Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  The blood trail led deeper into the abbey, the lights fading to shadows until all Lana could see were the bright red stains growing in size. Even the floor itself turned black as pitch, while that blood all but coalesced as if it burned with energy or anger. Each footstep became man sized, the owner stepping through a closed door without pausing. Sucking down a breath to steady herself, Lana gripped onto the handle of the door and turned it.

  This wasn't her abbey, but a room in a castle -- well furnished with fine trappings. A familiar room that...

  "You remember it, don't you?" a voice spoke from the shadows. As he lifted his head, the fireplace lit bright revealing what she remembered in her mind's eye. Lana had to blanket her eyes to keep them from searing, but as she pulled it down she nearly let loose a scream.

  A young man sat perched in the chair but he was coated in blood as if he drowned in it. Thick as ink, the viscera clung to his skin until he looked more like a walking blood clot than a man. His crimson lips parted to reveal blinding white teeth framed by a horrifying smile. "Right there," he tipped his head towards the bed, "that's where I was created. Conceived."

  This was Morrigan's room, the one they put her up in right before the march to Denerim. The one where she seduced Alistair to finish what she wanted, what she set out to do. Which meant this was... "Kieran?"

  The abomination before her bowed his head, "At your service. Though, dear Amell, you seem unsteady here. Rocking back and forth on your feet, nearly trembling. Whatever for? Was it not your decision to give me life?"

  "I think that was more your mother's department," Lana shuddered, but he was right. Even years after, even with a husband, Lana refused to look at this room again, knowing what Morrigan did in it. What she made Alistair do. What he agreed to do.

  "Jealousy?" Kieran twisted his head, blood whipping off his coated body to splatter against the wall. "Is that what rests in your heart when you think upon me, Amell?"

  "No," Lana said, "no it's not." She hated this room, and that bed, but she didn't hate the child created. "You saved my life."

  "Yes, I did, didn't I?" Kieran staggered up to his legs, fresh blood pooling against the chair where he sat. Stepping slowly towards her, he smiled, "Not even bigger than a pea and I saved the hero of Ferelden. But that's not really the story you want to tell, is it? To have that etched into all your monuments. The great savior of thedas was in fact protected by nothing more than a blip inside a witch's womb."

  Lana gulped as he reached his fingers towards her, the scent of iron and pain filling her nose. When he touched her cheek, she kept from yelping even as the warm blood suckered to her skin and began to drip down onto her shoulder. "Are you angry at me, Kieran? Is that what this is about?"

  "Me? Why would I be angry at you? I wouldn't exist if it weren't for you. If anything, I owe you." He leaned closer to her, his eyes swimming in blood all save the brown pupils that were strikingly similar to Alistair's. Lana felt a faint sliding up her legs, her vision turning white from being pounded by so much horror.

  Kieran chuckled, "Right, auntie?" and Lana's head snapped down to save her.

  When she glanced up, she found the gruesome nightmare was gone. She was perched, sitting upon the edge of a stair, her knees scabby, and naked, and tucked up tight to her chin. The staircase was tight, barely wide enough for a single person to slip through with low ceilings that'd bonk most heads. Not a castle and not familiar at all. Glancing around to find her bearings, she spotted Kieran -- no longer coated in blood -- sitting behind her.

  "Where are we?"

  "Shh," he placed a finger to his lips and smiled, "you'll ruin the surprise."

  Lana didn't like where this was going, but she may have to play along. She knew the boy's mind was fractured, but this... Shaking her hair, she realized it was braided tight. Not the way she did it in her older age, but how her mother insisted when she was...

  No. Oh, Maker no!

  "I don't like this," an achingly familiar voice whispered from below. They couldn't see her from here, but Lana could hear. She'd often crawl out of bed at night to listen to her parents. Sometimes they'd argue, sometimes they'd talk about their kids, and they'd always reveal secrets. She loved hearing all their secrets, then taunting her brother with them later.

  "We don't have a choice in the matter, Relka," her father spoke, followed by the sounds of his steps pacing against the floor below. "That ice was nearly an inch thick under her bed."

