Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!

When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.

A/N: ***WARNING*** NSFW material contained within. This chapter is full of some dark stuff so I can't really direct you away from it. If you shy away from that sort of subject matter, you'll sadly have to skip the whole thing. It's nothing, in my opinion, that is overtly vulgar - but it is more than just a passing mention of some pretty twisted things that have been brewing and so I felt the need to warn you before you read.

I am also posting this chapter without beta, and will be uploading edits as soon as they are completed. My sincerest apologies in advance if there is anything horribly awry. I did try to catch everything!

Antivan Translations: 1. Butcher's Son, 2. Grizzly Shadow, 3. Lady Death, 4. The things I will do for this woman.

Muse Music: Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson (cover of Eurythmics song)

***Re-posted with minor edits 12/15/2011***

Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers!

Happy Reading!

-Frayed One

Chapter Twenty: Darkness Falls

"Your glare suggests that you do not care for my presence, Velanna." Nathaniel noted, tossing a passing glance in the elf's direction as she lumbered along to his right.

Elissa had been livid to find their horses missing when they'd emerged from the wood and was now driving them like cattle to make up for their lacking. It was only Nathaniel's repeated assurances that Nocturne had undoubtedly led the valuable animals back to The Keep when the company had been waylaid for so long that had kept her temper in check for the moment.

He'd fallen back to run rear guard for the group and ensure the Dalish woman's safety as she lost momentum. He could tell she was near complete exhaustion though she would certainly never admit it.

"I am simply wondering how your kind can dare to call yourselves nobles." Velanna snorted, her eyes narrowing as she glared holes into Elissa's back. The Commander had found it necessary to point out as frequently and as loudly as possible how the lazy elf was responsible for slowing the pace. "It seems ironic. There is very little nobility in your behavior."

"We like irony." Nathaniel replied, tossing the errant stone he'd been playing with off to the side of the main path. "It also rolls off the tongue far better than oppressors."

"Wonderful." Velanna huffed, folding her arms across her chest. "Yet another funny human. Does she recruit only fools and jesters?"

"Though I may be a fool, I am certainly no jester." Nathaniel chuckled, smirking when he remembered Elissa telling him exactly how funny he wasn't on many an occasion. "Nor would I dare lighten your mood, my lady."

The elf grunted at him and narrowed her eyes even further, finally turning her head away to stare off into the tree line. At the front, he could see Zevran attempting to convince Elissa to make camp for the night. Daylight was quickly fading and more of their party than Velanna had now fallen victim to fatigue and hunger.

"My lady…" Velanna grumbled, drawing his eyes back again. "That is such a human thing to call someone. I'm sure your Commander relishes such useless frivolity."

"Elissa?" Nathaniel snorted, rolling his eyes, "She hates it, actually. And she's to be your Commander fairly soon, Velanna. It might do you some good to remember that." He watched her bristling, and immediately tried to soothe the damage he had done. The last thing they needed was another angry female set loose among them. "I think you're a lovely woman, and due some respect. So I call you a lady. It is how I was raised, and how others should be."

"And now you're mocking me." Velanna insisted, her irritated glare becoming more pronounced even in the growing shadows.

"I assure you, I am not." Nathaniel said, raising up his hands in placation. "I've simply observed that the others have not given you much of a chance since you joined us. It was me on the outside not so long ago, and I would not see another go through such an induction into our midst. Not when I can offer a simple kindness to ease the transition."

"Well... stop it!" Velanna insisted, completely flustered and oddly flushed as she increased her pace to leave his side.

He allowed himself a small chuckle as she moved away, enjoying the light flirtation between them, caustic though it was. Up ahead, Elissa had agreed to stop and was moving them off into a clearing to set camp for the night.

Elissa had not eaten nor taken even a moment's rest since they'd made camp. Even now she paced the boundaries of the clearing like a restless animal, flipping her blades around in her hands as though she was merely twirling children's batons. It was unsettling to everyone, though all feared to speak to her of it.

"Don't you think someone should bring her some food?" Sigrun suggested, looking first to Oghren who swore under his breath and disappeared into his tent forcing her to turn her plea to the rest of the group. "At least go talk to her?"

