Chapter Text
Spiders. So many damn spiders. And pain. Had one of them bitten her? Back home, Maxwell was always the one to kill spiders for her—the damned things—but he wasn’t here to protect her now. Here , where exactly is that?
The surface she laid on was cold, made either of stone or brick, but she could not tell which. At first, she feared this was a dream, as everything had been for what, the past few hours? That had happened to her before, where she thought she was waking up only to realize she was in fact still stuck in a dream, or maybe a nightmare. So perhaps it was happening again. She decided to test this theory by turning onto her back and peeling her eyes open, and when that warm fuzzy feeling of slumber was not thick in her chest, she decided this was reality. So why was she lying on the ground in a dark unfamiliar room, and why could she not move her arms from the front of her?
Blinking away sleep, the girl peered down at her hands and lifted them into the air so she could see them in the dim lighting of the room, only to realize they were shackled together. As she naively attempted to pry her hands from the cuffs, alarmed to see them in such a state, a sudden jolt of pain flashed through her left arm and she yelped. It felt like a quick burning sensation, like someone had set fire to her arm and then quickly put it out. She’d never felt something like that before.
And then she heard movement in front of her, and realized she had not been alone as she previously assumed. Sitting up, silently praying to the Maker that whoever was in the room was a healer, she finally realized where she was, and who was in the room: she was locked in a dungeon, and the person who had moved was fiddling with a key in front of an iron door before finally unlocking it and vacating without a word in her direction. Panic started to rise in her chest, making her whole body feel uncomfortably heavy, as she started to understand that she was under arrest, but for what?
With two deep breaths that left stitches in her chest, she realized that she didn’t remember being brought here. The last thing she could recall, and this was with much strain, was being surrounded by people. Mages, templars, chantry clerks, nobles. She fit into the large group of nobles who had been invited to moderate, but to claim that she herself had been invited would be a lie. In fact, her father had been invited; he elected to send Uncle Byron instead.
“I’m taking Penelope,” he told her father Bann, referring to his own daughter, “and you should let me bring Elizabeth too.” He added, referring to her.
“Oh?” Father curled a black eyebrow, pouring his own tea as Uncle Byron allowed a young blonde servant to pour his.
“Of course, brother! It’ll be crawling with young noble bachelors, maybe we can finally get these girls married off.” Byron explained, waving off the servant once she’d dumped six spoonfuls of sugar in his tea. Father only took two spoonfuls.
Elizabeth and Penelope peered at each other from across the breakfast table, Penelope’s expression simply one of annoyance, while Elizabeth’s was one of interest. She’d never been out of the Free Marches before, and this Conclave was being held across the sea in Ferelden. Furthermore, she wasn’t as bothered about finding a husband as Penelope was. For one, Elizabeth very much enjoyed the company of gentlemen, while her dear cousin preferred private time with fellow young women. For two, Elizabeth was twenty-one years old, and more than aware that her status as a single noble woman gave her mother heart palpitations on the daily. She’d had a few suitors, and an engagement that was broken when she was sixteen, but nothing that ever stuck.
“No.” Father finally answered after taking a long sip of his tea, and Uncle Byron rolled his eyes with an annoyed sigh. As he opened his mouth to argue, Elizabeth suddenly remembered where she truly was, and with a blink her memory was gone.
She looked up again, and just as she did the door swung open so violently she feared it would fall off its hinges. Before her eyes, four armed men marched through the doorway, their swords drawn and pointed at her. The panic that had faded just a bit with her memory came back, and she attempted to stand before realizing her shackles were attached to the ground, allowing her to sit on her knees but rise no further. What did they want with her? What had she done to get here? Mages, templars, chantry clerks, nobles. Only a few of them looked at her, mostly young men who seemed bored with the discussions, but for the most part she was invisible. The men who peered at her with interested smirks and charming smirks were good looking, but they were nothing compared to the gentleman she’d spotted through the crowd earlier, with golden hair and peculiar armor…
What else? What else couldn’t she remember? The last thing she could recall before spiders and pain was simply looking around, so how had she gotten from sitting patiently in an overcrowded room to here?
