Chapter 3: Blood Price
The dread hadn’t left him; it had simply hardened into a cold knot beneath his ribs, a constant, low ache. He sat on his bunk in the dark, the small silverite key a burning brand in his pocket. He ran through combat forms in his head, visualizing the phantom weight of his swords, the arc of a spell. Leorah had found him after dinner, a silent invitation in her eyes, but he’d shaken his head. “Not tonight.” The touch of another person felt like a complication he couldn’t afford.
The Tower settled into its nighttime rhythms. The shuffling of apprentices heading to bed, the distant clank of a templar’s armor from a lower floor, the deep, resonant silence of the library above. When the last bell for quiet study chimed, he moved.
The library annex was a smaller, dustier room off the main hall, used for storing un-catalogued donations and damaged scrolls. It smelled of mildew and neglect. Jowan and Lily were already there, huddled behind a sagging bookcase. Jowan jumped at the sound of the door opening, a faint wisp of frost escaping his fingertips before he recognized Daylen.
“Maker’s breath, you scared me,” Jowan whispered, his voice cracking.
Lily was pale but composed, a small leather satchel clutched to her chest like a shield. “Is it time?”
“Almost.” Daylen looked them both over. Jowan had a patched-up travel pack. Lily wore a simple, dark wool cloak over her Chantry robes. They looked exactly like what they were: two terrified kids playing at being runaways. “You remember the way to the service exit by the kennels?”
Jowan nodded, too rapidly. “Straight down the lower eastern stair, past the laundries, turn at the statue of Faustus the Frugal.”
“Good. Wait for my signal. A single spark, blue, at the end of the corridor outside the vault door. That means I have it. You see anything else—a red flash, or nothing at all—you run. Don’t wait, don’t look back. You run like the Void is on your heels. Understood?”
Lily swallowed, then gave a firm nod. Jowan just looked sick. Daylen turned away from them. “Follow me. Stay ten paces back. If we get challenged, let me do the talking.”
They moved through the Tower like ghosts. Every flickering torch shadow was a templar; every settling groan of the ancient stone was a bootstep. Daylen led them down spiraling service stairwells rarely used by mages, deeper into the Tower’s foundational bowels. The air grew colder, damper. The tidy magic-lit halls gave way to rough-hewn passageways lit by guttering iron braziers. They passed storerooms sealed with heavy locks, and once, the faint, metallic scent of the forge-turned-kennels wafted up from a grate below.
Finally, they reached a heavy, reinforced door banded with black iron. No ornate carvings here, just functional, brutal strength. The air hummed with a different quality—a static prickle that raised the hairs on Daylen’s arms. The Phylactery Vault.
“This is it,” Daylen breathed. He glanced back. Lily had her hand over her mouth. Jowan was staring at the door with a mixture of terror and raw hunger. “Get to your position. Wait for the signal.”
He waited until the sound of their retreating footsteps faded into the stone, then placed his palm on the cold metal. He whispered the dispelling formula Irving had taught him, weaving his will into the intricate lattice of wards. There was a soft click, like a dozen tiny locks turning in unison, and the door swung inward on silent, oiled hinges.
Beyond was not a room, but a cavern. A vast, echoing space carved from the living rock of the island itself. The air wasn’t just cold; it was dead, still, as if time itself moved slower here. Silver-blue light emanated from nowhere and everywhere, illuminating towering shelves that reached up into darkness. On those shelves, row upon row, thousands of softly glowing orbs pulsed with a slow, steady rhythm. Each one a heart-beat of stolen blood. Each one a leash.
It was monumentally quiet. The only sound was the faint, collective hum of the phylacteries, a chord played on a instrument strung with souls. He walked forward, his boots whispering on the smooth stone floor. His own phylactery was here somewhere, he knew. A piece of him in a glass jar, waiting to be used to hunt him.
The path split. To the left, the shelves continued into gloom. To the right, the architecture changed, opening into a antechamber filled not with shelves, but with pedestals. Objects rested on velvet cushions under glass domes. A staff that crackled with contained lightning. A crown of twisted, blackened metal. A shield that seemed to drink the light around it.
