Fen'Tarasyl

Chapter Twenty Two

For once, Talyn didn't dream. There was no Solas, there was no murderous redheaded elf. Just blissful darkness. At dawn, she was the first one awake. Her mind was swimming with thoughts of the kiss her and Solas shared in the world of dreams, so she rolled up her sleeping mat and went to walk in the woods to try to clear it.

She wanted to talk to Solas about last night, but she was afraid. She knew he was a Fadewalker and that he could enter people's dreams. But was that really him in her dream, or was that just a figment of her imagination? What if he hadn't actually visited her last night and that she had made the whole thing up? It would be embarrassing if Talyn admitted that she dreamt about kissing him and it hadn't actually happened.

It was definitely a possibility that Solas didn't visit her dreams last night. There were so many times where Talyn had thought they were going to kiss though. The gardens of the Redcliffe castle. In his study when he was teaching her to dance. It felt like a moment that had been building since they first met.

She had tried to push her feelings for Solas away, to focus only on her mission to defeat Corypheus. But then he would do something, look at her in a certain way that made Talyn forget everything but the feeling of his hands in hers, or the feeling of his lips against her forehead while she was fighting for her life in the snowy wastelands of the mountain. Or he would say something cryptic that could mean multiple things, forcing Talyn to stay up all night to try and decipher his words.

And after he done or said whatever made Talyn's heart fluttery, he would shut her out. Talyn just couldn't tell if his feelings were reciprocated or not, and that was the part that scared her the most. Because at this point Talyn couldn't hide the way she felt, from herself or anyone else. And she was terrified of losing the only person that truly understood her.

As Talyn walked, she heard a sound, like a crackling fire. She stopped and tilted her head, pushing her keen ears to pick up more. It just sounded like a fire. But Talyn decided to investigate. Maybe she would get lucky and it would be a group of bandits. A good messy fight was exactly what she needed to clear her head of her pesky thoughts about Solas.

Her left hand started to burn. The Mark that made its home in her palm started to glow, and her tattoos reacted to it. It started to pull her, almost dragging her through the trees towards the source of the sound.

Oh, gods. It was a rift. Talyn had thought that when the Breach was sealed, all the rifts had been sealed as well. What was this one doing so far out in the trees?

Talyn unsheathed her sword and started to run, letting the Mark pull her in the direction of the rift.

Demons were crawling through it, gripping the frozen ground and pulling themselves into the realm of mortals. They were just lowly shades, easy enough to deal with. It only took Talyn a few moments to cut them down. But before Talyn could seal the rift more demons appeared. This time it wasn't just shades, but rage demons as well. They oozed their way towards Talyn, swinging with their molten lava arms, grazing Talyn's skin and leaving burns as they did so.

Talyn pulled her dagger out of its sheath tied to her thigh and fought with both weapons, turning into nothing but a bright blue whirlwind. She didn't have time to even stun the demons with her Mark, they all came at her too quickly. It was all she could do to keep them from killing her.

Something cold grazed her cheek before embedding itself in the rage demon she was currently fighting. She smelled fresh cedar and knew right away that it was Solas to the rescue. She felt him at her back, shooting well aimed ice spikes at the demons. She felt the tingling of a magical shield surrounding her, keeping her from harm.