A/N: Turns out the tentative plan changed and apparently we won't lose Internet until tomorrow. So, as it's time for an update and I know I left off on a bit of a cliffy last chapter...though this one's a bit of one as well...try not to hate me! It'll probably be a week before I can update again, but possibly sooner if I get a chance to update via a hotel's Internet. Be prepared for a fun little surprise (well, it's not really a surprise, but still) at the end of this chapter!
And a big THANK YOU to KiraChan for the review :-) And to everyone following. Enjoy!
Twenty-Four
Restoring the Fade
The water rose quickly, swelling up to Solas' thighs in only a few heartbeats. Behind him Zevanni and Var shouted, arguing over how best to tackle the problem. Var wanted to attack the ice wall while Zevanni hoped to stop whatever spell had been cast.
"I will destroy the ice," Solas told them. "But we must move quickly to—"
Before he could finish speaking the wall of ice blockading the doorway shattered with a glasslike clattering. The water roared, set free and surging forward and straight for the precipice. Solas, standing barely a meter away, had no chance of staying upright as the current swept him under and tore him out the door. The cold water muffled sound and light, stunning him for a heartbeat before he saw, through a spray of bubbles, the darkness of the ledge racing toward him.
Twisting, Solas teleported sideways, rematerializing to the right of the doorway, which the rushing water had now transformed into a waterfall. Zevanni and Var floundered past him, falling away—but Solas blasted the water with ice, creating a ledge below them. They fell onto it, coughing and scrambling for purchase, waterlogged and clumsy.
More mages flowed out with the water, screaming and splashing. Solas cast another wall of ice at the edge of the precipice, creating a dam that blocked the flow. The water smashed into the ice, parting to flow over its sides. The mages carried with it hit against the ice instead, then scrambled to find purchase. Thinking quickly, Solas drew hard on his mana core and formed an ice wall along the edge of the stone path, creating temporary barriers like railings. The water flowed along the path now, thinning as it spread out. Solas stiffened as it rushed past him, tugging at his ankles, but the current no longer had enough strength to dislodge him.
Below the ice railings Zevanni cast ice of her own, creating a parallel walkway. Var scrambled behind her, fleet-footed and agile as he checked the daggers at his shoulders and readied for a fight. He didn't possess enough magic to cast, which had made Solas reluctant to bring him, but he'd needed someone he could trust as Abelas' second in command.
Too bad Abelas had betrayed him.
The mages swept out by the water now accumulated on the path, righting themselves and splashing as they jogged to join him on the path. Zevanni and Var reached the end of Solas' ice wall railing where the water flowed around it in a steady stream into the depths of the black abyss. She flash froze the waterfall and then used it to climb up from the ice ledge she'd created with Var following. Solas advanced to help them both up.
"Where is the bitch?" Zevanni asked, dripping wet and snarling with barely contained rage.
"Retreated, I suspect," Solas replied. He couldn't detect the sharp, burning scent on the air any longer. "The spell she cast must have drained her. Yet she is not known for patience. She will return soon." He nodded toward the path. "We must advance quickly to escape this exposed spot. The spell she cast will wear off shortly. Watch your step."
They hurried forward, Solas lighting the way with veilfire orbs and creating ice walls at the edge of the precipice to ensure the others' safety. He heard and sensed the cold wind from behind him as the mages following continued casting ice as well, strengthening the impromptu railings.
The sound of rushing water diminished as Solas reached a spot where the stone wall to his left stopped. He knew from his memory of this place that this was a large courtyard with pillars carved out by dwarves every so often. It cut deep into the rocks, eventually forming a massive archway and circular platform where a dragon would have slept. In the true Deep Roads those dragons had been walled in to seal them away from darkspawn, making it harder for them to be found. But the Forgotten Ones hadn't known that and for dramatic flair Solas had left the dragon's sleeping platform and chamber open in case he needed to take the demons deeper into the construct before fleeing.
Flinging more veilfire orbs out into the empty space, Solas Fade stepped forward twice and then paused, assessing the inky blackness. Sure enough his next breath brought the sharp, burning scent of Veredhe—but Chaos wasn't alone this time. He felt his stomach clench, gnawing on itself with a sudden, intense hunger, and at the same time a chill swept over him, his skin going numb. Those were the hallmarks of the Anaris demons: Isa'anaris and Banal'anaris. Famine and nothingness.
