Chapter Text
Deep in the Frostbacks, hundreds of miles away from home, Vin finally squashed the fly that’d been buzzing around her for the better part of an hour. With a grimace, she flicked it off her arm. “Fuck you.”
At the top of a rise, she paused. Visible an hour earlier, the mountaintops were sheathed in heavy cloud which looked to herald rain.
At least, she thought, peering through the trees, I’m almost there.
Ahead lay the ruin of a hillside — a massive hole, surrounded by spikes of stone. Directly above it loomed the Breach. And somewhere below, hidden by forest, was Haven. An hour, two at most.
The sky thundered.
Her gaze snapped back up.
The Breach shivered at its edges, then collapsed into light, roaring like an avalanche. She flinched, eyes shut against a flare somehow brighter than the sun.
When she looked again, only a faint ripple remained of the Breach, barely visible in the summer sunlight.
She stared, wondering it would simply tear open again. After a minute of convincing stillness, relief bubbled up her throat and out in breathy laughter.
Though the prevailing mood in the village was jubilation, Eirlana couldn’t bring herself to feel it, couldn’t feel anything more than weary and fleeting relief.
She watched the celebrations from a distance, rubbing at her aching hand. The act of closing a rift hurt, but sealing the Breach had been agony. Her every nerve had felt aflame — a bone-deep, searing pain which faded slower than the day and left her exhausted.
She sighed. After six months of battles and politics, and all the travelling in between, they’d achieved their primary goal, and yet hadn’t learned who was responsible for the Breach in the first place. Even if they ignored that, which they couldn’t, there were still rifts and refugees scattered across the continent, and still a piece of strange magic attached to her hand.
An assured gait announced Cassandra and, as she stopped beside her, the Seeker looked almost pleased. “Solas confirms the heavens are calm. The seal is holding. And despite the questions that remain, this was a victory.”
Eirlana hummed, gaze flicking up to the encroaching cloud, its shadow stark against the golden light. “We should hold council, decide where we’re going from here.”
“Your dedication is admirable, Herald, but it is wise to relax every so often.”
Despite her fatigue, Eirlana smiled. “Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of Truth, advising leisure?”
For a moment, her expression seemed to war between a scowl and a smile before she huffed. “I admit, I am…committed to my work, but moderation is important.”
“A quick meeting,” she amended, “before —”
A deep, trumpeting cry cut her off.
She startled forward. “What —”
Cassandra grabbed her shoulder. “A warning from one of Leliana’s —”
The horn bellowed again. Two heartbeats later, the Chantry’s bell began to clang.
Eirlana scanned the hills, eyes darting. Haven sat nestled in a valley, its back hard against two mountains, so any threat must come from —
“There!” Cassandra’s hand shot out, pointing toward the main road. Faint in the dying light, a haze of dust rose above it. “An army. We must get to the gate.”
Eirlana stared at the haze, limbs as heavy as stone. An army. Hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers. Impossible for Haven’s defences to repel or the Inquisition’s forces to defeat. The village would be overrun. They couldn’t —
“Herald!”
She took a breath, shoved her fear down, and ran after Cassandra.
The village was in chaos.
As soon as the bell began tolling, people started running — villagers panicking and aimless, Inquisition agents trying to prepare defences amidst them. Parents screamed for children, soldiers for sandbags and swords.
Hoping to find someone who could point her to Eirlana, Vin had just stepped inside the crowded tavern when the horn blew. The wall of noise had fallen immediately as everyone stilled, shock plain on nearly every face. Then a qunari jumped to his feet and made for the door, followed by all of those at his table, and everyone else leaped into motion.
Now, Vin ran through the village — back to the gates, where someone, anyone, had to be in charge of the defence — darting around agents and villagers, and scanning all the while for a crown of red hair.
Her fear spiked when she saw the gates swung wide, then settled when rank upon rank of Inquisition soldiers marched through. She followed them out, then cursed.
In the scant minutes since it’d been spotted, the attacking army had already reached the valley floor. Above, rising dust thinned the light and blurred those soldiers into a single, pulsing mass.
