Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly imagine. 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 Tethras (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (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! Not only is there some NSFW content in this chapter, but it is very, very dark.

Muse Music: Hurricane by 30 Seconds to Mars and When Did This Storm Begin? by Shiny Toy Guns.

Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers and extra special thanks to my betas artemiskat and Snarkoleptic for this one. It was hard for me to get out, and I'm certain not all that easy to read.

Happy Reading!

-Frayed One

Chapter Forty-Seven: Vengeance

"The taste of copper."

I looked up to find The Hero leaning casually inside my doorway, arms folded across her chest as she waited for me to acknowledge what she had just said.

"Hmm?" I shuffled some papers around, attempting to disguise the two maps Hawke had handed off to me several days before with explicit instruction that she not get a look at them and watched her stroll into the room.

"That's the first thing I remember after waking up in the basement of the Vaughn Estate." She settled down at the table, not once shifting her eyes from my face – but that's what she did.

Slight of hand, misdirection – only ever letting you see what she wanted you to see – feeding you whatever it was you wanted from one hand while she got the dagger to your throat with the other. She was there because she wanted something, I was smart enough to know that – but she was smart enough to know exactly what to say to make me forget about whatever it was I was supposed to be hiding.

"I asked you about that?" My turn to drop a smoke screen. "I must have been feeling brave or suicidal. Either way, I never expected you would answer it."

"Well I am, unless you'd like me to stop talking." Bluff called, smoke parted, she leaned back in her chair knowing she had what she came for.

"I'll get my notebook." I turned my back to retrieve it from a nearby shelf. It was only a few seconds, but that was more than enough to suit her purposes – leaving me none the wiser.

The taste of copper was nauseating, and Elissa turned her head and spat out a mouthful of blood against the already stained wood. She had no idea if it was her blood or someone else's, but as the fog began to clear and the pain from the bruising began to reassert itself she guessed it was more likely to be her own.

As her eyes focused, the room became familiar once again. She had been here before – Rendon's basement torture room – only then it had been the poor son of Bann Sighard chained to the rack for his father's disobedience. A quick tug of her arms rattled the metal that held her in place, and forced her back to the first time she had woken up.

Her legs and arms were virtually immobile against the splintered wood as the drug that had been slipped into her mug at The Pearl finally made its way out of her blood stream. It was hard to remember much about how she had gotten here, but the memory of a single voice was more than enough to drive her forward. Thomas Howe was alive.

She tilted her head up, unable to move much further beyond that, and looked around the room for anything that might be useful, anything that might offer the possibility of escape. That's when she found Nathaniel, stripped of his armor just as she had been, and chained to some sort of metal archway. The full weight of his body hung hard against the shackles, and Elissa worried for his shoulders if he did not wake soon.

"Nathaniel!" She could not speak much louder than a harsh whisper for fear of drawing any guards or Thomas himself down upon them. If they had any hope, it was in the element of surprise.

When Nathaniel still did not wake, she pushed herself into his mind – yelling and screaming and swearing – whatever it took to bring him back to consciousness.

"Elissa?" His head snapped up and he groaned as his joints felt the strain, pushing to his feet and seeking out her eyes where she lay across from him. "Maker… how? It's Thomas, he's—"

"Alive? Yes, funny how those who should be dead just keep sticking around." Thomas laughed, low and slow, as he came around the corner and into the room. "What's the matter, brother, you don't seem happy to see me?"

"I should have known!" Elissa hissed, rattling her restraints as she lurched in his direction with her fury. "When we couldn't find a body I should have combed Thedas for you and made sure you were dead!"

"But you didn't. I think… somewhere… deep down inside, you wanted to see me again." Thomas reached down then, trailing his fingers up Elissa's bare leg from calf to inner thigh, listening to Nathaniel begin to pull harder at his own restraints when he pressed his fingers against her small clothes as she fought to press her legs together.

"You disgust me!" Elissa spat at him, flinching when he snatched his hand back from its previous task and gripped her jaw hard to slam her head back against the table.

"Flattery will get you everywhere." Thomas kissed her then, squeezing her jaw until she was forced to open her mouth and allow his tongue inside.

His other hand slipped inside the loose ties of her shirt, shoving her breast band down and digging into her flesh. It was awful, but it gave Elissa the distraction she needed and so she bit down on Thomas' tongue hard enough to take a piece of it. He swung without thinking, splitting her lip and bruising her jaw – but Elissa smiled through it, spitting out a mouthful of his blood and a chunk of his tongue onto the table beside her.

