Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Disgusted, Elissa looked down at the corpse of the templar at her feet. Another person dead. Dead through no fault of his own. Dead because he'd simply had the mischance to be enslaved by a demon.

"Such a bloody waste!" she cursed, throwing her bow down with a clatter. Her companions looked at her in consternation as she stalked about the chamber looking for something she could hit without breaking her hand.

"We're going about this all wrong," she muttered, looking at them with wild, haunted eyes. "Too many people are dying. This is no way to build an army. We're murdering the very people we need to be saving! Each abomination we kill used to be a mage who might have been able to help us defeat the Blight, just like these enslaved templars might also aid us."

"Might I point out that we don't have a great deal of choice?" Alistair ventured, and she turned to glare at him. "They were trying to kill us. We're not going to get very far in defeating the Blight if we're dead."

"No, you're right. That's a very valid point." She covered her face with her hands for a moment, sighing. And then she looked up. "But what if we could release them instead? Like we did with Connor."

Her eyes sought Morrigan, and the witch looked thoughtful. "It would be a simple matter to go back into the Fade, especially here where the Veil is so thin. We wouldn't even need lyrium or blood to supplement the amount of magical energy the ritual would generate. But finding the specific demons inhabiting these abominations and slaying them would be impossible for only a single mage in the Fade. Also, these abominations are different than Connor was. Connor seemed to retain at least some of his humanity; these abominations are nothing but mindless destruction."

"But would they be if they were exorcised of the demons?"

"I...don't know," Morrigan answered honestly. "It could be that the mage they inhabit has been forever warped by the demonic possession, but the fact that Connor wasn't seems to indicate at least some ability to recover one's humanity once the demon is gone."

"All right. That's a start. Until we prove otherwise, let's proceed on the assumption that at least some of the mages can be saved if we can destroy the demon inhabiting them."

"These abominations were blood mages," Wynne interjected. "Even were they still fully human, they would not have been your allies."

"That is not necessarily true. Jowan was very cooperative and willing to help; he wished to make amends. As did the blood mage we encountered earlier in the Tower. She agreed to fight for us in exchange for her life," she stared down Wynne's disapproving look. "I don't particularly care what kind of magic they practice, if they can help me defeat the Blight."

"And what if they refuse to aid you once you have freed them?" Wynne persisted.

"They will aid me or they will be summarily executed for their actions here," Elissa replied coldly. "If they won't fight for me, they're useless to me and I have no compunctions about dealing them justice for the wanton slaughter that has occurred in this tower."

"We have also not discussed the desire demons who have already crossed the Veil and are here in their physical form," Morrigan pointed out. "Those still need to be dealt with, and those are the ones enslaving the templars. We can't kill them without killing the templars they have enthralled."

"Right." Elissa nodded. "Very well, then. As much as it pains me, we have to consider those men to be a loss. But if we can avoid any more needless slaughter, if we can salvage anyone out of this situation, we must do so."

"However, my first point still remains," Morrigan said. "Finding the specific demons in the Fade and eradicating them would be an impossible task. It was easy at Redcliffe because there was only one demon and one mage being inhabited in that particular physical location. This is another matter entirely. Even if I were to try, it would be a futile effort. I'm sorry."

"Damn," Elissa sighed, gritting her teeth against the urge to burst into tears. To be so close....

"Unless...." Morrigan's voice trailed off, and when Elissa looked at her, she appeared uncertain.

"What? What is it?"

"Before, we were trying to propel me through the Veil and into the Fade," Morrigan said slowly. "If we could, instead, propel the demons themselves back into the Fade, the connection between the mage and the demon would be severed."

"But in order to propel you into the Fade, you had to be part of the--" Elissa's eyes grew wide and she stared at Morrigan in disbelief. "Oh, no! Are you mad? I do not fuck demons!"

"What?" Alistair's voice rose an octave as he shouted. "Exactly what kind of magic are we discussing here?"

"Magic that calls upon sexual energy, as opposed to blood or lyrium," Morrigan explained. "'Tis a source of power Flemeth learned to harness long ago, while she herself was still human. 'Tis why the legends tell of her being a great and seductive beauty."

"Oh," Alistair turned as crimson as the dead templar's skirt. "Well, I guess that explains why you were nude that day in Redcliffe Castle."

"Quite." The witch looked at Elissa again. "If you could find a way to seduce the abominations, I could conduct the ritual harnessing the power generated by the sexual energy, as Jowan did for us. When they reached release, I could force them back into the Fade. The demon would still live, but it would be contained in the Fade again, unable to come across until it found another mage willing to accept its bargain."

