Chapter 30: Aftermath of the Fade
From across the room, Morrigan watched the exchange, one elegant eyebrow arched in silent, amused observation.
The celebratory meal in the hall was a blur of roasted meat, thick gravy, and too-sweet wine. Daylen pushed the food around his plate, his body present but his mind still drifting in that grey space between the Fade and waking. The laughter and relief around him felt distant, muffled by a layer of glass. He caught Wynne looking at him more than once, her expression unreadable. Each time, he looked away first.
Irving departed with the other mages at first light, his duty to the Circle calling him back. He clasped Daylen’s forearm tightly before he left. “Remember,” he’d said, his voice low. “The tower’s doors are always open to you. But I suspect your path lies elsewhere now.” The old enchanter’s eyes held a complex mix of pride and sorrow.
With Connor healed, the castle’s focus turned back to the man still wasting away in the highest chamber. Arl Eamon lay unchanged, his skin waxen, his breathing shallow. The celebratory atmosphere curdled into grim purpose. They gathered in a small council chamber later that morning—Daylen, Alistair, Morrigan, Wynne, and Teagan.
“The poisoning was… thorough,” Teagan said, rubbing a hand over his tired face. “Our healers are at a loss. It’s not natural.”
“It was blood magic,” Daylen stated flatly. The words hung in the air, sour and cold. Everyone’s eyes flicked to him. “Jowan confessed as much. The poison is magical, anchored to his life force. It resists normal cleansing.”
Alistair leaned forward, his elbows on the oak table. “So we can’t just find an antidote. We need a miracle.”
“Precisely.” This from Wynne. She folded her hands on the table, her voice measured. “There is one possibility. The legends speak of the Urn of Sacred Ashes, in the temple of Andraste atop the mountain pass. The ashes are said to possess power beyond any mortal magic.”
Morrigan let out a derisive snort. “Chantry fairy tales. You propose we traipse across Ferelden on a children’s story?”
“I propose,” Wynne said, her tone hardening slightly, “that when conventional magic fails, we must look to forces we do not fully understand. The tales are persistent. And we are out of other options.”
“The Ashes are real,” Alistair interjected, surprising everyone. He didn’t look at them, staring at a knot in the wood grain. “The Grey Wardens have old records. They were used centuries ago, during the Second Blight. They’re said to cure any illness, purge any poison.”
A heavy silence followed. Daylen studied his friend. Alistair carried these bits of Warden lore like stones in his pockets, burdens he rarely showed.
“Then the path is clear,” Teagan said, a spark of hope in his eyes. “You must go to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I will provide you with maps, supplies, whatever you need.”
“And Jowan?” Daylen asked. The question felt like gravel in his mouth.
Teagan’s expression sobered. “He remains in the dungeons. His fate is… complicated. Loghain has branded all Grey Wardens traitors. Harboring a known blood mage, even a repentant one, would give him all the excuse he needs to besiege this castle.” He looked directly at Daylen. “Your intervention saved my nephew. It does not erase his crime.”
Daylen stood up, the chair legs scraping loudly on the stone. “I need to see him.”
The dungeon air was cold and smelled of wet stone and stale straw. A single torch guttered in an iron sconce outside the cell. Jowan was a huddled shape in the corner, his Circle robes filthy. He scrambled to his feet when he saw Daylen, his hands gripping the rusted iron bars.
“Daylen. You… you did it? Connor is safe?”
“He’s safe.” Daylen’s voice echoed flatly in the narrow space. He studied the man he’d once called a friend—the fearful eyes, the trembling hands. The pathetic desperation of it all curdled something inside him.
“Thank the Maker.” Jowan sagged with relief. Then his eyes widened with a new hope. “Did you speak to the Arl? To Lady Isolde? About my phylactery? About… letting me go?”
Daylen said nothing for a long moment. The only sound was the drip of water somewhere in the darkness. “Eamon is still dying,” he said finally. “The poison you helped administer is killing him. We’re going to try to find a cure.”
Jowan’s face collapsed. “I didn’t know… I swear, I didn’t know it would be like this. She said it would just make him ill, displace him—”
“Stop.” The word cracked like a whip in the confined space. Jowan flinched, his words dying in his throat. Daylen took a single step closer to the bars, close enough to see the grime etched into the other mage’s pores. “You always swear. You always ‘didn’t know.’” His voice was low, a controlled burn. “For years, I thought you were just a good person who kept tripping over his own feet. I thought you needed looking after because you were… weak. It was easier to believe that. It made me feel like a better friend, a better man, to carry you.”
Jowan opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
“My mistake.” Daylen didn’t raise his voice. The calm was worse than any shout. “My failing was thinking you were salvageable, that you were a victim of circumstance. You’re not weak, Jowan. Weakness implies you struggle against something. You just… are pathetic. You bend to the nearest pressure. You seek out power you don’t have the spine to control and lie to yourself about why you need it. Lily,” he said the name, and it tasted like ash. “What did you tell her? That you were misunderstood? That the Circle was cruel? Did she think she was saving a wounded bird?”
Tears cut tracks through the dirt on Jowan’s cheeks. He looked small, diminished. It sparked no pity in Daylen’s chest.
“People are suffering right now because you lack the basic integrity to look at yourself and fix it,” Daylen continued, his gaze unblinking. “Arl Eamon. The soldiers who died defending this castle from the undead Connor summoned. The boy himself, trapped with a demon in his head. Their blood isn’t on your hands because you’re evil. It’s there because you are utterly, irrevocably pathetic. And you cannot bear it, so you pour it into blood magic and watch it all burn from a distance.”