"You'll regret that, bitch. I can promise you that." Thomas tugged a linen cloth out of his back pocket, pressing it against his mouth for a moment to stop the bleeding – finally giving up and tossing it to the floor in frustration, and striding over to the corner to pull one of Elissa's daggers loose from its scabbard. "I'd been debating what to do first – watch the look on your face while I carved up my brother – or watch the look on his face while I fuck the only woman he has ever loved. But it's hardly a choice anymore."

"If you touch her, Thomas, I swear I'll—" Nathaniel was beyond rage, he was both furious and terrified, and the sensation of those emotions had Elissa's heart racing as she fought against her restraints.

"You'll what, Nathaniel? Yell? Rattle your chains? Your threats are as meaningless now as they have ever been," Thomas snorted, running the end of Elissa's dagger along the thick scarring left behind by his father only a few rooms away from where she now lay. "It really is a shame Father marked you like this, but I'm sure you gave him no choice."

"Your father was a twisted bastard!" Elissa hissed, pulling her leg away from the blade before he could go any further.

"I'm sure he would rather have carved into you with his flesh." Thomas laughed when Elissa fought back a gag at the thought of it. "Surely you know that by now? He used to watch you getting out of the bath those last summers at Vigil's Keep, and then hire out some red-haired villager to act as a poor facsimile. Tell me, did he have you in the end?"

"Your father never had me, and neither will you!" Elissa struggled harder against the chains as Thomas settled himself onto the table, kneeling between her legs.

"Brave words from the woman strapped down to a table." Thomas tossed the blade into a corner, wanting both of his hands free and feeling secure in the quality of the… equipment… his father had installed.

He pressed her left leg down, bracing it with his knee then reaching up to rip open her smallclothes and expose the parts of her he most wanted access to. When he slid a finger inside of her, she attempted to shift away – but he dug his free hand into her hip – holding her in place while he clumsily attempted to elicit some sort of pleasured reaction from her body.

"Thomas, no! This is about me. It's always been about me. Carve me up, torture me, slit my throat, I don't care – just leave Elissa alone!" Nathaniel had gone from anger to pained pleas as he saw any hope he had of preventing what was about to happen slipping out of his hands.

"Torture you? What exactly is it you think I'm doing, brother?" Thomas laughed, working open his belt and shoving his pants and smallclothes down far enough to release himself from within them, then leaning down to press himself between Elissa's thighs.

"I won't beg you for anything! I won't scream! I won't give you anything you're looking for you sick fuck!" Elissa assured him, ignoring another wave of nausea as she felt his head pressing against her entrance.

"Won't you?" Thomas smiled, pushing forward hard, grunting in satisfaction as Nathaniel started to scream at him with every thrust of his hips.

Elissa was silent, just as she'd said she would be. Hissing once at the initial pain of forced penetration, and then lying there listless and cold, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop this. Her eyes caught Nathaniel's for a moment, and all she could see was pain. Feeling that was worse than what was happening to her, so she closed her eyes and turned away – shutting down the conduit and sealing away her conscious mind until the trauma had passed.

Looking at Nathaniel, she could see what Thomas had done to him after finishing with her. There were shallow cuts all over his bared body. Not enough to cause severe injury, but certainly enough to cause pain. He'd gone limp again, whether from exhaustion or broken will, she did not know – but seeing him like that was enough to motivate her again.

She wiggled her hands in the upper restraints, dislocating her left thumb as she had done so many times before. Alistair had been disgusted the first time she had done it, but the genetic abnormality allowed her to pry a hand loose from restraint with ease – and one hand was all she needed. She slid her left thumb back into place easily, taking in a deep breath before reaching for the right thumb and forcefully dislocating it – biting back the scream of pain that accompanied it and drawing her other hand out of its shackle. Another snap, and the thumb was back in place, leaving her free to push to a seated position.

It worried her that Nathaniel still wasn't moving, but she tried not to think about it – or the sticky remains of Thomas' seed drying against her bare thighs – instead focusing on the bolts that held the lower restraints seated against the wood of the table. Some of them were rusty, and shook when she yanked hard against the chain. If she was lucky, she had enough strength left to pry the whole thing loose.

Elissa braced herself against the table with her feet, wrapping her hands around the chains several times and then pulling with everything she had until the whole piece came loose and she dropped back hard against the table. It was done, and she had no time to think about how easy it had been. She threw her legs over the edge, dropping to the floor and darting over to Nathaniel – reaching to brush back his hair from his face.

