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When they spoke of templars coming to spirit mages away, Aeres always imagined it would happen at night.
That seemed the most fitting – after all, she was a child and templars were as monsters in her mind, lurking in the shadows, lying in wait for an unsuspecting mage to linger too close to the darkness. A trinket to be snatched up and carried away to some far-off tower made of stone.
The fear stays with her, even on the stillest nights, and from those fears evolve the rituals.
They will come, she thinks – chewing the insides of her cheeks, twisting whorls of her hair – they will come and they will take my father with them.
*
It’s ancient, he tells her, a part of our clan for generations, forged just after the Long Walk.
Her father peers at her gently and cups her hands in his, showing her the secret of the bauble.
These markings are of the god Dirthamen, and it will hide you from all who would seek to do you harm.
A deft twist reveals honeysuckle and juniper tucked inside, the source of the heady scent, and moments later, he lifts the chain over her head and places the pomander against her heart.
Aeres tangles the charm in her tiny fingers, eyes boring deep as she considers his words, but says nothing. Every word dies on her tongue before they ever reach her lips.
*
They’re circling, and I’m not mage enough to stop two of them, not even with the advantage of surprise.
Then leave. Steal away into the Brecilian.
Saena—
Do what you must, as you must. We will be here.
She can hear their hushed murmurs through the thickness of the night and rolls the pomander between her fingers, little hands reeking of crushed honeysuckle.
They’re coming and soon her father will be gone, snapped up by monsters in Chantry-sanctioned armor.
Aeres is already asleep when the door finally creaks shut.
*
The knock comes at dawn – the tinny rapping of metal against wood that rumbles the belly of their cabin and her mother answers, hair spilling like loose ink down her back.
Sers?
Aeres can hear the clang of a body shifting in armor and a voice, deeper than her father’s, but the words are lost before they find her ears.
There is an apprehension in her mother’s shoulders, a stiffness that belies her open voice, and Aeres feels the weight of it pounding in her throat, a quiet throb that racks her body.
She pushes past her mother’s skirts, all fists and elbows, and at first, she thinks she might scream. These are not monsters at all – only men – and she thinks she will spill every vicious word she’s ever heard whispered, and those very words will be the pyre on which these templars will burn. It boils in her throat, this scream, makes her sway on her feet with anger, but it isn’t a scream that escapes.
Instead, she feels it like a wave; a jolt bursting forth as if suddenly undammed that rolls off her in all directions.
The templars before her shudder in place and, behind her, she hears the quiet thump of her mother stumbling backwards. The release leaves her shaking, stomach churning as the horizon slides momentarily out of focus.
The child is a mage, one voice intones. This one is murkier and more distant than the other voice.
She must go to the Circle on Lake Calenhad, says the other.
The words ring a deafening knell that rattles through her bones, not unlike the magic still welling up in her gut, and Aeres, desperate and small, tries to open her mouth to argue.
She feels a cool hand on her shoulder, and smells the honeysuckle, and suddenly, finally, the world goes dark.