"I...I can't! Even I have my standards. I don't fuck demons. It's as simple as that."

"Very well," Morrigan shrugged, unconcerned. "It matters not. Let us be off, then. No doubt we have many more abominations to slay."

"Damn you!" Elissa hissed at her.

"Please tell me you're not actually considering doing this," Alistair begged, his expression sickened.

Elissa looked at him, her eyes shining with tears. "What choice do I have? Slaughter our whole army before we've had a chance to gather it? What will my virtue or dignity matter in a land consumed by the Blight?"

"This is unwise," Sten said. "If the abominations should become violent you would risk injury to yourself or your child."

"WHAT?!"

"Oh, Maker's balls!" Elissa moaned as Alistair practically screamed. She glared at Sten, who seemed utterly unimpressed with her displeasure. Leliana moved closer, put a comforting arm about her shoulders.

"You're--you're with child?" Alistair spluttered. "How--? When--? Who--?"

"None of that matters right now, Alistair!" Leliana cut him off firmly. "There will be time for questions later. I have to agree with Sten," she said to Elissa. "Saving these mages is a fine goal, but without you we cannot combat the Blight. This will all be for naught if the abominations prove...brutish."

Elissa sank down to the grimy floor and pulled her knees to her chest, resting her forehead on them. "Everyone just...be silent! I need to think."

Her child. Cailan's child. The one remaining shred of hope she held for the fulfillment of the plans she and her parents had assiduously laid over those years in Highever as she came to womanhood learning how to use sex to her advantage. How could she possibly jeopardize it?

And yet...how could she not? Unless she found a way to end the Blight, the well-being of her child would be an utterly moot point anyway. The only possible hope for saving him would be to flee Ferelden ahead of the Blight and that....

...That she simply could not do.

She supposed she could continue slaughtering everything in the tower in the hopes that a handful of mages might yet be alive and unaffected, but the mages she might manage to exorcise of their demons could very well spell the difference between victory and defeat when they faced the archdemon.

"All right," she whispered, lifting her head. She stared at her companions with bleak eyes as Alistair groaned softly. "All right. We'll do it."

"This is a mistake," Sten grumbled. "I will not permit this."

"You will. You gave your word to help me battle the Blight, and without the mages, I cannot do that. However," she looked at each of them in turn, taking in their confusion and reluctance, "if I'm going to take this chance, we don't just banish the demons. We destroy them."

"We wouldn't possibly have the power to do that," Morrigan argued. "Push them back across the Veil, yes. And once they're out of the mages, there would be an instant of vulnerability in which we would know exactly where in the Fade they are and could slay them before the tear in the Veil is mended and the ritual completed, if we could act against them at that very second. But it would require an incredible amount of power, more than you could generate just having sex with them."

"Then we'll supplement with lyrium," Elissa said firmly, rising to her feet. "If that's not enough, I'll provide some of my own blood."

Morrigan shook her head. "Still not enough. If we were to sacrifice a person, perhaps it would be enough, but that would rather defeat our purpose here. We'd need a massive amount of orgasmic energy and sexual fluids, in quantities that could only be obtained by a dozen or more people all reaching climax at once."

"Sten?" Elissa turned to look at him. "Your physical body did not achieve release while you were in the Fade, did it?"

"No, it did not. But I will not participate in this."

"I'm not asking you to have sex with demons, or even with me while the demons are present. I want you to hang back, near Morrigan as she conducts the ritual, but apart from the activity, preferably where no one will notice you. Then all you need to do is bring yourself to release, if you can," she arched a brow. "I do hope you can...?"

Sten huffed, insulted. "Of course I can," he snapped, and Elissa allowed herself a moment of satisfaction at the predictability of masculine pride regardless of race. "Very well, I will do it."

"All right then," Elissa nodded briskly. "Leliana and Alistair, you're on guard duty. You, too, my friend," she said, rubbing the head of her mabari. "If any abomination looks like its about to get too eager and cause me serious injury, it dies. Don't worry if I merely look like things are unpleasant, because I certainly don't expect any great pleasure from this. Minor injuries are acceptable if they seem to be creating a greater amount of arousal for the abominations. We do need to generate sexual energy here, so let them have their fun so long as it doesn't appear to be putting my safety in jeopardy.