"You Wardens sort your own problems out." Velanna snorted, gathering up her things and going to the tent Zevran had given her when Elissa offered to share with him. "Until I take your Joining, I owe nothing to that lunatic. And even then I won't owe any of you."

"Nooo way!" Anders said, shaking his hands emphatically as he shoved his empty bowl into the washbasin. "The last time we spoke she threatened to kill me. I'd rather not try again while she's so knife happy."

"I don't think we have that kind of relationship yet…" Sigrun muttered, standing slowly with the unsettling realization that she may have to approach the temperamental woman if no one else had the courage. "Where is that Assassin when you need him?"

"I'll go." Nathaniel offered, handing his bowl over to Anders as he stood.

"You can't have a conversation with her even when she's not a few cards short of having lost the full deck." Anders snorted, rolling his eyes as he snatched the bowl from The Archer's hand. "If you go poking about at her tonight, she's likely to snap and kill us all. I'm not ready to meet the Maker yet, thanks."

"Well, I'm the only one willing to do it and we all agree someone has to, even Oghren who's hiding in his tent like a bloody child!" Nathaniel hissed, eliciting an irritable grunt of agreement from the dwarf. "I am capable of self restraint…"

He stalked off into the tree line after that, willing those words to be true. They certainly used to be. In fact, for most of his life the words most often used to describe the man had been stoic and reserved. But from the moment he'd found Elissa again; all that he had once been unraveled, and then amplified itself ten fold the very second they'd crossed those forbidden boundaries in The Fade. Now, the amount of self control he could manage seemed to depend directly on what Elissa herself was capable of, which, at the moment appeared to be very little.

"It is not yet your watch, Hentes Fia." A voice whispered, and Nathaniel who was usually very good at detecting when he was being watched, turned with no small amount of surprise to watch Zevran emerge from the shadows of the nearby trees.

"My father was no butcher." Nathaniel replied, watching the elf with careful eyes and remembering the less than amicable end of their last conversation.

"Your father was indeed a butcher, this I know from first hand experience. And that is just one among many less desirable terms with which I can choose to label the man. However, such things are an insult to him, not to you." Zevran muttered, his words riddles as always. "To be a butcher's son, is not necessarily to be a butcher. Though you should know, I am well aware that you have vast experience in my field. There are a great many Crows stationed across the Free Marches and all tell the tales of El Sombra Cinzenta."

"If you know of me, then those tales are undeserved." Nathaniel responded, barely flinching with the revelation that The Assassin knew of his past, though he had worked hard to keep it well hidden.

"I did not know for certain, merely suspected, until you so kindly offered your verification." Zevran smirked, folding his arms across his chest. "As to whether the tales of your prowess are justified, I could not speak to such things. Every time I have seen you wield a blade, I have watched as you intentionally pulled or fumbled those strikes to make yourself seem less proficient. And that is curious indeed."

"The things I did during my years in the Free Marches… I did what I had to do to survive, to do the duty I thought I owed to my father, and to return to Elissa the man I believed she deserved." Nathaniel offered in way of explanation. "Those are not years of my life in which I hold any sense of pride. And they are my sins to bear – not more detritus to be laid upon her shoulders."

"I can assure you, my Warden will not fault you for these things." Zevran replied, raising an eyebrow. "If there is one thing Doamna Mortii understands, it is the smaller sins we few must offer up in exchange for the salvation of the world."

"It isn't that I don't think she would understand…" Nathaniel began, his gray eyes shifting off into the darkness of the night wood.

"Ah, it is because you enjoyed it then… the kill. The sweet release that can only be found in that moment when your hands hold the power to put out the spark of light in someone else's eyes." Zevran offered, watching the other man swallow heavily though he still did not meet his eyes. It was all the answer he needed, and nothing he hadn't already begun to decipher on his own. "That is neither a pleasure nor a shame exclusive to assassins, my friend. You should speak to her of these sins of yours. I think you would find yourself surprised at the limits of her... tolerance." He smiled at the non-reaction but continued anyway. "She will find out, regardless. She always does."

