I woke slowly, squinting against the harsh sunlight pouring through the window.

My first thought was that Mum had been in to open the curtains—which was strange, because I hadn't let anyone into my room in a week.

The air smelled wrong. The bed felt wrong.

I rolled over and groaned, dragging a pillow over my face. My head pounded like I'd drained two bottles of wine.

Had I?

Fragments drifted back in pieces. I left the funeral—

Shit. I left the funeral.

No, it was worse than that—I punched Seth Logan, caused a scene, yelled at my dad...

And then left the funeral.

I was going to have to deal with my parents at some point.

Then...the tree. I'd gone to the tree. And then I left and went…where?

Did I go to the pub after all? It would certainly explain the cotton wool between my ears and the complete lack of memory of going to bed.

Had I come back?

Had I even left?

"So! You are awake, at long last."

I froze mid-thought. The voice was both foreign and familiar—it lit up a flare in my memory and the events of the previous day came flooding back.

"Tis nearly noon," she continued. "Or were you planning to sleep the entire day away?"

My fingers tightened on the pillow as panic bloomed in my chest. Still, there was a small, insane part of me that wasn't completely in denial.

"Morrigan?" My voice came out tiny, muffled by the pillow—but she heard me.

"That is my name," she said, dryly. "Though I do not recall offering it while you lay on the ground, unconscious."

Her words posed a question. I had too many of my own.

I wasn't going to start explaining myself to a product of my mental breakdown. Yeah—I was still there. Clinging to the comforting notion that I'd just lost my mind.

If only.

I let out a shrill, nervous laugh, keeping the pillow firmly over my face.

"Did I miss something amusing? Or are you simply a fool?" Her tone was still light, but I thought I detected a hint of impatience there.

It wasn't funny. I laughed harder. She sighed, clearly irritated.

"She is awake," There was no mistaking Flemeth's distinctive rasp.

I was laughing hysterically now. I couldn't breathe. Of course. Why not? I was dreaming. Hallucinating. Dead. That was the only logical conclusion.

"And the better for it, I see," Flemeth sounded closer now.

"Hardly," Morrigan drawled. "I think she may have landed on her head."

"She is in shock. It will pass." I heard footsteps. "She has travelled a long way to get here."

I stopped laughing abruptly when the pillow was torn from my grasp with more force than I had been prepared for, and I sat up with a start, finding myself eye to fierce, yellow eye with Flemeth.

I inhaled, sharply. If my mind was creating these visions, it was doing a damn good job of it.

Before I had time to process anything further, a mug of sweet-smelling…something, was thrust into my hands.

"Drink this, child. It will help to clear your mind."

"I don't—"

"Drink." She insisted.

"But I—"

"Drink." Her voice hardened and I raised the mug to my mouth, obediently.

The liquid was viscous, sweet and bitter all at once, but not unpleasant. It coated my throat like warm honey. I drank almost half of it before reason caught up, and a small voice in my head pointed out that I was drinking an unknown liquid given to me by an ancient, possessed witch.

I gagged, coughing violently.

"Better?" Flemeth asked, in a sickly sweet voice that chilled me to the bone.

I opened my mouth to respond with something sarcastic, but the words vanished. Something cool spread through my body, seeping into my limbs, clearing the fog from my mind like mist retreating from sunlight.

My limbs felt like they had been unclenched for the first time in a week. My head was clearer, but the clarity was almost worse.

Because now I couldn't pretend this wasn't real.

I blinked.

"Yes," I replied, my surprise evident. "What—what was that?"

"Essence of elfroot," she said. "Among other things. It matters not. What is your name, traveller?"

Eyes of firelight and storm probed my face and I squirmed uncomfortably under the intensity of her gaze.

"Lauren," I said slowly. "Lauren Duval."

Flemeth's gaze didn't waver. Morrigan, still lurking in the corner, folded her arms and eyed me with a look of deep mistrust.

