Slow Arrow

by pushtheheart

Sometimes, terrible choices were all that remained. He knew that better than most. Still, his people fell for the one he had to make and centuries of wandering the Fade had forced him to watch the world and its people diminish and die a slow, lingering death. His path was set long before he ever woke, and he never thought to stray from it — until he met her.

18. Once One Begins, ThereAreOnlyEndingsPtI

It has come to seem there is no perfect ending.
Indeed, there are infinite endings.
Or perhaps, once one begins,
there are only endings.
—Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night

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Stillness settled over Haven when the horns fell silent, and confusion quickly followed. If there were any indication as to what had prompted the warning to be sounded, it was not immediately clear to her. In the absence of clarity, the uneasy feeling that had nested in her stomach all evening intensified.

Eyes locked at the horizon beyond the gates, Tephra said, "Whatever happens, Solas — don't die."

He moved to stand beside her once more, following her gaze, "I would appreciate if you would do the same."

As the horns sounded once more — a final warning for whatever was coming — Tephra reached to grasp the collar of his jerkin. Her hand fisted there in the fabric, and trembled. Solas fixed her with a curious frown, but made no move to disentangle himself from her grip.

A cold terror seized her, as she recalled the magister's words.

"Have a care, Herald. Gods do not fall graciously."

She knew in that moment that the Elder One had finally come for her — for them all — and for the first time in years, she felt that singular fear that belonged to the possibility of losing those who had become close to her.

She had already lost him once, in some form, in that aborted future; she would not lose him here.

Tephra shifted closer and pulled Solas down to meet her, forehead to forehead. The end of his nose brushed hers, as she reiterated, "Don't die."

As others began to rush from the chantry to see what was happening, she pushed Solas from her path and headed for the gates. A strange sort of calm settled over her as crossed the courtyard. She motioned at one of the soldiers, and barked, "Get those kids in the chantry, now!"

They wouldn't have sounded the horns this many times if it wasn't serious.

Many of her companions joined her on the way to the gates, as well as her advisers. Civilians milled and idled in the streets, muttering to one another nervously as she and other soldiers continued on to the gates. Each anxious gaze she met forced her to keep her face still and calm. It would be worse if they panicked, and there were too many children amongst them that would end up trampled in the resulting hysteria.

She found the Commander at the gates, which had already been shut and barred, shouting orders to the soldiers who'd assembled there. Nearly half of them were out of armor and scrambling to pull on what they'd managed to grab before scrambling to the gates. She was certain that more of them were still drunk from the festivities. Others worked to herd in people who'd been out celebrating beyond the safety of the walls. However jubilant the mood had been before, it had been swallowed up in a pale, grim silence as people shuffled past her.

This will not end well, she thought, bleakly.

For once, she was grateful that she wasn't inebriated, nor that she had changed out of her armor.

"Cullen?"

The Seeker's voice sounded strangely tinny.

"We're under attack," he informed, in a grave tone, taking care to keep his voice low as to not provoke a panic as the last of the civilians milled past them.

"Are any of our people still out there?"

"Civilians, no," Cullen replied. "We have scouts at numerous outlying locations, but none have made recent contact. It is likely they are captured, or dead."

"That would explain why I received no ravens warning of the enemy's approach," Leliana mused darkly.

"Only one watch guard has reported in, as well," the Commander continued. "There's a massive force, the bulk of which is descending over the mountain."

"Under what banner?" Lady Montilyet asked.

"None."

She balked. "None?!"

Tephra turned to Solas, who was once again at her side, "The Elder One?"

"Presumably," he replied.

An unseen force crashed against the barred gates.

"Well, at least they're polite enough to knock first," Dorian muttered, with grim amusement.

All around her, weapons were unsheathed. Light flashed beneath the gates — magic, or perhaps simply torchlight? — and the gates crashed once more. A force seemed to strain against it, nearly bending the thick metal bars which held them shut.

Her heart seemed to pound in her throat as she stepped closer.

"I can't come in unless you open!" someone pleaded, from beyond the gates.

Tephra's heart sank at how young he sounded, and how afraid. He could have been one of the scouts, or from one of the outlying farms, or anyone's son. He did not sound like the enemy. She rushed to unbar the gates before anyone could stop her, though none did. Instead, several soldiers helped to raise the heavy bars, before pulling the gates open to let her through.

She was greeted by the sight of an approaching soldier, clad in unfamiliar armor. There were protrusions of red lyrium jutting from his body, glimmering and pulsing with that terrible light. He staggered heavily toward her, before slumping to his knees and falling face-first into the snow.

At once, she was aware of the young man occupying the space where the soldier had been. Suddenly there, as though he hadn't been just before. Blinked into reality, like the wick of a candle flickering to life in the dark. A ragged thing, brandishing bloodied daggers, and a ponderously oversized—

The ghost.

She remembered him from the mass funeral that was held after their caravan had been attacked by bandits on the road from the Crossroads, back when Solas had been gravely injured.

It seemed a lifetime ago.

When one of the Inquisition soldiers moved to intercept the young man, Tephra stopped them with a gesture.

Not a ghost, then, if her people could see him just as she could. Then how come no one else had before?

She regarded the young man with sharp curiosity.

What is he?

"I'm Cole," he answered, as though he could divine her thoughts.

The brim of his ridiculous hat lifted, briefly, and pale eyes met hers. A soft, fleeting gesture, before urgency took hold of him and he entreated, "I came to warn you. To help!" He reached, but did not touch her as he emphasized, "People are coming to hurt you. The templars have come to kill you."

Commander Rutherford reacted as though Cole had meant to harm her, and moved to intercept, but she stayed his hand with a touch to his vambraced arm.

Sword half-drawn, the Commander obediently shoved it back into the hilt. Vexed, he turned to her, "Is this the Order's response to our talks with the mages? Attacking blindly?"

He seemed to be asking himself more than her, ruminating on the possibility aloud.

"The red templars went to the Elder One," Cole clarified, and once more stepped close. "You know him? He knows you. You took his mages."

He stepped away to point beyond the proving grounds, high up in the hills at the base of the mountain. It was too far to see much beyond the light of torches moving between the trees.

The Commander used a spyglass to see what she could not, and cursed beneath his breath.

"Someone you know?" she jested.

"One of my own, in another life," Cullen admitted, grimly.

"And now?"

"Standing beside your Elder One. Maker's Breath, it's—" The Commander lowered his spyglass, at a loss for words. There was naked fear in the man's eyes when he looked at her.

"A fool if he thinks we'll surrender peacefully," she offered, hoping to banish his doubt, which she understandably shared.

"He's very angry that you took his mages," the strange young man mused, behind her.

"Imagine what he'll be when we decimate his forces," she retorted, as though the Elder One could hear her challenge himself.

The grief she'd carried from Redcliffe had swiftly shifted to vengeance.

"Save it for the battlefield," the Commander advised. "Haven is no fortress. If we are to withstand this monster, we must control the battle to come."

Panic clutched at her chest as she thought of how many among their forces in Haven were non-combatants. She turned back to her advisers, "The civilians need to be evacuated to safety."

"There is only one road out of Haven," Leliana reminded. She clasped her hands tightly behind her back, "At best, we might retreat into the chantry for safety until the fighting is over."

Tephra thought of the apostates who'd locked themselves inside their cabin for safety, and how the templars had sealed them in and set it on fire.

"We haven't the men to match theirs," Blackwall stated, flatly. "We'll be slaughtered before the sun rises."

Leliana fixed him with a cold look, "Then what would you suggest we do?"

"I'd—"

"Retreat to the chantry," Tephra cut the man off, before the two of them could further argue and waste what precious time they had left before the enemy arrived. "We can use the trebuchets to take out what we can of the army, before they draw close."

The Commander nodded in agreement, "If we can trigger an avalanche, perhaps we can take more than few down before they reach us. We may yet survive the night."

"Cassandra, Varric, Solas — with me," she directed, before doubt could creep in. She had no idea what she was doing, or how they would do this — but a strange sense of momentum built as she continued, "The rest of you sweep the town and see that no civilian is left behind."

"If you think I'm letting you go out there without me, you're sorely mistaken," Dorian protested. "Not that our apostate friend here isn't a capable mage, of course."

"Fine," Tephra huffed. "The rest of you, go. Save those you can. We'll buy you time."

Cassandra met her gaze, "And then?"

I have no fucking idea.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," she managed.

This is not going to end well.

She turned to the rank of soldiers, "Now whose got a fucking bow I could borrow? And as many arrows as you can spare."

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They'd brought the mountain down on the encroaching army, effectively burying a portion of the opposition forces beneath rock and snow, and stalling the rest from immediate approach. All around him, the soldiers cheered. The Herald stood ahead, unmoving, as she watched clouds of frost and rockdust settle over the now-silent foothills. Much of the torch lights had been extinguished, and it was too dark to see any movement amongst the foothills.