“I… I wanted…” Jowan whispered.
“I don’t care what you wanted.” Daylen turned away. He stared at the damp wall, the orange torchlight flickering on the stone. “Your phylactery is gone. Disappeared in the chaos. If Eamon recovers, his judgment awaits you. If he doesn’t, you will rot in this hole until your bones forget what sunlight feels like.” He looked back one last time. “Make peace with the dark, Jowan. It’s all you have left.”
He left without waiting for a response. The hollow, gulping sobs that followed him up the stairs sounded like they came from a trapped animal.
The tension in Daylen’s shoulders didn’t ease until he pushed open the heavy door to Connor’s borrowed chambers. The space was quiet, a sanctuary of soft firelight and warm wood. Morrigan stood by the fireplace, her back to him, running a finger along the carved mantle. She didn’t turn around.
“Settling your conscience?” she asked, her tone smooth and languid as honey.
“It wasn’t about conscience.” He closed the door, the latch clicking with finality. “It was about closing a door. That chapter’s over.”
She turned then, a slow pivot on her heel. The firelight outlined her form through the thin fabric of her shift, painting her in long, dancing shadows. “Is it? You wear that finality like a cloak, yet it sits uneasily on you. I watched you with the boy. With the crone, fluttering her lashes at you.” She took a step towards him, her movements fluid. “You can be ruthless in a dream, but here, in the waking stone, it bothers you to be cruel.”
Daylen said nothing. He began unbuckling his vambraces, the leather and metal falling to a chair with heavy thuds.
“It does not bother me,” she said, crossing the room to stand before him. She took over the task, her cool fingers working the straps on his chestpiece. “Your little speech below was… efficient. You left him nothing. Not even a fantasy to cling to. That is a particular kind of mercy.”
“It wasn’t mercy,” he said, watching her face as she eased the armor from his shoulders.
“I know.” She let the cuirass fall, her hands sliding up to his neck, her thumbs tracing the line of his jaw. “It was honesty. It is a blade you rarely draw. I find it,” she paused, leaning close enough for her breath to warm his lips, “arousing.”
He captured her mouth then, the kiss not sweet or hesitant but a collision of shared understanding, of pressures released and bloody truths acknowledged. It tasted of firelight and a bitter aftertaste he wanted to forget. Her fingers tangled in the short hair at the base of his skull, pulling him closer, demanding more.
She broke the kiss, her golden eyes searching his. “I have watched you wear a dozen faces this week. The hero for the boy, the pupil for the old ones, the commander for the soldiers. Which one of them is here with me now?”
“The one you pulled out of the Fade,” he said, his voice rough. His hands found her hips, gripping the thin shift, the heat of her skin burning through the linen. “The one who isn’t pretending.”
A slow, genuine smile touched her lips. “Good.”
She guided his hands, pulling the shift up and over her head in one motion. It pooled on the rug at their feet. The fire painted her skin in shades of gold and bronze. He traced the arc of her collarbone with his mouth, down to the swell of her breast, his tongue finding a tight peak. She inhaled sharply, a sound of pure pleasure, her head tilting back.
“You carry that fury well,” she whispered, her fingers tugging at the laces of his breeches. “Do not waste it on pity for fools.” Her hand slid inside, finding him hard, and stroked him with a firm, knowing pressure. “Waste it here.”
The last of his restraint frayed. He lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist, and carried her to the wide bed. The heavy velvet covers were cool against his back when she pushed him down. She straddled him, a silhouette against the fire’s glow, and guided him inside with a slow, deliberate descent that stole the breath from his lungs.
She moved then, a rolling, sinuous rhythm that was all her own. Her eyes stayed locked on his, watchful, analytical even as her body took its pleasure. He let his hands roam up her thighs, over the sharp planes of her hips, settling on her waist to feel the muscles work. She was not passive, not a recipient; she was a force, conducting a symphony of sensation between them.
He could feel her tighten around him, a rhythmic clenching that was her first crest. She didn’t cry out. A sharp gasp hitched in her throat, her eyes fluttering shut for a single, vulnerable second. She recovered instantly, her pace growing more urgent, driven now by a need beyond her control. Her breath came in short, hot bursts against his neck as she bent over him.
The second peak took her silently, a full-body shudder he felt deep within his own bones. She went still for a long moment, panting, her forehead against his sternum. “Do not stop,” she murmured, the words almost lost. It was a command and a plea woven together.
He flipped them over, his weight settling on her. Her legs locked around his back, her heels digging into him, urging him on. Her third was loud, a ragged cry she muffled by biting the meat of his shoulder. The small, sharp pain of it pushed him to his own edge. He held back, watching her face, watching her come apart for him.
When the fourth hit her, it wasn’t a wave but a breaking point. Her eyes rolled back, her back arched off the bed, and a soundless scream shaped her lips. The intensity of it pulled him under with her. He drove into her one last, deep time, and the world dissolved into a white-hot spill of release.
For a long time, there was only the crackle of the fire and the sound of their breathing settling into a shared rhythm. He rolled to his side, taking her with him. She was pliant, heavy-limbed, her consciousness a delicate, fluttering thing. She fought it, her eyelids stubbornly trying to stay open.
“Worth… the wait,” she breathed, the words slurring.
Then the fight left her. She went completely slack against him, a deep, surrendering sigh escaping her lips as sleep claimed her. Her last, faint exhalation was a whisper against his skin. “The one… who doesn’t pretend…”
He held her in the fire-washed dark, listening to her slow, steady breath. Outside, the castle slept. He thought of a cell far below, of cold stone, and felt nothing at all.