"Nathaniel! Wake up! You have to wake up!" She brushed at his cheek, taking some of his weight onto her body as he started to regain consciousness and tried to stand.

"Elissa? How did you?"

"It doesn't matter. The point is, I did. We have to get you out of these." She reached up and inspected both the locks and the anchor points within the metal frame.

There was no hope of prying them loose, and even if Nathaniel could dislocate his thumbs his hands were far too wide to pull through the shackles. The locks would have to be picked.

"Well, well, well… look who's awake again?" Thomas chuckled when Elissa spun, spreading her arms out as though she could act as some sort of barrier between him and Nathaniel simply on sheer will alone.

"Don't come any closer! I'm not chained to a table this time, Thomas. If you touch either one of us I will kill you."

"Elissa. Be reasonable. You're nearly naked, battered and bruised and unarmed. What is it you think you can accomplish?" He continued to approach them, not at all threatened by Elissa's assertions.

"This is the last time I will warn you, Thomas. Stay back!" Elissa pressed back against Nathaniel, determined not to let Thomas take another shot at him if there was anything she could do to prevent it.

"All this time. Everything that Father did, everything my brother did. A king, a Warden, and a mage in your bed – and still you can't get past Nathaniel. What is it about him? I've always wondered. How did he manage to get himself so deep inside you that even I can't manage to carve him out?"

Elissa remained silent. She knew what it was he wanted her to say, but even now – in these the most dire of circumstances – she couldn't make her self give voice to the words. Instead she darted forward, taking a swing at Thomas' face and expecting that he would dodge poorly as he had done when they were children.

"I'm not a bumbling youth anymore, Elissa," Thomas snorted, catching her wrist in his hand, and dodging her follow-up swing with ease. "I've spent just as many years training as you have – getting stronger – learning some tricks of my own."

He struck out hard then with a closed fist, catching her hard in the chin and staggering her back against the table she had just managed to free herself from. Elissa shook her head, attempting to clear the stars, but she wasn't fast enough. Thomas was on her again, spinning her around and bending her over – scraping the skin on her uninjured cheek as he shoved her face into the table.

"If you want it so badly, I can certainly give it to you again. You only ever had to ask, Elissa."

Elissa felt the cold air of the room on her skin when Thomas flipped up her shirt, exposing her once again, and struggled harder when he kicked her legs apart – pressing apart her folds and sliding his fingers back inside her.

"No! No! Not again!" Elissa pushed against the table, but it stayed motionless – bolted hard into the floor. She could hear the rattle of chains as Nathaniel fought his restraints once again, and the shuffle of cloth as Thomas worked to get himself free of his clothing and take her another time.

But Thomas lost focus for a moment, so intent on his own imminent pleasure he failed to see that he'd planted his arm down far too close to Elissa's face. It didn't take much for her to sink her teeth into his arm, and she bit down hard – locking her jaw and listening to him shriek when he was forced to tear his own flesh loose to pull away from her.

"Crazy fucking whore!" Thomas pulled loose a dagger from his belt and swiped wildly at her, catching her in the upper chest and tearing down into the flesh of her breast.

Elissa screamed and backed away, spitting out another mouthful of his blood as her eyes searched the room for a weapon. Their eyes found it at the same time, enemies locking onto the Cousland seal pressed into the hilt of Elissa's sword. Elissa ran for it with everything she had, snatching it loose from the scabbard and spinning – only to find that Thomas had taken up position behind Nathaniel, holding him hard against his body as a human shield.

"Drop the sword, Cousland!" Thomas pressed the dagger into Nathaniel's throat, pulling out a stream of blood.

"You won't kill him. You enjoy making him watch far too much for that. If you kill him, your fun ends because you know you won't get anything from me!" Elissa paced forward with the sword, daring him to refute her.

"You're right. I have plans beyond just one evening. I can pace this out forever. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be so used up my brother will never want to touch you again!" Thomas smiled, tossing the dagger to the side in his arrogance. "But you have no options here. If you want to get at me, you'll have to go through Nathaniel. And I know you won't do that, just as you know I wouldn't kill him so easily."

"Do it, Elissa!" Nathaniel was adamant, and it staggered her.

"No, Nathaniel I…" She shook her head, unable to even consider the idea.

"I can't watch it anymore. I can't—" His voice sounded broken, but there was something in his eyes – something only she would recognize. "I just want it to be over."

This could kill you. Elissa reached out to him, needing to be certain before she could take such a risk.

