Chapter 2:

She ran out of the library. She needed to get back to the dormitory. She needed to get to the safety of her room to. Sylina wasn't looking where she was going – she just ran. Ran around a corner and right into an incredibly hard object. She bounced back and fell back onto the ground, the wind knocked out of her. She closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness overtook her.

"Watch where you are going mage!" She heard a male voice growl at her. "Are you alright, Ser Cullen?"

"Y-yes. I'm fine." Sylina opened her eyes and waited for her vision to clear. Then she saw a hand in front of her face. "Are you alright, miss?" She blinked and looked up at the face attached to the hand. It was a templar. A young templar who couldn't have been more than a few years older than her. He had a small smile on his face along with close cropped dark blonde hair. It looked like he was attempting to grow facial hair around his chin, but failing miserably at it.

But what she noticed were his eyes. They were amber and warm. Most of the templars looked at mages with cold, calculating eyes. But the eyes of this templar were warm and inviting. She put her hand in his and allowed him to help her up. She still felt sick and must have looked a terrible mess after falling on the ground. She could feel the bruises start to form.

"I..." Sylina stopped and drew in a calming breath. What Anders had told her was still fresh in her mind, and now here she was. Alone in the hall with two templars. One of them, the older templar who she knew, was usually found on the senior mages' floor but the second one, this young templar with the warm smile, she had never seen before. She tried to keep herself from shaking. All she wanted to do was reach her room. In one piece, hopefully.

"Mages should not be running. I will have to alert the senior enchanters about this. You will be punished mage." The older templar growled. "Come on, Ser Cullen, we must settle you in before supper."

The younger templar, Ser Cullen, was still looking at her with concern. "Are you...uh...going to be alright?" he asked again. Sylina suddenly realized that her hand was still in his and she snatched it back quickly. She saw a flicker of something – disappointment, maybe – cross his face before it disappeared.

She gathered her wits about her and replied coldly, "I will be fine, thank you Ser."

She moved quickly away from them and down the hall doing her best to walk away without limping.

"Sylina?" Jowan knocked on the door to the girl's dormitory room. "Sylina are you in there? We have a lesson in five minutes." Jowan slowly opened the door and looked around the dark room. Every room in the tower was slightly dark, mostly because there were never enough windows to let light in. The magical orbs that lit the rooms didn't give nearly enough light – except in the library, where most of the orbs resided. Jowan walked cautiously into the room. If he was caught by a templar or a senior mage in the girl's dormitory room, he would be in huge trouble. After Sylina had run off, Jowan had yelled at Anders for being inconsiderate and had stormed after her. When he had seen two male templars walking down the hall and the older one muttering about insolent mages, Jowan's heart had stopped. Sylina was always one for the rules – well, most of the time anyway. Since she had been such a young apprentice, she had experienced plenty of punishment for stepping outside the line. The first few years she was almost always being hit or yelled at. No running. No shouting. No crying. Practice your spells. Do your studies. Eat your food. Go to sleep.

Jowan had felt bad for her. It was one of the reasons he had started talking to her when they were younger and they had become friends. She was too young to have any friends when she first came to the tower, since most of the apprentices were so much older. She had interacted mostly with the older mages for many years, and they had babied her over many things. Jowan also thought that it was one of the reasons Sylina was so advanced with her magic. The older mages were constantly showing her things that most apprentices didn't learn. Sylina was the favorite. Only last year, the Senior Enchanter had requested to be her mentor. It was a huge honor and Sylina had been so thrilled. She met with the First Enchanter most days and he helped her improve her magic. Jowan was aware that he was jealous of her, but he tried to be supportive all the same.

"Sylina?" Jowan whispered. He made his way over to where he knew her bed was. He saw her lying face down on her bed and even in the dim he saw her shoulders moving and knew she was crying. "Sylina, don't cry." Jowan didn't really know what to say, so he sat down on the bed and patted her shoulder instead.

He knew that rape happened in the tower, to both female and male mages. He had known for years. He had always kept it from Sylina as she was fussed over constantly and, as such, he just never thought she would have to worry about it. Luckily, it had not happened to Jowan and a few of the female apprentices he had heard talking about it said it didn't happen often. But it happened and as Sylina had grown Jowan had realized she might be in a greater danger than most of the female apprentices. Most female apprentices walked around in packs which made them less vulnerable to a single templar, and most templars wouldn't dare try to approach someone surrounded by friends. The problem Sylina had was that she didn't have many friends. She had Jowan, and sometimes Anders, when he wasn't in solitary confinement for attempting to escape. But Sylina didn't get along with most of the other female apprentices.

They thought her odd and too quiet and Jowan also suspected they were jealous of her.

"I won't let anything happen to you, I promise."

Sylina turned to look at Jowan, his hand was still resting on her shoulder. He looked worried. She sniffled and fought back the tears, "Can you make that promise? Can you promise it will never happen?"

Jowan swallowed and hung his head. "I can try," he said quietly. Sylina felt tears rising again. Was there anyway to protect herself from the templars? Like Anders had said, if they wanted something, they took it.

Jowan patted her back. "Come on," he said, trying to make his voice sound light, "if we are late to our next lesson Senior Enchanter Wynne will skin us and we won't have to worry about the templars." Sylina smiled in spite of herself and got off her bed. She straightened her robes and tried to fix her hair. Her body hurt from falling and she felt sick from crying, but she knew that Jowan was right. She would most certainly be in worse shape if she missed lessons.