Dane awoke with a start, his palm burning with a feverish pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. He gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, willing the white pain dancing in his eyelids to dissipate. After a few moments the searing flames from his hand settled to a dull throb. He looked down to see green tendrils snaking lazily from a rough split in the soft flesh of his palm, casting a sickly glow on the skin from his fingertips to his wrist, and the metal shackle firmly encircling it.

'Wait, shackles?' Dane narrowed his eyes at the offending circle of iron. 'How did I even get here? Better yet, where am I?' A loud slam interrupted his thoughts. He looked up from his hands, squinting at the sudden influx of light. He glared at the two shadows moving rapidly toward him, remembering the heavy iron clamped on his wrists. One of the figures moved closer, revealing herself to be a woman. She circled him impatiently, stopping to lean down to his ear with the familiar sound of pulling leather.

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now."

Dane recoiled slightly from her voice, hearing the distinct venom lacing her words. His mind raced, trying to work out why they could have imprisoned him. 'Templars maybe? Surely they would have killed me.' The woman circled him further, coming to a halt in front of his kneeling form. He returned his gaze to his wounded hand, taking a sharp breath through his nostrils. 'Perhaps they wanted to torture me first.' The air in front of him whistled and before he could react the woman had snatched up his burning hand.

"Explain this!"

He jerked his head up to her demand and hissed sharply at her vice grip on his wrist. She wore an expression he could only describe as pure fury. Her jet black hair was short and a deep scar was carved in the tan skin of her jaw. He jutted his chin up in defiance and let his eyes bore into her bronze ones staring back at him.

"I can't." He released through gritted teeth.

She thrust his arm back towards him with a snort of disgust. Dane flicked his eyes to the other person still lurking in the shadow to the side of the door. They had remained still and silent throughout the exchange, watching and waiting. He swallowed nervously; he knew from experience that the quiet ones were always the most dangerous.

"I don't know what it is," He continued, struggling to keep the pain from shaking his voice.
"Or how it got there. I don't even know how I got here!"

The woman stopped pacing and was on him in a long stride. She yanked him upwards by his collar.

"You're lying!" She spat,
"You murdered the Divine! Admit it!"

Dane's eyes widened in shock. 'The Divine is dead?' His mind whirred as he tried to clear the fog from his thoughts. 'Wait.. Haven. The conclave!'

"What about the conclave? What happened?" He sputtered, the fabric of his collar in her hands pulling tight around his windpipe. She opened her mouth slightly in surprise and loosened her grip enough for him to breathe properly. Before she could speak the creature lurking in the dark stepped forward.

"That's enough, Cassandra. We need him."

Dane turned his stare toward the new voice. She spoke with a lilting Orlesian accent and a hood was drawn low, concealing the upper half of her face. 'Definitely dangerous', he thought to himself. The woman called Cassandra dropped her hands suddenly, causing Dane to crumple back to the cold stone. The two women moved away from him and toward the door, obscuring the outside light. Dane quickly took in the room while their backs were turned. He got to one knee quietly, turning his head rapidly; looking for an escape. 'No windows.' The walls of the cell were solid stone. 'That's the only door.' He looked down at his hand, still throbbing and pulsing with that strange green flame. 'I doubt I can take them by combat.' He looked up at the pair talking mutedly. What looked to be a finely crafted longsword was strapped to Cassandra's thigh, and he would bet his still good hand that the hooded woman had a dagger somewhere on her person.

The quiet conversation stopped as the hooded woman took her leave, leaving Dane alone with Cassandra. He tensed, watching her advance towards him with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Stand. We are going to the rift."

Dane stood slowly, tensing his wrists in preparation. 'If she comes close enough I can strike her with these blasted shackles.' He took a deep breath as she stepped towards him, pulling a loop of rope from the belt at her waist. 'Surprise is the only way I can defeat her.' He cast his eyes down and stopped his breathing, watching her feet as she approached. 'Just a little closer..'

"The conclave was destroyed. Everyone is dead."

Dane's focus evaporated at the sombre note in her voice. He looked up to her face, watching her as she tugged his hands up by the shackles and set about binding his hands together. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth in a grim line as she wound the rope around his forearms. 'Destroyed? What does that mean?' His eyebrows knitted in confusion.

"What are you saying? Destroyed? How?"

