"We must prepare the soldiers," Leliana insisted.
"We will do no such thing," Chancellor Roderick retorted.
Leliana wasn't a woman who was amazed or surprised by much. She'd seen a lot, been through a lot, done a lot – and yet, people like the Chancellor still awed her, in a way. How could anyone be so obstinate that they would refuse to see the solution before their eyes? Didn't they know that leaving certain problems unaddressed, to fester and grow, would only make things worse? At the slightest sign of danger or uncertainty, these people always chose the safest route; or, as Leliana called it, 'ignorance'.
Regardless, she kept pressing her point. If she didn't, how would anything ever get done? It was bad enough that the explosion at the Conclave gave him more power than he was usually warranted. "The prisoner must go to the Temple of Sacred Ashes," she repeated for the third time that day. "It is our only chance!"
"You have already caused enough trouble without resorting to this exercise in futility," the Chancellor spat.
"I have caused trouble?" The edge in her voice was unmistakable.
The Chancellor, a stern man easing into midlife, scowled as he bent over a paper on the desk before him. The expression emphasized the lines of his mouth and eyes, not all of which were brought upon by age. For all his obstinacy, Leliana knew he was a man devoted to his work, often up late at night tirelessly attending to important matters.
But he was still a pighead. "You, Cassandra, the Most Holy – haven't you all done enough already?"
The corner of Leliana's eye twitched ever-so-slightly. An attack on her, she could withstand. A snide remark about Cassandra, she wouldn't worry about; the Seeker was able to fend for herself. But to speak of the Most Holy, Divine Justinia V, in such a disparaging manner – how dare he. "You are not in command here," Leliana reminded him, her voice dangerously soft.
"Enough!" he snapped. "I will not have it!" But before she could respond, the Chancellor looked up from the paper and straightened his posture. "Ah, here they come," he remarked.
Leliana looked up and saw Cassandra, Solas, and Varric approaching them with the prisoner in tow. She felt a wave of relief wash over her as she saw that they had arrived unharmed, the prisoner especially – she seemed like such an inexperienced girl that Leliana was almost afraid she wouldn't make it through all the demons in the valley. A good thing the others were with her, the spymaster thought.
"You made it," Leliana greeted them. Turning to the Chancellor, she began, "Chancellor Roderick, this is–"
"I know who she is," Roderick interrupted her. His tone reminded Leliana of a cranky old man. "As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution!"
Here we go again, Leliana sighed.
The prisoner's face blanched beneath her helmet. "Execution?" she breathed, the fear palpable in her voice. She turned anxiously towards Cassandra. "Can he really–"
"'Order me'?" Cassandra cut her off, a hand extended toward the girl signaling for her to be silent. "You are a glorified clerk; a bureaucrat!"
"And you are a thug," Roderick countered, "but a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry."
"We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor," Leliana put in coolly. "As you well know."
"Justinia is dead!" he snapped yet again. "We must elect her replacement and obey her orders on the matter."
Leliana felt a pang of hurt as well as annoyance as the Chancellor reminded them of this all-too-obvious fact. The Divine's untimely end had struck her more than she was willing to show anyone. Still, that didn't mean he could push them all around like they were his personal servants.
"C'mon, Chancellor, have a heart," Varric spoke up. "She's just a kid." He looked over at the prisoner, rough eyes slanting in sympathy. "About how old – fifteen? Sixteen?"
The prisoner's response shocked even Leliana. "I'm twenty."
There was a small silence before Varric broke it with a chuckle. "Well, I wasn't expecting that."
"Asians tend to look young," the girl (or 'young woman', Leliana supposed, although she still looked at the childish face and thought 'girl') scrambled to explain. "So...uh...yeah..."
Chancellor Roderick's face darkened. If he thought anything of her explanation, which didn't really enlighten things, he did not show it. "It doesn't matter how old or young you are. You killed everyone who was in charge!"
The girl flinched at the volume of his voice and her eyes widened in shock. "That's – That's a lie! I've never killed anybody in my life! What sort of evidence do you have to support that?"
"He's talking about the explosion," Varric supplied.
"How was that my fault?" she protested. "I wasn't there! I don't even understand half the things everyone's saying about it!"
But ignoring the girl and the dwarf, Roderick turned his serious gaze upon Cassandra. "Call a retreat, Seeker," he pleaded, and his voice sounded tired. "Our position here is hopeless."
"We can stop this before it's too late," Cassandra argued.
"How? You won't survive long enough to reach the temple, even with all your soldiers."
"We must get to the temple; it's the quickest route."
"But not the safest," Leliana reminded them. Her hands behind her back, she paced around the length of the table. "Our forces can charge as a distraction while we go through the mountains." She stopped and pointed up at the rocky face of a great mountain behind the Chancellor, and all eyes – the prisoner's especially – looked to where she indicated. "It is indirect and may take some more time than a straight charge, but it is still fast and the problem will be addressed sooner."
