Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

9:41 Dragon

Despite the cold mountain air, the night is warm and bright. Vythral'a makes the rounds between the bonfires dotted across Haven, letting herself be buoyed by the cheer in the air; despite everything, the sight of the sky sealed and so many people celebrating is infectious. It reminds her a little of being home with her clan, with the dark making it harder to see the human buildings and towering Chantry that have come to rule her life of late. If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend her cousins and clanmates are the ones surrounding her, laughing and drinking on one of Andruil's feast nights.

If only. But then the mark flickers, sending tingling sparks from her fingertips to her shoulder, and draws her back to the present sharply. It isn't the sort of pain she remembers from when she first woke with it - that awful stabbing, burning sensation that sent her to her knees every time it flared - but every time she uses it to seal a rift in the Veil, it takes hours for it to properly quiet again, rippling with the aftershocks of the mana she pours through it.

It feels rather like having a piece of the Fade embedded into her palm, which isn't entirely inaccurate, she supposes. Keeper Deshanna would love to study it, she's sure, though she would likely scold Vythral'a for messing around with artifacts without knowing what they do again. You were lucky I was able to save your vision after the first one, da'len, she would probably say, sighing and shaking her head in that way that always manages to make Vythral'a feel uniquely guilty. And now your arm? You do not have so many pounds of flesh to lose.

Vythral'a sighs, flexing her marked hand in and out of a fist. The thought is abruptly a melancholy one, her little daydream turning from idle to homesick in the space of a heartbeat. She misses her clan, desperately so. There are other elves here in Haven, but none of them are Dalish, and despite her many insistences that she isn't anyone's Herald, she sees no peace from her own people, because nearly all of the elves who made it to Haven of all places are Andrastian. Perhaps there might be others among the newly-recruited mages, but she has yet to have a chance to speak with more than their leaders (the elven Grand Enchanter and the man who began the entire rebellion, though upon being brought back to Haven, Anders had shared a single look with Varric and then blandly informed them all he had no idea where Hawke was, to Cassandra's extreme chagrin - a statement made even less believable by the little redheaded girl clinging to his hand), and in truth, she isn't optimistic.

In a place like this, after all, even a lapsed or distant Andrastian is bound to feel religious reverence, especially with a figure supposedly sent by Andraste herself leading them. It doesn't matter that she denies it. She stumbled free from the Fade, the only survivor of the Conclave, and all their suspicion of her vanished the moment she stopped the Breach from expanding. Now that she has closed it altogether, her apparent heroism has surged far beyond anything she can contain.

Legends travel quickly. Far more so than the truth. Keeper Deshanna told her that once, when she was younger; she never expected to see it so viscerally. It's no wonder then that her feet carry her to the shadowy edges of the celebrations, to the one man who doesn't seem to buy into them.

"Lethallan," Solas greets with a quiet smile that sends warmth blooming through her chest. They had called each other hahren and da'len - despite his apparent disdain for Dalish culture - until the aftermath of Alexius' plotting in Redcliffe. There had still been tears on her cheeks when Dorian ripped them both back to the present, despite her best efforts to steady herself - watching Solas, Bull, Varric, and Leliana sacrifice themselves, even in an aborted future more a dream than a reality, had nearly been more than she could bear, and the scene has featured in nightmares multiple times as they traveled back to Haven.

When they made camp that night - traveling ahead of the mages with Leliana to prepare Haven for their arrival - Solas had drawn her away from the others, into the trees, moonlight dappling his face and casting the sharp planes of it in shadow. His expression, despite the severity of the lighting, had been soft with worry as he asked her what had happened, and she had found herself explaining it all in lurid detail, in a way she hadn't when she told Leliana, Fiona, and Anders of what she'd witnessed the Elder One planning. The horrors of the red lyrium, the world twisted and ravaged, the Breach expanded across the heavens with the Veil barely more than a suggestion, like skin stretched taut across a starving man's bones. His sacrifice. Watching a demon fling his dead body back through the main doors to Castle Redcliffe, all while she couldn't move for fear of disrupting the spell.

You did well, lethallan, he had told her, when the telling came to a messy end. She had been fighting off a second wave of tears by then, and he'd drawn her into his arms, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. Listen to me. You did what you must. Let that knowledge temper the pain of it - you could not have saved them.

She still finds it difficult to believe him, even though she knows he's right. But knowing and knowing are two very different things, and she doesn't have her Keeper here to talk everything through with. Solas helps - but her feelings for him are far different from calling him a mentor, even if it had started out that way.

"What do you think?" she asks him, coming to stand next to him and tilting her head back to look at the scar across the sky where the Breach had been, visible even at night. And she had meant to leave him a silence to fill, but she can't help the way her own concerns spill out now that she is in the presence of someone she can trust with them, without any of the complications this unwanted position of hers brings. "This feels too simple. Every step of the way we've found nothing but unanswered questions, from my missing memories and the cause of the explosion to the identity of this 'Elder One' and his motives. I can't help but wonder - if the Breach was intentional, which the future I saw implied it was, why would we be allowed to just march up and seal it?"

"I agree with you," Solas says, and those four words alone have some of the tension relaxing from her shoulders. "The Conclave marked the first lightning-strike of a storm, and I fear we stand now in the eye of it."

"The last moment of calm before all hell breaks loose," Vythral'a murmurs, and watches him nod out of the corner of her eye. "It does feel like that, doesn't it? They all need this, but some part of me can't quite let myself let my guard down."

He brushes his fingers against the back of her hand, a brief, gentle touch, and her breath catches in her throat. (She's sure he notices. He'll likely be smug, if she glances over at him right now.) "You need it as much as they do, Vythral'a," he says, his voice soft, and as it always does, it makes something in her melt. Then, more dryly, he adds, "Have you yourself not insisted you are not their divine Herald?"

What does that have to do with anything? "Yes, but-"

"But," he continues for her, over top of her, both at once perhaps, "nothing. You are as mortal as they are. Let yourself relax and enjoy your accomplishments for one evening, lethallan. The Elder One will, regrettably, remain a problem in the morning."

"If the Elder One makes himself a problem while I'm having my breakfast tea tomorrow, I'm blaming you," she teases, turning to face him, and firelight dances across his violet eyes, though he holds his face perfectly straight.

"That seems reasonable," he agrees. His lips twitch. "Though I wouldn't begrudge him the tea."

She can't stop herself from laughing, and the deadpan expression on his face cracks into another one of those warm smiles. "Of course you wouldn't." She shakes her head. "If closing the Breach had come down to drinking tea, you would've let the waking world burn."

"If closing the Breach had come down to drinking tea, the waking world would already have been burning," he retorts evenly, only a hint of amusement in the words. "And I would accuse you of being replaced by a spirit of Mischief."

"And here I thought if I were to attract any spirits, it would be one of Focus," she murmurs, dropping her voice. "Or perhaps Willpower. Given how effusive your praise for those particular qualities of mine has been…"

Is that a faint blush on his cheeks, or is it just the orange-red of the nearest bonfire? Regardless, he tilts his head to one side, and his gaze is piercing and weighty as he drags it down the length of her body, then back to her face again. "Perhaps," he says in an equally low tone. "Though you will recall we have yet to truly test them."

Creators. Her mouth is dry enough she has to swallow to actually speak, and the corners of his lips turn up in a little smirk at the motion. The mental image his words evoke - of her pressed against a wall somewhere, possibly with him on his knees in front of her - is dizzying and distracting, and even the fact that they've yet to actually discuss the tension between them seems like a poor reason not to challenge him to try. "And you would know what it feels like to have indomitable focus dominated, wouldn't you," she manages instead, taking a step forward. He inhales sharply, eyes fixed on her face. "To test it properly. Of course."

"Of course," he echoes. He lifts a hand to brush a loose strand of hair back from her face, fingertips brushing over her cheekbone and the shell of her ear, and she shivers slightly at the touch. They're close enough together she can't help but wonder if he might finally kiss her the way they've been dancing around for weeks now-

Clang.

The ring of a warning bell echoes out across Haven, loud and demanding, and Vythral'a spins towards the sound, snapping to attention, something cold settling in the pit of her stomach. "You promised me the morning, Solas," she hisses under her breath. Thank the Creators she has a habit of keeping her staff with her; she'd changed out of her armor earlier, and she has no time to make it back to her living space now to strap it back on. If she'd been caught out without her weapon for what threatens to be a fight, she would be in trouble (and her clan would never let her live it down, when they found out).

"I promised you nothing," Solas says, a grim tightness to his voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches movement as he takes a few steps sideways to grab his staff where it leans against the small shack he'd commandeered. "But it does seem our enemy has moved faster than I expected. Ir abelas."

