"This is really fucking stupid."
They had almost reached the Valley of Sacred Ashes, and the more she thought about what was going on, the less Sera understood it. Above them, the Breech gaped, huge and angry since Corypheus had torn it wide open again, a spiteful gesture she couldn't quite wrap her brain around.
"Yeah, he's bloody pissed," she complained. "Get that. We messed up his shit, stole his well, all of that stuff. So throw something. Try and light us on fire. Wrecking the world doesn't make any sense."
"Since when do 'Vint mages make any sense?", Iron Bull asked, chuckling when Dorian shot him a disapproving glare. "He probably just wants to watch it all burn."
Herah shook her head, packing up the pace so that she could join Sera at the head of the column. "No, there's a purpose to all of this. It's about me."
Sera didn't like the sound of that one bit. "About you? What about you?"
"Corypheus wants to kill me, and this forces me to face him before most of our army can get back from the Arbor Wilds."
"Indeed," Morrigan agreed, "'Tis no longer simply power he craves, but vengeance. A man such as this cannot abide being thwarted, especially not by those he considers to be his inferiors."
"Is that what those elf-y voices told you?", Sera asked. She was grateful it hadn't been Herah who'd drunk from the Well of Sorrows. She didn't want to share her lover, and especially not with some weird ass collection of dead elf spirits, or whatever the hell the water had dumped inside Morrigan.
"No," the witch told her, "It is merely my own observation. In spite of his exotic magics and unusual history, Corypheus is little different than most who have power. He is greedy, ambitious, and petulant when thwarted. His tempers tantrums are simply on a larger scale than most people's."
Iron Bull laughed at her words. "A tantrum, huh? Then I guess we'll just have to give him a good spanking."
"Are you ready for that?", Herah asked Morrigan. "You're sure that thing Flemeth showed you will let us deal with the dragon?"
"My mother is many things," the witch replied, "But a poor teacher is not one of them . I will be ready when the time comes."
"If you need some help with it, I can do that," Sera offered. Dragons, she liked fighting. Sure, they were big, but that just made them better targets. Ancient Tevinter god-monsters, not so much. Who knew what that magic of theirs was getting up to while you were shooting at them? She ran her hand along the curve of the bow Herah had given her. It had already proven itself in the Arbor Wilds, but would it be enough to kill someone who didn't seem able to die?
"I think we'd all like a crack," Bull offered. "This fight's been a long time coming."
Herah sighed. "Sorry to disappoint," she told the group, "But you can't all get that shot. The scouts are reporting there's a whole host of demons down there in the Valley, so I'll take a team of three with me to go after Corypheus while the rest of you deal with them."
"So who gets the invites?", Varric asked, fingering his crossbow. Even the normally laid-back storyteller seemed eager to engage their enemy.
Sera held her breath as she waited for the answer. As frightening as the idea of taking on Corpse-of-puss was, leaving Herah to do it without her was far worse. The Inquisitor was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she would fight with everything she had to keep her alive through this final battle.
"Cassandra," Herah began, "You'll take point." Sera brightened a little bit at that declaration. The Seeker might be a stuck-up prissy pants, at least when she wasn't sneaking off to read dirty books, but she was also a rock in battle.
"Dorian, you're on barriers." Sera liked the Tevinter mage as much as she figured could like, well, a Tevinter mage, but she couldn't dwell on that, holding her breath as she waited to hear the last name.
"And Sera, you're in charge of covering fire." The elf exhaled and Herah grinned at her. "Come on, you didn't really think I'd leave you out, did you?", she asked, lowering her voice so that the rest of the Inquisition couldn't hear her. "You've been talking about putting an arrow in this asshole for months now. This is your chance."
She smiled back her lover, swallowing down her fear. "Definitely. Right in the heart, eh? If he's got one."
Herah chuckled. "Right there," she agreed. The Inquisitor turned to the rest of the small group. "Everyone else, you just make sure to keep those demons off of us and we'll do the rest."
"We won't fail you." It was Blackwell who said those words. It wasn't his real name, but Sera still thought of him as Blackwall. She was glad Herah had given him another chance after his past came to light. He might have fucked up pretty bad, but he was still a lot more fun than most people, and if trying to save the world didn't earn you a break, then screw it, what did?
A few more steps brought them to the top of the ridge overlooking the Valley of Sacred Ashes. The sight was even worse than Sera had feared. Above, the rent in the sky seemed larger than ever, and below them, the ground was cracked and burned. Fade rifts dotted the landscape and bands of demons wandered about the blasted remains of what had once been Haven. And at the center of it all, she could see Corypheus, the Magister easy to identify next to the huge shape of his dragon. Fire flashed from his hands, and the Inquisition scouts unlucky enough to have caught his gaze screamed and died, their flesh melting from their bones.
Sera gasped, a sudden terror rising in her chest, and then she felt Herah's strong hand squeeze her shoulder, setting her down. The archer turned, and her normal witticisms failed her. Instead, she whispered the only thing she could think of: "I love you."