She didn't answer; instead testing his bindings with a jerk of the rope, ensuring it wasn't loose enough for him to wriggle free from. Dane didn't press, not willing to risk her wrath for what he guessed he would uncover soon enough. 'Provided I don't die in the next few minutes, that is'. Her hands were deft and strong as she finished the knots. 'News like that must have spread to even the Anderfels in hours', he surmised.

Cassandra reached to her waist once more and procured a stout key. He watched absently as she unlocked the iron bar from his wrists and let it fall to the floor with a bang. The noise, akin to a blacksmith's hammer on hot steel, jolted him out of his confusion. Dane quickly realised he had missed his chance with the shackles once they had crashed to the stone between his feet. He stared at his hands. 'Can I really kill this woman?' He risked a glance to her shoulders, quickly following the contours of her arm to the gloved fingertips resting at her thigh. 'She's all lean muscle under that armour. Not to mention she's probably expecting it. Why has she not killed me already? What if-.' His internal debate was interrupted as she cleared her throat. He snapped his vision away from her hand and back towards the cold hazel eyes she studied him with. She turned on her heel and pulled him by the rope out of the cell and into an equally grim stone corridor. Dane drank in his surroundings, scanning for any means of escape. 'Even if I am too weak to kill a woman to do it.', he sneered to himself.

A few minutes later Cassandra stopped at a large set of wooden doors. Dane had guessed from the transition of cool stone to candles and tapestries that they were in a chantry. Which chantry, he was uncertain. He looked up to his captor who seemed to be deep in thought. 'Perhaps now she will kill me. Curse this weakness.' He stiffened as she turned around to face him.

"It will be easier to show you."

Dane blinked in confusion. 'Show me what? The sharp end of her knife?' Before he could ask aloud, Cassandra had thrust open the doors and stepped into the glaring light, dragging him along behind her.

The flames that had been licking at his palm seared with a new intensity. Dane clamped his teeth down hard, feeling the injury on his hand crack and fracture the skin toward his knuckles. He clenched his fist tightly, struggling not to let out a whimper. He focused on trudging through the snow, leading the group past a house engulfed in a green tinged inferno. Cassandra and his two new companions kept pace behind him. 'I don't know why they're letting me lead. I don't even know where I'm going' he thought angrily to himself. 'Maybe this will actually be useful and turn into a compass' he glanced towards the top of his hand still bound to the other; not willing to turn his palms upwards in case he would find the flesh falling from his fingers. He thought back to the beam of emerald fire that had burst forth from his palm only minutes ago. He breathed in sharply. 'Rifts.. Demons pouring out of the heavens.. My hand with this power.. This sounds like a bad adventure tale.' He looked over his shoulder at the dwarf having to walk twice as fast to keep up with Dane and Cassandra's long strides. 'Good thing we have our own storyteller to record it.'

"So, are you innocent?" The dwarf spoke with a trace of humour in his gravelly voice.

"I don't remember what happened, Varric." Dane returned over his shoulder. He paused, feeling the creeping hold of sorrow snake its way up from his gut to his throat.
"I can't believe everyone is.. gone."
He didn't have to look behind him to know that they would have heard the anguish in his voice as much as he had heard it himself.

An unnatural whisper flowed down the mountainside in front of the group, the same shade of green as the rifts. Dane stopped suddenly and thrust his right hand toward the spectre drifting lazily across the snow.

"There." He murmured to Cassandra who had halted at his side. She narrowed her eyes at the creature in front of them and nodded.

"There is a shade behind it," She replied in a low whisper, jerking her head toward the black monstrosity dragging itself through the snow ahead of them. Dane clenched his fists tighter as Cassandra slid her sword from its sheath, still bitter that he was restrained like a dangerous animal. He watched as she turned to Varric and the elf, their other new companion.

"Solas, stay here with the Prisoner. He must be kept alive." The tall elven man nodded sagely, wrapping his slender fingers around his staff.

"Varric, move into cover and provide support."

Varric gave her a grin and drew the crossbow from his back as he plodded to the treeline. Dane retreated behind a fallen chunk of rock, closely followed by Solas. He peeked over the stone, scanning the white landscape. Cassandra moved quietly along the edge of the trees towards the demons, sword drawn and shield firmly at her side. He flicked his eyes into the trees, spying the flash of polished wood that was Varric's crossbow. His hands itched as he felt energy flow to his fingertips in preparation for combat. He felt Solas's shrewd gaze settle on his shaking hands.

