Ava hurried through the freshly fallen cover of snow, her boots noisily crunching beneath her. The evening had ended on a sour note, she thought regretfully.
"You cannot be serious!" Hester had hissed. They were huddled together, heads drawn in closer to hear Tameryn. "You are telling Ava to perform blood magic?"
"Sssh!" Tameryn hushed her sharply, indicating their surroundings. "Whether it can be considered true blood magic or not is debatable!"
"Perhaps academically!" Hester protested. "What you proposed involves blood and magic. Hence: blood magic!"
"Just because the Chantry denounces all forms of blood magic as evil does not mean it is so! I am tired of such superstitious and fearful views of an ancient and powerful discipline that was once part of every branch of magic! The Chantry's backward ways and political biases don't affect only us! Ava, you know this: the Chantry will not sanction the study of anatomy because of its fears! Physicians are not allowed to study their craft properly— they need mages like you to do a laying of hands…It hinders progress for everyone. It is hypocritical, if you ask me! And yet, the Chantry has no problem collecting our blood for phylacteries, does it? There's some blood and magic right there!"
Hester looked uneasy.
"Ava, don't do it," she begged. "When you cast that spell, the Veil will be torn and you will have no control over what manifests itself before you! What if it is a demon? Will you have the strength to fight it back? And if it possesses you?"
"If she follows my instructions, she'll have nothing to fear," Tameryn explained dryly. "This is merely a spell that will reveal and bind any creature who held the pebble in its possession. She won't be spilling more than a couple drops of blood on the stone— the stone will be the vessel to entrap it, not her. It's hardly the preamble to a demonic summoning! She has every right to ascertain whether or not her patients are being preyed upon by a rapacious entity! Would you deny her that right? To defend herself and others?
"Then take the matter to the Templars! They are equipped to handle such situations," Hester reasoned.
Tameryn's face twisted with disgust.
"Because they would be so reasonable about the whole matter, wouldn't they? She does that and her reward will be a cozy cell with apostates and hedge mages waiting to be rendered Tranquil!"
"So to make a point, to strike at the Chantry— out of pride," Hester argued, "you would risk making Ava into a maleficar?"
Tameryn snorted.
"A maleficar! Hardly! That's like saying that because you pray to Andraste, it'll make you the next Divine."
"How could you live with yourself knowing Ava had become an abomination?" She lowered her voice and reached for Tameryn's hand, seizing it tightly. "Haven't we lost too many of our own already? Didn't the Inquisitor herself tell all of us she trusted us—Nay! Relied on us!— despite everything, to show the world we deserved this chance? There's a time and a place for this argument, but for now, understand: everything that is happening here with mages and the Inquisition is greater than us, than the Chantry, the Circle. Please. Set your grudges aside…" she pleaded.
Tameryn lowered her eyes and did not reply.
"Friends," Ava interrupted, "I did not wish to start an argument…Can we please forget the whole matter?" Her heart pounded heavily against her chest. She couldn't discern whether it was excitement or terror. Perhaps both. For once she was not sure what the right thing to do was.
"Yes. On to other things…We are attracting attention," Tameryn acknowledged, glancing around uncomfortably.
"Are you familiar with that young man over there, Ava?" Hester wondered, tilting her head towards the bar. "He has not stopped staring at you since we've sat down."
Ava glanced furtively towards the bar and as she recognized the man's features, her heart sank. It was the drunken soldier from the other night. What Hester probably believed was sultriness in his probing gaze, Ava read as scorn.
"I need to go," she announced.
Without further thought, she tossed a few coins on the tabletop and rose abruptly.
"Ava!" Tameryn called after her.
The tavern's warmth dissipated into the crisp night as she trudged through the quiet courtyards towards her modest room over the dispensary. Her mind oscillated between Hester's warnings and Tameryn's instructions.
The pebble is cool and unyielding against my hand— the stone would be the instrument to bind the entity, not I. What harm?—
She halted abruptly, her hand clutching the cloak's heavy fabric over her chest. Alongside her, a separate trail of footsteps emerged.
How brave are you? Tameryn's words echoed as a taunt in her head.
The air wavered and flickered.
Turns out, not very, she gulped.
She blinked, blood thrumming in her ears, and before her, materializing in the tracks, a lean, wiry figure stood, its back turned to her, an odd, wide-brimmed hat obstructing the view ahead.
"His mind ebbs and flows with the dissonant song, sorrow and fear, it is not you, he is broken, but you will bear the brunt of it," the stranger told her in one breath, his voice slightly tremulous.
He turned around at last and she gazed wordlessly upon the face of a young man, hollow cheeked and frightfully pale, his piercing light blue eyes peering intensely at her.
"You are in great danger," he concluded, deftly unsheathing a pair of silvery daggers.
Nearby, another figure approached them. She whirled around dazedly. It was the soldier; he'd followed her out of the tavern.
"Mage!" he called out. "A word, if you will!"