BETHANY

The warmth from the spell that consumed the leshy had left Bethany's body by the time Warden Corbus and Warden Torren split off from the expedition.

The Wilds swallowed them in moments and did the same to every other scout Lord Cousland sent out, including Bethany's own Chasind stalker.

He passed by her and she almost grabbed him by the wrist, but then Theresa pulled at her cloak. When she turned back, the stalker was gone. She tried to put him out of her mind like she was ignoring the empty space the late Daveth left beside Ser Jory.

It was got easy, frighteningly so, as she marched on in the column. A grey dryness splotched with black plunged the marshlands into drabness. Bethany saw more and more corpses, scattered like breadcrumbs along the narrow hunting paths. Chasind warriors and tribesmen here, army scouts there.

Some were rotting away half-submerged in the swamp. A few hung from large branches, riddled with gaping wounds and broken javelins.

By then, Daveth and the stalker were barely more than two faces out of dozens.

Brosca had her stop burning every single corpse she saw: there were just too many, and she risked setting fire to the dry husks of trees half the time.

Moreover, after they left the Chasind village behind, the Veil had thickened around them again. Her reserves didn't refill with the same heady speed anymore.

The cold snuck up on her as the daylight grew fainter through the canopy and the shadows thickened. It didn't care for her warming spell nor for the cloak she wrapped around herself. It wasn't even the kind of cold that made her teeth chatter: it seeped into her bones and numbed her limbs.

It was an eerie sensation and Bethany's attuned senses recognized it as unnatural, but she could do little about it.

The Chasind village was maybe miles behind her, the darkspawn still nowhere to be seen, when the ambient magic began to shift again. A low charge permeated the air, like in the aftermath of a combination spell by Senior Enchanters, yet magnitudes greater.

It wasn't quite the same as the weakened Veil in the village. The energy didn't seep into her and replenish her mana pool. It actually repulsed her attempts to manipulate it; it just hung around her fingertips like an itch she couldn't scratch, carrying a foul trace she couldn't quite pinpoint.

Ahead, Alistair's back was a treaty on tension as he conversed quietly with Brosca. The soldiers advanced in a dead silence that was louder than any song. If she listened carefully, she could almost make out the rush of running water mixed with the squelch of marching boots.

Theresa muttered to herself and shielded her nose, face grim under the hood. Gone was her pokey drunkenness; now, she almost reminded Bethany of Damien the first time he came back from Dane's Retreat after one tankard too many.

"Are you doing better?" Bethany asked, squeezing her cousin's hand.

Theresa squeezed back, eyes on the ground. "I liked it better when it made me giggly and aroused, really. Brosca's been helping me a lot." She flicked Bethany in the nose when she coughed. "With the agoraphobia, you perverse bumpkin. Not that I'm losing much. Fucking clouds everywhere. Reminds me of the ceilings in the Tower."

"The rain can be nice." She doubted anything that would fall from those could be, however.

"I'll tell you when I can stand outside without a cloak." Theresa let go of Bethany's hand and sniffed the air. "Sorry, this aura's making me cranky. Someone must've drained their veins dry."

Bethany stiffened, glancing around to see if anyone was listening in. "Blood Magic?" she whispered back. How long had Theresa known? Why didn't she speak before?!

A nod. "By the bucket load, too. Quite a ways off, I think," Theresa said, gesturing vaguely. "I'm not one-hundred percent sure, mind you. It shouldn't carry this far. It feels... different. Off. Makes my fucking head beat like a tambourine." She huffed, pinching her nose. "I don't know."

Alistair, who'd been conversing quietly with Brosca until then, took off at a jog, making for Lord Cousland's banner towards the center of the column. Bethany feared he'd heard, but Brosca's gesture to gather around eased her somewhat as they fell in with the dwarf's pace. It was short-lived.

"They're close," the dwarf said, stone-faced. "Alistair's got the jiffies. Blight Magic, he says. What I know is air's reekin' of them 'spawn and the river crossin' is comin' up. We'll be sittin' nugs there. If they got two brains 'tween the lot of 'em, that's when they'll strike. But we've gotta cross, one way or the other."

"Blight Magic," Theresa muttered under her breath. "What's next, Blight-undead?" Bethany kicked her in the shin almost on reflex. Her head swiveled around, eyes searching but finding only the same trees, lianas, ferns, and bogs she'd been looking at all day.

"They're around us?" Ser Jory sputtered, going a lighter shade of white. "But - where? How many?!"

The soldiers marching behind the knight paled, eyes darting in every direction. Soon, a murmur began to arose from a dozen throats.

