They forged her from fire and lies. What else could she become but a monster?
"Come, da'len."
Nevaelathsan guides her to stand in front of the eluvian. Wolves lift their faces to the sky on either side with eyes shining red in warning. There is an energy flowing from the ancient artifact, like hands pushing against shoulders urging one to turn back, but she takes another step forward. Another. She tries to stop her arm from shaking as she lifts fingers to brush against the glass. Lightning jumps from the surface and she pulls back with a gasp.
"Are you injured?" Briala asks.
She shakes her head. Her hand only tingles a bit and this time she lets it sink further into the eluvian's surface. By her forearm the pain makes her grimace however, whimpers escaping from her mouth as electricity and pressure snake up her skin. It hurts, like someone's holding her arm in a vice above a fire. She moves to pull it out but Nevaelathsan stops her.
"You must go forward."
"Nevael-"
"If she cannot do it then we are all doomed," he says and gives her a hard shove.
She flies through a shattering world and breaks apart. It feels like her bones are trying to escape from her skin, her blood leaping in one direction while her mind yanks in the other. The sensations are fleeting as she tumbles onto soft grass, but the agony in that moment is enough to last a lifetime. She has made it through or else death looks and feels too much like living.
It takes a few long breaths to find a steady place and when she looks up she finds herself in a sunlight grove. There are aging statues of elks standing proud around waterfalls, ivy and glowing mushrooms growing everywhere. In the middle is something new, an obelisk of white and veins of gold. A bowl sits at the top with a flame burning bright even against the midday sun.
Fingers drag over a name etched into the stone. The lettering is jagged in the middle and she wonders if he had to pause, overwhelmed by his emotions. Did he make such a beautiful monument from remembrance or regret? It does not matter. All in the love in the world could not stop him from changing it. She knows there is nothing buried here, but there is - a life, a love, a hundred smiles and touches, a thousand possible futures when all she ever wanted was one.
She wants to destroy the memorial, raze the ground below it and smash it to pieces, but instead she bangs a useless fits against it before turning back to return to the eluvian. His mistakes cannot be buried, his truths something that cannot be held back by a grave, and he will be made to face them all. She thinks of the pain to come with tears coursing down her cheeks, but she will pay it time and time again for the chance to see his name written in stone next.
"Pick it up!" sounds the order before her dagger even thumps to the pressed earth. She shakes out her aching arm as she bends down to retrieve it, too slow for his pleasure. The courtyard tips as a staff cracks against the backs of her legs and sends her sprawling. "Do you think your enemies will stand by so long? You must be quick. An assassin is wind through trees. You are slower than a tree itself."
A growl, low and deep, as she swipes the blade finally and jumps back to her feet. The rogue weapons are still new to her, awkward in a hand used to smooth wood heavy and thick, but it is more than her lack of training that makes her sluggish. It is difficult to ignore the sweat dripping into her eyes, to pull air into her lungs. She is so tired. She wants to close her eyes and simply rest for a moment, but she knows he will seize the opportunity of her distraction. There are plenty of bruises down her sides attesting to the fact.
"You might as well have burned up in the fire with all the rest of them for all the good you will do."
Her growl turns into a roar as she rushes forward in a burst of rage. She knows better, knows she is being goaded, but still she flies with daggers slashing and eyes blinded. Every day has been one challenge after another to push her magic, her mind, her body, driving her to exhaustion and the limits of her reserves until she can handle no more.
It is with a few moves he has her on the ground again with the edge of his staff planted against her breastbone. "Your wrath can be a useful tool, but it can also make a tool out of you. You must learn to control it better."
"Get off of me!" she yells, hot tears trailing from her eyes. Her attempts at escape end just the same but this time the staff strikes down with a quick force that steals the air from her lungs.
"How will you stand before him when the time comes? The one who murdered your future, the reason for our despair? You cannot even face me without the fires of vengeance searing your senses."
