Chapter Text
Judging by the chains that dug into Alice's wrists, the assassination had not gone according to plan.
At least this was probably better than where she had just been.
Alice blinked her eyes open and attempted to shrug off the memory of what must have been a nightmare. If the cold, damp floor around her and the presence of numerous guards were any indication, she had managed to land herself in jail. Whoever had put her here had gone to the trouble of propping her up in a sitting position, legs folded beneath her. Alice was uncertain of the reasoning behind it; it might have been meant as a thoughtful gesture for when she awoke, but she suspected it was more likely intended to limit the blood flow in her legs. Escape would be more difficult in that case, but it did tell her that wherever this was, it was probably not where her captors intended for her to end up. She could work with that.
Intense pain interrupted her thoughts as it shot through her hand and up her arm, drawing a slight hiss from her before she could stop herself. None of the guards seemed to notice, so she spared a glance down at her hand, turning her palm up to face her. It was difficult to make out anything in the dim lighting, but if she twisted it to catch some of the glow from the torches along the wall she could make out a clean scar, almost a crescent in shape, as though left by a blade with a curved edge. As she studied it the pain surged again, stronger this time, and green sparks flew from the scar into the air. Panic overcame her sensibility and she cried out, struggling against her bindings. All the guards drew their weapons in tandem, regarding her with nervous expressions.
"Alright now, don't move," one of them cautioned, sweat beading his pale forehead. "You move again, Beth here runs and gets help. We was told to let ’em know when you was up for good."
A girl, presumably Beth, nodded quickly. "We were. And I will."
Alice took a moment to compose herself and weigh her options, attempting to push the searing, inexplicable scar from her mind. She was already outnumbered, that much was clear from just a brief glance. Whoever "help" was, they couldn't exactly make things much worse, and they might be able to shed some much needed light on what exactly had happened to her. Making a run for it was out of the question until she knew more about what the hell had caused this scar, and it sounded like unless she wanted to play dead for a while, she didn't have much of a choice. Not wanting to lose her cool more than she already had, she took a deep breath and forced a smug expression onto her face.
"What, can't take me on your own?" she taunted, mind made up. "Go on, then. Fetch."
Beth needed no further instruction, bolting from the room as though she had been looking for the first opportunity to do so. Alice couldn’t blame her. Maker knew she would be wary of anyone with green light emanating from their hand, too, mage or no. With any luck it would take Beth some time to locate whoever would be coming, and Alice could attempt to work out what had happened.
The last thing she could remember was leaving her camp for the Conclave. She had planned to arrive early, make her way to the Divine’s quarters, and make a run for it before anyone realized what had happened. It would be messy, but considering the high security detail of the Divine it would likely be the only real shot she would get - several of the guards, including both the Left and Right Hands, were supposedly going to arrive later in the day instead of with the Divine herself. Alice wasn’t enough of a fool to miss an opportunity so obvious, even if it did mean abandoning the subtlety her job usually entailed. Besides, she always carried a number of invisibility bombs on her - really just glorified smoke grenades, enchanted to render whoever threw them impossible to see - and she had brought enough in preparation for the Conclave that the other guests and remaining guards would be unlikely to cause much of a problem. She hadn’t, after all, risen from the obscurity of the Halamshiral slums to a well-ranked member of the House of Repose without some level of skill and ingenuity.
She could remember all the planning well enough, but almost nothing after leaving camp. It didn’t seem possible. Unless she had been poisoned, or perhaps had her mind altered by a mage, she could think of nothing that would have erased her memory in so neat a fashion. The only memory she had managed to retain was the nightmare that must have awoken her in the first place - chevaliers chasing her, and a woman who reached out.
Footsteps sounded from outside the door.
Another wave of pain coursed through her, as if even her mark was anticipating the worst, and tears formed at the edges of her eyes. She needed to get out of here and find someone to help her - lost memory or not, she was sure rotting away in a jail cell had not become part of her plan.
