Chapter Text
Lady Reina Trevelyan had lived at the Ostwick Circle for as long as she could remember. Memories of home were like half-remembered dreams of another life - glimpses of rich scarlet drapery and the bright laughter of women drifting through airy wooden halls that smelled of nutmeg and firewood. Her lord father and lady mother were kindly strangers who dutifully visited her once every year after the end of the season of Andrastetide festivities, coming with the new year's snow and asking tepid questions about her studies, her health, her happiness. The Circle had been her home, the song of the Enchanter her lullaby, the other acolytes and the senior magi her family, the templars her silent guardians and watchmen - all of the Circle forming a ring of warmth and security as indelible as stone. Her Harrowing had come and passed without incident and, before she realized it, Reina was guiding and singing lullabies for her own young initiates fresh to Circle life. These would be her children, wide-eyed and wondering, and she would lead them by the hand as they navigated the treacherous and wondrous paths of magic, as beautiful and dangerous as fire. Magic shall serve man, not rule over him, she admonished them every day as her mentor had admonished her and her mentor's mentor before her. During her time at the Circle Reina had learned many ways in which magic could serve - she could set a flame with no more than a flick of her fingers and a word, she knew how to shape the Fade into the last snowfall of winter or the first quenching rain of spring, she could crack rings of stone with a thought. Yet, innocently, she still believed that rings of tradition and history and magical kinship were not so easily cracked. Far removed from the intrigue and desperation of life beyond her Circle's walls, Reina still believed in the strength of human hearts.
In the end, all it took to crack the Circles was a word. It started with rumors of blood and darkness out of Kinloch before all rumors ceased entirely. In the weeks that followed, unease spread across the Circle, though none of the daily routine changed, the eyes that followed the mages grew harder, more fearful, more vigilant. The templars seldom smiled and then ceased smiling altogether. Then came the news of Kirkwall, news of massacre and terrible, unbelievable abuse. Stories began to spread of fellow mages being robbed - not only of their cursed power, but also of themselves - of rape and murder and torture beyond imagination. There were scuffles between some of the more radical mages, ones who already chafed at the perceived chains of the Circle, and templar recruits, occasional insults and barbed words passing each other in the marble corridors, calls for arms and calls for peace and calls for faith. Yet, still, like a fool, Reina prayed to the Maker and believed that soon all would be well - all would be well. Magic shall serve man, not rule over him.
Reina was joining hands in prayer with Senior Enchanter Lydia, her dearest friend and mentor, who had been almost a mother to her since she had begun her life at the Circle, when news of the vote of the leading mages arrived. The acolyte who brought it was breathless, unbelieving even as he delivered the damning words that took Reina's entire world and shattered it into irretrievable fragments.
"M'ladies, the College, it - they - voted to dissolve."
"Dissolve what." Reina had never heard Lydia's tone sound so sharp before.
"Dissolve - Dissolve the Circles m'ladies." She felt Lydia's hands tremor in her own and she knew that the blood had drained from her own face.
"Andraste preserve us," she stared in vacant desperation at the messenger, "they've destroyed us all."
The next week passed in a blur, faces and events bleeding into each other like a lyrium induced nightmare. Reina remembers Lydia writing letters to Lord and Lady Trevelyan, first asking, then pleading with them to bring Reina back to the Trevelyan family home. The replies were sympathetic, but firm. Lord and Lady Trevelyan could not risk the lives of their other children and household by taking in any now apostate mage, even their own daughter. It seemed to matter little to them that Reina had never wanted this - that she had been content to peacefully live out her life at the Circle among the only familiarity she had ever known. Soon it became clear that it mattered little to anyone else what Reina had wanted - she was a mage and therefore in rebellion. The templars that had always watched her, had guarded her from her first spell to her Harrowing, came with chains and swords and faces like steel. When she and Lydia and her children fled, refusing to fight, their fellow mages came for them, bringing ice and flame and, finally, demons. They fled from village to village, hunted by templar, attacked by mage, until one day, Reina returned to see a battle of steel and magic surrounded by the corpses of her initiates, too young, too innocent to die to the savagery of idealism. With an arrow plunged into her chest and her once beautiful face ravaged by mageflame, Lydia still summoned enough conviction to scream "Run, Reina! Run!" before choosing to die with both mage and templar alike, immolating the entire battlefield in blinding fire - a Senior Enchantress until the end.