And a statue. It was made of a pearlescent, shifting material that wasn’t quite stone. A proud, tall figure of an elven warrior, one hand extended as if in offering or blessing.
He stepped towards the pedestals, curious despite himself. As he drew near, the statue’s head turned with a gritty, stone-on-stone sound. Empty sockets focused on him.
“Another curious mouse in the larder,” a voice echoed in his mind, dry and ancient and deeply amused. It wasn’t hearing it so much as feeling it pressed against his thoughts. “You seek the blood that calls to blood. It lies beyond the wall. But the wall does not yield to force. It yields to a key that is not a key.”
Daylen froze, one hand drifting to the hilt of a sword. “What are you?”
“A memory. A custodian. A joke.” The statue’s head tilted. “The key is a question. Answer correctly, and the path is opened. Answer poorly, and you join the collection. Would you like to play?”
He had no time for games. But the wall the statue gestured towards was seamless, a solid barrier of dark granite. No door, no lock. Just the faintest tracing of lyrium veins like silvery scars in the rock.This was it. The inner chamber.
“Ask your question,” Daylen said, his voice tight.
“Very well. There is a house. A man lies dead inside. The windows are sealed. The door is locked from within. Beside him is a piece of wood and a single puddle of water. How did he die?”
The words hung in the dead air. Daylen’s mind raced, discarding possibilities.Poison? The puddle. Suicide? The wood.A trap? The locked room. It was a puzzle, but not a magical one. A logic trap.
He thought of the Harrowing, of the Fade, of the ways demons twisted simple truths. The answer had to be simple. Brutally simple.
“He was on a ship,” Daylen said, the pieces clicking. “The house is a cabin. The wood is a piece of the ship. The puddle is seawater. The ship sank. He drowned inside it.”
The statue was silent for a long moment. Then, a sound like grinding pebbles that might have been laughter. “Clever mouse. Perhaps too clever for your own good.”
With a deep, subterranean groan, the section of wall slid sideways, revealing a narrower, darker passage. The hum of phylacteries from within was louder, more intense, a choir of trapped whispers.
Daylen didn’t thank it. He stepped through.
The inner chamber was smaller, hotter. The phylacteries here glowed with a fiercer, more urgent light, swirling with tiny motes of crimson. He scanned the shelves, reading the small brass plates beneath each orb. Anders.Solara. Finn. He found it on a middle shelf, slightly apart from the others. Jowan.
It looked no different. A sphere of glass about the size of his fist, filled with a murky, reddish liquid that swirled of its own accord. He reached for it. The moment his fingers closed around the cool glass, the whispering in the air coalesced into a single, screaming thought in his head—a frantic, alien terror that was not his own. It was the echo of the blood within, a final spark of awareness trapped forever. He shoved the thing into the deep inner pocket of his robe, and the scream cut off, muffled.
A crash echoed from the antechamber. Metal on stone. Shouts. Lily’s voice, sharp with panic.
He drew his swords, the shing of silverite leaving the scabbards outrageously loud in the sacred quiet. He ran back through the passage.
The antechamber was chaos. Two massive, silent figures of polished obsidian and enchanted steel—Templar Sentinels—had animated from alcoves on either side of the pedestals. They moved with a horrifying, jerky grace, their greatswords carving through the air. Lily was cowering behind the lightning staff’s pedestal. Jowan was facing one, blasting it with weak, sputtering jets of flame that did little more than blacken its stone skin.
“Jowan! Fall back!” Daylen yelled.
He didn’t wait. He charged the Sentinel nearest Lily, his blades a blur. He didn’t try brute force. He danced inside its guard, his swords sparking as they struck the joints at its knees and elbows, seeking the enchantment anchors. Magic shimmered over his skin, layering a barrier of force as he moved, hardening his muscles. The Arcane Warrior’s dance.
The Sentinel’s greatsword came down in a cleaving arc meant to split him in two. He didn’t block it. He sidestepped, the blade shattering the stone floor where he’d stood, and drove both of his swords into the gap between its chestplate and helmet. A shower of acrid blue sparks erupted. The construct shuddered, let out a sound like a massive bell cracking, and collapsed into a pile of inert stone and metal.