"Ara enaste," Vythral'a responds with a quick shake of her head. Fenedhis. Was it too much to want one single night- "It's always something." She sighs. "Come on. We should get to the gates - Cullen will know what's going on." She hopes.

Haven is already a large town, and it's been swollen beyond capacity with the influx of forces joining the Inquisition - soldiers, civilians, the mage rebellion's early ranks, scouts and spies, craftsmen and merchants, Chantry faithful who believe in their cause after the death of the Divine. It makes getting to the city gates alone a trying task, between soldiers running to their stations and trying to direct the mages capable of fighting and the civilians seeking shelter in their homes or the nearest solid building. Without her armor, she appears, at a glance, just another civilian, at least until one sees her staff and her vallaslin, and that makes it harder to cut a path too, especially passing through the areas the bonfires are.

Then Solas augments his voice with magic and calls, "Make way for the Herald!" and as much as she'd like to glare at him for using the title she never asked for or believed in, it's too effective to do anything but lean into it.

The cluster clears up as they get closer to the gates, if only because the civilians, at least, know better than to get in the way here. Cullen, Dorian, and Bull are talking quietly amongst themselves, a messenger standing not far out of the way, and they all look up as she approaches.

"Ah, there you are," Dorian says, face twisting into a grimace. "We have a…bit of a problem."

"I never would have guessed," Solas murmurs, and she nudges her elbow into his side, then takes another step forward.

"What's the situation, Cullen?" she asks. Why he seems to have been waiting for her, she wishes she didn't know. From most any other perspective, she is in no way qualified to be in the Inquisition's war room; she commands no soldiers, manages no spy networks, and has no diplomatic connections. She was actively spying on the Conclave for the sake of her clan, though that, she thinks, was deserved, given that the Dalish have a right to know what's happening with a war happening on their land as much as the humans'. Her only real claim to relevance is that she was in the right - or wrong - place at the right time and ended up capable of holding the Veil together because of it.

But she's seen how they look at her, even this inner circle of theirs. They believe this Herald story even when they saw how it began, even when Cassandra was originally so suspicious of her she almost refused to let her have a staff. And when they cannot get along with each other, cannot come up with a satisfying decision, she's provided an outside voice to pull them together.

It honestly hasn't even been that difficult. As First, she's been preparing to take over leadership of the clan for years, since she was a young teenager, and organizing an entire clan is like herding cats. Keeping Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine on track, in comparison, has been- if not easy, manageable. And after she spoke with the Queen of Ferelden on the Inquisition's behalf, it isn't a difficult leap to make to expect they'll want to make it all official and name her Inquisitor.

But just because it makes sense, and is easy enough to do (at least on the current smaller scale), doesn't mean she wants to do it. She won't be able to say no if they ask, of course. The Breach may be closed, but many rifts remain, and she has the only key to closing them - not to mention Redcliffe showed exactly what her disappearance would mean for Thedas right now. But she was also supposed to be nearing home by now. She misses her clan, her family, more than anything, and she hates the way all these shemlen seem determined to force her to be a prophet of their religion, as if it wasn't the Chantry that destroyed the Dales to begin with. She is everything they hate - knife-ear was thrown around often enough early on, before they started to pretend she was the only Maker-given one - an elf free from their shackles, bearing the visible marks of the People's culture, still surviving despite their constant efforts to eradicate it. A mage who has never set foot in a Circle tower, nor needed Chantry and templar oversight to avoid possession.

And yet. What choice does she have right now?

"One watchguard reported in," Cullen says, pressing his lips together. He's still wearing his armor. She tries not to feel faintly jealous. "We're being marched on by a massive force, the bulk of which is still over the mountain."

Which makes no sense. "Under whose banner?" she asks, frowning. "Every nation in Thedas, even Tevinter - cults and cultists aside - should be thanking us right now. I can't imagine such a huge army could be easily raised, much less without Leliana knowing."

And Cullen's face…twists with some disgruntlement. "None," he says, and when she furrows her brow, clarifies, "They march under no banner. They've sent no declaration ahead of them. In short, we have no idea who they are or what they want."

"Just a thought, Commander, but I think we can pretty well figure out what they want by the fact that they're marching on us," Bull says. He nods at Vythral'a. "I've sent the Chargers out to do what they do best. If you'll have me, I'll watch your back." She raises an eyebrow and he cracks a grin. "Well, it'd be a shitty report to send back home saying I'd let you get killed in the field, now wouldn't it?"

"Right," she agrees dryly. "Dorian?"

"Oh, I can think of one or two people you've pissed off this badly lately. Luckily for you, I have a bone to pick with all of them. Consider me firmly on your side."

She doesn't bother to look to Solas. He wouldn't have followed her to the gates to begin with if he didn't intend to stay with her, and they both know it. "We have to assume this is retaliation for closing the Breach - maybe even for Redcliffe," she says, then sighs. "I've never led the defense of a human city, but I was under the general impression our defenses should be inside the walls, you know." And why wouldn't she be leading it? She closed the Breach. She has the mark.

"We can't build a wall in frozen ground in less than three months, Herald," Cullen grumbles. "The trebuchets can do plenty of damage as long as-"

There's a banging on the gate, loud enough to catch her attention. "I can't come in unless you open!" a muffled voice calls through, interrupting him - a young man, she thinks.

"Damnation," Dorian mutters. "Was one of the villagers caught outside the walls?"

"They might have been," Cullen says, shaking his head. "We have some time before the main host arrives - open the gates!" The last bit he raises his voice and directs to one of the soldiers manning it, and gets a salute in return.

Standing on the far side is a man with messy blond hair hiding his eyes and a large, lopsided hat, twin daggers in his hands. The blades drip with blood. "I'm Cole," he announces without preamble. "I came to warn you. To help. People are coming to hurt you." He frowns. "You probably already know."

"Who is coming?" Solas asks, oddly gently given the circumstance. She files that away to ask him about later, when they aren't being marched upon.

"The templars," Cole answers promptly. "They went to the Elder One. You know him? He knows you. You took his mages."

Cullen curses, looking through the open gates to the rapidly-approaching army, torches blazing like a second gallery of stars against the darkness. Two distant figures stand on a rocky protrusion, too far away to make sense of them, but it's reasonable enough, she thinks, to assume one of them is the Elder One. Creators. Haven is only somewhat defensible, and certainly not against this sort of horde. What, exactly, are they supposed to do here? The Breach is closed, but in the face of a cult that wants to conquer the world, that means nothing.

"He's very angry you took his mages."

"Cullen," Vythral'a says quietly. "What's the plan?"

"By the Maker," he whispers, then exhales. "As it stands, Haven is indefensible. Our only chance is to hit them as hard as we can with everything we've got, and defend the trebuchets. If we can use the environment against them, we might be able to cut their forces down to a manageable size. We'll be at a disadvantage - too many of our own forces are mages, and the Order knows all-too-well how to combat them. But we have no other choice."

"Ara'an suledin nadas," she says softly, and takes a deep breath in, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. "Then Dorian, Solas, Bull, and I will protect the trebuchets. I leave everything else to you."

There's just enough time to get to the first trebuchet and help the soldiers manning it to load it before the first of the Elder One's foot soldiers arrive. Vythral'a had expected templars and Venatori mages and, presumably, non-mage Tevene cultists either willingly or unwillingly dragged along to form the bulk of the vanguard. And she's not, she thinks, entirely wrong, but the approaching templars are only recognizable as templars at all because of their armor. Red lyrium grows out of them in thick, faintly-glowing crystals, twisting and warping their forms, and she can almost hear it singing if she concentrates, like when she found Solas and the others in that future version of Redcliffe. That alone sends shivers down her spine.

Combined with the fact that many of the templars don't even move like people anymore, every instinct she has is telling her to flee rather than fight. The dangers of the wild are many and varied, and she remembers being raised with warnings of animals acting wrong, moving wrong, too quiet or too friendly or afraid of water, or sickly and tainted - how such creatures were to be avoided at all cost, killed from a distance if possible, never touched.

"Steady, lethallan," Solas murmurs, and she takes a deep breath in and weaves mana into lightning that she brings down on their heads.

At first it's easy enough. Only the foremost ranks are beginning to reach them, and she, Dorian, and Solas work well together to hold the bulk of them back with wide-reaching spells, while Bull uses his bulk and massive greatsword to sweep away any individual red templars who get close enough to be a real threat. The Inquisition's defending forces are far too small for this, even with the mage vanguard, but they draw enough attention away from the siege equipment - something the attacking force doesn't have - to let the weapons do significant damage. And Vythral'a has never been in a coordinated battle like this before, but the chaos of combat is familiar.

