“I know you are the Inquisitor because I have examined memories like yours,” the being states simply, watching them with something not unlike compassion. “Stolen by the demon that serves Corypheus.” She turns slightly, facing the glowing rift in the distance. “It if the Nightmare you forget upon waking. It feeds off of memories of fear and darkness, growing fat upon the terror.”
You’re not going to grow fat on my cousin, Solona thinks with a sudden fierce flash of anger. A Nightmare… but this description is familiar to her. The Hero of Ferelden is all too familiar with nightmares, and in driving through them with nothing but a blunt, sheer force of will when all else has collapsed in ruin. She clawed her way from the sloth demon’s dream in Kinloch, she gave her life to sorrow and agony. And the darkspawn fell. A well-placed pride. Keep that confidence, Warden. Hero of Ferelden. The Nightmare will tear you to bloody strips. You are nothing more than a mage, and I will have you at last.
Solona shakes herself and forces her attention to return to the figure before them. “The Nightmare created the Calling that the Wardens felt, didn’t it? It was false this whole time. Just a way for Corypheus to bind us all to demons so he could create an army of Wardens.”
A strange, new flicker at the edge of her consciousness drew her attention slightly away again, fire coiling its hungry tendrils around her anger where pride had once had supreme hold. A new demon tasting the edges of her thoughts. Just one more of you bastards to kill. She swears that she can feel them laughing.
“When you entered the Fade at Haven,” Justinia says, and Solona drags her attention forcibly back, “the demon too a part of you. Before you do anything else, you must recover it. These are your memories, Inquisitor.”
They’ve disappeared. Fenris shakes his head. “No. People do not just disappear. The three greatest heroes of this age did not just disappear.”
It can’t be possible. He simply refuses to accept it. The unlikelihood of the Inquisitor and the Warden-Commander both being lost aside, Elliot is not gone. Elliot would not simply vanish. Fenris would know it if something happened. He would feel it.
Would you, though, little wolf? For all your fear of magic, you’ve cautioned him, and his power is not what it could be.
“The Champion of Kirkwall did not just fall off a bridge and disappear. When you fall, you land somewhere. Where is he?” Elliot can heal any injury. He survived the arishok. He survive the destruction of Kirkwall. He will be fine.
“I am Fenris. Forgive my… abruptness. But I must find Hawke.”
Dom listens in silence to this dialogue, his head spinning a little with the flood of new knowledge. This woman, spirit, whatever she is...speaks of a demon that stole his memories of what happened at Haven.
He prods backward in his mind, feeling for any recollection of what happened there. It’s always been a blur, nothing more than flashes; he assumed it was because the explosion hit him in the head or something similarly mundane, but what she is describing is something far more malevolent and deliberate.
He follows her gesture, which draws his attention to small plumes of light drifting through the area. Those...are memories? He takes a step forward as if to reach out to one of them, then stops, suddenly afraid of what might be revealed to him in the remembering. He looks toward Justinia--if that is who she really is, and then to Solona, more intently. He can see her determination, anger at whatever has thrust them here; he lets that bolster him, steady him. He may not understand the things happening around them, but she will. Hawke will.
Hawke, for his part, seems tenser than ever listening to the spirit address them; his already tight shoulders square with irritation. “Get on with it, then,” he snaps at Dom acerbically. “What are you waiting for?”
Dom’s lips twitch in a slight frown, but he nods, takes another step forward, then another, his fingers reaching out to brush against the shafts of light. They seem to shift in acknowledgement, to recognize and move towards him as if returning to their home, soaking in through his skin with a warmth like spring breeze in the midst of the hot dampness of the Fade air...
The reality around them seems to swirl abruptly as the memory coalesces, images forming, a scene coming together even as it reforms in Dom’s mind...
The room is an undercroft in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, a storeroom barely used by anyone. It glows with a red, unearthly fire which is wrapped tightly around Justinia’s body, lifting her off the ground as she struggles in vain. The fire is emanating from the hands of ten Grey Wardens standing in a semi-circle around her, their eyes hard and determined, immune to her pleas as she cries out.
A figure moves in the shadows at the opposite end of the room; a familiar voice rumbles. “Now is the hour of our victory.”
Corypheus emerges into the room. His huge form is lit by the deep green glow of the orb Dom saw him carrying when Haven fell, which he lifts to hold in front of Justinia. “Keep the sacrifice still.”
The fire tightens around her; her struggling becomes more desperate and her eyes light with fear. “Why are you doing this? You, of all people?!” she calls to the Wardens. They are unmoved and silent. “Someone, help me!” she cries...
...and the doors bang open. Dom sees himself, slightly indistinct in the memory’s hazy light, eyes wide and startled at what the room reveals to him. “What’s going on here?” he snaps, too surprised to second guess the objection.
It’s enough to distract both Corypheus and the wardens, just for a moment. Justinia gathers her strength and lashes out, knocks the orb from Corypheus’s grasp, sends it rolling across the floor in Dom’s direction. Dom moves, more instinct than thought, picking it up before it can roll past him-- and immediately it erupts in light. He screams with pain as the light sizzles through his hand, along his arm, bursts outward and upward and blasts the mountainside with an overwhelming explosion...
Dom staggers, crying out as the memory fades and the light dies; his hand is burning with sudden fire and he nearly falls to his knees, reaching out for one of the rocks nearby to steady himself. He feels suddenly dizzy, sick with the clarity of the memory’s significance.
My mark...they called it the mark of the Herald, but it came from him...
Barris eyes Fenris warily for some moments in silence, relaxing a little as the elf seems to recover himself somewhat and apologize. Clearly Hawke means something to him.
“Right,” he says cautiously. “Well. We’re in a hurry to figure it out ourselves, believe me. I...” He gestures towards the fortress. “We’re still cleaning up the dregs of the resistance here...starting a search in earnest. You’re welcome to assist if you like.”