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The Mage and the Templars	By : Nyghtlei17 Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 8536 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age or any of its characters. I do not make any money off of this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 14
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- 16
Kitsune nearly jumped out of her skin when Leliana squealed, “Ew! Something ran over my foot!”
Alistair sighed, “It was probably just a sewer rat.”
Leliana groaned.
“Or t’was a snake”, Morrigan added.
“Gross”, the bard squeaked.
Kitsune laughed quietly to herself.
When they came to a barred door Kitsune froze the rusted bars and Alistair bashed them down with his shield. They clattered loudly to the stone floor, she cringed as the sound rang through the dungeon. “Blast it”, Alistair hissed under his breath as the corpses at the end of the hall directed their attention to them. They were disposed of easily with a few spells, a few swings of a sword and a handful of arrows. As the last one fell, a distant voice called to them.
“Are-are they gone?”, she knew that voice. She’d heard it many times before. “Hello? Someone?”
She pushed passed Alistair who had been holding an arm in front of her. She ran to the cell the voice had come from and with no surprise she found the source of the familiar voice. “Jowan? What are you doing here?”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Kitsune? What are you doing here? What happened to your eye? Did you really leave to become a Grey Warden like Irving said?”
She waved her hand to excuse all of his questions. “Why are you in the dungeons, Jowan?” She had a horrible feeling he was somehow responsible for all of this.
“I... uh…”, he hesitated.
“Out with it”, Alistair said impatiently.
“I was hired by the Arlessa.”
Kitsune’s brows knit together, “What would she need a mage for?”
“Her son, Connor started showing signs of being a mage”, Jowan said slowly.
“Connor? A mage?”, Alistair was surprised.
“She didn’t want him to be sent to the Tower, so she asked me to train him in secret, just until he got control of his powers. I didn’t mean for this to happen”, he seemed genuinely upset.
“You didn’t mean for what to happen?”, Leliana pressed.
“I’m the reason the Arl is ill. I might’ve also been hired by Teryn Loghain to poison him”, Jowan looked at his feet as he spoke.
Alistair roared in frustration and tried to grab the apostate behind the bars, “You sodding, piece of-”
“Alistair! Enough!”, Kitsune pulled him back by his shoulders. “Let us at least hear what he has to say.” Alistair huffed and stepped back from the cell. "Why did you leave the tower?"
Jowan shifted his weight nervously. He looked to Alistair who was still standing close to the bars. "My Harrowing never came. I heard rumors they were going to make me Tranquil. I was scared, Kitsune. You were always there and when you left I was so lonely."
She scoffed, "You stopped talking to me. I know I was being unreasonable at the time but I was hurting and you just stopped." All of her feelings from the Tower were building up in the knot in her throat. Jowan had been her best friend, the only one that cared about her. They had grown up together, they knew everything about each other. She never would have thought things would end up this way. Her best friend was on the other side of a cell and she was a Grey Warden with an eye patch. She sighed internally, how far they had strayed from that now.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't bare to see you like that with the Templar and then what Greagoir did to you. You left so fast after that I hadn't a chance to say goodbye." Jowan spoke as though he actually regretted not speaking to her.
She looked away from him and to the scars on her hands. She figured rumors would have gotten around the Tower at some point. She was well aware she and Cullen weren’t the only two that had a relationship in that place. Kitsune recalled when Jowan had told her about a Chantry girl named Lily. That was during her time with Cullen so she remembered very little. Alistair’s hand on the small of her back brought her back to the matter at hand. Jowan had poisoned the Arl but that didn’t explain where all of these reanimated corpses were coming from.
“What about the corpses?”, Leliana asked.
Again Jowan seemed reluctant to say, “Connor… he’s been possessed by a demon.”
Alistair lunged for the cell again. This time he grabbed Jowan by the robes and pulled him hard against the bars. “He’s just a boy, you monster!”
“Alistair, let him go”, she tried to pull him away, it took both her and Leliana to remove him.
