1

Ellyn blinked her eyes open.

She never knew she was able to do this before, letting herself retreat to the back of her head and allowing Mythal to take over her senses. There was a distant ache in her muscles, slight pain on the tops of her ears from the cold, but she managed to avoid the scent of death and blood and dragons. Like taking a nap and then waking up to find that she had travelled all day.

It was surprisingly comforting. Probably not a good habit to get into, she reminded herself. Behind her were jagged, broken stone arches and cliffs that opened into an abyss. Adelind was there, lifeless, her blood boiled dry in her veins. Ellyn ignored the pain in her chest at the sight of the dragon and pushed forward.

The moment she stepped into the inner temple she felt a sudden groan of the stone as they welcomed her, if stone could breathe, or think, or live. It was a collective sigh of relief, like falling into a feather mattress at the end of the day. Curious. It spoke of great battles, death, sadness and loss. An old memory, not her own, of a close follower, not unlike one of the companions she had now. A lot of walking on a seemingly impossible quest. The image of him stood rooted in place near another set of doors ahead.

He's not real.

A spirit, then. One who imitates the living? Ellyn hazarded.

No. Like memories recorded in the stone. Living lyrium. A trap set to go off in complicated but predictable ways. Not truly alive. And some of them...are not even real memories.

Ellyn did not understand, but she found she understood this wide open world very little so she turned to Mythal's guidance. The first room was simple as long as she kept in mind that they were not real, though fear nipped at her as her training warned her of demons and shades even though these ethereal forms appeared human. She did not even need to ask Mythal for the answers for their riddles; the Chant of Light was beaten into her from the very first day she arrived at the Circle. Stone doors ahead swung open to a cavern of a room, showing nothing but darkness. She stepped through -

And she was six years old again, sitting in a hayloft, Ser Clara beckening her to come down, she would be giving Ellyn a ride on her shoulders. A doorway was open behind her, with green grass and fields, welcoming blue skies. She reached out for the ladder, maybe, even if they're not real, she still had to reach the door...

Ellyn!

A sharp rebuke rang out, and everything dropped away before her, the rung she was reaching for turning into smoke and then nothing. A yawning chasm stretched before her eyes between the floor she was standing on to another door. A quick glance revealed no switches or levers anywhere.

It occurred to her suddenly that if what she just saw was not real, neither was this. Ellyn closed her eyes and tried her best to feel the shape of her room with mana. The hollow places where magic did not reflect in this place, the walls, the floor, and a suggestion of a narrow bridge along the edge of one room. Eyes still closed, she walked towards it, then took a normal, not-so-tentative step forward, in what she thought might have been expected of her.

She found solid footing, masked by whatever magic protected this place, invisible to all but mages. Test of faith indeed. She wondered, briefly, what would have happened if someone who was not magi tried the gauntlet. It would probably be a different gauntlet.

The next room found her face to face with herself. "Ellyn."

"...you're not me. Be gone, demon." Years of circle mage training told her to stop talking to the demon. This was special, she reminded herself. This was part of the test.

"Am I? Who are you?" Her doppelganger smiled with sweet innocence. "You left me behind at the Circle Tower. I miss you."

"I am Ellyn. You're just a shade."

"Oh but that's not really true, is it? Ellyn, so innocent. Ellyn, so deceptive. Hiding your magic from your new friends," her smile turned wicked, then eased back to the innocence again. "Hiding your love from Anders...even he doesn't know who you are."

Ellyn had the urge to just - what? She had no offensive spells, and none of them would work on this ...vision. Part of the test, that was all. This was part of the test. "I do what I have to do."

"Oh, so that makes it okay, does it?" She pulled a necklace out of her pack, and gestured it in Ellyn's direction. "How much of you are left, I wonder?"

She was gone. That was almost worse than the dragon, Ellyn thought, as she draped the necklace over her hair.

