Embrium

EMBRIUM (EMBER)

STAND YOUR GROUND, THE DAWN WILL COME

Embrium’s first memories were of the circle, being surrounded by towering shelves, the ceilings so high it seemed as if the walls stretched upward forever. The walls were always warm, and windowless. For a long time, Ember didn’t even know what windows were. She didn’t know what the sky looked really like, or hills, or the sea. It wasn’t uncommon to have no memory of the outside, and it’s not as if she ever would see it. Most people lived and died in the tower, only ever leaving if they’d garnered enough political clout, or if there was some need of them on the Outside. Some people did remember, though, and it kept them rooted in misery. Embrium always used to see them staring at the illustrations in storybooks, aching for the sensation of the Outside. Embrium never envied them.

Thinking of the Outside would just make her miserable, all of the other mages told her. She was unlikely to ever leave, so what was the point in dwelling on it?

So her time was instead spent learning and studying. Ember was more competitive than her fellows, but she was most interested in knowledge. Knowing more than someone else was far more satisfying than being able to light a book on fire the fastest. Her teachers praised her knowledge, and her ego and competitiveness grew. Her superiority complex and knowledge hoarding tendencies made her one of the most hated children in the circle. Ember’s reputation was of a snitch, and worse, a blackmailer. Her nosiness and proclivity to eavesdrop gave her the perfect opportunity to gather dirt on other mages, but it did not earn her many friends. The only ones who really cared what she thought were those she could spread the gossip to. Regardless, her personality earned her one of the highest regarded positions in her age group, and even the first enchanter was interested in her, particularly so when she showed a proficiency in creation magic, at the mere age of eight.

Ember was eleven when Starkhaven Tower was burnt to the ground by blood mages. Embrium and the rest of the mages left the tower.

Embrium saw the sky. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Endless. It was even better at night, and the stars poked out through the darkness. Some of the others her age bitterly complained about everything, from the cold, to the brightness of the sun, and were scared of nearly everything, but Ember was enchanted by everything.

Kirkwall was… less enchanting, but still so different that she couldn’t help but like it immediately. That opinion was later proven to be premature.

Before Kirkwall Templars were something so normal that her eyes would gloss over them when they were in the room. Usually she would not even notice they were there, so common were they. At Kirkwall, this was different. It didn’t take long for Ember to notice. The other mages were terrified of the templars, and like the child she was, she soon started to adopt their behavior toward them. Templars were less friendly suits of armor and more looming statues of doom. She woke up too many times with nightmares of them breathing down her neck.

Her studies suffered, and not only because of her fear of the templars. All of the spirit healers in The Gallows had been made tranquil, so there was no one there to teach her. Force Magic was the most popular form of magic in Kirkwall, so that is what she was taught. The years went by with her terror of the templars increasing every day. She remembers rumors of Ser Alrik circulating throughout the halls. They said he liked his girls young. A few days later Ember saw one of her friends walking through the circle halls, her eyes empty and the chantry sigil branded on her forehead.

Embrium ached for the outside. She’d gotten the same yearning the others had, the ones she remembered pitying when she was a child. The ones her mentors told her to ignore. There were windows in this circle, however few and small, and she’d spend hours just staring at the sky and breathing in the smell of piss and salty water and city.

She was almost sixteen when Ser Alrik grabbed her while she was returning from her alcove, threatening her to lean over the desk at the threat of tranquility. When he buried his hands in her thick curly hair, he whispered in her ear that the reason for it was because she was too proud, and he didn’t like pride in a mage. She was seventeen when he was killed by the mage underground. She doesn’t know who did it, but Ember still wants to thank them for what they did, whomever they are.

Making friends in a place where terror was abound was easier than one would think. She made many. Too many of them took to blood magic when the Knight Captain called for the right of Annulment. Ember couldn’t blame them. Not when, as Templar cornered her in one of the libraries, bloodied blade raised high and the corpse of the child she’d been tutoring too still on the ground, she’d cried out for someone to help her, anyone, and a voice in her head whispered, “Anyone?”

***



When demons started ripping through the fabric of the world, Ember was more concerned about the one in her head, shrieking and clawing at the inside of her skull, than the ones that started lurking around in the Real. Anguish was the end of the world as she knew it. It had been four years since she’d bonded with Anguish, and the demon was impossible. She had gotten a job at an inn so that she could get on her own two feet and afford to feed herself. Keeping the scars on the inside of her wrists hidden was also an issue, especially considering all of the mages were apostates, and villagers were on high alert for any signs of blood magic.