“This is your fault!”, he pointed a gloved finger at Jowan. “He’s an Abomination roaming free through the castle.”
“He’s not an Abomination”, Jowan defended himself.
“Yet”, Morrigan added with her arms folded across her chest.
Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose, “We need to go.”
“You can’t go! There are corpses everywhere!”, Jowan looked wide eyed at Kitsune.
“You know we have to do something to clean up your mess”, she responded. “I will come back for you when this is over.” Without anymore words, they left Jowan.
She still didn’t know how he escaped the Tower. She feared the worst. They escaped the dungeon with only a few corpses attacking them. Quietly, they made their way towards the sound of voices and crude laughter.
“It’s coming from the throne room”, Alistair whispered.
She’d had enough sneaking about the place. She held her staff in her left hand and walked right into the throne room, the others followed suit. The scene that greeted them was a disturbing one. Bann Teagan was dancing around and humming an overly happy tune. The Arlessa stood in horror as a little boy (whom she assumed to be Connor) was clapping along with Teagan’s song. “Haha! Amazing, Uncle! You are the best court jester! Don’t you think, Mother?” The boy’s voice was distorted and nasty. It sent chills up her spine. It sounded just like the Abomination in the Tower. The one that told her she was weak. Connor noticed them then. “Who are these people, Mother? Have they come to put an end to our fun?”
Alistair extended his hand to the boy, “It’s okay Connor we’re here to help you.”
“No!”, he shouted. “You want to take Father away from us!”
Alistair looked shaken. Seeing the Arl’s home, his home, like this must have been difficult for him. “Connor?”, Kitsune tried to speak to him. “It is alright now, child. We want to help your father.”
“Mother, look it’s an elf!”, he exclaimed excitedly. “Mother do you remember what I did to our elven servants?” The Arlessa chewed her bottom lip and looked away from Kitsune. He looked directly in her eye when he spoke. “I cut off their pointy little ears and fed them to the hounds.”
Her stomach dropped. Every part of her being told her to kill the little brat but she knew it was not his fault. Her upper lip twitched as she stared back at the possessed boy.
“Kitsune”, Leliana was trying to offer her some comfort.
An odd feeling washed over her then. Her entire body felt stiff and her breathing shallow. She tried to speak but failed to open her mouth. She could only move her eye. In her peripheral she saw Alistair was unusually stiff. “Let’s play a game”, Connor said in his demonic voice. Involuntarily she and Alistair faced each other. She could see the muscles in his face twitching in an attempt to move. His hand was trembling slightly, fingers trying to stretch towards his sword.
“Release them!”, Leliana shouted. She stepped in front of them, brandishing her long bow. “Stop this, or I will end you.”
“You mustn’t do that”, Morrigan put her hand on the bard’s bow. “He could make them do anything.”
“Anything indeed”, Connor growled and with a wave of his small hand Alistair removed his sword from it’s hilt. “Cut off her ear”, he demanded.
Alistair’s eyes darted between Connor and Kitsune as his blade moved unsteadily towards her ear. “Stop! Please!”, Leliana screamed. “Do not do this!” She drew her bow, the arrow aimed for Connor’s eye. Before she could relax her fingers the Arlessa stepped in front of her son. “Get out of the way!”, she said through gritted teeth.
But it was too late. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream. A tear rolled down her cheek as she heard the blood drip onto the stone floor. Amber eyes stared into her’s, all she found in them was guilt and fear. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. She wanted to reassure him everything was going to be okay. Even if her mouth could open she would just be lying. The scent of blood filled her nose. The urge for power was building in her, stronger than the painful throbbing at the tip of her ear, at least he hadn’t cut the whole thing off.
Connor’s maniacal laughter echoed in the throne room, the Arlessa stifled her cries. “I can feel how much you want each other”, the boy’s voice was completely gone, it was just the demon speaking now. “How beautiful, an elf and a human”, he paused for a moment.
