked before stood from the bed and picked up the lantern.

Bethany smiled inside as she watched the woman who had become like a mother to her walk towards the door. "If only you knew," she thought herself as Lady Longwell stopped in the doorway and looked back into the room.

"Perhaps the day will come when you will trust me with what torments your dreams Bethany," Lady Longwell said, before she turned into the shadows. "Secrets will destroy you if you hold them in long enough."

Bethany watched her pull the door closed before she laid back onto the bed, where she hoped sleep would take her.

"You wish to tell her that you hold these secrets from her for her own good," a voice said from the darkness.

Bethany quickly sat up startled in her bed as called a small flame to her hand once again. "Who is there," she demanded, as she swung the flame around the room in the direction of the voice.

"Or do you not wish to tell her that your dreams are of monsters these lands have not seen since the days of the Blight?"

She recognized the accent, that of an Orlesian woman. She increased the size of the flame in her hand to illuminate more of the room but she still could not see the intruder. "Show yourself."

"Perhaps you fear that every footstep outside your door could be Templars coming for you?" The voice continued.

She swung the flame to the far corner of her room where a shadowy figure emerged into the light. She stood roughly the same height as Bethany, her hair was short and red from what Bethany could see by the light of her flame. She bore a shortbow and a small quiver on her back, with two daggers crossed beneath. "Who are you," Bethany demanded angrily.

"Someone who knows who you are, Bethany Elvaine," the woman replied as the flame reflected in her eyes. "Or should I say Bethany Hawke."

Bethany was caught off guard by the woman's words and struggled to stay composed. "How do you know that name?"

"We do not have time for question and answer, you must get dressed and come with me," the woman said before she walked over to the window and opened the shutters.

Moonlight spilled into the room, and Bethany's eyes tried to adjust to the light. "What, wait, why would I come with you, I do not even know who you are?" Bethany questioned.

"I am Leliana," she replied. "As for why I am here, come and see for yourself."

Bethany rose from the bed and walked slowly over to the window, which looked out onto the elves servant quarters and barns.

Leliana pointed between two of the structures, where the shadows began to move. "There, do you see them?"

"Are those…"

"Yes, they are Templars, and you know why they're here."

"I thought that Templars had rebelled against the Chantry, why are they still hunting mages?" Bethany asked confused.

"Some still feel the need to fulfill their divine duty, by rounding up apostates and placing them in safe places until some semblance of the circles is restored," Leliana answered, as she kept her eyes fixed on the forms moving swiftly about the grounds of the estate. "Other factions feel after the events in Kirkwall that there is no safe place for them…"

"So they kill apostates on sight," Bethany said sadly.

"And since I do not know which are here, it is best that you get dressed and come with me quickly."

"But who are you, and why are you helping me?" Bethany asked in a panic as she watched the Templars draw closer.

"I will answer your questions in time, but right now you must get dressed and come with me," Leliana said sternly, but Bethany was still frozen in fear. "Now," Leliana barked.

Bethany did not know who this Leliana was, but she knew the sight of Templars and that nothing good could come of allowing them to see her. She ran to her armoire and pulled out the first clothes she could find suitable for long travel.

"Hurry, they are here," Leliana rushed her.

"I am going as fast as I can," Bethany snapped back, as she pulled boots onto her feet and stood from the bed. She stuffed some items into a pack before her ears caught the sounds pounding on the door to the house. Shouts from Lady Longwell quickly followed, as she demanded to know what was happening. She scolded those at the door as she promised them that there were no mages in her house just her family and servants.

"Come, we must go now," Leliana beckoned her as she climbed through the window and stood on the windowsill.

"What will happen to Lady Longwell, she cannot come to harm because of me?"

"They will not harm a noblewoman, now come," Leliana ordered.

Bethany turned to sounds of footsteps on the stairs, before she turned back and ran to the window. Leliana gracefully leapt from the window and rolled on the ground below before she regained her feet. Bethany climbed onto the windowsill as well, and thought that if it were ever a time when she wished to have the agility of a rogue. She was hesitant to leap until she heard the heavy footsteps on the second floor.

"Jump Bethany," Leliana yelled.

"Here goes," Bethany said to herself before she leapt from the window and crashed to the ground. She heard the sound of wood being splintered, as she rolled on the ground and Leliana helped her to her feet. She looked up just as two Templars came into the window.

"Apostate, STOP!" One of the Templars yelled.

"Come, they cannot make the leap in such heavy armor," Leliana said, before she grabbed Bethany's hand and pulled her around the side of the house out of the Templar's view. They raced across the grounds into the trees behind the estate. Bethany did not know where she was going or even who she was with. She didn't know what danger could lie ahead, but she knew that she was not in the custody of Templars, and for that moment that was all that mattered.