Sisters of Tevinter

Out of Time

     The companions slipped into the rear of the building, finding themselves in a wide kitchen, warm from the hearth and brick ovens. A young elf maiden dropped the dough she was folding with a jump, her mouth open in a dark little 'o.'

      Dorian held a finger to his lips with a small smile. 

      "Master Pavus. I-" 

      "It's alright, Deia. We're just passing through. Have you seen Fiona?" 

      "She is in the West Wing." Deia glanced nervously at the armed invaders, eyes lingering on the fearsome horned shadow behind Jor. "What's going on?"

      Dorian smiled. "Find Arctus for us, love. Gather some of your friends, keep them safe. If you can, stock the lyrium potions somewhere close by."

       Deia hesitated, but nodded, scampering off to disappear down a wide stone hall. Dorian beckoned for the companions to follow him as he lead them up a stone flight of stairs. The wooden hallways were narrow here, littered with candles. They seemed to be traversing the upper floors that arched over the grander rooms below. This floor was lined with small doors bound in iron, Jor could hear muffled voices and occasionally a gentle glow leaked from beneath the doorjambs. So other mages lived here. Most likely elven. 

      She wondered if this was how things had been for years if Alexius had reversed the flow of time. These people... subjugated for race and tier of talent. It was so wrong, it made her sick. It was too much like that damned house. Her damned house. 

      Bull grumbled something as he had to duck his head to fit through a low doorway. Jor smiled, pulled back into the present. She could help. She could fix this. Her childhood in Tevinter was not who she was. That's why she'd left. Like Kaisen. 

       The scholar glanced at the the red haired assassin as she flitted from shadow to shadow behind Cassandra. Granted, the girl's disappearance had been ill timed, provoking and selfish- but Jor could understand. It was her mother's pain that had been so unforgivable. Jor shook her head. She had a right to be angry. It was Kaisen's disappearance that left the remnants of the Trevelyan family in tatters. 

        I had no choice but to go. Jor turned her gaze ahead, silently trailing after Dorian.

      The mage lead them through twists and turns of narrow hallways and servant's quarters, then down another flight of creaking wooden stairs. Jor flinched at every noise. She hoped this would be simple. Forbidden magic... Usually they had templars for this. If they weren't so busy fighting their little civil war. Jor scowled slightly. We'll get Fiona, arrange a force, grab Alexius and get out. 

        They weaved their way along until the hall suddenly opened into a large stone chamber, one wall made almost entirely of stained glass that cast the setting sun in glittering fragments of color. 

         Fiona was standing uneasily behind a tall stone seat that faced the window, flipping anxiously through a journal. 

        "Enchantress." Dorian gave the mage a nod as he stepped into the chamber. 

         Her head snapped up like a frightened deer's. "You shouldn't be here. You should have left-" She caught sight of Jor over the mage's shoulder and shook her head frantically. "No- you must leave-" 

          "So soon? But they've just returned." A hooded shape shifted on the opposite side of the chair, rising. "I had hoped you would leave the way you'd come, Herald of Andraste," Alexius mused. 

            Jor paled and drew the dirks from her belt. Shit.  She heard Cassandra draw her sword and Bull settle his maul beside him. 

            Dorian sighed. "Alexius. Good to see you again. We've come to demand your surrender."

            "I'd expect such things from the Inquisition, but my own student?" Alexius rounded his seat, frowning. "Dorian, you disappoint me." 

            "You get used to it after a little while," the mage said with a charming smile. 

             Fiona shrank into the shadows of the chamber. Jor caught a glimpse of Kaisen edging carefully around the outskirts of the room, hoping to get close to the Magister. Jor decided to stall for time. "I would have stumbled right into your hands if not for Dorian." She gripped her dirks, the hilts digging into the leather of her gloves. "You're slippery. I had no idea something could be so terribly off, I thought perhaps Fiona had been impersonated." 

             "Interesting, isn't it? How time and perception are so irreversibly linked?" Alexius smiled. "Unfortunately, you are the only thing standing in the way of permanent change. If I erase the perception of you, I erase the infection in the wound that is this time." 

             "Not an option. Stand down, Alexius. I do not wish to kill you. In fact, I'm really curious to know how you did it. All of it, every chronicle of manipulation." 

            "I'm sorry. You'll never know." Alexius' hand drifted to the collar of his cloak. 

             Kaisen sprang. Dorian lifted his staff. A chasm of darkness tore itself free of Alexius' lifted fist, where something hung from a glimmering golden chain. Kaisen pressed a knife to the Magister's neck just as a brilliant beam of myriad hues, fire, lightning, pure magical fury descended with a thunderous snap over Jor and Dorian. It writhed around them like living snakes of illumination. Jor barely processed as her vision blurred white, every nerve was agony and in a split second-

          The Herald and the mage were gone, leaving only a smoking starburst of ash on the chamber floor.