Was there really a Maker? Reina often wondered as she wandered alone along unfamiliar roads and slept in the cold winter night until kindly tavernkeeps invited her in to sit by the fire. If there was a Maker, why did it seem like the end of the world had been set into motion without even a hint of hesitation? It was only upon hearing the news of the peace summit at Haven that a flicker of hope return to her life. Perhaps the Divine could succeed in bridging the breach between the different sides and restore the Circles and, with them, peace. It was only upon arriving at the summit that Reina realized that the last flicker of hope is no more than the sign of the true end, for she saw the skies open the gates of Hell and a flash of green and remembered no more.
--
"Ah you're awake I see." As her eyes slowly adjusted to the torchlight, Reina made out the features of an armored woman, her eyes narrowed in suspicion and dark hair closely cropped to her head like an unruly helmet. She spoke harshly, angrily, her words made more clipped with her brisk Nevarran accent.
"Where - where am I?"
"You are in Haven. According to the soldiers who found you, you stepped out of one of those, hmm, rifts, and fell unconscious. Don't you remember?" A second, hooded woman spoke, her voice sweet and clear, but her eyes coldly cataloguing Reina's every expression.
"I - I don't remember," Reina pleaded, tears springing to her eyes. She remembered demons and green and the world ending, it must have been just another nightmare - everything was a just a nightmare. Soon she would wake up, safe in her chambers in the Circle, and find that the past year had been nothing more than a bad dream. The Nevarran woman strode up to Reina angrily, grasping her shoulders in a white-knuckled grip.
"You don't remember," she gritted out, "Everyone. Everyone is dead. Hundreds. The Conclave attacked. The Divine - the Divine -" her voice broke.
"Come come Cassandra, you're scaring the poor girl," the second woman interjected, heading towards the door.
"Go to the forward camps Leliana, I can handle this."
"As you wish." So saying, the woman named Leliana slipped out of the room like the shadow of a raven, leaving Reina alone with Cassandra. Cassandra sighed and lifted Reina to her feet.
"It will be easier to show you." So saying, she led Reina out of the dungeons and through a Chantry, throwing open the doors and blinding Reina with the early morning light. She stabbed a finger at a tear in the fabric of the sky, glowing serpent-green along its serrated edges. Cassandra then grabbed Reina's right wrist and laid a silent accusation upon her pulsing, green-light scarred palm. As she stared horror-stricken at her hand, Reina heard murmurs rippling through the crowd standing before her and felt the chill of angry gazes.
"They are all convinced of your guilt," Cassandra told her, "they are certain that you, a mage, opened that Breach in the sky and murdered our beloved Divine. What do you have to say?" Reina kept silent, the half-spoken accusations of the crowd drowning out her ability to defend herself. Murderer. Rebel. Apostate. Traitor.
"Nothing?" Cassandra almost sounded disappointed. "Very well then." She drew a knife. Upon seeing Reina's flinch of fear, she made a reassuring gesture before quickly cutting Reina's bonds.
"I am to bring you to one of the smaller rifts. Solas, an elven apostate who has volunteered his services, seems to believe that your - mark - might be able to stem the tide. Maker help us all." So saying, she began to lead Reina through the muttering crowd, the sea of hating eyes parting before them. Cassandra told Reina about the events leading up to her capture and interrogation - how an explosion had killed almost everyone at the Conclave, including Divine Justinia herself, how tears in the very fabric of the sky had opened and begun to spew forth demons and apparitions out of a nightmare, how many believe that the end of the world is indeed upon them. As she spoke, Reina nodded, venturing to ask a few questions about how long she had been unconscious and what they knew of the nature of the rifts. Reina was so focused on trying to accept what she had heard as reality that she nearly crashed into Cassandra's back when the other woman came to a sudden stop in front of her.
"Demons. Stay behind me." Drawing her sword and hefting her shield, Cassandra charged at the ghastly green spirits blocking their path. As she charged, a demon appeared behind her, it's ragged hood cloaking a decaying face and chilling presence that Reina recognized from her Harrowing and the dreams that had haunted her since Lydia's death.
