(This is the first chapter that actually coincides with events that occurred in the game, but it doesn't go into them in any detail. If you haven't played the game you will be mighty confused. Time is always chronological except in the Fade.)

1

You can't save everyone, Ellyn.

"I can try," Ellyn went up and down the tower making arrangements. The Grey Warden had chosen her, as Mythal predicted. She was loathe to leave Anders behind, but with her current powers she would not be able to save him.

She had him moved into the basement, ironically, in the cell where he was kept during solitary confinement. She had it cleaned and a new feather mattress brought in. After leaving an enchantment to sustain him, Ellyn decided that he was safe enough.

"I'll be back for you. I promise." She kissed him, safe in the knowledge that he would not remember.

"Are you ready?" First Enchanter Irving was standing just outside the doors.

Ellyn nodded. She stepped out into the hall. Irving closed the doors and sealed it with an enchantment. "Thank you."

"Are you sure you don't want me to set one that seal him off from the fade?"

"No. I've set protections of my own. It'll sustain him and protect him from demons." She flashed him a casual smile.

"When you get back," said Irving with more than a little curiosity. "You must write all this down. You cast spells that I did not even know existed."

"I'll be back. For him," Ellyn glanced at the sealed door. "Are you sure about sending me away?"

"The Grey Warden has chosen you, and Greagoir will probably find an excuse to kill you after this business with Jowan." Irving sighed. "I told him you were just following orders, but -"

"Not that." Ellyn cut him off sharply. "There's no one else down here, so let's speak honestly. I'm not sure what will happen with the fraternities when I go. My aura only stretches so far."

"I've sent the more troubling members you named down south to Ostargar already, with Wynne to keep an eye on them. Maybe a taste of war will remind them that the unity we have now is best for the Circle."

"You are too optimistic, First Enchanter." Ellyn tapped her staff against the ground impatiently, "I'm worried. For you, for Ser Clara, for all the young apprentices. The mages and enchanters can defend themselves, but what will the young ones do? When the battle is done, the Libertarians and Isolationists will return. I cannot keep the demons away if I'm not here."

"Mages are trained to withstand the temptation of demons, Ellyn. We will be fine."

"Right," Ellyn was unconvinced. She had been listening to the whispering of the fraternities of enchanters, and they grew ever louder over the past year. Mages were trained to withstand demons, but some welcomed them. "Then I have one favor to ask."

"For all you have done for the Circle, you may ask of me anything."

"Convince Greagoir to have Ser Clara do front door duty for a while."

"How long?" Irving asked, surprised. This was not much of a favor.

"As long as possible. It doesn't have to be the front doors, just have her outside of the seals." Should the Circle fall, she wanted at least Clara to be safe.

As she emerged from the cellars with Irving, she spied Cullen in the hall. When her eyes met his, she saw only fear in them.

No. I can't save everyone.

2

Ellyn never felt so dirty in her life. There was that one time when she awoke from possession covered in blood, but this was ridiculous. Sometimes it took a whole week for them to get anywhere with a decent bath, and after one battle she was covered in blood again.

"I wish the 'cleansing aura' actually cleans you," she said to Allistair after an especially gruesome battle. "I don't even know what's in my hair anymore."

"I could help you clean up the not so magical way." Allistair had been flirting one-sidedly with Ellyn since they met in Ostargar.

"We don't have any clean water! And we're out of soap!"

I might as well talk to darkspawn, he thought. "We'll get you a nice bath when we get to the castle in Redcliffe."

"Thank you, Alistair." Ellyn did not enjoy travelling. She missed a clean bed, her dressing table, a bath every night. She missed going into the mess hall at supper time with Anders. She wondered why he ever ran away to sleep in the woods like this. She would gladly trade places if this was what he wanted. She would take the Circle any day. Freedom be damned. A prison was as good as the golden city if there was a hot bath in it.

At night, in Leliana's tent, Alistair was fishing for advice. "I think she hates me."

"She does not hate you. I can't say she likes you either, though. It's more like she's ... indifferent."