Cassandra shook her head. "We lost contact with an entire squad on that path. It's too risky."
"But if we don't–"
"Listen to me," the Chancellor hissed, and everyone turned to him. For a moment, his severe face softened and his voice became fatherly and sad. "Abandon this now, before more lives are lost."
And we will lose more still, if we leave it as it is, Leliana thought. She once heard a saying long ago, from someone wise: The road to hell is often paved with good intentions. She originally thought it was about making moral decisions, but life had taught her that 'hell' could just about mean 'suffering' and 'chaos' as much as it was 'evil'.
Before she could make her point, the Breach rumbled and widened, sending a shower of meteors crashing down into the valley; the Chancellor, startled, ducked back a little as he swerved his head to regard the pulsing green pillar, glowing visibly behind the mountain Leliana had pointed to. The others did the same, even if they weren't as skittish.
And then the mark crackled. Leliana's attention immediately went to the prisoner, who was doubling over in pain. Her eyes screwed shut as she grasped the wrist of her left hand, and a hiss of pain whistled through her teeth. When the flares dispersed, she straightened up slowly, although not without a look of horror on her face as she stared at her hand.
"It's getting bigger," she whispered fearfully, and Leliana realized then that the girl had not given the mark a good look until recently.
Of course, the Chancellor was unamused; his soft expression quickly hardened as soon as he saw the flare for himself, which seemed to confirm the prisoner's guilt.
"We will charge the path with soldiers," Cassandra then said with finality. "There is no time to be wasting. We must do this, and we must do it now."
"We're not staying?" the prisoner suddenly asked. "I thought you said I could rest at the forward camp..."
"I said you could get your wound patched up at the forward camp," Cassandra corrected her. "But Solas has healed you, so there is no reason to further our presence here."
"You only sacrifice a little more time in ensuring your safety," Leliana pointed out, returning them to the matter at hand.
"I'm afraid we may not even have that luxury," the Seeker said softly while still looking at the prisoner. Shaking her head, she gestured for Solas and Varric to take the prisoner towards the next gate. Turning to Leliana, she instructed her to bring everyone left in the valley. "Everyone," she repeated with a heavy emphasis.
Seeing no point in arguing further, Leliana gave a quick nod and headed towards the open gate that the group had entered through. It was not always that people listened to her, but she trusted the Seeker's judgment; more so than the Chancellor's anyway. Besides, she was resourceful, and was formulating already a plan that could make this work.
As Cassandra walked by in the opposite direction, the Chancellor gave her a sidelong glare. "On your head be the consequences, Seeker," he hissed.
The initial reactions to the revelation of her age made Ahnnie feel awkward. Had this been in a normal conversation from whence she came, people might have asked her, "Why are you still with your parents? Why do you still listen to them like you're a little girl?"
Why do you not think for yourself before you ask? she would have been tempted to counter with, but never would, thanks to politeness.
Did they not think she was ashamed to have reached legal adulthood, and yet not be as the rest of her age were? That she resented her parents' overbearing hand just as much as the rest of them would? 'Parents' was, perhaps, not the best label. They were her mother and a stepfather, but what else could she address them by? Mother-and-stepdad was a mouthful. 'Parents' summed it up on one short word and was half-true, anyway.
So she would answer, with anger simmering in her veins and a mask of politeness on her face: "Oh, they're just not ready to let me go yet."
Some would come to the conclusion that it was the culture and eye her strangely – others would think of it as endearing and wish their adult children (if they had any) were as obedient to them. No one knew of the iron grip called 'fear' that chained her to her parents' whims and moved her about like a puppet. Hell, she didn't even know how to drive. As a result, she never felt fully adult-like. It was as though she were suspended in a perpetual state of girlhood...and she didn't make it any better by playing the helpless Cinderella, quietly studying for her degree online and turning to books and art to ignore the situation.
To say that life with them was an eternal torture would have been a lie. It was mostly normal and seemed to go on as it did for just about everybody else. But there were moments that made her doubt; moments in which she felt like an utter failure. What is wrong with me? she would think during such times. Why can't I just grow a spine and leave?
So as shocking and infuriating as Chancellor Roderick had been, that mouse-faced man in a wimple and religious robes, it was actually kind of refreshing to hear him accuse her. The 'doesn't matter how old or young you are' part, anyway. It made her feel like she could actually accomplish something on her own, independent of her insecurities.
"You all right?" Varric asked her as they trudged up the mountain.
"Hmm?" she asked. "Yeah."
"Your face says otherwise."
She shrugged. "Well..."
The dwarf gave her an encouraging clap on the back. "Don't let the Chancellor get to you. He's just acting tough."
"He can't do anything," Cassandra added. "He is just an overly-inflated scholar. Nothing more."