The women who strode in after the armored men were somehow more frightening than swords threatening to cut through her like butter, and she shrunk so far down that her butt reached the cold ground and she was sitting again. They circled around her, one with curiosity in her eyes and the other with hatred, and Elizabeth wished she could snap her fingers and disappear. The one who wore hatred plainly on her scarred face walked behind her, and Elizabeth could hear the leather in her armor squeak just slightly as she leaned down.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.” She growled, and before Elizabeth could question why they would want to kill her, the woman continued as she circled around Elizabeth again. “The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you .”
What? Everyone? How? Seconds trickled by as Elizabeth considered this admission, and she began to shiver as no new memories emerged to help her understand what was going on. One thing took a moment to seep in, but once it did, she looked up in horror; she was the only survivor? That meant… no. Surely Uncle Byron and Penelope made it out. There were a few other Trevelyan cousins who had attended the conclave, they had to have survived as well, right?
“I… I don’t understand.” She answered honestly.
The woman whirled on Elizabeth, lifting her shackled arms with a ferocious look in her arms. “Explain this!”
Another jolt of pain and Maker, what was that? A flash of green magic shot out of her hand, which had never, ever, happened before. She was pretty positive she wasn’t a mage, never had been before, so what the fuck? She simply sat there, frozen in shock, not understanding why this was happening to her, while everyone stood there staring at her as if she was some Fade demon.
The scarred woman shook her shackled hands impatiently, unfreezing Elizabeth from her horror.
“I… can’t.”
“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?”
“I’m not a mage! I don’t know what that is, or how it got there. I don’t know what’s-”
And the woman suddenly appeared in front of her face, gripping her shoulders with such fervor that Elizabeth was sure she’d leave a bruise. “You’re LYING!”
The other woman finally stepped in, pulling away the angry one with a mumbled “we need her, Cassandra”.
Elizabeth didn’t know what to do or say, but she was quickly catching onto why exactly she was in shackles. They seemed to believe she had something to do with destroying the conclave and killing everyone, but she couldn’t even remember what happened beyond being spiders and pain and running ? Oh, that was new. Was she running from the spiders? Flashes of spiders and an unfamiliar foggy place appeared in her mind, but she still couldn’t make any sense of what she’d seen or what had happened before that.
“Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Asked the hooded woman with a level of distaste not quite as strong as the scarred woman’s.
“I remember… running. These spiders were chasing me, and then, a woman?” It surprised even her to speak of the woman, remembering her only as she spoke. Had “the woman” helped her? The spotty memory of reaching for her hand appeared, but whether or not she grabbed it was currently up for debate.
“A woman?” The hooded woman repeated inquisitively.
“She reached out to me, but then… ugh.” It was maddening not being able to remember.
The scarred woman, apparently named Cassandra, backed the hooded woman out of the dungeon.
“Go to the forward camp Leliana, I will take her to the rift.” She said, and Elizabeth suddenly wished very much that she could be allowed to stay alone in the dungeon.
Leliana walked out of the dungeon with an unreadable look thrown back at her, while Cassandra kneeled down to unlock her cuffs.
“What did happen?” Elizabeth decided to ask, sure that Cassandra would bite off her head for talking.
Cassandra looked her in the eye then, defiant at first, but for some reason she softened after a moment.
“It will be easier to show you.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t that . It was a tense walk through what she realized was the chantry, and once the doors were pushed open, her eyes widened at the sight of the sky. Various shades of gray replaced the vibrant blue that usually painted the roof of the world, but the most alarming thing was the large green tear in the center of it. There were strikes of lightning that flashed along it, and a green beam that fell all the way to the earth glowed menacingly. There was no other explanation for whatever this monstrosity was except for dark magic, right?
“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?” Gasped Elizabeth, eyes boring into the rift as her heart sank into her stomach.
“This one did,” Cassandra turned to look at Elizabeth, “unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world.”
Just then, a striking pain pulsated through her left arm, and this time it was so bad it brought the young woman to her knees with an uncivilized groan. As a child, she broke her ankle after falling from a tree, and she always thought that would be the most painful event of her life. She was wrong.
“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.” Cassandra explained in a low voice.
Elizabeth stared at her incredulously for a moment, stopping only to look down at herself. She was still wearing the same golden dress she’d initially picked out to impress the single men at the conclave, albeit ripped in about a dozen different places with the added bonus of mud stubbornly clinging to the bottom of it. It was then that she realized the velvet heels she had initially been wearing were replaced with boots lined with fur, which meant her heels had either been stolen or lost. Regardless, nothing about her chosen outfit screamed “take me to the battlefield”.