"You are far from home, Lauren Duval." It wasn't a question. "Not of this world—and yet, you know this place…do you not?"

I nodded. What did I have to lose? If this was real, which I still wasn't sure of, although the concoction that Flemeth had given me had alleviated some of my doubt, I may as well be honest. I knew better than to lie to the Witch of the Wilds.

"I do. It's...difficult to explain how." I finished, lamely. "It's...complicated."

Somehow, I didn't think 'You're characters from a videogame, and I killed you this one time' would go over particularly well.

"Yes, I imagine it is," Her eyes flashed with something like amusement. "Tell me, Lauren Duval…what do you know of me?"

Just that you're a shape-shifting abomination possessed by an Elven God who plans to claim your daughter's body for your own.

I took a breath, and tried very hard not to say the first thing that popped into my head.

"You're Flemeth. Witch of the Wilds. To the Elvhen, Asha'bellanar. And to the unfortunate...'what's that big purple thing flying toward us?'."

Flemeth laughed, heartily, throwing her head back.

Morrigan's face remained passive, although she raised an eyebrow, suspiciously, when I caught her eye.

"And you know more than you pretend to." I added, despite myself.

The mirth left Flemeth's eyes, replaced by a look of steel.

"A trait that you and I share, I have no doubt." She replied.

"Yeah, well…everybody has secrets." I said, quietly.

"Some secrets are more dangerous than others."

I held her gaze, fighting the urge to look away.

"I'm not here to break the world by running my mouth off about things that are better left unsaid."

There was a mirror on the far wall. I caught sight of my reflection—eyes wild, skin pale, hair tangled. I looked like a girl in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

"I just want to go home."

Flemeth's expression softened. Almost.

"Your home is out of reach…for now. You travelled here through a tear in the Veil. Your arrival stirred forces both light and dark, new and ancient—on this side and the other. The way is closed. You cannot return the way you came."

It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. When they eventually did, I rejected them on instinct.

"No." I let out a half-laugh, too sharp to be anything but fear. "No, that's not happening. Come on. Just tear another hole, wave your spooky hands, send me back. I need a coffee and a shower, and both of those things live in my house so,...whenever you're ready."

Flemeth didn't flinch. She looked at me like she was watching a tide roll in—a tide she'd seen crash and vanish a thousand times before.

"Denial is often the first refuge of the lost," she said softly. "But you are no longer lost. You have simply arrived—sooner than you wished, in a place you did not choose."

I clenched the blanket in my fists, trying to ground myself in something real. It didn't help.

"No. You don't get to say that like it's…destiny, or fate, or some ancient-wisdom bullshit." My voice shook, somewhere between fear and rage. "I didn't ask to be here."

"Nor does the seed ask for the storm," she said, tilting her head slightly. Her voice was silk drawn over steel. "And yet it grows, all the same."

"Spare me the riddles. I want to go home."

"Of course you do," Flemeth said—not unkindly, which somehow made it worse. "Most who find themselves where you are now—by chance or design—wish it were not so. They long for another place. Another time. But there is no door behind you, Lauren Duval. The only way open to you now is ahead."

"Where I am now?" I narrowed my eyes, sensing that she wasn't talking about geography.

"On the knife-edge of becoming," Flemeth said, her voice low and reverent. "A place where few stand willingly, and fewer still survive unchanged."

My breath caught. I hated how calm she sounded. How sure. How final.

"So that's it? I'm just...stuck here?"

Flemeth gave the barest nod, like she was confirming the weather.

"You are not stuck. You are placed. There is a difference."

"But…you're Flemeth! You can do anything. Just...tear open another hole in the Veil. Send me back."

"I cannot. You were called to this time and place by powerful forces, beyond even my ken. You must realise how singular an event your coming is? I believe you have been chosen. And until you fulfil your purpose here, here is where you shall remain."

I went still.

"Chosen? Powerful forces? I don't…I-I-I'm not…chosen to do what, exactly?" I stammered, frowning.