The other Sentinel had Jowan backed against a wall. Daylen hurled a fist-sized ball of raw, crackling force. It struck the Sentinel in the back, staggering it. Jowan seized the opening, a desperate, concentrated stream of fire erupting from his hands, this one hot enough to glow white. It hit the Sentinel’s face, and the enchanted stone melted. The construct dropped its sword, clawed at its head, then toppled.
Silence rushed back in, broken only by their ragged breathing and the tink-tink of cooling stone.
“We have to go!” Jowan gasped, wiping soot from his face.
Daylen nodded, sheathing his swords. He gestured to the corridor, summoning a single, bright spark of blue mana that shot down the passage and vanished around the corner. The signal.
They sprinted. Past the staring statue, through the forest of glowing orbs, back to the heavy vault door. Daylen slammed it shut behind them, the wards reactivating with a palpable thrum.
Lily and Jowan were already at the end of the corridor, waiting. Jowan’s eyes were locked on Daylen’s pocket.
“Give it to me. Quickly.”
Daylen pulled the phylactery out. The moment it touched Jowan’s hands, the mage’s expression shifted. The terror was still there, but beneath it, a raw, savage triumph blossomed. He didn’t hesitate. He raised the orb above his head and dashed it against the stone floor.
It didn’t shatter like glass. It dissolved with a hiss, the liquid inside vaporizing into a foul-smelling red mist that hung in the air for a second before dispersing. A last, silent sigh seemed to echo in the corridor. Then, nothing. Just a wet spot on the flagstones.
Jowan let out a hysterical little laugh. “It’s done. It’s done!” He grabbed Lily, pulling her into a clumsy kiss. “We’re free!”
“Not yet,” Daylen said, his voice cutting through their celebration. He was already moving, pushing past them. “We’re still inside the Tower. Move.”
They followed, rushing back up the service stairs, their footsteps now loud in their urgency. They rounded the corner towards the final stretch—the hall leading to the kennels and the service exit.
Light flooded the corridor.
Not torchlight. The cold, white glare of half a dozen templar lanterns, held high. Standing in the center of the passage, blocking their way completely, were Knight-Commander Greagoir and First Enchanter Irving.
Greagoir’s face was granite. His armor gleamed. A dozen templars stood at his back, swords drawn, their presence a physical weight that made the mana in Daylen’s veins recoil.
Irving looked old, and deeply, profoundly disappointed. His eyes went from the shattered phylactery remnants on Jowan’s robes, to Lily’s terrified face, and finally, to Daylen.
“Enchanter Daylen,” Greagoir’s voice boomed, devoid of all warmth. “Drop your weapons. You are all under arrest for treason, blood magic, and the corruption of a Chantry initiate.”
Jowan made a small, animal sound of despair. Lily began to pray, her words a rapid, trembling whisper.
Daylen’s hands didn’t move towards his swords. He slowly, carefully, raised them to show they were empty. His mind was chillingly clear. This was the moment. This was Irving’s play. He locked eyes with the First Enchanter, searching for the signal, the sign that this was still part of the plan.
Irving’s gaze held his for a moment, then slid away, fixing on Jowan with stern finality. There was no wink, no hidden nod. Only grave authority.
The templars behind Greagoir took a step forward, their armored boots scraping in unison against the stone. Jowan’s breath hitched, a wet, ragged sound. Lily’s whispered prayers stopped entirely, her face a mask of pure, devastating understanding.
Irving sighed, a heavy, weary sound that seemed to deflate him. He stepped between the templars and their intended captives, his own silken robes a stark contrast to their steel. “Stop,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying absolute authority.
He looked not at Jowan or Lily, but at Greagoir. “The boy was acting under my instruction, Greagoir. This entire regrettable affair was a ruse of my own making.”
Silence, thick and shocked, swallowed the corridor. Greagoir’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Explain yourself, First Enchanter. And be swift.”
The Knight-Commander’s face remained impassive, but the lantern light gleamed cold in his eyes. He said nothing, waiting.