"Gee, that really helps." Alistair was polishing his plate mail. It gave him something to do, and he was convinced that Ellyn enjoyed the look of clean, shiny armour. "What will it take for her to at least talk to me? She's totally detached."

"Not to me," Leliana nearly beamed. "She just loves talking about Orlesian fashion. Silks, shoes and shopping. That's the key."

"When I start talking about Orlesian silks just to make conversation with a woman," said Alistair with a smirk, "give me a silk ribbon so I can hang myself with it."

"Well, you're not trying hard enough."

"I'm trying too hard. Compliments bounces off of her like arrows on plate mail."

"See," Leliana sighed. Alistair was just too dense sometimes. "That's why it bounces off of her. No girl wants to be compared to anything from an armoury."

Ellyn was convinced that Alistair was sent to keep tabs on her. Why else would they partner her with a templar? As far as Duncan was concerned, he recruited a healer of the creation school from the Circle of Magi. She did nothing to inform him otherwise.

She was an abomination by Chantry definition. Spirit possession was allowed so long as she kept control, and she knew that she had once lost all control. Irving waved it away as another advanced spell of the spirit school, but she knew better.

She stared out her own eyes and saw Mythal's energy reach out, crushing those templars from the outside in, pushing their plate mail inwards until their blood had nowhere to go but out. When it splashed into her mouth it was ambrosia. She felt the power in them, the ecstasy of life force feeding the power within.

Blood magic. The forbidden school. If she hadn't come back to herself by the time Irving arrived, they would have had to kill her. No trials, no questions. A templar report would state that she succumbed to a demon. No one mourned an abomination.

If Anders hadn't been there, she might have killed half the residents of the tower before being slain by templars herself. She wondered if Alistair knew, and that was why he was watching her so closely. Maybe Cullen told Duncan and Duncan told Alistair...

Morrigan sat down beside her with one smooth graceful motion, rather like a cat, breaking her paranoid train of thought. "Just what is going on with you?"

"It is unlike you to be so … concerned." Ellyn knotted her brows together. Morrigan was an apostate. Ser Clara once told her that most apostates were blood mages, Anders excepted.

"I do not want to see Alistair leading us. You're the less dim-witted Grey Warden. And, well," Morrigan hesitated. She wasn't sure why it was so, but Ellyn reminded her of Flemeth. "I'm curious about you."

"Nothing is going on with me." Ellyn was unused to casual conversation. She was not allowed any friends in the circle aside from Anders, and she did not know how to talk to anyone who wasn't him. He never went around a topic and always got right to the point. She never had to guess. These new companions made her guess all the time and she had a feeling that she had it all wrong.

"Something is. You look fearful." Morrigan made a sweeping gesture with one hand. "On the battlefield you're practically a force of nature, but when you're at camp you look like a deer waiting to be slaughtered. So what are you so scared of?"

Ellyn made a gesture with her chin towards the direction of Leliana's tent.

"The crazy chantry sister? She does have a tendency to stab people in the back, but she's not really all that fearsome..." Morrigan saw Ellyn shake her head. "Oh, you don't mean Alistair?"

Ellyn stared straight ahead, arms around her knees, eyes wide as saucers. Morrigan could just smell the fear.

"Why ever would you be afraid of Alistair?" Morrigan chuckled incredulously.

"Well, aren't you? He has templar abilities. You're an apostate."

"Of course not. He's harmless," Morrigan's expression barely contained her mirth. "He's the one who fears us mages. Templars." She spat it out as if it was a cuss word. "They see 'abominations' everywhere."

"He seems to be okay with you. Maybe he thinks you have your powers under control. He's always staring at me like I'm about to explode and turn into some demon."

Morrigan gave Ellyn a long, hard stare. When she realized that the girl was not simply being coquettish, she stood up, patted Ellyn on the shoulder, and started walking back towards her corner of the camp. "Forget what I said earlier. You are the far more dim-witted Grey Warden."

3

"We can win this." Ellyn smoothed out the map in front of her. "The hillside battle will be easy. There's a a choke point right here. We have a group of archers who can pick off anyone who manages to survive the fire we set … here. That is not going to be a problem. I have a feeling that these creatures will probably come across the water, however."