"Is that a threat?" Nathaniel asked, eyes narrowed and threatening, as he finally turned to look the elf in the face.

"I will not reveal your secret to her. Not this time. I may no longer be a Crow, but I still value the code of the brotherhood. Assassins, we do not reveal one another, no? Not unless it is needed to claim a mark or to protect a master." Zevran answered, catching Nathaniel's quick nod of gratitude and offering his own in reply. "I, also, do not intend to interfere with your quest to seek her out this night… I assume that is what you've come out here to do."

"Then you have my thanks on both accords." Nathaniel replied, starting to move away in her direction.

"I will offer you some words of warning, if you would hear them…" Zevran called after him, stilling his feet and forcing him to glance back over his shoulder and seek out the man's silhouette among the darkness. "The barrier is thin now. It cannot be rebuilt until we reach The Peak, if it is even possible. Tread lightly lest you fall in and drag us all behind you."

Nathaniel didn't ask questions, simply nodded his head and disappeared into the shadows. He'd kept himself on a short leash for many years. He had learned long ago not to trust himself or his actions otherwise; long before he knew the horrors of which his father was truly capable. But his hold on those tediously placed restraints was slipping as Elissa began to show signs of weakening in her personal battle with the same dark desires. He did not need the elf to tell him these things; he felt it. He'd felt it the moment she opened her eyes on the floor of The Architect's cell. He did not know what it was, this need that had awakened in her, this all consuming hunger that could barely be contained. He only knew that she was fighting it, and she was losing.

Zevran, however, had known this moment was coming for years; though he could never have told you the specifics before hand. The swamp witch had warned him of Elissa's decline as a parting gift the day she vanished from their lives to carry and birth Gods only knew what into the world. He cursed her again, and her equally prophetic mother for leaving him here in this place where he alone knew some part of what was coming. And where he alone could do what was necessary to keep fate on course.

"Le cose che farò per questa donna!" Zevran muttered, heading in the opposite direction from which Nathaniel had just disappeared.

Nathaniel could hear Elissa's footsteps long before he saw her; that and the quick flick of her knives through the air called out to him and directed his own footfalls like a trail of breadcrumbs she'd left to guide his way home. Most anyone else would have noticed nothing but the wind in the trees and the sounds of the night creatures, but his tracking skills had always been exceptional. If you added to that his tainted blood and the way his soul was now intricately bound to her own – she should have expected he was coming; and yet, she did not.

He was only a few seconds from calling out to her when she spun on him mid stride. It was a movement so subtle and so fast he never saw it coming, not until he found the point of her blade pressed against the soft flesh of his throat once again. He saw it bloom there in her eyes; that spark of desire, that brief moment when she considered pressing the blade home just to watch him die. He also saw her fight it down when the still rational parts of her mind recognized who he was and understood that he hadn't come there to harm her.

"If you have to see me bleed to keep your sanity, then do it." Nathaniel said, holding her eyes and watching the slow predatory tilt of her head as she tried to puzzle the hidden meaning in his words. "I don't want to die, Elissa… but you seem to have a need to inflict pain that you can no longer suppress so, if hurting me will keep you from killing someone else, then I offer myself up to you willingly."

"You should not say such things to me…" Elissa whispered, reaching up to grip his jaw hard in her free hand. She leaned in for a moment, her emerald eyes glittering dangerously in the moonlight as she struggled with his offer, finally snapping her hands away to run her fingers through her tousled hair. "You wouldn't if you knew…"

He breathed a silent sigh of relief that his offer had done what he intended and diffused rather than intrigued her. She could just as easily have opened his throat, and Anders would have never made it to him in time to repair the damage - if the mage even cared.

"If I knew what? That something has awakened in you, something that's burning you up from the inside like wildfire?" he answered, unsurprised when her head snapped back to him and sent her stalking back in his direction.

"Have you been poking about in my head again?" she accused, the sharp tip of her wicked blade glinting in the moonlight as she pointed it in his direction.

