XIII. No one cares
Of course they got you. You nearly reached Denerim but they found you and brought you back and locked you up in a cell deep under the tower for what feels like years. Actually it has been more than eleven months but time doesn't matter down here in the dark. You are seventeen and you think you are forgotten. No one cares for someone who breaks the law. No one cares for the boy who screams in his prison, who cries for his lost life and freedom, who hits the walls around him until his hands seem to never stop bleeding. No one cares for you.
You can't sleep because there are nightmares waiting for you to close your eyes. You can't stay awake either because the darkness is everything you fear. Your lungs seem to burst because they need fresh air they never get. Your body hurts due to the templars that come down here every once in a while. Your mind is filled with the unbearable longing for so much as a glimpse of the world outside. Your heart lies in pieces and you don't think it can ever be whole again. It's filled with the darkness of this place and you know it will follow you wherever you go. And you were never this close to giving up.
XIV. Blood
When you're eighteen that blood mage, Jowan, escapes the tower. They say he did it out of love, but while he's free that girl and his friend will most likely never see the sun again. But to you it doesn't matter why he did it, but how. You didn't know they store the apprentice's phylacteries right under your feet. You didn't know they could be found and destroyed so easily. Maybe, if you hadn't isolated yourself after you came back to the Circle, you could have found out about their plan. You could have talked them into taking you with them. You could have gone alone.
They may have installed alarms telling them about any intruder, but unlike the others you have learned how to stay unnoticed and how to avoid the templars. You could have destroyed your phylactery (and everyone else's too, just to show them they can be defeated too) and be gone in no time. You would have been on the run for the rest of your life but your chances would have been equal.
But it's too late. They've brought the phylacteries away, somewhere you can't reach them. That night you think of Jowan and the friends he betrayed and the fact that he'll die if they ever find him because he turned to blood magic. You think his freedom wasn't worth the prize they had to pay. But still you can't stop wondering what he feels now, with the templars not being able to track him down, free to go wherever he wants, finally able to do something good in the world. It has to be wonderful.
tbc