Herah nodded as she released her. The Inquisitor's big, brown eyes were steel and her enchanted daggers glimmered in her hands. "Until the end," she told Sera, "Now let's go finish this."
They'd succeeded in finishing off the dragon, at least after Morrigan softened it up for them, but Corypheus himself was proving harder to put down. The bastard kept magicing himself around the floating ruins of the castle, while his attacks were starting to wear them down. Dorian, particular, looked close to his breaking point, sweat pouring off of his skin as he fought to maintain the group's shields in the face of the ancient Magister's onslaught, but everyone was feeling the strain. Even the normally indomitable Cassandra's sooty face was tight as she tried to defend the rest of them, her strikes and blocks slower then they'd been at the start of the battle.
Herah rolled to her left, ducking under the beam of fire that extruded from Corypheus' hand. The heat tingled above her bare head but she was unharmed, and before he could refocus, she charged, a sudden burst of speed propelling her behind her enemy. She drew her daggers across his armored flesh as she passed, and even while he tried to turn and face her again, Cassandra smashed her shield into his sternum and then followed it up with a blow from her long sword to his head.
Corypheus staggered, one of the few signs of pain he'd displayed thus far, but the weakness was short-lived. Ignoring the burst of fire from Dorian's staff that impacted his shoulder, he engulfed Cassandra in a cocoon of red energy that her shield wasn't able to block in time. The Seeker fell to her knees, her body twitching as she fought against the pain of the attack and seeing her friend's anguish, Herah snapped.
The Inquisitor launched herself forward, driving both daggers up and into Corypheus' back with such strength that even the massive creature was lifted half a foot off of the ground. A howl of rage escaped from his chest, and while her blades held him in place, Sera struck. A single, expertly aimed arrow flew from her bow, striking Corypheus in the breast.
He gurgled as his ancient blood flowed down his body, but the magic and hate that animated him were too strong to be easily undone. He whirled, wrenching the daggers out of his body with the violence of his motion. One of them tumbled from her grasp, but she held onto the other, gripping the blade even as a taloned hand crashed into her chest and dark magic flowed into her body. She grimaced as her muscles tensed, what remained of Dorian's barrier crumbling under the attack.
Then Corypheus jerked. A second shaft now stuck out from between his shoulder blades and while he was distracted, Herah slashed his torso, forcing him to release her. Dorian unleashed another burst of flame, and this time, it struck home, the flesh of the Magister's back boiling at the magic, and the Inquisitor knew that finally, his defenses were down.
Corypheus staggered backwards, and his orb flew from his grasp, hovering in front of him with lightning peeling off of it in waves. "Not like this," he thundered as he tried wrestle the artifact back under his control. "I have walked the halls of the Golden City, crossed the ages… Dumat! Ancient ones! I beseech you! If you exist… If you ever truly existed.. Aid me now!"
Herah didn't wait for a reply from the heavens or anywhere else. Green energy crackled into existence around her hand, and she reached out with it, wrapping it around the orb. It flew from Corypheus' clutches into hers, and the Magister crashed to his knees, now bereft of the source of his enhanced power. Grasping the sphere, she poured all of the power she could into it, and the artifact amplified her efforts, sending a massive beam of green light into the rift, illuminating the whole sky above them.
The empty remains of the orb dropped from her grasp and she turned back to Corypheus. The Magister reached out at her, his eyes filled with desperate hate, but it was an empty menace now, his power as shattered as the crumbling castle. She raised her hand, the power of the Anchor pulsing in the darkness, and snapped, "You wanted into the Fade? Then go there!"
Emerald energy enveloped Corypheus and as she focused her will through the mark on her hand, it tore him apart from the inside out. Nothing but a final scream escaped his lips as his body unraveled and whatever remained of it was ripped out of the word and deposited into the Fade. She didn't have time to admire her handiwork though, as she was reminded by the feeling of a hand yanking on her arm and a voice in her ear.
"Come on, Buckles," Sera barked. "This place is about to be seriously fucked."
Only a few feet away from her, a chunk of rubble crashed to the ground, and she pulled herself together. Cassandra forced herself back to her feet, and together, the three women dashed out of the collapsing building. Dorian was closer to safety than they were and as they ran, he threw up a fresh shield, deflecting the smaller bits of rubble that rained down while they did their best to dodge the bigger chunks.
A harrowing minute of so later, they all stood outside what remained of the castle, their gazes alternating between the smoking pile of rubble and the dome of the sky, where the angry gash of the Breech had been replaced with a small scar of light. It was over, she realized suddenly. Somehow, unbelievably, it was over, and Herah really didn't have any idea what to say about that.
Not everyone was equally dumbfounded. Besides her, there came a relieved giggle and Sera took her hand. "That," she declared brightly, "Was bloody brilliant. We saved the world, and we didn't even die."
A smiled spread across Herah's face as she squeezed down on her lover's hand. What more could she, or any of them, have asked for?
Just two more chapters to go after this. Victory celebrations! A new Divine! Smut! Thanks for reading this far.