Identity Theft - SailorElf - Dragon Age [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The leather of the book felt smooth against my fingertips. Deftly I disengaged the old, yet still strong, lock that kept the tome bound but paused for a moment before I turned the worn cover to peer at the knowledge inside. My employer specifically requested that the book remain unopened, undamaged, and at all costs removed from its current owner.

I couldn’t help my curious nature so naturally I ignored whatever orders were given to me. My end of the bargain would be fulfilled and the item my client wanted would be delivered but I had to take a peek first. Just to make sure nothing had been tampered with of course.

Shivers raced up my arm as I turned the first page over. A strange crest greeted my eyes that looked like two hawks perched vertically on each other’s talons. I ran my finger over the red inked design and traced the elegant lines. Pretty. With an idle flick I went to the next page and the next and the next not caring about the time that passed while I looked at pretty pictures. What was that one? I peered closer at it. Imps, perhaps? Their sickly, dark appearances gave the impression of that. There were no words to describe what was taking place in the scene of a man with a staff aiming a…spell at the intimidating devil. A faint memory squirmed in the back of my mind.

“Magic,” I wondered out-loud? Was I hired to steal a spellbook?

Magic had been forbidden by the Chantry, a very powerful and influential group of religious nuts I thought, for hundreds of years and for a grimoire to be still intact and not be in ashes from the Purge in the 1600s was rare indeed. I had only seen two before and those were passed down in my family for generations. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how much even a page of this tome was worth. A smirk crawled its way on my face. I could easily find out.

I continued flipping through the ancient sheets of parchment and pieced together a history of the man who became a champion through many trials. The next page a familiar symbol caught my immediate attention and I hissed air through my teeth.

Templars, I snarled.

The hated enemy of the Circle of Mages lived to hunt us all down and tear apart our small organization that had fewer numbers each year due to the Templars incessant need to wipe all magic-users from the planet. I felt my mana spike at the built-up anger and I was forced to pause and take a deep breath to steady its sudden flow. It wouldn’t be good for a fire to break out in the sealed library that I had stolen into.

A glow at the corner of my eye had me looking down at my left hand. My glyph of protection pulsated with a light blue near the back of my knuckle. Carved into my flesh by my own knife its glow told me that the wards I placed to foretell of guards had been tripped. I had only a few minutes before they would catch me. I waved my hand over the tome and watched the lock click in place. Magic was so convenient.

The tome was too thick and valuable for me to stuff into my bag so I was forced to carry it. Resizing spells were never my forte. My magic was more suited to combat and besides a few odd spells here and there my specialty was throwing fireballs into people’s faces which made it odd that I, specifically and by that I mean the client knew my name, was hired for this job.

As I snatched up the spellbook, I heard heavy footsteps a second before the tall doors into the library opened and I realized why I was paid in advance. Before I rushed into a darkened corner I saw the Templar symbol of a blue sword wreathed in flame stitched on a Kevlar vest with a nasty silver Desert Eagle model gun sniffing out my position.

I groaned under my breath. Seriously, Templars? The guy who owned the mansion really had gone overboard with the paranoia and the expenses. Hiring the best really put a dent in ones wallet. I would know. I was pretty fantastic in my field of thievery and intimidation and my price-tag included a lot of zeroes. I know it made me sound like a mercenary but one couldn’t live on forbidden talents alone. Besides what kind of job could I get with creating icicles out of thin air? A demented shaved-ice business?

The guard crept closer to my hiding spot near the empty pedestal where the book had been put on display and was now tucked under my arm. If his intelligence was above that of a worm he was bound to notice. I frantically looked around for a better place to hide but as far as the eye could see were rows upon rows of priceless books that stretched to the black void of the ceiling above me.

If I moved the Templar would shoot me. If I stayed the Templar would shoot me. If I could phase through the floor I would be fine but unfortunately my arsenal of spells didn’t include the superpowers of all the X-men.

Private tutors, hired by my parents when I was a child, hadn’t seen the need for metal claws to shoot out from between my knuckles. I told them it was cool; they called it useless and instead forced me to ignite and extinguish a candle for three hours. My idea was better.

Wracking my brain I looked down at my right hand and turned it so that I could see my palm. Carved in my skin were numerous glyphs that stretched to my fingertips. What appeared to be a chaotic mess of seemingly meaningless designs was an organized chaos in my eyes. I poured my magic into one of the runes shaped like an eye in the middle of my palm that was my first to be created.

My mage-sight – used to identify spellwork – made my hand glow only to my eyes as if I had stuck it in a nuclear reactor and I began to check off spells that would help me out of this situation. Spell of fire…no. That would be bad for all the paper in the room that was definitely flammable. No ice, wind, or earthquake – very cool but one that required more concentration than I had at the moment and would most likely collapse the roof on top of me – and conjuring up a thunderstorm all sounded like bad ideas.

Right hand was useless so I tossed the grimoire for it to hold so my magical gaze could focus on my left which had more defensive spells. See? Organization. One glowing rune on my thumb would work perfectly. There was a reason the mutilation of my body and it didn’t stem from the typical teenage rebellion, but in fact literally having spells at my fingertips disallowed a staff for my mana to flow through.

A staff or wand was merely a medium for mages to concentrate on and sift through their magical knowledge to produce the correct spell. Staves were not just pieces of wood we mages waved around but rather a portable spellbook as the wood was covered in runes. But why carry something around that screamed MAGE to all the Templars? I simply forewent the middleman. It required less mana to activate the glyphs as it remained unfiltered through a staff and it was pretty convenient. I mean, it was difficult to misplace hands.

However there was a downside to my ingenious idea. It bordered on blood magic which was the only thing the Templars and Mages agreed was forbidden. Technically it wasn’t blood magic because I had never bargained for the power with a demon but I had never gone to the First Enchanter for the finer points of outlawed practices. Me and the old man didn’t exactly get along. I mean communication between absent father and rebellious son usually consisted of grunts and head nods, but First Enchanter Bastard didn’t even like to acknowledge my existence.

Yeah, the leader and most powerful mage of the Circle was my father.

Big surprise there.

The Amells were an ancient line that stemmed from magic thousands of years ago and ignoring a few name changes, embarrassing non-magical children, and the occasional accidental death by ignorance of the cardinal rule that “fire is hot”, I was descended from a rich bloodline. Whoopee.

Wait, name changes…that crest I saw earlier-!

“Hold it right there! Access is not permitted in this area! Raise your hands slowly and turn around or I’ll put a bullet straight through your skull,” came the order from behind me.

I turned with a smirk. About ten feet from me stood a scowling man with his high-powered gun trained between my eyes that would punch a grapefruit sized hole with just a little twitch of his finger. Even magic couldn’t help me scoop my brains back into an empty skull.

The Templar was a heavy-set with a wide chest and tree-trunk sized arms that must have been made my working out three hours a day every day. My biceps weren’t sticks but they still sobbed in comparison. He had brown hair and bright green eyes that didn’t seem to fit on a killer’s face. I always imagined the murderers of my brethren to have red eyes and a forked tongue. I didn’t know if the guy before me fit the criteria of the latter but he definitely didn’t have demon eyes. They were actually quite pretty.

I was a sucker for green.

And blondes.

And brunettes.

Hell, if they had two legs I’d flirt with them. Not jump into bed right away, I had higher standards than that, but I’ve been known to be quite a charmer. Yes sir, I traveled down a road with broken hearts in my rear view mirror. Alright, that was an exaggeration (a big one) and I doubted that sweet talk could help me now.

“Alright, alright you caught me,” I began and started to raise my left hand. “Just hold on a second will ya?” Before the Templar could suspect anything, I snapped my fingers with an orange spark and the world around me slowed to a crawl.

The Haste spell didn’t actually make the world slower it made me incredibly fast as the name suggested. This spell was learned for selfish reasons as I had gotten into quite the amount of trouble at the Tower, which was exactly that, a big tower in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. More than once I had been forced to clean the stairs from the basem*nt up and if I did my punishment three times as fast then it only took half the day to complete. And the Tower? It was a school for the gifted.

Let’s go back to the X-men reference I made earlier. Imagine Professor X and his school of mutants where knowledge was abound and people learned to control their powers. It was like that except the added danger of deals with literal demons which didn’t happen as often as you’d think. It was a secret place and safely protected by numerous strong spells that prevented anyone without magic to enter. So far, it hadn’t been discovered and destroyed by the Chantry and their Templar minions but I had heard of places that weren’t so lucky. We were one of the last.

After pulling a face at the sluggish gunman, I ran to the opened doors where I knew from studying the blueprints extended into a hallway with a balcony that granted me access to the roof. A tingling between my shoulder-blades warned me of danger before the actual bullet tore into my side. It hit me with enough force to turn my whole body around and crash back-first into the door I nearly made it out of.

Dammit, the Templar had reflexes fast enough to cast a cleansing aura before I could escape. This one wasn’t a novice. I was dealing with a full-blown Templar with enough experience to clear away any enhancing or debilitating spellwork in an eye-blink. Well…sh*t.

“You’re a mage,” he spat out the last word with enough venom for me to flinch as I slid down to the cold wooden floors with one arm wrapped around my bleeding side and the other clenching the book to my chest. He’d have to kill me for the book before I’d hand it over to him.

The Templar brought his wrist to his mouth without letting the gun waver from its preferred spot on my chest. He spoke into the compact radio I assumed he wore, unless he was freakin’ insane which was a possibility that I couldn’t throw away. There were more than a few cases of Lyrium addled Templars.

