A/N: Whelp, since we've got a confirmed go-ahead from Bioware, I guess I might as well get posting this out of the way. This was my entry to the Bioware Asunder Creative Writing contest. Now that I've seen the other entries... yeah, I don't think it was what they were looking for. But, it was still fun to write and I'm glad I made myself do it, so I'm sharing it with all my friends.

Oh, and it's not *really* Amell, but there's no option on the drop down list for "nameless, random mage" :)

Enjoy :)

Trace

.

.

Sometimes, in the dim chill of a new morning that hinted at a rising sun she had never seen outside of the worn portraits in her books, she thought that she remembered her mother. She couldn't be sure, of course. The recollections came to her only in her deepest sleep, rendered gauzy and pale upon the awakening that whisked them back into the Fade. She was left only with vague impressions of softness and warmth, too ambiguous to offer much in the way of closure. But every so often, she could envision deep brown eyes, loving and warm, and yet always tinged with a hint of sadness she didn't quite understand.

She thought it strange that she could recall nothing of her life before being brought to the Circle Tower, considering the crisp, startling clarity of the images on the day she was taken away. The memory of the looming templars was forever engraved in her mind, the emotionless helms that disguised any shred of humanity announcing their intent to take her away. No matter how she tried, no matter how many hours of meditation she spent in trying to recover a single, solid memory before that day, the faces were blurred and unreachable, falling through her grasp like so much sand.

It took years before the dread conjured by the sight of templar uniforms gradually began to diminish. Even then, they stirred feeling of unease in the pit of her stomach—the faceless postures inspiring the churning uncertainty of a soul standing on the precipice, about to fall into the unknown. It was that acute discomfort that kept the other mages at bay when another child was brought into the Tower, even though their cries would shatter the stillness of the night hours for days afterwards, unanswered by any who heard them. The men who stood guard outside of the door were not cruel, only calloused, too accustomed to the sound to let it bother them anymore.

In truth, many of the mages regarded it the same way, the aching familiarity of the fear and uncertainty the child suffered buried beneath years of resignation. They would stop crying eventually. Everyone did.

Her stolen memories were replaced with new ones over the years, reducing them to a matter of idle curiosity rather than any real sense of loss. Her new life was not uneventful, gifting her with flashes of Jowan accidently setting the library ablaze when he tried to light the torches with a newly-learned fire spell; of Anders stealing the sheets off every bed in the apprentice quarters to wind himself a rope during his fourth escape attempt, because the Harrowed mages would have set his robes on fire if he tried to steal their bedding. The Circle Tower was a collection of a hundred siblings, all packed together to share childhood and adolescence under the careful guard of the templars. The winding halls were filled with magic and laughter and books, and occasionally smoldering hemlines and frozen toes—silly pranks that the Knight-Commander pretended not to notice for the sake of peace. Even Greagoir, taciturn and hard as steel, was wary of disrupting the only kind of life the Tower could provide unless he absolutely had to.

For long stretches of time, they would get along well enough. Months rolled by, and the fanatical gleam that burned in the eyes of every new wave of templars would slowly slip away, replaced by a basic longing for social interaction the doctrine of the Chantry could not quite provide. They became softer, more human than they had been upon their arrival. It was a small change, nothing inappropriate—a quiet smile, one of them breaking posture long enough to hurry forward and help her retrieve her dropped books. They were the innocent, timid acts of one soul reaching out to another in some attempt at friendship.

It never lasted long.

She never knew exactly what happened, but the result was always the same. They returned from the Knight-Commander's office pale and shaken, determined iciness replacing the previous hints of warmth in their gaze. Hardened eyes would bore into her as if she had done something unforgivable. They stopped using her name, then. She was "mage," uttered in a forceful reminder until it became customary enough not to sting anymore.

And yet, despite the invisible walls that encircled them all, there was a certain look in the eyes of those around her that she came to recognize as an adult. There was a sense of grim camaraderie that only mages and templars could truly understand. On the rare occasions when the doors blew open, a gust of fresh air and the scent of things that grew surged through the static stone corridors, and she could almost remember. The sensations would wash over her, and reminders of what she had lost spun around her pale skin like a shroud: the feel of the sun on her head and dirt beneath her feet, of cool grass and warm sand and rain on an upturned face.

