Chapter Text
Rosalie woke to a terrible pain coursing through her arm. An anguished shout tore itself from her throat as she jerked into consciousness. When the pain finally passed, she was left breathing heavily, staring up at the ceiling above her and feeling the cold from the stones below her seep into her bones. With great effort, she pushed herself up so she was kneeling, the jangling of the chains on her wrist jarring in the silence. She looked around, her entire body going stiff as she took in the guards around her, swords drawn. But… why? Why was she chained? Why was she under guard? The last thing she remembered before that strange… dream? Was it a dream? Or was she really in that green-tinged wasteland with the spiders and the glowing woman? Did it matter? Rosalie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. She was in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, looking for Cullen. She was in a hallway and then… nothing. But there must have been something, anything for these guards to look at her with such unbridled hatred. The pain from before flared again, lesser this time, but now that her eyes were open she could see the source: a mark on her left hand, glowing a familiar green. Not a dream, then.
Before Rosalie could make sense of that, the door in front of her slammed open. Two women entered, one taller with cropped, dark hair and wearing full armor, the other with chin-length, red hair that was covered by a purple hood. Both radiated authority. As the dark-haired woman approached, the guards sheathed their weapons. The woman didn’t stop until she was standing right in front of Rosalie, forcing her to crane her neck to see the woman’s face.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” the woman growled with a pronounced Nevarran accent. “The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you,” the woman continued, and Rosalie could swear her heart stopped.
“What do you mean, ‘everyone is dead?’” She asked, her desperate words coming out in a hoarse whisper.
The armored woman didn’t answer and simply squatted at Rosalie’s left side and took her wrist in a tight grip and yanking her marked hand to eye-level. “Explain. This.” As if in response to the woman’s command, the mark flared again, the pain now a dull throb.
“I- I can’t,” Rosalie stuttered, knowing they wouldn’t believe her.
“What do you mean you can’t.” The not-question was nearly spat.
“I don’t know what that is, or how it got there,” Rosalie pleaded, only seeming to anger the Nevarran woman more.
“You’re lying!” She lunged forward as if to strike Rosalie, only to be pulled back by her companion.
“We need her Cassandra,” the younger woman said, an Orlesian accent coloring her words. She held the other woman there with a tense look.
“I don’t understand,” Rosalie said, breaking the silence that had taken over the room. The red-haired woman turned away from Cassandra and walked forwards, stopping in front of Rosalie’s kneeling form. “All those people… my brother.” Rosalie’s entire body felt numb. There were hundreds of people in and around the temple when she arrived if they were all gone…
“Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Rosalie was startled out of her thoughts by the as-of-yet still unknown woman’s hard words.
Rosalie clenched her eyes shut, brow furrowing as she tried to remember what happened in that dream-like place. “I remember… running. Things were chasing me. And then… a woman?” If that was what that glowing form was. It had certainly looked like a woman.
The slight woman in front of her shifted, her interest piqued. “A woman?”
Rosalie nodded slowly. “She reached out to me, but then…” she trailed off and let out a frustrated sigh, the air blowing an errant lock of hair out of her face.
Cassandra stepped forward once again and addressed the red-haired woman. “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.” Leliana nodded and walked out the way she came. Cassandra knelt down in front of Rosalie.
“What did happen?” Rosalie asked as Cassandra removed her chains and replaced them with a sturdy rope. The taller woman pulled her to her feet.
“It will be easier to show you,” came the cryptic response. Cassandra escorted Rosalie through the dungeon up into a building that she recognized as Haven’s Chantry and, finally, outside to a horrific sight. A tear in the sky, glowing with the same ethereal green as Rosalie’s mark - and that strange place. “We call it the Breach,” Cassandra answered Rosalie’s unasked question. “It is a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave.”
Rosalie turned her eyes back to the sky with a renewed horror. “An explosion can do that?”
“This one did,” Cassandra said simply. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.” As they watched, the Breach shifted, growing larger, and a shockwave of pain started at her left hand and tore through Rosalie’s entire body, sending her to her knees. Cassandra knelt in front of her, watching as the pain passed and Rosalie was once again left gasping for breath. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads, and it is killing you,” Cassandra said. Rosalie looked down at her hand with a kind of macabre wonder. The other woman continued earnestly, “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”
Rosalie took a steeling breath and looked back up to the Breach. She thought of Cullen, her big brother, the man she hadn’t seen since she was a child, the person she had come here for… the person who was likely killed by whatever or whoever caused this Breach. Rosalie turned her eyes back to Cassandra, her resolve hardening. For Cullen. “If I can help, I will.”