Cast spells. Control the battlefield as best as she can. Stay close enough to Solas he can cast barriers over her whenever archers aim their way - not because she can't cast her own, but because his are stronger and it's cleaner than her losing her grip on whatever other magic she might be channeling at the time. She has no potions on her, which is frustrating, but Dorian passes her a bottle of lyrium during a lull with a little comment about her endurance, and that's fine enough.

As the waves of incoming red templars get heavier, it gets harder to keep them back on their own. A contingent of mages comes to relieve them, at some point - she's sure it hasn't been as long as it feels - and their most senior enchanter tells her to take her party to the other trebuchet and find out why it isn't firing. There's a part of her that almost feels like it's a waste of resources to do so, but truthfully, she can't fight an entire army on her own, and the four of them make a small, easily-maneuverable group. And if one of their trebuchets isn't firing, they need to figure out why.

The worn dirt path to the second trebuchet is choked with enemies despite the barricades and fortifications. Bull takes the lead without having to be asked, and she falls grimly in behind him, using her staff as a weapon as much as her magic. Creators, she wishes she had other weapons with her; she knows how to use a knife as well as any Dalish should, mage or not. But her knife is with her armor, left uselessly in her quarters, and she just has to hope she doesn't need it, for defense or for blood magic.

(Not that she's used the latter since being conscripted into the Inquisition, though she and Solas have discussed it before, both as an idle thought and actively debating theory during one of his lessons on how to manipulate the Veil more cleanly. He'd made it clear that he didn't use it himself, but only because it impeded his Dreaming, which had been an interesting tangent - she's never met a somniari before him. His concern had only been that she used it safely, and never bound spirits or people. Which she wouldn't. Binding spirits is just asking for trouble, and disrespectful besides. But Solas had agreed with her that using blood magic in front of the remaining loyal templars - hungry to police her behavior - and mages who had been raised from childhood with the understanding that blood magic did nothing but make abominations, not to mention the Chantry faithful, would be a stupid idea.

With the current circumstance, though, she's a little more willing to entertain even a stupid idea if it can get them out of this alive.)

The reason the trebuchet isn't firing becomes clear as soon as she gets close enough to see it: it's loaded, but the Elder One's forces are surrounding it, and the Inquisition soldiers who were manning it are dead. Vythral'a sends more lightning spidering out between the enemies, and as she does she notices the way the trebuchet is aimed - not directly at the army, which is still marching down the path from the ruins, a seemingly-inexhaustible store of troops at the Elder One's command, but at the mountain pass just above them.

…the mountain pass covered in snow. And slumped next to the wheel that turns the trebuchet there's a dead soldier in a scout's uniform, one hand still gripping its spoke.

"Clear me a path to the trebuchet," Vythral'a says, only distantly paying attention to the fact that it sounds like an order, and lifts her staff, letting mana gather in the focus at the end of it. "I have an idea."

The frozen ground is hard and uneven beneath her bare feet, rocks digging into her soles even through the wraps. She still has better balance than the red templars do, misshapen as their bodies are, and when she yanks stone through the Veil to slam into them the way Solas taught her to, it sends them staggering. Bull makes use of the opening to drive them further off-balance and back with his greatsword, and as Dorian and Solas rain more magic down on them, she takes advantage of the distraction and sprints for the trebuchet, sliding past a twisted horror larger than Bull and bolstering her steps with mana to launch herself the last of the distance up onto the trebuchet's platform.

She snaps a barrier up around herself to absorb a wave of sharp-edged ice crystals thrown at her by a Venatori mage, retaliates with another hail of Fade-touched rock, then turns - trusting the others to watch her back - and releases the trebuchet. It flings its payload in a wide arc across the valley into the mountainside on the far side of it, and the avalanche that follows sweeps aside a not-insignificant number of flickering torches as it crashes into the road. Vicious satisfaction rises in Vythral'a's chest, and she doesn't bother to stop the smile it brings to her face as she turns back to call lightning down again on the remaining enemies near them, the smell of burning ozone bright on the mountain air.

A small contingent of Inquisition soldiers, accompanied by four mages, arrives to retake the trebuchet, and they make quick work of the last of the red templars, cheering all the while. And she knows what stories the survivors will spread of this moment, the Herald of Andraste burying half the Elder One's attacking army under snow, even though it could've been any of them to work the trebuchet and strike the blow. But what is she going to do? They're in the middle of a battle. She can't stop to give them a speech about how whether they see her as a leader or not, there is no Maker or Andraste guiding her hands.

Not that they would listen. Every single denial she's given has fallen on deaf ears.

"Well done," Dorian calls to her, and she nods in acknowledgement. He and Bull are standing shoulder to shoulder near the fortifications looking for more red templars; she catches Solas' eye as he twists his wrist and draws magic around another heavy stone, lifting it from the ground so two soldiers can maneuver it back into the trebuchet's top as another pair work to rewind the tension for another shot. He doesn't smile at her, but his lips do, briefly, curl. "I may even have time to get the bloodstains out of my robes before-"

"Look out!"

Vythral'a whips back around to the sound of the cry just in time to see a massive black dragon fly over the edge of the mountain pass and blast a ball of fire at the trebuchet. She runs for the edge of it, stomach dropping, and dives forward, knowing even as she does she's going to be too slow-

Just as the trebuchet explodes into flaming splinters behind and beneath her, the Veil itself twists and warps into something nearly physical, pressing against her back. The force sends her reeling to the ground, but when she rolls onto her back, propping herself up on her elbow, she sees Solas standing firmly, staff held aloft, a grim look on his face as he uses a barrier to turn the explosion back on itself. The technical skill that takes is breathtaking, no matter that she knows he's a far better mage, especially when it comes to manipulating the Veil, than anyone she has ever met, including Keeper Deshanna.

The dragon roars and circles back overhead, this time swooping down over Haven itself, and Vythral'a curses under her breath and lets Bull drag her to her feet. She doesn't have any particular love for the town or its people, but the civilians are innocent and the rest are the only force Thedas has prepared to defend against this disaster. And beyond being a dragon, this creature looks wrong, and she's never seen a Blighted creature before, the Fifth Blight ended before it got far enough north to trouble her clan, but she thinks this might be one.

"Hurry!" Solas calls, gesturing to their surviving soldier escort. "Back to the gates!" His gaze snaps to her then and, despite the urgency, softens. "You as well, lethallan. Even you cannot face a Blighted dragon."

"Do I have a choice?" she asks, though she follows him when he falls into place at the rear of their contingent. More red templars are approaching as they step into a run, as if the avalanche barely even hindered them at all, and something twists uncomfortably in her chest. "Solas, however I feel about the Inquisition, they were all that stood between Thedas and the Breach. If we lose Haven, what stops that future I saw from coming to pass?"

She had sworn to herself that it wouldn't. That she would never let it happen to her people, the people she cares for. The mark on her hand that so sets her apart and doomed her to this unwilling living sainthood is supposed to give her the power to ensure that. And yet here she is anyway.

"As much as I appreciate your optimism, I think we ought to start by surviving this," Dorian interjects, turning to cast a spell she doesn't recognize at their pursuers. "Given that, as I recall, it was your presumed death that set that future in motion."

She understands his point. And truthfully it isn't like she's particularly eager to sacrifice her life for these people - but if there's no other way…

"My death mattered as long as the Breach was open," she argues back. "Everything else - but I take your point."

Cassandra is at the gates when they make it that far, gesturing them in, a sharp frown on her face. "We must get everyone we can to the Chantry, Herald," she calls over the roaring flames and sounds of battle. "It is our only hope. Josephine and I have been preparing the supplies for evacuation, but with our only route out of the valley blocked, we can do nothing but fight for our last moments."

There must be something they can do. But first- "Dorian, Bull, go with Cassandra," she orders. "Sweep the east side of the town for survivors. Solas and I will take the west half and rescue who we can."

There's no time for platitudes, only action. The rest of their soldiers would have done what they could ahead of them, but however she feels about the Inquisition, it's her responsibility to make sure, if she can. The dragon wheels back overhead for another pass, fire raining down from its jaws, and she grits her teeth and drags her cowl up over her nose. She hasn't seen this much smoke since Keeper Deshanna took her and the rest of the clan's mages to ward against a forest fire started by foolish humans near their territory; it stings her eyes and chokes her throat even through the cloth barrier. If there is anyone left, they must be sick already.