It heartened her a bit that the others tried to make her feel better about what they thought stemmed from the Chancellor's unwelcome demeanor. But the truth was not hers to freely tell. They would laugh at me, she thought; if they knew what I was like, they would think that I'm inadequate. I doubt that they were like me at my age. That was, she was sure neither of them were twenty at the moment. Even if they were, they were certainly stronger than her, more certain of their destinies. I envy them.
The jogging of the soldiers ahead served as a minor distraction from these troublesome thoughts. They had been dispatched to go along with the group back at the forward camp, taking the lead as they made sure the path was clear. She had to admire their endurance; they'd been steadily jogging ever since their departure, despite the inclining path. She would have dropped to her knees in exhaustion much sooner.
The group rounded a southern path into a westerly direction, heading up to a checkpoint camp cut into the side of the mountain. The camp was accessible by a short set of stairs, which the soldiers ran up first. Directly across the camp was a similar set of stairs leading through what was once the doorway of a stone structure; all that remained was the doorway itself and a few broken walls.
Ahnnie was glad they wouldn't be stopping at this camp; directly to the left, a Chantry sister (for that was what those women in red-and-white robes were, as Cassandra explained to her) knelt praying over an alarming amount of covered bodies. But as soon as the soldiers ahead of them poured through the doorway, a green blast sent one of them flying back onto the stairs.
He landed with a crack and never moved again.
Solas took out his staff and Varric readied Bianca. Cassandra turned to Ahnnie and asked, "Is there a rift ahead?"
The girl flexed her vibrating left hand and nodded. Demons, here we come, she thought, and then they ran through the doorway.
Ahnnie was able to witness the coming of the demons for the first time; the crystalline rift shot forth beams of bright green light, searing the ground where it hit. Just as it had been on her first encounter on the ice, the demons grew from those spots: three shades and three wraiths. She unsheathed her short sword and made for the wraiths. A good number of the soldiers that had accompanied them still lived, so two others were already working away at the other wraiths while the rest hacked away at the shades. Ahnnie thought she could see a soldier who she hadn't recognized, a man with big furs on his shoulders, but didn't pay much attention as she attacked her target.
The wraith soon gone, Ahnnie made to assist the others with the rest of the demons, but paused before she could run by the rift. I should probably close it right now, she thought. What if more demons come through? That'd make this more difficult for us. She nodded as she saw the logic in this and raised her left hand towards the rift. As before, a beam bridged the gap between her hand and the rift, making it fold in on itself.
But when it exploded, it didn't disappear. It hung in the air as a thin gossamer veil of green instead, twisting and turning at the edges. A few seconds later, it bunched up on itself and returned to its previous crystalline form.
She gasped. Wh-what?
How could this be? The previous two rifts she'd closed had done so immediately. And was it just her, or was it shooting more beams into the ground?
The earth beneath her feet trembled. When she looked down, a circle of green light traced itself around her and the rocks trembled faster. Before she could do anything, she was suddenly propelled into the air as a long, spindly creature erupted from the ground.
She felt the sword fly from her hand before landing on a dead soldier not too far away from where she'd stood. It took her a moment to realize what she'd fallen on, but as she pushed herself up by the elbows on his chest, she found herself struggling to decide which was scarier: the corpse or the new demon?
I think I prefer the dead guy, she thought as the monster rose itself to full height; at least a corpse couldn't hurt her. This demon was not as bulky as a shade but it towered well above one, perhaps even surpassing two shades' height. Its shriek was more haunting, and as it echoed through her ears, she found herself gripped with a terror that trumped all her previous fears combined.
"A terror demon!" someone shouted. A moment later it was revealed to be Solas, who called out to her from where he stood. "Ahnnie, do not let it feed on your terror! Close the rift instead!"
"I tried to do that!" she screamed back. "It didn't close! It just–" She yelped as the terror demon swung its long arm down on her like a club. She barely managed to dodge the blow and was splattered with the dead soldier's blood as the demon's fist burst through the body like a hammer on a nut.
When she looked back up, she was even more horrified to see not one but two of these demons. They walked towards her on their stilt-like legs, hissing with a poisonous vehemence that chilled her to the very core.
A bolt of ice struck one on the foot and froze its limb into place. Another followed suit on the other foot, and the demon was stuck, jerking angrily at its binds.
Solas jumped into view beside her a second later, a hand hooking under her armpit to raise her to her feet. "Just try it again," he urged. "The previous demons were more easily vanquished after you did it the first time."
"But what if it doesn't work?" she asked.
He didn't seem to have an answer for that. Instead, he pushed her out and assured her, "We will take care of the terror demons while you close the rift."
She seriously contemplated fleeing. Whether it was because the demons were feeding on her terror or she was truly more terrified than she'd ever been, all she wanted to do was to run away and hide herself somewhere safe. But then she saw the men rallying towards the demons, bolstered by a war cry from the soldier in the furs, and she realized that they were doing this so she could accomplish her task. They were risking their lives to fight against the demons, and if she just left them there to die...