"Wynne?" she turned her attention to the elder mage, who was watching the proceedings with a fretful look. "You will heal me and rejuvenate me if my stamina seems to be flagging. But more importantly, do you have any offensive spells in your arsenal? Something that could be released in one large, amplified burst if you were to draw upon the power Morrigan is harnessing, and flung after the demons as they are pushed back into the Fade, injuring or destroying them?"

"I...." the mage hesitated, then shook off her indecision and answered. "I have one such spell, but it's much more effective on targets that have been frozen or petrified, and I am afraid I haven't studied those skills."

"Morrigan?"

"I have the ability to freeze targets, but I will be conducting the ritual and will be unable to cast."

"Irving can petrify targets," Wynne said. "If we can get to him, release him, he and I could cast in sequence to get the best effect."

"Then that is what we will attempt to do," Elissa agreed. "If it proves impossible, however, do the best you can with what you have."

"I understand," Wynne nodded. "And, Warden--"

"Yes?" Elissa snapped, surprised at how cold and hard her own voice seemed to be. She felt numb, shut off from the horror and disgust and despair she felt at the prospect of what was to come. She had no warmth or kindness to share with anyone.

"What you are doing--attempting to spare lives, even those who might not actually deserve is, and at such cost to yourself.... Well, I...whatever happens, I thank you."

The mage's words cracked something in that hardness Elissa felt around her heart. She trembled, feeling weak and unresolved. And then she straightened her shoulders, damming the breach before uncertainty and fear could flow forth and undermine her determination.

"Thank you," she said, her voice flat.

"Then I suppose all that remains," Morrigan said complacently, "is to gain the cooperation of the abominations.'

Elissa gave an unpleasant smile and began to remove her armor. "And that is where my particular skills come into play."


*****


"I could give you this gift, Wynne," Uldred cajoled. "You and all your mages. It would be so much easier if you just accepted it. But some people can be so stubborn."

There it was. Elissa's eyes glowed with bitter triumph. Her opening.

"It's not stubbornness that prevents them from joining you," she told the abomination Uldred. "They merely know that I can offer them something much better."

"Nonsense!" Uldred scoffed. "What can be greater than the power I offer, the power of the demon?"

"Magic with a near-limitless source of power," she replied, sauntering sensually forward. "No blood needed, to earn one the enmity and fear of the people. No lyrium needed, to keep one prisoner to the Chantry or illegal lyrium traffickers. No danger of horrific, monstrous transformation to forever brand one as an abomination to be hunted. All the power, perhaps even more than your demons offer, with none of the cost. Power so subtle it can be exercised freely without fear of exposure, because the Chantry doesn't even know it exists."

"You lie! If such power existed, I would know of it!"

"Would you, indeed? If you cannot sense it on me, then perhaps you're not so powerful as you think."

Uldred drew near, pressing his face close to hers. He breathed in deeply, smelling her. "Oh my, yes. You have been touched by some powerful magic. And yet, I don't detect enough lyrium in you to account for it. Nor enough bloodletting," he eyes narrowed, and his voice lowered, his tone almost seductive. "Whatever have you been meddling with, girl?"

"You'll find out soon enough, when I use it to defeat you."

Uldred laughed. "Defeat me? I could destroy you this very instant if I desired. Tell me now, or I will do so."

"Destroy me and you'll never know what it is."

"Very well, then, I shall simply possess your mind instead."

"With me in possession of the Litany of Adralla? I don't think so."

"You will tell me what this power is, or I will kill these pathetic wretches right now," he barked, gesturing at Irving and the few remaining mages.

"Why does it matter to you?" Elissa taunted. "You seemed so very confident a moment ago that you had all the power you needed."

"With this new magic of yours in addition to what we already possess, we will be unstoppable!" Uldred declared. "You will tell me!"

Elissa paused, pretending to ponder her options. "Let the remaining unconverted mages go," she said finally, "and I will tell you."

"You wish to bargain with me?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm just stalling, trying to buy enough time for Greagoir and the templars to charge in here with the Right of Annulment in hand." She smiled sweetly. "I'm not the only one in a difficult position, you see. Unless you can complete your work and get out of here shortly, an army of templars will come sweeping in here and they will end you."

Uldred glared at her, his face suffused with rage. Elissa returned his look unblinkingly, her hands clenched before her to still their trembling.

"Very well," he said shortly. "They can leave...except Irving. I nearly have him swayed to my side, you see. With your magic, I should have no problem convincing him to join us."

Elissa nodded once, grimly, and the handful of mages bound beside Irving suddenly sagged as their bonds disappeared.