For light rather than combat, Solas summoned firestorm. As the fireballs rained down on the courtyard, casting orange-yellow flashes of light, he saw the all-consuming darkness of Banal'anaris in the corner beside the archway leading to the empty platform where Dumat would have been sleeping. Beside it stood the pale-skinned, skeletal figure of Isa'anaris, tentacles sprouted from its back as its hollowed eyes made contact with his own. But where was Veredhe? What form had she taken now?
And then, from one of the pillars illuminated by his firestorm, water poured out, splashing as it struck the stone. Already Solas suspected this was Veredhe, but when the water rose up into a vaguely bipedal form he knew with certainty he had found her. Veredhe's voice cackled as his firestorm ended, plunging the courtyard back into darkness.
Solas flung out more orbs of veilfire with one hand while with the other he summoned pull of the abyss, hoping to keep all three demons trapped in the same area. The spell roared as it activated, shimmering as it created a wind, sucking at dust and debris. The light revealed Solas had caught the Anaris demons together as he intended, but Veredhe streaked toward him, making the stone underfoot quake.
Fade stepping to the left, away from the courtyard's edge and closer to the platform that would've housed a sleeping dragon, Solas let loose with lightning on the Anaris demons while he summoned a powerful veilstrike for Veredhe. More mages joined him, blurring as they used Fade step, popping out and immediately casting offensive attacks at Veredhe.
She roared, wind gusting at the newly arrived mages in a powerful blast that knocked several of them off their feet. One man shrieked as he was flung across the courtyard, sliding over the stone toward the edge. His staff clattered after him. Even from many meters away, Solas was able to create an ice wall to stop the mage from going over the edge before sending Fade stone flying at Veredhe. The physical impact knocked her over, disrupting the wind spell she'd conjured.
More mages rushed into the fray, focusing their attacks on Veredhe because she was closest. Solas kept the Anaris demons pinned down with a heavy veilstrike, smashing them to the ground and then adding pull of the abyss as well. Zevanni joined him, shouting a battle cry again as she hurled fireballs at chaos and then lightning at the Anaris demons. Var joined in the attack as well, daggers slashing as he darted in and out.
"This is how you repay me, Fen'Harel?" Veredhe demanded, her voice making the courtyard shake. A few mages stumbled, their spells fizzling, but they had enough elves that soon all three demons had been surrounded. The handful of rogues Solas had brought with them went to work, hacking and slashing.
"Trapped here over the ages," Veredhe shrieked, her voice shrill and painful enough that everyone near cringed. "After all I taught you." Her voice rose impossibly high, earsplitting. The wind howled again and Veredhe lashed out, sweeping aside a handful of mages, men and women, knocking them with tremendous force into a stone pillar. Solas heard their screams of pain intermixed with the crunch of broken bones. But the mages didn't let up as more moved into position, keeping the heat on Veredhe.
From the Anaris demons then Solas heard another wailing scream and saw Isa'anaris had managed to strike one of the mages with a tentacle limb. Unlike Daern'thal, however, its tentacles did not pierce the man's body but passed through him. The effect was still immediate and terrible as he staggered backward, howling and clawing at his neck and then his stomach, retching. Isa'anaris caught two more mages with its tentacles, sending them reeling away as the uncontrollable vomiting seized their bodies.
Banal'anaris, a black shape that was more lightlessness than anything else, broke free of the encircled mages. It moaned, a hollow sound of despair, and before Solas could cast pull of the abyss again to keep it pinned, the demon brushed three of the attacking mages and they froze, staring unseeingly. Numbed by its touch, their skin turned ashen, their life leeching away to feed Banal'anaris. With a flash of his eyes, Solas petrified them rather than feed the demon.
Pull of the abyss corralled Banal'anaris back to its counterpart, the pale, wizened figure of Isa'anaris. Solas summoned firestorm, battering both demons together with the fireballs and then following it at once with lightning.