The sound of someone throwing the door open interrupted her thoughts and a woman's intimidating figure appeared in the door frame, radiating anger. A slighter figure slipped in behind the first, sticking to the shadows, and Alice could just make out poor Beth scurrying after the other two only to have the door slam shut in her face. Apparently her captors did not have time to care about lowly prison guards.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” the woman demanded, stepping just close enough for Alice to make out the sharp angles of her face. “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”
Alice said nothing, unsure how much her captors already knew and unwilling to give herself away on the off chance it was less than she suspected. The Conclave's destruction had, without a doubt, not been her work; even if it meant the Divine was dead, it was sloppy and unprofessional. No job was worth that many innocents getting caught in the crossfire. If the destruction had been caused by someone else, there was a chance it was still possible for her to shift blame away from herself, find a healer, and keep the gold from the job. She just needed to learn more of what happened before attempting to bluff her way out.
The woman only waited for a moment before growing impatient with the silence, yanking up Alice’s scarred hand and forcing another yell from her.
“Explain this.”
“Actually, I was hoping you could.”
“Do you mean to say you can’t?”
The slighter figure, another woman, stepped forward from the shadows near the door to approach Alice. A hood covered most of her face, but from what Alice could make out, her expression was thoughtful - odds were this one would be easier to appeal to than the woman bellowing questions at her.
“I don’t know what that is!” Alice said. “Or how it got there.”
“You’re lying!” the woman snarled, grabbing Alice roughly by the shoulders. The motion aggravated her hand again and a cold sweat broke out across her forehead. The pain was more consistent now, and duller as a result, but the rest of her body had begun to react to the feeling; both headache and nausea clamored for her attention. A healer really would be lovely.
The hooded woman seemed to notice Alice's discomfort and pushed the other back. “We need her, Cassandra,” she scolded, voice heavy with an Orlesian accent not unlike Alice’s own. Alice bit down on her tongue to keep from cursing aloud. That name was one she was all too familiar with, and it did not bode well for her that this was the woman interrogating her as a suspect in the murder of not only the Divine but countless innocents as well. And if the Right Hand was the one shoving at her, the other woman must be the Left to treat her as an equal. If these were the women who had caught her, she could see no hope of escaping - they were not exactly rumored to be fools. She watched as Cassandra backed away with marked reluctance, keeping her eyes trained on Alice as she did. She prayed she had maintained a neutral expression through the last few seconds.
“Please,” Alice said, dropping her attitude for a moment in favor of a direct appeal to the woman, likely the Left Hand, who’d moved on her behalf. “I had nothing to do with what happened at the Conclave. You have to let me go!”
“We do not have to do any such thing,” Cassandra barked at her. The other woman held up a hand to silence her.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked, her voice more cutting than Alice had been anticipating. “How this began?”
Alice was silent a long moment. There would be no charming her way past either of these women and no way to evade their questions; it seemed her only real option was to cooperate as best she could. She thought back again, scrambling to think of anything that wouldn’t somehow implicate her and coming up with nothing beyond the nightmare she'd woken from in the cell.
"No."
Cassandra shook her head and stepped forward, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.”
Leliana continued to study Alice a moment longer, searching her face for any hint of dishonesty, before nodding and turning to leave. After she was gone Cassandra crouched down to undo the chains around Alice's ankles and wrists.
“What did happen?” Alice asked, curiosity beating out her common sense.
Cassandra paused. “It will be easier to show you.”
She helped Alice to her feet and led her up a flight of stairs, gesturing to two of the guards to follow them. When they made it outside, Alice threw a hand up on instinct, taking a long moment to adjust to the sudden barrage of light, both from the sky and from the reflection in the snow. When she uncovered her eyes again, she couldn't quite believe them.
The sky looked as though it was fabric torn in two, with the same green light as was in her hand spilling like stuffing from the split seams. The light flickered and shifted like a storm, as though this giant tear in the sky were merely a large cloud that might bring rain later in the day. The entire thing just seem to hiss, somehow. Alice could feel Cassandra watching her, but she was frozen with horror and found she did not care. In fact, she was angry. Mark or her hand or not, it was foolish to think she could have done this. She knew how to make invisibility bombs, an assortment of poisons, a rudimentary trap or two. She couldn't imagine how to make something like this.