She edged around the gathering soldiers, who stood at attention as their commander issued orders, and missed a step.
A dozen paces away, Eirlana faced the approaching army, standing with half a dozen shems, a couple of elves, a dwarf, and the qunari Vin’d seen earlier. Ironbark staff in hand, hair braided over her shoulder and inconveniently long as she’d always worn it, she looked the same as when she’d left all those months ago. The same, and yet different. She spoke to her companions without a single waver in her voice, and with a sharpness to her gaze. She looked, for an instant, like Deshanna.
Vin strode forward. “Lana!”
Eirlana faltered mid-word at the familiar nickname, at the familiar voice, and turned.
Vin hurried toward her, mouth thin but eyes alight. Vin, bow curving above her shock of white hair. Vin, her red-and-brown garb dusty from travel.
“What….” She grabbed her shoulders as soon as Vin reached her. “What are you doing her?”
Vin squeezed her hands. “I came to join you.”
Eirlana stared — at the shadows beneath her eyes, at her brown skin freshly freckled by summer — and caught sight of the Inquisition troops behind Vin as they began to move. She pulled back. “Up to fighting?”
With a short, sharp laugh, Vin un-shouldered her bow.
Vin nocked, drew, aimed, and loosed an arrow before the charging templar could take another two steps. Feathered shaft protruding from their helmet, they collapsed.
She spun, searching for more targets, and met the dwarf’s gaze.
He winked, lowered his crossbow, and turned to shout, “Now, Snowdrop!”
Across the battlefield, Eirlana leaped up onto the trebuchet and yanked the lever.
The machine groaned, arm swinging, and flung the boulder. It slid quickly into the murk of evening.
Vin gripped her bow achingly tight.
Then the mountain roared as an enormous shelf of summer snow collapsed and sped downhill faster than she’d ever seen anything move. Trees crumpled beneath its force, vanishing in the storm of powder. In half a minute, the avalanche reached the valley floor and swallowed the army in its path.
When the snow settled and nothing moved, cheers rose. The grinning dwarf thumped Eirlana’s back.
Something screeched.
Vin jerked back, reaching reflexively for an arrow, and looked up.
Massive wings spanned the sky. Fire bloomed, laced with lightning, and streaked down as Eirlana grabbed the dwarf by his coat and disappeared.
Eirlana skidded out of her fade-step on her knees, hauling Varric with her, when the trebuchet exploded.
She cast a barrier, reaching blindingly as far around her as she could, and threw all her energy into holding it up, as pieces of the siege engine slammed to the ground.
Something swooped low above her, close enough to stir the settling dust.
Straining to hold her barrier, she raised her head.
Nearby, her companions, a few Inquisition soldiers, and Vin stood up, looking dazed but unhurt. She searched her barrier and, sensing no living trapped beneath debris and protected only by magic, dropped it.
She staggered to her feet, wincing at the hollowness in her chest. She’d drained her mana entirely. And hadn’t even managed to protect everyone.
Outside of where she’d stretched her barrier, four soldiers lay dead, crushed by debris. So many more had died earlier, guarding the trebuchets.
And for what? Peering up, she spotted an enormous wingspan against the sun. From the village screams rose. Even with the bulk of the army gone, we can’t fight off a dragon.
Shouldering Bianca, Varric looked up at her. “We should go.”
In silence, she led the way back, grabbing Harritt on the way. Past the gates, templars waited around every corner, slowing down the search for survivors. They found Lysette fighting alone and charged in. When only dead enemies remained, the former templar led the soldiers further into the village.
With her companions covering her, Eirlana rushed into building after burning building, following cries for help through thickening smoke. She pulled Seggrit and Flissa out, but couldn’t reach half a dozen others in time. Near the apothecary, she made it to Adan and Minaeve, but not a villager who slackened with death just as she knelt beside them.
“Shit. Shit shit shit.” Her eyes burned.
Vivienne squeezed her shoulder gently, too gently. “We need to keep moving, darling.”
She swallowed, nodded, and stood.
In front of the Chantry, they found Threnn staring down more templars than she could possibly fight alone.