Rosalie thought that making her way to the forward camp and then through the mountain pass, fighting demons at every turn would’ve prepared her for seeing the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but in the end, it was infinitely more haunting than she ever could’ve imagined. She stared up at the Breach, gritting her teeth and adjusting the grip on her borrowed daggers.
“This is your chance to end this,” Cassandra said, coming up beside her. Rosalie was vaguely aware of Solas on her other side and Varric behind them.
She looked up at the Breach, so far above them and felt unbelievably small. “I’ll try,” she said, “but I don’t know if I can reach that, let alone close it.”
Solas shook his head. “No. This rift was the first and it is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.” Rosalie nodded, blonde curls bouncing with the motion. She slid her daggers back into their sheaths on her back.
“Then let’s find a way down,” Cassandra advised, severe as ever. “And be careful.”
They made their way through the carnage in an uncomfortable silence. But then - “Now is the hour of our victory.” All around the ruined temple, soldiers froze in place looking for the source of the disembodied voice. “Bring forth the sacrifice.” Well, thought Rosalie, that’s not promising.
A long pause echoed through the temple before Cassandra cut in. “What are we hearing?”
“At a guess,” Solas started, as they made their way forward once again, “the person who created the Breach.” As they continued deeper into the ruin, red crystals came into view around them.
“You know this stuff is Red Lyrium, Seeker,” Varric said as they approached, clearly unsettled. Rosalie shifted, suddenly sharing in his discomfort.
“I see it, Varric,” Cassandra said through her teeth.
“But what’s it doing here?” The dwarf stressed.
“Magic could’ve drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it,” Solas suggested.
Varric merely grunted in response. “It’s evil,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”
Starting onward again, Rosalie caught sight of a ledge they could use to jump into the pit that held the rift when the mysterious voice rang out again. “Keep the sacrifice still.” Rosalie barely managed to suppress her shiver.
Then another voice, female this time, called out. “Someone! Help me!”
One look at Cassandra and Leliana’s faces told Rosalie all she needed to know about that voice before Cassandra spoke. “That is Divine Justinia’s voice!” With renewed vigor, they rushed forward and jumped down into the ruined pit below them. As they carefully made their way to the rift, Rosalie’s mark flared again, the young woman flinching with it.
“Someone help me!” The Divine’s voice called again.
“What’s going on here?” Rosalie jumped, the sound of her own voice jarring and unmistakable.
“That was your voice,” Cassandra said, clearly shaken. “Most Holy called out to you, but…” A white light interrupted the warrior woman and Rosalie fell to her knees as pain once again consumed her. As the pain passed, Rosalie lifted her eyes to where a spectral version of the divine was being held in mid-air by magical red tendrils. An ominous, shadowy figure floated closer, towering over everyone. Ghostly doors to what this place used to be flew open. A young woman stepped inside, looking up in horror at the shadow and its captive.
“What’s going on here?” The spectral Rosalie shouted.
“Run while you can!” The Divine urged, “Warn them!”
“We have an intruder,” the dark figure said. It was nothing more than a shadow, but it wasn’t hard to imagine an angry sneer on its face… or where its face would have been. “Kill her. Now,” it commanded, and as suddenly as it had appeared, the vision vanished. Rosalie slowly rose to her feet, holding her marked hand close to her chest. More questions, Rosalie thought, and no answers. Rosalie turned to face her comrades and was met with Cassandra less than a foot away.
“You were there!” Rosalie took a step back as Cassandra moved forward again. “Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”
Rosalie’s fingers twitched at her side as if drawing her daggers would protect her against Cassandra’s questions. Instead, she gritted her teeth and repeated the truth. “I don’t remember.”
“Echoes of what happened here. The fade bleeds into this place.” Rosalie watched as Solas studied the rift. It looked… different than the others. “This rift is not sealed, but it is closed… albeit temporarily.” The elf turned to face Rosalie. “I believe with the mark, the rift can be opened and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”
“That means demons.” Cassandra turned to address the soldiers stationed around the temple. “Stand ready!”
Rosalie took a deep breath. For Cullen . With that last thought, she raised her hand and opened the rift.