Water. Yes I was in a pool of water. It was cold and I shivered and I could hear it rushing in from somewhere. And someone was shouting, swords were clashing and magic whirring over me. I opened my eyes then, my vision still blurred but I saw the Herald, plunging her sword into a Tevinter soldier. My mind came back to me then as I remembered Alexius' amulet and the Vortex and the probable life or death situation we now faced. I rushed to my feet, ignoring the dizziness I felt and marched over to the herald, checking her for injury.

"Lavellan, I'm fine." She said, trying to smile lightheartedly but it didn't reach her eyes.

"That may yet be up for debate." Dorian said uneasily, looking around.

"The last thing I remember we were in the castle hall... where are we now?" Trevelyan said, matching Dorian's uneasy glances.

"So if we're still in the castle, it isn't." Dorian muttered. "Ah! It's not simply where but when! Alexius used the Amulet as a focus, he moved us through time."

Why Dorian sounded so thrilled at the prospect of being stranded somewhere in time, was beyond me but the Herald seemed to share my concern as I saw her mouth open like cod fish.

"Did... did we go forward or back? And how far?" She said in awe, a hand coming up to play with the end of her chestnut braid.

"Those are excellent questions, ones to which I hope we find answers. I believe if Alexius used the amulet to send us here, we may be able to reverse the process."

Trevelyan's face lit up.

"He said, 'maybe'." I said lowly, my mind still reeling from everything that had happened. Yesterday seemed like a lifetime away, like a different person's life. I wondered how many times a person could feel like three different souls before they went mad. I was A Dalish, I was a spy, I was an elf of an alienage... I was some sort of freed woman from a time forgotten. How many people can one person be? The two of them looked at me sombrely as I walked on ahead. I was determined to find the answers to those questions and hopefully go back far enough so that I wouldn't have to kill that girl. Her blood was still clinging to my hands. I must have looked a picture. We walked silently through the corridors of the cells, they were all flooded now but I recognised them from our infiltration. They were utterly destroyed however, decaying almost. With the same red shards of rock protruding from the ground.
"Red lyrium..." Tevelyan said, edging that bit further away from it. I heard its whispers and felt its power, and a darkness that seemed to float about it like a sickness. I couldn't help but do the same. It seemed we walked for an age, not finding anything or anyone of use, until that was we found an elf in a cell. I recognised him from Redcliff village though I couldn't remember his name. His eyes were red and absent and when the Herald tried to speak to him all he did was chant eerily to himself.

"Andraste bless me, Andraste bless me..." he repeated over and over. Andraste was not here. There were no gods here.

"He's lost, leave him." I said, pulling her slightly by the elbow, her eyes lingered on him long after she came away and I could see the strong exterior that she had worn for so long beginning to crumble. All of a sudden she was just a young girl thrust into a hellish world. I looked to Dorian and he seemed to see it too.

"It'll be fine, Evelyn. We'll get back and none of this will have happened." I Whispered to her gently. She tried to smile again and nod, but it was still forced. She was scared, I had to help her through this. She was the one thing that could save us from this.

In the next cell we found Fiona. The grand enchanter of the free of the free mages, struggling for life. The Herald gasped sharply when she saw what was left of her. The red lyrium that had been plunging up from the ground was... growing out of her. A great red shard of it impaled her, right through her abdomen. And yet, most torturously of all, she still lived. She raised her dark head up and like the elf before, her eyes were gone, replaced by red stones.

"You... you're alive." She stuttered. Those red stones seeming to brighten just a little. Trevelyan took a tentative step forward and nodded, her smile forced and her bright eyes tearful. She was too young, too good to see this. All I wanted to do was pull her back and shield her from the world. Yet her shoulders were straight and she faced it regardless. How I continued to underestimate this girl. There was a strength in her that very few possessed.
"Grand enchanter," Dorian interupted urgently, "Can you tell us the date, it is very important."
If she was confused by his question, or even in awe of the fact that we were in fact alive and not dead, her body and spirit was either too tired or too broken to show it.
"9... 42... Dragon." She managed.
A year... only a year had passed without the herald and yet the world had ended. It left my chest feeling even more constricted. We had to fix this, the Herald had to return and we had to stop this from ever happening. What this exactly was I wasn't sure, but as the Herald continued to talk with the enchanter and as she reluctantly left her to her fate, I began to think about what was really happening here. It felt as if the air was bleeding. Bleeding what, I do not know, but there was something terribly familiar about this feeling. I could feel the magic in the air with my finger tips but it was wrong. It was not like in my dreams were the magic flowed around me like an aura, this clung to me in clusters. It was thick and unwelcome and corrupt.

