The dragon's final roar split the air, a deafening sound that rattled the sky. Its massive body twisted in agony before collapsing into the stone, wings crumpling beneath it like torn cloth. As its chest shuddered one last time, a shock of red, sparking energy burst free, violent and unnatural. It hovered for a breathless instant, suspended above the corpse, then shot upwards.
Holli followed its path with wide eyes, shielding them against the light. It struck Corypheus like a spear.
He reeled back with a snarl that curdled the blood in her veins, eyes glowing too bright, too wrong. The orb in his hand flared, veins of power writhing through it like it was alive.
"The sky will boil! The Veil will rend! It ends here!" He howled, his every word thunder and fire.
The Breach above them shuddered and expanded, like it was reacting to him. Raw green light split the sky. Holli gasped as a jagged pain lanced down her marked hand, nearly dropping her to her knees. Her hand felt like it was being unmade from the inside. Like her bones were trying to split.
"Holli." Cole was beside her before she realised he'd moved. One hand hovered near her arm, not quite touching. His eyes, strange, kind, and knowing, were full of worry.
She tried to smile, tried to make it look like she was fine. "All good, all good," she managed, through gritted teeth.
Ahead, Iron Bull slung his axe over his shoulder, squinting up into the growing storm of magic and ruin.
"Let's go," he growled out.
They moved. Running up the broken stairs that twisted upward through the ancient ruin. Holli's lungs burned, her legs screamed. But she ran. When she first arrived in Thedas, this probably would have killed her. It seemed almost... funny, how pathetic her stamina had been back then.
They reached the summit just as Hawke and the others broke through a wall of Corypheus's summoned flame. Dorian was there, slinging bolts of lightning, and Cassandra was roaring, her shield up as she fended off whatever magic Corypheus had. It wasn't like the elemental stuff Solas had taught her. Fenris's marks were glowing as he pulled off shit Holli had never seen anyone else manage before.
Holli didn't hesitate. She hurled herself into the fray, dragging debris from the Fade, flinging it at Corypheus with enough force to crack bone. He snarled and turned toward her, eyes narrowing.
She braced, lifting a wall of shimmering force just in time to deflect a blast of fire he sent her way. Heat seared the edges of her vision, but the shield held. Bull lunged in from the side, axe cleaving through the air toward Corypheus's exposed flank. Solas shouted a warning - an incoming curse - and Holli flicked her fingers sharply, throwing up a shield to meet it.
They moved like a unit. Varric darted behind rubble, Bianca singing as he took precise shots at Corypheus's exposed joints. Blackwall kept his blade between the darkspawn magister and Cole, who blurred through the edges of the fight, cutting tendons, vanishing, and reappearing behind Corypheus again.
Holli tracked them all. Trying really hard to put all their training to use. It helped they only had the one enemy to keep track of. But still, a moment of distraction could mean one of them falling. She threw up another shield just in time for Solas to avoid being crushed beneath falling stone. Another for Varric when Corypheus wheeled on him, eyes glowing, intent on erasing him with one spell.
Above them, the orb was floating, slowly rotating, crackling with jagged veins of red lightning that snapped outward in pulsing bursts. It looked unstable. The skies above them bled green and red light, swirling and boiling.
Her hand throbbed. Not just pain, it burned. The mark was reacting, the pull of it sharp and nauseating. She had to ignore it. She didn't want to be the one who fucked this up for everyone.
Corypheus looked like hell. Blood streaked his armoury-type clothes, one eye half-shut, his movements slowed. But that red lightning coiled tighter around the orb, and in a roar of fury, he sent a shockwave screaming outward.
The world slammed sideways. Holli hit the stone hard, skidding into Varric. A groan from Bull behind her. Someone shouted her name - maybe Cassandra - but it was distant and muffled.
Corypheus was staggering, hand outstretched. He started bellowing at the sky, names of Old Gods she was pretty sure. Sounded like he was praying. The orb surged toward him, wild and crackling. He caught it, barely. His body buckled under the power trying to climb inside him.
Holli's hand flared, the green light sparking through her veins, brighter than it had ever been. And she saw it, in the red lightning dancing around the orb: green sparks. The same energy. The mark answered and she didn't hesitate; she reached. It was like grabbing a sun and dragging. The orb ripped out of Corypheus's hands, striking him across the face with a sickening crunch. Bone cracked, skin tore. She didn't think she'd ever forget that sound.
Holli stumbled forward, hand outstretched, pulling the orb to her. It hovered near the mark - cold, impossibly heavy, but right. She looked up at the Breach. The power that flooded her was searing, divine and unbearable. She screamed through her teeth and shoved it outward.
The Breach sealed with a thunderous crack of sky and silence. No more tearing. No more light. Just clouds, and blood, and breathless stillness.
When she looked down, Corypheus was on his knees. His mouth worked in silent denial. Her hand lifted again, and she tore him open. The rift answered, swallowing what was left of him in a cascade of spirit and void. And then he was just... gone.
The silence that followed was thick, but it didn't last long. The ground shuddered. Above them, the floating mountains split and started to fall. Chunks of rock as big as keeps sheared off and crashed into each other midair, spinning downward in a rain of annihilation. Holli ran. There was nothing else to do. Run and breathe and don't get fucking crushed.
A boulder slammed down in her path, and she flung up a shield without thinking. It cracked under the pressure but held long enough for her to dart around it. Another tore loose from above, and she opened a rift midair with a twist of her burning hand, watching it vanish in sparks before it could land on anyone.
She didn't know where everyone was. Her mark throbbed like a second heart. She couldn't see Varric, or Hawke, or Solas. She couldn't see-
"Here," Cole said.
He was beside her. She didn't know how long he'd been there. He took her arm gently, eyes wide and shining in the dust-choked air. Then the floating mountain they were on gave out.
It didn't fall so much as drop, weighty and final. The slam into the earth knocked the wind from her chest and the balance from her feet. Holli hit the ground hard and rolled, her hand skidding through gravel. Cole flung himself over her, arms braced, shielding as best he could.
The world shook. The sound of it roared inside her skull. She felt it in her teeth, in her skull, in the hollow place where breath should've been. Dust swallowed them completely. This couldn't be good for their lungs.
She clung to him, both of them huddled together in the thick, stifling dark. The air tasted like stone and dust. She couldn't see the sky. Couldn't see anything. Just Cole's presence, his quiet breath near her temple, the way he said nothing at all, only stayed with her.
At least she wasn't alone.