"Well, I should think that much is obvious. You have been chosen to put an end to the Blight that threatens Ferelden." She said, with an air of someone who was explaining something painfully obvious to a five-year-old with ADHD.

I laughed. She narrowed her eyes.

You've been chosen. Sure. By what? A magical recruitment algorithm?

"Chosen to stop the Blight," I echoed, unable to keep myself from smirking at the absurdity of it. "Sure. Great. I'll go do that then. Just one problem—more of a detail really—I can't even lift a sword, let alone slay Darkspawn, never mind the Archdemon. I'm scared of spiders! Like...the little, little ones, not even the giant ones you have here. I don't have any special powers or abilities…no. No. I mean, Grey Wardens stop blights, and I'm no Warden."

"Well then, it seems you know what you must do. The Grey Wardens gather in the ruins of Ostagar. Go to them." She said; in the tone that my mum used when telling me to pop down to the shop to buy milk.

I gawked at her. I knew that Flemeth was a little unhinged, but she had to be joking.

"Let me be very clear: I'm going nowhere near Ostagar." I insisted. "Do you know what happens at Ostagar?"

She tilted her head.

"Do you?"

I glowered at her.

"You don't understand. I can't fight. This isn't a story. I can't just pick up a sword and save the world."

"So what do you intend to do? If you plan to outrun the horde, then I fear I have credited you with more intelligence than you possess."

"I can try. I have to find a way to get home. If I have to wait until the Wardens kill the Archdemon before that can happen, then I will. I'll figure something out, I'll…I'll get a horse, make my way to Gwaren, catch a ship to Kirkwall, have a cold pint at the Hanged Man and wait for all this to blow over."

"And you think it will be so simple, do you?" Flemeth asked, her eyes glittering in amusement. I shrugged.

"Probably not. But it beats dying in a swamp."

I stood up and strode to the door, grabbing my handbag and black, high-heeled court shoes from the foot of the bed as I went.

"I see." Flemeth followed me, standing in the doorway as I stepped into my shoes, strode forward into the clearing and looked around, trying to get my bearings. "I wish you luck, Lauren Duval."

I turned around to face her, nodding in acknowledgment.

"Thanks. You too." I looked around her to where Morrigan stood, uncharacteristically silent and observant. "And you, Morrigan. You're going to need it." I said the last part to myself as I continued to scan my surroundings.

"We shall see," Morrigan muttered under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear. Her eyes narrowed. "If you survive long enough to matter."

"One more thing." Flemeth said casually.

"What's that?" I asked, suspiciously.

She didn't answer.

She moved.

A flick of her wrist. A flash of silver.

I recoiled, closing my eyes, waiting for the pain.

But it didn't come.

I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously, and inhaled sharply as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.

I held the small silver dagger aloft, the blade inches from my eye.

My breath left my body.

"You threw a knife at my head!" I snapped, my outrage emboldening me enough that, for just a moment, I forgot to be afraid.

"And you caught it." She replied, simply.

"You threw a knife…at my head." I repeated, feeling suddenly woozy as the anger and adrenaline dissipated and reality seeped back in. "That's just…I mean, what did you…I…I caught it."

My heart thundered in my ears as I stared at the blade in my hand. Time had slowed.

I hadn't even seen my arm move. My brain was still catching up.

"What...did you do to me?" I demanded, incredulous.

"I told you. You have been chosen. You were given what you need. Would the powers that brought you here choose a broken sword?"

"Given what I—" I shook my head, dismissing the very idea. "No. I'm not chosen, I am a person, I'm a grown, human woman and I get to choose. And I choose not to be chosen. I choose to go home."

Flemeth's eyes gleamed with something between amusement and ancient, quiet fury.

"You speak of choice as though it were a coin in your pocket," she said, voice silken and sharp as the dagger that had nearly killed me. "But there are forces in this world, child—forces far older than your indignation, far stronger than your stubborn little fists, that do not heed the whims of mortals."

