Everything is blood and fire.
Spells blaze around him, howls, and more blood like rain. Unnatural lightning streaks sideways, blinding him. Even the sky is red as blood. The archdemon is horrible, its gaping maw filled with gore covered teeth; it's screams shatter him. It is so much worse than he ever imagined.
Loghain is on his knees, his battered shield forgotten, his sword just out of the reach of his fingers. But he reaches for it, struggles to move as he sees her appear out of the corner of his eye.
She is a battle fury.
Her hair has torn free, her face is more blood than flesh, her eyes are icy resolve. Lightning screams from her outstretched fingers. It finds the dragon and the dragon wails. It shrieks and Loghain knows it's a death keen. He's heard it before.
With a cry of rage he didn't even know she could make, she grabs for a sword, her own long discarded in the melee. A two handed monster of a thing that is nearly as tall as she is. But she wields it; it wields her. The blade and she become a blur as she races forward.
Loghain hears himself scream – No! – but the words are torn away in a whirlwind of purple fire.
She slides under the belly of the beast, dragging the massive blade over her head, more blood rain falling on her. It soaks into her hair, runs down her face in rivulets. She rolls out from beneath it as it collapses with a crash of blood and a last attempt at fire snorts from its nostrils. The beast is going to die, and it knows it.
She is a goddess, blood soaked.
She screams again, just as Loghain finally finds his feet. He's running towards her. He knows he's screaming; screaming at her to stop. To let him . . . what if the witch was lying? He won't let her die. He can't!
But he doesn't reach her in time. She plunges the sword into the archdemon's skull and light erupts from it, encasing her.
He's stopped dead in his tracks and the witch is beside him. Her face is gleeful, elated and the light, it encompasses her as well. Loghain watches in mute horror as his child becomes a god.
And then, the world explodes.
He's on his back on the cold stone. His ears are bleeding from the concussion of sound. For a moment, he can't remember who he is, or where he is, but then he rolls over on to his side and he sees her and it all comes back in a rush. And brings something with it that he thought he could never feel again.
Love.
And it's horrible. Because she isn't moving. And he can't move. He struggles to crawl on his belly towards her. He is weeping, but there is no shame in it. She isn't dead, she can't be dead. Maker help him, but if she is dead . . . but then she moves. Her head lolls to the side, her eyes flicker open through a haze of blood. Loghain reaches just close enough to touch the tips of her fingers with his own.
And she smiles at him.
Then suddenly, the world is as it was again. The fire is gone, the screaming below turns to cheers. Loghain realizes with utter clarity, that for the first time in as long as he can remember, he does not want to die.