The next room brought her finally to the urn. No more tests this time. She removed her robe and stepped over the fire, which did not hurt, but she winced nevertheless. Ellyn turned to see the guardian, there to inform her that she had passed the gauntlet and was now free to take a pinch of ashes.

If Mythal was wrong about this I will die here. Reaching into her pack, she removed a small leather pouch and her herb knife. She took a pinch of ashes and wiped it into the pouch, then after taking a deep, deep breath - she was not fond of pain - she opened her vein and let her blood fall into the urn.

A rush of memories assaulted her, knocking her back, but she retained her footing and avoided a backward tumble down the stairs. A headache bloomed, like the one she had when she drank her first lyrium potion, but worse, much worse. It shuttered her vision and the roaring of the fire behind her subsided, and there it was - a lifetime of memories.

There was a mother, laughter, singing and chanting, an overwhelming sense of faith. Hands reaching out to her in veneration. There was a battle...many battles, a final one. Betrayal, fire, and then nothing at all. The old memories and the new memories meshed together, all the things she learned growing up in the circle, the history lessons, Tevinter, the Black Divine, and it all came together to create a picture of the world. The Chantry, the Circle, Templars, the power it all held.

It was wrong. It was not what I wanted. Ellyn shook her head. No. These are not my thoughts, these are not my regrets, these are not my choices.

An inrush of power fused with her own, warmth spreading all the way out to her fingertips. Ellyn looked down at them and could almost see a faint blue outline to her hands, a testament to their healing powers.

Now, Ellyn. Let me.

Mythal opened her mouth to speak and the voice that came out was Andraste herself. "Your duty is done, Guardian."

She turned to leave as the temple began to crumble around her.

2

"What was it like, growing up in the Circle?"

Anders had gotten used to the sight of Mythal. She acted like Ellyn most of the time, but had the disconcerting habit of starting and continuing conversations halfway and expecting him to just understand and go with it. "Wouldn't you know that from Ellyn?"

"No, I do not. She has been very … isolated. The only people she ever talked to were you and Ser Clara." Mythal purposefully left out Irving as Ellyn said it was a secret. "You keep running away, and Ellyn doesn't really understand why."

"It's not really that bad." Anders shrugged noncommittally. "I just don't do very well locked up, that's all."

"What exactly do you run away from?"

"Why would I want to live in a prison - Is that a serious question?" Anders stretched out his arms in a wide arc. "Look at this. I mean, this is the life. Wide open fields, wind in my hair, a pretty girl by my side..." and I didn't want Ellyn to start killing templars left right and center just because I hate them. I ran away because I didn't want to be near you and you put voices in my head but oh look here you are!

"You should know that I'm immune to your advances." If glowing white eyes could be steely, this was it.

"Ooh. So serious. I was trying to give you a compliment." Anders reached behind her ear, pulled a rose out in a flourish, and she instinctively reached out for it. Ellyn's muscle memory. "It's the principle of the thing. I'm not a murderer. Sometimes I'm a thief, a liar, and a cheat, but I don't deserve being locked up in a tower for the rest of my life."

"So, all these mages..." Mythal looked thoughtful. Time to go on a roll.

"We're slaves! We're kept in a tower, some of us are made tranquil - which is worse than death, really - and they enchant things for gold. We supply Ferelden - no, Thedas - with magical doohickeys and they keep us locked in this factory to churn them out. The money goes to the Circle, sure, that's what they say, but how much does it cost to keep a bunch of people in a little tower in the middle of the lake in dormitories? No, the money goes to the Chantry, and they get nice and fat and powerful and they rule the bloody world."

"But Andraste -"

"Andraste was a slave! Andraste freed slaves! I doubt any of this is what she wants."

"No. I guess not. So you believe the Chantry is the root of the problem then? The Chantry is no longer following the teachings of Andrate?"

"You should know. Ellyn spent all her time in the library when she was going through that phase." Anders pushed up from the grass so as to meet her eyes better. "Remember that? She went through this religious phase and decided to dig up all the books on the Chant of Light in the library? She found the old verses that the Chantry simply 'struck out' from the official ones."