"What's the surprise, nuglets? Them scouts ain't returnin'. We're balls-deep in their turf." Brosca frowned, hacked, and spat. "Can't say much with all this Taint 'round, but they're there. Lass!" He jabbed a finger at Theresa, ignoring Jory's strangled whimper. "I want ya to keep those barriers n' pushes n' shit ready for arrow salvos n' spells. Ya're on defense detail until an emissary pops up, then ya skullfuck them n' back to defense. Rinse and repeat. If ya're gettin' tapped, whistle. Gotcha?"

"Loud n' clear, boss," Theresa parroted back, but her knuckles popped from how tight she was gripping her staff. The grin she flashed up at Bethany was a stiff thing.

"Sparkle-feet, the moment it starts, ya light them up. Don't waste time on healin', unless it's the lass or Alistair: a dead 'spawn's a 'spawn that can't gut someone else, and none's more dangerous than an emissary."

"But -"

"No buts, and don't gimme that look! By the time ya'll patch one up, ten more sods are gonna be goners. Killin' 'spawn faster 'an they kill us is the economically efficient thing."

Bethany bit her cheek and swallowed her retort, while Theresa nodded along.

Just as the path widened and the thick foliage overhead thinned enough to show the sky again, leaden as it was, Lord Cousland's sergeants started barking commands to the column.

Up ahead, the river churned, its waters dark and forbidding. The remains of a collapsed bridge hugged the steep banks, the rotten planks and soaked ropes almost taunting.

Bethany tried to tell herself the water was only reflecting the sky.

Orders were shouted; the soldiers changed formation in a flurry of flying mud and clanking metal. A block of Highever soldiers with pikes moved to the center of the clearing, and formed a defensive line some fifty paces from the crossing, their back to the river. Soldiers with staff weapons and spearmen flared out left and right, and then more. There was some coordination amidst the loud chaos, even she could see that, but there were just too many people and voices to keep track of.

Bethany made herself Brosca's shadow, trying her best not to stay underfoot. She found herself with Theresa and the other Wardens among a gaggle of light infantry and Ashen Warriors shielding the crossbowmen, their faces drawn as tight as the grip on their weapons.

"The outpost's less than half a mile uphill from the river," Alistair said as he pushed through the soldiers, a pained frown in place of the usual lopsided smile. "Lord Cousland is sending us across first. We're to establish a beachhead and cover the rest of the crossing."

"Aye." Brosca was frowning at the rushing waters. "Good head on his shoulders, the lordlin'. Here's hopin' he won't lose that too soon." Brosca grabbed a nearby sergeant, brought him down to his level and whispered something that made the older man pale and dash to Lord Cousland.

At least, she thought the man was older. She'd been around him for weeks, and she never thought to ask the ugly dwarf how old he actually was. The chance evaporated when Brosca lowered his runic full-helmet over his face.

More shouted orders from several throats challenged the fragor of the waters, making a good number of spearmen and pikemen turn towards the bank. None that Bethany could see moved to cross it, however.

It was then that she noticed Lord Cousland's second in command, one Ser Naois Gilmore, had shouldered his way to their position.

The Knight's visor was up, his eyes gleaming, framed by salt-and-pepper hair glued to his forehead. "What's the meaning of this, Warden?"

"Get your steel out and brace, ser. It's about to start." Brosca pointed his Warhammer at the river. "Sparkle-feet, zap it."

"What?" Bethany said, echoed by Theresa and Ser Jory.

"I said zap it. With your sparks. Damn 'spawn need no breathin'. Move it!"

Bethany gulped and looked at the clouds, at the lightning straining for release behind the leaden canopy. She inhaled and felt the tingle spread down her arms, bounce across her fingertips, then coil in her palms, already struggling to be let out.

"Soldiers of Ferelden! Prepare for battle!" Lord Cousland shouted.

"I've got your back, bumpkin," Theresa whispered.

And then there was lightning, a blinding flash that boiled the water and singeing her fingertips.

A few soldiers and Mabari shouted and yelped in surprise, but it was nothing to the crazed screams of the first Hurlock that tried to claw up onto the bank and grab the nearest ankle.

'So they can feel pain,' Bethany thought. She let go of the spell and blew on her fingers, feeling weirdly empty inside.

Shouting spears and halberds shoved the Hurlock back into the water, then did the same to more, adding to twitching bodies floating to the surface. The current carried genlocks, hurlocks, and bloated, deformed bogfisher downriver by the dozens.

Bethany stared at them, mesmerized. That was her doing. Just a single spell. She felt the singes more than she did the dip in her mana reserves.

She felt laughter bubble up. Was it so easy, after all?

