Bodies Are Such Limiting Things
Clouds of thick green fog pressed against Brenna and weighed her down as though she’d been thrown into a deep emerald lake. Whispered voices filled the fog, just loud enough for her to catch occasional words.
Join us, brothers and sisters… I was outmaneuvered… It brought me you… There can be no compromise… It’s time to go.
The fog receded and she emerged into a dungeon, her vision blurred and the ground tilted drunkenly beneath her feet. She swallowed hard—it reminded her of the dungeon beneath Kinloch Hold, and phantom pain seared through the scars on her back. But Kinloch’s dungeon didn’t have great shards of red lyrium bursting through the floor.
Red lyrium. There was something important about red lyrium just at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t remember what. Her mind felt as hazy as the fog she had just stepped out from.
Two figures waited on a low dais at the end of the room—hazy copies of Alistair and Anora, tinged with green auras.
“Is this shape useful?” Anora stepped forward. “Will it let me know you?”
“Not really,” Brenna said. “I’ve been trying to know Anora for years, but sadly she isn’t attracted to women.”
Brenna clapped a hand over her mouth, surprised by the blurted admission. Maker, was she drunk? She rarely imbibed more than one glass of wine. What was wrong with her?
Anora’s imposter frowned—a perfect mimic of the expression often directed at Brenna. Most people would have assumed that she would be the hand of the king, but even now Alistair harbored a soft heart. Brenna and Anora did not suffer from that affliction—Anora didn’t hesitate to order an assassination when necessary, and Brenna didn’t hesitate to follow her queen’s order.
The imposter recovered quickly. “Do you know what the mage rebellion can become? Glory is coming, and the Elder One wants you to serve like everyone else—by dying in the right way.”
“Dying isn’t part of this assignment.” Brenna’s brow furrowed—she was on an assignment, wasn’t she? A task for the crown?
“Everything tells me of you.”
“Which me?”
Another confused frown. This time Alistair approached her. “You are the Hero of Ferelden.”
“Oh, that me.” Brenna tilted her head. “Are you sure? When I arrived I was Lady Weatherford.”
That’s right—she had been fighting alongside Ser Barris and the young templars against their corrupted comrades. The lord seeker grabbed her...and now she was here. The Fade? A seeker couldn’t pull her into the Fade.
“Andraste’s flaming knickers. An Envy demon?” She scowled in disgust—templars, red lyrium, and now a demon. “All this fuss from one measly Envy demon?”
“Measly?” Anora’s imposter gaped, insulted.
“Pathetic. I don’t have time for this.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
“You can’t run from me. I am Envy, and I will know you.” The demon’s voice echoed around her as she reached a heavy wooden door.
“You have it backward. You can’t run from me.”
Brenna shoved the heavy door open and stepped into a room with cells to either side. Ghostly forms argued in the center of the room—Nathaniel, Bethany, and Brenna on one side and Anders and Hawke on the other. Or at least it looked like Brenna, just a shadowy shell with eyes that glowed an otherworldly green.
They were aboard Isabella’s ship, sailing toward Amaranthine after Anders had destroyed half of Hightown and arguing over what to do next. They reached an impasse that was about to be shattered in a way none of them could have predicted.
Silence fell over the scene as the shimmering form of Flemeth sauntered down the stairs across from Brenna and joined the ghosts.
“It seems to me that you have a choice to make,” Flemeth said. “You cannot fight two battles in what is to come. Choose wisely. Are you a mage, or a grey warden?”
One by one Anders, Bethany, and finally Brenna answered mage. Nathaniel raised his hand. “I am not a mage, but I support my wife.”
“Good man.” Flemeth grinned and raised her hand, and four streams of energy flowed from the grey wardens and formed a swirling sphere in her palm. “Then you no longer need this. Fight well. Succeed and you may build a new age of magic. Fail, and magic will continue to diminish into legend.”
The figures flickered and vanished, and the demon hissed. “Being you will be so much more interesting than being the Lord Seeker. No more boring templars. I will command legions of mages.”
“Good luck with that,” Brenna muttered as she crossed the empty room. If the mage rebellion had taught her anything, it was that it was nigh impossible to get mages to agree on anything. Hence why the mages had split into so many factions.
She opened the second door and entered another cell with translucent figures in the center. Bound templars knelt in a row while a tall woman with broad shoulders and short, pale hair paced in front of them.
“Each of you shall be judged,” she said. “If you have upheld the tenets of the Order with honor and treated your charges with dignity, you will be free to go. If you have abused your power and used it to harm those in your care.” The mage paused, folded her hands and tilted her head as she surveyed the templars. “Well, then we have a problem.”
The figures faded and the demon hissed.
“Every action tells me more about yourself.”
“That’s not me, that’s a Judge,” Brenna replied. “They dispense justice after a Circle is liberated. Never the same judge twice. That’s a lot of people to know. Maybe you should start writing this down.”
It had been good practice in creating new personas—a new mage each time, never heard from again. She was true to her word. Vicious templars were executed, those who were true to their duty were released, and those who were friendly to mages like Ser Thrask were recruited to their cause. Brenna’s vision wasn’t a world without templars, it was a world where mages and templars worked together to fight the corruption of demons and blood magic.
Envy growled and the stone floor trembled beneath her boots. “I am not your toy. I will be you.”