"You are a mage, are you not?"

Dane glanced sideways at the soft spoken man. He had been very careful not to reveal such in front of Cassandra, lest he give her more reason to suspect him.

"I.. how did you know?"

Solas's lip curled up slightly in amusement at Dane's surprise.

"The Fade twists and cracks around you. At first I thought it merely the mark, but you are suppressing your own magic, correct?"

Dane blinked at Solas and opened his mouth to respond when he heard a guttural roar. He quickly pressed into the stone, peering towards Cassandra once more. She was slashing and carving at the shade. It screamed unnaturally with each spurt of black blood she drew. The shaking in his fingertips spread up his arm; a familiar feeling of electricity jolting his muscles. He pulled his arm close to his chest, instead focusing on Varric raining bolts from the trees into the green wraith on an outcropping of snow. His eyes widened as he spied a huge meteor above the dwarf burning rapidly through the air towards the small battle. Dane leapt to his feet, quickly realising it would crash directly into where Cassandra was destroying the shade. Solas breezed past him, ice branching from his hand along the staff he held. Dane exchanged a look with Solas, nodding as he began a sprint to Cassandra.

The snow was heavy as he ripped his legs through it toward her position, his head tilted toward the flaming rock rapidly approaching. He skidded to a halt behind her as she thrust her sword through the demon's middle, twisting it with a growl as the shade crumpled into nothingness. Dane reached for her arm to pull her away, only to find himself knocked roughly to the ground by her shoulder and her sword at his throat in a flash. He groaned in pain, realising he had used the hand with the green mark to break his fall. He lifted his head from the snow to look up at her in anger. Her brown eyes narrowed in annoyance rather than apology.

"Do not sneak up on me. You are lucky I did not skewer you where you stood." She said harshly and moved her sword from his throat. Dane glared at her.

"I came to warn.." He snapped his head to the sky, seeing the meteor only a second away. He moved to his feet in a flash, forgetting the pain in his hand. He closed the gap between them and slung his arm around Cassandra's waist, throwing them into the snow a few metres away. He landed half over her unceremoniously, twisting his body to shield her. 'Damn this chivalrous streak', he thought snarkily to himself as the world shook with the impact. He gasped in pain as he felt molten shrapnel rip into the fabric of his back, causing him to sink lower to cover Cassandra from the blast. A few seconds passed before he felt her press against his chest with her hand, pushing him off her and to his knees in the snow. Her eyes were wide with surprise as she got to her feet, staring at him with a guarded curiosity.

Dane grimaced but felt the familiar twitch of a smile threaten his top lip.
"Don't mention it."

The thrumming in his head was interrupted by a creak of the door. Dane sighed but didn't bother to open his eyes 'If it's an assassin, I hope there's no poison involved.' He listened to the soft footsteps approaching the bed he was sunken into. The red shapes floating in his eyelids shifted to the corners of his vision; the slight shadow from whomever was in his room casting darkness over him. He huffed and sat up quickly, letting a ball of electricity spark to life between his fingertips. The sudden rush of power through his arm made him shiver with relief at finally being released. The elf in front of him squeaked and dropped the crate she was holding with a crash. Dane blinked in surprise and quickly extinguished the static building in his hand. The elf was but a girl, her limbs gangly and awkward; a tell-tale sign she was yet to reach adulthood.

"I-I'm so sorry, m'lord. Please forgive me."

Dane couldn't stop a smirk from crossing his lips. 'My lord? I haven't heard that since I was but a babe.' He rubbed his head absently, staring at the box she had dropped. 'Wait..' He glanced down at his legs to where he was sitting, 'A bed. A servant. Warmth.' Confusion spread over his features.

"Where am I, girl?"

The elf visibly flinched at his question before dropping to her knees to retrieve the crate.

"You are in Haven, ser. They say the breach is closed," She paused, standing upright and gazing at him with something akin to reverence.
"They say you saved us."

Dane bit his cheek, the pain of the emerald fire flashing through his mind. He looked at his hand, still marked with a dull green scar. The flames only rippled along the mark spanning his palm now, instead of along fissures that had spread up the entirety of his arm on his way to the breach with Cassandra. 'Speaking of which..' He looked at the wooden walls surrounding him. A window was open opposite him, letting a chill breeze waft in. Afternoon sunlight gleamed on the polished wood of the windowsill.