“We call it the Breach. It’s a massive rift in the veil that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave,” Cassandra explained.
Alice didn't bother to conceal her snark. “Sounds like a hell of an explosion."
The comment earned her a scowl and a disapproving glare. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.”
“An optimist, I take it?”
“A realist.”
Another shock of pain hit her, just as agonizing as the last, but sharper and deeper this time. She cried out again, feeling her knees give way. Dizziness overcame her, but she managed to make out a worried expression on Cassandra’s face through her swimming vision. In a more lucid state she would have taken advantage of her concern.
“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads. And it is killing you,” Cassandra said. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”
The pain subsided, leaving a dull ache behind. Alice wrapped her hand around her other wrist and squeezed hard to test her strength. The mark didn’t seem to cause her any weakness - if anything, the pain actually eased up with pressure against it. She kept her grip firm. “So if I do what you want, will I live through it?”
“We have no way of knowing.” Cassandra admitted, pulling her to her feet.
As they walked, Alice glanced around. She knew where she was now; a small village called Haven. She had staked it out as a potential place to spend the nights leading up to the assassination, but had deemed it too risky. It appeared she had been right about that much at least; people openly glared at her as she passed. A few brave souls not cowed by Cassandra spat.
“They have decided your guilt,” Cassandra said. “They need it. The people of Haven-”
"Happy to help," Alice deadpanned. Cassandra made a noise of disapproval at the interruption but, thankfully, dropped the subject.
Alice considered asking where she was being taken but figured there was likely a limit to how forthcoming the Right Hand of the Divine would be with a prisoner. She hurried instead to keep up with Cassandra, who led the way with the guards trailing in the very back to ensure Alice could not escape while Cassandra's back was turned. Not that she could get very far in this state, she thought, pressing against her mark in frustration. If only she had bandages, she might put enough pressure on it to function normally, but even if she managed to lose Cassandra in the mountains and keep her strange glowing mark under control, she had no idea how to navigate the area. As if to spite her, the pain returned full force, and she lost her footing in the snow. A guard's hand darted out and kept her from sliding further. Alice cursed aloud.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, gritting her teeth. “I’ll be fine.”
The guard nodded; if he didn’t believe her he at least had the decency to keep it to himself. They began walking again. As they traveled, Cassandra slowed her pace enough to at least speak to Alice and explain more of what had happened at the Conclave. Something told Alice that Cassandra did not truly believe she had planned the explosion, though she never explicitly said as much. Other people had claimed to see a woman reach out to Alice from the sound of it, which rattled her nerves. She had assumed her nightmare had been nothing more than a hallucination, brought about by the force with which she must have hit her head when she blacked out.
According to Cassandra, no one had any idea what had caused the explosion at the Conclave and Alice supposed she could understand why, between her survival and the mark on her hand, she had been the prime suspect. Cassandra seemed much less tense than she had when Alice first woke and while she knew better than to underestimate the woman, if she played her cards right she might be able to slip away. She would need to lay low in another country for a while, maybe somewhere in the Free Marches, or in the lower reaches of Orlais. Both of the guards carried daggers on them, she noted. If she were able to pilfer a pair of those her chances of survival would be much, much better.
Her plotting was interrupted when the bridge they were crossing gave way beneath them. Alice hit the ground hard; her arm was surely going to be covered with bruises. One of the guards gave a yelp as stones fell on top of him, the other guard rushing to pry them off. Alice glanced behind her, taking in the sight of Cassandra about to face off with several demons. The guards would be no help, and if Cassandra fell to those demons, it was certain Alice would be next. She grabbed the daggers the first guard had dropped, pleased to be reunited with her weapon of choice, and raced to help. They both stood a better chance if they fought together.