"Despair," she gasped, the demon's presence drawing the breath from her body. She could give up - right here, right now, and let the rest of the world be damned. The backs of her parents, the swords of the Templars, the curses of the mages, her children, her Lydia, the wound in the sky, it would all go away and she would be left numb, numb and painless. Yet, through her blurring vision seeing Cassandra charge faithfully, fearlessly headlong into battle, her Seeker's shield raised against the jaws of Hell itself, Reina began to feel wonderfully, irrationally angry. If this were the end, be it the Maker's or some other power's, why should she make it easy for them? Clinging to her anger, she wreathed the demon with furious mage-fire, fueling her will to live with its shrieks of pain.
"Maker take you!" Cassandra yelled as she dispatched the last of the wraiths. "You can do battle," she glanced at Reina curiously, "I was not aware that you had seen combat."
"I've faced demons before. When we refused to join the rebellion - other mages - please, I'd rather not speak of it," Reina answered wearily, feeling her magic slowly regenerate.
"You were not a rebel?" Cassandra's tone was surprised. Of course she had assumed - as everyone assumes.
"No. Our Circle had voted to remain with the Chantry. But we are hunted all the same."
"I'm - sorry."
It wasn't long before they reached the rift where the elven apostate, Solas, and a crossbow-wielding dwarf named Varric awaited them. After they pushed back the demons, Solas grasped Reina's right wrist and forcibly channeled her mana through her hand towards the eerie gash in the fabric of space. Reina felt her mana mix with the magic of the mark, evolving and growing until it connected with the magic of the tear, the two streams of magic humming in unison before everything faded to black.
--
"I will not stand for this! The Chantry will not stand for this! Herald of Andraste indeed. This - this creature is no more than a mass murderer. She should be delivered to Val Royeaux for trial immediately!"
Reina awoke to the shrill voice of an angry man, the piercing pain at her temples exacerbated by the noise.
"She is our best hope of closing the Breach and I am not about to deliver that to be used by the remaining clerics as some kind of scapegoat!" Cassandra's steely resolve rose over the rest of the voices.
"Cass - andra?" Reina murmured, latching onto the Seeker's solid familiarity.
"You're awake." A man with bright golden hair walked up to Reina's stretcher with a half smile. As he came closer, Reina made out the familiar design of templar armor and the lingering notes of lyrium and she cringed, refusing to meet his eyes. Cassandra stopped his approach.
"I think you're scaring her Cullen. It's that templar armor."
"Oh." The smile dissolved from the man's voice, melting into a feeling almost like disappointment and hurt. "I'm sorry, I should have known."
"Please, ser," Reina forced herself upright, "I - I didn't - it wasn't as bad as you're imagining it was." She raised her green eyes to meet his brown ones. "I was in the Ostwick Circle," she further volunteered as clarification.
"Ah," the vaguest hint of a smile returned, "My name is Cullen Rutherford, ex-Templar and Commander of the Inquisitions forces. Such as they are."
"A pleasure, ser."
Cassandra cleared her throat.
"This is Lady Josephine Montilyet, the Inquisition's Ambassador," she gestured at a dark-skinned woman with lovely Antivan features and thick, curling brown hair.
"A pleasure, Your Worship." Josephine dropped into a half-curtsy.
"And you have already met Leliana, our spymaster," Cassandra continued.
"To put it bluntly," Leliana laughed. Reina nodded, pulling her face into a tired smile.
"And you," for the first time, Reina saw Cassandra smile, all warmth and truth, "are the Herald of Andraste."
"Oh. I see. 'Your Worship.'" Reina sighed, staring down at the foreign mark the glowed in the palm of her right hand. "So the attempt was successful?"
"Yes. Though there is no time to celebrate. We must push on to the Breach."
"This is madness! On your head, Seeker, be the consequences!" The angry man stormed out of the building.
"And that," Cullen commented drily, "was Chancellor Roderick." A heated debate about the wisest path to take to the Breach ensued, with Cassandra and Cullen favoring pushing forward with the remaining soldiers and Leliana suggesting an alternate, more devious route - using the soldiers to draw away the demons while Reina, under the protection of Cassandra, Varric, and Solas, made her way through a mountain pass.
"It would be faster," Leliana said, "and you know we have no time to waste." Cullen's face darkened.