It seemed, for all of one breathless moment, a victory — until the roar of a dragon tore through the fragile facade of salvation.

Many took to their knees, rendered boneless with terror. Even he was not immune to the sudden, visceral fear which seized them all as he fell back several paces and braced himself for whatever may come. There was no time to worry for the others, only a mere moment for pure self-preservation.

Solas rooted his staff to the ground, and threw up a quick barrier spell.

The trebuchet exploded in a shower of flaming debris, and the shock wave threw many of those around him to the ground. A soldier rolled and kicked beside him, tangled in a burning cloak. Solas blanketed him with a lesser frost spell to snuff the fire out.

His attention quickly shifted to locating the Herald among those who'd fallen. Relief washed over him at the sight of Cassandra hauling the elf to her feet, and brushing cinders from her coat. She did not appear to be injured.

Overhead, the beast circled wide and headed once more towards them. As it neared, a horrible realization dawned on him.

It wasn't simply a dragon, not by any means they would know it as.

"That is—"

One of his own, once. In another life — in another world. Attendant to one of their most elevated. Twisted and blighted beyond its nature, rendered unrecognizable, and bound to the whim of the Elder One.

"—not possible!"

As the archdemon arced overhead, sending a stream of fire along the southern gates, Solas held his ground behind the barrier he'd cast to get a better look at it. Flaming debris showered over him as the dragon passed overhead, but the barrier held.

It had every appearance of an archdemon — of an Old God — but he did not have the strength to confirm it, nor to determine which of his previous kin it might have belonged to. He could not begin to speculate how the Elder One had broken and leashed it, if it truly was an archdemon. There was no time to consider such things, not as Haven fell around them.

The beast moved onward, turning its attention inward past the gates, sending massive gouts of flame down onto the buildings below.

Solas turned back to his companions, who he'd briefly forgotten in the chaos of the dragon's arrival. All of them were on their feet, but for the Herald. She was sitting on her knees, staring at the burning remains of the trebuchet.

And laughing.

"A dragon," she gasped, between bouts of incredulous laughter. "Why wouldn't there be a dragon?"

"This is not the time to lose our shit, Teph," Varric advised, hauling the elf up by her coat.

"A dragon," she repeated, standing on wobbly legs and drawing the word out to highlight her disbelief.

"We can't face it here," Cassandra advised. She was the only one among them that was not visibly shaken. Unsurprising, given that she was descended from a long line of renowned dragon-hunters.

"Today is well beyond making sense," Dorian declared, breathless and shaken. "But that is a marvelous idea — the leaving part."

The Seeker shoved Tephra in the direction of the gates, spurring her into motion. However startled she was by the dragon, she was at least unharmed from the last skirmish.

Solas had also managed to avoid injury while assisting in readying and defending the trebuchets, despite how distracted he was with the Herald's confession still ringing through his head. The path is wrong. And even that — being confronted with his own self denouncing the carefully laid path of his mission, centuries in the making — had been crudely shoved aside in his mind by Compassion itself waltzing through the gates of Haven and declaring its intent to help.

The appearance of the Elder One and his army — so soon after closing the Breach — had been surprising, but not unexpected.

But a spirit made flesh — in this immutable world, cut off from the Fade?

Entirely and marvelously unanticipated, as it was not a simple possession, but a spirit who'd crossed through the Veil intact and chosen to take a body. To become. Made anew, on will alone. Not impossible, but vastly improbable. Very few spirits had willingly crossed into the waking world after the Veil rose, and fewer still had taken bodies.

Yet here Compassion was, not only remade into flesh but he'd even taken a name for himself.

And now, an archdemon had been loosed upon them all.

One improbable, impossible thing after another.

For that, he really could not fault the Herald for laughing.

What else could possibly happen before the night's end?

Solas did not dare speculate, lest fate be tempted to comply.

At the gates, they were met by the Commander.

Regardless of what he thought of the Templar Order as whole, Solas had to admit that the man was particularly effective at keeping his men from panicking. Most of the soldiers were medics, including one of his agents — Kazem. The Herald's companions had also regrouped there, with several of the refugees in tow.

"Seeker, did you see—"

"All of Haven has seen, Commander," Cassandra replied, flatly.

Varric gave a huff, as he moved to sit and rest on the stone steps leading up into Haven proper, "The fires are a bit hard to miss, Curly."

Blackwall eyed the dwarf with a salty expression, "Are we sitting now? Is that the plan?"

"Relax," Varric griped. "I'm just catching my breath."

"Why are there still civilians in the streets?" the Herald demanded, taking notice of the haggard faces idling amongst her companions. Unarmed, unarmored, caught entirely unaware by the sudden arrival of the Elder One.

It was a wonder that any of the soldiers had time or wherewithal to don their own, in the abruptness of the attack.

The Iron Bull gave a dismissive snort, "Kind of hard to get them to safety when we're ass-deep in templars, Boss."

"Then we cut a path for them," she replied, simply. "And we'll sweep the town as we go. No one gets left behind."

Admirable, but ultimately foolish.

Haven was on the cusp of being overrun, and with the dragon hard at work reducing what remained to ash and rubble, there would be precious little to save.

And the cost?

Solas watched Tephra brush sweat-soaked hair from her face, as she watched the rest of them with an expression that brooked no further argument. It was that — that fierce empathy for the fate of others, even in the face of her own peril — which had long-since secured his attention, his respect, and his foolish heart.

She would throw herself headlong into the abyss, if it meant to save an innocent, but it was not just her life on the line.

The Anchor glimmered and sparked in her hand, roused by the fighting and the frantic pacing of her heart.

It was not just her life at peril, but also any hope for a future — for anyone.

However disposable she believed her life to be, it simply wasn't, and no matter how noble her intent, he had no intention of letting her die here tonight. No matter how stubbornly she insisted on seeking it.

"We have yet to address what we'll do once we've tucked everyone all neatly inside the chantry," Dorian mused. "You know, beyond simply serving ourselves up on a platter for the Elder One."

Sera gave a derisive snort, "That shit's a bit fish-in-a-barrel, isn't it? One good blast from that dragon and—"

The Herald looked between them with a sharp look of impatience, "Have either of you got a plan? Have any of you?" When none of them could muster a proper solution, she continued, "Blackwall, take Varric and Dorian and sweep the eastern streets."

Before Dorian could form a protest, she held up a hand to cut him off as she continued, "We're splitting into three groups. We've only got three mages, and the town is on fire. We're not arguing this point."

"Fair enough," he conceded, with a sigh.

The Herald turned to the others, and continued with a growing air of confidence, "Bull, you've got Vivienne and Sera. Take the main street. And remember to check everything — tents, wagons, everywhere. Children hide when they're scared."

A black-haired medic spoke up, "And us? What would you have of us?"

"Head straight for the chantry, and take these people with you," she ordered, gesturing at the refugees amongst them. "We're going to need all the medics we've got, if we survive this. See to the wounded there, until further notice."

The medic ducked his head, "Yes, ma'am."

It was the first time she'd spoken to them as a leader — as their Herald—and not with her previous resentment or reluctance. The steel and steadiness in her voice had an immediate effect on all of them, himself included. Though haggard and exhausted, the soldiers and their companions alike stood straighter, heartened by her show of strength and resolve.

However reluctant she had been to be their Herald, to be given the mantle of a leader — he found that in that moment, she wore it well.

"You heard the Herald — all of you back to the chantry!" The Commander turned to Cassandra, and said, "Keep her safe."

"Until my last breath," the Seeker assured.

Cassandra did not see the tight, complicated look which Tephra shot her. By the time she readied her shield and sword, the moment had passed and the Herald's face had smoothed back into one of focus and determination.

As the groups began to depart, the Commander shouted, "If those bastards mean to take us all, the least we can do is make them work for it!"

Solas fell into step beside the Herald, as they followed Cassandra down the western road. For the moment, there was nothing but the distant clamor of chaos and the crunch of snow and gravel beneath her boots.

The precarious nature of their current situation set his head and his heart into a constant skirmish between reason and emotion. The prudent part of him was compelled to chide her shortsightedness, to argue the loss of the few weighed against the many, to speak from his own experiences with war. And yet he could not bear to dampen that stubborn fire in her, that purity of purpose that seemed to have summoned Compassion itself to aid them in their hour of need. He wanted to chide her for losing perspective, for valuing her life so little that she could throw it away at the slightest provocation. He wanted her to understand that it wasn't just the Anchor which made her invaluable to them, to him, but also that she was—

He could have choked on all of the things he wanted to say to her, in the event that he would not be able to later. Yet he remained silent, content with comforting presence of her at his side.

"I told them they'd be safe here," Tephra said, quietly, as they walked. Her despair was palpable.