Beneath the illusion of quiet, beyond the templars' discipline and the forced laughter the mages embraced in an attempt to feel a semblance of what normal must be, there was anger. Words like "wrong" and "prison" were hissed in dark corners, quiet and fearful despite the rage that churned beneath them. No matter how they muttered, or how hard they tried to make her see how hollow and empty she had become, it was all she knew. She didn't know what to say in the face of their growing disquiet. And so she pretended not to see the menace and sullen hatred that slinked silently around the experience of seeing childhood friends robbed of their emotion, left as mindless servants, no longer a danger to those around them and as obedient as any puppet on a string can be. She recognized no reason to protest or even dare to mourn—not unless she wanted the shadow of accusation to blacken the quiet corner where she sat with her head lowered, reading her books and doing exactly as she was told.

… … …

She thought she was dreaming when the screams began.

As the mists of sleep dissolved and brought her to full wakefulness, she heard a chorus of terrified voices filling her chamber, growing louder as the seconds passed and she realized they weren't a product of her nightmare. She heard slamming doors and barked orders followed by the rush of fleeing footsteps, the whisper of soft-soled slippers merging with the heavy, pounding steps of templars. She had no time to think before she was being dragged from her bed, caught up in a frantic press of sheer panic, broken snippets of information like "Uldred" and "demons" ringing in her ears.

In the dim light of the corridor, she saw the confirmation of her growing terror in the hulking, inhuman form that haunted the hidden edges of every mage's mind. Torchlight glinted across the abomination's razor-sharp claws as it struck. A ghastly sound of sticky delight hummed from its core at the sudden scream of agony and the crimson splash that rained, thick and heavy, across her robes. The reality that upheld her entire world came crashing down around her, leaving her feeling sick and dizzy, as if she had fallen from a great height.

She never thought of running, only knew that she was, the crowded vision of her friends' horrified faces swimming in her mind as she raced down the familiar passageways. Nothing filled her mind except escape, the thought of freedom pounding with each step of her bare feet as her heart stuttered in her chest.

But the doors were locked.

Dozens of bloody fingers scrambled to wedge themselves into the non-existent crevice in a hysterical attempt pry them open; the pounding of fists against the unrelenting barrier and the continued stomping of running feet thrummed through her, drowning her in noise and heat and loud, piteous wails that went unanswered. Above the hoarse, ragged sounds of her own screams echoed an internal cry of denial, turning itself over and over in her mind like a broken mantra.

She had done everything they ever told her to do.

A templar grabbed her by the arm—she couldn't determine who it was beneath the helm. His naked blade was dark with blood in the eerie red light cast by fires that now burned in nearly every room. He wasn't gentle as he shoved her towards the remains of the apprentice quarters with a hurried order to run. She obeyed without thinking, because it was what she had been taught to do. It wasn't until later, when she was curled in the cramped dark of an armoire, listening to the sound of her own fragmented breathing, that she realized the truth. He was going to die, to fall before the locked doors in a futile attempt to defend his charges—just like he had been told to do.

She hadn't cried since she was a child, during the cold, lonely nights when she still remembered home, but she did then. She cried until it hurt, until her stomach cramped with the sobs that continued to rock through her slender frame, heedless of her desperate attempts to keep quiet. Her limbs refused to obey her, trembling so violently it shuddered through the strand of hair that wavered in her blurred vision, her body prisoner to the agony of someone realizing for the first time just how desperately they didn't want to die.

She could hear when the sounds of panic outside gave way to the deafening clamor of battle as the abominations caught up to the cowering prisoners. She covered her ears, begging that the din of her own anguish and terror would muffle the roar of magic and the clang of metal, would drown the screams that brought to mind images of torture and death. It seemed like hours that all of creation was filled with nothing but the sounds of slaughter, the noises rising and falling like a wave of blood that washed up against the wooden doors of her hiding place until at last, a silence fell that was louder than anything she had ever known.

Through the corridors and dwellings came a ghastly howl of victory—maleficar proclaiming freedom as they celebrated in the ruins of a locked tower with the smoking, bloody ruins of the only life they had ever known smoldering all around them.