  Lana dug her grubby fingernails tighter to her knees. They were talking about her, about the bad thing she did. Her mother cried and cried when they found the ice, but she didn't remember making it. Didn't understand what was so bad about it. It melted same as any ice, Lana and her brother breaking it up and throwing it at each other outside. Her legs were still stained with the mud it created, both of them laughing and threatening to make the other eat a mudpie.

  "But she's just a child," her mother continued, sadness evident even to a six year old.

  "When has that ever mattered? They know us, know our family, we're marked already. If we try to hide her away, try to bury this..." Her father sighed, "Relka, they'll come for us all."

  "You're right," her mother tried to whisper, but a sob echoed through her words. "We don't have a choice. The templars will..."

  Her mother's voice died at the sound of someone knocking on their front door, hard. Instinctively, Lana glanced back up the stairs to her room wondering if she could run quick enough to hide under her bed. But she was frozen in fear, knowing something was wrong but no idea what it was or what to do.

  Below her, the front door opened and a voice echoed funny, almost as if the man put his head into a bucket and shouted, "We've come for Solona Amell."

  "I...give me a moment," her father said. "Please, sit down."

  "Thank you," the men both spoke, their armored feet clattering across the ground floor. She should run. She was smart; she could climb out the window onto the tree and then run away. Once Lana managed to get all the way to the end of the road on her own. That had to be far enough to escape the bad men her mother was afraid of.

  Creaking on the stairs drew her eyes up from her knees and she stared stricken into her father's face. He tried to smile wide; she remembered him always having an easy smile. But it wasn't taking this time. The words were light but the voice was one that told her she'd better obey.

  "I should have known you'd be here," he sighed. "Come with me, Lamby. There's...something you have to do." Plucking her tiny body up off the stairs, he began to carry her away from everything she ever knew. Her father was willing to turn her over to the templars without a fight. Without even trying. He messaged them, turned his own daughter in.

  "You didn't fight them off?" Kieran asked, his head twisted to the side in confusion.

  Lana stared at the intruder from over her father's shoulder, the man freezing mid-stride to do what he did. There was no rescue, no one had a change of heart and let her stay with her family. He dropped her into the templar's arms with a bit of food, a single toy, a few bundled up dresses, and nothing more. No, there was one thing. He kissed her on the forehead, the last one she'd feel until...until Alistair.

  "I couldn't," she cried, feeling as helpless as the six year old.

  "But you're the great Hero of Ferelden. Warden Amell who's fought scores of darkspawn, and stopped a blight while living to tell about it. How could you give in to this pathetic ploy?"

  Her father resumed carrying her towards them, the stairs creaking for the last time at her. When he dropped her to the ground, Lana gazed skyward in awe. She'd never seen armor before, and to her child brain the templars glittered like rain against a cloudy sky. Two giant rain clouds come to cart her away from her family and all she knew. Kieran leaned down from the staircase to peer at the scene, his floppy brown hair dangling freely. "Go ahead. Stop them. You know you can. You're stronger than the both of them."

  Lana stared upward at these giant faces what felt miles away. She closed
her tiny fist and felt the magic swirling through her. Not the piddly ice spells she'd accidentally unleash as a child, this was decades of training and honing. Her entire life. With the power cultivated inside of her she could freeze these men solid and shatter them.

  The thought seemed to energize Kieran and he giggled, "You could stop your parents too. Kill them."

  "What?" Lana threw off the spell immediately, glaring at the boy.

  He shrugged, "They turned you in. Turned on you. They're traitors. You should give back to them what they did to you."

  "No," Lana shook her head, laying her hands flat to her sides. Both gauntleted hands landed upon her thin shoulders, pinning her in place. She could fight, but she wouldn't. There had to be a better way.

  "For what purpose do you show loyalty to your parents? They abandoned you to men you'd never met, an institution that cares nothing for you or your kind. Would you do the same?"

  Lana turned from the dark slit in the templar's helms, her fears becoming manifested within the abyss. Swallowing it down, she whipped back at Kieran. "What are you talking about?"