Eirlana charged, wielding her staff like a spear, with Bull and Cassandra at her heels.
After, she caught Solas watching her, mouth thinned with the disapproval she’d expected. She turned away, too preoccupied for the old argument or to point out that her skill in battle had improved markedly, and knocked the doors with her staff. “It’s Lavellan! Let us in!”
When the doors swung open, an ashen-faced Roderick ushered them in, with the pale boy, Cole, hovering beside him.
Inside, the air hung heavy with fear and the scent of blood. Terrified murmurs and meaningless platitudes drifted over from where the villagers huddled at the far end of the main hall. The Inquisition’s few healers and a dozen soldiers moved among them, tending to the wounded and frightened.
Without a word, Solas and Vivienne strode over to help. After a moment, everyone else followed. Except Vin.
Eirlana nudged her. “Go help. I need to speak to my council.”
Vin hesitated, searching her face, then squeezed her hand and left.
At someone’s pained moan, she turned to see Roderick — robe slashed and bloodied, bandages visible through the torn fabric — shuffling, with Cole’s assistance, to a chair.
“He tried to stop a templar,” Cole said, eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat. “The blade went deep. He’s going to die.”
Her jaw clenched. We’re all going to die. We’ve no way to fight a dragon, or even escape one. We can’t even wait them out — the dragon’ll turn the Chantry into a giant oven with its fire.
“Herald!”
She spun toward Rutherford’s voice as he jogged over and found her own frustration reflected in his expression.
“Our position is not good,” he reported, stopping before her. “That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us. It’s cut a path for what remains of that army. They’ll kill everyone in Haven.”
“The Elder One doesn’t care about the village,” Cole broke in. “He only wants the Herald.”
She stiffened, dread coiling in her chest. The Anchor. Her tongue felt too heavy, her mouth glued shut. Her knees shook. Only me. She breathed in slowly through her nose and glanced down the hall. Vin knelt beside someone, wrapping their wound. Only me. “If I can distract him,” she said quietly, “there must be a way to get everyone out.”
Cole and Roderick moved at the same time, both looking toward the back of the hall.
“Yes.” Cole nodded. “Yes. There is a way. Chancellor Roderick knows it.”
Roderick stood, leaning heavily on his knees, and spoke, voice beginning to falter. “There is a path, Herald. You wouldn’t know it, unless you’d made the summer pilgrimage, as I have. She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could t-tell you.”
She clutched her hands together behind her back. “Tell me what?”
He gestured to the back of the Chantry and described the path — a short tunnel leading to a trail which twisted up the northern mountain.
She turned to Rutherford. “If I distract the Elder One, can you lead everyone out?”
“Yes, but you —”
“Send someone to load the last trebuchet. Now. And discretely.”
“Herald —!”
She held up a hand and he faltered. “I’m the only one he wants, but I don’t doubt that he’ll wipe out the Inquisition for good measure.” She took a breath, forcing herself not to look at Vin again. “I’ll pretend to be the last evacuee, then slip off. Choose soldiers you trust to keep quiet to bring up the rear with you. And a mage to seal the tunnel.”
“You cannot go alone, Herald,” he said, voice lowered to a hiss, one hand cutting the air between them.
She lifted her chin. “No one is coming with me. Is that understood?”
His jaw clenched and, for a moment, she thought he would argue. But he merely said, “What of your escape?”
“I…I’ll find a way.”
He nodded, a salute obvious in the gesture. “May the Maker watch over you, Herald.”
She smiled, small and mirthless. “May Mythal guide you, Commander.”
With the weight of millions of tons of earth atop her, Vin hurried up the tunnel. She moved in near darkness, her way lit only by a magelight magicked to her belt — bright enough to see by, dim enough to not be blinded by. Every fifty paces, she thumped the quarterstaff she’d borrowed against the ground in a pattern. Thump thumpthump thump thump. Somewhere behind her, an Inquisition agent would hear her signal and give the all clear to continue moving forward.
