Cassandra knew Varric was a liar, a cheat, and a storyteller. A good one. But incoherent?
Varric dropped his hands which had been busy demonstrating the awesome shit to Cassandra. His eyes narrowed at her. "You don't believe a word of it, do you?"
Ugh. That same face that taunted her for hours during interrogation, testing her gullibility, challenging her to believe. She wanted so much to punch it if she didn't respect it a bit. A very tiny bit.
"I get the general picture. She—" Cassandra wiggled her hand at the Dalish elf, still unconscious. The words escape her. She turned to the bald elf in the adjacent bedroll. "Then he—" She couldn't find words to say about him either! "Uuuugh!"
"Exactly!"
The apostate was no help either. He had his eyes open, he blinked every so often, but he refused to move or speak. His eyes stared at nothing, his breathing deep as if meditating, his face a death mask like the ones her uncle pulled over the faces of the recently departed.
Almost like a Tranquil.
She shuddered at the idea and knelt down next to the elf, to touch his wounded arm tightly wrapped in layers of gauze, poultice, and bandage. And then she sensed it: a second pulse indicating mana and magic. She sighed.
She then stood up and looked around at the tiny space where this thinghappened. Only Varric witnessed it, and the only proof they have that he was telling the truth—or something close to the truth—was the wound on the bald elf's arm that did not bleed but leaked plasma. And the air when Cassandra got there, which choked with ambient magic. It has since dissipated but she would make sure to include it in her report.
As for the rest of that report, she was not sure what to make of Varric's statement. To be fair, the dwarf looked genuinely desperate to be believed—no teasing, no elaborate story setups, no hinting-and-waiting, not even a hint of flowery prose. Just basic words and curses that only kind of make sense.
"Did they talk to each other?"
"No. She was unconscious, he's…whatever he's doing now."
"Did they seem to know each other?"
"No, I don't think so. I got here after Adan finished dressing his sparring wounds. I don't think he even noticed her. Not until I did, that—wait, you think they know each other?"
"If they do, we'll find out."
"If they do, then he's a cold bastard. Well, a colder one." He scratched his chin. "What happens to him in the meantime?"
That one was less certain. "Keep him in observation for now."
Adan entered just then, a basin of warm water in hand and a towel resting on his lower arm. "Her breathing's too shallow, Seeker," he said, setting down the basin near the patient's head. "No other injuries on her save that—that thing on her arm. And the speed of her pulse, it's worrying."
"Keep her alive at all costs. You hear?"
"With all due respect, Seeker, I'm doing my best but I—" He grunted, exasperated. "She needs a proper healer. Someone with actual healing magic. I'll cover her in healing poultices if that would help but I–"
"Step aside."
They all turned to the source of the sound.
The apostate was pale as a sheet, his lips cracked and dry and his eyes empty, but he stood behind them with the same straight posture as before.
Varric was the first to step aside, allowing the apostate to approach the patient wasting before them.
Adan raised a hand to warn him off. "You should stay in bed, elf."
The apostate lifted his wounded arm towards Adan. "Your work was clean. Thank you for helping me. Now it's my turn to help, if you'll allow me."
Adan stammered incoherently as he slowly stood up. The apostate just nodded and said "Thank you" before kneeling in front of the Dalish elf. He placed a cupped palm inches above the Dalish's left arm."This is some sort of unknown magic."
Adan looked at Cassandra, all confused but tongue-tied, so Cassandra just gave the apothecary a nod to free him from any responsibility for what happens next. "Call for Sister Nightingale, quickly," she ordered, making a mental note to ask Commander Cullen to spare one of his templars to watch the infirmary.
The apothecary eagerly left.
Cassandra watched as the apostate lifted the woman's left hand. He gripped it by the wrist in one hand while the wounded one hovered over the wrist and produced energy in the form of light.
Cassandra knelt, too, curious and eager to find answers for her report. The apostate has his eyes closed, eyebrows knitted in concentration. She looked over the Dalish woman, hunting for signs that the apostate was doing something helpful. When she couldn't find any changes, she decided to remove the gauntlet off her right hand. She has better means of investigating after all, and she can't very well let her report simply repeat Varric's account.
The apostate opened his eyes, took one look at her bare hand, and seemed to understand what she intended to do. He nodded as if to encourage her.
Cassandra placed her cupped palm over the three hands: one pale, one olive, one bandaged. She closed her eyes to better sense the magic.
Mages usually describe magic as having color, smell, taste, sound, temperature, and texture. These usually have a combination unique to a magic user; if the magic is elemental, that further adds another layer of flavor to it. Cassandra can't sense magic as mages do, but having knowledge like that taught her to hone her senses to detect an abundance of something out of place: The smell of spring flowers in the middle of winter. Three notes, sustained in a loop, in an empty silent tower. Brush of silk on skin covered by heavy armor.
And here, in this moment, was an abundance of colors and temperatures.
Burning green, freezing ice-blue, warm crystalline. Cassandra absorbed all sensory details, committed them to memory, and then opened her eyes.
"Did you feel it, Seeker?" asked the apostate. "At the center of her wrist?"
Cassandra nodded, inhaled, licked her lips. That brief effort of tracing magic sapped her energy, too; she could feel the skin on her face tingling and her limbs growing heavier. She retrieved her hand and wiggled her fingers. "There's a concentration of magic at the center. It's small but it's…somehow large. And…heavy?"
The apostate nodded. "That's the magic that exploded earlier. It's unwieldy. If she is conscious, I believe she would be able to control it. But her body's too weak to deal with it, and it is now poisoning her."
"It's killing her?"
"If my theory is correct, there are two things killing her right now: first, she is physically drained and her natural defenses are weakened, so anything that can cause illness will infect her without resistance. Second, this magic is feeding off of her mana, and since she's too physically weak, her body can't produce more healthy blood to facilitate more mana. We need to bring her health back up if she's going to have a fighting chance."
"How?"
The look of concentration changed to one of effort and pain. His grip on the Dalish's wrist trembled and shook, breaking off the healing connection. The apostate's hands dropped like heavy rocks and stayed unmoving atop his lap.
He looked even more famished and weak than the first time they met. His eyes took time to focus on Cassandra. She reached out to him, hand hovering behind his back for fear he'd topple down where he knelt.
"You need to get your strength back, too, mage," she said. "I haven't forgotten our deal."
She forgot about Varric until he appeared next to the apostate offering a cup of water. The apostate emptied the cup in small gulps, as if drinking water hurt his throat. When he finished and returned the cup to Varric, the dwarf raised both eyebrows at Cassandra. "I'll have food and water brought here. Anything else we need, Chuckles?"
Cassandra also reached for a folded piece of paper and pencil wedged in the leather of her belt. "Tell us what else we need, mage."
The apostate licked his lips. "Solas," he said, voice still weak.
"I think that's his name, Seeker. Right, Chuckles?"
"Solas," he repeated.
"Right, sorry."
"I think—I should lie down."
Cassandra helped Solas back into his bedroll and covered him with a blanket to his chest. He was asleep in seconds.
"Welp, I think that corroborates my story," declared Varric.
Leliana appeared at the door and entered, trailing ice and mud. From her breathing and the stray strands of red hair around her face, she could tell the Nightingale had flown her way there. "So, what did I miss?" she asked, eyes eagerly taking everything in.
Varric beamed at Cassandra. "Should I start from the top?"
