Chapter Text
When had she signed up for this?
Lara stood frozen before a charred skeleton. It stared back, eyeless, and stretched its arms out to her as if pleading for help.
Other such figures cowered nearby, their exposed muscles gleaming back at her. Flame still licked at sinew and bone and the smell of death choked Lara’s senses. The faces around her turned skyward in voiceless horror.
She’d known these people. Seen these people. Why wasn’t she one of these people?
Thoughts raced through Lara’s mind and her stomach lurched angrily. She ordered her feet to move but they remained nailed to the ground, as if her shoes had driven roots into the soil beneath.
The figure before her seemed to move, seemed to ripple with the heat beating from the ground. She could hear the crackle of fire and ash as it twisted to life. It craned its neck and stretched, a gnarled, black hand clawing out for her-
“Hey.” Lara jumped and gasped so hard that the rush of air to her lungs was nearly painful. She rocked on her feet slightly, feeling as if the world had been thrust off its axis. The moving corpse sat motionless; after a moment, she realized it had never moved in the first place.
Lara’s eyes shifted right, searching for the voice’s owner. She found the dwarf from before, peering up at her carefully.
Right. The dwarf. The one with the fancy crossbow. Varric. Live, breathing, seeing Varric. Relief and grief crashed over her all at once and she averted her eyes quickly, ashamed at her lack of control.
Reality always came rushing back in a wave. She’d never been particularly good at beating back the adrenaline that followed.
“You alright?”
Not at all.
Not while people were dead and she was to blame. Not while a gaping hole in the sky roiled above them.
But damn her if she was just going to sit and cry about it. There were things to do. Rifts to shut and her innocence to claim.
Maybe you’ll wake up in a minute. Warm and snug in bed. Just a nightmare. You’ll be-
“Fine.” She let Varric’s hand tug her gently back through the carnage. Out of sight, out of mind- the sooner they moved, the sooner they could leave.
*
She’d never seen jade float. Not in the sky, at least.
That’s what the rift looked like- like some giant crystal that somehow managed to defy gravity. It might have been pretty, if it didn’t look so ominous, sitting on air. Seeing it up close set the hair on the back of Lara’s neck on end. She could practically see the claws curling out from behind the clouds. Hundreds of eyes peered down at them and for a fleeting moment, Lara thought of spiders.
A shiver ran down Lara’s spine and she shook her hand out as if it hurt, desperate for an excuse to cover up her fear.
The whole world was afraid now, watching a sky torn asunder, fighting off every manner of creature that should have never touched the likes of Thedas. But she was in the presence of strangers. She couldn’t afford to look as petrified as she felt.
I hope the clan is alright.
“Now is the hour of our victory.”
The voice boomed into the air around them and Lara stopped in her tracks. Her eyes darted from rock to rock and she stiffened, waiting for the hidden speaker to show himself.
“Bring forth the sacrifice.”
She knew that voice, how did she know that voice? The man’s tone buzzed uncomfortably against her eardrums; his words spoke of age, of power, and she felt drawn towards them.
But sacrifice. SACRIFICE. Why did it feel like she was revisiting an old memory when she couldn’t recall ever following such a command?
Cassandra was watching her closely, just like before, as if she expected her to turn her tail and run at any moment.
It wasn’t entirely a mad thought. Still, one glance at the spiraling wisps of green writhing above them was enough to remind her it was a foolish one.
They continued onward, a touch more wary, and each step forward into the crater made her stomach sink lower. The air itself seemed to sit heavy in her lungs and Lara rubbed at her face in an attempt to shed the grit from her skin.
Murmuring kicked up behind her as they neared a cluster of red crystal, bursting from the stone. Her fingers itched to touch it and a strange, soft chiming floated into her ears as if it streamed from the vein itself.
She couldn’t recall stones ever singing before. Not like this.
“You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker.” Lyrium? Did lyrium sing?
“I see it, Varric.”
The dwarf continued his muttering from behind her, almost spitting each word. His sentences clipped through his teeth in fearful, sharp bursts and for a moment, she wondered if perhaps she’d mixed up her new companions.
It didn’t seem possible for the confident, smug man from before to sound so very afraid.
“Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it.”
That was Solas. Sensible, logical Solas who she could probably trust for any manner of scientific reason- any person who could figure out how she had attained a key inside of her hand surely knew basic geology.
-but lyrium?
Boots scuffed against the ground and she could hear Varric shifting. It was stifled, but panicked- the sound of leather on leather, cables snapping against a glove, a huff of air and muffled words.
“It’s evil. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”
They needed to move on. Rifts first. Strange, glowing, singing stones later.
“Keep the sacrifice still.”