Briefly, he thought of all those who had come to him for refuge, for safety, for freedom — and how utterly he'd failed them, in the end.

"It wasn't a lie," he assured.

Her brows knit together as she glanced at him, "Wasn't it, though?"

She looked ahead once more, as they carefully skirted the burning rubble of a cabin. The Seeker made quick work of checking the interior of the premises, while Solas chose to follow Tephra around the perimeter, checking behind various crates and storage barrels.

Having found no one hiding back there, the Herald stopped and braced herself against the rear wall of the cabin, as though staggered by an unseen weight.

"All these people," she said, knuckles gone white as her hand fisted against the wall. "I don't even know their names, or their faces. They wanted to make things right, they wanted a better life for their children. I brought them here. I said I would keep them safe. And now they're dying or dead, because of me."

Solas put his staff down to lean against the crates stacked against the cabin. He then stepped close to her, gut gripped with a familiar grief, "There is only one at fault here for this, and it is not you."

Though he'd meant the Elder One, some distant part of him knew that ultimately this was his fault for having nudged the mad fool onto this path.

However far removed the fault was, these bodies would be laid at his feet, not hers.

"You can have all of the best intentions and give all that you have to give for them, and still fail," he continued. "That does not mean you shouldn't try, nor give in to loss. You cannot save anyone if you do."

Tephra sighed, as she pressed her forehead to the fist she held against the cabin wall. Her shoulders slackened, as she asked, "How do I do this?"

"Your only path is forward," Solas replied. He did not want to think of his own path — wrong or not — he only wanted to keep her on her own, and hoped it led her far beyond this night. "Save those that you can, and endure the ones you cannot. And know whatever comes, you will not endure it alone."

Her dark eyes softened as she turned her gaze back to him, and she reached for his hand.

It was a halting, hesitant gesture as her fingertips skimmed the back of his knuckles, before retreating.

Solas caught hold of her in a gentle clasp to reclaim that precious, fleeting point of contact, to offer whatever solace that he could.

"Templars! Coming over the gate!"

When Tephra moved to leave, he grasped at her arm with a sudden, startling urgency.

"Do not take any unnecessary risks. Not here, not tonight. Please — stay close." His throat tightened, choking on sentiment, as Solas hastily added, "To my barriers."

Emotion ebbed in those dark depths of her eyes, which he did not dare to put a name to.

"I don't mean to die today, Solas," Tephra replied with a grin, before pulling free and slipping the bow off her shoulder.

With that, she bounded off to rejoin their companions out on the street.

Solas followed after, reclaiming his staff from where he'd left it standing against the crates.

He did not know if it was his words that had brought the fire back to her — the confidence she needed to get through what awaited them — or that small, precious thing clutched between them, between his hand to hers.

But, no matter — whatever she needed, whatever gave her strength and sense of self, he would gladly give without a second thought.

There would be time for doubt, later.

When Solas rounded the corner to follow after the Herald, he had all of a second to process the sight of a blighted templar swinging a sword at him — his mana surged, but half a breath too late.

He felt the bite of the blade skim the arm he'd brought up defensively, just before his spell blasted the templar off her feet. He staggered, clutching at his torn sleeve, which was quickly soaking with blood.

The Herald was on the woman who'd wounded him moments after she hit the ground. She straddled the templar and grappled with her, before prying the woman's dagger free and shoving it hilt-deep into her eye.

The sounds of her agony were silenced when Tephra wrenched the dagger in a sickening twist.

Solas ignored the pain in his arm as he worked another spell, as he hurled a rain of fire down upon the templars charging Cassandra. The Seeker had been unaware of their advance, as she'd been preoccupied with driving back another, ramming him into the cabin wall with her shield. Several strikes of her armored fist rendered the man's face to a bloody ruin.

With Varric and Tephra dispatching the last of them, Solas staggered to a crouch. He laid his staff down, before carefully peeling back his sleeve to get a better look at the wound.

"How bad is it?" Cassandra knelt beside him, surveying the bloody gash with a critical eye.

There was no time for proper sutures, nor to bandage it.

Solas's hand burst alight, and he drew the fire across the wound to cauterize it. He grit his teeth, swallowing back all but a hiss of pain.

"It is nothing, now," Solas replied, as he worked his sleeve back down and reclaimed his staff.

The Seeker offered a hand, and he let her haul him to his feet.

"A little help here!"

His attention shifted beyond the corpses of their enemies, to where Varric was struggling with the Herald.

Where had he come from? Hadn't he been sent with Blackwall?

Varric had her by the arm, boots slipping in the icy gravel as he attempted to keep her from rushing headlong into one of the cabins which lined the street. It was entirely engulfed in flame, and a portion of it had already collapsed. Still, entering it would have been certain death, even with magic to carve a path through the fire.

The building was likely to come down any moment.

Tephra shot the dwarf an accusatory look when he wouldn't release his hold of her, before turning to Cassandra, "There's children in there!"

The Seeker looked to the burning cabin, before looking to him.

He was the only one capable of clearing a path through the fire, after all.

"Solas, please. They're in there," Tephra pleaded. "I heard them calling out."

Solas strained his ears, and heard nothing but the roar of the fire and the cracking of burning wood. He met her gaze once more, "You're certain?"

"Enough to bet my life on it."

Why were mortals so terribly hasty to throw away their own precarious lives?

One would think the finite nature of their existence would endow them with a greater sense of self-preservation.

Still, the lengths to which some of them went to preserve the lives of others — even strangers — would never cease to stagger him. By all rights, the transient nature of their own mortality should have made them more hesitant to risk it — and far choosier about the circumstances in which they might offer it up for another's life.

Yet here she was, once again, ready to leap into that fire like a fool.

An admirable fool, but a fool nonetheless.

The Herald seemed to sense his disapproval, as she pleaded, "Sathan, ma halani — please, trust me on this."

Solas heaved a sigh.

Of course he trusted her. She'd held his very own life in her hand, once, and kept him from slipping away to the Void.

For that, he would concede this to her, if only to keep her from doing it herself. If only because she would not leave without absolute certainty she'd been right, or wrong.

"Ma nuvenin," he responded. "But then we move for the chantry."

"Okay, but—"

"Your word, Herald," Solas cut her off, in a firm tone.

"You have it," she snapped in desperation, and thrust a hand towards the fire. "Now do it!"

It was a fool's errand, but at least he'd prevented her from simply barreling inside as she had in the Hinterlands.

He took a moment to gauge the cabin's structural stability and pool his mana. Using cold-based spells ran the risk of thermal shock, which could cause enough vibrational force to bring the cabin down. Creating a controlled vacuum would be an effective means of snuffing the fire out, with little direct force inflicted upon the structure. However, if there were actually any living people inside—

"Solas."

Frustrated and flustered, Solas conjured a freezing spell and blanketed the cabin. It took all of his concentration to ensure that the spell snapped over the structure as a whole, all at once, and froze it solid before the shock could cause a collapse.

The Seeker unshouldered her shield and let it fall to the ground, before heading towards the cabin. When Tephra moved to follow, Cassandra rounded on her, "You will wait here."

Frustrated, the Herald stalked back towards Varric, who made no pretense of wishing to set foot inside the cabin.

Solas followed after Cassandra, who was already carefully picking her way through the frozen debris and into the cabin through a wide crack formed in the front wall. Inside, much of what remained was still simmering, as he only endeavored to freeze the outer structure. An attempt at rescue would have been futile if he'd inadvertently frozen any potential survivors. The cold snap had shuttered the flames, but many surfaces still glowed and shimmered with heat.

Several of the beams in the roof had come down, one of which had blocked off the main entrance. Those that remained, creaked and groaned under the weight of the ice.

"We would do well not to linger inside," he warned, stepping lightly over the charred remains of a chair. "The structure will not hold for long."

As if to accentuate his point, water had begun to run off the frozen roof overhead as the interior of the cabin remained a choking oven of heat. Despite the light radiating from innumerable charred surfaces, the smoke made it difficult to see.

Solas conjured an orb of veilfire to illuminate their path.

They found nothing in the main quarters of the cabin. All that remained was a small bedroom at the rear. When they drew close, they were greeted by the sight of two charred corpses, which lay at the bottom of the door. One over the other, having succumbed to the smoke.

The armor identified them as Inquisition — as their own.

"Perhaps we are too late," the Seeker mused, crouching to retrieve the identification tags which all of the soldiers and scouts wore. Her thumb smudged at the thick ash coating the metal, before she pocketed them.

"It seems they were attempting to open the door," Solas observed, gesturing at the pry marks in the frame. The knob glistened with frost, and when he put a hand to the door — which was hardly burnt at all — the door was cold.

It was not a result of his own spell.

Had one of the apostates hidden themselves inside?

Cassandra stood, tucking the tags away in a pocket, before readying herself to kick it in.