The first survivor they find is the bartender, trapped in the ruins of the Singing Maiden under debris from the collapsing roof. She's nearly non-responsive to the ice that puts out the fires near her, but Vythral'a catches her raspy voice whispering something over and over, senselessly, like a prayer: the Herald will save us. It makes discomfort churn in her stomach, but she wraps her will around the debris anyway, pouring enough mana into the half-formed spell to lift it off her so Solas can drag her free. He casts a single grim look in her direction before casting a simple healing spell on Flissa. She doesn't catch the particulars of the spell itself - it's difficult to see through the thick, clinging smoke everywhere - but then he's helping the woman to her feet and gesturing for Vythral'a to follow the two of them out of the building.

There are more red templars coming up the path. The dragon must've caught the gates, not that that matters now - Vythral'a grits her teeth and lifts her staff, putting herself between them and Solas. She can sense him casting a barrier as he does. "Go," he tells Flissa sharply. "To the Chantry. Run!"

Vythral'a doesn't look to see if the woman complies. She has other priorities.

By the time she and Solas have dealt with the approaching templars (if they can even still be called that), the fires have spread further, and the smoke is thickening to the point it's hard to breathe even outside the buildings. She coughs into her cowl, grimacing, and steps closer to Solas, adjusting her cloak around her shoulder. "The entire town is going to burn," she says, and he nods, covering his mouth and nose with his hand.

"The weather may keep the flames from spreading past the confines of the village, but there is no saving these buildings," he says, displeasure obvious in the words. "I doubt there are any survivors left we can easily reach, lethallan. Linger too long searching, and it will be our own demise that finds us next."

She knows, logically, that he's right. That does nothing to stop the way her stomach twists when she nods in agreement; the thought of failure has always been a bitter one to her. "I know." She sighs and turns back to face the Chantry, lips curving in a tired smile hidden by her makeshift mask. "How ironic for the Chantry to actually serve as a sanctuary for a pair of elven apostates."

"Indeed," he quips back, and then there's no more time to speak as they make for the Chantry at a run. The snow is cold under her bare feet, but she's felt worse, from mountains this high or not, and the movement keeps them warm anyway as she follows the now-familiar paths. Forward, forward, her lungs burning in her chest, and then the Chantry is directly in front of her, and Cullen himself is leaning out the door, gesturing rapidly at them to make it inside.

The foyer isn't as choked full of people as she expected it to be, she notices as she steps through, eyes adjusting to the dimmer light. Likely the civilians have been encouraged to gather in smaller prayer rooms and rest in the clergy's living quarters - a few of them are huddled near the back of the chapel, but most of whom she sees around her are soldiers and scouts, their armor blackened from soot, singed from flames, or just torn. Slumped on the floor near a door is Chancellor Roderick, blood seeping slowly from a deep but narrow wound on his side. He looks pained and pale, but awake, and when he sees her, he looks…relieved.

It sets her on edge. She remembers how he's made a habit of speaking to her, the Dalish woman who refused to accept the mantle of prophecy thrown upon her, which made him only more suspicious of her and her intentions. But Cole is kneeling next to him, and Solas had seemed predisposed to like the- calling him a boy feels wrong, but he feels too young to be a man - so who knows.

"Yes," Cole says softly. She can barely hear him over the ambient sounds of people moving about. "You see it now. She was always meant to help."

"Herald!" Cullen calls for her before she can approach the two of them and ask Cole what he's talking about. "Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us."

"I noticed," Vythral'a says with a sigh, tugging her cowl down. She can still smell the smoke, even in here. "I think it's worse than that, Cullen. We've lost Haven."

"I've seen an Archdemon before," Cole volunteers helpfully, and Vythral'a blinks - she hadn't noticed him leave Roderick's side, but now he's hovering at Solas' elbow. "I was in the Fade, but it looked like that."

"I don't care what it looks like," Cullen snaps. "We have nothing left to defend against it. They'll kill everyone in Haven." And there will be nothing, nothing she can do to stop it.

Cole shies back a few steps, but doesn't back down. "The Elder One doesn't care about Haven. He just wants the Herald."

Clarity dawns like an early summer sun, though it's nowhere near as warm. The mark on her hand burns, and she flexes it in and out of a fist, gaze fixed on the little flickers of green that spark across her skin - the raw Fade, bound and bonded into her palm and forearm, as bright as lyrium but so much softer. Mellowed, perhaps, by her flesh, and the only thing the Elder One could possibly want, when it was her death that let him achieve that broken future. Cullen is talking in the background, saying something about a last stand, turning the remaining trebuchet to cause an avalanche, burying Haven alongside the army, and it's a little ironic, she thinks. He's supposed to be their military leader, commander of their armed forces, but when it comes down to it, he's turning to her for an answer, like she already holds the title they have yet to put upon her. A Dalish mage trapped in a human Chantry, their survival hanging from her shoulders, and he looks at her like she can be trusted with it.

She smiles, thin and strained, and folds her marked fingers over each other one more time, dropping her hand to her side. Because here she is.

And if the Elder One only wants her, then it's a simple solution, isn't it?

"Herald?" Cullen asks, a sharp, almost concerned frown on his face, and Solas raises a hand, his gaze steady on her face. His own expression is nearly implacable save for a tiny furrow between his brows.

"You have a plan," he says. It isn't a question. That he already knows her well enough to tell sends a flicker of warmth through her despite everything.

"Maybe," she says, and turns to look at Roderick, his wheezing breaths feeling like they're echoing in her ears. "Chancellor, you know Haven better than any of us. Is there any other route out of the valley? Cassandra said there were preparations being done for evacuation."

For a long moment, Roderick just stares at her, and she can't hope to understand what the look on his face means - then he laughs, the sound choked and strained, and shakes his head. "There is a path," he manages. Cole comes over to him, takes one arm, and helps him to his feet, and he leans against him heavily. "You wouldn't know it unless you've made the summer pilgrimage. As I have." A slow, laborous exhale. "She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could tell you."

She wants to press him for details, but the building shudders around them, reminding her just how little time they have, and there's something uncomfortable just under her skin at the way he invokes Andraste's name. So instead she nods, glancing sideways at Cullen. "You mentioned triggering another avalanche," she says, and pretends she doesn't notice the way Solas' eyes are still trained on the side of her face. "Can you get them out? How long do you need?"

"If he shows us this path, I don't see why not. But you…" She holds his gaze, unmoving, and he sighs, shoulders slumping slightly. "If we are to have a chance, you must give us until we've passed the tree line. We have flares. One of the scouts will set one off. I'll have a squad stay with you, load the trebuchet-"

"No," she interrupts, shaking her head. "I'm not risking anyone else's life for this, not when there's a chance the Elder One himself will come for me." Not when that's the goal. "Go, Cullen. I can only buy you so much time."

Cullen nods grimly. "May Andraste watch over you, then. And let that thing hear you."

He turns away to converse with Roderick and a nearby soldier, barking orders, and Vythral'a lets his voice fade into the background, shifting to look at Solas. He looks- unhappy, she thinks, his shoulders rigid. "Martyring yourself for them is pointless, lethallan," he says. "This is-"

"The only way, Solas," she says gently, cutting him off, and she steps forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "We both could have used the chaos to sneak off, earlier, before we realized what was happening. It wouldn't have been difficult for either of us to survive in the wilderness." Solas isn't Dalish, by his own firm admission, but he knows how to live on his own, that much is clear. "But you care about these people, shemlen or not, disgustingly Andrastian or not, or you wouldn't have even come back to Haven after we closed the Breach."

For a long moment Solas just looks at her. Then he lifts one of his hands to cover hers on his shoulder. "At no point have I stayed for the Inquisition, Vythral'a." His voice is so terribly soft.

She swallows. It's hard to breathe right suddenly; there's an intensity in his gaze that has her heart pounding out of rhythm. For all that they've been flirting off and on, that he's made his interest in her clear during their teaching sessions, this is different. "Solas…"

"Dareth shiral," he says quietly, when her voice trails off, and she knows he means it literally. And she knows she needs to go, to present a target to draw attention away from the Chantry - if the walls are breached before the survivors have a chance to escape, this will all mean nothing - but she can't look away from him, from the hesitant, torn expression on his face. Like he's warring with himself, some unnamed desire holding him in place at her side.

Vythral'a opens her mouth to say something - what, she has no idea - and before she can, he steps forward into her space, curling his hand around the back of her head. "Sul asahngar," he whispers into the space between them, and presses his lips to hers.

And Creators, it's just a chaste thing, no more than a gentle brush, but it sends sparks down her spine, all the way to her stomach, and her breath catches in her chest - she leans into him, the hand on his shoulder curling into his shirt and her other hand coming to rest on his hip, and for a moment the rest of the world stops existing. For a moment, the urgency doesn't matter, bleeding away to be replaced by warm certainty. His lips are chapped, rough against hers, and when he pulls away she can't help following him. He leans his forehead against hers instead, sliding his hand back to cup her cheek and press his thumb against the corner of her mouth.