Lyrium was the stuff that gave mana muscles. An average mage that could cast a fireball as big as his head could throw one as large as a tank if he popped a Lyrium pill. It gave ordinary humans a taste of what magic could really do. It also gave the Templars the power to fight mages on even ground which was why they were so dangerous. Templars were trained just as we were.

There was a downside though. Lyrium was highly addictive. I mean, five times more addictive than heroin if taken in too large a dose for an extended amount of time. The distribution of the new magic blue pill was tightly controlled by the Chantry, but just like cocaine dealers people manage to get their hands on it and sell it on street corners. A Lyrium junkie was bad news and gave mages a ghastly reputation.

When people hear on the news that a bank just got blown to pieces, the culprit was usually a junkie desperate for cash for their next fix. Mages didn’t go around exploding things for the hell of it. Well, sometimes. More than a bit of shrubbery had faced my wrath I admit when my father and I had a row.

“Permission to terminate intruder,” asked the Templar whose green eyes I thought adorable were now narrowed in disgust at what I was. Bastard.

“Reason?” The voice responded curtly. It sounded like a woman, but I couldn’t be sure. I was kinda bleeding out on the floor. The maids were definitely going to have a hard time cleaning between the wood.

“Trespasser is male and has been identified as a mage by use of illegal magic.”

There wasn’t even a pause on the other end of the line. “Granted.” No discussion, no explanation, just permission to murder a human being born with powers that others didn’t understand. I had never wanted to know how to turn a person into a toad more than I did now.

You know how in movies the bad guy likes to gloat or ask the cliché line of ‘any last words’? This guy would have none of that Hollywood dazzle. He simply pulled the trigger.

It wasn’t nice to underestimate a mage trained in combat. I wouldn’t just sit there patiently for the grumpy Templar to put a bullet in me. I wanted to see if this Templar could cast as fast I could.

I dropped the spellbook to have both my hands free for the battle. In front of me a thick wall of ice erupted from the floor to stop the shell from putting a new hole in me. The Templar had a look of surprise on his face before he glared. I smirked and stood up. Didn’t expect that, huh?

My icy shield melted like an ice-cream cone on a summer day from his cleansing hex but I already had another spell spring from my fingertips. With a pained yell, my opponent dropped his gun that had turned red from the heat I had imbued into the metal. His burned hands smoked in the darkness, but he could only watch as I simultaneously casted a Haste spell along with a cardboard coaster that I threw at his feet from when I had snitched it from the bar I visited earlier. However the coaster wasn’t just something to prevent wet rings on the wooden bar it now had a Glyph of Repulsion scribbled on the back with black sharpie that I carried around with me.

Handy for on the fly spellwork.

As soon as it hit the ground I charged the glyph with my mana and watched as it activated and sent the Templar flying into the bookcases which started a wonderful domino effect. Gravity you are a bitch. A wonderful, temperamental bitch.

I didn’t have time to enjoy the avalanche of antique volumes, of which I hoped were incredibly heavy, as I was sure that backup would soon arrive and although I had faced down more Templars than Mr. Green Eyes I wasn’t prepared to fight three or four on my own. Also, the Glyph was one-time use only. The coaster lied completely dormant and harmless now. Gritting my teeth with my arm wrapped tight around my side, I scooped up the tome and pretended that my ass was on fire. With the Haste spell still active I made it to the roof in under a minute.

The night air made a chill race down my spine and didn’t seem bothered by the jeans, or leather jacket that I wore. With a blink I cancelled Haste. I walked over to the edge of the building to watch personnel scramble around trying to find the reported intruder. Well, I would be gone soon enough. I chanced a look at my injury. It didn’t look good and still sluggishly bled out of two holes.

At least it had been a clean shot. Through and through.

There weren’t any intestines spilling out so I assumed that it hadn’t hit anything vital but I hadn’t a clue what or where my spleen was so what did I know? Healing wasn’t exactly a field I excelled in. Or dabbled anywhere near it. In fact I was the last person to go to for even a paper-cut. You might wind up with a foot for a hand and that would make eating extremely awkward.

I shook my head to clear it of distracting thoughts. Escaping the scene of a crime was always the riskiest part of a scheme and had the greatest probability of getting caught. Good thing I had a plan then. In my mind I pictured what I wanted: every detail exact and nothing overlooked. This was a kind of magic that didn’t require special runes or nifty Latin words. It was something that only a few could accomplish as only the most powerful and skilled had the ability to change shape.

I saw a strong golden beak and cruel talons meant for hunting prey. Feathers of russet red sprouted from head to tail. Small heart beating, powerful eyes seeing things no human eye could see, and wings longer than a man’s reach. I let my power swell over me.

But a cold grip stole my concentration and wrenched me from the roof’s edge. It was extremely dangerous for both mage and the person interrupting a change. If the mage didn’t have enough control, the mana necessary for the change could backlash and kill both people.

Thankfully I had more practice than that. However that didn’t mean the moron who grabbed my arm would live much longer. I tried to wrench my arm holding the tome out of the person’s grip even as my vision tried to clear but I wasn’t let go.

“The hell are you doing? Get off!” I spat and sacrificed the arm keeping the blood inside my body to form a fireball.

“My, my isn’t that impressive? No incantation or staff to help. You are a powerful mage aren’t you, boy? So similar and yet so different. Might it be enough though? I guess time will tell.”

It wasn’t a voice I had heard before. It sounded old and dangerous. Not a combination that I heard often but it forced my body into stillness like a predator’s growl paralyzes helpless prey which was exactly what I felt like.

This woman, I realized once I could see again, was ancient.

There were no clues in her face: smooth skin, yellow eyes, and white hair. Deep in my bones I felt a power greater than my own. I was frightened and that wasn’t something anyone could do. She was no woman. No human being had a black aura such as hers. I then realized that I hadn’t cancelled my mage-sight but I wasn’t about to do it now.

“What are you?” I whispered and saw my breath form a cloud of white smoke. The fire in my hand steadily burned. I had an idea that it wouldn’t do much against this…creature but I would fight until my last breath.

“Hmmm, you won’t lie down and die easily I can see that. Good, good you are more like him than I could have hoped.” She chuckled which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. “You even look just like him. It’s amazing what selective breeding can accomplish.” Her other hand not clawing into my arm reached up to cup my chin. She slowly turned my head from side to side before stopping to stare into my eyes. “Same defiant blue eyes, blacker than night hair, and…oh, no scar by your right eye. Well we can fix that.”

I managed not to scream as she drew a clawed finger and sliced deeply into the sensitive skin at the corner of my eye. She didn’t stop the torture until the middle of my cheek. With a maniacal grin she flicked blood from her fingertip and I felt a warm river travel down my neck and settle in a pool at my collarbone.

“Bitch,” I snarled.

She merely laughed away my insult. “The soul reflects your body does it not? I need you to be exactly the same. Well, almost,” she chuckled. The woman trailed over my body and stopped at my fiery hand. “Put that out before you hurt yourself, boy.”

I made it burn brighter.

Finally I got a reaction out of her besides amusem*nt. Her eyes narrowed. “The first thing you will learn is to listen to every word I say.” She snatched my wrist and neatly broke it. This time I did scream as my fireball blinked out of existence and my hand hung limply. “And obey it without question. Do you understand me?”

I bit my lip and didn’t answer besides my ice blue eyes glaring at her with enough hate to drown in. As punishment for my defiance she squeezed my broken limb harder.

“Fine!” I snarled and managed to grit out. “I understand.”

The witch cooed. “Good.” She released me completely but snatched the grimoire.

I cradled my limp wrist and wondered what kind of sh*t I had stepped in this time. Daddy dearest couldn’t talk me out of this one.

A couple of steps away from her I glanced down at the ground. Damn, too high of a jump to survive, and the spells that would let me get away without injury were useless now. No slide of ice, no cushion of earth I could summon, and no wind to break my fall. Bitch had taken away all of my offensive spells. I was trapped in her neat little web and she knew it as the woman idly flipped through the ancient tome with the air of a person who had all the time in the world. Which she did.

I noticed that the men and women who were running around looking for me had all frozen in place. Not literally. They weren’t ice cubes but time had stopped. I hadn’t a clue who had the power to actually cease the flow of time for more than a minute. For the longest time I didn’t think it possible. Boy was I proven wrong tonight.

“Am I allowed to ask questions?”

A taloned hand waved me away. “Of course. How can one learn without asking questions?”

I buried my insult underneath my tongue. Don’t poke the dragon with a stick, I muttered to myself. I didn’t know at the time how close I had been to the truth with my analogy.

“What are you?”

“Again you ask that? Very well, I will answer. Some call me Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, or even Asha’bellanar.”

I hadn’t an idea what any of those names meant or even what language the last one was in. “That wasn’t what I asked. I want to know what not who.”

Flemeth glanced up from her fiddling with the book to smirk at me. “Very good. Most don’t make that distinction. It is refreshing to see an open mind and not one made of mush. But I shall not answer. You are not ready.”

Again I ignored the tantalizing need to spit out my anger.

“You did well in retrieving this from an owner that did not possess any clue as to what this actually is. But then again, neither do you. You took one look at the reward and gave no more thought to the dangers in your path.” Flemeth frowned. “Do not be so foolish again. Your life is more valuable than you believe.” A pause. “Did you open it?”

“Of course.”

A nod. “I thought as much, but you do not understand what it is about.” The witch closed the tome and locked it back up. She ran her talons across the leather bound front almost lovingly. “It is a tale of chaos, death, love, and betrayal. It is of one man that fights a war he does not understand. It is of death so heartbreaking that it brings him to his knees. It is of love so powerful it blinds him and of betrayal so great it breaks him. It is the story of a man. A man who fears magic. It is his and yet not.”