The mages afflicted with Isa's touch had the presence of mind to slink away, clutching their bellies as they dry heaved and spat onto the stone. Isa'anaris was the weakest of the Forgotten Ones, being a demon whose representative in nature, famine, could be easily mitigated by society when it pooled resources, sharing food. As a result its attack was the least deadly of all five Forgotten Ones and Solas knew soon that the mages it'd struck would recover enough to rejoin the fight.
But Banal's touch was much harder to recover from—impossible even for most of these modern elves who were unprepared and unfamiliar with the demon. Banal could twist thoughts to despair, destroy the will to live, and drain the vitality from most mortals in mere heartbeats.
The demon moaned again, the sound making Solas' blood run cold as it reached out and caught another elven mage, a single young woman this time, with a tendril of darkness. She froze, staring as the other mages had, then collapsed to her knees, dropping her staff as tears poured from her eyes. When her skin paled again in the greenish light from his veilfire orbs Solas again petrified her rather than feed Banal.
How many have been lost? Solas wondered but pushed the thought aside. He couldn't afford weakness or doubt. Not now.
"You will not prevail," Veredhe raged, wind whipping about the courtyard again. Solas hurled Fade stone at her, giving the extra physical attack to aid the mages in keeping her in check.
Then Mathrel was at his side, his expression hard and grim, his spectral blade glowing a brilliant white-gold. "Fen'Harel suledin," he said. Dread Wolf endures.
Solas offered him a tight smile as they turned their full fury on the remaining three demons. Isa'anaris was the first to show weakness, chattering in a dry sound like a thousand locust wings. The mages who'd been afflicted with vomiting from its touch recovered, returning to attack with renewed fury. Under their assault, and with Solas' ongoing help to ensure the Anaris demons stayed pinned in place, Isa glowed suddenly bright, as if catching fire. Its form dissolved away into uncountable dust motes that filled the air, wafted away by Veredhe's ongoing wrath.
Only two remaining now.
Sensing the danger now that three of the five of them had died, Veredhe tried to flee. One moment she was pushing mages about with her wind, struggling to find the power to bludgeon more of them against the stone or blow them off the precipice, the next she had transformed into water. The mages gasped as one, scrambling backward and casting barriers over themselves in a flurry.
"She flees," Solas shouted and Fade stepped to block her path toward the abyss. Popping out of it, Solas pummeled her formless, watery mass with veilstrike and firestorm simultaneously, trapping her. "Your time has ended!"
Her cackling filled the air, but it held a manic edge that sounded like fear. If she or the other demons could bleed, Solas knew she would've been hemorrhaging buckets of it. She'd exhausted much of her energy in her first powerful attack and now found herself unable to do enough damage to stop the inevitable.
Still, she would not go down easily. Veredhe lunged at him, her form an enormous wave, devoid of any clear shape. She crashed against Solas' barrier, her watery essence trying to drown him. Solas flung her back with a mindblast. She shrieked, letting out another earsplitting cry as the mages closed in on her from behind, resuming their attack. And then, suddenly, it was over as her watery form shimmered, evaporating into air.
With his heart pounding at the nearness of triumph, Solas Fade stepped to be closer to Banal, the last remaining Forgotten One. This had been the demon that inadvertently rescued him from Andruil when she captured him and bound him to a "tree," one of the metal structures that collected stray magic from the air in Elvhenan. The "tree" had drained his magic, keeping him too weak to escape…but fortunately Banal'anaris had come by.
"Fen'Harel," it howled in a voice as mournful and sad as the wind, speaking directly into his mind. Solas kept it pinned with constant veilstrikes and fireballs, forcing it against the stone wall behind it. "You will die alone, unloved and forgotten. You bring death to all you care for."
Clenching his jaw, Solas ignored it, assaulting it with veilstrike after veilstrike, flicking his right hand while the left sent fireballs raining down on it. The other mages shot lightning and ice, making the air crackle and hiss. Over two hundred of them fought for a spot to cast, the air charged with their magic as it rained down in an unending torrent. With so much magic in the air Solas could almost close his eyes and imagine he was back in Elvhenan, that the Fade and the real world were as one again and the People immortal as they should be.
"Traitor," Banal repeated, dragging the word out in that same bone chilling cry that echoed inside his skull. "Harellan. Monster. You will lose your lover as your enemies steal her away. She will curse you with her dying breath. Your child will never know you and deny its heritage in shame, bowed and broken as a slave in Tevinter."
