Chapter 3: Are We Friends?
Her veins burned with reaction to the loss of consistent lyrium poisoning. The marks on her face and body did their job, blighting her just enough to hear Corypheus song and enhance her magic to dangerous levels. But, the Gods be damned, the loss of the daily ingestion hurt! She must resolve this lack, and soon.
And so quickly things had been set in order and again she was off to Redcliffe Castle. She'd managed to manipulate the adviser's agreement to let her come, ostensibly for the mages. But truly, she just wanted to see Alexius again, and perhaps bargain the lives of her companions (for her God would very much want the famed right hand of the divine and the dwarf who knew the location of the source of the red lyrium) for passage back to her master. When he greeted her with the hearty words, "Old friend," her heart began to soar.
Damn Leliana and her agents! Their move was made too early and Alexius reacted in panic. She had stepped near to speak to him of her offer, and the moment was spoiled. Too close to the source of his attack, and the world faded behind a bright flash of sickly light.
The future she opened her eyes to nearly stopped her heart. A future where her God had won! Her future, the one she prayed for!
As she and the Tevinter man wandered the castle looking for Alexius (although if Dorian had understood her reasons for doing so, he may not have been so eager), they came across Fiona in the final throws of lyrium incubation. She smiled almost kindly at the older woman, soon she would be one with the blighted song of Corypheus.
Near her, they found the companions she'd brought with her in the past. They too had been exposed to the red lyrium, but it had affected them more like it did her. Functional but more. Varric's song was muted through his dwarven resistance but Cassandra's sang like a symphony.
As their songs combined, she felt a momentary closeness to these two. More than compatriots in that moment. Siblings in the blighted music that ran through their veins. Join me, her heart offered them, silently.
They found red lyrium. Growing in great, glowing pillars through the hallways and courtyards. One particularly pure vein pulsed and called and she moved to it almost without thinking. The pain of her withdrawal the only thing able to fill her mind in that moment.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Varric stepped between her and the chunk she meant to take. "We should...study it." She managed to stutter through her need. "Red, I can feel it in you. I have no idea how you managed to get red lyrium in your blood all in the past, but I can promise you, nothing good will come of it." His expression of concern for her was discomfiting. Join me, her silent thought pushed at his mind but it was only thought and did nothing.
And then they found Leliana. Her instincts were to override the torturer and slay her then. However, there was little she could do but free the woman, with the others watching and armed. Join me, her eyes burned the question into the spymisstress as she freed her, but the intensity was misread as anger at the horrors Leliana had survived.
As they made their way through the ruined castle, a different truth made it's appearance. This was a future where the breach, the one thing she truly feared, had grown to such an extent that even her God and his followers suffered from it. A letter, discarded in Alexius' quarters made the truth clear. She didn't allow the others to read it, or any of the writings strewn about, for fear they may name her for what she was. But the truth was in them.
This was not the future her God had wanted! For Corypheus sake, she could not allow this future to stand.
And so it was she and her blighted companions slew the false Alexius. And so it was she watched these people she would betray if she could, face their own deaths to stop hers. And so it was they went back through the portal and faced the Alexius of now and drove him to his knees.
They had the mages. They could close the breach and stop this terrible future from frustrating her master. This future would not come to pass, leaving room for a different darkness to take it's place. One more pleasing to her God.
As Cassandra and Varric faced the angry queen of Ferelden with her, she felt her gaze inexplicably drawn to their now unblighted faces. Her heart whispered with a surprising fervency. Join me...please.
One day, they would serve with her, she swore. She would give them every chance to join rather than be destroyed. These two, of them all, she desired to turn to true brother and sister in her dark faith.