"Go," he says, his eyes closed. His voice is hoarse, and with it comes reality and the reminder that she might not come back from this. Probably won't, in fact. How can she outrun an avalanche?

She turns her head to kiss the inside of his wrist, lingering just long enough to feel his pulse jump - and then if she doesn't pull away, she won't be able to make herself, so she steps back, once, twice, then turns towards the Chantry doors. As she does, she catches sight of Dorian, having just emerged into the foyer from the chapel; he glances between her and Solas, then gives her a simple nod, of acknowledgement and respect alike.

"Solas, I need you with me, we have wounded, and nobody likes my method of getting them moving again," he calls, and she knows immediately he's doing it to distract Solas. She wishes she could convey her gratitude, but she suspects he already knows - they may not have known each other long, but going through what they did together left a mark.

Vythral'a exhales heavily, pulls her cowl back up over her nose, and steps back out into the snow and flame, her staff in her hand.

There are red templars crawling through the town's burning skeleton like worms on a fallen log. She has the advantage only in that they clearly aren't expecting sudden resistance; she takes down an entire group of them almost before they have time to respond, courtesy of careful positioning and a fireball. There's really no reason to be careful with her destructive spells now that everything is alight, and it's effective - the few that stumble free from the firestorm she hits with lightning, scorching them down to the red lyrium that coats their bones.

It makes her shiver to see it exposed. She can still hear it singing, almost hypnotic, grabbing at her attention, trying to draw her in. Remembering the sight of Solas with empty, crimson-glowing eyes is enough of a horror to pull herself away, but the song lingers at the back of her head even after it's out of her sight.

Not enough to break her focus, at least, if only because she refuses to let it. And she might be alone, unarmored, unarmed save for her magic and staff, but she's still Dalish; she knows how to hunt, and so she does. She has to assume that the Elder One can sense her, or the mark on her hand, that he knows she's here rather than with the bulk of the escaping forces, because the dragon doesn't make another appearance. Instead, she's able to fight her way through the remnants of Haven to the nearest trebuchet, the only one of them actually within the walls, without being overly impeded.

That, of course, is when she loses what little advantage she has. Her mana only goes so far, and she has to stay near the trebuchet and protect it, turning it fully around in what lulls she can find. The Elder One has seemingly endless forces at his disposal - she would be wondering where and how he's managed to build an army like this without anyone noticing if she had the time to think about it - and she can't face an entire army alone; even the supply cache filled with potions and emergency medical supplies she finds tucked up against the trebuchet's base only has two lyrium potions tucked away, and she barely has time to drink them in between turning the trebuchet and fighting.

She's good at what she does, but that doesn't stop her from taking blows - from weapons piercing her barrier, red templars sneaking up behind her when her attention is elsewhere. She probably should've let Cullen send a few soldiers with her (she is, after all, lucky she had enough time to actually load the trebuchet before she was attacked to begin with), she thinks wryly, deflecting another blow off her staff, then knocking the twisted soldier who dealt it back far enough she has the space to cast another spell. It's their duty to die for their cause, after all, and Solas was right in that martyring herself for these people who will only see it as the hand of Andraste and not a real person making a real choice is pointless at best.

But if the Inquisition is the only force poised to actually stop the Elder One and the future she saw, then as many of them need to survive as possible - and she doesn't want to drag anyone else into being bait with her.

Finally, finally, she adjusts the trebuchet properly into place. She has no idea how long it's been, just that she still hasn't seen the flare Cullen promised, and the moon is still high in the sky. Exhaustion pulls at her muscles, and she wishes she could just find somewhere to hide and wait for the signal; she's nearly out of mana despite both the lyrium potions, and while she could rifle through one of the templar corpses to try to find a knife she can use in an emergency, she doesn't want to get close to the red lyrium oozing from them. How that corruption spreads she isn't certain, but if it acts anything like the Blight, even just touching it could be a death sentence. And there's still some part of her clinging to the belief that she might make it out of this alive.

There's a gust of cold air against her skin, pushing her cloak back, and she looks up just in time to see the dragon swooping down again, a ball of fire coalescing in its mouth, backlit by the waxing moon like it's been edged in silver. "Fenedhis," she hisses, and bolts in the opposite direction from the trebuchet, because if they're going to have any chance she can't let the dragon destroy it-

She throws up a barrier just in time to deflect the worst of the flames as the fireball scorches the earth just behind her, but the force of the blast knocks her to the ground anyway, heat stealing the breath from her lungs and searing her eyes. That's going to hurt later, she thinks grimly, fumbling to push herself upright, a little dizzy with the motion, but at least the trebuchet remains untouched by the fires dancing across the ground. The dragon wheels around, then lands hard behind her, blocking the path back to the rest of Haven, and she spits out another curse, leaning on her staff to pull herself the rest of the way up.

Then she slings it across her back, backing a couple steps away from the dragon, because it hasn't moved to attack since landing - for all that it growls lowly at her and opens its jaws threateningly - and she knows better to think she can fight this. Solas himself had said so earlier, had he not?

Her stomach twists with fear and determination mixed together and she lets out a shaky breath. Well. This is what she was hoping for, isn't it? The Elder One's attention on her, instead of the evacuation, and walking right into the trap she's setting. That doesn't offer much reassurance when she hears footsteps behind her, heavy and slow. If it's more red templars…

She turns, a spell forming in her palms, to face the shadowy figure approaching through the flames. Before she can cast it, the figure gestures with one hand, and scarlet energy slams into her with more force than a spooked halla. She staggers, gasping, and claws her way back to standing before she can spend more than a heartbeat on one knee, and-

"Enough."

The voice is deep and echoing, heavy with command, and it bleeds through her ears with all the same subtle song as the red lyrium, until she can barely stop herself from reaching up to claw at them. One word, one single word, and she knows she is outmatched.

"Pretender," the figure continues, striding fully into view, flames crackling across him like a cloak but not actually burning him. He's twice her height, withered, pieces of red lyrium embedded into his Blighted skin, and she's never seen a darkspawn up close but what else could this be? They weren't supposed to be capable of speaking, though. And- the Elder One. A grandiose title, she had thought upon first hearing it, no matter what he'd managed to do to the world. Very Tevene. Looking at him now, hearing his voice…what else would they have called him? His very presence weighs her down with every breath. "You toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."

Maybe she does - no, of course she does. The Creators haven't listened to the clans in centuries, and she doubts they could explain to her what she faces right now even if they were likely to respond. Mythal, protect your child, she prays silently anyway. Dirthamen, let me unravel his secrets.

But she doesn't need to understand what's at play here to know what she needs to do.

"Do I?" she asks. There's a tremor in her voice, one she can't wipe away completely, and her chest is tight with a terror that makes it almost impossible to catch a full breath, but she can still speak, and that's enough for now. She just- needs to stay alive long enough to see the flare. That's it. Keep him talking. If she can learn anything (and survive long enough to tell anyone), that's a bonus. "Explain it to me, then."

"Mortals beg for truth they cannot have," he announces, as if to some audience greater than one wavering elf, and she bares her teeth, forcing her spine straighter, her chin high. She is of the People, First to Clan Lavellan, and she will not cower, whether she stands before an unknowable immortal entity or a confused mage. We are the last elvhen. Never again shall we submit.

"I wasn't begging."

He scoffs, unimpressed. "The truth is beyond what you are, what I was. Your feeble mind could not comprehend it." Then he spreads his arms wide; in one of his clawed hands he holds a simple silver orb. Tainted, yes, but she can sense it, and the magic in it feels…familiar, almost. "Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One, the will that is Corypheus." There's force to his words, something that would be almost hypnotic if not for the way it bludgeons her, and he swings his empty hand around to point at her. Every word he speaks is precise, even, and they echo. "You will kneel."

Vythal'a grits her teeth and presses one hand to her forehead, staring him down. The flames flicker in the cool breeze that kicks up, but don't go out, and they cast him in an eerie light that makes the red lyrium glow like blood, like a beating heart. "Never again shall we submit," she echoes. "I won't. Say whatever you like, but you can force me to do nothing."

Corypheus. It sounds like a Tevinter name, which sends a shiver of dread down her spine no matter what she says to him. She barely remembers her childhood, before her magic, before her parents fled south from Vyrantium and stumbled into Clan Lavellan (Keeper Deshanna had told her once, when she was named First, that the reason the clan had migrated further south to the Free Marches proper was to avoid retaliation), but she remembers enough, and her parents have told her more of what it was like as she's grown older. Slavery had been a shackle they had thrown off and promised - never again. Never again.