She cursed herself as a fool as she sped back towards the rift. She only paused once to pick up her fallen short sword, lying several feet away from the corpse that she had fallen on; or at least what remained of it. Ahnnie gulped as she tried not to look at the bloody mess, in the middle of which was a curling red mass that must surely have been the intestines. When she faced the rift once more, she thrust her hand upwards and prayed the beam would close it for good this time.
Her left arm vibrated unstably as the rift neared completion. She grit her teeth against the pressure and pressed on, pushing her hand closer as if it could spur the process faster. When it finally burst closed (she never thought she'd use that description in her life, 'burst closed', but that was how it seemed to be), she didn't even notice it was gone until her arm was rudely pushed aside by the blast. At least I didn't fall down this time, she thought.
Careful footsteps crunched on the rocks and Solas appeared by her side a moment later, eyeing the spot where the rift had been. "Interesting," he muttered. "It went through two stages before it could be closed..."
"Whaddyou think that means?" Varric inquired as he strode up on the other side of Solas.
"Perhaps in areas where the Veil is thinner, the corresponding rift is more difficult to close?" Solas shrugged. "Whatever the cause, it requires more careful research before we can reach a conclusion."
Ahnnie massaged her left hand and looked back towards Cassandra. "I hope two's the most it ever comes to," she remarked to herself and her ear quickly picked up on a conversation between Cassandra and the soldier in furs, the fight apparently over.
"...managed to close the rift? Well done."
"Do not congratulate me, Commander," the Seeker deflected. "This is the prisoner's doing."
They're talking about me? she wondered. When she saw Cassandra look at her and gesture for her to come, she hesitantly stepped forward, suddenly conscious of a smear of corpse blood on her cheek.
That was because the soldier – or rather, Commander – was looking her over with a critical eye. He had a serious, chiseled face with brushed-back blonde hair and a smattering of stubble capping his chin. His eyes, while not as severe as Cassandra's, were imposing in their own right and made her feel small. If he wanted to, he could look gentle, she thought. I guess I'm just here at a bad time.
"Is it?" he asked, his voice a smooth baritone where Varric's was rough and smoky. "I hope they're right about you. We've lost a lot of people getting you here."
She didn't know what to say to that. It was obvious from his tone and choice of words that he wasn't very pleased with what was going on. Or her, for that matter. Add in the fact that people had died just so she could reach this spot, and Ahnnie felt even worse than she already did.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, before the silence became too much to take.
Yet another silence stretched on as the Commander continued staring at her. "And?" he asked a moment later, perhaps expecting her to continue.
"That's...it. I'm sorry. I didn't...well, I didn't mean for anyone to be lost because of me..."
She couldn't have worded it any lamer even if she tried. Cassandra gave her a disapproving frown, but then again, the woman always looked like she was frowning, so it was hard to tell. Ahnnie was quickly put aside at any rate when the Commander turned back to Cassandra, pointing down at the edge of the ruins. Ahnnie was surprised to see the Breach right where his finger indicated, snaking above another set of ruins directly ahead of them. We're here already?
"The way to the temple should be clear," he informed her. "Leliana will try to meet you there."
"Then we'd best move quickly," Cassandra responded, looking in that direction. "Give us time, Commander."
He gave her a quick military nod before wishing them well. "Maker watch over you – for all our sakes."
Ahnnie watched as he and the other soldiers made their retreat back to the checkpoint camp. Her fear of him softened when she witnessed him helping a limping soldier across the chaotically strewn rubble. He cares for his men, she thought, and when she remembered his stony reception of her, she felt less intimidated by it than she had before. It was only a moment of reprieve in a dark situation, however, and she turned her attention back towards the group. Right...we've got something bigger to worry about. With a gulp, she walked after them.
"Holy fuck!" Ahnnie screamed, falling back onto her bottom in shock. They had just reached the ruins' edge, which turned out to be a high ledge from which one had to jump down, when she saw the burnt corpses kneeling in agony on the valley floor below.
Unlike the frozen bodies she'd seen earlier, these corpses were paralyzed in their last actions, either cowering on their knees or standing and shielding their faces from something horrifying. Whatever it was, it had swept over them and burnt their skin into nothing but crispy black tissue stretched tightly over bones, mummifying them in place.
The girl's cries echoed throughout the valley several times before fading out into nothing; Cassandra, whose foot had been poised to launch herself over the ridge, whipped her head around in alarm, but scowled upon finding nothing wrong with the girl besides her horror.
Solas blinked. "Well."
Varric merely gave her an inquisitive look.
Ahnnie covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry–"
"Don't worry about it," Varric chuckled. "We can handle a few curse words."
"It's just, the corpses – are they real?" She pointed a shaky finger towards the black mummies.
"Yes, they are real." It was Cassandra this time, and she sounded less than amused. "They were one of the first victims of the explosion as it swept through the temple."