Cords twanged and guttural roars rose from the Wilds.

"Shields!"

"Lass!"

Arrows and javelins hissed, a thick, black rain that pelted against shields and plate and chainmail, but soldiers screamed and fell in front of her anyway, clutching at chests and throats and faces. Bethany's vision was filled by a shield, but beyond the edge she saw the next salvo bounce off mid-air from a shimmering dome, punctuated by Theresa's snarl.

Alistair's gauntlet was cold against her cheek, a soft pat that made her blink.

"Snap out of it, Bethany! They're here!"

And from the grey and black marshland, they came. Bounding and snarling, howling and charging, blistered figures in spiked armor melted out of the trees, erupted from the mud and appeared on top of branches.

The Ferelden line met them with a collective battle-cry and wall of pointed steel, shoulder to shoulder and heels dug in.

"For Ferelden!"

The crash was deafening and the world threatened to shatter. A moment later, it was still there and her with it. She shook off her funk by wrapping a barrier around herself and turning a two genlock on a tree and their javelins into wailing torches.

Beyond the defensive line, the hunter's trail the column had followed and the wilderness was packed with slobbering darkspawn. She dropped a fireball in their midst, then Brosca was there, hammer and armor stained black; his bark made her switch targets to the skirmishers and then he was gone to reinforce the right flank, the grim Ser Jory and a dozen Ash Warriors with their hounds on his tail.

The soldiers around her guarding the bank began to turn around towards the fight, moving in accordance to orders Bethany barely heard over the buzz of the battle and the beat of her pumping heart. Fire bloomed and took shape at her beckon, and darkspawn burned alone, in pairs, or by the dozen.

She felt like laughing. She was invincible. What Templar could measure up to her, now? What Templar would dare press the Tranquil brand to her forehead? Bethany cremated a Hurlock and the snarling bogfisher that it rode and felt a bloody smile open up her face at the horrified expression on Alistair's face.

She'd like to see his kind try now. She'd send their ashes in a box to the Grand Cleric in Denerim! To the Divine herself!

Ice shot down her veins and her knees buckled, but she threw herself forward when she felt sticky fingers being torn from her brain and soul. The landed awkwardly, then shot a barrage of fist-sized icicles into the reeling blanket-clad demon floating where she had been standing.

The Desperation demon's screech turned into laughter as it gobbled up her ice and turned into a cold mist around its body. The sounds sucked the air out of Bethany's lungs, and long, clawed fingers reached for her heart.

"Sweet, sweet euphoria, blackened into despair. You're mine now, dreamer. MINE!"

Then Alistair was there, chopping through the limb as he smashed his shield into the Demon's face. Frost started to cover the blade and the scales of his armor, while the Demon's claws tore apart his Warden tabard and dug into his shield.

For a moment, it looked like the Demon would wrench it away, and Alistair's arm with it. Then the Warden buried his sword down the Demon's throat and the creature collapsed into itself, falling apart.

Bethany tried to pick herself up, but the cold wasn't receding. And then she saw why.

Desperation demons were floating across the river, two dozens of them. They turned water to ice in their wake and fell upon panicking soldiers who dropped their weapons and clawed at their heads. Shards of ice battered the thinning line of levies and the backs of the formations facing the Darkspawn, while others turned the people around them into frostbitten, withered husks.

'Where – How?'

Her thoughts were sluggish, her body more so. On the other bank, a dozen hurlocks and genlocks paced in front of an assembling shieldwall. They wore elaborate headwears of feathers and bones and sported honking staves with blackened tips.

Just by looking at them, a cloying taint threatened to pour down her throat and out of her eyes. Entropy magic wrapped around them in twisted coils, heavy as mist and thick like blood.

Emissaries. 'They – They summoned the demons.'

Breathing hard from the ice fist clucthing her heart, Bethany struggled on all fours, then on her knees. Theresa was nowhere to be seen, but Alistair had put himself between her and two Demons and was losing.

Her arm was made of lead, fighting her for every inch. The firebolts she produced barely made the closest demon's cloak catch fire before fizzling out.

"It can't end like this," she whispered hoarsely as a Desperation Demon encased Alistair's leg into ice and the other got around him, plunging towards her. "It can't. Mother. Damien. Please…"

"ANIMAE! EVERSIO!"

The Demon twisted in midair in a way that ought to snap every bone in its body, if it had any. Too-long arms contorted in different directions, then its spine folded backward, until its hooded head was brushing its heels.

Its mouth gaped in a silent howl, and then it exploded.