At the end of the evacuation, Eirlana would be bringing up the rear. She’d insisted that Vin lead the way out. The Inquisition’s commander had looked uneasy at that, but whether it was her as a stranger or her going alone which was unsettling, Vin couldn’t guess.
Without even glancing at him, Eirlana had said, “Vin is one of our clan’s finest hunters. There’s no better scout.”
Now, deep in the tunnel, Vin focused on counting her strides, but couldn’t shake the sensation of weight from her shoulders. An entire mountain crouched above her, and she moved through its roots in a space so tiny she could touch the ceiling with her fingertips. The chill burned her nostrils when she inhaled too deeply, hoping in vain for the scent of trees.
At the count of fifty paces, she paused, shivered, and listened. From behind drifted the sound of the evacuation — footsteps, voices, the swish of fabric, and the scrape of armour muffled by distance into one noise, the sound not unlike wind over a desert.
From before her, she neither heard nor saw anything beyond the tunnel’s walls twisting into darkness. The old man had guessed the tunnel to be three hundred paces long; she’d covered two-thirds of that distance now.
“Almost out,” she mouthed and heard the sound of her lips moving in the silence.
She hurried on, resisting the urge to slap her feet against the cold stone, just to have something to hear.
At twenty-four paces, nails biting into the staff, she realized the darkness beyond her light was…lesser. At thirty-two, she could see the tunnel walls without her light. At forty-five, she could smell pine. At fifty-three, she turned a corner and the exit loomed above her.
She almost ran out of the tunnel, before remembering to step back to fifty paces and thump out the signal. Then she ran out into a forest dusted in snow.
Vin recoiled, jumping back onto dry stone, breath fogging in front of her. It had snowed. It was still snowing — a bizarre summer snow, falling slow but in huge flakes, clouds obscuring the sky completely. It would slow their escape, especially as the powder accumulated. At least the snow would provide cover in turn. Maybe, maybe, the dragon wouldn’t be able to track them.
She waited a few minutes for the front of the evacuation line to catch up, spoke with the Nightingale, and set off again — at a shorter distance ahead than before, so the sound of her cooing signal would carry far enough through the snow-muffled trees.
In silence, in the piling snow, in her hastily unpacked boots hastily swathed in oiled wrappings in an effort to keep her feet dry, she hiked. The path, overgrown by grass and thistle, was at least marked by stone posts. She followed it up toward a ridge, as the wind rose and the grey light dimmed to blue.
Eventually, the trees stunted and thinned, then gave way all together to a barren, snowy slope at a final slab of stone.
Again, she waited, shivering, staring into the swirling snow, staring toward Haven though she couldn’t see it, and wondered if the howling wind hid the sound of a dragon’s beating wings.
Soon, the front of evacuation emerged from the snow. A magelight hovered at the leader’s shoulder; perhaps a dozen people-shaped silhouettes down the line, just visible through the snow, was the next light.
As people arrived and huddled beneath the sheltering trees, Vin unstrung her bow and watched. She caught sight of the qunari’s horns, unmistakeable even in the gloom, and the crossbow-wielding dwarf walking with the young elven archer. Mages distributed themselves among the evacuees, holding up balls of flame for warmth or casting spells to heal the wounded. The Nightingale sent pairs of scouts off to watch for signs of pursuit, as well as to secure their escape route.
Vin watched and waited.
When the evacuation line tapered off, she straightened, peering back down the trail. As soon as Eirlana and the rear guard arrived, they could move on and leave the exposed slope behind.
A couple excruciatingly-long minutes passed before several shadows appeared out of the snow-haze.
Vin sighed, shoulders loosening, then frowned. None of them moved like Eirlana. Maybe she was behind, out of sight.
She held her breath as the shadows resolved into people — the commander, two soldiers, a mage, and no one else.
Trying to ignore the awful clench in her chest, she stepped forward.
The commander turned toward her and she froze, dumbstruck, at his miserable expression.
“Lavellan —”
She lunged at him. Someone caught her before she slammed into him and hauled her back a step. She yanked free, only to have both arms pinned at her back. She thrashed, heedless of the pain.
“What have you done?!”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked away.
She strained forward. “Where is she?!”
