Author's note: About the previous chapter... Ella's seventeen or eighteen by my reckoning, hormonal, and not at all experienced with (attractive) men. Only the most hostile of words would put her off. Also, she only has Bethany's rather over-dramatic assessment of Fenris' character to judge him by, so she's willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt. That, and she really can't think too badly of one of her rescuers. I fancy Fenris was actually embarrassed and irritated, but still civil at Ella's endless gushing. Major apologies for the A/N. Would have gone for a personal reply, but for the system being totally borked right now with the interface "upgrade."
She can almost feel her arms and legs in the endless grey, but, though they're as weightless as her body, her fingers and toes don't respond when she tries to wiggle them. She strains to move them with all her focus, but her will is a boulder, and she can't put a shoulder behind it. She tries to reach for the Fade, to draw its energy into her, but there is nothing beyond this nothingness. All she can do is float, no matter how she wishes to struggle. She surrenders to the nothingness and floats as what remains of her is subsumed.
Voices, small echoes, and they all speak nonsense… Angry flaring of energy pierces the grey. A splash of warmth on her face again, and she can move her eyelids. Feeling returns only slowly, and she grips at small nubbins… Sand? Her eyes twitch and she flinches from brightness. Has she opened her eyes? She's just as blind as she was floating. She clenches her eyes shut, and forces herself to her feet as the voices converge in an almost perverse harmony.
"Beth? Oh, Beth! What did they do to you?"
Lyssie.
She forced her eyes open, only to be surrounded in crimson. Crimson floating before her, perhaps coating her nose, liquid crimson soaking into the sands, the draped crimson fabrics adorning a field of dead Templars. Crimson drenched Lysandra from head to toe in slaughterhouse splotches, the same crimson that drenched Fenris, Aveline, and a gaunt, black-clad Anders. She shook her head and squinted at the overly bright sun that never stopped hovering over this accursed strip of land. Six years hadn't diminished its harshness in the slightest, and the crimson did little to color the washed out sands. Even the earthen rocks seemed colorless under the sun's assault.
The Wounded Coast? Oh, Maker, how did I end up here?
"You see, Champion, she lives."
Grace. Grace's little toady, and, Andraste's pantaloons, is that Ser Thrask lying dead?
"What happened?" she managed. "The last thing I remember is the Templars coming into my quarters."
"I promise, I'll never let anything like this happen again," Lysandra said.
She remembered that tone, quiet and assured, but deeply pained, when Lysandra had comforted her after Father's death. Had Lysandra ever wept? Likely no, or not that she could speak of. Fenris can't be right, can he? Even beneath the charnel coat Lysandra wore, the deep lines that only grief could etch were evident at the corners of her eyes. Be kind—it won't kill you. She did save your life somehow.
"Thank you. It's good to know you're still looking out for me."
Lysandra smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Alw—" The rest of the word got lost to the relentless clanking of a company's worth of armor.
Maker, the Knight-Captain!
She could only watch half-dazed as her sister dueled with the stolid Templar. The toady squeaked in protest about what a "fine lady" the Champion was, and she reeled as she only slowly pieced together what happened. Kidnapped as blackmail. Did these fools know anything about Lyssie? At all? Her sister spoke up for the remaining mages and asked they be treated with mercy, far more than they deserved. She'd have gladly brought fire down upon every last one of them, but even Lysandra ignored her for the moment.
A Templar grabbed her arm at the Knight-Captain's orders to, "Take them away," and she almost protested. The man's stark and inhuman helm silenced her. Her Templar fell in line last in the formation, which gave her an unfortunate chance to watch what followed.
"Is it standard Templar practice to show up after someone else has done all the hard work?" Lysandra asked. "Thank you oh-so-kindly for not saving my sister from the traitors under your command."
Not now, Lyssie. In fact, never's a good time for such talk!
"And you treat her like a criminal! Need I remind you that your failure allowed these cretins to take her captive?"
"Move," the Templar said. She almost missed the word in his grunt.
She followed, Alain just ahead. She caught Lysandra's eye as she passed, and her sister's mouthed words, I'll fix this, Beth. Those words were less than no comfort. When they cleared Lysandra's little party, the Templar relaxed his grip, and when the coastline passed into Kirkwall's bordering farmlands, he let go entirely.
"Why, Alain?" she asked.
"Grace…"
"Yes, she had you wrapped around her little finger, didn't she? Is there anyone she didn't bed?"
"I…"
"Yes, obviously you never did. Just as you supposedly renounced blood magic."
"Bethany, I'm sorry."
"Yes, I'm sure you are. Very sorry. Contrite, even."
"I swear, if I survive this, I'll make it up to you." The boy, though he was likely older than she, trembled as he spoke and his Templar grunted as he staggered.
"There's nothing you could do to make this better. How would you feel if two Templars woke you in the middle of the night and knocked you out?"
"I…"
"Maybe they'll do that every night to you when it's time for questioning. Andraste, please make it so!"
"If you beg pardon, Bethany, you're nothing like your sister."
"Well, thank you. I suppose I'll take that in a kind and charitable way, much like such a 'fine lady' might."
"She sought mercy for me, but you, you're… spiteful!" He hurled the last word like an accusation.
She'd never wanted to set something so innocent-looking ablaze before, and she struggled to hold the flames in. "Well, the moment you take Lysandra captive and subject her to blood magic, then sing of her magnanimity when she wakes, I'll listen to your stupidity. Until then, keep your blighted mouth shut!"
"I doubt I could take her hostage," the idiot said. "She's Champion for good reason."
"Please, Ser," she said to her Templar, "shut him up!"
The Templar's chuckle echoed within his metal encasing. "With pleasure, mage."
She did her best to swallow her giggles when the boy cringed away from the harsh grip of a second Templar gauntlet.