Varric Tethras can't stand holding back the truth about Marian Hawke after the Inquisitor leaves her in the Fade to die. What he can't stand more is no one is trying to get her back. With the assistance of friends in surprising places, he fights in...
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The sickly ache he feels would have dropped any man. If the King of Ferelden suddenly heard the death of his Love from across the country, then saw her appear before him as if a ghost, but real—that's what this feels like. Except she never died. Just his dreams crushed by reality and political bullshit.
"Is staring all you're gonna do, Varric?"
Even her sultry voice slips under the radar until it stabs, and you wonder why your heart is bleeding.
"Bianca," he says. "You shouldn't be here."
"Of course I should. I'm the one person that's standing between you and a league of assassins."
"Pardon?"
"They're in the rubble of Kirkwall. Hawke didn't tell you? She was trying to stop them. They're hard to squash, little blighters. Buildings, though, so much easier." She picks up a rock, inspects it, then tosses it behind her with a smirk.
He eyes the indentations in the dirt where she wrestled the rock from its sleep. The field lies bare beneath their boots, and though they stand at a duel's pace, he feels they're at both ends of the expanse.
"This isn't real," he mumbles on repeat.
"What isn't? This? You could be right. But there are times when you aren't right at all." Bianca's whites of her eyes blacken. "And the choices you make affect us all."
He's had enough of demons and spirits today.
"Here we go again. Look, 'Bianca,' wasn't my choice to cower under my family's oppression by dumping you at the altar. That was all you. Do you know how many shots I can take before I go down? Do you know how many assassins I meet on the road? I'm still here."
"It doesn't have to be like that anymore, Varric. No more assassins. No more fighting. Just peace, inventions, and writing. You and me. I left to save you. I didn't know you'd be taking on assassins even with Hawke around. So why don't you just make a choice for both of us."
"Is this the spirit of choice, I'm talking to?"
"Goodness, no. A spirit cannot change your life—your fate."
"Another demon, then."
"Hardly. I am so much more. Everything you've ever wanted, it will be real once you leave Hawke's dreams. All you have to do is choose."
The black in Bianca's eyes vanishes and she flutters her eyelids as if waking from a daze. From the ground, the blackness pushes upward, forming Hawke, leaving her standing next to Bianca. Left, right, his eyes can't keep still. This isn't real. Air chases itself through his nose until that light-headedness grips, and he watches a tunnel wrap about his vision. He shakes it away. This isn't real. This isn't real. Between Hawke and Bianca, another body arises, cold skin, dark hair, not the Spirit of Fame, or Choice, or a demon, but an angel. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.