“The Herald stayed behind, to buy us time.”
“And you just left her?”
His gaze swung back to hers. “Those were her orders.”
“Why didn’t you stay?” she snarled. “What kind of commander leaves anyone behind?”
He flinched, guilt flashing in his eyes.
“It was her idea.”
Vin whipped toward the voice and found a shem she vaguely remembered seeing — a pale boy in threadbare clothes.
“She stayed behind,” he continued, head ducked, “because the Elder One only wants her. She has to protect everyone, dutiful and defending.” He looked up at Vin, eyes flashing through his bangs. “You know that.”
She stared, remembering the commander’s unease and Eirlana’s gaze, never straying from her. She lied. She lied to me.
Before she could form a response, the Nightingale appeared at the commander’s shoulder and slid him a look. “I presume there is more to this plan, however ill-conceived.”
He nodded. “Now that we’re out of the way, we signal the Herald and she—” he paused, half a heartbeat’s hesitation “—triggers a second avalanche to hit this Elder One.”
“If Eirlana’s down there, buying time,” Vin hissed, “she’ll bury herself, too.”
His jaw clenched but he said nothing, merely held her gaze.
She leaned forward, arms aching. “She’ll die.”
“We have no choice now,” he said, voice laced with something she couldn’t name, “but to trust her.”
She shook her head, fumbling for the right words, as he turned toward a voice calling for him.
“You two,” the Nightingale ordered the soldiers, “gather the mages.”
As they rushed off, the grip around her wrists released. Vin glanced over her shoulder to see the qunari, who gaze flicked from her to the Nightingale.
“What’s the plan, Red?”
“We need to send a signal, yes? Then we must clear a path.”
Gaze flying from the templar rummaging in the shell of a cabin to her next hiding spot, Eirlana darted across the street. She squeezed herself against the unburned wall and listened for approaching footsteps. When none followed, she crept on.
The village, reduced to little more than smoking timbers, was thick with templars. She’d dodged four already, and hadn’t even reached the bulwark. And she had no blighted idea how to keep every single one from investigating the unmistakeable groan of a trebuchet turning.
And the dragon. Why isn’t it here? If I had even a sliver of mana….
Skirting the forest’s edge, she reached the street along the bulwark. To the left, through the thickening snowfall, she could see the village gate. To the right —
She blinked. Her cabin, among several separated from the heart of the village, hadn’t burned.
A minuscule weight lifted off her heart. Relief flickered, with a flood of shame hard on its heels. I need, she rationalized, all of my winter gear or I’ve no hope of catching up after…whatever happens. She tipped her head up, deterring tears, and snuck to the cabin’s window.
Inside, she instinctively grabbed her fur cloak, but set it down to don her woollen coat and pants first. Cloak, hat, boots, and gloves followed. She glanced around, then snatched her unused lyrium potion up, uncorked it, and drained it in one swallow. Heat ignited inside her, a small scorching flame, so unlike the pleasant warmth of one’s own natural mana but immensely welcome even so.
Suppressing a hiss, she climbed back out —
And froze, staring at her footprints in the snow.
I’m an idiot.
A whistle cut the quiet.
No. No no no — She inhaled sharply through her nose, allowing the cold to shock her.
She settled her breathing, then magicked a lightning mine onto the ground where its shape disappeared beneath the snow, hurried to the intersecting street, and fade-stepped across.
Movement flashed at the edge of her vision.
She rematerialized between the scorched palisades and crouched in the bushes. The trebuchet stood at the top of a low rise, about a hundred feet away and hidden by the snowfall. Something else — templars, a rift, the blighted dragon itself — could be waiting up there.
Another whistle. A bellow — “Find her!”
She risked a glance behind, then bounded forward.
Her mine triggered, its released energy cracking against her awareness, heartbeats before the trebuchet loomed into view.
Anxiety urging her to run, she forced herself to stop before leaving the shelter of the palisade and crossing open ground. Shaking, she cast two mines across the space between the defensive walls. A cursory scan and she ran, muffled by snow, as the shroud of twilight began to fall.