The Seeker jumped off the ledge and the dwarf and elf soon followed; when it was Ahnnie's turn, she caught the girl in her arms and set her down as gently as possible. Regardless, her left foot hit the ground a little hard and she twisted her face in pain.
"Broken toe," she ground out when she saw the confused looks of Varric and Solas. When Cassandra withdrew her arms a moment later, she looked at the stones about her, doing her best to keep the corpses at the fringe of her vision. Ahead of them, slightly to the right, was an opening to what looked like a small tunnel glowing with orange torchlight. It had the square shape of a manmade structure, so it wasn't a cave. It could have been a part of a bigger building, as indicated by the broken walls around them.
"What is it?" the girl asked, awed. Somehow, she remembered that place, and yet did not at the same time. She attributed it to some vague sense of déjà vu.
"The Temple of Sacred Ashes," Solas answered.
"What's left of it," Varric gruffly added.
"So this...this is the temple that exploded?" When Cassandra nodded, Ahnnie asked yet again, "This is where the Conclave was destroyed?"
"Yes, it is," Cassandra affirmed.
"This is where..."
"...you walked out of the Fade and our soldiers found you," the Seeker finished for the bewildered girl.
I see...She shook her head. "It's nothing," she assured them. "I just found it overwhelming, that I came out from here..." But then she frowned and faced Cassandra again. "Wait, wait, wait. You said I stepped out of the Fade? That realm of spirits and demons?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I was – I was in there?"
"I did tell you the rifts and the Breach were tears in the Veil," Cassandra reminded her.
Ahnnie groaned, closing her eyes as though doing so could erase that horrible realization. Indeed, how could she have missed that? Those giant spiders – they were demons! Or they must have been, since those were among the only two inhabitants of the place that she knew of. The thought made her feel queasy all over again.
When she reopened her eyes, she waved her hand weakly in the air before her. "Let's just get this over with," she sighed. "Maybe I'll wake up and it'll only be some horrible nightmare."
"If only things were so easy," Cassandra remarked softly, and onward they marched.
The tunnel turned out to be a short one, going in a right then left turn before it deposited them into the heart of the ruins. Ahnnie walked slowly, conscious of a pain in her left foot that hadn't been there before she jumped from the ledge. It was muffled by the thick padding Cassandra wound around her toes, but could still be felt regardless, and she worried something untoward had happened when her foot struck the stone. She pushed the thought out of her mind and looked up as they exited the tunnel, taking in the desolate scene before her.
What must have once been an impressive chamber of the temple was now a black, charred crater. Some parts still flared with heat, burning away in small patches of flame. It was a miracle any piece of the temple survived at all. Meanwhile, the Breach swirled lazily at the center of the crater, illuminating the blackened ground with a sickening hue of green, stretching on and on until she had to crane her head back to see it pierce the clouds in the sky. Even then, she suspected it went on forever, perhaps even touching the outer layers of the atmosphere.
And at the base of the Breach, jagged green edges standing out against the smoky background, was a large crystalline rift thirty or so feet from the ground.
Ahnnie came up to the remains of what was once a balcony and leaned against the railing between Solas and Varric to steady herself. Oh my god. I have to close that thing. I have to – oh my god. Please let it just be a nightmare.
"You're here!" a mellifluous voice cried out, jarring her thoughts. "Thank the Maker."
Ahnnie whirled around to find Leliana coming through the tunnel with some soldiers behind her. Unlike before, the woman was armed with a longbow and a quiver of arrows at her back. She supposed she should be happy that more people were accompanying them, but she could only feel more grim when she thought of the amount of men it would take to assist in their endeavor. And it doesn't look like they brought enough...
Cassandra wasted no time on greetings or formalities. "Leliana, have your men take up positions around the temple." When she nodded and went back towards the men to give them their instructions, Cassandra turned to Ahnnie and said, "This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?"
"The...the whole thing?" Ahnnie stammered nervously, pointing up at the Breach. "All of it? Right now?"
"No," Solas corrected her. "This rift was the first, and it is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach."
So just the rift, she thought, yet only managed to feel a tiny prick of relief.
"Then let's find a way down, and be careful."
Those words were Cassandra's, of course; Ahnnie couldn't imagine herself capable of being so determined in the face of such danger. It was also Cassandra who led the charge, taking the path to their right when no other way seemed viable. It led into what was once a corridor overlooking the heart of the temple. As they advanced, a flash like lightning pulsed through the air, making everything brighter for a second or two.
The path turned left, and when they made the turn, Ahnnie heard a booming man's voice echo against the temple's walls:
"Now is the hour of victory. Bring forth the sacrifice."
Cassandra was the first to remark about it. "What are we hearing?" she asked, clearly unnerved.
"At a guess, the person who created the Breach," Solas said.
They turned left yet again, and it was growing apparent to Ahnnie that they were going in a circle. On this stretch, though, growths of a strange, pulsing red crystal jutted out from the rocks that walled them in on the right.