There it was again. Lara’s bones ached and for a moment, she allowed herself the thought of running straight back from where they’d come. Past the lyrium, past the rift, past the temple. She could dive into the trees where the voices stayed quiet and the sky was meant to be green.
“Someone, help me!”
“That is Divine Justinia’s voice!”
Cassandra stuttered to a halt behind her and with her, the idea of running. The woman’s face was stricken, desperate and seeking closure. Lara watched her for a moment, quietly damning her sympathy to the great beyond, before sighing.
She could suffer her daydreams later, when this was settled.
Lara took a step forward to drop down to the last level. Almost as if it sensed that she was close, the rift split into multiple branches; her hand responded, a crackle of green light across her skin. It wasn’t a conversation she was interested in having.
“Someone help me!”
“What’s going on here?”
Lara’s eyes widened and she looked up from her palm. No. That was her voice-
“That was your voice. Most Holy called out to you. But…” Cassandra’s tone bordered between suspicion and betrayal. Lara had the urge to spin around and shake her, insist that she didn’t have anything to do with the gaping hole in the sky.
“Run while you can! Warn them!”
“We have an intruder. Slay the elf.” A shape- a towering monster of a man, aimed an angry finger to the left. Towards the elf. Towards her. Lara’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to piece the scene together in her mind. She couldn’t remember and this echo of a moment pressed jagged puzzle pieces back into her memory. She was there-
“You were there! Who attacked?” Cassandra moved forward, barreling into Lara’s shoulder. Her eyes raged and she grasped Lara’s shoulders hard enough to bruise. I don’t know.
“And the Divine- is she… was this vision true? What are we seeing?”
“I don’t remember!” Lara shook the woman off, taking a step back and pacing back in the direction they’d come. She needed to move, needed level ground and answers.
“Echoes of what happened here. The Fade bleeds into this place.”
Solas’s calm was maddening now, the comfort his knowledge provided no longer a balm. So what they’d seen had happened, the shadowy glimpses of herself were real, and the longer the rift sat, the longer they would question.
So seal it.
“This rift is not sealed, but it is closed… albeit temporarily. I believe with the mark, the Rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely.” He paused and Lara drew a hand down her face. Nothing good ever came of a discussion like this.
“However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”
Lara turned again to look at him and the mage glanced back at her, his eyebrows raised just slightly. Cassandra was already moving, shouting, soldiers lurched into position around them.
“That means demons. Stand ready!”
Three soldiers drew their swords and the sound stung in her ears. The vocal ache of bowstrings pulled taut lit her skin alight. The rift buckled and screamed, a taunt unto itself. The air pulsed with energy.
This was how it was, the rhythm of battle. The keeper had told her this was how it would be, the first time she’d ever drawn her string back, her eyes focused on her target.
But it’s just you and that arrow. Take a breath.
How had she gotten here? A week ago, she was leading a chorus of drunken patrons at Redcliff’s tavern. Now, she was facing down demons. Actual demons. Seething, ravenous, murderous demons.
Take a breath.
The mark on her hand crackled and itched, as if someone was slowly pulling her palm apart. A sickly green light pulsed across one of her veins, radiating pain straight up her arm. The rift before her snapped and spit in time. She lifted her hand skyward.
Focus, da’vhenan.
No point in putting it off now.
Blinding jade rippled from her palm, the dam of her self-control set loose. It poured into the rift, feeding it, and Lara watched as fissures split open like chipped crystal. It was odd; each moment she’d spent forcing rifts closed had felt slow, quiet, like she was caging off the sound and shifting bits of the world back into place.
Now, it felt like tearing off a weeping scab. The scene around her fractured, sending needles rocketing up into her skull and a roar across her eardrums. With a hiss and a bang, the rift snapped open. The snarl of something large and angry roared from nearby. With a start, Lara realized someone was yelling, taunting, and then-
Arrows. Right.
Shaking her head to dispel the green fog from behind her eyes, Lara dug into her quiver with her right hand. The familiar ping of arrowheads repelling off of something hard reverberated in Lara’s ears. Great. So it had armor.
A demon with armor. Delightful.
Later, she wouldn’t recall every moment of the fight. It would come back to her in flickers- roars and gurgling moans, shouts, an exchange with Solas, some demon pulsing towards him and taking one of her arrows to its eye. The pride demon would draw a spined sword down on Cassandra’s shield. It would wrap flares of electricity around Varric’s ankle.
But she remembered the end- that defeated slump in the behemoth of a monster. Solas gesturing towards the rift as another sloth demon crumbled into pieces.
The world around her had blurred, just enough that she could see the opening, and her hand went again for the rift. Again, that glorious feeling of fitting the world back together and then, a shriek, a bang, and everything went black.