"Duncan, they're coming. Soon. You must wake up. I don't know what they will do."

The words drifted through the air to Duncan's ears as he was circling the Fade palace for the thousandth time, still trying to decipher its puzzle. He paused, head cocked.

"The dreams, Duncan. I'm so afraid."

Nebulous, whispered. His mother's voice. She must be sitting beside his body, speaking to him. He had never heard her sound so unsure of herself in the waking world.

"Bring them back. Please bring them back."

He closed his eyes, intent on the sound. It was as if she spoke directly into his ear. The words were repeated—a prayer, a litany. They filled him with a strange sensation. He felt a gathering inside him, an odd tingle that raised the hair on his scalp and gooseflesh on his arms and neck. He concentrated.

Alistair strained against the paralysis spell that held him

"Maker, please," he panted between clenched teeth. "I'll do anything. Help me, Andraste."

Kellan and Eleanor shrieked in unison as magical energy arced between them. Kellan staggered backward, one palm held to the side of her face.

Suddenly the paralyzing barrier was gone and Alistair lurched forward. He twisted involuntarily and knocked Kellan aside with the flat part of the armor on his shoulder. She spun away and fell off to one side.

He paid no attention to her but fell to his knees beside Eleanor, who lay in a crumpled heap when the spell dropped her. The blood still flowed sluggishly from the wound on her chest. Her eyelids fluttered open in her deathly pale face as he tried to gather her up in his arms.

"Father…?" She tried to speak but the word came out in a croak. "Daddy?" Then her eyes rolled up in her head and she sagged back against his arms.

Tears obscured Alistair's vision as he called her name. He felt a hand on his arm and came very close to punching Lauthrin in the face with a mailed fist before he remembered the Grey Warden's presence.

"Lay her down," the elf instructed gently. "I'll try to help her." He stared into Alistair's grief-twisted face and tried to put as much empathy in his eyes as possible. It took several long moments of reassurance, but finally Alistair nodded and allowed Lauthrin to touch his daughter. He snuffled and tried to wipe his eyes on the leather palms of his gauntlets as the younger man began removing phials from the pouches on his belt.

From the phials came many different leaves and roots. He took a few deep green long-bladed leaves and ground them into a rough pulp between his fingers. He worked quickly but carefully, aware at all times of the labored breathing and blue-tinged lips of the girl in front of him.

Finally Lauthrin wrapped the leaf pulp into a small bundle with a few different leaves and took a length of white cloth from his pack. He held them up, showing them to Alistair.

"These will stop the bleeding and clean the wound," he said. "I need you to hold the bandage in place. Can you do that?"

Alistair nodded. He seemed to have regained some control over himself but his face was still lined and pale.

Lauthrin bent and pressed the leaves into the deep cut. Eleanor stirred but did not make a sound. He placed the bandage atop the wound and showed Alistair where to apply pressure. The elf then withdrew another phial from his pouch, this one full of a deep red liquid that swirled against the glass container. He carefully slid one hand under Eleanor's neck to support her head as he held the potion to her lips. The reddish gold curls that had escaped her braid brushed against the back of his hand. When he was content that most of the liquid had gone down her throat instead of spilling out of the corners of her mouth, he gently lowered her head back to the stone floor. Lauthrin made a quick check of her breathing and her heartbeat, and observed that some color had returned to her face.

He had just opened his mouth to tell Alistair that he thought she would recover when a low chuckle interrupted him. Both Grey Wardens snapped their heads around at the sound.

Kellan lurched to her feet from where Alistair had knocked her away. Her dark hair spilled down around her shoulders and she was still holding one hand to her face. The sleeve of that raised hand was bunched around her elbow, heavy with Eleanor's blood.

Alistair leapt to his feet and drew his sword in one swift movement. He took two steps forward.

"You raise your sword against me, Father?" Kellan called out in a mocking tone. "What have I ever done to you?" She laughed again and the sound spiraled upward toward insanity.

He made no answer except to take another step toward her.

"What have I ever done to anyone except wish to be free, worshipped by thousands, maybe receive a few sacrifices? Is that so unreasonable? Instead I have been used, abandoned by those who claim to need me, and forced into a life I did not want." A haze of magic rose around her, partially obscuring her robed form.

"I was a god. Then I was discarded, left to rot. But the darkspawn promised more. They promised adoration; they promised revenge. I was no longer beautiful or as powerful as before, but I had a faithful army to spread the Blight at my command. My command." She shimmered, for a moment seeming to disappear completely. But she was not gone, Alistair saw. She was changing, becoming something else.

"And then to be born into the body of a human, a weak human child. I had all of my memories but none of my powers. And my mother trained me, yes, but used me. Manipulated me. Until the day I killed her I hated her. And I hated you, and the Grey Wardens, and your perfect family for having any bit of happiness at my expense."

There was a flash of light so bright that the Wardens cried out and shielded their faces with their hands. When it died away and they could see again, where the woman had stood there was the wedge-shaped head of a dragon.

The witch-light glinted off its purple hued scales and its yellow eyes fixed them with a stare of pure hatred. The head arced up on its slender neck and the archdemon of Alistair's nightmares stood before him. Its body was not deformed and pocked by the Blight as it had those years before, but it was beautiful and whole, deadly and wonderful. She spread her wings wide in the confines of the cavern and her voice thundered in their heads.

"I will have my revenge on all of you now, and I will return to the Imperium to regain my rightful place. I will rule this land for a thousand years and all will love Urthemiel again."

She drew in her breath, stoking the furnace inside her lungs to summon a blast of fire that would char these troublesome humans before her to a crisp. Alistair stood between his daughter and the dragon and drew his shield, trusting to its meager protection to hold the dragonflame from his injured daughter.

The dragon roared and the cavern went bright white before his eyes. For a moment he felt like he was floating, as if he had just taken a hard blow to the head, and then—

"Bring them home. Please bring them home."