"You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker," Varric hissed to Cassandra, a tone of fear in his voice. Ahnnie didn't like that even the most robust of their group seemed perturbed.
"I see it, Varric."
"But what's it doing here?"
"Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it," Solas suggested.
Ahnnie's head swam in confusion. Yet another thing I don't understand! "What's red lyrium?"
But rather than a full explanation, Varric just shook his head. "It's evil. Whatever you do, don't touch it."
This warning came when her shoulder almost touched an outreaching tip of the crystal; Ahnnie barely avoided it, swerving in time only to stumble over Varric. "Sorry," she apologized when she righted herself, and the quartet turned left once more at the top of a set of stairs leading downwards.
"Keep the sacrifice still," that booming voice echoed again when they all got off the last step. They were getting closer to the bottom of the crater now, with just a few more yards before the path ended in a cut to the right.
They jumped off this cut and now stood upon the blackened ground of the crater. The rift lay before them, shifting its crystalline points as it drew power from the Breach. Ahnnie was aware of a crackling to her left and held up her hand to find it flaring again. She winced as the pain cut through her flesh, and although it was now more tolerable – perhaps even familiar – she was no less tempted to relieve herself of it through amputation.
"Someone help me!" a voice called out, and now that she was standing close to it, Ahnnie realized it was coming from the rift. Unlike the booming voice earlier, though, this was a woman's voice.
"Divine Justinia!" Cassandra gasped.
Before any questions could be asked, a flash of white light burst from the rift and momentarily blinded the quartet; a second later, a curtain of mist obscured the rift and a hazy scene played upon it, like a screening of a poor-quality movie.
Ahnnie blinked away the tears as her stinging eyes watched it unfold. An old woman in gilded Chantry robes was held floating in the air, at this very spot, she realized, by a bright red energy around her arms. In front of her was a dark...entity of some sort. Ahnnie couldn't see it clearly.
A brazen young man stepped into the scene, looking angrily about him. "What's going on here?" he demanded.
Ahnnie's eyes widened when she recognized him.
The old woman, Divine Justinia, turned towards the young man with a look of horror on her face. "Run while you can!" she urged him. "Warn them!"
But the dark entity noticed and turned towards the young man as well. "We have an intruder," the entity announced, and Ahnnie realized the booming voice earlier was his. With a point of a jagged finger, the entity commanded to servants unseen, "Kill him. Now!"
The screen flashed and the images disappeared in the white blast that followed. Ahnnie shut her eyes against the light, eyes watering even more, and opened them a second later to see the rift as it had been.
"The Divine," Cassandra murmured, and she whirled upon the group with a sudden ferocity. "That vision! Was it true? And the Divine, is she–"
"I saw that man in the Fade," Ahnnie interrupted. "The one who ran into me. It was him. Oh my god, it was him..."
Cassandra went quiet for a moment. "I met him."
Ahnnie looked up at her. "What?"
"The youngest son of Bann Trevelyan, a noble house from the Free Marches..." Cassandra tsked and shook her head. "I met him several days before the Conclave began. He had struck me as the rambunctious sort, and he..." She gave up explaining and sighed. "What did we just see?"
"Echoes of what happened here," Solas supplied as he studied the rift. "The Fade bleeds into this place..." Turning back to the group, he said, "This rift is not sealed but it is closed, albeit temporarily. I believe that with the mark, the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely. However...opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side."
Cassandra confirmed Ahnnie's thoughts as she exclaimed, "That means demons. Stand ready!"
The others around her began readying their weapons. After a moment of thought, Ahnnie tentatively slid out her short sword, feeling the fear beat in her chest in time with her heart. She noticed movement from the corner of her eye and flinched as she turned to regard it; but she had nothing to worry about as soldiers suddenly poured into the crater from openings in the temple ruins on either side of them. Above her, archers stood perched on the walls, arrows nocked and aimed for whatever would emerge from the rift. They may not be enough in number, she thought, but I'm certainly glad they're here.
And so she reached her hand towards the rift, feeling the power stream out from her mark into the dark green crystal. At the same time, she wondered whether she was making a huge mistake. When the rift exploded a moment later, a bright green beam of light immediately zeroed in on the ground in the midst of a group of soldiers. After the dust cleared, a giant horned demon stepped out, roaring at the puny men who dared to face it. Its skin was rough like twisted bark and small sparks of electricity ran between its limbs and horns.
Electricity.
"Now!" Cassandra cried, and the archers loosed their arrows. A moment later, the soldiers closed in around the group and rushed toward the demon, hacking away at its legs.
Ahnnie, on the other hand, ran towards an outcropping of rocks and hid herself as she clawed away at the straps on her armor.