"The lives of our soldiers are not pawns to be discarded on a whim." There was a tense silence until Cassandra turned to Reina.
"You are our Herald. Which path do you favor?" Reina avoided Cullen's eyes, looking down at her lap as she responded.
"We don't have the luxury of time."
"Very well," his voice was clipped and professional, "I will gather our remaining forces."
The mountain path was cold and treacherous, but they were able to find the remaining scouts and help them fend off the demons spewing from yet another rift in the sky. As Reina sealed the rift, channeling her magic as she had felt Solas channeling it before, she tried not to wonder about the soldiers giving their lives to buy them swift passage. Despite the familiar exhaustion that began to creep over her after the ordeal of sealing the rift, Reina forced herself to press on faster, as if sealing the Breach could dry the blood that dripped from her fingers. The path ahead was thankfully clear of demons and it wasn't long before they reached the site of the Conclave, where a yawning breach in the sky marked what had once been a site of hope and faith. As they made their way through the ruins of the building, Reina's heart failed her as she looked at the cavernous tear that she was expected to seal.
"I don't think - How can I even reach that?" As she spoke, the permeating smell of charred flesh assailed her senses and she retched, stumbling to a side. The sight of the bodies, burned and twisted beyond recognition seared her mind with the nightmarish terror of it all. A gauntleted hand reached out to steady her, pushing her upright.
"The soldiers will clear a path. You can't let them see you like this - you are their Herald. They will live and die by you," Cullen stood beside her as the remaining soldiers filed into the ruins. Reina was relieved to see that their ranks were not as thinned as she had feared.
"Commander, I'm sorry. I - " she stammered.
"No need for apologies, Your Worship," he said, "You did what you thought best." Together, they made their way down through the crumbling stone and dessicated corpses to the Breach. It pulsed unnaturally, the foreign magic flowing in strange knots as if it had been closed but not sealed.
"You will have to reopen it in order to seal it properly. The process of doing so may attract the attention of demons on the other side." Solas appeared at Reina's other side, his grip on his apostate's staff tightening. "Let me know when you are ready." Cullen had already started arranging the soldiers into strategic formation.
"Soldiers of the Inquisition!" he roared, "Whatever comes through that Breach, whatever happens, we hold it off. For the Divine! For Andraste! For the Herald!"
"For the Herald!" The roar echoed through the ranks of the soldiers as Reina tersely nodded at Solas before channeling her mana, the mark's mana, towards the pulsating Breach. As she felt the knots slowly unraveling, a terrifying laughter reverberated through the ruins, gleeful, dangerous, and proud. Instead of unraveling, the last magical knots were shredded as an enormous horned beast stepped through the Breach followed by an array of smaller wraiths and demons, lightning crackling from its horns and across its skin.
"Maker what is that thing?" Cassandra gasped from behind Reina.
"A Pride demon," Solas answered. "Be on your guard." As if on cue, the gigantic beast began charging towards them, sending ripples of electricity ahead of it on the ground. Reina threw herself to one side, instinctively casting a barrier spell, as the Inquisition forces assaulted the demon from behind, Leliana's arrows relentless pincushioning its armored skin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Varric loading Bianca, his prized crossbow, and aiming it at the weaker armor surrounding the demon's neck. Sidestepping one of the demon's whips of electricity, she threw an ice spell at the beast, hoping to slow it down. Instead, the spell dissipated on the demon's skin, leaving only a faint layer of frost. Varric's shot flew wide and he cursed.
"Shit. Curly!" he yelled at Cullen across the fray, "Have your soldiers draw that thing away from the Breach so Kitten here can do her thing." Cullen nodded his comprehension and signalled the soldiers who began to slowly draw the demon towards one corner of the ruins. After what seemed like an eternity of dodging and ducking the attacks of the horde of lesser demons that had poured from the rift, Reina was finally able to connect her mark with the gigantic Breach, feeling it hungrily devour her mana before drawing all of the demons into its maw and closing with a resounding crack. Kitten? Was her last conscious thought before everything faded once more into blissful blackness.