Despite himself, Solas felt anxiety lick its way from the very base of his belly, cold and quivering. Banal had no eyes, no face to tell him it watched him, but Solas knew that it did, and like Cole it read him beneath the surface. Like its far simpler brethren, fear demons, it knew just what to say to set its victims on edge. Solas quashed his reaction, focusing on the magic he cast.
Soon, minutes later though it felt like hours, Banal'anaris let out a long wheezy sigh and its black essence fluttered, shrinking as it entered its death throes. Its voice called out one last time, howling in its despairing wail. "She has already fled from you, Fen'Harel. Your loss is nigh."
And then the demon evaporated as all the others had. There was a moment of silence, eerie and heavy as the weight of the rock that would've been over them had this truly been the Deep Roads. Then, suddenly, a single young man whooped with triumph and, right on cue, the other mages raised their voices in celebration. The Dalish praised Mythal while the city elves cried out to the Maker in jubilation. As one they also shouted his name, their grinning, dirt and blood smeared faces turning to him, gleaming in the white-green pallor of the veilfire orbs still hovering over the courtyard.
Solas stayed stoic through their cheers, wolf headdress still in place—with the help of magic of course—and let them have their moment of victory. Yet, already his mind churned with a cold, slow-dawning fear that made his stomach clench and his blood turn icy in his veins. Banal'anaris was wrong. It was taunting him in death. It could not actually predict the future and there was no way it could know whether Ellana was somehow gone. Everything it knew it had to have spied from the real world using blood magic to communicate with mages who practiced that craft—or, more directly, it had to read the minds of those around it. No one here could know anything more than he did, which meant the demon was blustering…
And then, abruptly, Solas saw the glimmer of two arcane warriors through the crowd, resplendent in their armor as they stood side by side, whispering together: Mathrel and Lyris.
Lyris…
Gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists, Solas swallowed, trying to dispel the rising cold and tension in his chest. Thrusting a fist into the air, he silenced the celebrating mages. "We must gather the wounded and the dead and depart this place."
Their triumph cooled now as they reluctantly turned to this new and unpleasant task. A few of the apostates used blood magic for healing while the others used traditional Fade-based magic healing. There were dozens of wounded or stricken, some who could walk after Veredhe had smashed them against a wall or who were merely dizzy and nauseous from Isa'anaris' attack, but the chaos demon had left a handful dying or so utterly broken that no amount of healing spells could mend them. It was slow work, excruciating for Solas as he could not leave the prison construct as their leader.
He met with Lyris and Mathrel immediately after seeing the mages move into action, trying to ignore the shaking that'd started in his hands. He tucked them behind his back, hoping that if he projected authority and strength he'd feel it as well.
"Lyris," he said, lips twisting in a frown and his voice strangled despite his attempt to keep it calm. "Why are you here?"
The fear and pain warping her face set his heart galloping inside his chest. Ducking her chin solemnly, Lyris averted her gaze. "I tried to stop her, Fen'Harel, truly I did. She refused to listen."
"Ellana?" he asked, the name icy and rough in his mouth.
"Yes," she replied, choking. Her throat bobbed in the dim green light as she swallowed. "One of the sentinels attacked me—Arina. And a member of her clan. Ellana fled with Arina, her clansmen, and her Inquisition friends through the eluvian. I tracked them—I can show you where they fled. She told me where they planned to go as well."
"Where?" Solas asked, his voice deadpan. The cold in his chest had risen to his throat like bile. He swallowed, trying to suppress it though he could feel the flutter of panic building in his guts.
"The Dales," Lyris said. "She wanted you to meet her in the Fade."
"Ir abelas, falon," Mathrel said, his voice gravelly and thick. "But she cannot have gone far."
"She will be with Abelas," Solas muttered, more to himself than the warriors. "The sentinels have betrayed us." Mythal played me. He felt like vomiting and swallowed again, struggling to maintain composure. Banal'anaris' voice echoed through his mind again: You will lose your lover as your enemies steal her away. She will curse you with her dying breath.