We continued to explore the decaying ruins of the dungeons, ignoring the infrequent roars we heard in the distance, until I heard a familiar voice, tinged with a slight distortion. She was muttering something, I only caught the end of it from behind the heavy wooden door.

"For those who follow the makers path, fire is her water." she said, and there was no mistaking Cassandra's voice. I clenched my jaw in preparation for what we might find behind the door. I dreaded to see what was left of my shemlen friend.

When we came to her cell I couldn't help my sigh of relief. She fared better than the Grand Enchanter, but her eyes too... infected with red lyrium. Trevelyan wasted no time in freeing her. She too was in awe at the fact we were. Dorian reassured her that we could fix it and her eyes seemed to brighten. She spoke of strange things, dark things that made fear twist in my gut. She told us of an elder one killing the empress of Orlais and, in the chaos, taking the rest of the world with an army of demons. It sounded like something from a nightmare... and my dear Cass had lived through it. I wanted to hug her then, to tell her that I was sorry, sorry that I wasn't there to help. But what could I have done. Had I not been caught in the vortex, I'd probably be dead.

Demon fodder.

I shuddered and Cassandra noticed.

"It... it's good to see you again. Even under these circumstances. I thought I had lost the Herald and my friend that day. I am glad I was wrong." She said with a faint smile, but I couldn't help but hear the corrupt ripple in her voice, the red infecting her eyes. I felt a lump form in my throat but I desperately willed myself not to cry. In the next cell we found Blackwall, he was in a similar state to Cassandra but he looked utterly broken. He had the look on his face of a man who would welcome death and that was not the quietly cheerful warden I had met back in haven.

"I'm sorry I never finished your bow." He said to me with a smile and I barely held back my sob, muffling it in a laugh.

"You will yet. We will make this right." I said firmly, more to persuade myself than him.

We came to the final cells then, they were more detached from the others. I doubted there would be anyone left in them, but Trevelyan insisted and I don't know whether I was glad if she did.

He stood in the cells, his back to the door, his shoulders bent and his hand at his chin in thought. When he heard us coming he turned around and looked at us in awe, mainly at the Herald and her hand. When Dorian explained, there were no looks of awe, he simply agreed and said words that would stick in my mind forever.

"This world is an abomination, it must never come to pass." And he had yet to look at me. Barely even acknowledged me. Perhaps he had found out about the serving girl I killed, perhaps he would never forgive me for it. We walked on then, up past the cells until we came to what I can only assume were the torture chambers. A chill ran up my spine but Blackwall, lyrium riddled as he was managed to pass me a reassuring glance.

It was when we found Leliana that my fear and bewilderment gave way to anger. Her words cut through me like ice.

"This is all a game to you, some dark future you hope never comes to pass. I lived it. We all lived it." she said, her once youthful face beaten and burned until she was barely recognisable. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, to plead her forgiveness for letting this happen to her. In all of this world, she was my closest friend. My kindred spirit. And look what they did to her. Something stirred in me. A darkness that washed away the coolness of my fear with a numbing warmth. Vengeance. A dark and terrible vengeance. Alexius would die for this. The elder one would die for this. Every last one of them would die for this.
Navigating our way through the castle was almost impossible in the state it was in. When we came outside however the true magnitude of what had happened was lain plainly before us. The sky was sick and green. Rocks, houses, castles and statues floated in the sky like they were feathers. It looked like the fade. But sicker, more corrupt. it seemed as though the entire world was dissolving, melting away into the corrupt and vile magic of the Breach. i could only look on it for so long without going mad with fear.
Suddenly, something flashed in my mind the longer we stood looking at the sky around us. A flash of noise and colour, yellow. Steely yellow eyes smiling down at me.

"You do your mother proud, dear girl." Said the silken voice in my head. "I'm glad to see you finally free." I looked around frantically, shaking my head to rid myself of that voice that I knew so well, and those eyes. I had bowed to those eyes, revered those eyes.
When? Why? How? Was this a trick of this corrupt world? Was another soul's memories bleeding into mine? I couldn't rid my sight of those eyes nor my ears of that voice so I shut both tightly willing it to stop, but as soon as I did, it was almost as if I was transported to another place and time.

It was a hall, not dark and golden with eery mosaics on the walls, but open and airy, with a view of the sunset from the tall windows beyond. Wisps floated around the ceiling in clusters of light and a woman stood before me. An elvhen woman, tall and lean and beautiful with a shock of white hair and steely yellow eyes. She smirked down at me but there was a deep fondness in her eyes. Everything was still however, but it was the clearest I had yet seen these dreams. Beside me, my mother still was bowed, her eyes shut and an almost relieved smile on her lips. Behind the tall woman stood hooded shadows, protective and cold as statues. They were her guardians, but I did not know who she was. I knew her eyes though. Her eyes were terrifyingly familiar.