She tried not to listen to the electrical crackles on the demon's hide, focusing instead on the sounds of the battle and threw her helmet off her head. Then she successfully released a pauldron from her shoulder. The next came off soon after and she quickly went to work on her breastplate. She couldn't figure out how to untie its straps, however, and frantically struggled to loosen them enough to push through the armor and throw it off like a shirt. When she got to the greaves, Varric scared her with his incredulous cries. She looked up to see him backed against the outcropping, eyes wide.
"What're you doing!?" he yelled above the noise of the demon's roar. "You're gonna need that armor!"
Ahnnie flung off the last greave and got up to her feet. "Not now!" After shedding all that metal, she felt much safer from the demon, regardless of whether she was actually more vulnerable or not. She jogged past Varric, slowed herself when her foot protested in pain, and looked around to make sure the demon was nowhere near. To her relief, it was engaged in combat with the others directly across from her, its great back turned to her.
Without wasting any more time, she thrust her left hand at the rift, hoping it was one of those rifts that would close on the first go.
No such luck – the rift burst but continued to hang as a shimmering veil of light, just as it had done back at the checkpoint camp. Luckily, the disruption caused the demon to kneel in place, making it easier for the men and Cassandra to attack it.
Perhaps the second time will work, Ahnnie thought, and she waited for it to become crystalline again.
Big mistake. As soon as the rift regained its previous form, more beams of light shot out onto the ground and she found herself surrounded in a circle by half a dozen shades.
Shit! She immediately unsheathed her short sword and brought up her shield, but there was no way she could successfully guard herself against six shades. For crying out loud, six! If this really was another world, then her bad luck from the previous world seemed to have followed through.
An arrow whistled through the air and lodged itself into the head of one shade, knocking down that number to five. Ahnnie looked up to see where it came from and found herself looking at one of the archers on the walls. He nodded to her, and his partner loosed another arrow; it didn't immediately kill a shade, but managed to injure it in the shoulder.
Enraged, that shade turned away to see who or what had struck it. In the meantime, the other four shades advanced on her. She backed away slowly, her shield raised before her and her sword pointed out at the demons. Arrows flew in the meantime towards the shades, striking all over their backs and sides. As they all turned in quick succession to face their invisible assailants, Ahnnie launched herself at the closest one and traced criss-cross patterns on its back with the tip of her sword. The demon whirled around to strike her, but as it left its chest open with its arms poised, she sunk the killing blow deep into its heart.
Ahnnie yanked the sword from the chest and was able to free her weapon after three such jerks. She quickly looked up to see another shade just a foot away from her face...and then a soldier's sword cut through it from behind, impaling the monster. "Are you hurt?" the soldier asked her when the demon fell away.
Ahnnie shook her head wordlessly.
"Good!" The soldier went to work on the next shade, a colleague hacking away at the last one. "Lady Cassandra ordered us to fight the demons while you take care of the rift!"
She nodded. "Right. The rift." She turned to face it again, but then paused and turned back. "Thanks, by the way!"
The soldier's face was hidden by a helmet, so she was unable to tell his expression or if he even heard her thanks. She felt better about herself, however, and turned back to the rift more heartened than she'd previously been. It felt good to have someone at her back, to know that there were others to come to her aid when she needed it. It was especially necessary with something like that ginormous demon stomping around the crater.
Please work this time, she prayed as she let loose another beam. If the first disruption yielded six shades, she was unwilling to think of what a second would bring.
Nothing this time, although Ahnnie was displeased to find that the rift still wasn't closed. If it's the key rift though, like Solas said, perhaps that makes sense. She wished it weren't so and once again couldn't help cursing her horrible luck. It was made all the worse when she felt a booming tremor pass beneath the earth at her feet and turned to find the horned demon kneeling six feet away from her, having completed a circuit of the crater.
The girl jumped back in shock, readying her sword. Leliana came up to her with a restraining hand on her sword arm, though.
"Keep your focus on the rift," the hooded woman said, and Ahnnie felt herself relax upon hearing the musical tones of her soothing voice. "Only fight when necessary. The sooner you can close the rift, the less enemies we'll face."
"Okay," she nodded.
"But what happened to your armor?" Leliana asked with a frown. "I saw you with it a moment ago."
"I, uh...took it off..."
Ahnnie braced herself for a reprimand, but none came when the demon rose to its feet. Its hide was scored with countless strikes, but it still seemed as strong as ever, releasing an echoing bellow as it stretched to full height. Leliana nocked an arrow to her bow and let loose on the horned monster. "Focus on the rift!" she reminded the girl, and Ahnnie ducked behind her to get back to the floating green crystal that had reassembled itself once again. She thrust her left hand at the rift, her fingers benumbed by the frequent attempts she'd made.
The rift burst for a third time, leveling the demon to its knees again. Ahnnie sighed, supposing that the magic rule of threes did not apply to rifts. The crystal did seem different, however – it seemed more fragile, susceptible to cracks. Maybe that meant something. She could only hope.