Her words confused me and I said as much.

“I don’t need you to understand. I need you to listen. I will tell you what I told Garrett Hawke.”

Hawke! The crest in the grimoire! That was the name that had been on the tip of my tongue. Our family descended from them. I remembered one of the numerous shields above the fireplace at our family’s mansion. It claimed the same design.

Flemeth continued. “We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment…and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn…” she trailed off and on deadly heels she stalked towards me and there was nowhere else I could go besides over the side of the roof.

Delicately she placed two claws on my forehead and it felt as if electricity coursed through me. Flashes of people I never met but knew intimately. Monsters I only heard of in legend I fought with a blade. Conversations that I never partook of made me laugh in remembrance. My mother, my brother who was a Grey Warden, and my dead little sister who had her life taken from her too soon. An entire life superseded my own until I couldn’t tell where Hawke began and I ended. “…whether you can fly.”

Flemeth pushed me over the edge.

Time returned to the earth and I felt the wind roar in my ears as I plummeted to the ground with a lifetime of images and feelings rushing into me. I saw a silver-haired elf– Fenris, my mind whispered – shift curious eyes to me, a kiss, a warm night together, love, and then it shifted to a battleground with him standing behind me as I held a knife to a blonde man’s throat. He whispered his reasons but did not apologize.

My grip tightened. Anger. Hawke was so angry and betrayed. The knife plunged into his heart. Aveline stood undeterred by my side. Isabela the promiscuous pirate, Merrill the naïve elvhen blood mage, Varric my brother of the dwarven race; all of them fought with me for long years. Some disagreed with Hawke’s decisions but stayed by my side nevertheless.

I saw the ending of Hawke’s story but I would land in the middle of it all.

“Heed my words, child of Amell. There is great power in choices as there are in lies. Listen to both and know the difference,” I heard in my head as I continued to fall a far greater distance than I imagined. “Your ancestor’s life is now your own, but remember this if nothing else: the burden of this war with Templars and Mages fell onto the shoulders of a man who knew nothing of magic. Your future of dwindling mages was decided with swords. Magic must be met with magic, let no prejudices blind you.”

Flemeth paused and her final words to me rang louder than a bell. “You have my thanks…and my sympathy.”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

I hit the ground with a lot less force than I thought. The impact still jarred my bones and I felt a stray stone nick the bottom of my chin. I groaned as my whole body seemed to throb and a headache unlike I had ever experienced before thudded mercilessly between my eyes. The only thing that seemed to properly work was my sense of smell and the stench of piss, rotting flesh, and stale beer flooded my nose until tears threatened to spill.

“Whoa there, Hawke! Careful, buddy.”

A pair of strong, broad hands grabbed my shoulders and hauled me to my unsteady feet. A thinner pair guided me to lean against a wall while they patted me down to get rid of dust, but I jumped when they not so subtly groped my rear. Isabela, my mind helpfully gave me. Kind, flirty, and dangerous with her daggers. I had to watch my coin purse around her as it had gone missing before. Don’t play Wicked Grace with her because you’ll lose. She was Captain of a sunken ship and searching for a relic. A great drinking buddy.

“Why Hawke I believe you just got taken advantage of and you’re not even fully conscious to appreciate it.” That was Varric. A dwarf born on the surface away from the hardheaded city of Orzammar. Made his own decisions and grabbed life by its throat. Honest and blunt and an excellent marksman. An extraordinary storyteller if not outright fabricator. Also a great drinking buddy.

I felt the queasiness I usually got when I drank too much and I figured I overindulged at the Hanged Man again. What? I was confused. I’d never heard of that bar. It…it was in Kirkwall where I lived. I visited frequently but not as often anymore because of my mother who needed my help settling into the mansion that I had bought recently in Hightown. Uncle Gamlen had bartered my mother’s family home to settle debts but after the Deep Roads expedition I had enough money and reputation to move. But I had lost a lot more than I gained. Carter had gotten…sick. Darkspawn. He had to see…No!! That wasn’t right!

I groaned as more and more memories that weren’t mine flooded into my head and I wished my brain would just melt out of my ears to relieve the unbelievable agony. If my muscles listened to me I would have started banging my skull against the wall. My name…my name wasn’t Hawke. I wasn’t at a bar – wait I was, but it wasn’t called the Hanged Man or was it? Dammit, I couldn’t think straight. I needed to puke.

Thankfully I had enough control of my body to vomit off to the side and not on my boots.

“Oh sweetheart, he really clocked you one didn’t he? Don’t worry; your lovely pirate princess will help you out. Now let me grab you here…oops silly me, I meant here.”

Sharp pain followed her light touch to my side that made me groan loudly. What I did remember was the Templar with the gun that had given it to me. I hoped he had a worse migraine than I did from the waterfall of books that had fallen on his head.

“Varric, he’s bleeding!”

“What? Where?”

I felt cool air touch my side. Varric whistled. “What kind of knife did this? The holes in Hawke look perfectly round.”

“It doesn’t matter, Varric if they look like circles or hearts we gotta get him to Anders!”

“We’re almost at Blondie’s anyway. Hold him steady, he’s worse off than I thought. Hang in there Hawke. We’ll get you looking pretty again soon enough.”

“Careful of his right hand. He had a bad fall so it might be broken.”

“The mighty hero destroys ogres, rock wraiths, and blood mages but get him into a bar fight at the Hanged Man and he crumbles.”

“Yeah, you might want to leave that out in your epic poem.”

“But how will I explain the new rugged, manly scar on his face?” Varric drawled with a chuckle.

The two companions threw ideas back and forth on how I obtained my new battle wound which ranged from a jealous lover to a mage making glass rain down from the heavens. I laughed mentally at that one as I couldn’t make any other noise besides grunts as each step jarred my knife/bullet injury. Why was everything dark? Oh right, my eyes were closed. I had to open them if I wanted to see. It took more effort than I wanted to admit to just peel open my eyelids. At first I didn’t see anything but a brown blur. After a couple more steps I could make out…brown. Oh, the place I was in always looked like this. Darktown, I was mentally supplied with. My boots were also brown. Fascinating.

Three years of information on this place rushed through me at once. My head throbbed. Really, just cut the whole thing off. Honestly I could live without it. Unfortunately no one listened to me and left my head firmly attached to my shoulders.

“Finally, we’re here,” sighed Varric. “By the Maker Hawke did living in the highlife put a couple pounds on you?”

“Would serve him right. Hightown is so dreadfully boring. All the fun at night happens behind closed doors.”

“You’re just upset that upper class citizens won’t give you an invitation.”

“Oh shut up and just knock on the door.”

What sounded like kicks more than anything else pounded the brown –again with the same color – door into submission. I vainly tried to lift my head but I felt incredibly weak. Perhaps I just needed to rest. Yeah, just take a nap right –

“Ah! You almost dropped him!” Isabela yelped and took a firmer hold.

Varric grunted. “C’mon Hawke help us out here a little.”

Sure, I could do that. The sound of more kicking, harder this time, reached my ears and I realized that I was still conscious. Against my will, but I was awake.

“Open up, Blondie! We need your magic touch!”

Magic? I could do magic. All sorts of magic. Every element under the rainbow. Heh rainbows had lots of colors. But not brown. Brown was such a pretty color, though. Like caramel, or fresh earth, or the shade of my cell in the Gallows if people found out my secret. Right, brown is bad. No magic. Yes sir, Mr. Hawke, sir! Did that count as talking to myself?

I really needed to sleep.

Movement inside caught my wandering attention and I heard the door unlatch to reveal a disgruntled mage who really disliked annoying dwarves waking him up in the early hours of the morning.

“Varric, you better be near death or on fire to bother me at this unholy hour.”

“Oh don’t get your frilly knickers in a bunch, Blondie.”

I imagined a tick in Ander’s jaw that would pulse at the marksman’s words. It was always good for a laugh to rile him up just to see it. Anders…if I thought Isabela and Varric brought a flood then Anders caused a tsunami to rampage in my mind. Things that had already happened and things that would if I followed Hawke’s path replayed repeatedly in a meaningless order.

“I see that you are neither, so I bid you good night or rather good day.” The door began to close.

“Hold it. I’m fine but our fearless leader got roughed up a bit.”

There was a pause. “Well, let him sleep off a night of drunken debauchery at his home.”

Isabela spoke up. “No debauchery this time I’m afraid. However there was a pretty good fight. I even won a handful of silver on the outcome.”

It was silent for a moment and I wished I could lift my head to see what was going on when suddenly my wish was granted. A gentle but calloused hand lifted my chin up and I gazed into brown eyes. I changed my mind again, brown was a nice color.

“His eyes are open but they look glazed over. He may have a concussion.”

“So the lights are on but nobody’s home?”

I saw Anders’ shoulders shrug. “An apt, if crude way to put it. What else is wrong besides the scratch on his face?”

“Can’t you wave your fingers and figure it out yourself?”

“I can’t heal what I don’t know about, Varric,” he said in a tone that implicated he had repeated the statement many times over.

Isabela piped up. “His wrist is all out of sorts and some lucky bloke stuck him in the side.”

His eyes were taken off of me to stare incredulously at the pirate. “You mean he was stabbed?”

My shirt was lifted without my permission again. I squirmed in protest as the cold air aggravated my wound.

“Right here.”

Lightly I felt a touch on the bare skin near my hip.

“What kind of weapon made this?” He asked with a note of wonder. Anders had an interesting accent.

“No clue, Blondie. You can fix our hero here as good as new right?”

