They left Nicolas outside the ruined palace, at the foot of the long stairs. It took them a while to collect enough loose rubble to pile on top of him until they had a cairn of sorts. Genevieve laid his black cloak on top, and they hung their heads for a long moment. The cavern held nothing but oppressive silence for them.
“It feels wrong not to bury him,” Fiona murmured.
“It was his choice,” Genevieve snapped.
She couldn’t argue with that. Nobody could. Were they supposed to march all the way back to the underground lake to allow Nicolas’s body to rest with that of his lover? The idea had appeal, but they all knew it was impossible. The darkspawn would surely catch up to them long before then. This would have to do.
It seemed to her that there should have been some kind of discussion then. They needed to talk about what they had been led into, and where they were going. Fiona felt like there needed to be some recognition of what had happened, even if her mind screamed at her not to think about it. Every time she remembered that whip cutting into her flesh, her thoughts veered away violently. But the others seemed no better off than her, and so they all numbly followed after Genevieve as she led them back into the thaig.
For hours they stumbled through the ruined streets. Fiona barely noticed the city itself anymore, as wrapped up as she was in her own darkness. The dream had felt so real. The demon had impersonated the human man who bought her from the slavers that took her in after her parents had died. She’d had no idea back then who those kind men really were, only that they offered her food and a warm bed to sleep in. Then an even kinder man came to take her from them, and she found herself in his luxurious home and thought herself the luckiest little girl in the entire alienage.
How very naive she had been. Count Dorian, as she learned her new master’s name to be, had been in search of an elven whore he could keep as a pet, something he could put in a pretty dress and bring with him on one of his many trips to the capital, like baggage. The Countess had permitted him his new toy, and completely ignored Fiona as she went about her own dalliances. Fiona lived in that house hold a prisoner, invisible and not even knowing that any of it was wrong, only that she needed to please the Count or suffer his wrath. Often his wrath came whether he was pleased or not.
Escaping the man had not been easy. Fortune had brought her to the notice of an elderly mage on the streets of Val Royeaux, though the Count’s fury when he discovered it had been immeasurable. She still flinched when she thought of how he had whipped her that night. He had gouged and bled her until she had pleaded for death, and he had denied her even that.
And then she had grown angry. She had dug deep down inside and demanded that what ever talent for magic she had, a talent in which she did not even truly believe until that moment, come forth and save her. And it had. She had killed the Count with raw magical force, and lay bleeding beside his corpse as exhaustion took her.
The demons had come, then. They had whispered soft things, promising that they could take all the pain away. So desperate was their desire to possess her they nipped away at her mind, and it was all she could do to lie there and cry silent tears as she resisted.
The Countess found her in the dungeon, unconscious and lying in a pool of her own blood. Almost dead. Why the woman had contacted the Circle of Magi to come and take Fiona away, she had no idea. She never saw the woman again. Perhaps the Countess had felt pity? Perhaps she had felt some gratitude for the elf who had finally slain her cruel husband and transformed her into a rich widow? She could just as easily have called on the watch, or let her die.
The Circle, sadly, had been little better. At least the nightmares grew fainter in time. She thought that she had finally put them behind her, but apparently it was not so. It felt like an old wound had been ripped open inside her heart, leaving it raw and bleeding.
They were just outside a field full of so much rubble and debris that it was impossible to tell what it all might have once been, when Kell picked up Bregan’s trail again. The hunter held his hand up to call for a halt and knelt, running his fingers along the ground and closing his pale eyes. He lifted his head slightly as if catching a scent, and softly said, “I found him.”
Everyone knew who he meant. The effect on Genevieve was electrifying. She almost pounced on Kell, demanding that he follow the trail immediately. He stared up at her, and for a moment Fiona thought he might challenge her authority once again. He didn’t, however, merely nodded and stood to lead the way.
Genevieve almost vibrated, she was so intent. The change in her from the surly and silent commander that had left the ruin was marked. Was she still as keen as before on finding her brother? It seemed so, though Fiona felt like she had to remind herself why they were even down here. They had only been in the Deep Roads, what? A couple of days? It felt like forever.
Duncan walked beside her for a time. She looked over at him and he smiled sadly. He meant it to be reassuring, she assumed, but it just reminded her that his heart had been broken in the Fade as well. She didn’t know exactly what he had gone through, but she knew enough. He looked older.
“Why did the demon want you?” he asked her suddenly.
“Because they become very powerful when they possess a mage.”
“It seemed plenty powerful already.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It had sustained itself in our world so long, perhaps it had only a little power left. Perhaps a mage is all it ever wanted. It’s in the nature of demons to covet what they can’t have.”
He nodded, chewing on the idea.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she whispered to him.
“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he said. She followed his nod and saw he meant Maric, who walked not far from them, too lost in thought to realize he was being discussed.
“Why? Because he killed the demon?”
“He’s the one who broke out of his dream first, and came to get the rest of us. He insisted we had to save you. Without him, I don’t know that I would have left my … I would still be there. For certain.”
Duncan looked away, frowning to hide his pain. What sort of dream would hold a boy who had grown up alone in the slums of Val Royeaux, she wondered? She didn’t want to ask, and instead clutched his hand and gave it a warm squeeze.
They reached the massive doorway that led out of Ortan thaig after another hour of picking their way through piles of stone and masonry. Maric indicated that he had gone through this door before, and that his group had first encountered darkspawn several hours afterwards. Fiona exchanged glances with Kell and Utha, although they said nothing. They sensed no darkspawn nearby. It seemed odd, after how the creatures had hounded them so far. Perhaps when the darkspawn picked up their trail again, she would be wishing for just this sort of oddness.
The great iron door had clearly been bashed in long ago by some powerful force. Ogres, she assumed. The great blue brutes were the work horses of the darkspawn when they appeared, and whenever the attack on this thaig happened they would have almost certainly numbered among the horde. Still, it was impressive. She could almost picture the creatures swarming in through the breach, washing over what ever dwarven defenses remained like a dark tide.
Hafter sniffed among the rubble in front of the door, making anxious sounds. Then he lifted his head and looked into the shadows beyond the door and whined. Fiona was inclined to agree.
Beyond, they were back in the Deep Roads. It did not take long for them to start seeing the familiar signs of darkspawn corruption, so thick here they could not really make out the stone any longer. It was a sickening layer of skin that covered everything, and it felt unnerving, squishing as it did beneath her boots. The idea of touching it with bare skin made her shudder in revulsion.