Kitsune’s body moved towards Alistair’s blade, which was still pointed at her. She stopped when its bloody tip dug into her chest. She had to break free of the hold he had on them, he was going to kill them. I am so sorry, Alistair, she tried to say, hopefully her eye conveyed that to him. The blood from her wound held so much power. She knew there were risks but she had no choice. As if sensing the blood magic Morrigan stared at Kitsune with a look of disapproval. She knew she was still weak from the last time, they both knew.
Much like she had when she healed Alistair, she absorbed the raw energy from her blood. She focused on the force that lied in the red liquid. Her body was loosening, the hold was beginning to release. The shift in power drew Connor’s attention.
“The elf knows Blood Magic”, it was more of a statement than a question. The demon sounded impressed. Like pushing against a stone wall, Kitsune forced her power into the young mage. She knew it was working when he started shaking his head as if he was fighting off the lure of sleep. “M-mother?”, the only voice was Connor’s.
“Connor?! My baby! It’s okay darling”, Isolde dropped to her knees and embraced her son.
“Get away from him”, Morrigan warned.
“Mother?!”, the demon was overpowering him again. “What’s happening to me? Make her stop Mother!”
Kitsune continued to push his power away. She could move her hands now, Alistair dropped his blade.
“Mother! Please make her stop!”, the demon’s screams visibly shook the Arlessa as she backed away from the child. Tears stained her face.
Blood started swirling around her, individual drops orbiting her hand. She growled like she had dug herself out of a grave as she broke both Alistair and herself free from the demon. The growl turned into a scream as she released an immensely charged bolt of lightning from her hands. When the bolt hit Connor, he dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.
“What have you done to my baby? He’s just a boy!”, Isolde was on the floor cradling her son in her lap.
Kitsune couldn’t answer. Her knees buckled and she collapsed onto the floor. Her body was seizing, convulsing uncontrollably. She was conscience and she felt every moment of the seizure. Her eye was open, she saw a blur that resembled Morrigan, she was kneeling by her side, jamming herbs in Kitsune’s clenched mouth. “When will you listen to me?”, she heard the apostate say.
The herbs slid down her throat and in a moment she stopped shaking. Her breathing shallow and her brow sweating. Morrigan sat her up, Leliana rubbed the back of the elf’s head. Alistair was trying to console Lady Isolde.
She got up slowly, her legs were weak and her head was pounding. She stumbled over the Connor and his mother. “Arlessa”, she said as she collapsed on the floor in front of her. “I-I am sorry. I had no choice.”
Isolde looked at her with hate thick in her brown eyes. “He is just a boy!”, she said through gritted teeth.
Kitsune opened her mouth to apologize but the Arlessa’s hand across her cheek quieted her. “Lady Isolde!”, Teagan exclaimed. With Connor knocked out, the hold he had on him was gone as well.
“How dare you! How dare you claim to save my son when all you’ve done is make things worse!”
“Isolde”, Teagan said sternly. “Take Connor to his chambers. Watch over him, if he awakes, send for me.”
The Orlesian woman did as she was told and carried her son out of the throne room. Alistair helped Kitsune up, she wrapped her arm around his shoulder for support.   He held her waist when she started to slip from his shoulder.
“Take her to my brother’s study”, Teagan told Alistair. “Let her collect herself.”
Kitsune looked to Leliana, “I will tell him everything we know”, Leliana said. Kitsune was pretty sure Teagan had no clue about Jowan and he deserved to know who was responsible for this mess. She let Alistair half carry her to the Arl’s study. She was afraid to speak, afraid of what he was going to say.
Her head was still pounding, the room was spinning. She didn’t know if it was a side effect of the herbs or the aftermath of using Blood Magic again. He set her on the desk, her legs dangling and palms digging into the edge. She could feel fresh blood dripping on the back of her hand.
Gently Alistair took her chin and inspected her ear, he mumbled a curse and touched her forehead with his. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She didn’t speak, afraid vomit would come spewing out if she opened her mouth. “Can you heal it?” She shook her head, she was much too weak for healing spells. “We should cauterize it to prevent infection.” He unsheathed his sword and held it out to her. Unsteady hands held a small flame under the blade until the tip glowed red.