"A moment, Seeker," Solas urged, before summoning a barrier around them.

If she brought the cabin down on them, he would prefer to avoid being crushed. He nodded at Cassandra once he was finished.

One heavy kick shattered the jamb and sent the door swinging inward, hanging off a single hinge.

A thick layer of smoke billowed out, obscuring any sign of survivors. The room was small, and hardly furnished. There were few places anyone could have been hiding that wouldn't have been immediately obvious.

"Come out!" the Seeker called, as she held an arm to her face to avoid the smoke. Her other hand waved at the thick oily black, in a futile attempt to disperse it.

Nothing in the room moved, but the smoke.

A fool's errand.

"It is safe now," Solas clarified, when no response came.

A small head popped up from behind the bed in the far corner.

"Mister Solas?"

The girl stood, peering at him blearily through the dissipating smoke.

He'd almost dismissed the Herald's claims outright, simply because the risk far outweighed any possible good that might have come of it.

And he would have been wrong.

Audra gave a tired, dimpled smile as she moved around the bed. She was all but shaking from relief.

More children began to stand, and followed after her. Covered in soot and soaked from ice-melt, shivering in their coats despite the heat of the cabin.

It took all of a glance around the room to know that the girl had consistently practiced her magic since that day he'd advised her on how to better focus her mana. She had taken his advice to heart and built upon it, and with that she had kept her friends safe by keeping the fire from advancing into the room. But there were no windows in the room, and had he not intervened, the smoke would have choked out whatever remained of the air and claimed their lives.

It was a strange thing, the sudden weight in his chest.

She looked up at him, wiping at the soot on her face with blistered fingers. "We were hiding from the dragon, but then the fire — it was everywhere. I tried to keep it back, Mister Solas. But then the beams came down, and I didn't — I couldn't—"

Solas calmed her by laying his hand atop her curly head, and assured, "You did well, Audra."

Cassandra began to herd the children out the door, as she urged, "Come — it isn't safe here. We must go."

As he walked amongst the children, he was struck once more by the finite nature of mortals — of how their lives were little more than gossamer stretched across the void, and so easily torn from the mortal coil.

That thought sat heavy in his chest, and ached for them.

Solas worked to maintain the barrier over the children and Cassandra, as well as himself, as they backtracked out of the cabin. He wasn't entirely surprised to see the Herald waiting for them, idling just inside despite the Seeker's insistence that she wait outside for her own safety.

Cassandra merely huffed in irritation, "Help me get them out."

The two women worked to lift the smaller children up over the rubble, handing them off to Varric. Cassandra helped the last child climb over, who was limping from a leg injury. Tephra followed after, but stopped atop the rubble to turn and offer her hand to assist him.

He took it, and let her haul him up alongside her.

She squeezed his hand, briefly, as she said, "Thank you for trusting me."

"That was never in question," he assured, his hold on her lingering as long as she allowed it.

Her hand slipped from his as she departed to follow after the Seeker, and it left him feeling bereft.

Haven continued to fall all around them as they ushered the children out of the cabin and toward the chantry, toward safety.

But what was safety?

Even if they survived this night, what then? A little more time here in the waking world, before their short lives were snuffed out by another means? And the Herald—

Ahead of him, gently handling the children as she aided them in climbing down the rubble. With a tenderness she hoarded to herself, except with the little ones, except with—

Him.

And in that moment, as he watched her, Solas knew with startling clarity that he could not bear the loss of her.

That though he'd woken a year before the Conclave and walked this blighted world, he realized that a part of him had still been sleeping. Or rather, been dormant. Left somewhere in the dreaming, distant and far-removed. And nothing in this wretched, wrong world had stirred it from its slumber — until her.

It was as though she'd pulled him right from the dreaming herself — as though he hadn't truly woken, not until she'd reach across centuries of myth and estrangement to pull the cauls from his eyes and forced him to see her, and the world which had borne her.

A mortal — precarious and fleeting, with a spirit brighter than anything he'd known in a very long time.

A mortal.

How easily she could be lost, between one breath and the next.

And he could not bear it.

That sudden realization left him shaken and stunned, as he climbed down to the street below.

He could not lose her, and each moment they lingered felt as though poised on an abyss with no certainty of survival in sight. It took all of his self-control to remain with his companions, and to not simply abscond with the Herald and order a retreat of his own agents. He was caught in the flux between trusting her to surmount the unbelievable odds stacked against them to survive this attack and the certainty of fleeing.

Still, he could not abandon those of Haven to such a horrible end. But this wasn't an event he could watch from a safe distance, such as he could in the Fade of events long since passed. There was no means of going over each mistake, or exhausting each possible outcome, before acting. There was no time to calculate each plausible risk, nor time to form contingencies to account for each hypothetical variable or outcome.

He could only face what came, in the moment it happened, and hope for the best. Could only place his trust in her, and those around him, to survive this.

It was a mad hope — betting against insurmountable odds — but with the Herald leading them, it was almost easy to believe that they would survive this.

And for her, he would stay and face whatever may come.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Most of the children of were unharmed, but for a few. One of the older girls had a penetrative wound that had been crudely bandaged by cloth torn from her own cloak. A temporary solution, at best. Cassandra carried one on her hip, who was disoriented from a head wound.

And one little boy sat in the snow, dazed and silent, with grievous burns to his face. He stared at nothing, with wide clouded eyes.

Whatever was left in her to feel grief, or despair, abandoned her.

All that remained was rage.

There was no mercy in her for those who would attack children.

She scooped him up into her arms, and followed after the others along the road to the chantry.

They found the courtyard littered with the dead.

The heavy fall of ash and snow made it difficult to tell the templars from their own people, save for the ghastly red eruptions of blighted lyrium jutting from their bodies. Far behind, she could hear the dragon clattering across rooftops, busy at its terrible work in reducing the town to ruins.

Chancellor Roderick stood at the entrance of the chantry, clutching his stomach as he ushered the last of the survivors inside. His robes were soaked in so much blood that she wasn't certain how he was still standing, beyond sheer determined will.

As she neared the entrance, Tephra handed the boy in her arms off to an awaiting medic, "Please see to him — it's urgent."

"We'll do what we can, my lady," the medic assured, before carrying the boy inside.

Inside, amongst residents and refugees, amongst chantry sisters and soldiers, were her companions and advisers. A swift inspection found no one missing.

Small mercies.

Tephra stopped at the door, to look back out over the burning town.

This place was a shelter, and now it is a grave.

Was there anyone living left out there? Had they found them all?

The young man, who named himself Cole, stepped quietly beside her and followed her gaze. "There is no one else," he said.

"You're certain?"

She needed certainty.

"I can't hear the dead," Cole informed. "Only the red templars remain."

"Then we must shut the doors," the Chancellor urged, as he moved from where he leaned against the wall.

Tephra averted her gaze from the bloodstain he'd left there.

As Roderick made his way inside, his legs buckled from beneath him. Cole moved in an unearthly manner — one moment beside her, and the next catching the wounded chancellor in his arms and helping him to a nearby chair.

She found herself gaping at the youth, with a strange mix of awe and nostalgia.

"He tried to stop a templar. The blade went deep," Cole informed. "He's going to die."

"What a charming boy," Roderick mused, with a breathless laugh.

It was strange, the feeling in her chest, when she looked at him. A strange stitch between her ribs, at once familiar and forgotten.

Tephra reached to lift the brim of his hat, ever so slightly, as she asked, "We've met, haven't we?"

It felt like a half-remembered dream, tickling at the edge of her mind, and yet it was impossible to forget those impossibly blue eyes.

Sullen eyes met hers in a brief collision, before glancing away as he fidgeted with his fingers. "Yes?"

Almost a question, but not. It stirred like a knot in her chest — an emotion that refused to be named.

He didn't look much older than what her brother would have been, if he'd lived. And she did not know why it occurred to her at all, only that it did.

Tephra thought of the night she'd seen him here in Haven, when they were burning their dead.

He followed from the fire.

That is what he'd said to her that night, and when he disappeared she had thought she was losing her mind.

But here he was, as real as anyone around her.

"You've been following me," she said, not unkindly. "Why?"

His gaze was lost beneath the fall of his pale blond hair, as he lilted, "I needed to know. I want to help, not hurt. I got confused before. Not again. But you help people. You made them safe when they would have died. I want to do that. I can help."

What are you?

"I'm Cole."

There was no time for awe, or wonder, or the barrage of questions idling in her throat.

Perhaps later, if they survived.

"Then stay, and help us," she replied, without an ounce of doubt shadowing her decision.

When she turned, she found that Solas was watching her with a strange expression — as he often did — but she was too exhausted to decipher whether it was approval or disapproval she saw there in the guarded calm of his expression.