Irving turned his disappointed gaze on Daylen. “You played your part admirably, my boy. The reluctant friend, lured into treason by a plea for help.” He shifted his focus to Jowan, whose expression had crumbled from triumph into utter confusion. “We needed to see what you would do. Who you would turn to.”
“I don’t… what is this?” Jowan stammered, looking between Irving and Daylen. “Daylen?”
Daylen kept his face still, the cold knot in his gut tightening into a blade. He gave a single, shallow nod to Irving, confirming the unsaid truth. He was the bait. The trap.
“The evidence of your dabbling was compelling, but circumstantial,” Irving continued, his voice taking on the lecturing tone of the tower classroom. “We needed irrefutable proof. And we needed to see if you had corrupted others within these walls beyond poor, deluded Lily.”
Greagoir’s hand moved, a slight gesture. Two templars stepped forward, their intent clear as they reached for Lily.
“The initiate comes with us,” Greagoir stated, his voice leaving no room for appeal. “Her mind will be examined, her spirit cleansed of your influence.”
Lily made a small, broken sound. “No, please, I only loved—”
Jowan’s face twitched. The fear evaporated, replaced by a raw, snarling panic. He shoved Lily behind him, away from the templars’ grasping hands.
“You stay away from her!” he shrieked.
He didn’t weave a spell with his hands. He clawed at his own wrist with his fingernails, drawing four quick, deep lines. Blood welled, dark and immediate. Instead of dripping, it coalesced around his fingers, shimmering with a foul, purple-black light.
“Jowan, don’t!” Daylen barked, but it was too late.
Jowan thrust his bleeding hand outward. A wave of distorted force, tinged the color of a bruise, erupted from him. It wasn’t fire or frost. It was pure, corrupt power. The air screamed as it passed.
The wave hit the two advancing templars, and Greagoir, and Irving. It didn’t burn or freeze. It simply stopped them. Their bodies locked rigid, eyes wide with shock and pain, muscles straining against an invisible vise. They stood like statues, trapped in their own armor.
The remaining templars shouted, surging forward. Jowan spun, a wild look in his eyes. “Run, Lily! Now!”
The purple-black force holding the templars shattered like glass.
Greagoir staggered forward a single step, his sword already halfway from its scabbard. His face was a mask of cold, surgical fury. Irving looked pale, his hand pressed to his chest as if feeling the echo of that corrupt power.
Lily didn’t run.
She stood perfectly still, staring at Jowan’s bloody hand. The raw, open wounds on his wrist. The last vestiges of that vile power sizzling in the air around his fingers. Her expression of terrified love curdled into something else, something hard and final.
“You lied to me,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud. It was flat, dead, carving through the tension in the corridor.
“Lily, I had to, they were going to—” Jowan babbled, reaching for her with his clean hand.
She flinched back as if from a venomous snake. “You are a blood mage.” She stated it as simple fact. All the faith, the stolen whispers in the Chantry alcoves, the desperate plans—they crumbled under the weight of that single, undeniable truth written in his own blood. “You used me.”
“I love you!” he screamed, the sound tearing from his throat.
“You love your power. You love your fear.” She straightened her robes, a hopeless, automatic gesture. She looked past him, to Greagoir. Her eyes were dry and empty. “Knight (.Commander. I submit to the authority of the Chantry. I accept my punishment.”
Jowan’s face fractured. All the panic, the arrogance, the desperate hope drained away, leaving behind the raw, pathetic core of him. He looked at Daylen, eyes pleading for an ally that wasn’t there. He looked at Irving, who watched him with sorrowful finality. He looked at Lily, who had already turned her back on him, walking slowly toward the templars as one walks to the gallows.
He was alone.
A broken sound escaped him, half sob, half snarl. He turned and fled, his footsteps slapping against the stone as he vanished into the shadowy service passage toward the kennels, toward a freedom that had turned to ash in his mouth.
Nobody moved to stop him. The templars were focused on securing Lily. Greagoir watched the empty corridor where Jowan had disappeared, his jaw working. Then he slowly sheathed his sword and turned his hard gaze on Daylen.
“You,” Greagoir said. “Explain.”
