Chapter Text
Cassandra hears the flaring of the mark as she and Leliana approach. It echoes the sky, every time. The connection is obvious, and it fuels her. Her rage and grief do the same. Finally, the prisoner is well enough to be questioned. To be held accountable. She wrenches open the door and the human woman looks up, tears tracking clean lines down her dirt streaked face. Cassandra holds no sympathy. The mark on her is her own doing, its pain is the least of what she deserves.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you know,” the Seeker growls. “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.” The woman’s stare is blank with shock.
“Everyone?” her broken voice barely audible, “What do you mean everyone is dead?” Cassandra ignores it.
“Explain this !” Cassandra demands, pulling up the small woman by her wrist as the mark flares again, as the sky rumbles in return.
“I can’t! I don’t know what that is!” she squeaks.
“You’re lying!” Leliana catches her hand before she can strike.
“We need her Cassandra,” she says, as calm as she can, and she’s right. Cassandra dislikes that, but it’s true.
“Everyone is dead? You’re certain? No one else survived?”
“No, you’re the only one,” Cassandra replied lowly as the prisoner’s breath hitched. “Convenient for you.”
“Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Leliana asks after a beat.
“I remember running. Things were chasing me. And then… a woman?”
“A woman?”
“She reached out to me, but then…” When it was clear the prisoner could say no more, Cassandra looked over to her companion.
“Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.” With an incline of her head, the woman left.
“What is it that happened?” the prisoner asked in a small voice as Cassandra tied her small, shaking hands together.
“It would be easier to show you.” When they get outside, she inhales a small gasp. “We call it the Breach. It’s a massive rift into the world of demons 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.”
“An explosion can do that?”
“This one did. Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world.” The sky cracks again as the mark on the prisoner’s hand opens up to flash its own light in kind. She falls to the ground with a whimper, and Cassandra stands over her. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this but there isn’t much time.”
“So I’m the only one who can do anything?”
“It is our only chance.” The prisoner looks up, the green light reflecting eerily against her pale eyes. Beneath the grime, she looks young. “Fine. I’ll do whatever I can.”
As the prisoner is lead through the town, the villagers look on with hatred in their eyes. She walks with her head down, shoulders hunched as though she is trying to hide.
“They have decided your guilt. They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead.” The Seeker sees the woman’s lips move, but she does not make out the words. As the gate is opened, she does not care. Instead, she continues. “We lash out, like the sky. But we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the breach is sealed.” When she pulls out her dagger the prisoner flinches, but she goes on to cut through the bindings. “There will be a trial. I can promise no more.”
“I don’t think you can even promise that when I could end up dead after all this,” the young woman mutters. The Seeker only nods.
“Come, it’s not far.”
“It looks far,” she replies, staring at the sky with a frown.
“Not there, something smaller than the Breach. The mark must be tested.”
As they make their way Cassandra counts at least thirty dead. Her heart is cold, and she doesn’t realize how distracted she had become until she hears a cry of pain, and the sound of the prisoner falling into the snow behind her. She helps the young woman back to her feet, the prisoner holding her wrist longer than she liked, eyes squeezed shut as she panted. The top of her head hardly passed her shoulder, the Seeker noticed.
“The pulses are coming faster now. The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face.”
“How did I even live…”
“They said you… stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I suppose you’ll see soon enough.”
As the two of them get to the bridge it is hit, sending them down with the rubble to the luckily frozen-solid river. Cassandra hardly has time to thank Andraste for the weather before a Shade forms before her. “Stay behind me,” she yells, armed in an instant. When an arrow flies past her ear and into the last Shade’s face she turns, pointing her sword. “Drop your weapon. Now .” The young woman scowls, but complies. As she begins to remove the quiver Cassandra changes her mind. “Wait. I cannot protect you, I cannot expect you to be defenseless.” The young woman sighed and bent back down to retrieve the bow. “I should remember that you agreed to come willingly.” She heard the prisoner huff a quiet yeah, you should , as she took some health potions from her belt, but she decided to ignore it. “Take these. Maker knows what we will face.”
“What about your soldiers?”
“They are at the forward camp. We will be on our own until we reach it.” When she looks back the woman has pulled on a helmet. It shields her face, and cassandra does not think she wants to know where it was found.
