There was magic around both scars. The first, around her arm and breast, had been cleansed of the fire Kaevir had put into them. Now, they pulsed softly with the Dark. Neria's Dark, safe and sound, utilizing the branding for her own. But the other, as he could sense, was foreign and strange.

Kell would sense what it was if he looked a bit harder. It wasn't difficult to recognize the binding for what it was.

"She took my magic. All of it from home. My healing," and here her voice caught again, for her healing was hers, her identity -- "She took my Arcane and my elemental magic. All of it, every scrap from Thedas. Too it and bound it to herself. It..." Her throat closed up.

Neria's eyes were no longer blue. They were a moonlight-silver.

And only once Symon's eyes were cast off did the tears start. They fell down her cheeks before she even realized they'd sprung up. They dripped off her jaw and onto her hands, pooled in her lap.

"Like before. Back there, in the dungeon, in the dark." Her heart was beating too fast as she remembered. Neria closed her eyes and saw it. She opened them again. "In that fucking room where they...where he--" Burned her. Brutalized her. Made her into an animal. Made her weak and powerless. "And she took it from me, like they did."