"No, and I wouldn't need to. I can sense more than enough through your emotions, and we have all seen the changes in your behavior." Nathaniel replied, watching her relax again when she knew what little of her mind remained her own, she still kept well guarded. "They're afraid of you, Elissa. Your own friends. Even Anders wouldn't come to check on you and I can't blame him seeing as you threatened to kill him earlier this afternoon for calling you out on how you'd treated that Warden in the mines."

"What about you?" Elissa asked, eyes latching on to him and forcing a confession. "Are you afraid of me?"

"No." he said, hesitant to say more as he knew she was reading him. He could feel her fingers prickling away in the edges of his mind.

"Liar." she laughed; leaning in so close it became a visceral struggle not to kiss her before she turned on heel and paced away again.

"I am not afraid of you." Nathaniel insisted, watching her eyes flick back over to him and narrow. "I am afraid of what is happening to you, and afraid of how little fight you have left. You are stronger than this, Elissa. You are better than this."

"I suggest you pray, Nathaniel. Pray to whatever Gods you hold dear that you are right. Pray that I am stronger, that I am better." Elissa hissed, flickering away into the shadow so he could not follow. "And until we reach Soldier's Peak, stay away from me. All of you. I cannot guarantee your safety otherwise."

She was gone after that, though he tried to track her. There were no footprints, no sounds, and no trace of anything through the conduit that linked their souls. She simply wasn't there.

Nathaniel went back to camp shaken and weary, and haggard by the knowledge that there would be little sleep before his watch.

Elissa tilted the vial up one last time, thumping the sides with shaking fingers to get the last bitter remnants to fall free on her tongue before slinging the rust colored glass into the side brush. It had lasted as long as it could, but now it was gone and they were still a day's journey from the gates of Soldier's Peak.

She could feel the descent starting already; that uncomfortable prickle crawling deep inside her bones that always came in the beginning. It was as though she could feel something growing inside her; unfolding and expanding, its greedy limbs anxious for far more space than her meager body could provide. It pressed and tugged at her skin, pulling it tighter and tighter until she desired nothing more than to peel it back layer by Maker forsaken layer and let loose this thing within her that needed to breathe.

As it progressed, she became acutely aware of the energy pulsing through every living thing that surrounded her. The slow rhythmic breathing of even the smallest woodland creature whispered to her its location, marking it out in her mind like a line in the darkest charcoal against the birch white parchment of a map. The amplified heart rates of her companions as she pushed them ever forward pounded in her ears in layers like a symphony; one over another over another. The warm rush of blood in their veins was the sweetest sound of all; pushing that fragile spark of life through those soft and oh so vulnerable bodies.

It was then that Elissa began to pray. Not the half mocking prayers she had often offered up to the Maker since she lost her faith many years before; but the reverent prayers of the truly devout, or at least those who wished to be. She prayed for darkspawn or blighted creatures or a massive swarm of bandits; it was unspecific, she did not care. It could be anything, anything at all, so long as it could sate her growing need to open something living up and cover herself in the red soul that beat and surged and flowed inside it. Anything to keep from losing herself to this madness once and for all.

In her tortured mind, she saw The Architect. Evolve, he had said… and evolve she was, though into what she did not know.

The higher into the mountains they moved, the colder it got, and those who were not built for and accustomed to the less hospitable temperatures, like Nathaniel and Elissa who had been raised there, were now forced to layer their clothing and wrap in blankets to shield themselves against the elements. Nathaniel himself eventually conceded to drawing on another layer beneath his chest piece and a second pair of socks. Indeed, the only one who seemed not to suffer in the face of the frigid temperatures was Elissa, who was steadily losing her clothing as others gained more.

Nathaniel watched her send The Assassin dashing ahead a little under a half hour before, and the look in the elf's eyes had told him everything he needed to know. Elissa was losing what little control she had left and he had pressed ahead alone to attempt to bring back whatever it was she kept in those vials in an attempt to sustain her.

The pair had been subtly attempting to gather a specific list of herbs for days, but the meager offerings of their current surroundings had been unable to provide all that they needed even when supplemented with what little they could request from Anders without drawing too much suspicion. Nathaniel was no botanist, but he knew enough from his poisons to identify that at least part of her tonic was a sedative; and a powerful one at that. This knowledge did little to assuage his fears, particularly when he saw Elissa swaying on the path ahead of them as she popped loose her chest plate and tossed it haphazardly into the snow.

