Pride’s Folly (Part 1)
He felt the blast from miles away, his heart constricting knowing its exact cause. The power of it throbbed in his veins, an ache and a thrill. It did not fade, and a tendril of hope curled out of him. Maybe it was still intact. Maybe he had a chance to fix the mistake.
He set off in the direction of the throb, girding himself for the chaos he was sure to encounter.
Sure enough, swords were thrust into his face as he neared the first ring of templars frantically trying to find something to do in the face of the destruction of the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the Conclave that had been the hope of the continent.
His hands went up, and he kept his face a studied neutral.
“Just a moment,” he said softly, but clearly. “I mean no harm. I’ll even hand over my staff to prove my good will. I only want to talk to whoever is in charge here. I am an expert in the Fade and the ways it interacts with our world.”
They did not sense him wrapping an aura of tranquility around himself that clouded their senses. He reached slowly to his back and removed his staff, laying it at their feet and even taking a step away for good measure. Despite the urgency tugging at him, he waited patiently for his charm to take effect.
The templars exchanged looks, confusion warring with their anxieties. But his magic did its job. Their swords lowered, and they acknowledged his request with slight nods. One picked up his staff.
“We’ll see if the Lady Cassandra has time to speak to you, but we can make you no promises. She has her hands full.”
“I have no doubt about that,” he agreed.
As they escorted him through the camp, he took the opportunity to observe the damage that had been wrought at the Temple. Where it had stood, there was only the hulk of a ruin. It had not quite been leveled, but it resembled a crater more than a building. High in the sky above it, the Fade bled into the world from a massive tear in the Veil. Well, bled might be a sedate description for it, he mused. Clawed into might be a closer approximation. This was bad.
He heard the Lady Cassandra before he saw her.
“Has the forward camp been established yet?! We have to secure a place against these demons, or they will overrun us! I know we are hemorrhaging troops, but we can’t afford to fail in this! “Where is Leliana’s latest report? Has there been any response from the elf recovered from the Temple?”
That caught his attention.
“Was this elf a survivor of the explosion?” he interrupted the commander.
She turned sharp eyes on him.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“My name is Solas,” he bowed slightly from the waist. “I am a mage expert in all matters relating to the Fade, and I want to help. Was there a survivor in all this?” he gestured his head towards the destruction above them.
“You think that is enough for me to trust you?” Cassandra raised an eyebrow.
“No, I suppose it is not. What do you need from me to prove my intentions?”
She gazed at him with pursed lips, knowing a challenge when she heard it, although it was also a fair question from someone wanting to approach them. What to demand, though? He had come in peacefully, and she didn’t know enough about the Fade to quiz him on his knowledge. She caught the glint of amusement in his eyes and fought off a growl.
“You will have to prove yourself in doing,” she conceded. “You will need an escort until we can feel comfortable knowing you are not a threat. I will allow you to see the prisoner, but you will do so under the watch of Sister Leliana. I will send for her to meet you at the healer’s quarters. You will not enter until Sister Leliana is with you. Understand?”
“Thank you, Lady Cassandra.”
“Do not make me regret this. I fear you will somehow make this all worse, but then, I’m not sure that it can get any worse than what we are facing now.”
He waited twenty minutes or more for the arrival of Sister Leliana. To pass the time and to quiet the impatience flitting through him, he quizzed his guards about all that had been happening since the explosion. They were reluctant to give him any information at first, but even in the things they did not say he learned something. Fear filled the air, and further away, carried in on the wind, the smell of sulfur, blood, and rot lingered. Cassandra had done a commendable job of rallying from the disaster, but everything hung by a thread.
The good Sister Leliana was a great deal quieter than her compatriot, but no less fierce for it. Solas saw the calculations being done in her head every moment she breathed, saw the way her eyes ranged over him and the mental cataloguing she did of him. He smiled amiably, but she did not return it. Instead, she gestured to the door of the cottage the healer was shacked up in.
“You do anything that threatens the lives of those here, and I will personally make sure your last breath is spent on my blade,” she murmured softly to him before they entered.
He knew she wasn’t posturing.
He merely nodded, knowing anything he said would sound like hollow reassurance.
The interior of the healer’s rooms was dim after the glare of the snow outside. Blinking away the spots in his vision, his eyes adjusted, and he could make out a gleam of green light playing on the wall. Every few moments came the sound of soft whimpering and muttered elven.
On a bed lay a pale young woman of the Elvhenan, one of the People, slicked over in a sheen of sweat. The brown lines of her vallaslin were the only color in her skin, besides two bright pink spots on her cheeks. At a glance, one would surmise she suffered from a fever, but the pulsing mark on her left hand dispelled that notion immediately. He felt the tug of the Fade through it, and the sheer amount of energy that it wanted to suck away from her. Somehow she was continuing to resist it, although he didn’t know how long she could.
With careful steps, he approached the bedside and peered down at the mark. He needn’t have feared startling her; she was insensible to the world. He couldn’t discern any particular shape to the magic on her hand. The skin was maybe puckered like a scar, but the fluctuating light made it difficult to make out. And he couldn’t quite be sure, but yes, yes he thought he saw that it might be beginning to creep across her skin. Very few would be able to notice this, but in another day, maybe even another hour, it would be noticeable to everyone.
“You may need to fetch some chairs,” he turned back to Leliana. “I’m going to be sitting here in study for a little while.”
“Do you have any ideas as to what it might be?” she asked.
“I can tell you that it is absolutely connected with the hole in the sky,” he said. “I can feel the Fade’s work in this, though I do not know how it came to be on her hand, or what it’s use might be in helping to fix...have we got a name for it?” He tilted his head towards the door.
“Most around here have been referring to it as the Breach.”
“As good a name as any. This may be some kind of key to sealing the Breach, but it remains to be seen how. Perhaps if she recovers, she may be able to act out an experiment.”
“You may have to help our good healer in that task,” Leliana sighed. “She has not been looking well.”
He looked back to her tortured face. He just noticed the snowy white of her hair, her eyebrows, even her eyelashes. Had she been born with it, or had it been the result of the catastrophic event? Though it only seemed to emphasize her paleness, it was also lovely.
Her eyes shot open as he looked, startling him enough to jump, and she babbled incoherently, desperately, for several long moments before she slipped back into unconsciousness. Trying to regain some composure, Solas discovered his hands wrapped around hers, as if he had meant to reassure her or comfort her. The mark flared hotly against his skin. He found himself reluctant to let go and was grateful when Leliana nudged a chair behind him so he could sit down. He sat there in stunned silence for several minutes, musing on the deep blue that was her eyes, with just the smallest flecks of gold near her pupils.
She had an impressive strength of will to survive this far. He’d find a way to make sure she fought her way to consciousness.