My shirt was tugged back down. “Well, I can certainly try-,” Anders began.

“Thanks, Blondie!”

Unceremoniously I was shoved away from my best two supporting friends into a face full of feathers from Anders’s robes. I could do nothing but slowly sag until I was sure I would end up on the floor until the other mage grabbed me under my arms to hold me up.

“You can’t just leave him here!” Anders yelled at the two retreating figures of Isabela and Varric. They owed me a round of drinks and I was ordering the good stuff which didn’t taste like dog piss. Anders sighed; I carefully tried not to inhale any feathers. “Well, looks like you’re staying here tonight. I’m sure the rats won’t get jealous,” he spoke, I assumed to me, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent certain as everything suddenly went black and my world tipped sideways.

The Fade is a veil that separates the land between the mortal realm and where spirits dwell. Every mortal, whether they realize it or not, has touched the Fade either through spellwork or through dreams. Most people don’t remember the surrealism of the spirit realm when they wake, but mages are different. We cannot forget. However, it’s not something for normal humans to covet because mages apparently wear signs around their necks for demons to see and many have died becoming an embodiment of sin.

Or at least that’s what my tutor explained to me during a session of her talking and me daydreaming.

As far as for me being a mage, I would describe myself as a pretty boring one. No demons, no possessions, and I’ve never even met an abomination. Well not that I’d want to have tea with a creature that wanted to steal my body in order to rule over the mortal’s domain, but I would at least liked to have been asked. It was the principle of the thing.

But I digress, the main point to remember when in the Fade is that it may be your dream but you’re not playing by your rules. The Fade was spirit and demon territory and one wrong step could lead straight into a demon’s arms or the fist of the pissed off spirit of your dead ancestor which was my current situation.

I jumped back to avoid the sharp swing but didn’t move fast enough to dodge the kick aimed at my legs. I landed hard enough on the ground to push the air right form my lungs. Hawke’s spirit left me no time to move before he pinned my arms to my side and dug his knees into the back of my thighs until I was completely immobilized. Dirt, no matter what realm it was in, tasted the same. My pitiful coughing and wheezing didn’t deter Hawke. He clenched my arms in warning as I tried to throw him off but the advantage belonged to him for now.

“G-get…off!” I rasped with a sneer.

Hawke dug his elbow into my spine in a way that had me both reeling in agony and wondering where he learned that move.

“No! You have to let me see!” My double insisted.

“Get your f*cking hands off of me!”

“It is my right!”

“f*ck you!”

This was beginning to sound like an angry p*rno. I wondered if a blonde model would walk in dressed like a French maid and ask if we would like our ‘dirty place’ cleaned? Hell, it was the Fade. Anything could happen, but I would prefer for my fantasies to not take place with practically my twin sitting on top of me demanding to share my memories.

I imagined meeting my ancestor would start off with exchanged greetings of ‘Hey I’m your great-great-great-great-great and so on and so forth grandson and I’ve booted your soul out of your body on the orders of a crazy she-witch.’ Hawke would reply with ‘Oh really? It’s fascinating how ruggedly good looking you are even after being forced into a dead man’s past in order to change the world against your will and with no clue as to how.’ I would smile and shake his hand ‘Thank you for being so understanding although you’re doomed to wander the Fade amongst spirits and demons until your body dies which I currently inhabit. So…the Fade looks less foreboding than usual. Did you redecorate?’

Our real reunion hadn’t even been close to what I envisioned. I had gotten as far as ‘Hey I’m your great-‘ and the man had whipped out a sword and tried to cleave my head from my shoulders. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the two weeks’ notice to evacuate because a new tenant was moving in.

Expertly, Hawke grabbed my wrists to hold them in one hand and used the other to latch onto the back of my head without warning. I felt numerous memories from Flemeth’s grimoire, which she had transferred into my mind, jumble together before my eyes. Hawke’s entire life that he hadn’t technically lived through yet was pulled to the surface of my mind with such force that I screamed.

Mind techniques were expressly forbidden because of their likeness to rape and very difficult to perform, but this was the Fade. Spirits made the rules and I was helpless as I too watched Fenris, drunk on fury and pain, tear apart his only sister. Unwillingly I witnessed Anders dip slowly into obsession and drown under the madness of Vengeance, the warped spirit of Justice. The Keeper Marethari sacrificing her life so that Merrill would live. Templar faced Mage on a battlefield covered in the debris of the Chantry and the blood of the Grand Cleric. Pain, sadness, and unneeded death!

My teeth clenched together so hard that I feared they would shatter. I begged mentally to anyone who would hear me for the unbearable pain to stop. Never had I felt such agony! Stop, please! I-I can’t take anymore! Stopstopstopstop-!

With a gasping breath I felt the excruciating pressure release like a balloon filled with air suddenly pop. My forehead hit the ground and all I could hear was a deafening ringing in my ears. My chest was heaving hard enough anyone would think I had just finished running a marathon. Cold sweat drenched every inch.

Slowly, my breathing calmed and the ringing became mumbling until I could make out that it was actually Hawke denying what he had seen.

“That can’t be what happens. This is some sort of trick, some demon trying to trap me in its nightmare,” Hawke muttered as he continued to try to excuse what he had forcefully pulled from my mind.

My power practically bubbled beneath my skin. “You had no right,” I vehemently hissed.

“I had every right! This is my body! My life!”

Enough was enough. Although it was dangerous to summon large amounts of mana, I was pissed off enough to conveniently forget one of the few cardinal rules of surviving in the Fade. Mana attracted demons. Demons were bad. However, my temper was worse.

Dark clouds reshaped the Fade’s landscape as I molded the realm like a potter plays with clay. Thunder snarled through the air and lightning snapped at the ground’s heels as the wind howled. It shocked Hawke enough for me switch our positions. With a strong grip I clenched his throat in my hand with my other filled with whining electricity that was poised before his face. My rune for lightning glowed fiercely in its activation that mirrored my eyes.

“You are a mage!” Hawke’s spirit snarled and doubled his efforts to set himself free.

I nodded. “And you’re no spirit. Reveal yourself demon! You can’t hide from my sight.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that,” he said with a roguish smirk that looked exactly like the ones I practiced in the mirror before skin began to melt from his face. Clumps of pale skin slid down until it hit the ground with a wet plop. In its place was my first official demon. It was of Sloth, a lesser demon and one that reveled in its mastery of manipulation. I recognized its appearance from one of the few magical tomes left in existence. “Since you’re my descendant meant to save the world and everything. How does it feel?” The demon smirked as it continued to play its little charade.

I would have none of it. With a cry I shoved my fist full of lightning into the demon’s face, but only hit its shadow as it sunk into the ground out of my reach. I snarled at its tricks. This was a game that I had no time for.

Mana flowed through my arm into the rune of earth that made the ground tremble beneath my feet. Demons may have more power while in the Fade, but I was sure no demon had met a mage such as I. The title of Master was not bestowed lightly and I possessed three: earth, fire, and lightning. Humongous spires rose into the air as giant crevices spilt open the landscape. It could not hide for long. I rode a towering mound of earth higher until I could see a wide expanse of land below me. I spotted the demon trying to escape.

Still keeping my earth rune active, I channeled more mana into the same hand but to a different finger that held the symbol for fire. With nothing more than a thought I flung my arm out and caught the fleeing demon of Sloth in a ring of fire that blazed almost blue in its heat. Try as it might it could not escape my magic. I had won this bout and I gave the demon no mercy as I clenched my fist and silently watched as it writhed. It did not die quietly, but I took comfort in the fact that a Sloth demon did not grow that powerful unless it had fed on many victims. There was no pleasure in its death but I felt no sadness or regret for my victory.

With its illusion gone, I felt my connection to the Fade weaken. I knew that I was waking up.

“What the-! Why are you staring at me!?”

Tears gathered in big brown eyes that made me groan and then feel guilty when pink lips quivered.

I sighed. “Alright, alright. Sorry for yelling; you just gave me a surprise. But I’d like to know why you had to be an inch away from my face while I was sleeping,” I muttered the last bit under my breath. I had just woken up from my first meeting with a demon so forgive me if I was still a bit jumpy.

A bright smile was my reward and I couldn’t help a blush that burned on my face. My god dimples were such a weakness of mine; made me melt into a pile of embarrassing goo.

“Get out of here, kid. Go find your mother.”

The little girl shyly smiled at me and pulled out something from behind her back. I blankly stared at it before realizing that she was giving it to me. I carefully sat up; noticing that I finally had control over my muscles, (which was a relief to see something else besides my boots) and my right wrist was as good as new which amazed me.

I clenched and unclenched my fingers that were hidden beneath leather gloves. There wasn’t even an ache or tingling that usually came from the Circle’s Healers that patched me up, although they didn’t like me much so that probably had something to do with it. I looked from the pitiful flower that still had roots and dirt attached to it to the small girl who insisted that I take it. Carefully I plucked it from her pale hands.

“Thank you, it’s almost as lovely as you are,” I told her with my best charming smile. It worked every time. She twisted her hands into the dirty material of her dress and bit her lip shyly.

“Y-you’re w-w-welcome, s-serah.” Her stutter was absolutely adorable and I couldn’t help but grin even wider.

I twirled the stem of the flower in my hands and spotted scrap pieces of paper on a deteriorating table. I reached over from the sick bed I woke up from and snatched a sheet. There was writing scribbled on it, but I only caught a few words of ‘…mages should be…blah blah blah’ before it lost my interest.

