Hearts for Tomorrow

Chapter Five

"Father I beg of you, don't do this..."

"It's for your own good, Dorian."

Dorian bolted upright in his bed, chest heaving as he took a moment to collect himself from the phantoms of the nightmare still clinging to his consciousness. After a moment he focused and took a deep breath, evening out his breathing, then his heartrate. A cursory look around the room helped him calm down.

He was alone.

Slowly the mage lay back down, pulling the blankets back around his figure as he tried to find sleep once more.

#

Dorian spent the rest of the week of his and Hissrad's 'honeymoon' keeping to himself. He discovered a library on the premise of the estate and kept the door locked. He only ever saw Hissrad if the two happened to cross paths searching for food, but Dorian had an uneasy feeling that whenever he wasn't locked away in his room or the library, he was being watched. He had no proof it was more than paranoia, but it didn't help him feel any less of a prisoner than he had been with his father.

He read as many books on the Qunari as he could find, though the selection was terribly thin and much of it felt like propaganda. When he ran out of Qunari material he moved on to anatomy studies. When that well was also dry, he simply started at the end of one shelf and worked his way across.

The night before they were due to leave for the Qarinus Port found Dorian settled in his lonely little room with a book in his lap. Nerves kept him awake, kept him antsy. Trying to keep his mind preoccupied was unsuccessful and he knew that he had reread the same page of his book no less than six times. He had to resist throwing the damn thing across the room.

A knock at the door pulled the mage from his frustrated thoughts, directing his ire towards whomever might be on the other side. There was nobody in the house he wanted to speak with, and was content to ignore the proposed visitor by focusing back on his book until there was another knock, this time constant and quickly grating.

He huffed a frustrated sigh, "Go away!" he snapped at the door, refusing to get up from the bed.

There was silence for a long moment, and Dorian was content to believe that whomever was on the other side had taken their leave before there was another knock. His agitation spiked, causing him to throw his book at the wall nearest the door, "I said leave!"

That seemed to work as he listened to a muted sigh and the sound of footfalls leaving the vicinity of the door. He wasn't proud of how angry he had been, of how childish he must have seemed to those on the outside, but if only someone understood. Felix had been the only one to know the whole ugly truth, but just thinking of his friend was enough to pull the mage into a deeper sense of despair.

He knew that once his feet touched Seheron soil, there would be almost no way to escape. He'd be trapped on an island. And what would it mean if he were to run away and throw the whole order of peace into the fire – wasn't he supposed to be bringing a greater good to his people by doing this? Would it be selfish if he were to flee now? The panic and anxiety mounted like a ball of steel in his chest, crowding his lungs and heart and making it impossible to focus on anything else.

The insistent knocking returned, and this time Dorian threw back the covers and leapt up from his bed, storming to the door. "Now listen here, did I not say-" his words cut off abruptly as the door was flung open and surprise dispersed the ball in his chest, "Rilienus?"

The man was dressed in simple servant's clothing, though his face was smug as he grinned down at Dorian with something akin to triumph, "Shh," he reached a hand out and winked, "I've been ordered to bring you down to dinner, My Lord."