"I think that's enough for today," another voice rings across the courtyard. She covers her eyes, creating sparks of light as they press in until it becomes painful. It is a better feeling than this beast clawing inside her ribs shredding her heart.
Hands pull hers away and she sees a corona of auburn hair caught alight, the shadow of the sun casting darkness across a face she doesn't need to see - she knows there is concern crinkling the edges of warm eyes, old burns across a cheek twitching with a frown. "Come. Let's get you to the baths."
She lets Briala help her up and drag her to the steaming waters, sinks into the heat with a sigh. Muscles begin to relax as her lessons wash away and she all but melts into the stone as the former spymaster begins to massage soap into her scalp. They are both silent and she is grateful for the peace offered. This is what she wants - an end to struggles, to blood and sweat shed, to betrayals and broken dreams. To stop chasing vengeance like a starving hound. She wants more.
As her body uncoils her anger floats away, untethered. This time there are cool tears that slide down her cheeks dredged from the dark and hollow places inside. She hates him. After everything, every chance, he is beyond redemption. The hatred is a constant thing, a noise in her ear that won't go away, but when it softens she can hear something worse - a desperate longing for things that could have been, for a life destroyed by his fire.
"How could he do it?" she says, whisper soft like the slow waves around her. "Why?"
Briala's fingers pause in her hair before she speaks. "You would always be his weakness, something of the past holding him back from his glorious purpose. The day he thought to have killed you is the day he truly became Fen'Harel again. The Dread Wolf, Empress, Inquisitor. It is an easier to become a thing of legend than to wear your own face. Legends do not feel."
Eyes look down into the turbid water, thick with dirt and blood. It is it the day she decides her own fate - she will become something that ascends mortal chains too, a monster of her own making that will rend the world with teeth and nail until she holds him in her jaws, and she will make sure he feels it.
"Move atta the way!"
She catches her hood from falling back as someone barrels through the thick crowd beside her. Elven pack into the capitol's square to witness the executions firsthand. Her eyes scan across the Arbitrators lining the palace's steps, up to the wooden platform where the guilty are bound and kneeling. They are not blindfolded, no blood stains the ground beneath them - Fen'Harel's justice is merciful, if death can be named such.
The assembled hush as he materializes from the palace and climbs the steps to carry out the sentence. Without thinking, she begins to push her way forward, gaze locked on him. Armor shining, fur soft and shifting in the breeze, back held straight and jaw set. He speaks, and the deep timbres of his voice make her frantic heart skip, but she does not stop walking. He is alone, his guards too far away to reach him in time if someone were to leap upon the platform and attack. All she would need is a second. She tires of waiting, of planning and playing by her adviser's rules. She wants her justice now even if it will mean her death today too.
A hand reaches for the dagger hidden beneath her cloak. She's so close she can see the individual badges upon Fen'Harel's chest, hear the way his gauntlets creak as he shifts to face the accused. When she's about to break the plane of revelers someone grabs hold of her elbow and pulls her back. She gasps, wrestling against the force, and in those few seconds her moment slips away. The crowd begins to shout and jostle around her and she looks up to the platform to the see the three elves turned to stone, their bodies beginning to flake away in the breeze until there is nothing left - the Dread Wolf included.
"No!" She turns back to her assailant and finds a face claimed by Dirthamen. "You, why-"
"He would have killed you and all would have been lost. Do you think you are the first to try? Do not waste your life on something so hopeless." The Dalish elf speaks with a rolling accent, a thing that tugs at her memory with each syllable.
"I...do I know you?"
"Once. My name is Taliesin. Please, all I ask is that you give me a few minutes. There will be little more than that before they realize you've escaped."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I won't stop you the next time." He holds something up to her, a rock of amethyst nestled in gold and she knows what it is - a memory crystal. "Have you believed all their stories? Has no small part of you wondered if things were different, felt this nagging doubt you couldn't explain? They have been lying to you from the beginning and I can prove it. If you want to know me, if you want to know yourself, you must see what this holds."