The prisoner is a skilled archer, the Seeker finds, as the small woman hangs back from the fights, finding high ground on rocks and taking out shades and wraiths, keeping the warrior from becoming overwhelmed. As they climb the steps, they hear fighting.
“Who’s fighting?”
“You will see, we must help them.” When they reach the skirmish she is pleased, if to varied levels, to see Solas and Varric still alive. As she looks up from her kill she sees Solas holding the woman’s hand up to the rift, the Mark seeming to draw it in. She pulls her hand back, when it’s gone, and holds it to her chest.
“What did you do?” she asks, startled.
“ I did nothing, the credit is yours.” The woman looks down and opens her fist.
“So it’s good for something.”
“Indeed. Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake – and it seems I was correct.”
“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” Cassandra stated.
“Possibly.” He turned to the prisoner. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”
“Good to know! Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever,” Varric said crudely, before introducing himself to the young woman. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.” He winked at Cassandra, and her scowl prompted a small giggle from beneath the visor of the helmet.
“Nice crossbow.” Varric brightened at the observation.
“Ah, isn’t she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together.”
“You’ve named her?”
“Of course. And she’ll be great company in the valley.”
“Absolutely not. Your help is appreciated, Varric, but…”
“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.” Cassandra made a disgusted noise, and the prisoner glanced between the two men.
“Well, my name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” the elf stated when she looked his direction.
“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept’”
“Well, I’m no use dead,” the prisoner chuckled darkly. “Thank you.”
“Thank me if we manage to close the breach without killing you in the process. Cassandra, you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have ever seen.Your prisoner is no mage. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.”
“Understood. We must get to the forward camp quickly.”
“Well, Bianca’s excited!”
As they fought their way to the forward camp, Cassandra was grateful there was more than just the prisoner fighting with her. She heard Varric call himself impressive and snorted. The prisoner stopped short on the steps; leaning against the face of the cliff she gasped in pain as the mark grew bright.
“Shit, you alright?” Varric asked, stopping behind her.
“No,” she answered. Quiet, but honest. Cassandra frowned, walking past her.
“I know it’s difficult, but we must keep moving.” The woman nodded and took a deep breath before pushing onward. Solas fell into pace beside her.
“My magic cannot stop the mark from growing further, Seeker. We must hurry.”
“We are going as fast as we can.”
“So… are you innocent?” Varric asked ahead of them.
“I don’t remember what happened.”
“That’ll get you every time. Should have spun a story.”
“That’s what you would have done,” Cassandra stated, sour.
“It’s more believable, and less prone to result in premature execution.”
As they made their way through, she worried for her friend. As the prisoner closed the rift that hung between them and the camp, Cassandra wondered, and hoped, that that rift hadn’t opened until Leliana had gone past.
“Whatever that thing on your hand is, it’s useful,” Varric stated.
“I just hope it’s useful enough,” the woman sighed.
“What about the breach?” the young woman demanded, cutting off the argument, “I think closing that thing needs to be the more pressing issue!”
“ You brought this on us in the first place!” Chancellor Roderick yelled back. The prisoner stood tense, fuming, Cassandra could tell even with her face covered.
“Call a retreat, Seeker. Our position here is hopeless.”
“We can stop this before it’s too late,” she insisted.
“How? You won’t survive long enough to reach the temple, even with all your soldiers.”
“We must get to the temple. It’s the quickest route.”
“But not the safest,” Leliana pointed out. “Our forces can charge as a distraction while we go through the mountains.”
“We lost contact with an entire squad on that path. It’s too risky.”
“Listen to me. Abandon this now, before more lives are lost.” They looked over at the Prisoner as she tried to suppress the whimper of pain when the mark flared again.
“How do you think we should proceed?” Cassandra asked her.
“Use the mountain path. Work together. You all know what’s at stake.” Cassandra’s face went cold with displeasure.
“Leliana. Bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone.”
“On your head be the consequences, Seeker,” Roderick growled.
When they find what’s left of the missing soldiers, Cassandra is relieved. So is the prisoner, it seems, but they push forward until they reach the temple.
“That is where you walked out the Fade and our soldiers found you.” Cassandra tells her when she stops short, hand over her mouth. “They said a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was.” The prisoner progresses slowly, seeming to linger on every corpse she sees.