"Zevanni and I can lead the mages back to Hellathen Hamin," Mathrel suggested, brow knitting and eyes pinched with sympathy. "Lyris can accompany you to find Ellana."
"No," Solas said, growling. "I cannot leave without the army." It was true. As their leader he could not retreat without losing face. Yet panic continued to thrash inside him, its icy fingers clawing at his throat. She could be injured, she could be killed. The Anchor could destabilize and no one else can sever her arm as safe and painlessly—He cut off the flow of thoughts by staring hard into Mathrel's face and inhaling deep as he let the facts and the reality of the situation settle onto his shoulders. He could not go to her himself yet, but he could send his warriors.
"Find her," he told Mathrel and Lyris, motioning at them both with one hand before clenching his fist and tucking it behind his back again. It'd been trembling. "See to it that she is safe."
The warriors bowed to him and then whipped around, Fade stepping in their haste to leave the construct. Solas let out a long breath as they disappeared in the sea of modern elven mages. Harm her Mythal, he thought, and I promise I will obliterate every last trace of you over Thedas.
Abelas and the rest of his sentinels spread out in the clearing around the rift, drawing runes. The sun had set now, spreading a chilly, somber darkness over the forest as Ellana trailed after Abelas, watching as he drew slightly different runes on stones and trees around the clearing. He had healed his palm as apparently the runes in the physical world didn't require blood for the binding. Instead he used a lump of charcoal to sketch them and then stepped back allowing Ellana to use the Anchor on them. The crackling noise of the Anchor tore through the still night air, bouncing from the trees. These runes gleamed a bright green as she activated them.
Cole had joined them after a few minutes, startling the sentinels at first before Ellana, Dorian, and Iron Bull calmed them. Now he lingered behind her, shadowing her steps but not speaking as she moved between the eight runes, gradually activating them all.
At the last rune Ellana hesitated, her hand outstretched and the Anchor already glowing, though it barely stung her now. "What's going to happen when I finish this?" she asked Abelas with a sidelong glance.
He regarded her with his hands crossed over his chest and a small, tight smile on his lips. "I cannot be certain," he admitted.
"You mean you don't know?" Iron Bull asked, managing to sound both disgusted and shocked simultaneously.
"Oh, how delightful," Dorian put in sarcastically. "What are the odds we cause another Breach? Hmm?"
Abelas shook his head, sneering at Dorian. "I was not awake for the Breach you speak of, but Fen'Harel has told me of it. These runes and the Anchor are hardly powerful enough to cause destruction at any level."
"Can you just guess what will happen?" Ellana pressed him, biting her lip. The baby kicked at her stomach, making her wince.
With a sigh, Abelas motioned to the charcoal rune. "These runes bind locations or objects. Similar runes are used to connect eluvians. When the circle is complete the eight runes in the Fade join with the eight runes here, in the physical realm. The Veil will tear wider as the connection is formed, but it will seal and stabilize along the runes."
"And will this joining be violent?" Ellana asked, unable to hide the concern and doubt in her voice.
"There will be some physical manifestations," Abelas confirmed. "But I suspect you will not notice the environment changing much now, during the night. In the morning you will see that the sky has been altered to look more like that of the raw Fade." He paused, an unreadable expression passing over his face in the darkness. "Or, more correctly, of Elvhenan and Thedas as it was truly meant to be."
"Colors in the sky, yellow and pink and green. Crystals glittering in the trees, cities floating on the air," Cole rambled.
Ellana blinked at him, remembering abruptly that Abelas and his sentinels had all seen and lived when the Fade and the waking world were one.
"Solas told me the Evanuris would have been released if Corypheus had destroyed the Veil entirely," she said, flexing her left hand as she hesitated, drawing it back to stare at the gleaming crease in her palm. "If I activate this rune, will I be—"
"No," Abelas said with a shake of his head. "This will be but a small hole, little more than a rift still. The Veil will endure."
"And what about the beings of the Fade?" Ellana asked, frowning as she indicated Cole though he didn't show any sign he'd noticed, merely watching them innocently. "Solas will never accept it if they aren't free and restored as well. Morrigan—" She stopped, rephrasing it. "My understanding was that Mythal planned to use coexistence with spirits as a deterrent to humans who would try to take the Dales back from us."