"Fine, just a few minutes," she finally agrees, but she keeps her fingers wrapped around her dagger just in case.
Taliesin sighs with relief. "Good, come this way. You won't regret it."
She doesn't, even as the truth makes her fall to her knees and weep, as her world collapses and explodes into fragments she can't recognize anymore. There is pain and there is rage, but the heavy anchor of loss is something that drags her down into the depths. A new vow is made - she will become a monster, but it will not be to see him buried, to see him torn to shreds and splayed open for her revenge. She will destroy herself to see them freed.
"Fen'Lin, it's begun."
She rouses herself from the waking dreams and turns to greet the messenger who enters her tent. They wear stitched armor, odds and ends of material that will last little against the broad and thick defenses of the Elvhen, but it is the pride and conviction on their face that is the greatest weapon. She follows them out into the dying sunlight night to find a rows of elves in similar attire, although some wear stolen sets from Halamshiral, Montsimmard and the other cities. It is a patchwork contingent held together by the tenacity of the Dalish and she is the master at the loom. Most will likely be dead before the moon peaks, plucked from the weave of this war, but she would let all Thedas drown in blood and ride the tide up to his tower if needed for the chance that when the sun rises it will dawn upon a new beginning. Not just for the Elvhen and Elven, Qunari, Shemlen and Children of the Stone, but for them.
Briala steps to her side, face covered in a black mask although there are now no more secrets between them. "The Elven inside the city have begun to revolt and our force is now attacking the main gate. There will be no greater opportunity than this."
She thought of simply walking into the capitol for he will not strike her down now, but the city no longer belongs to Fen'Harel. No one has seen him since he disappeared behind doors that refuse to open no matter the spell or strength used. It is Abelas and the others that hold control and she knows she would never make it to the keep before a knife found its home in her back. They will have to find a way in with subterfuge and distraction.
There are no compelling speeches made. With a wordless signal they make their way in silence towards the edge of trees providing cover. The road into the secondary gate is too open but Fen'Lin does not balk at the sight. She moves to stand in the middle of her ranks and pulls magic from the air, weaving her cloaking spell into a blanket to hide them all.
"Move," she grits out between clenched teeth, hands already beginning to shake with the effort to keep the power in place. They make it a few steps beyond the gate before it shimmers out of existence.
"It's the Blood Wolf!" comes the cry almost immediately and she does not stop to see how many of her people fall to subdue the guards.
Briala and a dozen others race behind her as she cuts through the Elven district towards the tower at the city's center. The smell of smoke reaches her before the screams. They come across a large courtyard swarming with people clashing with fists and steel and magic as Arbitrators battle back a heavy throng of her people. When the Elven see her they chant her name, voices and violence growing, bodies surging forward with renewed purpose.
She stops to slay as many as she can, shouts for the crowd to follow her for justice, for freedom, for vengeance for their pain and the deaths of Reiveth and Nevaelathsan. They were right - martyrdom is a compelling force. With every smoldering block passed she accumulates more followers until the stones beneath her feet shake and the sound of their thunder is a loud drum banging inside her ears. They roar into the capitol's center, undeterred by the heavy line of gold plated sentinels that await.
"Never again shall we submit!" the Elven shout, some faces carved with vallaslin, the others with hard lines, but all willing to spend the last drop of their blood to defy another empire.
Fen'Lin charges ahead, morphing into the scarlet beast of terror and teeth, howling wrath and ruin into the night's sky as they collide in crackling waves of magic and metal. A blind need takes over in the throes of battle, a savagery made of all her hurts, hopes, disappointments and dreams. What injuries she sustains are not felt as only this hunger takes hold. She thinks of friends and family lost, of wounds that will never heal, of Taliesin laying cold and her heart burned to cinders, and tears into the Elvhen without remorse, darkening and drenching her fur in the viscera and blood. This is what they made her for, after all.
"Stop, Fen'Lin! Now! We must go now!" Briala's voice finally snaps her from the battle lust as the rogue waves to catch her attention.