The breach was a concern, of course. It made Anguish nearly unbearable to suppress, the thin veil serving to make the demon even more powerful. Before the explosion in the sky, Embrium had been able to suppress the spirit to a whisper in the back of her head, if one frequently argues with whispers, anyway. Ember considered going to Tevinter, because surely they had a way to remove demons; they used blood magic all the time. She had stupidly taken a ship to Fereldan when the circle fell, though, and Tevinter was very far away. Few ships went to Tevinter. Southern refugees from the civil war weren’t widely accepted in the country, either. Ember decided that she would have to sneak in.

So she took roads less travelled to avoid templars, blood mages, and bandits that had decided to profit off of the chaos. She half expected to be killed on the road there, but fortune smiled on her. Just before she tried to cross the Frostbacks she met a group of Avvar mages, a clan ostracized for their regular use of blood magic. They almost immediately noticed she was possessed, but thought that Anguish was staying because she wanted it to. When she told them it was not so, they agreed to help her. One of the mages made her drink a potion to make her fall asleep and then captured a bandit. They bled him dry, and then, using the power of the blood magic to go into Embrium’s dreamscape, defeated the demon.

Embrium stayed with them for five years. They taught her much about blood magic, and their augur taught her about spirit healing and talking to spirits, though, while curious, she was extremely hesitant to learn anything about spirits or blood magic at first, due to her history with Anguish. She did learn, but she prefered to use mostly force magic, as it is what she is most proficient at, especially after the Breach. She married twice, once to a man for two years and another time to a woman for three, though she was with both of them at the same time during both marriages. She would have children by now, if Vilgar hadn’t been sterile.

The blissful five years ended when a pair of mated dragon decided to feast on the clan, killing half of the population and devouring Vilgar and her wife Emlath. The clan was diminished to so few that the Thane decided to disband and join surrounding clans to avoid being wiped out entirely. Embrium couldn’t follow suit when Vilgar and Emlath were gone. It was too much.

Now Ember is often interchanged between mercenary groups, as everyone is always looking for a good mage, but no one really wanted to keep her because of the scars on her wrist. She doesn’t use blood magic so frivolously anymore, especially since it is such a taboo in the South.


“Ah, Flower, not afraid of a bit of rain, are ya?” Emlath snorts, her yellowed, crooked teeth exposed in a challenging grin. Vilgar raises a brow. Ember doesn’t see either of them. Her eyes are trained on the glistening mist on the hair of her arms. A few cold drops of rain draw a path down her skin. She looks up. The fog is collecting on in the dips of the leaves, and on the tips of the grass, too, though she’s not surprised. She’s always thought grass seemed liked little earth hairs. She flinches when leaf upends its load on top of her head and Emlath guffaws. She stops laughing when the curls of her red hair get caught in a nearby branch.

Vilgar shakes his head at them both, trying to hide a smile behind a poor grimace. “I hate the thrice damned rain, bless the Lady of the Skies.”

“You’re just afraid of getting your beard all wet!” Emlath says. Vilgar groans and parts his beard down the middle, grabbing the top of both sides and squeezing down, theatrically milking it as one would milk a ram. It isn’t wet enough to produce more than a trickle of water, but they all laugh anyway.

Embrium wipes her hands down her arms, destroying the drops of dew. “Nothing wrong with an early morning rain,” she says cheerfully. The fog is oddly warm. They can’t see more than a few feet ahead of them in this fog, and they should be being a bit more quiet to keep away predators, but they aren’t. Embrium has a ward around her at all times, anyway, though, and they all know it. If something was sneaking up on them, she would know. They’re supposed to be at camp with the others, but Emlath had said she found a few old marks on the trees, and they were supposed to lead to a treasure. Avvar often used marks to convey messages to other clans.

Emlath whispers, “The end of the path is right ahead, it’s… oh. By Korth’s left hand.” When they duck through the bushes there is no cave entrance, as Embrium expected, or a treasure chest disguised as a rock, which Vilgar had prophesied. It’s a hot spring. Emlath is the only one disappointed, but it doesn’t take long for her to agree to take off her clothes and get in the pools with them. Embrium casts a few wards around the area as Emlath leans her maul against a scraggly tree. The weapon almost crushes the poor plant. Vilgar is a bit more gentle with his staff.

“Did you know, that some hot springs in Ferelden are so hot, that they can boil the flesh off a man? I read about it.” Embrium starts, in what Vilgar likes to call her “augur voice.”

“Yeah, I’ll check the temperature first,” Emlath says seriously. That wasn’t what Embrium was trying to say, but she doesn’t continue her lecture. Vilgar is usually the only one interested of the two, and she wasn’t going to subject Emlath to that.

They return to camp, hours later, after a hunter finds them in the midst of... activities, and tells them the augur was looking for them. The walk back is rife with grins and badly hidden sideways glances, their guide exasperated and a shade of red.

[b]LUPITA NYONG'O[/b] as [i]embrium[/i]