Iron Bull grunted. "More than just humans. Fucking demons. You can count me out if this place is crawling with those things, Boss. Sorry."
"I understand, Bull," she said, flashing him a quick smile. "But it'd be spirits we'd want to let in, not demons."
"Fear, cold and biting, claws cutting, blood dripping on fangs," Cole muttered under his breath.
"Shut up," Iron Bull snapped at the spirit.
Abelas smirked now. "Frightened of demons, are you?"
"Fuck off," Iron Bull growled, glaring. He grunted, hefting his axe up and resting it over one shoulder, as if ready to cut down the sentinel at the next insult.
"Yes," Dorian added with a snarl. "My sentiments exactly. I'm still not clear on why doing this is a good idea for anyone, except that it somehow benefits elves."
Ellana ignored them, staring at Abelas as she awaited an answer regarding spirits. The sentinel frowned. "In truth I am uncertain how Mythal intends to rectify this unfortunate issue. She did not create the Veil, so her understanding of it will be limited compared to Fen'Harel's knowledge. However, I suspect that additional runes could be added to create a barrier allowing spirits free passage while blocking demons. It may take time to uncover which runes will work." His smile was dry. "And, of course, Fen'Harel is the one best suited to such investigation."
Grinning, Ellana let out a quick laugh, feeling hope bubbling inside her. "We'll lure Solas into helping us with that for sure. It combines his two favorite things: learning and spirits."
"Yes," Dorian muttered. "How wonderful for him, though I thought his two favorite things were lying and half-truths. Ellana, my dear, I can't help but notice you haven't answered my question. Other than adding some charming slime-exuding rocks in the sky, how does the Fade help your people so much that Solas would obsess over it?"
Before Ellana could answer, Abelas did. "Ellana will be able to show you that herself once the final rune is activated." Motioning again to the charcoal mark on the rock in front of her, the sentinel nodded meaningfully. "In regards to your earlier question about what will happen when the runes join—the environmental manifestations will be subtle. But the physical ones…" His eyes glinted and his lips curled in a real smile. "You have never tasted the Fade as you were meant to, da'len."
The intimacy of the diminutive elven term made Ellana's cheeks blush. "Am I in any danger?" she asked, her right hand going at once to her belly.
Abelas' smile broadened slightly. "Quite the opposite, I expect."
"Skin warm, heart pounding with joy, the magic singing in my veins again," Cole whispered, probably reading Abelas, Ellana suspected. But he made a good point, reminding her of one of the primary reasons why the Fade mattered so much to the People. I'll become a mage, she realized and something like awe swept over her in a little chill.
Iron Bull growled. "I don't like this…"
"Yes," Dorian grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. "You both are being insufferably cagey. Perhaps—"
Ellana summoned the Anchor and let out a blast of magic from it before Dorian could finish. Both non-elves yelped—but not Cole who seemed unfazed. Dorian and Iron Bull tensed and took a step away as the magic swirled over the rune, setting it aglow. It activated with a hiss and a bright glow, and instantaneously Ellana felt her skin tingling, prickling in pins and needles that rose in intensity until she let out a gasp.
"The song," Cole exclaimed, grinning. "Can't you feel it?"
A sudden, strong wind whipped through the clearing, rustling the trees, scattering leaves over her like rain. The Fade rift behind them pulsed and then vanished, like a candle snuffed out by a giant's breath. Water droplets pelted them, clattering on the canopy and the earth around them. Mist rose from the ground in vaporous tendrils and the air took on a sweeter smell that made Ellana's heart swell in her chest, beating with something hot and pleasurable and unnamable.
She felt…energetic. Alive. Laughter burst out of her, uncontrollable for several seconds. Abelas and the sentinels had all started grinning, their faces lit with joy.
"The fuck is going on?" Iron Bull asked, eyes flicking over the elves.
"It seems there's some kind of hilarious joke we're not part of," Dorian said grumpily.
In the prison construct, Solas stood over a mage who'd been tossed like a ragdoll by Veredhe's wind. The impact had shattered his thighbone and now he writhed in agony despite several other mages pouring health potions down his throat. "Maker, please," he ground out, fingers digging at the stone and face wrenched with his pain.