"Wynne," Elissa instructed, "escort them to the door. Make sure they join the others downstairs."

Wynne acknowledged the command with a nod and, murmuring to the others, urged them to their feet and toward the door. Then Elissa turned to face Uldred again.

"Now you will tell me what I want to know," he commanded.

"Very well," she said, allowing herself a triumphant smirk. "The apostate mage there knows a ritual to harness magical power from sexual energy. Anyone participating in the sex act gains the power once it is unleashed. There. Now you know my secret." Elissa laughed, as though enjoying a cruel joke. "I will point out, however, that it's useless to you. You don't know the ritual, and even if you did, I find the notion of the lot of you acquiring a willing sexual partner...highly unlikely."

"You will perform the ritual with us!" Uldred growled in frustration.

"No. That is not going to happen."

"I am not the only one who will be ended when the templars arrive!" the abomination screamed. "They will not take time to differentiate the innocents from those possessed by demons! Your only hope of getting out of here alive now rests in helping us get out as well."

Elissa cursed and spun away from him, pacing as though agitated. She could feel the eyes of her companions upon her, carefully impassive lest they give away the game, leaving the theatrics up to her. She herself felt nothing, not even glee that her ruse seemed to be working so well. She could not allow herself to feel, or she'd no doubt begin screaming in horror.

Finally, she gave a dramatic sigh and turned back to Uldred. "Very well. But you will release Irving as well. He will participate in the ritual with us and serve as my protector. If you or any of your...pets there gets any ideas of becoming brutish and injuring me, he and my companions will kill you."

She allowed her eyes to slide slowly over them, as though evaluating their merits. One of the monstrous abominations, she noted, had already opened its heavy, flesh-like robe and was stroking its...no, she could not call it a cock. Cocks were enjoyable things, things from which she derived her pleasure, and surely there would be none of that here. Very well, then. Its phallus. It was stroking its phallus, which was, thankfully, fairly normal in appearance, if a disgusting mottled brownish-red color, like clotted blood. Perhaps slightly larger than the human norm, but nothing extraordinary nor potentially injurious.

Elissa closed her eyes, trying to block out the sight of the abominations, trying to find that core of desire deep within her that was always ready to take the opportunity for sex when it was to her advantage. Instead, she felt nothing. Not fear. Not disgust. Not humiliation. Nothing she could turn to arousal or from which she might derive pleasure.

She was empty. There was no tension in her belly, no moisture on her cunt save for the oil she'd found in a vanity in the templar's quarters with which she'd prepared herself in the hopes of preventing pain and injury.

As she stood there in the center of the Harrowing chamber, she heard the moist, deep breathing and shuffling steps of the creatures as they drew nearer. Uldred's voice came from right beside her, and she could smell his foul breath as he spoke. "Remove her clothing," he snapped at one of the abominations.

As the monstrosity shredded the loose tunic and breeches she'd worn under her armor, Morrigan began chanting.

She felt hands on her breasts, cold hands, but soft. Human hands. Uldred. "Very nice," he murmured. "I often forget that humanity does indeed offer certain benefits." He pinched her nipples, hard, his talon-like fingernails digging in, and Elissa cried out in pain. Off to the side, she heard Alistair's sword clearing its scabbard, and the creak of Leliana's bowstring. Her mabari began to growl.

"If you injure me, you die," she reminded him, gritting her teeth. Not even the pain, which she sometimes enjoyed, moved her to desire.

"A little blood loss is hardly an injury," Uldred chided. "And surely it will only help to build the power, as that is where our magic derives. And we must, after all, have our pleasures, mustn't we?"

This had not been part of her plan, but Elissa quickly grasped the advantages of increasing the available power. "If you wish to emerge from this alive, I'd suggest it remain a very little blood," she grated. "And release Irving. Now."

She opened her eyes to see Irving collapse, free of his restraints, and walked over to him, kneeling before him. Without looking at Uldred and the others, she leaned forward and kissed him deeply, as the First Enchanter sat there frozen, unresponding. She kissed her way up his grizzled jaw to his ear and nuzzled him, whispering soft instructions punctuated by nibbles on his earlobe. As he began to comprehend her intent, his hands closed over her shoulders and stroked down her arms, caressing as though responding to her seduction. She rose and drew away from him, reaching out to beckon him toward the center of the room, but he stood there as she had instructed, wavering and indecisive.

Uldred laughed cruelly. "Perhaps your charms are not what you thought they were, my dear," he taunted. "Or perhaps Irving here is a lover of boys."