"Oghren… Sigrun…" Elissa rasped, leaning forward with one hand braced against her knees while the other scratched at the newly exposed skin of her throat and upper chest as though she wanted to claw it right off. "I need you to run ahead and find Zevran. Tell him what is happening and bring him back here regardless of whether he has completed what I sent him to do."

"But Commander, you're…" Sigrun said, eying her warily as she fell into the snow and cold grass on her knees.

"Go, now! Oghren knows the way." Elissa insisted, showing her eyes to the unusually subdued woman just long enough to press her point. "If you cannot find him, find The Peak and bring him back from there. Do not come back this way without him, no matter what you hear. Am I understood?"

"Aye." Oghren said, tugging a frightened Sigrun in his wake.

"Now… the rest of you…" Elissa continued, stopping when a powerful cramp twisted its way across her abdomen and doubled her over in pain. She cried out, retching up a thick string of black tainted blood into the melting snow before pressing her forehead against the cool damp earth. "The rest of you must either subdue me or run. Run as far and as fast as you can and do not look back. Oghren will know where to look for you when it is safe."

"Subdue you? Run?" Anders said, bending over to press a hand to her forehead before she shoved him away. "You're vomiting up tainted blood and practically burning with fever! You don't need to be put out or abandoned, you need a healer! Let me help you!"

"There is no help for me now, Anders. None that you can offer." Elissa hissed, pressing her face into the ground harder as the last threads of her sanity broke free and slipped through her fingers. "Throw the strongest glyphs you have on me, shackle me, knock me out cold or run away! But whatever you do, do it fast… I cannot hold it inside for much longer…"

Anders looked to Nathaniel, but there was nothing in his face that didn't echo the confusion and fear he was certain reflected in his own. Even Velanna seemed uncertain, her usual haughty sneer replaced with a subdued look of terror. As they considered their options, they began to hear low laughter drifting up from Elissa's crumpled body. It started soft, and barely audible but quickly gained in volume until it was barking out at them – cold and almost maniacal as it shook its way out from deep inside.

"It's too cold out here for your twisted attempts at humor shem!" Velanna spat, reaching down to yank at Elissa's arm before either Anders or Nathaniel could stop her. They watched Elissa's arm draw back as she rose, and then uncoil like a tight spring, bringing her fist forward in a blow so powerful it sent the elf flying several feet away. Velanna landed in a bush, and did not move afterward.

"Oh! Now that felt goooooood!" Elissa said, her full mouth curling up in a distinctly satisfied smile as she turned to the two men behind her. "I have wanted to punch that cantankerous half-naked bitch in her mouth since she popped up out of the dirt."

As she turned, she opened her eyes and what they saw there shook them both. Gone were the emotive emeralds of her iris. Gone were the whites as well. Gone was any semblance of humanity, any marker of a soul. In its place there was a void of the deepest crimson, so deep that it could easily be mistaken for black.

"Maker, Elissa! What has that demon done to you?" Anders asked, his face contorting with both sorrow and pity.

"Done to me?" Elissa snorted, continuing to smile as she paced. She spread out her arms and breathed deeply. "Nothing, and everything! He has freed me from those pesky constraints that held me down. I have never felt so good, so limitless, so alive… speaking of which…" her smile grew impossibly wider as she turned back to them, "Who shall I play with next, hmm? The archer or the mage?"

"You don't know what you're saying." Anders muttered, unwittingly making her decision as he attempted to reason with a thing that had lost such capacity long ago. "You're sick, Elissa. You need help. Let me help you."

Elissa paced up to and past him, stalking by like a hunter herding prey and relishing the frightened twitch of his eyes followed by a full turn of his body just to keep her in his field of vision. She lurched forward then, holding her face in her hands and convulsing for a few seconds before pulling back up again.

"Anders? I… what's happening to me… what..?" Elissa sobbed, her hands shaking as she drew them down from her now normal eyes. She turned her face up to the mage, several tears breaking free to run loose down her chin as she held her arms out to him.