I know, but it is our only chance. I trust you. Nathaniel nodded once, subtly, and then braced himself.

Elissa didn't think beyond that moment, aiming as best she could for the part of Nathaniel's abdomen least likely to contain something vital and pressing the blade through him and his brother in one clean slice. She held Nathaniel's eyes for a moment when it was done, knuckles white where they held to the hilt of the blade.

"I am so sorry." The words were whispered, and she released the blade, stalking around to finish what she'd started.

"I never believed it, but it really is true." Thomas was sputtering, trying to press against Nathaniel to pull himself loose from the blade that had passed through his torso and emerged just shy of his spine. "You have gone mad."

"Here, let me help you," Elissa hissed into his ear, grabbing his shoulders and yanking back hard, listening to the pop of his wound as the blade came free.

"You've killed him." Thomas laughed now, disbelief and a bit of his own lunacy mixing together to create humor where there was none.

"Go to your grave thinking that if it will make you feel better," Elissa said, shoving him back against the wall with her hand at his throat.

Thomas stared at her in wonder, marveling at just how badly he had misjudged her, and watched as in the span of a blink the green of her eyes disappeared into a darkness so deep it mirrored his soul. "What are you?"

"Death." Elissa's voice was there, but hidden within it was another – a timbre Thomas did not recognize – and he tried again to get away from her when the blood now soaking through her tunic and into his started to burn into his skin. "Today, I just happen to be yours."

Thomas kicked against the floor, fighting to get loose for a moment – but Elissa simply tilted her head with a smile, lifting him up off the floor effortlessly and pressing her fingers into his windpipe until she felt it collapsing beneath the strain. He struggled for a few moments longer, clawing at her arm, and then fell limp and silent. Another blink, and the darkness was gone – along with her strength – sending his body sliding to the floor, an empty pile of muscle and bone.

Elissa struggled to remember where she was for a moment, remembering when she heard Nathaniel moan indistinctly behind her.

"Nathaniel!" She knelt down, sifting through Thomas' pockets until she found a key and then rushing to Nathaniel's side. "Hold on, j-just… I've got the key."

She worked the locks, first one – and then the other, barely managing to catch him before he dropped to the floor. The movement jostled the blade and Nathaniel moaned again.

"I can't walk back like this, Elissa. Just leave me." Nathaniel knew she'd aimed as best she could, but he could feel the blood running down his torso and soaking into his smallclothes already. Whatever she'd nicked, it wasn't good.

"No! I will not leave you. We will find a way. We will—"

"You can't carry me. Even you aren't that strong." Nathaniel sank to the floor, the last of his strength beginning to fade.

"Not alone. I'll be back. Hold on, Nathaniel! Don't you give up on me now!" She brushed his cheek tenderly, and then ran as fast as she could through the winding halls of the Vaughn Estate and out into the night.

The sharp stones and broken glass that occasionally pressed into her bare feet hardly registered to Elissa anymore as they came within sight of the palace gates. She'd roused a gardener and two of the kitchen staff from a neighboring estate and convinced them to help her construct a litter and carry Nathaniel back to the royal district.

Dawn was coming as they reached the gates, and Elissa screamed until the guards granted her access – taking over for the weary servants who had aided her and helping to get Nathaniel into the castle walls. They got no further than the upper entryway before Alistair, Zevran and several healers came dashing into the hall.

"Elissa! What's happened?" Alistair reached out for her, blood and bruises coating nearly every inch of her barely covered body.

"Don't worry about me! It's Nathaniel who needs you." Elissa darted out of reach, gesturing to the healers – her frustration increasing when they made no efforts to move.

"H-he's been run through with a sword, Elissa." Alistair could see only limited motion in Nathaniel's chest, and his entire lower body coated in his blood. "He isn't going to make it. There is nothing we can do."

"Nothing you can… nothing… you haven't even tried!" The pitch of her voice rose again, and Elissa started to pace – mind franticly racing for ideas of how to make these idiots see reason. Then she saw it – the hilt of Duncan's dagger at Alistair's waist.

Alistair recognized the look in her eyes a moment too late, his reflexes far too slow to prevent Elissa's hand from reaching the blade and pressing it against his throat.

"Unless you want to spend your morning seating a new king, I would suggest you get to fucking work!" Elissa spat, glancing at the healers just long enough to make it clear she was not bluffing, and then turned back to Alistair.

"You heard her." Alistair swallowed hard, searching Elissa's eyes for any sign of restraint – but the woman he had known wasn't here this morning.