"No matter," she shrugged. "He can act as my guardian without participating. Now, do we do this or not?"

In an instant, the four abominations surrounded her, pawing and groping. Except for Uldred, their hands were hot, feverish, far warmer than any human touch. One large, deformed hand clasped over her breast, another insinuated itself between her thighs. Uldred's talons drew four rows of shallow furrows down her back, causing her to scream in pain. And all the while....

...Nothing. No desire. No craving. No pleasure. Only the intense, cerebral longing to be away from all this, to be rid of the hands upon her body. If she hadn't known better, she might have believed she'd somehow been made tranquil.

"Oh, by Flemeth's beard!" Morrigan cursed, interrupting her own chant. "You are not generating enough sexual energy. They lust for blood and power, not sex and he," she gestured to Irving, "is too afraid to be aroused. Without intense desire, there can be no ritual. You must do better than this."

Elissa's eyes flew wide, looking at Morrigan in alarm, but the witch merely looked irritated and resumed her chanting with a scolding glare. Over Morrigan's shoulder, she saw Alistair and Leliana whispering urgently at one another.

Surely not! Elissa thought, panicked. Surely they could not fail, having come this far, because she was unable to allow herself to respond to these creatures!

If desire lay anywhere within her, it lay behind the wall she'd erected to shut off her terror and revulsion, and if she released it, she would surely go screaming mad with horror the next time one of those creatures touched her.

She couldn't do it. She knew without a doubt that it would break her, break her more surely than the murder of her family or the brutality of the soldiers in Lothering or the indignity of allowing herself to be fucked by her dog could ever have done.

Elissa closed her eyes again, felt the hands creeping over her flesh once more, and thought surely she might weep if she were capable of feeling anything. She would fail here, she thought desperately. The best she could now hope for was that her companions could slay the abominations before they had a chance to collect themselves once they realized the ritual had failed.

Another hand brushed across her skin; calloused and warm, but human. It stroked the curve of her neck, the shell of her ear, and a body pressed close, a bare muscled chest pressing against hers as a scent with which she was unfamiliar overrode the stench of the abominations. Soft, inexperienced lips found hers, and her eyes opened as she made a whimpering sound of amazement against that hesitantly inviting mouth.

Alistair!

He'd laid aside his sword and shield, removed his breastplate and the tunic beneath. Elissa brought her hands to his shoulders, clinging to his desperately, as though she were drowning and he were the only thing keeping her afloat. With a soft cry of gratitude, she brushed his lips with her tongue and when his mouth opened, allowing her entrance, she shuddered and released the dam she'd been holding in place, letting everything she'd been trying to suppress come flooding forth.

Fear, horror, revulsion, humiliation all spilled over her, threatening to suck her under into madness. She gripped Alistair tightly, allowing her hands to delight in the feel of his muscles beneath her fingers as she devoured his mouth. With that delight she felt the tingling of arousal in her cunt, the tension of building desire in her belly. As disgusting as the monstrous hand between her thighs was, she now felt pleasure as it roughly brushed her clit, making her body go rigid in an excess of sensation. When another set of horrible, hot fingers forced their way into her cunt, she was slick and ready, and able to enjoy the sensation of having something within her, filling her.

Down. She was being pushed down, and dragged away from Alistair. She sobbed and clung to him, unwilling to release the safety and sanity he represented, but the hands of the abominations were insistent. Her last glance was of him kneeling on the filthy floor of the Harrowing chamber, his hand reaching for her, offering her something to grab. Then one of the deformed abominations was before her, its phallus thrusting against her face. With a shudder of repugnance, she opened her mouth and took it inside.

In short order, another phallus was there, pushing into her hand. She clasped her hand around it and began to stroke. She employed no eroticism or artistry, using hard, long pulls intended to bring it to climax in the least amount of time. Hands lifted her bodily off the floor and a wizened, naked body crawled beneath her. Uldred. She was lowered again, and then he was inside her.

Shame and disbelief threatened to overwhelm her when she felt her body shudder in an grudging, reluctant orgasm as Uldred's phallus filled her, barely larger than the fingers of the abomination had been. Tears ran down her face and she tore her mouth away from the monster thrusting into her face, seeking a way to look around the creature's body as her free hand reached around it, grasping desperately at the air until warm, calloused fingers interlaced with hers. She felt moist breath brush her fingers, a soft kiss touching the back of her hand followed by a hot tear. She wept then, great sobs of humiliation and horror as demon hands drew her mouth inexorably back to the long, hard phallus near her face and something else began prodding at her backside, seeking entry to her ass.

