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The vile disturbance in the air ahead of Amarië cracked and sputtered, and the mark in her palm came to life once more. It was worse here than it had been at the other rifts. This rift seemed to tug at her very soul, crushing her heart and leeching her stamina. The ground was clear of the tortured dead that littered the temple approach but their animal screams still sounded in her mind, echoing alongside the deep, disembodied voice that had sounded throughout the valley as she drew near the rift.
A new voice sounded from the rift, cutting through the screams in Amarië’s head. “Someone, help me!”
Next to her Cassandra gasped and started forward, gripping the hilt of her sword. “That is Divine Justinia’s voice!”
The next voice that drifted through shook Amarië right back to the present, banishing the screams and the ache in her heart. “What’s going on here?” Challenging and intimate, the automatic response she knew she took when facing large, armored shems as they hurt those smaller and less powerful for sport. It was her own fierce words that echoed throughout the valley.
“That was your voice,” Cassandra said in awe, coming up behind her. “Most Holy called out to you but-“
“Run while you can, warn them!” The Divine’s ghost cried. The palest of memories, figures that were no more than wisps shimmered in the air before them. The first menacing voice spoke again and the scene erupted in an explosion that passed through them without effort.
Cassandra rounded on Amarië. “Was this vision true? What are we seeing?” The woman had her by the arm, spitting the words in her face.
Amarië yanked from her grasp. “I don’t know. I don’t remember,” she snapped. This dark, unnatural crater unnerved her. Run, her senses screamed. Get away. This is wrong. This is dangerous. This darkness was not a threat she knew how to fight.
Solas turned from the rift to face them, his features grim. “Echoes of what happened here,” he explained. “The fade bleeds into this place.”
The fade. Amarië was no mage. What control could she possibly have here? “Is there anything we can do about it?” She asked him. “Can it be closed?”
The look he gave her was an appraising one. He gave a curt nod. “It is closed but not sealed. I believe that with the mark the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely. However,” he warned as Amarië lifted the hand that bore the mark, “opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”
“That means demons,” Cassandra said, her expression grim. She turned, calling to the troops that surrounded them. “Stand ready!” She pulled her sword from its sheath, hoisting her shield further up her arm and looking at Amarië. “Are you ready?”
Amarië gripped her own sword tighter. Demons she could handle. She glanced at Solas. He met her with a steady gaze, his slight nod this time not curt but reassuring. Varric was on her other side, grumbling but crossbow at the ready. The soldiers lining the walls were also ready. She breathed in. Out. “Ready.” She lifted her shield arm. The connection between the mark and the rift was instantaneous and violent. She tugged at the connection with body and soul, wrenching it apart and the rift opened.
She expected demons.
She did not expect this demon.
The enormous demon of Pride erupted from the rift, rearing on two massive legs and shaking the very earth with its roars. Her own battlecry tore through her lungs and mixed with the cries of the others. As arrows whistled overhead and the familiar tingle of a magical barrier snapped around her she charged, closing the distance and sinking her blade into demonflesh. The demon was powerful but she was fast, dodging the mighty claws as they raked the air where she stood only moments before. Even better, it was only one while they were many. Cassandra’s own blade slashed at limbs on the other side, the demons face exploded with shards of ice cast from Solas’ staff, and all the while came the thunk of crossbow bolts and fshhh of arrows. Pride cast wildly about, unable to focus on a single attacker, its blows growing more aggressive in its rage. Amarië had only one prior experience with such a demon but she knew what would come next.
The demon curled in on itself, shaking with raw energy as it pulled strength from the fade. It roared, the force of it bringing Amarië and Cassandra both to their knees. The next arrows to make contact did nothing to the demon now with its sudden surge of power. Amarië scrambled to her feet, a roar of her own ripping through the air as she slammed her shield into the demon’s hide with a force that could crush bones and organs and send a human man flying.
Something was wrong.
The demon simply rounded on her, brandishing a whip that screamed with electricity. She leapt to the side, falling hard on her shield and rolling out of reach. The rift, she realized. The demon had an active connection to the fade, unlike the few demons she had faced before this madness. Unless she disrupted that connection the demon was nigh untouchable. The demon had turned its focus, bearing down on Varric now as Cassandra hacked away with little effect. Amarië pushed herself to her feet again, catching sight of Solas nearby, a sheen of sweat making his face shine in the glow from the rift. The sudden flash that bounced off his features in the second her eyes were on him brought a new horror- she looked up and with a crack shades began to pour from the rift, drawing the attention of the archers on the walls and the soldiers on the field.
The appearance of the shades brought with them a wave of panic that shuddered through the fighters. The attacks on the demons were disjointed and less effective, as each soldier battled a separate target. Shades were not much of a threat on their own but the sheer number of them would keep the soldiers busy and unable to focus on the larger threat of the Pride demon. The shade that rushed her dissolved as her blade broke through its form with little resistance. Her strength had returned to her with the rush of adrenalin as the Pride demon appeared, but the soldiers around them were inexperienced and breaking. They had to regroup, and quickly.
She only had a moment. “Solas!” She cried, dispersing the shades between herself and the mage as she rushed to his side.
“The rift!” He yelled, casting electricity through the two shades that had not died. “You must weaken them!”
“I know! Listen, we need to focus our attacks. I’m going to use the mark on the rift. The pride demon will be vulnerable for Cassandra and I to focus on, but I need you to keep a barrier on us! We’ll have no time to defend ourselves. Defend yourself when you need to but we need that barrier!”
Solas’ concentration never left his marks. “Yes,” he snapped. “Go! Now!”
She ran toward the rift, raising her shield arm and grabbing hold of the connection that was becoming more and more familiar. It strained against her will, taking all of her concentration to tear the forces within the rift apart. She yelled as she pulled, the resulting shockwave of energy blowing through mortal and demon alike. The weaker shades dissolved and were drawn back to the rift while, to her relief, Pride fell to one knee.
“Cassandra!” She called as she rushed forward, “The demon!”
Despite the blood that ran freely down Cassandra’s pale face she understood the moment the barrier snapped into place around the pair of them. “Kill the shades!” The woman yelled at Varric. Cassandra was a seasoned warrior and knew the others would follow their example. Before the Pride demon could rise to its feet Amarië and Cassandra were on it, their blades biting easily into its face, arms, legs. Its defenses had shattered with the weakening of the veil and the combined attacks left it little energy to bring that protection back. The remaining shades bore down on them but were kept at bay by the combination of Solas’ barrier and the bolts and arrows of the archers.
Beneath the repeated blows and with great effort the Pride demon climbed to its feet. Again raising the electric whip over its head, it brought it down between Cassandra and Amarië, knocking both warriors back with the force. They both recovered quickly, Cassandra smashing her shield into the back of its legs. The demon fell to its knees again and, seeing her opportunity, Amarië whipped around, taking advantage of the momentum to drive her blade deep into Pride’s skull.
“Now!” Bellowed Cassandra. “Seal the rift! Do it!”
Before Pride even faded away Amarië raised her arm yet again, the connection to the rift snapping into place. This rift, the first if Solas was to be believed, would not close as easily as the others had. Amarië strained against the connection, gritting her teeth and shaking with the effort. The mark, at once one with the rift and antithesis of it, consumed her. The connection wrapped tightly around her soul seemed to squeeze the breath from her lungs and tore great pain through her heart. She cried out, pulling with her whole body and mind, and the rift snapped shut with a great CRACK, sending waves of energy upward into the breach itself.
The very air around them seemed to pull upward with that wave of energy and Amarië had only time to think it’s done before the breach itself exploded and Amarië thought and saw no more.