"Try to relax," Solas said and held out his right hand over the man's leg. Closing his eyes, he drew heavily on his core, providing the simple spell with more power than any of the other mages, even the Elvhen ones, could have managed. As the blue glow flowed from his palm to the man's leg the mage gasped, trembling as he finally found some relief.
But just at the tail end of the spell, Solas flinched, clenching his fist and cutting off the flow of magic. He stiffened, raising his head and searching around the darkness, blinking. His draw of mana had briefly surged, startling him. Looking around he saw a few other healers had been interrupted as well and now stared through the dim green light of veilfire with confused expressions.
The mage groaned, head lolling. "Thank you," he said. "Maker bless you, Dread Wolf."
Normally Solas would've found that entertaining, but now his thoughts were jumbled, rife with confusion. What had just happened?
Struggling to contain the peals of laughter still pressing against her throat, Ellana laid a hand over Dorian's forearm, trying to reassure him. "It's…like nothing I've felt before." Shaking her head, she found her mind blanking, unable to find the words to do it justice. "You don't feel it?"
"He's shemlen," Abelas reminded her. Despite the narrowing of his eyes and the pinching of his lips as he looked at Dorian and Iron Bull, his voice was lighthearted and almost gentle. "They do not have the People's connection to the Fade."
"Excuse me?" Dorian snapped, scowling. "As a mage I do happen to have a connection to the Fade. A strong one, in fact. It just doesn't make me want to dance naked under the moonlight the way it apparently does for elves."
"Only priestesses of Sylaise performed that ritual," Abelas said, frowning.
"Pale bodies in the milky moonlight, honeyed words on the wind," Cole said, earning a sidelong glare from Abelas.
Dorian guffawed. "I knew it! The Imperium couldn't be wrong about everything elven, now could it?"
Unable to hold her reaction in at his comment and Abelas' sincerity in the explanation, Ellana burst out laughing again. The baby kicked, flexing inside her, as if it too felt the change or sensed her joy.
And then, from the ruins outside the clearing, Arina's voice shouted, "Abelas! Fen'Harel has sent his warrior pets!" The rogue appeared around the trunk of a massive tree, emerging from hidden stairs leading underground, racing for the circle of runes. Two streaks of blue-white followed, quickly overtaking her. Mathrel popped out of Fade step and rammed Arina, knocking her back into Lyris who immediately pushed the rogue prone with a mindblast.
"Stop," Ellana shouted at them. "Don't hurt her." Something seemed to flex inside her, warm and tingling. She reached out instinctually, as if she could help Arina despite the fact they were meters away and outside the circle of runes, and purple-white crackled through the air. Yelping, Ellana scrambled backward, stumbling, but Abelas and Dorian both grabbed her at once, keeping her upright. On her shoulders she felt Cole's touch as well, gentle and soft.
She stared, uncomprehending, as the jagged energy—lightning, she realized—arced through the air and slammed into the ground beside Mathrel's feet. The arcane warrior responded by casting a barrier immediately, though the way his mouth fell open revealed his shock. Lyris wore a similar expression and even Arina, shaking off the mindblast, raised her head with a curious look on her features.
"Fenedhis," Ellana cursed, her own jaw hanging open.
"That's a new trick for you, Boss," Iron Bull said with a grunt.
"Vishante kaffas," Dorian exclaimed, giving Ellana a little shake. "You're a mage!"
Next Chapter:
"Hold up a moment," Dorian interjected, raising his voice and spreading his hands in a gesture revealing his incredulity. "Are we really not going to discuss what just happened? Am I perhaps seeing things now or Ellana, did you just…" He waggled the fingers of one hand. "Yes. You did. I know you did. I saw it and felt it. How did you cast lightning?"
"Our people are all gifted with magic when the Fade and the waking world are one," Ellana told him, closing her eyes as she struggled to quell the tempest of tight, pleasurable energy swimming inside her. Breathing deeply to keep herself calm and suddenly afraid of making any unthinking gesture with her hands, Ellana crossed her arms over her belly.
"Oh," Dorian said with a hum. "Interesting." He turned and tapped the back of his hand onto Iron Bull's chest. "What about you?"
Iron Bull snorted. "I got nothing."