“Watch this,” I said to the girl. The flower was set down near my thigh and I smoothed out the scrap so that there were no wrinkles. “I learned this from an old friend of mine,” I idly commented as I folded a sharp corner. I hadn’t done this in years but my fingers remembered the pattern. “He had been down on his luck and was drinking his troubles away feeling sad.” That went there, turn it around, and fold it backwards. “Until the most beautiful girl walked by and he was speechless. He had no money to buy her a drink or take her to dinner or anything. All he had in his pockets was an old piece of paper.” There we go, that looked right if a little lopsided. “So he turned it into a flower and presented it to her.”

I held open my hand so that she could see the paper rose I made for her. She gasped and carefully picked it up as if was made of glass. She held it in both hands and brought it to her chest. Her eyes held wonder for my little parlor trick.

“W-what h-happened?”

“She didn’t know what it was, so my friend told her that he didn’t want to give her a real rose because it would eventually wilt and die. He said that a rose made of paper would never fade and neither would her beauty.” Faintly I heard someone snort in amusem*nt off to the side. “Now you best be getting back to your mother.”

She nodded with stars practically in her eyes and hurriedly ran off with her treasure clenched tightly in her hands. A sweet girl, I thought.

“You’ve completely destroyed her for other men. Now she’ll eternally daydream about one day being Mrs. Hawke.” His casual mention of the name instantly brought me back to my recent battle. I ignored my tense reaction with a little effort.

I shrugged and smirked over at the man who was pouring a salve into a small jar.

“What can I say? Women of all ages just love me. I can’t help this irresistible charm that attracts them in droves; it is a power that I must use wisely, I know.”

He chuckled and turned around while wiping his hands on a well-used bit of cloth that had more colorful stains than a chef’s apron. His face instantly registered in my mind. Hawke’s memories filled my head. Karl and Anders in the Chantry. Justice glowing. A nervous gesture in the Deep Roads. Darkspawn. Grey Wardens that sneered at him. Arguments of the freedom of mages. Hurtful words. Angry curses. The Chantry!

I must have made a sound of pain because he stopped smirking and rushed to my side.

“Are you alright? Is it your head? Move your hands so I can see.”

I hadn’t realized I had grabbed my head in pain, but I waved his hands away as the memories receded along with the sudden migraine that throbbed between my eyes.

“I’m fine,” I grunted. “Just a headache.” Dammit, I thought the problem would have disappeared once I destroyed the illusion that imprisoned my spirit.

Timeworked differently in the spirit realm and days seemed to have passed but in actuality it was only a couple hours. The Sloth demon could have been feeding from me the moment Flemeth had torn open the Veil to plant my soul into Hawke’s body which would explain my disorientation. Could I have missed something?

“Are you sure you’re alright? Here, let me-,” Anders began to gather healing magic into his hands to place over my head.

“Anders!” I snapped and quickly stood up. “I said I was fine. Leave it!”

His eyes widened at my outburst but I wasn’t in any mood to soften my words. My head ached, I was in a place that I didn’t fully recognize, in a body that wasn’t mine, and in a time that had nothing for me in it. I was in no mood for gentle words. I needed time alone to fully anchor my spirit into Hawke’s body and to recover my drained magic away from suspicious eyes.

“Sorry,” I grunted, “but I’m just gonna head home and sleep it off. Thanks.”

Smartly I turned on my heel and blindly made my way through the underbelly of Kirkwall with only hazy memories leading me back to the mansion that I now should call home. I blocked Anders’s hurt look from my mind and fiercely reminded myself that I couldn’t be at ease around a man who had deadly designs on the presence of Templars and the Chantry. He planned a rebellion with only the foolhardy idea of mages should be free guiding his motions. It was going to be a massacre. From the flashes in my brain, I figured I had a handful of years to prevent the event from taking place, but for now I had to prepare to play diplomat with a race of people that I have only heard of in legends. The Qunari.

I didn’t notice when I left that my flower from the little girl stayed behind or how Anders picked it up and forlornly gazed at its wilted petals.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

It took me a week to get my depth perception back and not accidentally overshoot my reach or to remember to duck down through the doorways a bit. A dark bruise on the top of my head was a constant reminder that Hawke was a few inches taller than me. His limbs were also a little longer and distinctly more toned than the lithe form I was used to.

Even his scars weren’t my own. I looked for nasty, pale white scar tissue that lied over my heart where I had taken a fireball to the chest during an illegal duel when I was still a teenager who thought that a few fancy spells made me immortal. It only took one near-death experience to toss that idea away. There was no thin line on my elbow that was from me falling off my bicycle as a child; a similar one nearby from falling off a thirteen story building. The latter happened during one of my first attempts at shape-shifting and the wing of my animal form had clipped a lightning rod.

But there was one thing that assured me that I wasn’t living in a dream. When my leather gloves were removed, my glyphs stood proudly out from pale skin. I had been worried that I would have to go through the painful process of carving dangerous runes into my skin again, but it appeared that wounds tied to my soul had transferred with me. It was a relief to know that I still had something that was mine and mine alone. I couldn’t show off my personal artwork though, so I kept them hidden.

I bought a new pair of gloves that buckled tightly at my elbow to prevent them from ever slipping off; it also looked cool so that was a nice bonus. Also, away from prying eyes were several glyphs I burned on the inside of the leather that touched my skin. These special designs were relatively new back in my time and I made sure to take full advantage of them although they were originally meant for Templars to more easily control mages. As soon as the glyphs made physical contact with a person whom possessed magical talent it effectively acted like a cage for the mage’s mana.

Actually derived from the Tranquil mark that was burned onto a mage’s forehead if found guilty of misuse of magic (such as murder, counterfeiting, or any other laws that convicted non-mages as well) it was meant to be temporary and in fact was carved into every pair of handcuffs the police carried nowadays. However, the reason I willingly confined my magic was to prevent other mages from sensing my power. All people with mana could sense another with similar talent and I couldn’t risk anyone finding out my secret. I was lucky that my magic had been completely drained when Anders healed me.

It took me two months to become passable with a sword. Growing up within a family that had deep ties to magic and combat, I had picked up a sword sometime in my life. However, concealing a sword was a hell of a lot harder than hiding a gun so swordplay fell out of favor about, oh, 300 years ago. I knew the basics and learned from Hawke’s memories, but I wasn’t sure that it would be enough to fool Aveline or even Fenris.

I had met the Tevinter native personally for the first time only one month into my new life as Serah Hawke and it suddenly hit me that Fenris the elf was actually an elf. Pointy ears and everything. I had been on my way back picking up stuff from the market with my arms full of newly purchased books.

“Hawke,” came the gruff greeting. I swear I had jumped about a foot into the air and managed to drop everything at my feet at the same time.

“Hey, Fenris,” I grumbled as my mind recognized the voice and bent to pick up the now dusty tomes. I tried not to look at him as Hawke’s more…intimate memories came into my mind. I felt a blush burn darkly on my face. Would I ever be able to see the swordsman without picturing how far exactly his tattoos went?

A dark-skinned arm tipped with deadly claws from his gauntlet came into my vision and I looked up to see him helping to gather my things. Elves were smaller than the average human, I noticed. They were petite, and had larger eyes. And damn, Fenris had the biggest green eyes I had ever seen and I felt my knees quake a little bit. I was a sucker for green. His ears! Don’t get me started on his ears. They were actually pointy and me being the master of cool stared dumbly while he stacked the books I had stopped picking up. In fact his ears caught more of my attention than his tattoos. No, they were lyrium burns I corrected myself as the sweet siren call I heard at the edge of my thoughts registered.

But his ears! I couldn’t get over it. I had been a big Lord of the Rings nerd and to actually see with my own eyes that elves were real-! I had to rein in my inner freak-out when Fenris arched an eyebrow at me just sitting on the ground with a vacant look on my face. I quickly thanked him for his help, made up an excuse to get away from there as soon as possible, and high-tailed it back to the mansion. I hadn’t noticed that he still had my books in his arms until he dropped them off on my front step the next day.

I made it a point to not actively seek Fenris out until I dealt with the whole ‘elves were real’ thing as well as to try and burn out the naked images that were seared into my skull. Nothing could happen with Fenris. The swordsman made it quite clear his views on mages were anything but positive and with my ability to light a candle without a match ever reached his rather pointed ears he would run his arm through my chest with that special ability of his. It was useful for Fenris to reach into an enemy’s chest and crush their heart without even making a cut, but I would rather not have that happen to me. Even with Varric, I managed to make a complete fool of myself. Varric was a dwarf. My brain knew that. It had many memories of the close bond between myself and the dwarf, but I just couldn’t make sense of one thing.

“Where the hell is your beard?”

Varric had looked taken aback in his seat at the Hanged Man from my sudden question that had blurted from my lips, but he took it into stride and laughed loudly at my embarrassed expression. What? It was a fair question. All dwarves had beards. Tolkien said so and so it is true. He then went on explaining how he wasn’t born in Orzammar and how he identified himself outside of the narrow-mindedness of his clansmen. Of course the real explanation came only after he swore that he did have a beard but it one day just fell to his chest. I also suffered a round of teasing as I sat enthralled at his tales like a little boy sitting on his father’s knee listening to old war stories.

Three months I’d been travelling in the past, doing my best to play the role I’d been thrust into. I’d danced to Flemeth’s tune with a smile on my face and my magic kept under a tight seal of control. Magic was not meant to be kept on a leash, but I understood the need for secrecy. I strolled into the Gallows, the home of the mages. I saw the fear, the punishment for any whiff of magic on a person and I saw Templars. Never had I seen so many before. It made chills race down my spine. Just one spark of carelessness on my part was all it would take for them to hunt me down like an animal and kill me for just being born with powers they could not understand. However, I could not fault them. That one spark I could create might mature into a roaring flame that would devour innocent people.