She half-slid, half-stumbled into the trebuchet. Glancing repeatedly behind her, she checked the war engine over and found it, to her inexperienced eyes, sound — undamaged, the load secure. She began to cast another mine, but thought better of it. What little mana the potion had restored could not be wasted on chance.
“O Mythal, All-Mother and Great Protector,” she whispered, gripping the crank, “watch over me now.” With a deep breath, she heaved.
Wood groaned, frighteningly loud, as she turned the crank and the engine followed, spinning a fraction on its base. Again, she pulled. Again, the engine groaned and spun.
Shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers aching with the effort, she readjusted the trebuchet, gloves slipping on the metal. She lost her grip once, tumbled into the snow, sprang shakily up, and kept turning.
The row of mines activated.
Even over the creaking engine, she heard gasping and the soft sounds of bodies collapsing in snow. Trembling, she kept turning. She didn’t have time to look. She —
Someone was behind her.
She whirled, heart thudding like a ship’s war drum, to meet steel. She squawked, lurching away, and snatched her harvest knife from its sheath.
Her attacker had a sword. Get inside their guard, get inside their —
They lunged at her; she twisted out of the way and stabbed, aiming for their eyes.
Steel sliced along her arm as her knife sunk in with a squelch, gore splattering her fingers. The templar jerked to halt, mouth twitching, and sagged.
She shoved the body away and did not look at her hands as she wiped them in the snow. She couldn’t, however, avoid looking at the dark ruin of the templar’s left eye after she yanked her knife out. She cleaned the knife in the snow, and her hands again, then vomited.
Some twenty paces away, bodies lay crumpled where her mines had been. With a tendril of magic, she checked them for life and found none.
She finished adjusting the trebuchet, then stumbled. Her left arm felt funny. When she touched it, her palm came away bloody.
Wingbeats.
The dragon — approaching from the lake, its body angled to fly over the village, toward where the Inquisition had fled. A surge of terror swept away everything else.
Eirlana bolted away from the trebuchet, lightning rising to her pull. Staff held two-handed, she curled her arms back and swung as the dragon fell overhead.
Lightning erupted from the tip of her staff, arced up, and hit the dragon square in the belly, knocking it sideways.
Overbalanced, she spun and stumbled as the beast banked sharply and turned its massive body around. Diving at her, its jaws opened to reveal the white-hot glow of flame.
She ran only to be cut off by a wall of fire, sparking with electricity.
Fuck.
The fire exploded. The ground vanished from beneath her, then slammed into her shoulder with a rush of blinding pain. She gasped, unable to scream, and blacked out.
The dragon screeched.
She blinked, seeing nothing but pale blue. Then the cold on her cheeks and the heat of flames and her throbbing wounds registered. Get up. Get up get up get up. Breathing through the pain, she did.
From beyond the scattered flames surrounding her, something stepped into the firelight.
Humanoid but twice as tall as her, its body was a horrid blend of flesh, armour, and red lyrium. As it drew near, she recognized it for the creature that had appeared at the army’s forefront.
The Elder One.
She glanced around, found her staff a half dozen strides away, and lunged for it.
The demon didn’t move.
She snatched her staff and bent her knees into a fighting stance.
Still nothing.
She drew on the last of her mana.
Behind, something thundered on the ground.
She whirled to see the dragon loping toward her. When its next stride would’ve crushed her, it skidded to a stop, head lowered to snarl in her face. Its jaw slid open to reveal fangs as long as her arm.
She trembled, lightning crackling on her fingertips. Some detached part of her mind noted its tattered wings, skin-and-bones thinness, and dull scales. Oh. It’s dying.
It took a step forward, rotten breath hot on her cheeks, and roared.
In terror, in desperation, she screamed back.
“Enough!”
She spun back to the Elder One as a rush of magic quelled the flames.
“Pretender, you toy with forces beyond your ken no more.”
“Pretending at what?” She flung a hand toward the village. “Why are you doing this?”
“Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are. What I was. Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One, the will that is Corypheus. You will kneel.”
“Not to you,” she snarled.