Instead, she turned her focus to his bloodied, torn sleeve. When she reached for his arm, he offered it with no resistance. Tephra peeled back the fabric and was greeted by the sight of a thick cautery mark running off-center along his outer forearm. He'd effectively stopped the bleeding, but there was still risk for infection.

Who knows where that blade had been before it had nicked him.

Her mind was running through the basic components of a medicinal draught, something to stave off infection from rooting in his blood, but there was no time and her traveling pack was likely buried somewhere beneath the burning, shattered town.

There was nothing for it, in the moment, and it made her feel useless. She had no magic to simply will it away.

"You're off to a bad start with the whole not-dying thing," she noted, inspecting his cauterization work with a brush of her thumb.

She watched the pale hairs on his arm rise in response.

"You say as though you did not just attempt to throw yourself upon a pyre," he replied, dryly. "Again."

She bit at her lip to subdue the smile he'd elicited. Her fingernail tested the seam between scar and skin, testing the boundary for weakness.

Gods help her, but he shivered.

"A cabin isn't a pyre," she countered, and met his gaze again.

His gaze was measured, but heavy — it guttered her breath, and for a moment she could forget that the world wasn't dying around them, that death did not wait just outside the walls.

"Not traditionally, no," Solas conceded, his tone thickened with amusement and whatever that was simmering in his gaze.

Tephra released him to search her pockets, and thankfully found a bundle of bandaging squirreled away in one of the many pockets the coat afforded her. She avoided meeting his gaze again as she worked to wind the cloth efficiently, but the weight of it followed every movement of her hands.

She felt the flush creep traitorously up across her face and to her ears.

If he didn't know by now the effect he had on her, he was certainly a fool. But at least he had the good manners to politely leave it unspoken. Left it to be addressed another time, if ever.

Finished, she tied it firmly. "That'll have to do for now."

Solas fixed her with a shuttered gaze, as he inclined his head, "Ma serranas, Herald."

Whatever that look was supposed to impart, she didn't have the time to interpret it as the Commander charged towards her with an air of urgency.

"Herald, our position is not good," Cullen informed, in a grave tone. "That dragon stole back any time you might have bought us. There has been no communication, no demands. Only advance after advance, and now we've been overrun."

Cole spoke up, from where he crouched beside the Chancellor's chair, "I've seen an archdemon. I was in the Fade, but it looked like that."

"I don't care what it looks like!" the Commander snapped in frustration, before turning his attention back to her. "It's cut a path for that army, and they'll kill everyone in Haven. The town is lost."

It was a grim truth, but she was thankful that the Commander was not one to soften the truth for her.

"The Elder One doesn't care about the village," Cole continued, in earnest. "He only wants the Herald."

Of course.

The mark glimmered in her palm, and the hiss of magic seemed to echo what Alexius had named her before — thief.

The Elder One had finally come to claim what she had supposedly stolen, whether by intent or not, she did not know. And she supposed it did not matter, not to him.

Why would it be anything less?

The mark in her hand flickered erratically, restless in her palm.

She looked to Cole, "Will it save our people, if I gave myself over to him?"

Many of her companions and advisers spoke at once, but the strange young man cut them off into silence.

"It won't," he replied. "He wants to kill you. No one else matters, but he'll crush them, kill them anyway." Vehemently, he added, "I don't like him."

"You don't like—" Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed in exasperation, before turning his focus back to her, "Herald, there are no tactics to make this survivable. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche. We could turn the remaining trebuchets, and cause one more slide."

Tephra frowned, "We're already overrun. To hit the army, we'd have to—"

Bury the town.

A last stand, like in in the stories she read as a girl, and yet any sense of idealization and romanticism furled away like ash under the grim weight of reality.

"We're dying, but we can decide how," Cullen advised, and it was not defeat in his voice but defiance. "Many don't get that choice."

Perhaps there was grace to be had in that, but it felt brittle and hollow as she looked beyond the Commander and towards the milling crowds packed further into the chantry. Many of them were young, even amongst the soldiers — not much more than youths.

When had they take in so many children?

The war and unrest had brought so many to their doorstep, and she'd refused none.

And now they huddled in the shuddering dark of the chantry, like lambs awaiting their slaughter.

Stricken, Tephra clutched at her coat, seeking the shell that hung there. How had she ever believed that she could keep them safe? That she could keep anyone safe? How had she fooled herself so completely, when she couldn't even keep one—

"Chancellor Roderick can help," Cole spoke up, breaking the current of despair running through her head, and breaking the heavy silence which had fallen over the survivors. "He wants to say it before he dies."

She did not want to look, did not want to see his blood staining his resplendent robes, but she did.

Roderick deserved the dignity of acknowledgement in what was likely his final hour, no matter how poorly he'd treated her.

"There is a path," the chancellor informed, in a breathless tone. Nearly all the color had fled his face, and it seemed by sheer will alone that he remained conscious. "You wouldn't know it unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage — as I have. They can escape. They can be saved."

The Chancellor's focus was on her as he struggled to bring himself to his feet, aided by Cole, "She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could tell you. It was whim that I walked the path. I did not mean to start — it was overgrown, forgotten. Now, with so many in the Conclave dead, to be the only one who remembers — I don't know, Herald. If this simple memory can save us, this could be more than mere accident." He searched her face as though he were only just now seeing her for the first time. Regret etched heavy lines in his own, as he said, "You could be more."

It was a better chance than anything she could have hoped for, and there was no other path open to them.

It was better than waiting to die, huddled together in the chantry.

But if they were to have a chance to make it down through the chantry and through the pass, they would need time.

Tephra turned to the Commander once more, "Do you think that it will work?"

"Possibly, if he shows us the path," he answered, in a cautious tone, as realization set in. He regarded her with a tight expression, as he asked, "But what of your escape?"

The hall was eerily silent, and the many faces of the civilians and soldiers, her companions and advisers were turned to her.

They are my clan now.

The thought came suddenly to her, heavy and unbidden.

Whatever she'd been before the Conclave, whatever her life had been — it had ended the moment the mark came to her. It was still a part of her, a part of her identity, but these people were her people now.

They had become hers the moment she'd decided that no one would ever lay hand on them again.

"The Elder One came for me, but I don't intend to make it easy for him," Tephra assured, forcing an air of confidence that she didn't feel. "I don't intend to fall to a false god."

Foolish bravado to cover the fear nesting in her bones.

The decision was hers to make, and it was the first she'd made for herself since this whole mess had started. The first one that truly mattered.

It was a means of wresting back control over her own fate, even if it likely meant her end.

And if it did, she meant to go down swinging.

"Perhaps you will surprise us," the Commander offered, with a hopefulness that didn't quite reach his eyes. He knew what she meant to face out there, and it was a kindness that he did not claim faith in the certainty of her survival. It was an acknowledge of the cost she was willing to pay to buy them the small chance of fleeing to safety. Still, he regarded her with frank optimism, with something like faith, as he said, "If anyone can find a way, it would be you."

There was a strange tension in her gut as she purposefully avoided the gazes of her companions and turned to Josephine, "We have no time to prepare. Take what you can carry, what is needed most, and leave the rest. Whatever provisions are here in the chantry will have to do for now."

The Antivan woman regarded her with a practiced calm, however it was frayed at the edges and cracked her voice, as she noted, "Perhaps the outlying farms remain untouched. There will be horses, druffalo — supplies. We will send scouting parties ahead to retrieve them."

"Do nothing to risk drawing his attention, and do everything you can to get them away." If there was more that she could have said — anything — it failed her. "Take care of them," Tephra bid, in a tone far too steady for the writhing tension in her gut, which was quickly turning to a torrent of emotion.

Death awaited her out there, and every cell in her body knew it, and there was nothing for it but to walk out there and face it.

Josephine frowned, "This is not—" She stopped herself just as quickly as her anger and grief came, and sighed, "I will."

Tephra did not watch her go.

If she stopped to look back in this moment, or the next — or all that followed after until the end — she was certain she would lose her nerve to face whatever it was that waited for her outside the chantry.

Roderick was leaning heavily on Cole, as the youth helped him along. He stopped long enough, to catch the sleeve of her coat in a weak grasp, "Herald, if you are meant for this, if the Inquisition is meant for this — I pray for you."

Tephra regarded the man who'd so vehemently denied her, denied the title thrust upon her, also as much as she had herself. She clasped his shoulder with a delicate touch — not wishing to add to his pain — and said, "Go in peace, chancellor."

She did not let herself linger, as she headed onward for the entrance, but the Commander intercepted her path as he returned with a small group of soldiers.

They were armed, and armored. Each met her gaze with grim finality.

She knew even before she asked, yet she persisted, "What's all this?"

"Volunteers," Cullen replied. "They'll escort you, keep your path clear, and load the trebuchet."