Brenna snorted. “Toy implies that I’m having fun. I’m not. This is tedious. I’ve defeated scores of your kind. You’re just one more.”
The demon howled as she crossed the room and opened the door. Strange rotating columns lined the center of a great hall, and carved faces belched gouts of green fire.
“Temper, temper. I thought Rage demons specialized in fire?” She winced at the blast of heat and sweat broke out across her brow. If Envy had pulled her into the Fade like the Sloth demon had at Kinloch Hold, then she was vulnerable to harm. A mage who died in the Fade never woke again.
She followed the wall to her right and ducked into an alcove for safety. Soldiers wearing unfamiliar colors milled about in small groups, praising the leadership of the Hero of Ferelden and the glory of the Elder One.
Elder One? That was new—something of Envy’s? Or Lord Seeker Lucius? How long had Envy been masquerading as the lord seeker? Since before the conclave?
Brenna avoided the flames as she made her way through the hall until she finally spotted another wooden door. She frowned as she entered a small topsy-turvy bedroom. Furniture and pieces of parchment clung to the ceiling and walls without rhyme or reason.
“You’re hurting, helpless, hasty. What happens to the hammer when there are no more nails?”
A different voice this time—male, but not the lord seeker’s voice.
“What are you?” Envy asked. “Get out! This is my place.”
Had someone else strayed into Envy’s corner of the Fade? Perhaps one of the templars had been pulled in with her.
“Hello? Is someone there?” No answer. Shaking her head, she turned to leave.
“Wait.”
The room was still empty when she turned back, but the voice continued.
“I’ve been watching. Envy is hurting you. Mirrors on mirrors on memories. I want to help. You. Not Envy.”
“Thank you, I think. Who are you?”
“I’m Cole. We’re inside you.”
She turned again and spotted a young man in ragged clothing and an almost comically oversized hat standing on the ceiling. She blinked as she processed that comment, and Cole continued.
“Envy hurts you, is hurting you. I tried to help. Then I was here, in the hearing. It’s—it’s not usually like this.”
“Ah. We’re not in the Fade, then.” She grimaced—that meant Envy was squatting in her mind, picking through her memories as it learned how to become her. “Why are you here?”
“I was watching,” Cole said. “I watch. Every templar knew when you arrived. Many came to you for help, but you weren’t you. You were her.”
“Fair. And then we were attacked by the templars corrupted by red lyrium.”
“Yes.” Cole nodded and the brim of his hat bobbed. “It twisted the commanders, forced their fury, their fight. They’re red inside. Anyway, you’re frozen. Envy is trying to take your face, I heard it and reached out, and then in, and then I was here.”
“So you need to escape, too. I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”
“Yes. All of this is Envy: people, places, power. If you keep going, Envy stretches. It takes strength to make more. Tires it out.”
“Got it. Thanks.” Brenna turned to leave, and when she reached the door she looked back and Cole had disappeared.
A second gauntlet of rotating, flaming columns awaited, and she sighed.
“This way,” Cole’s voice instructed. “Ideas are loud here. Make them louder. Think of water.”
Simple enough. She imagined sheets of water cascading from the ceiling and the green fire was doused.
“That thing can’t help you,” Envy snarled. “I will see more.”
“Don’t worry. This will be a real show.”
Brenna journeyed through more ghostly memories, but now she walked through them on her mission to wear Envy down. She left the dungeon behind and entered a courtyard—Therinfal Redoubt, recreated in her mind. It made sense—Envy was using a setting it was familiar with instead of stretching its energy to create something new. Red lyrium shards burst from the ground and green fog swirled around her feet, but at least it wasn’t raining.
Cole perched atop a crate. “Almost there. Keep going up. You’re making it hard for Envy to think. It will probably come out soon. It’s angry, but that’s okay. So are you.”
Brenna smiled.
“Silence, Compassion!”
Compassion? Unexpected, but useful.
As she moved through the keep she encountered more scenes, but instead of images from her thoughts, these revealed pieces of Envy’s plan as the demon began to crack. Soldiers spoke of how Orlais had been destroyed by a demon army. She passed a group of Orlesian refugees discussing how Tevinter had fallen, and Antiva was besieged by the demons who took Val Royeaux. Brenna wouldn’t cry for Orlais or Tevinter, but Zevran would be heartbroken if something happened to Antiva.
“They say the Hero of Ferelden summoned these demons after Celene was murdered,” a refugee said.
“Bullshit,” Brenna muttered. “No one would believe I’d turned malificar after I’ve spent my life killing them.”
At the top of the stairs Envy waited, a poisonous green shadow of Brenna’s form. It lunged for Brenna and she punched it in the jaw.
“Unfair,” it howled as it spun away. “That thing kept you whole. Kept you from giving me your shape.”
“It’s frightened of you,” Cole said. She spied him standing atop the open palm of a statue.
“It damn well better be.” Brenna surged forward and reached for the demon’s throat, and the creature screeched as the world shattered.
Brenna found herself once again standing in front of the doors to the main hall, but Lord Seeker Lucius was gone. The demon’s spindly, awful true form had been revealed—a thing of twisted flesh and impossibly long limbs. It screeched and darted away, and Brenna rounded on the templars behind her.
“How the fuck does the entire Templar Order not notice that they’re being led by a demon? Honestly! You had one bloody job to do!”