Work Text:
The sky flashed and Amarië stumbled. Sickly green light washed over her features, flashing and cracking like a whip as she lifted her hand in front if her, fixated on the mark in her palm. A particularly loud crack sounded through the cold air and she fell to her knees, grabbing her wrist, pain striking through her features.
It wasn’t pain in the traditional sense. This mark on her hand seemed connected, as if by threads, to her very core- each disturbance in the tear in the sky tugged through her arm and at her heart, her stomach, her throat. When the mark on her palm flashed, her chest constricted and it became difficult to breath. It made her very heart ache and her stomach feel empty. As the breach calmed, so did the mark along with the torrent inside her. She let her hands fall to her thighs, collecting herself with slow but deep breaths. Control the adrenalin, ease the panic.
She became aware of the others around her. The dwarf and the mage stood over her, concern marking their faces while the Seeker, Cassandra, stood back with her arms crossed tightly across her chestplate, hesitant distrust in her eyes. The mage- Solas, he had called himself- offered his hand. He had been speaking to her, it seemed, while all she could focus on was the mark. She took his hand and he helped her to her feet.
“I’m fine. The mark… It reacts to the breach,” she said, busying herself with brushing the snow from her leggings and boots while she willed her shaking limbs to still.
“May I?” Solas nodded toward her hand. She hesitated. The dwarf had mentioned that this mage had kept her alive after she, apparently, stumbled from the fade. He had acted kindly toward her thus far and did not seem to deserve her suspicion. She offered her marked hand and he took it gently.
He turned her hand over in his own, studying the light leaking through the crack in her palm, tracing his fingers across the breach. “Does it hurt?”
She took her hand back and bent to pick up the sword she had dropped, shaking her head. “Not exactly. It doesn’t burn or sting like a cut. It…” She paused, searching for an explanation as she sheathed her sword. “I can feel it in my chest, like a pulling. It still hurts, but it hurts in here.” She put her hand to her chestplate. “It feels like…” She stopped, suddenly laughing. “It feels a bit like a broken heart.”