Among them was a medic, whom she recognized as the Dalish elf from the Anderfels — Kazem. Her gaze drifted back amongst the crowd, and found his other half aiding the chantry sisters in readying the children for travel. His plaintive glances back to Kazem spoke volumes.

If the others were going to survive, they would need every healer available to them, mage or non-mage.

"Not the medic. Send him with the others," she instructed.

He would serve better amongst the survivors, would bolster their odds, and perhaps one person today would not lose their lover as well.

Whatever meager confidence the Commander had regained for her survival, drained from his face as he asked, "You're certain?"

"If I get to the point where I need a medic, then I've already lost," Tephra mused, with dark humor. "There's no use wasting two lives for one."

Kazem stepped forward, "If you'll forgive the insubordination, Herald, I'm good for more than just tending wounds." As though to accentuate his point, his hands moved to rest on the hilts of the twin short swords hanging from his belt.

They were marvels of Dalish craftsmanship, unmistakably of the Ander clans, and she regretted that she had no time to inspect them closer.

He stared her down, and did not relent. He was tall like Solas, but brawnier, solidly-built and moved with a grace that spoke of decades of training.

Of any of the volunteers, this one would certainly see her through her task. And help could only further ensure that she would not fail.

"If you insist," Tephra conceded, having no rational argument to deny him further. "Vir suledin sa'vunin."

"Vir suledin sa'vunin," he agreed.

Knowing that one of her own would be there with her, at the end, was a small comfort.

She turned her attention back to the Commander, who said, "All you have to do is keep the Elder One's attention until we're above the tree line."

"Oh, is that all?" she jested, grimly.

The muscles in Cullen's jaw worked silently, and she suddenly and acutely could not stand the regret that dwellt in his eyes as he continued, "If we are to have a chance — if you are to have a chance — let that thing hear you."

When the Commander turned to go, she grasped his armored shoulder and urged, "Make it count. Get them safe."

With a solemn nod, he assured, "With my life, Herald. Maker guide your steps."

As the soldiers ushered civilians and refugees back toward the other end of the chantry, her companions idled. None moved to follow after the advisers.

They mean to go with me.

Tephra shook her head, and gestured for them to follow the others, "No, you're all going with them."

"Like hell I am," Dorian snapped, with enough outrage to send her back a step in surprise. His wounded gaze darted away and he gave a short, sharp sigh. With that, all of his anger deflated, as he simply said, "You cannot ask me to leave you to face that maniac alone."

She wanted them safe, and away from whatever was coming. She wanted their energy focused on ensuring the survival and safety of those that needed it most.

And that was not her.

"I can, and I am," Tephra replied, keeping her tone steady and firm. "I trust you to keep them safe."

"And who will keep you safe? If you die—"

"I know how important the mark is," she bit back, in a bruised tone.

"The Void take your fucking mark!" Dorian took hold of her then, first cupping her elbows, then moving to take her hands into his own. "If you die, I'll have lost a dear friend and be left alone here with the lot of them, and that just won't do."

Tephra wanted to deck him for making her heart seize with such affection. Instead, she pulled away, as though burned.

Dorian cleared his throat as he regained his composure, before giving her a devil-may-care smile, "And really, an archdemon? Rather droll, don't you think? Considering we've traveled through time — twice. This Elder One has to work a bit harder to impress me now."

Cassandra unshouldered her shield, and drew her sword, "And how do you mean to turn the trebuchet on your own without help?"

They had been forced to take turns turning the wheel crank of the trebuchets, given the chaotic nature of the fighting. And when her turn had come, she was half-certain the crank on her trebuchet had been rustier than the others.

Still, it hadn't been that difficult, and she'd gotten the job done in the end.

Tephra scowled, "Well, I'd—"

Cassandra slammed the flat of her sword against her shield, "And who is to keep your enemies off your back while you do it?"

Her mouth opened, then shut once more.

She was furious, but the woman was right.

With the soldiers loading the payload, and her turning the crank, it left no one to actually fend off an attack.

Still, she wanted them safe, and away, and—

"No worries, Boss. We'll keep the buzzards off your back," Bull assured, hefting his massive greatsword over a shoulder.

Blackwall followed the Seeker's lead, as he recovered his shield from where he'd left it sitting against a pillar, "Time to be big fucking heroes or somesuch, right?"

There was a distant ringing in her ears, as everything began to slip from her control.

And when had she'd grown so arrogant as to think it was ever within her control? The world did not bother to deal in subtleties with her, and all of the lessons she'd learned in her life had come at brutal cost. One of her earliest lessons had been that death was an errant, unpredictable guest for which she could never prepare for.

But if it was just her going out there, facing whatever was to come — she could do it. If she knew the others were safe, she wouldn't falter.

But this?

Tephra knew by their expressions that they were coming with her, and nothing she could say would deter them.

She'd killed a world to keep them safe, but now that didn't matter anymore. They would follow her into the end of this mess, and she couldn't stop them.

Void take them all.

"Do you recall what I told you, back at the chateau?" Vivienne asked, as walked past her towards the door. Her perfume smelled of flowers for which Tephra had no name for. "I do not mean to die meekly, my dear. I mean to meet my enemy, face to face. I am the one who decides my fate — however it ends."

Sera bumped her shoulder into her own as she passed, and offered a forced grin, "Whatever happens, we go down fighting, yeah? I'm not stopping even if I run out of arrows."

"I ran out of arrows making them pay."

The memory was a dagger, straight to her lung.

"Chin up, Snowflake. It's only a dragon," Varric deadpanned.

"And an army," Bull mused.

"And whatever the friggin' hell that Elder Fuck is," Sera grumbled, as she snagged extra arrows from a passing soldier.

It took considerable effort to block out the memory of their words, and yet still they found their way back to her in this world.

"Whatever comes, we're with you, Herald," Cassandra assured, waiting at the door for her.

Echoes from a dead world.

"Be strong for us, Herald. Whatever comes, you will not face it alone."

And once more, at the end, she found that she wasn't.

She had wanted to send them away, to keep them safe, and yet a part of her was grateful that she didn't have to go back out there alone.

Still, out of all of them, she had wanted to send Solas away the most. To conjure up some excuse to force him to leave with the rest, to ensure his survival. But he was far too perceptive to fall for any ruse she might weave, and too stubborn to politely indulge her.

When she turned her gaze to his, she knew without a doubt that he would follow her into whatever catastrophe awaited them outside the chantry.

Solas said nothing, only watched her with a tight expression, brows knitted with concern, and yet his words were with her still.

"I am with you until the end. In this world, and the next."

She felt at once a great sense of tenderness, and useless futile anger.

I should have told him, she thought to herself, bitterly.

That other him, who went to his death never knowing that it was returned.

And this one—

If she survived, she would.

If he survived.

Tephra moved to step close to the Seeker, close enough to speak without the others hearing, "Whatever happens, get them out safe. The Elder One is only here for me, and I won't have anyone else dying because of it."

Cassandra frowned, "I gave my word that I would not abandon you. Not even at the end."

Tephra clasped the woman's arm, and hoped that she sounded more reassuring than she felt, "This is not the end, and I don't mean to die today."

"No one ever does," Cassandra said. "Yet death comes for us all in the end."

Tephra's grip on the woman's arm tightened. "I mean it, Cassandra. If things go sideways, you get them out safe. Do this for me." She swallowed, thickly, "Please."

There was a tense moment of silence, before the Seeker conceded, "As you command, Herald."

When she moved for the chantry entrance, the soldiers idling there moved to open the heavy doors to let her pass. Cold night air scoured her face, heavy with the scent of ash.

Whatever was waiting for her out there, she knew that she wouldn't face it alone.

And if this was truly the end, whatever came for them, she would make it count.

Tephra did not look back as she said, "If I don't get another chance to say this, I want you all to know that I'm glad that I've met all of you. It's been an honor."

She did not wait for her companions to respond as she headed back out into the fray.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It should not have surprised her that the red templars would have taken the remaining trebuchet, not after such an effective first blow. Reinforcements flooded the choke point behind them, which had been hastily erected in the road by the soldiers whose bodies now littered the platform the trebuchet stood on. A failed attempt to keep it from being captured by enemy forces.

The sudden influx forced a split amongst them as most of her companions turned back to meet the rush of enemies surging in from behind, while the rest rushed the platform to reclaim the trebuchet.

Tephra ducked down at the base of the platform, and put her back to the structure. She emptied her quiver and quickly jammed her remaining arrows into the snow in a haphazard row at her side for ease of access.

Her hands were shaking as she readied an arrow, and scanned the chaos for a target.

Quicker, her mind screamed.

Quicker.

But her vision blurred, no matter how hard she tried to focus, and the bodies were moving too quick to distinguish friend from foe.

When was the last time she'd eaten a proper meal? All she could recall as of late was the abundance of mead available to her upon request.