“I don’t have a weapon.” She finally said, not wanting to admit she had no idea how to use a sword, or any other pointy objects for that matter. She got the feeling that this whirlwind of a woman would not be impressed by her lack of combat training.
“I do.” Cassandra assured her, and before Elizabeth could protest, the older woman removed the cuffs that linked her aching hands, and helped her up.
As they walked through what appeared to be a camp of survivors, all of whom were hostile towards her, Cassandra began rattling on about the breach and the current situation, but Elizabeth was no longer listening. As reality set in for the second time today, she began to understand that her uncle and her cousins were dead. She should have been dead, too. Why had she survived? She had so many questions, yet no idea who could answer them. Perhaps she would remember what happened within time.
It was supper time when Uncle Byron brought up bringing Elizabeth along to the conclave for a second time, she recalled.
“I said no.” Father affirmed after chewing his piece of venison and swallowing.
“Wait, what? I was not present for this conversation.” Butt in Elizabeth’s mother in her Antivan accent, always having been nosy.
“It’s nothing, Cat.” Father assured her, but judging by Byron’s scoff, he disagreed.
“Actually, dear sister-in-law, it’s quite something. As you well know, your husband is sending me to the conclave in his stead.” He began in his obnoxiously charming voice.
“Of course.” Mother nodded in agreement. Elizabeth could see the tension that broke on her father’s face; he was a patient man, to a point. Uncle Byron was good at crossing that point.
“Well, considering there will be dozens of eligible rich young men there looking for wives, I’ve decided to take Penelope, and I think Elizabeth should also come along.”
Elizabeth was sure her mother would agree instantly, but to her surprise the woman paused.
“I’ve already said no.” Father added calmly.
“I’m hoping to convince you.” Uncle Byron smiled sneakily.
“No.”
“Catalina has a say, does she not?”
Both Uncle Byron and Father peered at her, and Elizabeth could hear her suck on her teeth in aggravation. There was a pause as she set down her silverware, folded her hands, and then looked up at Byron.
“Look at what happened last time we sent one of our daughters away.” She muttered, and the color drained from Byron’s face.
“That was different, Catalina.” He was quick to recover.
Elizabeth could see her mother gearing up for an argument and decided to stop it before it began.
“I’d like to go,” She chimed in, her parents quickly gazing at her with surprise written on their faces. She cleared her throat. “I mean, I’ve never been out of the Free Marches, and Uncle Byron’s right, it’s time for me to… move on.”
“Yes, but it could be dangerous, Lizzie. Templars, mages, they’re so invested in hating each other that they’ll kill whoever gets in their way.” Father pointed out, and she could hear the hatred he harbored for them all underneath his calm tone. He had good reason to hate them. So did she.
“I know, but surely the Chantry wouldn’t put together such an event without the highest of security measures.” Elizabeth insisted.
“Elizabeth-” Her father began, his tone stern, but he was stopped by his wife, who stuck up her hand to silence him.
“Bann, she’s twenty-one years old, and she wants to find a husband.” She pointed out. He stared at her with betrayal plainly on his features.
“But-” He started to argue.
“But nothing. I don’t like it either, but she’s grown. She’s capable of making her own decisions. And after her first engagement ended, this may be the closest we’ll come to finding a suitable husband for her.”
Elizabeth thought it was quite interesting for her mother to argue that she was capable of making her own decisions, when she was guilty of forcing her choices down the girl’s throat every day, but she chose not to argue. Bann and Catalina watched each other for a moment, their eyes fighting for the upper hand in this situation, but finally Bann sighed and leaned back in his chair, defeated.
“I suppose your mother’s right.”
“If it helps, I’ve already hired extra security to accompany us during the trip.” Byron smirked, clearly satisfied that his side had won.
“Just keep my daughter safe.” Father grumbled.
“She’s my favorite niece, of course I will! Now, let’s raise a toast.” He held his cup up with a cheerful grin, followed by Elizabeth, Penelope, Catalina, and finally, Bann.
“To marrying off our daughters!” Uncle Byron quickly threw back whatever wine was left in his cup, while the rest of the dinner attendees sipped their wine courteously. Penelope grimaced as she choked down her drink.
It was obvious that Father was still unhappy with this outcome, so Uncle Byron slapped him on the back in a friendly manner.
“Oh Bann, don’t worry so much. Tell me, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen with the Divine present?” He giggled.