"Struck out? What do you mean?"

"They change the rules. If they don't like something in the chant, they just don't use it anymore. When they marched on the Dales, they wiped the elves from the chant too." Anders signed in exasperation, "and I can't even run away."

"You do run away." Mythal pulled the petals on the rose, soft, velvety thing conjured up from Ander's memories, and decided that the Fade should have more roses.

"Yeah. They always drag me back. Maybe I should try to make for Tevinter next time."

"It doesn't seem...fair, then?"

Anders mulled it over. Fair. Unfair. "I'm too old to think about something as being unfair, spirit. Children think like that." He let the silence hang there, for a minute, then felt that wasn't quite true. "Ellyn thinks like that."

3

"I'm worried." Leliana said to no one in particular. Dawn came an hour ago with no sign of Ellyn.

No one answered. Sten might as well have been a statue with a sword strapped to his back, and Morrigan...well, she was Morrigan.

The little Chantry was no more than one great room with a couple of small, side rooms. Only the blood pools congealing here and there told of the battle that had taken place; Sten and Morrigan made a great bonfire outside with the cultists. Leliana was dressing the rest of the venison, slicing them into strips, rubbing salt onto it for keeping. As the scent of charred human wafted in from the outside, under the doors, Leliana thought food was the last thing she wanted.

"And why exactly was I doing the hunting all along if Ellyn can just magick food out of the woods?" Leliana ranted to the fire in the hearth.

"You offered," Morrigan's voice drifted out of the library, all matter of fact. "I wouldn't worry about our fearless leader. She's more capable than you think."

"She's a capable healer. She's no battlemage in those Circle robes!" Morrigan stepped out of the library with a stack of books only to see Leliana's eyes going wide with horror, and she rolled her eyes in answer. "She can't even run!"

Morrigan cackled. A long, throaty laugh that rang and echoed through the small, stonewalled hall. "Oh...and what would you have said of my mother? She's a healer too, much more capable than I. Alistair said she's an old lady who talks too much. I reckon that's all you'll see too."

"Ellyn can hardly be compared to the Witch of the Wilds."

"I'm just saying she doesn't need to run, that is all." Morrigan stalked off to the library for more books. This place was a veritable treasure trove of ancient texts. She was determine to leave with half of the library and have Sten carry it off the mountain if need be. "She's late. I hard think that means she's dead."

"Very reassuring, Morrigan." Leliana continued her work. It was always a good idea to store food, especially since they were so high up in the mountains. There were some hardtack and cheese in the pantry, salted fish down by the little store at the docks, pumpkins in the fields. Ellyn left some instructions on digging for elfroot, and if that mage didn't come back soon maybe she should collect some by the herb garden outside.

Ellyn pushed open the double doors, bringing in a gust of cold air and flurries, and quickly ran straight to the hearth with a litany of complaints about her freezing limbs. Small, helpless, and oh so dear, the thought came to Leliana. She was keenly aware of the contradiction that was Ellyn; strong enough to lead an army, yet soft and innocent and vulnerable like a little girl.

"Oh, here, you can hold on to this." Ellyn dug into her pack and pulled out a tiny leather pouch, seemingly empty. "The ashes. I thought you might want to carry them."

Leliana wanted to give her a lecture when Ellyn came in; a whole speech about how it was dangerous to go on her own, stupid, even. That she really wanted to come along and see the temple, and it all evaporated the moment she saw that smile - where her whole face radiated love and happiness, so very real - and she thought, for one quick moment, that it was a special kind of magic too.

"We really should leave now," Sten spoke, startling all of them into attention. "We're wasting day light."

Leliana put a finger to her lips. In the space of a few minutes, Ellyn had fallen asleep by the fire. "We can rest here for a few hours, at least. The trip to the Circle Tower and back to Redcliffe takes longer." She picked up a strand of Ellyn's hair that fell perilously close to being singed by the fire and tucked it behind her ear.