"Why?" asked a confused Alistair. "That requires jumping off a cliff and swimming across a lake."

"They don't have to breathe, Alistair."

"Oh. Right. So what do we do?"

"We need light around the chantry, and a watch set on the pier. If there's any movement. we come down from the cliff and defend the Chantry. It's not far." Ellyn pointed at the barricades drawn just outside the chantry doors, "I will be in the middle of the barricades where my aura can reach everyone. Leliana, you'll stay by me and warn me if there's an archer training his bow on me. Morrigan, use fire. Just fire. Undead burns like dry wood with candles in them. Sten, go on the offensive, but stay in my aura. Bring a warhammer in case of skeletons. Alistair, guard the choke points. That is all."

My little commander. How you've grown.

Ellyn was in her element. She was no warrior - her offensive spells were limited to those that kept her from being overwhelmed - but in the midst of an army, she helped them become an unstoppable force. This wasn't much of an army, but it was enough. With Ellyn, thirty men would have the strength of ninety. It would have to do.

She was right; they did come from the shore. A ring of fire surrounded the barricade, the dead providing fuel for more flames. From the darkness they came, wave after wave, the fleshy undead with their skin hanging in tatters made her shut her eyes more than once. Fat turned to tallow and Morrigan set them aflame, leaving fiery lines in the mud to mark their passage.

Skeletons were the problem. They did not burn. Their arrows flew with pinpoint precision; Alistair raised his shield in front of Ellyn and parried, blocking nearing every one, but there were already two in her shoulder and she could not pause long enough to remove them. These men needed her, the last wave of undead was all amongst them, nearly close enough to touch her. Her reservoir of mana almost depleted, Ellyn stumbled a half-step, dizzy, stepping into yet another corpse. She wasn't sure if it was one of theirs or the enemy, but it gave her an idea.

"Leliana, pull the arrows out!" She complied, Ellyn nearly doubling over in pain. Closing her eyes and hoping no one was paying close attention to her, she called upon Mythal, drinking in the residual life force of the blood and bodies around her, healing the holes in her shoulder. Shouting out a signal to the men, she stamped her staff into the ground, writing a glyph of repulsion, and cast paralysis right under her. The magic was repelled outwards.

Skeletons and corpses stood stock-still. As were those men who did not heed her signal. Sten made short work of the skeletons with his warhammer, and they all waited, ready for another wave to come.

They did not. Five hours into their siege, midnight well passed, Redcliffe had won. Ellyn risked a glance at Alistair. His attention was on her, as always. She searched his eyes for any sign of accusation, and saw nothing there but sincere concern. She dropped her gaze.

"I'm fine. I'm not bleeding anymore. Check the ground for survivors," she told Alistair, finally, when she realized that he was staring at the arrow holes and her blood drenched robe. "I can save any who still has breath in him."

4

"I do not understand why we must be here."

They were trudging up the mountain into Haven. It was not on any map; they had only Brother Genitivi's notes to go on. Even those were vague - hints of paths through the mountains, descriptions of carved stones that served as landmarks. It was bitter cold; her aura provided a modicum of warmth, but in a blizzard she was only able to give so much. Morrigan muttered under her breath; Leliana was silent. Sten was getting downright hostile. He was from the North, where it was endless summer.

"There is someone we must save, if we wish sufficient support in the Landsmeet." Ellyn wanted to add 'stop taking out your distress on me,' but she held her tongue.

"We are not travelling towards this Archdemon we must defeat."

"We cannot get to the archdemon without breaking through the horde. We cannot break through the horde without an army. We cannot have an army without the Landsmeet, and we cannot call the Landsmeet without Arl Eamon. We cannot heal Arl Eamon without the Urn of Sacred Ashes. We have been through this, Sten." It was harder than trying to reason with the Knight Commander.

"Then why are we not travelling to the Circle of Magi for the possessed boy first, if you will insist on saving everyone?" Valid question. Ellyn knew she could not simply answer 'because mama said so.'

