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- “Did you know that you were in his thoughts before? Hair like crow feathers, a shadow of a smile, the curve of your shoulders as you had your back to him, and always that blood mage near. Though his absence wouldn’t have changed a thing, Warden, because for all his dreams of saving you, of taking you away, Anders never quite dreamed big enough. Never trusted himself quite enough…”
Leaning on her staff, she hasn’t made a move, but there’s light around Justice, and a scent, like iodine.
- “He dreamed about you. For more than ten of your years, from your Tower to your Keep, and even after that, he wanted but never hoped. He would have been content staying all his life ten steps behind you, Warden. Had been content when you made him your brother, even if that condemned him to the Stigma, for it meant a life where he could stay at your side. One day, he would have found the courage to call you Sol, as he had often wished.”
And still not a word, as the Veil tears and the Fade calls. Never before the smell of her magic has been so potent, but it doesn’t seem to faze her.
- “I burned it all out of him. Scorched his mind until he knew you no more, stripped him of his delusions, even drowned the Antiphona. I whispered in his ear about your Grey's treachery, told him time and again that you had to know; awoke him at the sight of dark hair in the Fade, made him stop searching for the smell of the sea. You wish to repel me, even as you know that if you succeed in this endeavor, Anders’ sleep will from this day to his last plagued with others such as I, the frailty of his mind a beacon beyond the Veil. Are you sure this is wise, Warden?”
There is something, then, that crystallizes in her eyes, an unspoken promise.
- “Let them come.”