She stepped toward me with the weight of a storm behind her gaze, and I could feel the air shift, charged like the moment before lightning strikes.

"You were not plucked from your world by chance. You were not summoned here to chase comfort. And you will not outrun what waits for you."

I wanted to step back again, to maintain the distance between us. I didn't.

Flemeth's voice dropped to a whisper, dangerous in its softness.

"You think this is a punishment. A mistake. But the truth is far crueller—and far more precious. You have been given purpose. Few are so fortunate."

"I didn't ask for it," I said. It sounded small, even to me.

"None ever do," she replied. "And yet, it is always the ones who refuse the call who are best suited to answer it."

She turned her back on me, already walking toward the edge of the clearing, her long cloak catching the breeze like the wings of the dragon she pretended not to be.

"Go, then. Run. Hide. Pretend you are not what you are. But know this: when the horde comes, when the ground trembles and the sky splits—your choice will matter."

She glanced over her shoulder, one last time. "You do not have the luxury of being ordinary anymore, Lauren Duval. This world will not allow it."

Morrigan, who had been watching in silence from the doorway, tilted her head with a look I couldn't quite place. Pity, maybe. Or maybe just curiosity—like a cat watching a mouse that had yet to realize it was cornered.

"You may not believe her, but I assure you—nothing hunts you harder than fate once it's caught your scent," she said. "You could run until your feet were bone, and it would still find you."

I met her eyes. She didn't blink.

"So you're saying I can't go home, I can't hide, and I can't say no."

"I am saying," Morrigan drawled, "that if you insist on being insufferable, you should at least be useful while doing it."

I let out a slow breath, turned back toward the dense tree-line, and shook my head.

"Catching one dagger and fighting a horde of Darkspawn are two very different things," I said, quietly. "I'm...I'm just a girl."

Flemeth's voice returned, calm and ancient as the wind moving through the trees.

"You were never just a girl," she said. "That was simply the lie you told yourself to survive a world too small to hold you."

She stepped closer again, but this time there was no menace—only something like reverence. Like she was seeing something I hadn't yet dared to.

"The Veil does not tear for just a girl. The Fade does not part its teeth for just a girl. You are here because something saw you, Lauren Duval, and knew you would not break."

Morrigan's scoff was almost fond. "And if you do break," she said, "try to do so with a little flair, won't you? I find the dramatic ones are much more interesting to watch."

I looked between them, still clutching the dagger I hadn't meant to hold. My knuckles were white around the hilt. The weight of it settled into my hand like it had always been mine.

I swallowed hard. The trees ahead loomed dark and unfamiliar, and I could feel the chill of something vast waiting just beyond them.

"Know this, Lauren Duval," Flemeth said, gently. "If you leave Ferelden, the Grey Wardens will fail. Ferelden will be lost. And you will remain trapped in a world that will soon follow, until the end of your days—though those days will be fraught and few."

My head spun and I thought I might throw up.

I doubled over, clutching my sides.

"Shit. Shit! I need to think." I said, breathing deeply.

"Well do not take too long. The horde marches ever onward." Morrigan warned, her voice lilting with theatrical mockery.

Okay. So as far as I could see, I had two options.

No—three.

I could run. Although with every passing second, that seemed less and less like a real option.

I could go to Ostagar, find the Grey Wardens, and try to impress them with combat skills I wasn't even sure I had. Drink from a goblet full of poison and sign up for a life so brutal and short it was handed out to murderers and rapists instead of the death penalty. Thanks, but no thanks.

Option three: I could go to Ostagar, find Duncan and try to warn him of Loghain's betrayal before it happened. At the very least, I might be able to save some lives.

"…All right," I said, softly, straightening. My voice felt too small for the choice I was making. I closed my eyes, took a long breath, and nodded. "All right. I'll go to Ostagar."

Not because I believed I could do it.

But because if there was even a chance I could change what I remembered—what was coming—

And if all I was doing was walking into an early grave...

Then maybe I wouldn't have to miss Emily so long.