She will not bow to a Tevinter mage, just as she will not bow to a Chantry sister.

"I am not here for you," Corypheus says, a growl of irritation in his low voice. "I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now."

The Anchor? She has no idea what he means, but she takes a half-step back from him anyway as he raises the orb in his other hand. It glows violently red, the same color as his magic, and…and the mark in her hand flares to life in kind. It feels like it's burning through her skin, and she gasps, grabbing her wrist with her other hand. The Veil ripples around her, but unlike when she uses the mark to close rifts, she cannot get a grasp on it; even her own spells she's studied at Keeper Deshanna's feet since she was a child fail her, like all the mana she has left is being pulled out of her body through the bright green light.

"It is your fault, Herald," he continues. "You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose." She wants to argue with him, opens her mouth to do so, and the mark - the Anchor - crackles, and she doubles over instead as white-hot pain stabs all the way up into her shoulder. "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."

He shoves the orb closer and what little breath she can manage rips from her lungs, her vision going spotty as agony wrenches her apart. It hurts, it hurts, and she barely notices when her knees hit the ground, curled forward over her arm as she is. This feels far, far worse than the one time she'd stuck her hand into the fire as a child, or when she'd first been learning to call lightning and the sparks had struck her own foot. Darkness creeps into the edges of her vision and it's all she can do to keep from screaming. Stop, she tries to say, and instead only manages to croak out a pained noise.

"And you used the Anchor to undo my work! The gall."

His work - the Breach, the explosion, everything that followed. And there's only one proper response to that. "Nuva Fen'harel pala masa suledin," she rasps, with as much sheer disrespect as she can manage when it feels like her arm is about to burn to ashes, all down to the bone.

"Insolent mortal. But what else could one expect you to hurl into a dark you do not understand?" He lowers the orb to his side again, the magic dying out, and stalks over to her - her vision is swimming from the lingering pain and makes it look almost like he's gliding. Then he bends down and touches her, grabs her by the forearm and yanks her up into the air so hard her shoulder wrenches and pops - she cries out in surprise and no small amount of pain. This close, she can feel-hear the red lyrium singing, reaching out to her, the corruption of the Blight creeping closer, and panic locks her lungs in place. She can't breathe. She can't-

"I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person," Corypheus says, his voice low and quiet and twice as forceful as before. He doesn't need to raise it, holding her to his face as he is. "I found only chaos and corruption, dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world."

He shakes her by the arm, sending static sparking through her vision. Everything feels terribly cold. She should try to free herself, but none of her muscles will move. "Beg that I succeed," he murmurs, and the world narrows to nothing but his voice and the awful, clawing song just beneath it. "For I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty."

She stares at him, shocked into silence, into stillness, and then everything rushes back in as he makes another frustrated sound and hurls her sideways. She has just long enough to realize what's happening before she slams into the trebuchet - shoulders and back hitting first, staff pinned between them, and something in them cracks, and then her head, which sends stars bursting across her vision. She's barely even aware when she lands on her side on the trebuchet's base; everything hurts and when she tries to open her eyes the world spins. Corypheus and the dragon creep closer towards her, indolent, arrogant, with all the time in the world, and all she can do is gasp for air that won't come and sit slowly up.

"The Anchor is permanent," he says, gesturing with one hand. "You have spoilt it with your stumbling."

Get up, she tells herself silently. Get up. Get up. He cannot make you kneel. And it's agonizing, but she pushes one knee under herself, then one foot, then staggers slowly upright. Dizziness has her swaying in place as her head throbs to the beat of her too-rapid pulse, and she leans her one working hand against the bulk of the trebuchet behind her. She can't speak, still struggling to breathe, but she lifts her chin in defiance.

Mythal, protect your child…

"So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation - and god - it requires," Corypheus says, and lifts his hand again, walking towards her. "And you. I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die."

Ever-so-faintly, she hears a popping sound. And it's hard to see, but she still catches the orange-red smear that splits across the sky just behind his head, trailing up from the mountains behind Haven, above the tree line.

A flare. A flare.

Between the pain and the shock, she'd nearly forgotten why she was supposed to be buying time. But if they're signaling her - and the trebuchet is aimed, and thanks to Corypheus she's standing right next to the lever. All she has to do is release it. All she has to do is move.

Vythral'a lets her gaze slip back to Corypheus' face and the intent focus there. He looks at her like she might watch a hare or a deer while hunting, but with even less respect. Like an insect to be crushed, perhaps. She just needs to surprise him long enough to move - and part of her, she admits, desperately wants to prove that he's an arrogant fool, would-be god or not.

So she smiles, as strained and weak as it is. "Thank you," she tells him, and watches his eyes widen in surprise. "For telling me who you are and what you want. My spymaster will make good use of that information." Her voice is too thin and raspy - it hurts to breathe - but then she's shoving off the trebuchet and kicking the lever with as much force as she can put behind it. The trebuchet unwinds and flings its payload into the mountain towering above Haven, and Corypheus spins to watch the rumbling as rocks and snow build up and come cascading down towards them both.

She doesn't wait to see how he escapes, because she's sure he will. Instead she turns and dives off the trebuchet, stumbling back to her feet somehow, and runs for the edge of the hill. If she can just find an overhang, somewhere to shelter-

The uncovered mouth of a short mineshaft yawns open in front of her. She trips, tries to catch herself, and then something hits her in the back and everything goes black.

It's cold.

Coming back to herself takes immense effort. Her whole body hurts - her head throbs even holding perfectly still, her ribs scream with every breath she takes, and her left hand and forearm ache with a searing pain that radiates up into her useless shoulder. Hunger and thirst gnaw at her stomach and throat, and when she shivers, pain stabs so brightly into her that she cries out, all the way to her bones.

Where is she?

Cracking her eyes open leaves her feeling like something is driving a nail into her head, possibly multiple of them, but she has to do it. She's in…a cave, lit faintly in green, snow beneath her cheek and covering half her body. Her hand - the Anchor - glows so brightly it hurts to look at, and she groans quietly and clenches her right hand into a fist, drags herself forward out of the snowdrift, teeth grit to stop from screaming. Her staff is still on her back, and with a little work - and a lot of pain - she's able to work it off and into her only usable hand, though her fingers are numb enough it's hard to grasp it. She's recovered a little mana, however long she's been unconscious for, and she twitches her fingers and casts a small warming spell over her skin. Steam rises from her clothes, which are mostly soaked through, and she shivers again as the heat eases a little of the bone-deep frigidity.

She remembers the fighting at the trebuchet, the conversation with Corypheus, the avalanche - and then nothing. It must have caught up to her…there had been that mineshaft. Had she fallen? She must have.

Creators, her head hurts. It's hard to think, and even sitting still and only propped a little upright, she feels dizzy, like the ground is shifting beneath her. She can't just stay sitting here…she needs to get up. Move. Try to find her way back to the remnants of the Inquisition. Leliana needs to know what she's uncovered about Corypheus. She needs to find Solas.

If only Solas was here with her. It was the right choice, to stay alone, Corypheus and the dragon would have killed him without hesitation, but he's a healer, and beyond that, when he's by her side everything she's facing feels so much less insurmountable. Exhausted and in pain as she is, she has no idea how she's going to manage, but if she doesn't get up now she doesn't think she ever will. And no one will find her if she doesn't go looking for them. They don't expect her to have survived the avalanche; they won't be searching for her.

Her left shoulder is dislocated. She doesn't have the wherewithal to put it back into place, even if she could reach over to grab it properly without her ribs and back blazing with pain; at least she can still flex her fingers, though with the Anchor burning like a beacon, aggravating the burns themselves, that's difficult to do. The pain is-

Bad. It's bad. Worse than anything she's ever felt. Even just breathing has her wanting to break down in tears, because it sends jagged, stabbing agony through her chest and there's nothing she can do to escape it or ease it. But it's the cold that kills, not pain, and if she's going to make it out of this alive, she can't spare the effort to try to heal her injuries. Warming spells will be a more effective use of what little mana she has.

Carefully, shivering the whole while, she unwraps her cloak from around her waist. It's not quite as sodden as the rest of her clothes, though covered in ice crystals, and she flips it over her bad shoulder, then carefully, carefully, ties her left arm up in it like a sling. Just reaching that much sideways has a few tears spilling down onto her cheeks, and she nearly gives up entirely. But then it's done and will hopefully hold, and all she has left to do is get up. There's no point trying to give herself time to breathe through it and let it settle when every breath makes it worse.

With another immense effort (and how many more of these does she have to give?), Vythral'a sets the butt of her staff against the snow, shifts one bruised leg beneath her, and hauls herself upright.