Alice had forgotten what outright battle felt like after years of trying to move without detection. There was a thrill to this, blade connecting with someone as an attempt to wear them down instead of kill them quietly, a raucous competition that Alice had not realized she missed. That was a silver lining, at least - if she had managed to hold on to her enchanted bombs and poisons, she might not have rediscovered this. Who knew you could behead a demon that looked like it was made of shadows?
The battle was over too soon. Cassandra turned to her in fury, sword held at the ready.
“Put down your weapons,” she ordered.
“Are you mad at me for saving your life?”
“I did not require your assistance. A few demons are not enough to give me pause.”
“There were at least six!” Alice protested, waving her dagger wildly toward the strange and disgusting substance the demons had left behind when they were slain. “Was I supposed to just pull up a seat and watch the show?”
Cassandra growled. “Put down your weapons, now.”
“I need these. Your guards were useless. I’m not entrusting them with my life!”
“As I am not entrusting you with mine.”
They stared each other down for a moment before Alice realized this woman had at least fifteen more years worth of experience in being bullheaded. She threw the daggers to the ground. She had to cooperate. She didn’t have to act pleased with it.
Cassandra made a noise of complaint. “You might try to behave less like a child,” she said, picking them up with as much irritation as Alice had channeled to drop them. After the daggers were safely out of Alice’s reach, Cassandra headed over to the guards.
The first guard was an obvious loss, now that he had been unearthed from the rubble. His head was bent at an angle that made even Alice, experienced as she was with death, feel ill. The other guard appeared to be holding back tears. Cassandra gestured for him to stand, placing her hand on his shoulder to reassure him.
“We cannot rest here,” she said.
The man nodded slowly, still staring down at his friend. Alice’s fingers itched for the daggers back, sensing that this guard would not be much help in the battles to come. With any luck, Cassandra would have no choice but to rely on Alice, which would make her escape easier later. She didn’t want to kill Cassandra - the woman had been much kinder than Alice would have expected from her demeanor in the jail cell - but she would if she didn’t have a choice.
What Alice had forgotten to factor in was the sheer stubbornness of the woman. They faced several enemies on the road, and each time Cassandra had lunged forward into battle without a second thought. The guard was a little more hesitant, but still managed to hold his own, leaving Alice to try and avoid the combat altogether. She did so without complaint the first few times, but by their fourth encounter with demons she had become bored enough to allow her more reckless instincts to take over. As Cassandra whittled down a shade and the guard contended with several wisps, Alice rapidly surveyed the field. There was another shade making its way toward Cassandra, but the guard was clearly struggling. The wisps shifted constantly between a solid state and something more incorporeal and all his hits were a half second too slow to catch them when they were tangible. All he had managed to accomplish was drenching himself in Fade residue. Hatching a plan, Alice scooped up snow and compressed it between her hands, taking aim at the shade. As soon as she saw the snowball connect with her target and its head swivel in her direction, she spun on her heel and ran toward the wisps, hoping to catch one as its physical form wavered.
Luck was on her side; she passed through the wisp easily - although she was now coated in green muck - and garnered the attention of it and another wisp as well. She turned around to lead the demons away from the guard to the much more capable Cassandra, who had noticed her shenanigans and was looking on in obvious irritation.
“Would you maybe want to help?” Alice called out. Despite her less-than-thrilled expression, Cassandra snapped into fighting stance without question, raising her sword and tilting it up at an angle. Alice ran directly toward the blade, unable to keep from cursing at the sight of it at eye level, and slid underneath at the last second, treated to a prime view of all three demons slicing themselves neatly along the edge. She grinned up at Cassandra.
“Maybe you don’t trust me with your life,” she said, “but it might be worth it to trust me with his.”
Cassandra glanced from Alice to the guard, who was attempting to bat the demons away as though they were fruit flies. She hurried over to him and helped take out the remaining enemies before acknowledging Alice's request.
“Nice try,” she said dryly.
Alice quite agreed.