He took his glove off and put it to her mouth until she took it, burying her teeth in it’s leather. He brushed her hair back, she could feel the heat close to her skin. She screamed into the glove, her nails dug into the wood of the desk when he pressed the blade to her ear. The smell of burning flesh made her stomach lurch. She felt the bile creeping up her throat. She spit out the glove and swallowed hard.
He pressed her face into his chest as she waited out the worst of the pain. He wrapped her in an apologetic embrace. If she was going to continue to use Blood Magic, she’s have to learn so properly, this toll was too much. When the tremors subsided she pushed Alistair away. “Go on”, she said.
“What?”
“Go on”, she said with callous in her voice. “Yell at me about using Blood Magic.”
He sighed, “You’re not going to listen to me. Why bother?”
She stared down at her dangling feet. “I did not have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Kitsune”, he lifted her chin and gently pecked her lips. “It seems maybe this time you made the right one.”
“Are you saying you are okay with me using Blood Magic?”
“Maker! No”, he exclaimed. “It’s killing you.”
She shrugged, “I am not afraid to die.” She didn’t know how sure of that she was.
“You say that but…”, he turned his back to her.
“‘But’ what? If I learn how to cast it properly-”
“It’s not about that”, he said quietly. “We don’t tell the recruits this. If they knew they would never agree to the Joining.” His tone was scaring her.
“What are you talking about?”, she turned him around by his shoulder.
“The Calling”, he whispered. “It’s how we die. The nightmares start returning. You hear the calling to go to the Deep Roads. You fight the hordes until you’re overwhelmed. If you make it that long, that is.”
She studied his emotionless face. There was no hope, no fear. “When?”
“Duncan said he was starting to have the dreams again. They were getting worse each day.”
“Why did you want until now to tell me?”
“I wanted to end the blight with you thinking there was a reason to fight.”
She drew in a breath slowly, “Were you ever going to tell me?”
He shrugged, “If we both lived through the Archdemon.”
She slapped him. Hard. Across the face. “Ow!”, he rubbed his cheek. “What was that for?”
“For thinking we might not defeat the Archdemon.”
He smiled that smile that made everything okay.
She raised her hand to smack him again but he caught it. “Stop it”, he said forcefully, lacking the anger. “What was that one for?”
“For not telling me sooner. I deserved to know.” She wiggled her hand free.
“What if I told you I only kept it from you because I didn’t want you to be scared?”
She raised a doubtful eyebrow.
“You were already fragile”, he covered the burnt part of her ear with her hair. “I didn’t want to be the one who broke you.” He rubbed his thumb across her lips, his eyes focusing on them.
She stopped his hand with hers, their eyes met. “You are the one who has been holding me together.”
He kissed her, long and hard, until his tongue swept across hers. She moaned as he leaned her back on the desk, climbing on top of her until chainmail pressed tight against her skin. He tasted sweet, like something she couldn’t remember at the moment.
Her hands worked feverishly to remove his armour. When all of it was scattered on the floor around the desk he trailed kisses down her neck, between her breasts, stopping at her exposed navel. He looked up at her, the muscles in his shoulders were tight against his skin as he held himself up. She brushed the back of her fingers against his beard, it had been awhile since he last shaved.
“I wanted this to be right”, his breath was warm on her face.
“Right?”
“You know, in a tent. Not on the Arl’s desk, with a little demon boy upstairs.”
“It is probably never going to be right, Alistair.”.
He smiled, “Well, I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”
She snorted when she laughed, “As if I am just a cheese you can sample and toss aside if you do not like the taste.”
He blushed, his head dipping down to the laces on her pants. He untied them with his teeth. “If you were a cheese you’d be my favorite.”
She smiled a lazy half smile, “You do not know what I taste like.”
- 14
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- 16
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The Mage and the Templars