4

Allistair knew, for a fact, that Fleur did not like him.

When Ellyn named the dog Fleur, he laughed out loud and told her that it was a girl's name. One did not name wardogs 'Fleur' - and she stared at him like he was the Archdemon itself. The dog mirrored the glare and he swore that it had a vendetta against him ever since.

The last person - animal - that Alistair wanted as a companion on this trip was Fleur. "The roads between Redcliffe and Lake Calenhad docks are safe, it's a short trip, and I need all the help I can get with these cultists."

She was right, of course. She might be barely eighteen, and didn't know how to handle herself in a fight - Alistair had to stand in front of her most of time time and cover her since she did not understand the meaning of cover - she had a good head on her shoulders, or so Arl Eamon would have said if he wasn't lying in a bed all comatose.

"I think she hates me, Fleur." Alistair replayed their first meeting in his brain. She was amiable enough until their first fight with a darkspawn emissary. After that it was all averting of the eyes and plain avoidance.

Fleur barked, sounding exceedingly happy. "Sure. I'm sure you agree with whatever opinions she has of me. What are they, anyway?"

A low growl back in the throat was all Fleur had to offer. "Oh, I figured that." Flash of brilliance. "Wait, she's afraid of me?"

Affirmative bark. A side tilt of the head. You didn't know?

"Great, now you're calling me an idiot." Allistair rolled this shoulders. Travelling with Ellyn had became a bit of a bad habit while she lightened all their luggage and armour. "I'm not an idiot, am I?"

Happy, affirmative bark.

"I hate you."

Ellyn was right. The walk from Redcliffe to Lake Calenhad's docks was uneventful. There were people leaving from the south on the roads, with their wagons, but even bandits were moving North, away from the blighted lands. There was an annoying templar at the docks who Fleur intimidated into giving them a ride across to the tower - good girl - and then … chaos.

Should have known it was too easy.

5

Ellyn, Abominations at the Circle Tower, tower sealed, annulment called. Come quickly. -Alistair

The message was wrapped around Fleur's collar. They met her while walking into Redcliffe village, nearly bowling Ellyn over with open affection. A moment's panic seized her. Damn. I knew this was going to happen.

You didn't warn Cullen.

Cullen was still considered junior so he was probably guarding the apprentice floor. With any luck, he would have escaped before they sealed the tower. She consoled herself with this and the thought that she wasn't really able to do anything for him through Irving anyway. She did not want to bring suspicions of impropriety between them, and though it was natural enough to protect Clara, it would have been wholly suspect to protect Cullen.

Good thing she sent Fleur with Alistair. No messenger was faster than a Marbari. She knew it was all just a matter of time, but she didn't know it was going to be so soon. The plan was to get the mages out to Redcliffe - so she could save a few more of them, with Irving, hopefully - before Uldred, if he wasn't dead, returned from Ostagar.

When she was in Ostagar, Uldred was there fighting with the Grand Cleric, insisting that the Circle of Magi would be able to handle the signal fire without the Wardens. Pride, definitely. If there were abominations in the tower, Uldred must have came back. What was it that Anders told her once? Hunger is easy, desire you can talk out of since she would always try to leave instead of fight. Sloth, think active thoughts.

But pride? Bring an army of templars, and even that might not be enough.

"Ellyn?" Leliana glanced at the note in Ellyn's hand. Alistair had blocky, slanted schoolboy writing, and the message wasn't long. She knew there were always other options than the mages at the tower - blood magic from Jowan or killing Connor. She put one arm around Ellyn's shoulder. "What do you want to do?"

"I need templars." Her expression was determined. "I'm not going to kill that little boy, and if I'm linked with that blood mage again in some ritual, the Chantry will probably hunt the lot of us."

"If you are unwilling to kill the abomination, we can do this without you." Sten spoke up for the first time since they left Haven. His eyes were hard. "If the mages in the tower have turned into abominations, we cannot seek their aid."