  "You have a son. He could be touched with magic. Would you be so callow, so cold, to let him be locked away in a circle tower never to see the light of day?"

  "I..." A tightness gripped around her neck that had nothing to do with the memories at play. In truth, these weren't bad templars. One showed her a deep kindness that was rare even among the best of them. She didn't hate the circle, and they weren't chained up in a dungeon their whole lives. There were friends, games, fun, learning.

  But there was also fear. So much fear stalking their every move that if they fell out of line for even a moment, they couldn't walk back from it. Death, or worse. To do that to her own baby was unconscionable. No, she wouldn't let anyone take Gavin, not over her dead body.

  Lana turned towards Kieran, about to tell him off, when the world shifted below her. It wasn't anything as poetic as a flash of light, she simply glanced over not into her old family home but the cold, imposing stone of a tower. Taking in a breath, the burning scent of fresh magics and dozens of teenagers packed together in a room overwhelmed her. It smelled of a thunderstorm, anxiety, and lust. She knew these bricks, that window where someone's errant ice ball once shattered the glass, the fresh tapestries of the chantry hanging off the walls.

  "So," Kieran spoke. He looked younger, perhaps 8 or 9, the age when Lana first saw him from across the garden in Skyhold. "This is where I would have been taken."

  "There were hardly any templars left when you came of age," Lana said, clinging to a staff. She started upon finding the familiar piece of wood in her hands. Where did it come from?

  Kieran stopped staring at the imposing ceiling shadowed high above their heads. A cold wind wafted through them and he smiled, "My mother protected me from them. From anyone who would try to hurt me. Would you do the same for your son, Hero of Ferelden? Would you kill for him?"

  "What do you want from me?" she snarled, wishing to make sense of this stroll through her life. Yes, templars stole away children. Yes, she was one of those. There was no point in dwelling upon facts that didn't even matter anymore. The only templars remaining were all laid up in her abby, the rest having quietly slipped away from what they once were.

  The boy's soft, brown eyes narrowed and a yellow flame danced through the pupils. "I wish to know, Solona Amell, when you came to power. Was it here? Surrounded by your fellow mages, learning and studying, with your head shoved in every book you could find. Jowan grew jealous of your prowess, you knew that even before he turned to blood magic. Knew how he envied and hated that it came easy to you. And you reveled in it."

  "What?" she staggered back as if the child struck her. "No, I..."

  "You're right," Kieran smiled. "It wasn't here where you grew to become what you are."

  Like the snapping of his fingers, every sound ceased. She hadn't seen anyone around but could feel their presence, the tower was always bustling and full of life. Even in the middle of the night, when the apprentices would sneak out of bed for a bit of a laugh, the bricks themselves seemed to sing. But something strangled the breath away, every voice falling dead.

  The stench of death wafted across her nose, charred flesh and burnt fat left to drip onto the cold stone until it coagulated into a forgotten goo. No, no, not this... Lana shut her eyes tight so she wouldn't have to see the demon marks clawed into old blackboards. The fire from desperate mages that ripped apart bookcases and tables where she learned her spells. Or the bodies, so many bodies, scattered like firewood across the floors. How long were they left there to rot? Weeks judging by the smell, bones prodding up through the flesh that was already receding from death's grasp.

  "This was it, wasn't it?" Kieran crowed as if the multitude of death was something to be excited about. "This was where you changed. Before it you were uncertain, cautious, every day regretting your decision to leave the tower and join with the Wardens."

  Deep in her heart she felt the stab of betrayal, not from Loghain but Jowan. He was her friend, she trusted him, and then he... He lied, he used her to get away, to save his own hide. And she let him die. She cleaned up his mess and then watched him dangle from the rope.

  "Yes," the man clapped, Kieran growing quickly in age as he smiled cruelly, "you feel it. That strength within, that assuredness that you, and only you, can dole out justice."

  "What is the point of all this?" Lana screamed, the staff clattering from her fingers. "I'm trying to save you, not have you lecture me on my own past."