The crystal reshaped itself and three shades jumped out from the beams that hit the ground. They were scattered, however, making them easier targets. None of them appeared near Ahnnie, but the giant demon was, and she was directly in its path. The ground shook with every step and the electrical crackles were too close for comfort.
She ducked out of the way and shut her hands over her ears as it let loose a whip of electricity. She pressed her hands even harder when she heard the whip hit a man and electrocute him, fighting to keep his gargled cries from reaching her ears.
When it was over, she got up and jogged in the opposite direction. She ignored the pain in her toe, actually welcoming it instead, and stopped a moment later when she felt she was of sufficient distance from the demon. She raised her marked hand again, her palm feeling absolutely sore by now, but ignored it and pressed forward. She was thrown back when the rift exploded, and allowed herself a moment of rest on her bottom as she tried to rub the ache out of her hand.
Four times, she counted. I did it four times. She looked across at the demon the others were fighting and saw it kneeling yet again. To be sure, she looked up at the rift and saw it in the midst of rearranging itself. And now, I'm going to do it for a fifth time. She had a hunch this disruption would be the last, though; the crystal was smaller and appeared to be more brittle.
A shade screamed behind her and she rolled away in the nick of time to dodge its claws. Her scarf was pinned by a claw, though, and threatened to choke her if she did not slip it over her head. When she pulled away, her neck was laid bare to the chill air around her, but she preferred that to whatever fatal wound she would have suffered beneath the shade's sharp nails. She scrambled to her feet and unsheathed her weapon again, bracing herself for the next attack.
The shade struck again and hit her wooden shield. Ahnnie swiped at it beneath its arm and was thrown back when the creature attacked with a renewed vigor. She kept to her feet as best as she could and punched with her shield in an attempt to push back at the shade; the wood connected with a large thump and splintered on the shade's teeth. She lashed out with another swing, slashing deep into its belly. It retaliated with a forceful blow that nearly sent her rocking back. Meanwhile, the rift lay open, waiting for her to close it once and for all.
"Damn you!" she screamed in frustration at the shade. She was close, so close, and it just had to be there! Just like everything else in her life: things were going perfectly fine, absolutely fine, and then something jumped in the way. She wondered why her mark wasn't useful in blasting these creatures into oblivion as she maintained her assault, pushing against the resistance the demon offered. "Why – the – fuck – can't you – just – stay – out – of the – way!"
For all her bravado, the demon still kept its stance, although it was faltering a little. Ahnnie gasped when a claw dug through her side and retaliated with angry hacks at its arm while its nails were still in her flesh. After the third strike, the arm was lopped clean off, flying uselessly to the ground. The demon roared and swiped with its remaining arm; without the balance of the other one, though, it swerved unsteadily as Ahnnie ducked and was finally rid of it with a stab in the chest.
The girl hissed as hot blood poured down her side. This wound definitely cut deeper than her previous one; she could feel it. She let the sword fall along with the demon and limped up to the rift, doubling over as she did so and yet still trying to keep up her speed, however slow it was. The rift was right there. So close. If anything stood in the way again...she just didn't know how she'd be able to get herself out of another altercation. To her far right, the fighting with the horned demon was still taking place. It looked as though her path was clear.
With an effort, she raised her palm towards the rift. It took a while, and her arm shook as she did so, but the mark generated the beam and connected her once more to the strange green abomination in the air.
I wonder if that thing that appeared in the backyard was a rift? she couldn't help but think as her mind began to blur. Did that man – the youngest son of Ban? Did she say Ban? Tre-vel-eeyun – did he come out of it into my world? Or did demons rush through?
It was taking so long. The rift felt so fragile, but still the seconds passed and it did not close! The beam continued pouring from her, seemingly sapping at her energy as well as whatever magic Solas said she had. Black hair blew in front of her eyes and she brushed it away lazily, her coordination faltering.
I didn't close the door, she remembered. If demons exited, I forgot to close the door...I think that's better than letting the dogs face them alone, though. Maybe the door was closed after that. She liked to think so. Hopefully, those demons are too stupid to go up the stairs. Tiên – her younger sister – should've called the cops...Keep those ugly things from entering the house...
Finally, the rift was beginning to crack. This first crack led to a second, and a third, and the crystal began to fall in on itself. Ahnnie was sure with a grim certainty that this was it; this was the end, at least for the rift. In as little as thirty seconds it would soon be over.
She lacked even the strength to yell as an explosion bigger than the ones she'd faced, shaking the temple ruins down to their very bones, blew her off her feet and threw her roughly on the stone floor. Funny how the pain never came. As a powerful gust and a burst of white light brushed over the valley, she felt it all as though in a hazy dream, the colors all drifty and wisplike. People yelled and something crashed, and then she gave in to the fatigue and closed her eyes.
A/N: I didn't think it made sense for them to give the prisoner a choice on how to approach the Temple, so I just let Cassandra decide :P. Hope that works for y'all.