The cave system she's found herself in is some kind of defunct mine, she thinks, branches of tunnels collapsed over the years. It must have another exit somewhere, assuming it hasn't caved in. But the shaft would've been covered if that was the case, she is…fairly certain; logically, if she walks long enough, she'll have to find it.

(She hopes. But letting that doubt creep into her mind might be enough to shake what little strength she has left.)

And so she walks. Stumbles, more like, leaning as much of her weight onto her staff as she can. It's hard to keep her balance, between the dizzy spells that surge out of nowhere and the fact that she can't use her left arm to catch herself when she slips, but she knows she has to keep her feet - she's in enough pain that if she falls, she may not be able to get up again. And stopping, staying still, means giving in and dying, as she had been taught by the hahrenaan in her clan since childhood. She can't take shelter and build a fire and warm herself properly, so she needs to keep going until she can find help.

The pain, at least, serves her in one way, and that's to help keep her awake.

She has no idea how long she's been walking for when she catches distant light at the end of the tunnel. She wouldn't notice it at all, but her path forward has been lit by the flickering green glow of the Anchor since she came to and what she sees in the distance is…white. And very dim - she can hear the wind howling even from here, it must be storming - but light all the same. A way out, and she can't afford to quicken her pace; she can barely manage the slow one she has as it is. But getting out of these caves means a chance she can find the remnants of the Inquisition, find Solas, and Creators, that's all she wants to do now - collapse into his arms and let the soothing, oddly familiar vibrance of his magic and his voice ease the blinding pain and exhaustion leaving her hazy and nauseous.

Even the thought of it is a comfort. With her eyes half-closed against the brilliance of the Anchor, she can almost convince herself she feels his magic, skimming across her skin and pulsing in her left hand with every shallow breath she takes, easing the stabbing agony in her ribs and the throbbing in her head, carrying her forward on a warm breeze. It's not him she feels, of course. It's the Veil, and the little ambient strands of magic she can't help but draw to her through it, pulled towards her by the Anchor's weight. That the Veil reminds her so strongly of Solas in the moment is explained easily enough by her muzzy head and the hours of practice, his hands and magic guiding her through cleaner, neater, more efficient ways of manipulating it and using the connection the Anchor gives her to great effect. Down in the Hinterlands, when he had first shown her veilfire, she had watched the way he willed the memory of a flame to life through the faint, fluctuating membrane holding magic at bay, and she'd thought it was the most elegant magic she had ever seen; he'd laughed at the look on her face and taken her hand and trailed her fingers through the green sparks.

She'd yelped at the sharp burn and pulled her hand back, and he'd let her, but left his own there, like he didn't feel the heat at all. How- she'd started to ask, and he had tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow.

Tell me, da'len, he'd said in the steady, patient tone he always takes when teaching, what is the central principle of the Fade?

She had almost asked him which one just to be contrary, but the bright sparkle in his eyes had drawn her in despite herself, and curiosity - and a desire to keep him looking at her like that for as long as possible - had won out. She'd considered his explanation of what veilfire itself is, then thought about what he might've been trying to show her, and the answer had finally made itself clear: the Fade is mutable, shaped by our perceptions and intentions and emotions.

Exactly, he had said, a note of warm approval in his voice. Veilfire is a memory, born of dreaming and expectation - the ancient habit of a lit torch, reminded how to burn again. Believe the fire hot enough to burn you, and it will. But remember it as nothing but a light…

For a moment, she hadn't been able to bring herself to try. Even children know better than to stick their hands in the campfire, after all; how could she make herself- stop believing something so intrinsic to the laws of nature? And Solas must have seen that in her face, because he had smiled, a small, subtle thing, and murmured, take my hand.

Only since you asked so nicely, she had said, and without even thinking of the fire, had reached out and done it, threaded her fingers through his and let their palms slide flat against each other. And it had burned, but not because of the veilfire - because of the way her heart shuddered in her chest at the touch and the deliberate way he held her gaze. Because of the magic that cradled her hand like a living thing, the raw Fade made even more vibrant by the mark, until it felt almost like cupping lyrium in her hand. Warm and wild and a comfort despite the inherent danger of it, because she could feel so easily how Solas tamed it with his very presence, weaving the frayed threads of the Veil around the torch to keep it from ripping the Veil open and turning into a conflagration.

And that, perhaps, had been the lesson he intended to show her, but they had been interrupted by Cassandra clearing her throat and reminding them they were running short on time. Solas had apologized with all the gravity he holds, and it had still managed to sound sarcastic enough to irritate the Seeker.

The feeling of the Fade itself in her hand had stayed with her all the way until she'd fallen asleep in their camp that night.

The desperate yearning that sweeps through her chest at the memory is almost physical in its strength. She wishes he was here. Damn it all, how is she supposed to do this alone? Solas has been a steady pillar of strength at her back since she woke up disoriented and surrounded by shemlen who hated her at the center of an unimaginable crisis, and she doesn't regret sending him away, it was necessary, but even in that twisted future Redcliffe he had been there. Now…

Now there are spirits. Demons, technically, though the distinction matters more to the Chantry than it does to her. A pair of despair demons and a few floating wraiths, likely pulled through against their will, without enough of a sense of what they wish to embody to keep a form. She's in absolutely no state to fight them, and no state to try to slip around them, and she has no mana to cast a spell strong enough to bind them (which is an absolute last resort, and something she hates to do even temporarily - she had promised Solas she wouldn't for a reason), and if she creeps any closer they'll notice her.

Fenedhis. If her head didn't hurt so badly, this would all be much easier.

The Anchor crackles, pain running from her fingers all the way up to her teeth, and she hisses out a little half-breath and glances down at it, considering. With it, she can manipulate the Veil in ways no modern mage can manage; even the Magisters Sidereal had required the blood of hundreds to tear it and step through, and yet somehow she escaped the Conclave's explosion by crossing physically through the Fade. (Repeating the first sin, the Chantry would say, but she has never cared about their Chant. Now, she supposes she should have paid more attention. If Corypheus is telling the truth - something so unimaginable and horrifying she can't bring herself to think about it right now - then there is far more truth to the Chant, too, than she had ever believed, and she isn't sure which of those is more frightening.)

She used it to close rifts. Can she use it to open them?

Her arm can't actually move, and she knows better than to try to force it, but she can, with some effort, twist her wrist, focusing on the thin flex of the Veil in the center of the small group of spirits. It's more tangible now than it ever has been, and she sinks her teeth into her lower lip and clenches her marked hand into a fist despite the pain of it. The Veil tears with the motion, like it's caught on the Anchor, and it's a tiny scar, but the energy she can pull through it - almost no mana expended whatsoever, since she isn't channeling it through her own body - blazes like a fire, lighting up the entire cave in green. One of the despair demons shrieks as the magic catches its hunched form, and there's a bright flash that she has to close her eyes against, her head aching.

When she opens them again, the spirits are gone, and there's nothing left but a weakness she can nudge back together, teeth grit against the strain. It's…an odd sensation, nothing physical, exactly. But the Anchor is as active as it was when the Breach was open and expanding, even if it isn't trying to crawl further up her arm again, and just feeling it flaring and pulsing in her hand reminds her of the first and only time she'd over-expended her mana while studying under Keeper Deshanna. The Fade and magic itself both start to pull at life itself when one tries to channel too much power; that's the principle behind blood magic. Part of her wonders if it would settle if she bled a little, but then again she would need a way to release that power safely, and also, she's fairly certain she's bleeding somewhere right now, and it hasn't done anything. Or she was bleeding earlier, before the hours of unconsciousness made it stop.

Not the time. She can ask Solas later…assuming she can find him again.

But leaving the cave seems like a far more foolish idea than she'd originally assumed once she reaches its mouth. There's a blizzard howling across the mountainside, snow lashing against her when she comes close to stepping out of what little shelter the caves provide; it stings her skin, and the cold has her shivering harder than before, hard enough the pain from it makes her dizzy. Or- dizzier, she supposes. She hasn't exactly been steady before now.

Creators. If only she had Sylaise's favor - but she bears Dirthamen's vallaslin for a reason. Knowledge, especially the secrets of their lost history, has always mattered more to her than the hearth. Prayers will do little enough to help now, but she still whispers one anyway before she gathers what little mana she's recovered to cast another thin warming spell around her. It isn't going to be enough against the storm, she knows that much; she isn't a fool. But at least it may help a little bit, and if she sits down and tries to wait this out, she doesn't think she'll ever get up again.

Which means her choices are certain death or a slim chance of survival. And if she is doomed to freeze to death no matter what happens, she would rather Falon'din find her still fighting.