"No, Anders… don't...!" Nathaniel cried out as the mage rushed forward into Elissa grasp.

"Shhh…" Elissa soundlessly mouthed back to him, eyes fading back into darkness as the predatory smile returned.

"Back away from her, Anders!" Nathaniel insisted, voice now hard with alarm. "Anders! Listen to me… that is not Elissa! That thing is not..."

"What are you talking about? I just looked at her, and I…" Anders said, pulling back far enough to find himself nose to nose with the woman, her dark soulless eyes drawing him in like a vortex that would claim so many men of the sea.

"Men. How shameful it is to call you the stronger sex when you are so easily done in by a woman's many charms." Elissa chuckled, running a finger lightly down Anders' jaw and relishing the shiver that passed through his body as his eyes fluttered shut from the sensation. "Just a few well shed tears, a trembling pout, the promise of a kiss or the... acts that might follow. That's all it ever takes and you are putty in our hands willing to be molded into whatever we can imagine."

Her fingers found his throat then, and she sank them hard into the flesh there pressing down against his windpipe. She watched his eyes snap back open as he clawed frantically at her hand and arm in his search for release.

"Shhh…" Elissa repeated, tilting her head with a furrow of her brow that would almost have appeared sympathetic had it not been for the empty eyes and the sickening smile that still curved up her lovely mouth.

She was so focused on the delicious fear in the mage's eyes that she did not notice Nathaniel drawing his bow and nocking an arrow. She did not seem to notice him at all until that arrow pierced the flesh of her forearm and snapped her hollow gaze in his direction.

"Oh, my! A fighter!" Elissa hissed through clinched teeth, slinging Anders silent body over to the side like it was little more than a child's plaything and reaching down to loose the arrow from her arm. Nathaniel hadn't even slowed her, if anything he'd simply egged her on. "Please, lover… don't hold back on my account. Think of it as foreplay." She pulled loose her swords with a grin, watching him scramble to gain position on her as she advanced. "Though, I'd lose the bow. I'll not give you another chance to take a shot at me."

He tossed his bow to the ground, knowing she was not lying, and frantically pulled free the daggers she had given him upon his arrival. The Thorns of the Gods she had called them, and he prayed to those gods the names proved true.

Zevran had been right in his assessment of Nathaniel's melee prowess. Though he preferred and was highly skilled as an archer, he was also deadly with a blade, and in particular with daggers. He did not hold back this time, knowing that whatever she was, Elissa was no longer capable of doing anything of the sort herself. This would be a fight for his life and for hers.

For a while they were balanced, blow for blow. Each twist and turn and strike perfectly answered with the skill of the other. But then the balance shifted, and Nathaniel realized that though he had been offering up his full arsenal, Elissa had been holding back. Whether she had been learning his patterns well enough to read his attacks or simply drawing out her so called foreplay, he couldn't say. Either way now that she had unleashed her full strength upon him, he found himself losing ground quickly. It didn't take her long after that to disarm him and have him pinned down to the dirt with her wicked little dagger at his throat.

"Aw… over so soon? Tsk." she pouted, leaning in toward him and stroking her thumb along his face. "And I was just starting to enjoy myself."

"Then let me up and we shall continue." Nathaniel panted, watching her smile curve up again and resisting the urge to return it.

"Tempting… but, no. Besides… I think I like you here pinned down between my thighs…" Elissa whispered, bouncing her hips against him slightly and listening to the groan she pulled out in response. "And you like it too, don't you? I can see it… feel it…" she ground against him again and he couldn't help but respond, his traitorous body overriding the fear and disgust in his mind for reacting to such a twisted seduction. "I had originally thought to bleed you dry for daring to raise your bow to me… but, perhaps I will keep you instead…" she traced the edge of her blade along his face and down his throat. "What say you, Nathaniel? Have you any of your father's darkness trapped inside clawing to get out?"

He flailed against her furiously then, forcing her to pin his arms down to the ground with her hands, and press him down until her face was inches from his own. She laughed, low and sultry; teasing his lips with the soft caresses of her own until he was straining to make claim against them and giving himself over to the sick desires he kept locked away in the deepest corners of his mind.