Perhaps if I'd known the Elder One was coming, I'd have eaten a fucking biscuit, she mused, darkly.

A glint of red lyrium caught her eye in the dark.

Knuckles-white, she loosed.

The arrow skimmed her target and glanced uselessly off of the templar's armor.

Pissing hell.

She snatched another arrow up from the snow, and nocked. Ignoring the burn of sweat and ash in her sight, she let her focus whittle the world away to nothing but what lay beyond the tip of her arrow.

When an unguarded throat presented itself, speckled with blighted lyrium crystals, she let the arrow fly.

The templar stumbled, sputtering red as he sank to his knees.

The Iron Bull turned mid-sweep with his great ax, with far more grace and ease than anyone his size had any right to, and cut the templar down where he sat in the snow. A single massive blow from the qunari and the templar's chest completely caved in. Bull jerked his weapon free of broken armor and shattered ribs, before spinning off back into the fray and cutting down anything in his path.

Above her, she could hear the clanking of metal as the trebuchet was slowly moved into position. If one of her companions was able to work the crank, it surely meant that the platform had been cleared of enemies. A small relief, but the others were cornered at the chokepoint by a fresh wave of red templars, and she was all that stood between whichever companion of hers worked atop the trebuchet, and whatever made it past the others.

Tense and rigid, she held an arrow nocked and ready, waiting to bring down anything that slipped past where her people held the line.

Everything around her was pounding.

Swords on swords, spell against spell. Her heart in her chest, and the blood pounded in her head. A messy, arrhythmic din that seemed to grip every inch of her sweating, aching body.

She wanted a drink.

She wanted ten drinks.

In fact, at that particular moment, she could probably have drunk every damned beer in the town, and still had room for a swift whisky after.

But such things would have to wait. A fancy for another time, should she live past this night. Right now, all there was for her to focus on was the fight — on surviving.

The bellow of the archdemon tore through her entire being, sounding just overhead.

Tephra fumbled the arrow she was nocking, as her attention was immediately drawn to the sky.

That terrible sound seemed to tear right through her, snipping tendons and nerves alike, leaving her boneless with terror.

Night was banished from her sight as a stream of dragonfire beelined for the barrels of pitch stacked near the trebuchet, and engulfed them. A breath tore from her, before they burst.

Fire consumed everything in her sight.

Tephra scrambled back against the base of the platform, harried back by the blast, and clambered on all fours as she tried to escape the blistering heat. The sudden white-hot pain of cinders burrowing through her coat and armor sent her rolling in the snow in an attempt to extinguish it.

It felt like skinny spears needling their way through any defense she had, no matter how she flailed.

Others were jumping from the platform, and from what she could see from where she lay in the snow a good portion of the structure had been set ablaze. The trebuchet itself was untouched by the dragon's fire, but it would not remain so for long.

It had been brought into position, but none remained atop the platform to fire it off.

As the others scrambled to rejoin and aid their companions, Cassandra stooped to yank Tephra up from the ground by the collar of her coat, "Hurry! Before it comes back!"

The red templars were forcing her companions back through the choke point, and away from the trebuchet. The road behind them was empty. There was nothing to block a retreat out into the foothills, if they could push their way through to the road beyond.

If they fled now, they might be able to make it out before the mountain came down.

Tephra pushed at the Seeker, yanking herself free of the woman's grip, "Go — get them out!"

"Herald—"

"Go, before you lose this chance!"

"Tephra—"

Her heart twisted at the personal acknowledgement, at the shift from faith to familiar, but she forced herself to ignore it. "Someone has to fire the trebuchet," she reminded, in earnest. In her peripheral, Tephra could see the archdemon circling and moving to descend once more. "If the army remains, no one is safe. The mountain has to fall."

The hard line of Cassandra's brow softened, as comprehension set in. She clasped Tephra's arm tightly, as she said, "May you act with the Maker's favor and walk into darkness, unafraid."

Tephra put her free hand to the woman's shoulder, and assured, "I'll find another way out when it's done."

The Seeker gave a sharp nod, as she regained her composure and shifted her focus to the task at hand. She took off after the others without a single glance back, singular in her purpose as she shouted at the others and herded them down the road.

The others were too busy with the templars to realize she wasn't coming, and she could only put her faith in Cassandra to see that they would retreat without her when they finally did. However she must.

Briefly, she tried to find Solas among the press of her companions ringed by attacking templars, if only to meet his gaze, but she couldn't find him amongst the clamor.

Focus.

There would be time for that later, if she kept her focus where it needed to be.

Tephra shook away the strange sense of loss, as she assured herself that this wasn't the end. That all she needed to do was to launch the payload, and then haul ass out of Haven before the mountain came down on her too. She would get out of here alive, and she'd catch up to them out there in the foothills.

She would see him again.

It was a tether to guide her, to keep her moving forward.

As she neared the platform once more, she came to a skidding halt at the sight of it.

It was a gods-be-damned pyre.

How the trebuchet remained intact, how it had not fallen through the burning wood, was beyond her.

A fucking pyre.

She'd heard all manners of prayer and canticles chattered amongst the chantry sisters, but one line came ringing back with grim irony.

Let mine be the last sacrifice.

Whether there was ever a Maker or ever an Andraste, beyond the myths, she hoped the Void had taken them both.

Tephra took a steadying breath, and ascended the platform.

As she made her way up the wooden stairs, she stopped to check the bodies for any weapon she could use, as her bow had been lost to her in the mad scramble to avoid the earlier explosion. Finding nothing but too-heavy swords and maces, she continued up to the trebuchet, avoiding the simmering sections where the wood was weak and glimmering with heat.

Halfway up, she stooped over another dead templar. When she tugged his coat open to check for a dagger at his belt, the man gave a ragged gasp and grabbed hold of her. Eyes rolled back and gurgling blood, the man held to her like a vice as she tried to grapple free. Tephra's foot slipped on the icy step beneath her, grown slick and wet from the heat, and she felt the white-hot jab of pain as her ankle twisted. The sudden lurch of her body sent them both tumbling down the steps in a tangled heap.

Overhead, the bellow of the archdemon signaled its return.

Panic flared through her as she thought of her companions, still locked in combat at the chokepoint, having gained little ground through the chaos.

As she struggled to release herself from the dying man's grip, she realized that he wasn't attacking her, simply pulling her close as he rasped incoherently. Tephra stilled, heart hammering in her ears and she leaned closer to catch what he was trying to say.

"Mercy. Please."

A quick assessment of the templar's torso told her that his wounds were mortal, but his death was a lingering one.

Mercy, she agreed, and slipped the dagger free from his belt and shoved it through the hollow of his throat.

Tephra pulled herself free and staggered to her feet, shaking and stumbling as she reoriented herself. Part of her screamed to keep going, to throw herself to the trebuchet and be done with it, but the rest of her was acutely aware that the archdemon's attention was not on her, but fixed on her companions fighting below.

The world was burning around her as she looked for her companions amongst the templars, only to see the dragon swoop low and its fire burning a path straight for them.

She did not have time to shout a warning, and the cry strangled in her throat as she watched the stream of fire wash right over them.

Barriers rose, blooming in blinding washes of magic arcing over them — magic from different sources weaving together in blues and silvers and shimmering lavender — just as the group of swarming templars around them were engulfed. The bodies blackened to ash and cinders before they hit the ground.

For one staggered moment, she could see them huddled inside — safe, untouched by the fire — before the barriers shattered under the unrelenting force of the dragonfire.

The shock wave of displaced magic took her off her feet and sent her tumbling through the air. She landed in a bone-jarring heap, head snapping back against the gravel.

Her sight washed white, and the rushing in her ears was the same as when she was under the water, reaching for her brother.

For a moment, she could see him there just beyond her reach.

Tephra groaned as she rolled onto her side, and the world came rushing back to her. Tipping and weaving in a sick lurch as she pulled herself up to sit. As she clutched her head, all the white slipped away from her vision, and then there was only fire.

And beyond it, a being beyond comprehension, striding towards her in no hurried fashion — striding as one who belabored themself a god would.

Whatever he'd been before, he was monstrous now. Skeletal and wraith-like and twisted to a staggering height, he was an amalgam of red lyrium and blighted flesh.

The Elder One.

As Tephra struggled to her feet, the dragon came thundering in behind her. She stumbled back from the creature as it came skidding to a halt in the ash and snow. It snapped it jaws at her, herding her back toward the abomination behind her.

She instinctively raised her hands, for all the good it served.

Its glimmering red eyes fixed on the mark in her hand, its light burning through the leather of her glove. The dragon trumpeted its outrage that she bore the mark its master sought, and stalked closer as though it meant to take it back itself.

"Enough!"

She felt a strange rush of energy push at her, as the air around her was displaced. The dragon stilled, and her attention shifted back to its master.