She had refrained from using mind magic with her new companions; in the Circle, people were either mages or templars. When they came out of their confusion, templars always blamed it on the lyrium, mages blamed it on tricks of the Fade. Out here, there was only her. They would figure it out eventually. "Do not challenge me, Sten. I've sent Alistair to the Circle. Connor is his family, and he has agreed to deal with it himself. We will be meeting him in Redcliffe when we have the ashes. You need to trust me."

"I trust you with my life. I will not simply follow in your shadow as you run from battle."

Ellyn stopped. They were on an upward trail in the mountains. There would not be much life here, but there were trees. She brought her staff out in front of her, closed her eyes, and waited, holding out one hand toward her curious companions, begging silence.

Not a moment later, a deer hopped onto her path. It stood in front of Ellyn, doe-eyed and submissive. She held up her left hand, palm up, whispered a quiet apology, and it dropped down into the snow.

"Pick it up, Sten. It's going to be dinner." She walked ahead. She saw their faces in her mind without having to look back at them; Morrigan, bemused with her lopsided smile, Leliana's horrid fascination, Sten with his flat expression, giving nothing away. A rustling behind her indicated that her command was obeyed.

She walked on, glad for the fact that she left Alistair behind.

5

Time did pass in the fade. There was simply nothing to indicate that it did. If something was not measured, it did not mean that it did not exist. In Ander's portion of the Fade, it was forever summer twilight. Was it morning or evening?

The Ellyn that called herself Mythal was always close by, picking flowers, running, doing pinwheels. All the little things Ellyn did as a child, Anders reminisced. Mythal taught Ellyn magic, and Ellyn taught Mythal how to have fun. It was a two-way street.

For the past few days - or weeks, or months - she sat in the little cottage and brooded. Sometimes her eyes flared and he could have sworn they glowed red instead of white.

"Are you...alright?" She was not Ellyn. If it was Ellyn, he would tackle her, rub her on the head and tickle her until she laughed.

"Ellyn is unhappy."

"Ok then. Is she alright?"

"No."

"You can't just say 'no' and expect me to go away and stop asking questions."

"No."

"So? Explain. Did she stub her toe? Got blood on her? Mosquito bite?" Anders named off, from the top of his list, of the worst things that ever happened to her in his presence. It was a short list.

"She has been seeing a lot of blood and death and she does not like it." Mythal paused, taking a breath before continuing. "She has been using my voice. She does not like that either."

"Um...using your voice? What do you mean?"

"You do know how she speaks, usually? Like a whiny child?" Mythal sighed. "She cannot hope to gain any respect. So she turns to me to form her thoughts into speech for her, and she does not always...appreciate the things I say."

"So? What's so bad about that?"

"The more I speak, the less she does. She has only spoken twice in the past three weeks. Soon enough, she will say nothing at all. She is afraid that she is losing herself. She hasn't laughed at all lately." Mythal paused, looked as if she was about to say something else, and fell silent.

"Something you're not telling me?"

Mythal stared out in front of her, not meeting his eyes. "You will not like this."

"I care about her, spirit. You saw just how much." Anders swallowed back trepidation, expecting news of a new suitor, or some boy - not a templar this time, hopefully - she developed a crush on. Something benign. He had an inkling of what she spoke of, and he did not want it to be true. "If something is wrong with her, I need to know."

"It is ... the blood. She is ashamed of it."

"Maker's breath - she's using blood magic and you haven't thought of telling me until now?" Anders raised his voice, suddenly angry. "Aren't you supposed to protect her from demons?"

"She is not consorting with demons. I gave her spirit magic." Mythal's brows creased and she looked at him with Ellyn's pout, "I am no demon."

"Oh yeah, sure. Tell that to the templars."

6

"I must go on alone." Ellyn knew how preposterous this must sound. They were in the first chamber of the temple. In order to get this far, they battled fanatic after fanatic. Her companions were coverd in blood and gore, near exhaustion. Morrigan huddled in her cloak, chilled to the bone.

Leliana was aghast. "You can't possibly be serious. I'm sure there are cultists in here too. We had to battle scores of them to get this far, and I want to see the urn for myself!"