The rest of their trek was more enjoyable now that Alice was at least allowed to run wild across the battlefield. It was clear that Cassandra was in no hurry to allow any sort of weaponry into Alice’s hands, but she said nothing to suggest that she disapproved of her tactics. Years had passed since Alice had last fought in a group, but she couldn’t deny the appeal - she had spent so long dreaming up all her schemes alone that she’d forgotten just how much fun battle could be when one wasn’t always trying to remain undiscovered. Despite the stickiness that remained from her encounter with the wisps, the speed of real battle felt freeing, and she found it suited her well.
The last time she had been able to be bold in her fighting style was well before the House of Repose had offered her the first of many contracts, shortly after she had hit her nineteenth year, and she was nearly twenty three now. Four years she had spent in shadows.
It had worked out well enough, she acknowledged, save for two missions - the one that had prevented her from being in Halamshiral as her family burned alongside the slums, and the one that had landed her on this blighted, snow-coated staircase that seemingly had no end.
Maker, the Divine. She just had to volunteer for the world's most foolish contract.
“Are we there yet?” she called back to Cassandra and the remaining guard, who had introduced himself as Lloyd. She flexed her scarred hand in an absent-minded effort to soothe it. “Wherever ‘there’ is, anyway.”
“Do you not hear the fighting ahead?” Cassandra asked, sounding significantly more urgent than Alice felt. “We are near.”
“Oh, good. I could do for a rest. And a bath. And a hot meal. Will there be wine there, do you think?”
“Move.”
Alice fell silent, internally cursing the soles of her shoes for slipping on the icy steps. She could see the top of the staircase ahead, and it was, in fact, obvious that there was a battle taking place somewhere beyond that point. She could make out a strange zinging noise - the mark of storm energy - and the occasional joyful shout.
The staircase finally gave way to the top of a bridge, making it possible for their small group to see the source of the noise. Demons swarmed the area, so it was difficult to make out the individual people fighting them, but whoever was lost in the fray seemed to be holding their own; demons were falling everywhere Alice looked.
“We must help them!” Cassandra said, making the drop from the bridge to the ground they were fighting on. Lloyd placed a hand on Alice’s back to urge her forward, and slyly slipped one of his daggers into her hand.
"You'll never survive a group that big without," he explained. She nodded, silently taking back every negative thing she had ever thought about Lloyd, and jumped.
Once in the middle of the battle, she was able to catch glimpses of their allies. Most were just guards, but one of them appeared to be an elven mage, presumably the source of the storm noises. He was tall for an elf and completely bald, though he didn't look particularly old. The only other fighter who was notable in any way was a dwarf in overly gaudy clothes, wielding a crossbow that Alice desperately wanted to examine up close.
Her distraction over the crossbow allowed one of the shades to push her back, jostling her marked arm. She gritted her teeth and lunged for the creature, savoring the way her palm numbed at the pressure with which she drove the dagger into its body. Demon flesh disintegrated into a pile of muck at her feet and she spun, hoping for more battle, only to see that magnificent crossbow take out two shades in one shot, arrow barely missing Alice’s face in the process. Startled, she opened her mouth to threaten the dwarf, but wasn’t given time to speak.
“Quickly!” the elf yelled, yanking on her arm with no thought given to the quick jolt of pain that shocked through it all the way to her shoulder, nor the dagger she dropped. “Before more come through!”
As her hand raised to meet the rift, she felt a sudden, painful surge through her entire body and desperately tried to pull her hand back.
“Let me go!”
“Try to focus,” the man shouted over the din, “on closing the rift!”
Alice struggled for a moment more, the sheer agony of the gesture making it hard to draw a full breath, and then gave in and did as commanded. Brows furrowed in concentration and pain, she closed her eyes and pictured the rift closing before her. Throbbing pain filled her head and she clenched and unclenched her free hand as though some of the relief could be shared with the other. The longer she held this position, the worse the sensations became, as though she were consuming all the energy of the rift through her palm. Black dots began to swarm her vision until they completely overtook it and the sounds around her grew faint. She stumbled backward, her body leaden and hand kept steady only by the man at her side, and felt the meager contents of her stomach rising up the back of her throat.
Then all at once, nothing.