She grits her teeth, tightens her hand around her staff, ducks her head against the wind, and starts to walk.

Time blurs and skips. With the snow as heavy as it is, it's impossible to keep track of when it is, how many hours it's been; it feels, almost, like walking through a dream, sound and sensation muted and blurry like the Fade itself. If only she could manipulate a blizzard the same way, she thinks distantly, and wants to laugh. With enough lyrium, maybe she could, but with enough lyrium she could warm herself and ease her pain and possibly even have stopped the attack on Haven to begin with, and control the Fade besides, so it's a moot point.

The only thing she has to guide her is the wolf. Wolves, maybe? It's hard to tell, with her head as unsteady as it is, but she can hear them sometimes, howling through the storm. In lieu of any other sort of path or direction to follow, she tries to stumble after the sound - something easier said than done, in truth. The howling winds keep stealing the sound and bouncing it around in a patchy echo, disorienting her, and there are no tracks to follow, just white and the shadows of the sky far above.

The clan's hunters would know better. In any other circumstance, they'd laugh at her, she's sure. Always know your way home in case of a storm, da'len. But she is so very far from home, with no streams or halla tracks to mark her path with - cold and alone and dying slowly for the people who stole their home to begin with. The closest she has is Solas and the lonely wolves crying to each other from their shelters. They'd suit him, some part of her, near-hysterical with cold and pain, thinks. They're both proud, aloof creatures, and beautiful, and cunning.

Whether Solas would smile at the comparison or call her ridiculous for it, she isn't certain. She wishes she knew, if only because picturing it might help the awful, choking fear building in her stomach, or at least distract from the aching agony in her ribs. She knows - she knows it's possible she isn't even going in the right direction, that even if she is hearing the sound right there may be no shelter whatsoever at the far end of it. In this storm, if she stops moving, that will be the end of it; even shelter may not be enough to protect her. She has no food, no water, no medical supplies, no mana - what is she even doing? What is she even trying to prove?

Mythal, protect your child, so she can live to exact the People's vengeance.

The Creators turned their faces from the world long ago. It still feels like an answered prayer when just minutes later she trips and nearly falls straight into a firepit. It's cold, absent even smoke among the ashes, but despite the raging blizzard it's only been covered in a fine layer of snow. Fresh. Freshly burned out. Vythral'a ducks her head and pokes her bare toes through the deepest center of the pit, in search of some fragile, fleeting warmth, partly because she could maybe gauge how long it's been if she could feel it and partly because the cold has set itself so deep into her bones she's starting to wonder if she's ever truly been warm.

Nothing. Nothing, and Creators, she almost wants to break down in tears from the unfairness of it all. A tiny whimper slips past her lips, barely audible over the storm, and even just that choked noise is enough to draw another surge of blinding pain from her ribs - and it hurts. It hurts. Everything always fucking hurts.

She curls forward over her ribs, panting for breaths that won't quite come, leaning her shoulder into her staff for support, and as she does, squinting against the heavy snowfall, something catches in her vision. A little outline, a divot, a faint imprint - some kind of trail, rapidly filling with snow but there. Vythral'a stumbles a few steps towards it, catching herself on her staff, and yes, those are footprints, muddled and nearly gone but she can follow this, she can. Another wolf howls somewhere far away, in the direction it seems the trail leads, and she takes a careful breath and grits her teeth.

She may feel lightheaded and weak with hunger and pain, numb from cold, but the sight of a path to follow, as clear as if the gods had sent it to her themselves, is almost something like hope, and she isn't going to let it go.

Step. Step. Step.

Every shuddering lurch forward is its own monumental effort. Vythral'a's eyes are half-closed, squinting down at the barely-visible tracks in front of her; sometimes, between steps, they close entirely, and she has to catch herself before she falls to her knees. It's hard to remember why she needs to keep going, but she knows still that if she falls, she won't get up again, and she has to. She has to follow these tracks. On the far side of them is the Inquisition, is Solas, and she needs, desperately, to reach him.

Solas is- safety, a harbor in a storm, a warm and quiet light, and more than anything, she needs his presence by her side. He can fix this. He can.

The blizzard stopped, some time ago. She isn't certain when. Everything blends together in a haze of frozen agony; her lungs, her ribs, her shoulder, her arm, her head. She's dizzy with it, dark spots flickering through her vision and the ground treacherously uncertain beneath her feet, heaving and shifting at any moment. The Anchor still flashes brightly, illuminating the snow around her with green light, but it's begun to fade - that, too, she isn't certain when. Maybe someone looking for her might see it, but the thought that someone is truly out there searching for her feels distant and implausible.

She is alone. Even the sound of wolves has faded. There's nothing but wind and her own jagged breathing and the snow crunching beneath her feet.

The snow - some part of her wants to strip away her clothes and lay down in it, let it swallow her whole until she returns wholly to nature. She knows better than to do it, she thinks. It's the cold, twisting her mind - so Keeper Deshanna would say. She must carry on. It's hard to remember that.

She stopped being able to feel her fingers, half her feet, her face, a long time ago. It makes keeping her balance even more difficult, especially because the cold leaves her feet aching every time she puts weight on them, a jarring pain that shoots up into her shins. At least the numbness has eased a bit of the burning from the Anchor, she thinks distantly, a little hysterical with it. It's not enough to keep her from feeling sick from the pain.

There had been another camp, some time ago, deeper and less disturbed by the storm. More recent. It'd been sheltered up in the lee of a sharp, jutting cliff face with a slight overhang, enough to break the wind a little bit - not good, but better than camping outright in the open. It'd seemed too small for the size of the force she should be tracking, but who knows how many of them survived. Who knows if this is even the Inquisition's camps. It has to be, but if it isn't…if it isn't, she's going to die just as surely as she already is.

But there had been flickers of warmth in the firepit she'd found, banked against the snow and nearly undisturbed by it. Coals still clinging to the last gasp of a flame, the breath of it alone enough to nearly make her tear up from relief. She'd nearly abandoned the long, slow drag forward to huddle by the ashes, in the hopes that enough mana could coax the fire back to life.

The trail had continued on, though, muddled and muddy but easy and easier to follow, so she had.

Now it leads her up a steep but traversable hill where the cliff face breaks. The snow is deep, up to her knees where it hasn't been tromped down by many feet, up to her waist the few times she stumbles into drifts, and it makes moving even more exhausting. She just wants to stop. To sleep. To let that enroaching darkness take her until there's nothing left. She tries, she does try, to ground herself in prayer, but the words don't come.

The ground levels out ahead, she notes dizzily, into the top of a ridge. If she can just reach that point, then…

Then what? Her head feels like an utter mess. Her goal is such a simple one, but achieving it feels almost impossible, and breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces is no longer helping. Get to the top of the ridge - and then keep going, and going, and going, and going, and when does it end? Her legs can barely hold her weight.

The tremor in them is so pronounced she feels like she's staggering more than properly walking, if there's any difference. If a red templar found her now they might not even bother killing her, she makes such an easy target. Her mana has recovered some, but that doesn't mean she could cast a spell; even the idea of a warming spell to ease the cold feels beyond her capabilities now. Creators.

Why did she do this? Why did she think she could-

There's no shelter at the top of the ridge, the wind cutting through her sodden clothing like a knife. She shivers once, somehow, and the pain that rings through her brings a moment of clarity with it. The tracks keep going, lit by moonlight and the last dim flickers of the Anchor's overactive pulsing. Across, and down into a valley cradled between two high peaks.

In the distance, a warm orange glow beckons, like firelight. Vythral'a stares at it, leaning against her staff, caught in a breathless trance by the sight. Not just one fire, but a whole field of them, sparkling like the stars overhead. She can almost picture her clan's aravels gathered around, the halla left to graze, like a mirror of the festival celebrations she'd imagined just before Corypheus appeared.

And therein lies the fear. Is this real? She's seen camps - it could be. But what if it isn't? Can she afford to hope? Even if it is, by the time she makes her achingly slow way down to the valley floor the fires could be long gone. She takes another weak step forward, and her staff catches in the heavy snow, and without it her legs simply crumple. She hardly has time to register them failing before she's on the ground, snow up to her chest, slumped forward.

It feels so, so good to finally just stop. To let her eyes fall to slits and her staff fall into a drift, shoulders curling inwards and her single working hand coming to rest in her lap. The cold is barely noticeable anymore anyway. She can't feel her body properly. Just pain and exhaustion, and something frigid that's sunk deep into her bones.

Get up, she tells herself silently. The distant fires swim in her vision, spotty and dim. But her body doesn't want to listen. And really, if the fires will be gone no matter what she does, is there any harm in resting? Just for a few minutes. Just for a few…