Ellyn bit her lower lip. She smelled the blood of a high dragon on the cultists. They were not ready to battle a high dragon, and she did not want them to see how she was going to deal with one. All through their journey up to the temple, Ellyn tried to think up a plausible explanation, but all she could blurt out now was, "just trust me. Thank you for getting me this far, everyone. Go back to the chantry and make a fire. I'll be back before morning."

She walked on, ignoring their protests, closing the temple doors behind her.

Mythal opened her eyes and shivered at the cold. She raised her head, surveying the arches and beams, wrinkling her nose at the Tevinter embellishments. They had housed the ashes of Andraste in an old Tevinter temple. If she only knew.

There were people ahead, she could sense them. They smelled of dragon's blood. Every single one of them was infected. This made things much, much easier. Ellyn pulled a blanket out of her pack, found a suitable corner where she could be well hidden, and prepared for a long night.

It was not only humans who traversed the Fade. The Mabari did so as well, in their dreams. High dragons, intelligent and old, walked the Fade as mages did. They drew from it for their fire and magic, haunted by demons while they slept. As they were old and wise, not foolish like mages, they rarely succumb to a bargain with a demon.

Mythal was more than spirit or demon. She was an old god, a spirit that drew from the beliefs of the Elven. When Arlathan fell and Mythal no longer worshipped, the stone in her temples remembered the rituals, remembered her. When the Elven died in Tevinter temples, their blood seeped into the stone, and the stone itself remembered her.

She walked the temple in the Fade. Distances still mattered, but there were no enemies here save the demons who fled in her wake. A high dragon, magnificent, ethereal, perched on a broken arch leading to the inner temple. She roared a greeting and landed in front of Mythal.

Mythal smiled as one seeing an old friend. Dragons were kin to the old gods. "Adelind. How you've grown."

The High Dragon did not speak. She moved her head in a circle and gave a sad, beastly roar, then rested on the ground. Mythal raised her hand and placed it gently on the dragon's cheek. "Remember."

"Mythal. Thank you." A voice emanated from Adelind, not unlike Mythal's. Deep murmurous tones, as if many were speaking at once, warm and inviting. A mother's voice. "It is troubling...to be worshipped by mad men."

"I smell the blood of your children in them."

"They are nursing my eggs and raising my dragonlings." Adelind kept her head on the ground, where she could talk with her friend face to face, "it is a price I pay."

"They are killing people, Adelind. Travellers and knights, anyone who came here seeking Andraste. They will bring the wrath of humans to you, eventually, and kill all your young ones."

"What choice do I have? I cannot leave them."

"I can take Andraste from here. No one will have a reason to come here anymore, and you can be in peace."

"What do I have to give for this service?" Adelind was wise, indeed. "There is always a price, and your kind...does not usually make fair bargains."

"The knowledge of your blood. Same as you have given these worshippers of yours. No more, no less." Mythal gazed into the dragon's eyes, unblinking, and waited for the answer.

Adelind considered this. This was something she already gave to generations of her worshippers. It was not a lot, considering what Mythal offered. No more humans would come up to this mountain to slay her young. "Very well."

Ellyn woke with the taste of dragon's blood just outside her lips. It was a sweet smell like honey wine. It spoke of flights through mountain passes with strong, powerful wings, the joy of wind lifting her ever higher into the clouds. A tear fell from her cheek for this beauty, and for what must do.

She raised her arms, sensed the blood inside the veins of every living being around her, searching for the dragon blood. Every one that contained the taint of that beautiful, powerful being, old and wise. She kept reaching, searching for every last one hiding in the tunnels. A blood mist formed in front of her, the gift of the dragon that Adelind bestowed.

Ellyn saw the mist burn, steam rising from it, dissipating before it hit the arches above. She felt, though she did not see; blood boiling in the veins of those she touched with her invisible, red hands, hands that would never be clean again. When it was done, Ellyn let out a heart wrenching cry and sobbed, for the men and women, drakes and dragonlings, all the life she extinguished with one foul spell.

"It's not fair! You lied to her!" Ellyn accused Mythal through her tears, "you promised her you will protect her children!"

I promised her I will bring her peace, and no humans will come here. She assumed I will protect her children. She is in peace. It is done.

Remember this, Ellyn. We from the Fade always take more than we give.