She screamed in her throat as it worked its way in; fortunately, she had prepared herself with oil and her own fingers before leaving the templar's quarters, and the pain was minimal. Then there was only fullness and stretching, and another agonizingly shameful orgasm as her body responded to all the sensations from which she'd been taught to derive pleasure. Her body was rocked violently back and forth, hard hips slapping against her, claws harrowing her skin. The phalli in her cunt and ass pushing her harder against the one forcing its way into her throat. The last creature thrust hard into her hand and she gripped it firmly, letting the monster do all the work, letting her hand become the sheath it fucked. Its pre-ejaculate slid down her fingers.

And all the while, she clung to Alistair's hand as though it were the only tether keeping her anchored to her very life.

She came again as she sensed a shift, power building in the room. A low, angry grunting and a slapping sound reached her ears as somewhere out of sight, Sten worked himself toward a climax. The creatures fucking her felt it, too, and she heard their triumphant growls and groans as they began to thrust harder, gathering the power, unaware of what it would do once it reached its zenith. Alistair's hand gripped hers harder, squeezing, and she knew that his templar senses felt it also.

The room began to rumble, as though with an earthquake, as scalding hot semen shot from the phallus in her hand, splashing across her shoulders and the side of her face. Uldred followed soon after, pulsing in her cunt. The phallus in her mouth began to swell and harden as the one in her ass suddenly quivered and twitched and throbbed, shooting seed deep into her. As the first bitter, sizzling jets hit her tongue, running down her chin as she immediately spewed it back out, a primal roar sounded, and the chamber exploded in chaos.

Uldred shrieked in dismay beneath her as the bodies around her were picked up, pulled out of her, lifted into the air. She tumbled to the stone floor as Uldred, too, was lifted, and immediately Alistair was there, pulling her safely away. Unlike the time in Redcliffe, the pressure of power buffeting her did not immediately abate, but continued to build, and beneath the cacophony in her ears she could hear Sten still grunting.

The forms of the abominations grew vague and indistinct as they levitated there, caught helplessly in the pull of the Fade. A rush of power slammed past her from the area where she'd last seen Irving, and a split second later, another surge, this one from Wynne's location. The bodies in the air all gave agonized screams in unison as those of the monstrous creatures suddenly transformed into human shapes and all of them plummeted to the ground. The Veil sealed with ear-popping finality.

Four naked, unconscious mages lay on the floor of the Harrowing chamber, and as Alistair helped Elissa to her feet, they began to stir.

"Dagger," she croaked to Alistair, and immediately one was pressed into her hand. Naked and dripping with the seed of the abominations, she knelt beside Uldred and pushed him back to the floor with her hand on his throat, cutting off his airway as the other mages sat up, looking around in confusion.

As if compelled by the force of her will, they all looked at Elissa, and when she was certain she had their attention, she plunged the dagger into the hollow at the base of Uldred's throat. He gurgled blood and his body stopped thrashing seconds later.

"I don't know which of you were willing accomplices to Uldred's schemes, or which of you were compelled against your wills, and Maker help me, I don't care. I am the Grey Warden Elissa and I am seeking aid fighting the Blight. Just how much assistance the Tower can render shall be decided between Irving and myself, but as for you three, you will come to aid me when I call for you, or you will die this very instant, here on this floor. Until I summon you, you will be imprisoned here in the Tower under Irving and Greagoir's supervision, but you will not yet be made tranquil. Once the archdemon is defeated and the Blight is over, you will return here to the Tower and submit yourselves to the justice of the templars. Serve me well and I will use all the influence at my disposal to seek clemency for your crimes. Am I understood?"

Only one of the mages protested, trying to rise and summon power to cast a spell. He fell with one of Leliana's arrows through his heart.

A cloak was draped over her shoulders--Wynne, she thought, though her perceptions were growing increasingly dim--and with her last ounce of willpower, she met Irving's eyes. "First Enchanter, I beg you give me time to bathe and dress. I will meet you downstairs and then we will discuss the terms of how the Circle Tower will fulfill its treaty obligations to the Grey Wardens."

She attempted to push herself to her feet, but the cloak felt like a leaden weight, dragging her down. She staggered beneath it, losing her footing, and as the world grew gray, Alistair's arms were there, catching her, lifting her to carry her from the chamber.

Her last conscious but utterly irrational thought, before everything faded to darkness, was that she had begun to fall in love.

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