Fen'Lin gives a shake of her massive head and lets the spell fall away. Together they cross the courtyard and sneak through foliage and over walls to a secluded part of the palace. There is a small gate half hidden by leaves and clever architecture, something locked most days, but they find the handle easily gives way to their demands. It leads into a passageway barely light by fledgling fire and yet it is enough for them to navigate through the bowels of the structure and to higher levels.
"We don't have much time. We likely wasted too much out there," Briala says. "And you're bleeding everywhere. Why-"
"Don't," Fen'Lin's voice is a warning, some of the wolf still rolling inside.
"Here." They come across a door along the way chalked with the drawing of a daisy and open it to find themselves at the end of a long hall lined with alabaster pillars and painted glass. "This way. His rooms should be the next level up."
They make it halfway to the doors before two figures detach from the darkness. Abelas and Merrill block their advance, the tops of their glowing staves shifting downward to face them as they approach. She is thankful to see Veranna absent, a fight that would take too long to end, and wonders what has become of her forces invading the city. Has the Elvhen huntress slaughtered them all? Will she fail in making their sacrifices count?
"You will go no further," Abelas says. "Dis-"
A bolt of lightning hits him in the temple, shaking through his body with a sharp force, before it drops him to the ground. Merrill turns to face his unconscious form with a hand on her hip and a smile. "You were right about me all along, hahren. Happy? Oh you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."
"Is he dead?" Briala asks.
"I don't think so. I was worried you wouldn't make it. I thought maybe the way had been locked again, but I couldn't leave Abelas to check."
"We were delayed. Is there anyone else waiting?"
"No, just him. If you can get passed the door that is."
"I can get passed the door," Fen'Lin answers and moves beyond the elf.
"I-wait!" Briala takes off her mask and wears an expression of sentiment and shame beneath. She could tell her that she's forgiven, that there were two people in this world that made her feel loved despite the lies, but Fen'Lin remains silent. "We will hold them for as long as we can. Good luck."
It is quiet as she takes the spiraling stairwell up. Through the windows she can see the fires below, but the sounds of rebellion are muted to her ears being so high up. History is being made beneath her and she thinks instead of their history. Of drying paint and broken skies, of love lost and hope forgotten. Of lives half lived without each other.
It shouldn't have happened this way. She will make sure that it doesn't.
With one final step the door to Fen'Harel's suite comes into view. It is open for her, trails of flickering light dancing across the floor and beckoning entry. She finds him sitting on the ground by the far wall. There are scattered pieces of parchment, like a pathway beneath her feet as she walks to him, sketches scratched out and crumpled. She sees pieces of herself in each but never the whole, pieces of a life that could never exist as anything but charcoal and dreams. When she is close to him, close enough to see the paint smeared across his hands and clothes, she looks up to see what the Dread Wolf has been doing locked in his tower.
It is a mural - a gift for her this time. A giant eluvian hovers in the background, but the main focus is upon the pair kneeling in water lilies and spindleweed. A corona of green encircles them as they kiss at the top of the world and the end of a journey. It is meant as a final goodbye, but she can see the way he desperately clutches to a hand and holds fingers in hair, blue eyes open to remember it all.
"Var lath vir suledin. I did not believe, could not..." He pivots around, face crinkling with concern at her current state, and she hates him still. She always will. He may have not been the executioner, but he is guilty all the same for not believing, for giving up on his promises, on her. She is tired of hatred, however, of this wrath that has commanded her for so long. Now she only wants him to truly see her, to see what became of a love that would not die.
She peels off her bloodied and torn jacket and drops it to the floor. Arms extend and with a burst of magic the white paint and grime drift away from her skin to show the golden hues beneath. Fingers reach up to grab hold of her heavy mask. She takes a breath, hesitating here at the edge of everything. There will be no coming back, one way or another. For her or for him, for them both most likely, but she has to try.
Slowly, she lifts the mantel of Fen'Lin up and away.