"There it is…" Elissa encouraged, releasing his hands to bring her blade back down against his skin once more and relishing the feeling of his lips curling into a smile against her own.

He tugged her down then, one hand pulling hard at her hair and crushing her mouth against his own while the fingertips of his other dug deep into the flesh of her hip and pressed her firm against the growing evidence of his desire. He hissed when he felt the sharp tip of her dagger press into the skin of his upper chest, but did not pull away or stop her from continuing. If anything it only increased his need for her, and his desire to see her bleed much the same.

She pulled away from his mouth, bending down to lick and bite along his neck down to where she'd made the first cut. He was moaning and writhing beneath her, unable to summon any of his normal self-control. Unable to do anything to stop her when she pressed the blade even deeper into his flesh.

"Mmm… so lovely…" Elissa sighed, clearly stimulated by the screaming she wrenched out of him before turning back to attempt to soothe his temper. "Shh... Don't worry, my darling. It's barely a nick. Nothing that will kill or damage this body. I just wanted to see how much you could take before we continue…"

She took his mouth back then, pulling the blade free and allowing him to wrap his fingers around the hilt with her as he tugged her back hard against him and stifled another moan against her lips. She thought of cutting him again, but the thought died in her mind as she felt a familiar tension beginning in her musculature.

She snapped her head up then, but it was too late. Anders had already made it to the end of his incantation and she was seizing up, lost to the hold of his paralysis.

"Get up, Howe!" Anders hissed, knowing that the spell would not hold her for long and needing the other man to refocus and work with Velanna to organize a new plan.

Nathaniel came back to himself quickly, fighting down the urge to be sick at the thoughts of what he'd just done and what he would have been willing to do had Anders not intervened.

"I will flay you alive, mage." Elissa spat, the void of her eyes narrowed on him. "When this spell fails, and it will, I will peel your skin off slowly and I will wear it!"

"She will, you know." Anders insisted, barely able to keep his composure. "She'll kill us all. We need a plan."

"We layer the spells for now." Velanna said, holding still while Nathaniel pressed a bandage to the open wound on her temple. "We layer them and hope the dwarves come back with her pet fast enough to put her down for good."

By the time Zevran made it back to them, both mages were long spent on mana and half lyrium addled from keeping Elissa locked in the constraints of the spell. The elf made eye contact with Nathaniel long enough to read anything he needed to know, then made his way over to a spitting mad Elissa to deliver a quick cut with his blade that rendered her completely unconscious. It was lost on no one that his blade had obviously been coated with that particular toxin for some time.

"Keep straight on the path, do not diverge. There will be men waiting for you at the gates to escort you into The Peak." Zevran said, scooping her up into his arms and disappearing into the tree line.

The three remaining said little as they made their way through the woods. All were shaken by their experience and no one was comfortable enough with their company to address anything they might have been thinking.

The closer they came to Soldier's Peak, the more unusual Nathaniel's behavior became. It took Anders a long time to pick up on it, and even longer to make the necessary connections, but as they drew within site of the gate what was happening suddenly became clear and he froze the archer in place with the last of his mana reserves.

"Have you lost your mind, shem?" Velanna hissed, stumbling over to check on the other man and glaring back in Anders' direction.

"Probably." Anders replied, yelling up to the guardsmen and waving them in their direction. "This man needs to be knocked out and carried inside. At the very least you will want to isolate him until the Commander is seen to, though he may need to be restrained or even sedated for the duration. It's hard to say at this point."

The guards looked at him as though he had lost his mind. To them Nathaniel appeared fine, though irritated which was understandable all things considered.

"Well, don't just stand there!" Anders insisted, shoving one of them. "Hit him over the head, stick him with poison, I don't care what you do just knock him out! Whatever is affecting the Commander is affecting him too, now do as I ask. That spell won't last much longer and I have no more mana to cast it again."

The guards hesitated for a moment longer, but eventually one of them produced a small dagger and dropped Nathaniel with a quick prick from it, motioning several others in for assistance and dragging him into The Peak.