I understood and yet I still travelled cautiously. I would not invite danger.

For three months I’d integrated myself so completely into Hawke’s life that I saw it as my own. By walking in his footsteps, interacting with the people he held close, I had managed to fully anchor myself in this time period so entirely that I nearly forgot that I wasn’t actually born here. I didn’t hold onto any hope that I could return back to my own time, though. I was a trained mage. I knew the consequences of meddling with time and knew what happened when two souls attempted to inhabit the same body. The stronger one wins and the other is shred to pieces in the Fade. Since I was still here, I knew which one of us had won. Besides, I was sure that I had no body to return to. The memory was clear in my mind. That fall from the roof was at too great a height for me to have survived.

Flemeth had essentially killed Hawke and me to ensure that the future she desired came to bear fruit.

So because I knew that it was nigh impossible to return to my old life, I set my sights on a different goal. I was going to find Flemeth one day and I was going to show her what it meant to cross a mage.

I stared dumbly at the summons the messenger had just handed to me with a small bow.

“Hey, wait!” I called after the courier turned to leave, but he ignored my shouts for him to explain what in the world he left in my hands and continued to walk away. “What am I supposed to do with this?! Hey! I was talking to you! Well, don’t start running!” In amusem*nt I watched as the messenger replaced his casual stroll with a sprint that nearly made me chase after him to see how desperate he was to get away from the crazy man in Hawke mansion. Geeze, people were as rude in the past as they are in future.

“Dear, must you shout loud enough for all the neighbors to hear?”

"Not my fault the architect who designed this city built everything so close together,” I grumbled but nonetheless stepped back inside and closed the doors so that I wouldn’t further wake the nobles from their beauty sleep.

I could now tick off half a year of living in Kirkwall and for the most part I’ve managed to acclimate myself well enough. There was one thing that I just couldn’t get used to, though.

“Yes, what a shame that the view of the Reinhardt’s daughter’s bedroom window is ruined by those pesky mansions right next to us,” my mother drawled with a roll of her eyes and a smile on her lips.

My mother. Now that I was Hawke I could actually call her that. Leandra was a unique woman who didn’t take any crap from her son but yet loved him with her entire being no matter what that particular son did whether it coming home bloody and beaten up from practicing with Aveline’s guards or using the Hawke family shield as a makeshift plate to sneak dinner out of the kitchens late at night. The woman was practically a saint. Nothing like the harpy that brought me into this world.

“Mother!” I gasped with mock surprise. “You would slander your own son’s good name? I am deeply wounded, serah. I do not think I can continue on living and I shall die here on this very floor. Put on my gravestone, mother, that I passed away virtuously, and with the only regret of not telling my mother everyday how unbelievably beautiful she is.”

“Well if you are going to die don’t do it on the good rug, darling.”

I laughed loudly and swept her into my arms to twirl her around a couple of times. She lightly laughed as I took her hand and walked through a couple of dance steps that I had been forced to learn with my tutors which I saw more than my parents. Imagine a ten year old learning to waltz with the attention span of a fly. My tutors were lucky that I managed not to blow up the extravagant house my father owned even though I desperately tried some days when boredom took over.

“Darling, when did you learn to dance so well?”

I shrugged. My hand twisted to spin her out of the waltz and led her back into a small dip that she smiled at. “You pick up a few things after a while.”

"You should have told me that you are as splendid a dancer as you are at ignoring a Viscount’s summons.”

The non-existent music I had been keeping time with vanished. “Ah, so you caught me.”

Leandra patted my cheek. “It was a good try.”

She stepped out of my arms and held out her hand for the letter I had stuffed into the sash that kept my pants up as well as concealed a knife I kept there. With an extravagant sigh I handed it to her with a flourish.

“Is there any chance of this message going into the ‘ignore’ pile on my desk?”

My mother didn’t pay attention to me as she broke the wax seal and scanned over the Viscount’s secretary’s neat scrawl.

“Dear, you can’t set this aside. The Viscount wishes your presence without delay in his office. It doesn’t say what he wants to speak with you about but I have no doubt that it requires your immediate attention.”

“Mother, he’s a politician. Everything including how to tie the Viscount’s boots requires someone to attend to him with a snap of his fingers.”

“Don’t pout. You’re just upset that it inconveniences you.”

I crossed my arms and haughtily sniffed. “The nerve of the Viscount to make me change my shirt.”

Leandra patted my arm in a patronizing way. “Make sure to pick one out that doesn’t have bloodstains on it, dear.”

I threw my hands into the air and scoffed at the very idea. “All these things you’re making me do, mother. Why, I don’t know if I can take all this responsibility. I just may have to stop on the way home and hang myself in a back-alley, so don’t be worried that I’m late.”

She put the letter back in my hands then turned to leave. “If you’re passing by the market remember to pick up that poultice I asked for.”

“Your love is a cruel trick, my dear woman!”

“Have fun, dear,” she called back from the top of the stairs on her way to her room.

Unfortunately my plan to intimidate the man who ruled over the city didn’t work out as impressively as it did in my head. Before I was even allowed to step inside the building I had been ordered by the guards to hand over any and all weapons. After relinquishing my broadsword and the knife I kept at my side I was allowed inside until a guard spotted the spare dagger I kept in my boot. My little bout of convenient forgetfulness inspired a thorough search of my person which required me to remove my armor. The entire time I wished the wrath of Aveline on the poor observant guard who refused to come near me with the glare I settled on his person. I knew he was just doing his job, but I still wanted Aveline to give him latrine duty or something. I intended on stopping by the Captain’s office to suggest just that even though I knew the red-haired woman would simply ignore me or nod patiently with an indulgent smile.

“I assume the guard confiscated your armor?”

I glanced down at my simple appearance. I wore a russet tunic which covered up a “light” piece of chainmail that still weighed a ton, brown leather pants, knee high boots with thin silver metal that protected my shins to the middle of my thighs, and of course my now constant gauntlets which stretched from my elbows to my fingertips.

"Yeah, weapons too. I’ve got to fill out a form or something before I can get it all back. I figure I’d let Bodahn take care of that since I’m allergic to paperwork.”

Varric smirked at me as he nursed his pint of ale. “So, what happened next?”

I leaned over the creaky wooden table that seemed to be permanently reserved for the dwarf and his band of merry/obnoxious men.

“Well, I’ll tell you my good friend but I’m sure that you won’t believe me.”

He raised a skeptic eyebrow. “Try me.”

“Well,” I whispered and motioned with my hand for Varric to lean closer. “After my strip search-,” I stopped when Varric snorted into his drink at the words I used to describe the pat-down I received. “What else would I call it? I was almost tempted to tell them I was circumcised to spare them the trouble of checking it themselves.”

“I thought only nobles had that tradition?”

“Varric, please. I’m trying to tell a story here.”

“Pardon me, Hawke. Do continue,” he waved me on sarcastically.

I paused to take a quick drink to wet my throat, but then dove right back into my story. I explained what had taken place in the Viscount’s office and how the man wanted me to appeal to the Arishok of the Qunari, which was what they called their leader, to find out what his people were still doing in Kirkwall.

Varric set down his drink to place a hand on his chin. “So what’s the astonishing part? The part where you actually played nice with a politician or that he actually believes you capable of being a diplomat?”

I shrugged. “Both actually, but the real kicker is that the Arishok asked for me by name.”

A low whistle. “Wow that is unbelievable.”

“What’s unbelievable?”

Turning around on the bench I sat on I saw Anders standing behind me with a questioning look as he had obviously just come into our conversation. I had only seen the mage a few times over the past six months and that was only briefly at the Hanged Man for games of Wicked Grace with Isabela and Varric. I found the card game to be similar to poker, but that didn’t mean I was any good at it. Isabela still had claim over my first-born child that she said she intended to collect on. She was kidding…I think. The only thing that consoled me at my horrible record of winning at Wicked Grace was that Anders was worse than I was. Varric said it was because Anders’ tells were too obvious and he couldn’t lie his way out of a cloth sack; I didn’t have any such excuse. I was just terrible.

“Oh, Blondie! Me and Hawke were just talking about his visit to the Viscount’s office today.”

“Really? Is everything alright?” Anders asked and sat on the edge of the bench next to me. What was with this Healer that he always had to ask me that? I didn’t get into that much trouble, did I?

“I would say so,” Varric said with a leer. “Since he and Hawke made passionate love on the Viscount’s own desk.”

Anders looked taken aback. “That’s disgusting!”

Finally I put in my own thoughts on the subject. “I would say so! Varric, didn’t I say to stop spreading lies about my promiscuity?”

"Good, I didn’t think-,” Anders began.

“The man bought me dinner first. I’m not some whor*, Varric.”

That sent the dwarf and me into fits of laughter which Anders didn’t join. He simply sighed at our inability to act like the adults he wished we were. I wiped tears from the corner of my eye and quickly cleared my throat awkwardly at the glare that the mage was giving me. Feeling guilty although I shouldn’t have for that little joke, I pushed away my tankard and stood up to stretch my arms out. The light leather and metal plating of the jerkin I wore rode up a bit and made my skin itch where the rough material touched. How did people fight in this sort of get-up?

“Anyway, I’m going to head home. Varric, I’ll see you tomorrow at the docks.”

The crossbowman nodded and got up to go over to the bartender for a refill. I wondered how many times he had done that tonight because he was already drinking when I came into the Hanged Man earlier in the afternoon. It meant that he hadn’t heard any news about his brother, Bartrand. I waved goodbye to Anders and headed to the door.