All along the bank and over the freezing river, every Demon met a similar fate in moments, or already had by the time she looked, leaving behind only frosty mist and curling pieces of their cloaks.

The ice fist around her heart melted, but a dread of a different kind took hold of it next, when she looked over her shoulder.

Theresa was floating like a Tevinter Magister of old. Black blood coiled and bubbled around her and her eyes were black as pitch. With one lazy gesture, she froze a hail of projectiles mid-air, and a wave of her hand tossed most of the darkspawn on the distant bank head over heels.

Red blood started to dribble from her eyes and mouth then, but her cousin didn't seem to notice.

"You wanted to feed her to Demons? My Bethany? Oh no, you don't!"

The Emissaries' spells were already flying by then, fire and lightning and buzzing swarms and more curses than she could count.

Bethany only had time to throw up a barrier in front of Alistair and herself, but then Theresa shouted a spell and the Emissaries' magic writhed and died before it crossed the river fully.

"Fucking idiots!" Theresa snarled, drawing more darkspawn blood around her, but she was floating no more. Her fingers coiled in a gesture Bethany had become familiar with in her dreams.

"Theresa -"

"Animae Eversio!"

The words hadn't left her lips that Theresa's eyes rolled in her sockets. She dropped to the ground like a puppet, trashing and drooling like a rabid dog.

Bethany didn't watch if the Emissaries were dead or not; she didn't look at Alistair or at the screaming soldiers and knights she'd forgotten about for a while. She dragged herself through the blood-soaked mud to her cousin instead and cradled her pasty, bloody face as the battle raged around them.

Some time passed and much to her surprise, nothing caved her skull in. Theresa had stopped shaking, but she didn't wake up. Her chest barely rose and fell. It was all Bethany could do to stop her eyes from bleeding, but in her Demon-induced euphoria, she'd drained herself.

At some point, Alistair tried to drag her away from Theresa, yelling words she didn't quite understand and pointing at a dam of rock and stone wide five men across that cut across the river.

She was sure that hadn't been there, last time she checked.

"Ash Warriors, manlings, with me!" Brosca shouted somewhere to her left. He was probably waving his warhammer. "Push them back from the bank! Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!"

"- have to push for the outpost!" Alistair was waving and pointing an awful lot. "They've cut our retreat! Lord Cousland is wounded! Stand up, Bethany!"

She shook her head. "Theresa can't move."

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Then leave her! She's a Blood Mage!"

She slapped him. It was good that he'd lost his helmet, at some point, or she'd have broken her hand. "She's the only family I have. Family looks after each other. And she's like this because she saved you. All of you."

The tiny voice screaming 'My Bethany!' at the back of her head was indeed tiny, and thus easy to ignore.

His face hardened. "Don't make me Smite you and carry you, Recruit."

"That's enough. The line won't hold for long. You take Bethany and I'll take this little overachiever here."

The Chasind stalker stood behind her, bloody hand-ax out and arms bare to reveal metal vambraces woven with intricate designs glowing a lyrium blue. The glow alone was enough to snap some of Bethany's thoughts into focus, but her mind nearly blanked out again when she saw his face.

Like Alistair, he was helmetless. Unlike Alistair, his eyes weren't shining with anger and terror. Thick scar tissue covered where his right eyes should be, traveling across his nose and webbing around an empty left socket.

Her training told her it was an old wound - years-old, -but it had nothing to say to explain the rest of the Chasind's face.

'It can't be. But – No, I'm hallucinating. I'm exhausted and I'm hallucinating. He's dead.'

The stalker's thin smile was hauntingly familiar, even if his face didn't turn down to her.

"No, you're not hallucinating. 'My magic will serve what's best in me –'"

"'- Not what's basest.'" She barely managed to finish her father's favorite quote, before her throat dried up and her vocal cords tried to tie themselves into knots. "Damien?"

Her blind, revived brother scooped Theresa up over his shoulder and helped her up. He grimaced and held his side under the furs her wore. When his hand came away, it was stained crimson.

"It's good to hear you say it again, Beth. Now come, all of you. We aren't through the worst of it yet."

AN: No Cormac, I know. I lied, but you still got a chapter after over a year. That should be reason enough to be happy, yes? And I came through with another old promise pertaining a certain Avatar character on steroids. Are we good? Good.

My thanks to coduss, lupusadaquilonem, CaedmonCousland, DmCrebel25, VampireLord101, Rinnala Lethan, higherbrainpattern, Aegon Blacksteel, Evelyn, the immense CMY187 with his essay-like reviews, and AnthonyR89 for their reviews and precious, precious feedback. If anyone's still around, take a moment to say hello with a review. Thank you very much.