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What just happened… Lilja looked at the unmoving body on the ground next to her. Surely her fellow Warden recruit was only passed out. Was he dead? There was no way he was dead.
That thought was all but proven false when one of the Warden Recruiters checked his pulse before he told the others with a shake of the head. He died. Lilja's eyes opened wide as she slowly looked forward, the recruiters now in front of her with the Joining chalice. It was offered to her. She could feel her pulse in her throat and ears. Her heart was surely going to beat directly out of her chest and onto the floor. With shaky hands that she tried to still, Lilja reached forward and took the chalice.
"Join us, sister. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that can not be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you."
Should you perish. They were serious about that part. Moments ago, she had watched a fellow recruit perish. What were the chances the same would happen to her? What if she simply said 'no, thanks' and left? What if she ran really fast and really far? She could write her parents, let them know what happened, let them know she was actually a coward and that she would neve bre able to return home again. It would be easy to find a blacksmithing job in a town in a different country where the Wardens of Weisshaupt didn't trek. Maybe she could go back to Ferelden, the Hinterlands. Better yet, no one would find her in the Frostback Basin.
Lilja continued to hesitate. Her eyes glanced down at the concoction they wanted her to drink as her mind raced over her options. She must have stood there too long because she heard the sound of a long knife being half-removed from its sheath. She realized then that there was no running away. It was either drink and survive, drink and die, or die anyway by not drinking. If she died… what about her parents? Who would tell them what happened? Would they even be told?
Fuck. There was no turning back. Lilja brought the edge of the chalice to her lips and slowly tilted it back, tasting the acrid and decaying taste of blood the moment it hit her mouth. The chalice was taken from her hands as she brought it down. A good thing, since her body immediately collapsed to the ground. Her knees and head hit the stone of the courtyard they had been sequestered to for the ritual.
It felt as if her body was on fire, a piece of metal placed in the forge and swarmed by flames of both hot and cold. There was a pulsing trickle that ran up her spine, like sharp nails being dragged along bare skin, until it reached the base of her skull, where it spread over the surface of her skull. Her body lurched, silently gagging and screaming as her vision went blank. She could no longer see the courtyard or her hands. Sights of darkness and vibrant red and white flashes filled her eyes before there was a pounding in the back of her head. Then a song, a voice clipped through before there was silence. She could see again.
And she could breathe.
She was breathing.
Lilja felt that her clothes were drenched in cold sweat, and her body was trembling, almost violently shaking, but she was breathing. She was alive.
"Congratulations, Warden Thorne. Dwarves always seem to have an easier time with this."
Warden Lilja Thorne. She had made it, she had survived, but now she began to wonder at what cost.