I got about halfway home until I remembered the one thing mother wanted me to do today besides meet the Viscount.

“The poultice,” I groaned out-loud in the middle of Hightown.

In vain I desperately looked around for any open stalls but I knew that it was much too late. Turning around with a sigh, I hoped that Anders was still in the Hanged Man. Perhaps he could help me.

The walk back through Lowtown was surprisingly a peaceful one and I was thankful for the reprieve from gangs wanting to cut my coin-purse and throat. It shouldn’t have surprised me that people were so desperate for money that they would risk jumping an obviously armed man. I may have been born in a different time, but that didn’t mean the people changed. Just the weapons were different. Same prejudices and fears blighted ignorant souls.

I ducked under the swinging grotesque doll that hung from its stuffed leg above the doorway that the Hanged Man received its name from. My eyes zeroed in to the back of the room where I sat just an hour ago expecting to see a familiar apostate in long robes but I found Varric and Isabela instead. Anders wasn’t there. Quietly, I approached the table.

“Is Anders here?”

“No, but I am and ripe for the taking,” cooed an obviously sloshed Isabela who tried to reach out for my arm but managed to miss and snag onto my belt. I shooed her wandering hand away from my coin-purse which most likely been her intent all along. She pouted but withdrew her nimble fingers to return to her drink.

“When did he leave?”

Varric shrugged. “Soon after you, I suppose. Why? Were you two supposed to meet secretly in an alcove under the moonlight and confess undying love for one another?”

I only listened to the first part of his speech and barely understood the last bit. I was confused as to why Anders left. He only arrived a few minutes before I went to head home.

“You know I would never cheat on you, lover-boy,” I absently responded.

The barter between us was familiar and easy. Sarcastic comments and lewd jokes were our source of communication and I knew neither of us took it seriously.

“Oh, Hawke,” the dwarf sighed. “And you know Bianca and I are in a committed relationship.”

Isabela leaned over the table. “Would a threesome be out of the question?”

I left before Varric could respond as I didn’t want to know any sordid details about his obsession with Bianca, his crossbow. The door of the Hanged Man shut behind me and drowned out the noise of drunken men and out of tune tavern ditties. It appeared I would have to head to Darktown.

When I arrived at Anders’ makeshift clinic he built to help refugees and the less fortunate the heavy wooden doors were closed. Curiously, I pounded on the light oak for a few moments. No answer. I pulled on the handle to only find it firmly in place. Odd, but locked doors had never been an obstacle for me. Perhaps I could sneak in and leave a note for Anders with some money on it in apology for stealing his poultices since he wasn’t home. I looked around for anyone and upon finding nary a soul prowling around this area of Darktown I unclipped both my gauntlets to free me from the containment glyphs and slipped them off with a relieved sigh. For six months my powers stayed hidden because of my increased sense of paranoia, but my tan suffered for it. There definitely was a lighter shade from my elbow down. Kind of like a backwards farmer’s tan.

Oh well, it wasn’t like I could fix it anytime soon.

Crawling up my fingers and spiraling down into the center of my left palm were all manner of spells that didn’t focus completely on combat magic which were carved into my right hand. With a wave of my left I could actually make an exact copy of myself or any object I wished as long as no one touched it and expected it to move, increase my speed, and what I needed right now was the small glyph on my pinky finger that allowed me small bursts of telekinetic energy. I could move objects silently through the air but it wasn’t my strong point which meant a lot of limitations on what I could lift with my mind. How I measured it was that the thing I wanted to move had to weigh less than a large goose. Weird, I know but that’s how I marked my limits when I was practicing on my friend’s grandmother’s farm after escaping my tutors for the day. I could lift the orange tabby cat that prowled around the barn for mice but those damn geese at the pond seemed to have laughed at my attempts to disrupt their day.

It didn’t matter to me though. All I wanted was to knock the lock’s tumblers out of place that prevented me from opening the door.

The rush of magic after a six month dry spell honestly felt better than sex. I couldn’t help releasing a sigh of relief and taking a moment to revel in the feeling of mana circulating in my blood waiting for me to shape it to my will. There was too great of a risk to manipulate magic in the open like this so I quickly got to work. With great concentration I pushed my magic into the lock of the door and meddled around for a second before I heard a click. A sense of accomplishment came over me and I slipped my gauntlets on with satisfaction at a job well done.

Not even embarrassed that my step had a little bounce in it, I pushed open the now unlocked door into Anders’ little sanctuary of solitude. No lanterns were lit, but it was easy enough for my eyes to acclimatize to the dark. It would only take a few moments to prowl around for the right mixture that my mother needed. She’d been having a hard time breathing lately because of the extra pollen the plants released around the mansion so something labeled Breathe Easy, or Snitch This One Hawke would lead me in the right direction. Anders wouldn’t have Nasonex or Afrin would he? I knew what those looked like. Allergies sometimes hit me hard too though it looked like I was spared this year.

Now to find…

“Can I help you?”

I swear I nearly sh*t myself. With an entirely manly shriek I whirled around with my hand on my furiously beating heart.

“For f*ck’s sake, Anders! The hell are you doing here?!”

Nearly scaring me to death, the Healer with a lit lantern in his hand, only chuckled at my indignant expression until it exploded into full blown laughter when he realized how badly he had startled me.

“It’s not funny! My heart nearly leaped out of my chest with your little stunt!”

Although I couldn’t help but smile a bit too when tears gathered at the corners of his eyes as he laughed soundly at me.

“I-I’m sorry, Hawke, but just the look on your face!”

I let out a large sigh. “You almost kill me and you’re chuckling like a mad man. Some friend you are,” I mumbled.

Anders finally composed himself but didn’t rid himself of that cheeky smile. “I hadn’t laughed like that in a long while.”

“Glad I could help,” I responded sarcastically.

He leaned on the staff I didn’t notice he had in his hands. “But I’m not sure friends sneak into other people’s homes in the dead of night,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “What are you doing here, Hawke?”

Now my idea to snag one of his salves seemed like a stupid idea. Bashfully, I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to defend my ingenious plan. “Well, you didn’t answer the door so I just…let myself in.”

He looked incredulous. “Why?” A simple question that required a lot of explanation behind it. Why, indeed?

“Okay, I was on my way back home after having drinks with Varric which you know since you were there.”

Anders nodded. “Yes, but you left soon after I arrived.”

"Yeah, well I remembered that my mother wanted me to pick up a poultice in the market and I headed back to the Hanged Man to look for you since all the stalls were closed and you weren’t there,” I hurriedly explained. “But why did you leave?”

At my question Anders looked uncomfortable. “I…I changed my mind. I decided a good night’s rest sounded better than listening to Varric’s drunken tales.”

I nodded cautiously but let the issue go. “Anyway, like I said before you didn’t answer the door when I knocked.”

“So…what? You decided to come on in anyway? Couldn’t you have come back tomorrow?”

Now he was making it sound like this whole awkward situation was my fault.

“Anders, I don’t think you understand.” He raised an eyebrow that clearly said ‘try me’. “Mother has this look,” I reluctantly admitted my fear.

“A…look?” He asked skeptically in a low tone.

I sighed and gestured uselessly with my hands. “Yes, a look. Alright it sounds stupid but I was gonna leave a note and some money for what I took.”

I didn’t like that indulgent smile he gave me. It was too closely related to the one Aveline had when she was just humoring me which she gave me more often than I liked. I wasn’t brought here for other people’s amusem*nt, you know.

My eyes narrowed at Anders. “You know what? I’m just gonna go. It was a dumb idea anyway so I’ll see ya later.”

I turned to go but Anders stopped me. “Hold on, Hawke, come back. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“Are you going to make fun of me some more?” I asked before turning around.

“Not unless it’s really called for.”

It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was good enough. “Deal,” I said and meandered over to the shelves where I headed earlier before Anders scared me halfway to death. Full of unlabeled pots and jars, I stared dumbly until I felt the mage step behind me. He set the lantern down on a nearby sickbed for his patients.

“If you told me what you wanted I could get it for you,” he offered.

I randomly picked a beige vase-like vial and twisted the cork off. The cream inside looked like an off-white with a smell that I couldn’t quite place. Tears gathered in my eyes at the…potency of the odor.

I grimaced. “What in the world is this?” I asked Anders while peering into it.

He sighed and took the vial from my hands to gently place it back. “It’s for an infection I’m quite sure you don’t suffer from.”

I faced him with mischievous eyes. “Oh? And you know that for sure?”

Brown eyes looked me up and down, slowly. “You don’t have the right…parts.”

“Oh.” I didn’t quite know what to say to that. I cleared my throat. “Soooo…what I need is something to help my mother breathe better. She said the pollen is preventing her from inhaling through her nose.”

Anders nodded absently as he thought about what I wanted. I stepped out of his way as his hand hovered over mismatched pots. He picked one up and then put it back down after a shake of his head. I hadn’t known Anders personally for very long, but I couldn’t help respect him for what he did for the poorer citizens of Kirkwall. Selflessly exhausting himself day after day for practically strangers was something I wasn’t sure I would do the same in his place. I didn’t know how he did it.

“Do what?”

“What?”

Anders looked at me out of the corner of his eye as he still pawed around for the right substance. “You asked how I did what I did. What do you mean?”

Well, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“I…nothing. It’s nothing.” How could I ask a question about magic if I was playing the part of ignorant sword-swinger? Non-mages never understood the exhaustion or consequences of taming the magic that sings in a mage’s blood. I knew Anders wouldn’t appreciate me asking. I wouldn’t if someone sprung the question on me.