"When did I close the breach, do you know?" He asked her gently, aware of her fear.

"Around two days ago, m'lord. The healer did not expect you to waken until tomorrow."

Dane nodded, swinging his feet off the bed and standing gingerly. He grunted feeling the various aches on his body. 'Perhaps I should just stay in bed until tomorrow.'

"Where is Cassandra?" He queried, flexing his shoulders and straightening his back.

The elven girl hurriedly placed the crate of what he guessed was healing herbs from the earthy smell on the table closest to her. She began backing towards the door, not removing her eyes from the mark on his hand.

"She's in the chantry, m'lord. She said to see her right away, m'lord."

He watched as she rushed out the door and banged it closed behind her. Dane smiled to himself, 'That's the reaction I'm used to.' He absently wondered what had happened after he had passed out from exhaustion after closing the breach. He was donned in a simple set of breeches and his abdomen was wrapped in bandages, along with his wrist. 'Perhaps Cassandra carried me back.' He snorted to himself at that and reached for a pile of clothing that had been folded on his bedside table.

The air outside his cabin was bracing on his skin. Dane raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glaring light; he was continually surprised by how bright the snow reflected. When his vision came into focus his breath hitched slightly. People were lined up in rows from his cabin all the way down the path. 'Have I been reborn as the Maker?' he thought villager's heads were bowed in acknowledgement, with many holding their hands to their hearts. He shut the cabin door behind him and began the trek toward the large stone building he could see looming over the village. He strode with purpose, hiding the many injuries marring his body. He could feel the people's eyes on him as he walked, and he heard the hushed voices whispering of his deeds.

Dane kept his steady pace until he reached the familiar wooden doors of the chantry. Only last time, he wasn't free to walk where he liked. He pushed them open quietly, entering the spacious hall and examining it properly for the first time. Candles in varying states of decay lined almost every surface, washing the room in a dim orange light. Large red and gold tapestries hung from the walls, swaying with a slight draft from the rafters. 'There's a fire hazard if I ever saw one,' he smiled warily to himself.

He let his stance droop a little as he shuffled to the opposite end of the building. He grimaced at the discomfort spiking from his ribs, looking down to see a splotch of red making the thin cotton of his shirt stick to his torso. Voices echoed from the door he was approaching, muted but with the distinct tone of an argument. Dane sighed and didn't bother to eavesdrop, 'it's not like I don't already know who it's about'. The cool metal of the door handle was soothing on his marked hand. He tried to resume his tall posture as he walked in, but found himself hunching slightly to protect his side.

Cassandra stopped mid-argument with a man clad in chantry robes and turned to face his presence in the doorway. Dane looked to her eyes, expecting to see the steely anger there from earlier. He was almost dazed to find her cold bronze orbs had transformed to a warm honey colour in the safety of the chantry. 'Well, if I'd killed her I might have missed those' he whispered internally. While her eyes were soft, her expression was still stormy. She turned back to face the man she had been arguing with as Dane spared a glance around the room. The hooded woman from earlier was perched on the edge of the large wooden table in the center of the room, looking as composed as when he had first seen her. He wasn't surprised to see her watching him carefully, this time with bright blue eyes revealed.

"I do not believe he is guilty, Chancellor," Cassandra's voice was firm. Dane returned his gaze to the man and watched as he threw his hands up in disbelief and opened his mouth to argue.

"And I will hear no more on the matter."
He looked to see if the man would continue after her statement. He did not. 'Common sense beats bravery sometimes after all.' He mused. The man gave a dramatic huff and left the room, glaring at Dane as he moved aside. Cassandra stepped around the table towards the hooded woman he now knew as Leliana, both of them watching him with guarded expressions. Dane looked at them both in turn, suddenly feeling like a peasant in his simple cotton clothes under their gaze.

"I suppose I have you to thank for escorting my broken body from the breach." He gestured with his good hand towards Cassandra. Dane was caught off-guard by the way the hard planes of her jaw and cheekbones melted into a gentle smile. He had to consciously avoid staring at her. 'I definitely would have missed that'.

Leliana spoke in her musical accent, "There is a way you can repay her."
She reached behind her and picked up a dusty tome, clad in aged leather and pockmarked metal. She dropped it to the table with a solid thunk and Dane cocked an eyebrow in query. Her eyes held his own with cold ice lingering beneath the surface.

"Join the Inquisition."