Daylen met his eyes. He could lie. He could cling to Irving’s plan, claim he was a dupe. But the taste of that lie was bitter. He had made choices. He had held the key. He had given the signal.
“Jowan destroyed his phylactery,” Daylen said, his voice clear in the silent hall. “I provided the diversion and opened the path. I knew it was wrong.” He looked at Irving, then back at Greagoir. “I did it anyway.”
Greagoir studied him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He grunted, a low sound in his chest. “Honesty. A rare currency in this tower.” He glanced at Irving. “Your student?”
“He is,” Irving said, his voice regaining its steady warmth. “And his actions tonight, while ultimately flawed, were taken under my direction. A misjudgment on my part, for which I bear responsibility.”
“Your responsibility is noted,” Greagoir said, his tone implying a later, private discussion. He focused on Daylen again. “You aided an apostate, a known blood mage, in the destruction of Circle property and facilitated his escape. The traditional penalty is clear.”
Daylen forced himself to stand straighter, to accept it. He thought of Leorah, asleep in her bed. Of the silverite sword on his back. Of the desperate, grateful look on Jowan’s face just before it all went to shit.
A new voice spoke from the end of the corridor, calm and weathered. “I believe I may have a solution that serves all parties.”
Duncan stepped into the lantern light. He wore his Warden-Commander armor, the griffons dull in the gloom. He looked like he had been waiting there for some time, a patient spectator to the entire drama.
Greagoir’s eyes narrowed. “Warden. This is a Circle matter.”
“It is,” Duncan agreed, walking forward. He stopped beside Daylen, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was a heavy, anchoring weight. “And it has resulted in the loss of a troublesome mage from your ranks, and the reaffirmation of a promising one’s loyalty to the Circle’s authority, albeit through a harsh lesson.” He looked at Daylen. “You accept the gravity of your error?”
“Yes,” Daylen said.
“And you understand that actions, even those born of loyalty to a friend, have consequences?”
“Yes.”
Duncan nodded, satisfied. He turned to Greagoir and Irving. “The Grey Wardens have the Right of Conscription. We take whom we need, from any walk of life, for the greater good. I invoke that Right now. I conscript Daylen Amell into our order.”
The words hung there, immense and simple. A path out of the trap. A punishment that was also a purpose.
Greagoir was silent for a long time. He looked from Duncan to Daylen, his eyes appraising. Finally, he gave a single, curt nod. “A fitting resolution. The Wardens gain a resource. The Circle is cleansed of this… indiscretion.” He stepped closer to Daylen, his voice dropping, for him alone. “You faced your failing with courage, boy. You did not hide behind your mentor’s robes. If more mages had such spine, there would never have been a need for our Order.”
It wasn’t praise. It was a statement of fact, and from Greagoir, it was worth more. He turned and strode away, his templars falling in behind him, Lily walking small and silent in their midst.
Irving waited until they were gone. The old enchanter seemed to sag, the weight of the night settling on his shoulders. He placed a gnarled hand on Daylen’s other shoulder.
“I am sorry it came to this, my boy,” he said, his voice thick. “You were the scalpel, and I wielded you to cut out a sickness. It was necessary. It was also cruel.”
Daylen looked into the old man’s eyes and saw genuine regret there. The cold knot in his gut loosened, just a little. “I walked into it with my eyes open, First Enchanter.”
“You did.” Irving squeezed his shoulder. “And now you walk into something far larger. The Wardens… it is a hard path. But it is an honorable one. You will do great things, Daylen. Remember your training. Remember your heart.” He pulled Daylen into a brief, firm embrace, smelling of old books and ozone. “I am proud of you.”
With that, he turned and walked slowly back toward the upper towers, leaving Daylen alone with Duncan in the empty, darkened corridor.
Duncan’s hand remained on his shoulder. “We leave at first light. You have until then to gather your possessions and say your farewells. Be at the docks by sunrise.”
The Warden-Commander released him and walked away, his footsteps echoing into silence. Daylen stood alone in the corridor where his old life had just ended. He thought of a shaved head signifying a mage, and wondered what signified a Grey Warden.
He turned and walked, not toward his own quarters, but toward a small room that smelled of elfroot and ink. He had goodbyes to say.