“If you are looking for the entrance it is ahead of us,” Cassandra snapped in her annoyance.
“I’m not,” The prisoner replied harshly. Varric raised his eyebrows.
“May I ask what it is you are looking for?” Solas ventured. For a moment the young woman was silent.
“M-my sister, she…” the prisoner choked back a sob. She suddenly sounded very, very young. Cassandra felt her heart sink against her will, her better judgement. It would be nothing but a tale to make herself sympathetic. “She was meant to be here… I came to see her- it-it was the only way I could-” The prisoner has lain her eyes on something that rendered her speechless, and sank to her knees.
“We do not have time for your stories,” The Seeker growled, grabbing her under the arm and hauling her away. The young woman screamed and twisted, hand digging into the scorched, bloody earth next to a skull. Solas and Varric saw it come away with something round in her palm. She held her right hand to her chest, hiccuping, and they wondered if she could even breathe. Cassandra dragged her down the stairs, and they followed until they overlooked the center of the temple. The Seeker let go, and the woman fell back to her knees as Leliana and her men ran up from behind.
“You’re here! Thank the Maker.”
“Leliana, have your men take up positions around the temple.” The Sister nodded, and went to give directions. As she did, Cassandra went down on one knee to address the prisoner.
“This is your chance to end this. You need to be ready.” The woman nodded, putting the object into one of her pouches and pushing her hands up beneath the ill-fitting helmet to wipe her eyes. “Then let’s find a way down, and be careful.”
As they began to spiral toward the bottom, voices started to echo around them.
“Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice.”
“What are we hearing?” Cassandra asked.
“At a guess: The person who created the Breach.” Solas answered. They pushed on.
“You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker.”
“I see it, Varric.”
“But what it’s doing here?”
“Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it…” Solas mused.
“It’s evil. Whatever you do don’t touch it.”
“Keep the sacrifice still.”
“Someone help me!”
“That is Divine Justinia’s voice!” Cassandra exclaimed.
“Someone help me!”
“What’s going on here?”
“That was your voice. Most Holy called out to you. But…” Then they saw it, the red energy trapping the Divine, the dark figure, the prisoner, rushing in. “You were there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”
“I, I don’t remember,” the young woman said, her voice still fragile.
“Echoes of what happened here. The Fade bleeds into this place,” Solas told them. “This rift is not sealed, but it is closed… albeit temporarily. I believe with the mark, the rift can be opened and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”
“That means demons. Stand ready!” Cassandra commanded. The prisoner opened the rift, and the fade broke loose. Disrupting the rift was the only thing that threw off the demons defenses, but doing so opened the prisoner up for attacks, and that stopped the disruption entirely. Whenever Cassandra realized they were no longer doing damage, she ran to the rift to be her guard, to keep the shades occupied while Varric and Solas readied to deal the first hits once the demon was defenseless once more. It was only right, with how she had been guarding her weak points from demons their way up to the temple.
Eventually the demon was slain, and the prisoner raised her left hand to the rift.
When the seconds ticked by, far beyond what it had taken to close any of the others, Cassandra and Solas exchanged fearful glances.
“Come on! You can do this!” Varric yelled, but he was wrong. With a final pulse of green, the prisoner screamed in anguish and collapsed.
The rift remained.
Cassandra carried her to the camp, and she was discomforted by how small the young woman was, and how she herself had acted. If the vision really had been true… this woman had lost someone important to her, just as Cassandra had. She hoped the woman would live so that she could apologize.
It was two days before Josephine had any idea about the identity of their survivor, their Herald, as people had begun to call her. She seemed to be a Trevelyan, as Josephine had guessed from her looks when they had found her, but the only two members of the family sent with the Chantry had been men. That left only one child that could not be accounted for by them: Roselia, who had been taken to a circle when she was 13, 4 years ago. But Solas had not detected their survivor to be a mage, and insisted that he had not hidden her true nature from them if she was.
There was, however, a black sheep or two in the Trevelyan lineage, and Josephine based her assumption on such.
Cienna was several years older than Roselia, and had not been heard from in nearly a year. She was the most likely candidate for their rogue archer, despite her youthful appearance. The only candidate, considering the only other two sisters were married, and still in school.
And so she wrote to the Trevelyan family to share her condolences, and inform them of Cienna's resurfacing.