  "Solona Amell, tut tut tut," the boy tapped a finger against his lips, "Proud, so proud she wouldn't even use the name her parents gave her. The one the templars came for. Did you think you were too good for that pedestrian name? Too good for the rules of the tower? You walked into the repository, you broke a phylactery. That's not allowed."

  He drifted around her, Lana doing her best to keep her emotions in check. That was what it wanted. What it always wanted.

  Kieran paused and looked up, "No, perhaps I am wrong. This isn't the place." He spun up to glare at the ceiling and the tower faded brick by brick to be replaced by turbulent skies. Purple lightning stung the air, blood and darkspawn ichor splattered against the ground while metal beat against metal. Lana gripped tight to the staff in her hands and turned. Stretched across the ground, bloody and beaten but not yet dead, was the archdemon. Its boney hide was festooned with arrows, blood seeped from every wound as the creature flopped across the ground, ready for the final blow.

  "This is," Kieran declared.

  The battle was frozen, swords held in place against shields, Morrigan in the middle of casting a spell, Leliana yanking an arm back to notch an arrow, and Alistair...

  "You're remembering," it chuckled, circling closer until the putrid breath washed across her cheek.

  It wasn't the staff in her hands but a sword, a giant one she yanked up off the ground. Lana spotted the great dragon fall, ready for someone to slice off the head, which was also when she caught Alistair running for it. The battle dashed forward as time resumed. The man who was to be King, who broke her heart for the crown, who she'd always love, glanced over and for a brief second their eyes met.

  He was going to do it. Risk himself, risk the future of Ferelden, just to be the one. She couldn't let him. Waving her hand, magic tossed Alistair backwards. Not hard enough to hurt, but it pushed him far enough away he couldn't make it. Not before Lana did. Twisting in place, she ran full bore at the archdemon, its head raising off the ground to try and stop its demise. But it was too late, anger and determination driving the untrained mage forward. She struck against its head and then drove the blade deep into the serpentine neck.

  Lana braced herself for the explosion but nothing came. The sword was jammed right through the archdemon, all but scissoring the head clean off, and yet... "In this moment," the creature returned, claws clinging to her shoulders as it peered over her shoulder down at the archdemon mere seconds away from
death. "You became the one. It didn't have to be you. There was Alistair, my father, he could have taken the blow, but you wouldn't let him."

  "He could have died," Lana gasped, sweat and blood dribbling off her forehead. A single crimson drop landed upon the archdemon's eye. Its pupil didn't constrict the way she expected, the dragon as glassy and frozen as everything else.

  "So you took the hit? How brave you are. How noble. But what about my mother? What about me?" It turned to point at Morrigan, "Why make a deal with a witch you can't trust, why convince your lover to impregnate her if you were going to be the martyr the whole time?"

  "I didn't know if I'd survive, if Alistair would. There were too many variables, I..."

  "Or, perhaps you, Lady Amell, couldn't imagine a world without you? Perhaps you thought you would have to do anything you could, make a deal, create a child just so you could live because thedas could not, would not continue without you?"

  She flexed her arms, twisting the blade back and forth as if trying to saw off the archdemon's head. Kieran tipped its head in curiosity, but she paid it no heed. Fighting against whatever spell of the fade or her own mind froze the battle, Lana yanked the sword free and turned to face Kieran.

  "Is that what you want from me, demon? To admit my sins? To confess on bended knees that I am weak but deserve to be greater?"

  The face shuddered, the demon trying to maintain Kieran's facade, but as she stepped closer the smiling boy melted away to reveal dozens of purple spikes. "You're so clever, little mage," the pride demon crowed. "So astute to suss me out, and yet, clever mage, do you not wonder what I am doing here?"

  Lana raised the sword, the power of the fade growing through her. She used to fight it, to fear what she could do, but after so much time trapped here, she learned how to redirect it. To use it. "Where is Kieran?"

  "He is...around."

  "Have you possessed him? Hurt him?"

  The pride demon laughed, revealing a horrifying view of a forked tongue and razor sharp teeth. "I am not here for the boy. He is of little interest to me beyond what tasty fish he can help me catch."