The flesh of his face was twisted by massive red lyrium growths, and it twisted further as he sneered, "Pretender. You toy with forces beyond your ken no more."

It took all of her strength to keep her voice steady, as she called back to it, "Whatever you are, I'm not afraid."

"Words mortals often hurl at the darkness. Once, they were mine," the Elder One mused. "They are always lies."

She wasn't sure that anything like him could have ever been anything like her, let alone afraid of anything.

It was utterly horrifying — the thought that a person could be twisted so beyond what they once were, which sent ice running through her blood.

It was no wonder that Varric feared and despised the red lyrium so much.

As the Elder One stepped closer, he continued, "Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One — the will that is Corypheus." He raised one long arm to point threateningly at her, and commanded, "You will kneel."

Everything from the moment she first woke shivering in the prison cell beneath Haven's chantry, from the Breach to the ruined future, from every inch gained with the closing of a rift to every staggering loss along the way — all of it had led her here.

To this creature towering over her, demanding the respect due a god.

Whatever her fear, the words of her people came back to her in that moment when her own words failed her.

We are the Dalish — keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path. We are the last Elvhen. Never again shall we submit.

Tephra met his gaze with the steel of her own, and spat, "Never."

It was only when she finally spoke that she noticed the silence which had fallen over Haven.

No more cries or clamor, not from the red templars nor anything else living.

Standing in the shadow of the last standing trebuchet, cornered in by the dragon's fire burning a tight wreath around them, she knew that there was nothing left beyond the flames but the dead.

"It matters not whether you kneel in life — or death," the Elder One informed, as he brandished a strange orb from the depths of his tattered robes. Deep grooves ran in lines and whorls across its surface, and in the creature's hand it sparked to life with strange red magic.

Distantly, she recalled scraps of Solas's words from before, speaking of such an artifact.

So that is where the mark originated, Tephra mused.

She idly wondered if she would live to report that information to anyone.

The would-be god continued, as red energy began to crackle and arc through the air as magic flared and unfurled from that horrible object in his grasp, "I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now."

Anchor?

When the Elder One thrust his free hand towards her, the mark in her hand burst to life with an intensity that knifed its way through the entirety of her being. The pain brought her shamefully to her knees, as she buckled beneath its weight.

Red energy barreled from the orb and snaked the length of her arm, cinching like a vice.

Pain beyond comprehension lanced through every piece of her, contorting her body and locking her in place. However she might have screamed, it strangled and clutched in her throat, as her lungs refused to work.

Through the din of agony rushing through her ears, she heard him continue on as though he spoke not for her, but for some other — or perhaps, he simply spoke to his own ego, as she was in no position to appreciate his soliloquy.

"It is your fault, Herald. You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying you stole its purpose. I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as "touched", what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens. And you used the Anchor to undo my work — the gall!"

She could barely focus on anything outside the pain, as she struggled to draw air into her lungs, and demanded, "What is this fucking thing meant to do?!"

But she already knew the answer, didn't she?

She had seen it in that terrible dead future.

And she had felt it just before she closed the Breach.

It did not simply manipulate the Veil, nor simply stitch the tears in it, but also had the terrifying possibility — the terrifying purpose — of bringing down the Veil itself.

"It is supposed to bring certainty where there is none. For you, the certainty that I would always come for it."

Her vision blurred as the pain crescendoed. She felt a violent tug through her entire being, as it seemed the Elder One meant to tear the mark from her even if it broke every last bone in her body.

And then all at once, it ceased.

Tephra cried out, as she fell forward onto hands, forehead pressed down into the slush and gravel.

The mark remained, burning in the cradle of her fist, burning bright and angry in her peripheral.

The Elder One was on her before her senses fully returned to her, before she could even begin to rise again. He grabbed her wrist with crushing force and lifted her into the air as though she were nothing but a ragdoll, and brought her face close to his as he set off on another tirade, "I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the Empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers."

Her shoulder burned as the muscles strained to support the weight of her own body, as she struggled to follow Corypheus's rant.

Breached the Fade?

She knew of no event in history like the Breach. Had he meant on a smaller scale? Had he used that strange orb, or a different means of magic?

"For a thousand years I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will the return under no name but my own. To champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world."

Tevinter.

The blights.

Ancient magisters who'd breached the Golden City and unleashed the darkspawn upon them all.

She remembered now, the human stories passed amongst traders, detailed in books she'd handled before.

It was a story — a myth — and yet he spoke of it as casually as one would the weather. As though he himself had strolled through those gates, had beheld the seat of the Andrastian god.

Despite the precarious nature of her situation and the dismal odds of surviving it, her mind continued to latch onto each scrap of information the twisted creature gave.

Anything that might be of use to her people.

"Beg that I succeed," the Elder One sneered, as he drew her closer, arm coiled with tension as his grip tightened. "For I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty."

And then with a bone-snapping ferocity, he hurled her through the air. She felt something give in her shoulder with an unsettling snap, just before her body slammed into the framework of the trebuchet. Her head snapped against the wood just above her ear, and she felt the hot rush of blood down the side of her neck. Cinder and ash scattered around her, but the flames were not near enough to reach her.

Dazed, Tephra struggled to her feet, clutching at her shoulder. Her legs shook with effort, as what little remained of her strength dwindled and died.

She did not know what brought her to her feet, did not know from what secret reserve this scrap of power and defiance originated from. Yet she stood, swaying a step, but steadied herself to face him.

"The anchor is permanent," the Elder One declared. As he began toward her, the dragon drew in beside him, lurking ever closer. "You have spoilt it with your stumbling. So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation — and god — it requires."

His demented grandstanding and ambition was little more than a load of piss, as none of it mattered anymore.

The Breach was closed.

He had tried, and failed, to take the Anchor.

As Tephra rested against the guardrail beside the crank wheel, realization washed over her in a stark cold shock.

If she died, then perhaps it would die with her.

It would be lost not only to him, but to anyone who endeavored to use it.

It all could be ended so easily, so simply.

A sudden, faint glimmer caught her eye.

Beyond the monstrosity and his dragon, far beyond what was left of the walls of Haven, far into the distant foothills, a single flare took flight and burned a slow path through the night sky.

A ragged sigh tore itself free of her, and her sight blurred as relief washed over her.

It was done.

The people of Haven were safe beyond the trees in the foothills of the mountain, out of the path of the trebuchet.

"And you," the Elder One hissed — a fricative sound, like sandpaper rustling against itself — as he seized her by the throat and crushed her against the railing behind her. "I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die."

She clawed ineffectually at the flesh of his hand with gloved hands. She felt as her throat began to close and panic crept in, but she pushed it away as she struggled to calm herself.

They are safe, she reminded herself, even as her lungs began to burn from the lack of oxygen.

He was safe.

Tephra braced a boot against the crank wheel, and shifted her hip to brace her body against the railing for maximum leverage.

"You first," she rasped, barely above a croak, and kicked with all her strength.

As gears and pulleys began to click and clank around them, spinning and whirring as the machinery fired up, Corypheus released her as realization set in.

The locks securing the counterweight released, and sent it plummeting to the platform. The beam arced sharply, and above them, the trebuchet loosed its payload.

It sailed off into the night, right toward the crest of the nearest peak.

The Elder One made a sound of disgust, as he was forced to retreat. He mounted the dragon, and took flight.

The mountain wouldn't claim him, but it would claim what remained of his army that still lurked in Haven and its environs.

There was nothing left to do, but to run.

It seemed such a futile thing to do, as nowhere in Haven would be safe from the impending deluge of snow and rock, and there was no way that she could outrun it.

Yet still, she ran.

It was an entirely primal response — an unthinking, automatic function of self-preservation, however fruitless. The way a body forced itself to gasp for air just before death, even though the spirit had already passed.

There was a gut-wrenching clamor behind her and the world seemed to break and shatter beneath the weight of the avalanche, but she dared not look back. She launched herself free of the platform where the trebuchet sat, just as the deafening roar of impact filled her ears. She tumbled blindly, and felt her body propelled through shattering planks, as snow and dirt choked her senses.

The world went black as she felt herself driven down into the earth, buried beneath the mountain she'd brought down.

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Author's Notes: Forgive the heavy usage of in-game dialogue, but given that this is a critical part of the plot, it remains included.

There is much meta and in-game lore surrounding the true nature of the Old Ones, (and the Forgotten Ones), which I'm taking some liberties with. And banter between Solas and Cassandra adds to my suspicion, as well. This will be furthered explored and expanded on in the future.

Vir suledin sa'vunin. — May we endure one more day. (Possibly, I'm taking liberties with the language here.)

p.s. I'm thirsty for feedback, y'all. Like that thing I did in that one scene? Did I get something terribly wrong about x/y/z? Feel free to tell me all about it.