Chapter 15: The Codex's Bitter End
The tent stank of damp earth and iron.
Fox lunged.
The severance rune blazed in his palm—a cold, white fire that seared his skin and lit the tent's interior with stark, jagged shadows. He saw Leliana's eyes widen. Saw her lips part. Saw the Codex pulse in her hands like a dying heart.
She was faster.
Her free hand snapped up, fingers splayed, and a wave of black energy erupted from her palm. It hit him square in the chest—not heat, not force, but something worse. Something that crawled into his lungs and squeezed.
Fox flew backward.
He crashed into a pile of crates, wood splintering, glass shattering, the rune slipping from his grip. Pain exploded through his shoulder, his ribs, his spine. He tasted blood—copper and salt—and spat it onto the canvas floor.
"Predictable," Leliana said.
She was already moving.
Fox tried to rise. His body wouldn't cooperate. The dark energy still writhed inside him, coiling around his bones like a serpent, and every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.
Leliana straddled him.
Her knees pinned his arms to his sides. Her weight pressed him into the splintered wood, and her hair—that familiar red, darker than blood, darker than fire—fell around her face like a curtain.
The Codex hovered beside her, suspended in midair, its pages turning on their own. Red light pulsed from its spine. The same red light that burned in the rune across the tent. The same red light that had haunted his nightmares since the day his village burned.
"You came all this way to save me?" she sneered.
Her hips rolled against his.
Fox's breath caught.
"Yes. I came to stop you," he managed.
"Same thing."
She ground down harder—a slow, deliberate circle that pressed her heat against his groin. The leather of her trousers was thin. He could feel everything. Every contour. Every twitch.
"Leliana—"
"Don't."
Her voice cracked.
Just for a moment.
Then the mask was back. That cold, cruel smile. That glittering, hateful gaze.
"You left me," she said.
"I didn't—"
"You left me to rot."
Her hands found his shirt. She tore it open—buttons scattering, fabric ripping—and her nails raked down his chest. Not gentle. Not teasing. She carved lines into his skin that beaded with blood, and Fox hissed through his teeth.
"I was scared of what you had become," he said. “You were too powerful.”
"You still left me."
She unbuckled his belt.
The leather slipped through the loops with a sharp, clean sound. She yanked his trousers down—just enough—and her fingers wrapped around his cock. He was already hard. Had been since she first pinned him. The shame of it burned worse than the scratches on his chest.
"You left me," she whispered. “Because you love that elf instead of me.”
"No.” Fox trembled. He couldn’t lie. His heart and his hard cock betrayed him. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Liar,” she said bitterly.
She stroked him once. Twice. Her grip was tight, almost punishing, and precum leaked from his tip, slicking her palm.
"I am here now," Fox said. "I found you. And I can save you."
"Liar."
She released him.
Then she shifted. Rose up on her knees. Pulled her own trousers down—just past her hips—and positioned herself above him.
Fox could see everything. The pale skin of her thighs. The dark red hair between them, already wet. The way her cunt glistened in the candlelight.
"Don't," he said.
But he didn't know what he was asking her not to do.
She sank down.
His cock slid into her—slow, deliberate, inch by agonizing inch. She was tight. Hot. Wet. Her inner walls clenched around him like a fist, and Fox's vision went white at the edges.
"Fuck," he gasped.
Leliana laughed.
It was a broken sound.
"That's it," she breathed. "That's what I remember."
She began to move.
Not gently.
She rode him like she was trying to break him—hips slamming down, cunt gripping his cock with every rise, nails digging into his chest hard enough to draw fresh blood. The tent filled with the wet, obscene sound of their bodies colliding. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Fox's hands were free now.
He could have grabbed the rune.
He could have thrown her off.
But his fingers found her hips instead—gripping hard, bruising hard—and he thrust up into her. Matching her rhythm. Matching her violence.
"You left me," she gasped.
"I'm here now."
He drove into her deeper.
Leliana's head fell back. Her mouth opened. A moan escaped—raw, guttural, nothing like the cruel sneer she'd worn moments before.
"You're here now," she repeated. She lifted off of him, then she lowed her butt cheeks around his stiff cock.
Her voice broke again.
Fox grabbed her ass and pulled her down harder. Buried himself to the hilt. He could feel her cervix against the tip of his cock, and she cried out—not pain, not quite, something in between.
"You're still the same," he growled. "Still fighting."
"And you're still stupid."
She leaned forward.
Her lips crashed against his.
The kiss was brutal. Teeth and tongue and desperation. She bit his lower lip until it bled, and he tasted copper again—hers this time, maybe his, he didn't know anymore.
Her butt clenched around him.
He was close.
She was closer.
"I hate you," she whispered against his mouth.
"I know."
"I hate you so fucking much."
"I know."
She came.
Her body convulsed—back arching, nails raking down his chest one last time, ass milking his cock with violent, rhythmic pulses. She screamed. Not words. Just sound. Just release.
And in that moment—that single, fragile moment of vulnerability—Fox moved.
His hand found the rune.
It was cold. So cold it burned. He pressed it to her chest—right over her heart—and the world went white.
The Codex shrieked.
Not a metaphor. Not an exaggeration. A sound tore from its pages—high, keening, agonized—and the red light flickered. Once. Twice. Three times.
Leliana's eyes went wide.
Her mouth opened.
But no sound came out.
The dark energy that had been coiled inside Fox unspooled—rushing through him, into the rune, into her—and then it was gone. All of it. The corruption, the Codex's hold, the thing that had been eating her alive from the inside.
She collapsed.
Her body went limp on top of his, her cheek against his bleeding chest, her breath shallow but steady. The Codex fell to the floor—its pages still, its light dead.
Fox lay there.
His cock was still inside her butt. Softening now. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged animal.
He should move.
He should get up.
He should—
The tent flap tore open.
Everly stood in the entrance, her hands glowing with pale blue light, frost crystallizing on her fingertips. Behind her, Arielle—bow drawn, an arrow nocked, her face pale and streaked with blood.
They both froze.
"Fox?" Arielle's voice was small.
He looked at her.
Then down at Leliana.
Then at the dead Codex on the floor.
"She's alive," he said. "Help me get her out."
Everly's eyes narrowed.
But she didn't argue.
Outside, the undead army was collapsing.
Skeletons crumbled mid-step, their bones clattering to the stone like discarded toys. The green light in their eye sockets flickered and died. The rhythmic thud of their march stuttered, slowed, stopped.
The cliff fell silent.
Arielle helped Fox drag Leliana out of the tent. Her body was limp, her face peaceful for the first time in years, and Fox felt something crack open in his chest—something he'd locked away a long time ago.
"Is she..." Arielle couldn't finish.
"She's breathing."
Everly knelt beside them. Her fingers pressed to Leliana's wrist, her throat, her temple. Checking. Always checking.
"She'll live," the mage said. "But she won't wake for a while."
"How do you know?"
"I don't." Everly looked up at Fox. "But you didn't kill her. That means something."
Fox didn't answer.
He looked at the horizon instead.
The sun was rising.
Golden light spilled over the cliffs, painting the black stone in shades of amber and rose. The sea glittered below, calm now, as if the waves themselves had been holding their breath.
"We need to move," he said. "Before something else finds us."
Arielle nodded.
Everly nodded.
Together, they lifted Leliana and carried her toward the path.
Behind them, the tent collapsed.
Ahead, the dawn waited.
And somewhere in the distance, in the depths of a cavern Fox had spent a lifetime trying to forget, something stirred.
Something far worse than the undead.
Something that had been waiting for him all along.
Fox felt it.
The rune in his palm pulsed once—weak, fading.
And then it was dark.