--
Reina awoke feeling more warm and comfortable than she had in a long long time. The past year really had all been nothing more than a bad dream then and now she was back, awake, in her own bed, safe and secure within the walls of the Circle. As she sat up, a clatter shook her out of her reverie and into awareness of her surroundings. She was sitting in a warm bed, it was true, but this wasn't her bedchamber in the Circle. Instead, she was sitting in what appeared to be a small wooden hut complete with a roaring fireplace and a shivering elven serving girl kneeling before her, the remnants of a teatray scattered on the ground.
"Your Worship! I didn't mean to wake you. I really didn't!" the girl stammered, her eyes on the ground.
"It's alright. You don't need to be afraid. You didn't wake me." Reina reassured her. Even so, the girl still took on the aspect of a frightened nug as she got back on her feet.
"Lady Cassandra will want to know you're awake Your Worship. At once she said. At once!" So saying, the girl fled the room, shutting the door carefully behind her. After she left, Reina gingerly swung her feet over the side of the bed, testing her weight. Her legs shook, but they didn't give way, and after a few minutes of pacing around the room, they seemed to be back in working order. Cassandra would probably want to meet with her to inform her about what the Inquisition's next steps would be. Reina sighed as she slipped on her boots and walked outside, trying to avoid the curious eyes and whispers that seemed to follow her across the town. That's the Herald. She heard them whisper. I heard she was sent through the rift by Blessed Andraste herself. As she walked past the weaponsmith, she was accosted by Varric, who handed her a long object swathed in cloth.
"A gift from the Inquisition, Your Worship," he said, "We can't have the Herald walking around without even a decent means of defending herself now can we?" Reina unwrapped the staff and ran her hands along its smooth metallic surface, tracing the ridges of the sculpted dragon that served as a focus.
"It's lovely."
"Glad you like it. Heard Cassandra's been wanting to see you. You should hurry up to the Chantry and see what she wants." Reina nodded.
"By the way, Varric?"
"Your Worship?"
"What did you call me the other day at the Breach?" Varric chuckled, his blue eyes crinkling in amusement.
"Ah. I'm surprised you remembered. Not much. Just a nickname."
"Kitten?" Varric crossed his arms and laughed at her.
"Ah. Well. You're such a pretty little thing with those green eyes and that black hair. Cassandra and Cullen could probably break you in half with their bare hands. And you have that manner about you, you know. All sweet and polite and delicate, it's like you belong in some rag for young girls rather than a story about a hero slaying demons and all that."
"Are you saying I don't have a personality?" Reina laughed. It had been a long time since she had felt like laughing, but something about how Varric saw her, not as a dangerous mage, not as a criminal, and not as a hero, that felt humanizing and made Reina feel more alive.
"Well I'm hardly in a position to say anything seeing as we're only just getting to know each other but," Varric's face grew serious, "Take a word of advice from me, kid. I've written enough stories about heroes to know that this kind of thing? It doesn't end well. I've known men and women tougher than nails and even for them it ain't easy. And you're just a girl."
"So you're advice is that I should run and hide."
"Well - yes and no. It's hard to say what the right thing to do is with the sky spewing demons at us. You should go before the Seeker gets impatient. I'll catch you later kid."
She could run and hide, Reina thought, go someplace far away and wait until everything was over or until she met her end at the maws of some demon when the end of the world really came. But where would she go? Home was such a distant concept now, her true family long since lost to the struggles between the mages and templars. For better or worse, the people here, the Inquisition, had begun to take on a sense of familiarity that she had never found in the world outside of her Circle. Cullen, Cassandra, Leliana, and Josephine were all waiting for her when she entered the war room, a mahogany paneled space at the heart of the Chantry. Before them lay a dusty book with the symbol of an eye pierced by a sword on its leather cover.
"Ahem," Cassandra cleared her throat, "I am pleased to see that you are awake. As you are well aware, we have taken to calling ourselves -"
"The Inquisition," Leliana finished for her.
"Yes. But this, here," Cassandra laid a gloved hand on the book at the center of the table, "is the order from Divine Justinia to her Right and Left Hands," she glanced at Leliana, "to establish the Inquisition of old."
"Yes," Leliana said, "While we have already started using its name, it is not until now, this moment that the Inquisition is formally declared. Lay your hands upon the book." One by one, Reina, Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine lay their hands upon the covers of the book.
"Whatever we were before," Leliana told them, "we are now the Inquisition."