"They're not ALL abominations!" Ellyn wrung her hands desperately, rolling the note into a ball. "I can't decide this on my own. Let's go to Redcliffe castle."

Time stood still at Redcliffe castle. Isode and Bann Teagan were in the great hall with the blood mage Jowan. Ellyn went into the hallway and checked her wards - they would hold, she decided, and hoped Connor had enough food - before she spoke to any of them.

"There has been an … incident at the Circle Tower." Ellyn bit back the tears as part of her wanted to scream 'incident' was definitely an understatement for annulment, "we might not be able to get the mages to help us. First Enchanter Irving will give me aid should I ask, but if I want to have any chance to save them...Connor is your son, Lady Isode. I cannot link myself to blood magic," she shot a quick, accusatory glance at Jowan, "unless I want the Chantry to send me to Aeonar. If I cannot save the mages, you wil lhave to allow me to kill Connor."

"No! Please no, you cannot ask me that!" Arlessa Isode was hysterical.

"I have the sacred ashes with me." Ellyn bit her lip, knowing that this might be the quickest option, though not an appealing one. "Believe me, Lady Isode, when I say that this is the last thing I want to do. It is up to you - we can do this right now and your husband will be awake today, or I can go to the Tower and try to save the mages. If I die, the wards on the doors here will disappear and the demon inside Connor will kill you all."

"If you go," Jowan interrupted. "I will watch over Connor. If he starts summoning shades again, I will stop him." A mere hint of a smile here. "I owe you that much."

"Thank you, Jowan." Ellyn gave just a curt nod to Jowan and turned to Bann Teagan. "Do you have authority over the templars here in Redcliffe?"

"No, I do not. I could send Ser Perth with you, if you require knights."

"I have to speak to the Revered Mother, then?" Ellyn's voice was full of trepidation. The Chantry was not accustomed to granting the requests of mages - even ones who just saved an entire village of people.

"I'm afraid so."

Ellyn felt a hand on her shoulder, soft and reassuring. "I can speak to the Revered Mother for you. I was a Lay Sister in Lothering; maybe she'll agree to send the templars with us if I make the request."

Ellyn and Morrigan sat on the Chantry steps while Leliana went inside to talk to the Revered Mother. Usually, this was forbidden. Right now all the templars that were still alive were inside the chantry so no one was there to shoo them off. "I'm beginning to think that this is a very bad idea."

Morrigan's eyebrows shot up. "Now why would you say that?"

"Two mages asking a bunch of templars to go to the Circle Tower to save more mages. Let's go ask some cats to save some mice next!"

"A little late to change your mind, I'm afraid. She's already in there."

At that, the chantry doors opened. "No sitting on the steps. I thought I only had to tell children that..." Knight Commander Harrith regarded the two mages with a wolf's smile. Morrigan suddenly wished she was wearing Circle robes like Ellyn instead of the scant draping of cloth she had on. "I overheard your companion asking the Revered Mother for the templars' aid."

"Yes, she is," Ellyn tilted her head and smiled back, all sweet and lovely. Morrigan made a face. "Do you object to the idea?"

"We owe you our lives. As Knight Commander, I cannot personally go with you -" Coward, thought Morrigan, "but sending a contingent of templars is the least I can do."

"Will they be volunteers? I don't want to take anyone who isn't willing to act under the command of a mage." Ellyn kept the smile but allowed a hint of skepticism to slip into her voice.

"They were under your command during the siege here in Redcliffe, Warden. The templars here have every confidence in your ability to lead."

"I thank you, Knight Commander." Ellyn gave a little bow just as the doors opened again and Leliana emerged.

"The Revered Mother has given permission for the templars to lend us their aid."

We will be quite a sight, Ellyn thought as they left the village of Redcliffe. A Circle Mage with a Marbari, an apostate, a chantry sister, a Qunari and six templars.

She couldn't wait to see the look on Greagoir's face.