“You will resist. You will always resist. It matters not.” He lifted one hand, revealing an orb, enveloped in ripple-like rings. With a metallic clang, it began to glow red. “I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now.” He raised his other hand, glowing alike.
The Anchor flared, light seeping through her glove, as Corypheus pressed his will inside her marked hand and tugged.
She gasped, staggering at the pain — like her hand was being pulled apart, skin by muscle by tendon by bone.
“It is your fault, Herald. You interrupted a ritual years in the planning. Instead of dying, you stole its purpose.”
The pain doubled and dizziness crashed over her. She swayed, groaning.
“I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as touched, what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens.”
The pain rocketed again, dragging her to her knees.
“And you used the Anchor to undo my work. The gall.”
“What — She gagged, nauseous from the pain. “What is this thing meant to do?”
“It is meant to bring certainty where there is none. For you, the certainty that I will always come for it.” Orb pocketed, magic withdrawing, he stalked toward her.
She sagged as the pain receded, then yelped as he hauled her up by her left wrist. Her feet dangled above the ground. She kicked at him, but he merely extended his arm.
“I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the old gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years….”
She stopped listening, staring over his shoulder as the falling snow parted like water before a keel, revealing the northern mountain, and a pinprick of light ascended.
Thank Mythal.
“…for I have seen that throne of the gods and it was empty.”
He hurled her away. She hit the trebuchet with a crack of searing pain and shrieked. Her vision darkened.
She curled her left hand, nails digging into the Anchor, and the magic responded with a flare up her arm. She gasped, coming back to herself. The signal. I have to get up. Her staff lay just out of reach.
“The Anchor is permanent,” Corypheus snarled, moving toward her. “You have spoiled it with your stumbling. I will begin again — find another way to give this world the nation and god it requires.”
He’s insane. Gasping at the pain in her ribs, she pushed to her knees, then to her feet. Eyes on Corypheus, she inched toward the lever and cast a barrier over herself.
He took another step. “I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die.”
“I am not,” she rasped, “dying today.” Throwing all her weight behind the motion, she kicked the lever.
The chain unravelled, the counterweight swung, and the boulder soared.
As Corypheus and the dragon turned to watch, she grabbed her staff and leaped off. She hit the ground stumbling and ran, ribs burning.
A boom rattled the air, followed immediately by the roar of rushing snow.
Vin whipped around at the sound of an avalanche, boots slipping in the powder.
There was nothing to see but blowing snow and a line of people struggling upslope, a magelight at every dozenth shoulder.
Her chest clenched.
The rope in her hand tugged.
“Hey, we have to keep moving. Lavellan!” Someone dragged her back around and forward. The qunari. “We keep moving and find a place to camp,” he said over his shoulder as he trudged on. “She’ll find us.”
In this storm? How? she wanted to scream, but clutched the rope and followed, watching snow fill his footprints. I need to go back. Right now. She won’t be able to find her way alone. She tensed, ready to run, but glanced into the nothingness of the snow and faltered. She’s going to die. She’s going to die and I’m not going to do anything? The sensible part of her knew leaving the group would be foolish. But it was muffled beneath the voice that repeated, coward, coward, coward.
She rubbed her cheeks, stinging from the cold despite the scarf wrapped about her head. Again and again, she heard Eirlana assign her to be lead scout. Again and again, she heard her say she would join the rear guard. Again and again, she searched her memory for Eirlana’s tells — clenched fists or shifting feet — and found none. Why didn’t I realize? I should’ve realized. There must’ve been something and I missed it. Fuck shit damnit. I could’ve stayed and helped. Why didn’t she ask? Why doesn’t she ever ask?
She stumbled when the ground levelled and looked up.
They’d reached the top of the pass.
Still walking, she twisted at the waist and stared into the storm, trying to see anything else, any sign of her, any reason to plunge back down the mountain.
Coward, coward, coward.
Between one stride and the next, the earth disappeared. Eirlana plummeted into darkness, stomach lurching horribly, and smacked into something. Her barrier collapsed as she bounced off it. Another instant of falling and she hit something else. Blazing pain lanced up her ribs —