I looked around aimlessly to try and find something to entertain me while Anders looked for the correct poultice. Why didn’t he just label the damn things? Oh right, there probably weren’t label makers in the dark ages. My search turned up nothing so I turned my attention back to Anders to find him staring intently at me. It almost made me take a step back.

“Um…yes?” I asked in hopes he’d take his soul-gazing stare off of me.

“Is it my magic that bothers you so much?” He asked in a whisper and then when he didn’t get a reaction he took a step forward and raised his voice. “Is it the fact that I’m a mage which makes it impossible to stand my presence for more than a few minutes? What do I have to do to convince you that magic isn’t something to be feared?”

“Anders…”

“We shouldn’t be locked away for the gifts that the Maker gave us and no man should have the right to place themselves above us! If our atrocity was so great in the Black City that the Maker would demand our extermination then why does He still allow mages to be born?”

“Anders, stop!”

However, the enraged Healer would not listen to me. Instead, he took another step closer and cracks in his skin began to show. Pure mana exuded from the sudden facial scars and pulsed an angry blue. I had forgotten. Anders was a vessel for a spirit of Justice that seemed to overpower Anders’ conscious mind when his emotions peaked. Spirits were benevolent creatures and supposedly the Maker’s first children that guarded mortals in their dreams in the Fade. Rarely did they ever make contact with a human. Certainly I haven’t seen one before, but it seemed that not all the stories were true. This spirit was not one to sit back idly. It had plans of its own.

“No! I will not stop until you see why it is wrong for mages to be so feared!”

“I do not fear magic!” I finally exploded, unable to take any more of his accusations. “I am the last person to accuse of for hating magic! Where did you even get that idea?”

Fortunately, the glowey, scary Anders faded away to the normal Anders that was still scary but didn’t give off nuclear radiation themed waves. Honestly, saying that I was scared of a little fire and sparkles? It was the furthest thing from the truth.

“What? But…of course you do! Why else would you leave the room whenever I entered or not tell me anything like I couldn’t be trusted? I had to find out from Varric what happened this morning. The only time you’re ever here in Darktown is when you need healing after a fight and even then you shy away when I try to use magic to close up your wounds. How can you say you’re not afraid of magic when clearly your actions prove otherwise?”

Well, when he put it like that it really didn’t cast me in a very good light. This conversation was quickly crossing into dangerous territory that I wasn’t fully equipped for. I was sure that if Anders wrestled my secret out of me he’d probably take it to the grave, but there was no reason to risk him accidentally slipping it to the wrong person. I wasn’t going to put myself in danger just to soothe hurt feelings. The events happening around me right now were too important for me to be locked up in a tower.

“Look, Anders,” I began. “Do we have to talk about this right now?” His glare seemed to only intensify. I nodded. “Alright I guess we do have to.” Slowly, I took a deep breath and released it through my nose. “If I’ve done anything to offend you, I apologize because it was purely unintentional. But what I don’t understand is how you can think that I hate magic? My sister was a mage if you remember.”

Silently, I shifted through Hawke’s memories about his and Bethany’s interactions. Hawke had loved his younger sister unconditionally, but I could see that he couldn’t wrap his head around her gift. However, he never loved her less for it. Perhaps Hawke was a better man than I thought. His family really did mean the world to him.

Anders looked frustrated and clenched and unclenched his staff. “Yes, I knew about your sister, but you sent Feynriel to the Circle when you knew what they did to mages there! A boy as powerful as him couldn’t take one step out of the line the Templars drew or he would be made Tranquil!”

Fine, he wanted to argue over every little detail? I could do that just fine.

“There wasn’t any other choice!”

“You could have sent him with his mother’s people, the Dalish!”

“And risk the Templars finding out that the elves were harboring a wanted mage? They would be hunted down and killed and Feynriel would still be dragged off to the Circle!”

It wasn’t actually what Hawke had been thinking at the time and made that decision under a whole different set of pretenses, but I thought I would’ve made the same decision nevertheless. So maybe the Circle here was different from the one I was raised in, but I knew what hadn’t changed was that the Circle knew how to handle demons.

“I…I hadn’t thought about what might happen to the Dalish for helping the boy,” Anders whispered with a little less fire in his eyes. I cut him off as he was about to open his mouth again.

“That happened three years ago. Has my decision been bothering you that long?”

Anders looked down at an interesting patch of ground while still worrying the staff in his hands. After a few long minutes of neither of us saying anything I decided to speak up.

“I know that I’ve been unofficially appointed leader of our little group of cutthroats and misfits but that doesn’t make me infallible. Despite popular belief I don’t actually know everything.” Finally I got an expression besides anger out of the mage; a little smile quirked at the corner of his lips. “So if you want to say something to stop me from doing anything stupid, which I’m sure will happen often, don’t be afraid to knock me down a peg.”

Brown eyes connected with my own blue ones. He looked at me intently for a moment before nodding to some mental conclusion of his. “You aren’t stupid as often as you think.”

I smirked. “Thanks for salvaging a bit of my ego there.”

“I do my best,” he smiled. “But can I ask why you flinched from my magic when I was only trying to help you?”

The incident six months ago when I first landed in this world of sharp, pointy objects came freshly to my mind. Ah, I remembered that. My aversion to his touch wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Yes, well I guess you can say that I don’t really like Healing magic all that much. It has nothing to do with you but I’ve had…bad experiences.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

Sure, he could ask that but the real question was if I would give him an answer. Instantly my mind flashed to scenes in my childhood where I had been cooped up in the Healer’s Wing for the fights I continuously got into. I also visited numerous times on account of me trying something dangerous with my magic. During my first attempts at shape-shifting the Healers there actually reserved a bed with my name on it because they knew I would occupy it sooner or later. But there was this one Healer that despised every fiber of my being and I hated when she was the only one available to set a broken bone or soothe bruises and black eyes. Purposely she would forget to numb the area where she mended torn muscles and one time when the hag had knitted my broken arm back together she fused some muscle tissue to my joint that prevented me from even bending my arm without feeling excruciating pain. After that incident I had to wait a week before a new Healer replaced her.

With a sigh, I began. “When I was a kid I got into all sorts of trouble and there was a Healer where I grew up that didn’t like me very much. After I visited her I would feel nauseous for days and my muscles ached.”

Anders got angry again. sh*t, what did I do to piss him off this time? “She shouldn’t have called herself a Healer. For you to feel like that she must have pushed her magic forcefully into you which can cause irreversible harm to the patient. It’s people like her that smear the reputation of mages.” Oh, he was mad for me and not at me. This wasn’t a situation that Hawke or I was familiar with. “I’m sorry that you experienced magic that way. Not all Healers are so careless,” he told me with enough sincerity that it made me squirm uncomfortably.

“It-It’s not a big deal. You don’t need to apologize; it’s just an unconscious reaction I get around that kind of magic, but that doesn’t mean I hate it. Hell, I almost married a guy for the great hangover remedy he made.”

Anders chuckled. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t know, I got down on my knee and everything, it was that good of a medicine and that bad of a hangover.”

“Hawke, can you ever be serious?”

I shrugged. “Life’s no fun if you can’t joke about it.” Without hesitation, I held out my hand. “So are we in agreement that I’m not traumatized by glowing lights or fancy fireballs and that you’ll speak up when you think I’m being an ass?”

A warm, calloused hand gripped my leather covered one. I could feel the natural mana of this mage in front of me through my runes. The shiver that raced up my spine surely came from the runes recognizing mana and not from the intense gaze that paralyzed me. How could a man who held human lives so high above his own purposely plant a bomb in a church to make a point? Could the spirit’s influence have changed this righteous, optimistic mage irreversibly?

I decided something right there and then as the two of us solidified our agreement. I would do everything in my power, physically and magically, to save this man from a fate that he did not deserve.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

I hadn’t gone to sleep that night. Too many thoughts raced through my head at a speed that normally I couldn’t comprehend, but every stray idea met at the center of the problem. The Arishok. As soon as the Viscount’s messenger had placed that letter in my hands I knew what had happened.

Everything was beginning to tumble down the hill into a landslide that would kill so many innocent people along its way. Purposely, the Arishok had allowed his supplies of supposed gaatlok fall into enemy hand. The explosive the thief thought they stole was actually a combustible material called saar-qamek that if released into the air and ignited produced a very potent nerve gas that induced vomiting, seizures, and eventually led to death. There was no known cure once a person came into prolonged contact with the toxic green cloud.

Running my naked fingers over my tired face, I stared at the dying embers in the fire. Last night I returned home to Hawke Manor with Anders’ poultice in my hand and a heavy heart. I placed the item I collected for mother on the desk that nearly bowed underneath the weight of all the letters I ignored. Most of them contained invitations to parties I didn’t attend or investment opportunities that I would never read. Playing the part of noble didn’t appeal to me whatsoever.

I had a chance to rub shoulders with the diamond glazed upper class citizens back in my own time because of my parents and their influence, but I would rather run across rooftops or sail through the skies in my shape-shifting form of a red-tailed hawk. A life of complacency did not suit a wild spirit like my own.

In the privacy of my room I paced relentlessly like a cat that had a knot tied in its tail as I tried to plan my next course of action. In a few hours I would meet with the Arishok who would explain about the missing formula and in Hawke’s memories he had spent the next few days hunting down a suspect that turned out to be innocent. The real thief would be busy unknowingly creating a deadly gas which would be released upon hundreds of innocent people who would die before Hawke even arrived on the scene.

The only aid I received from all his memories was where he battled against the thieves and how to seal off the gas. They told me nothing of where the gas was being stored before unleashing it on the public which was what I needed the most. If I could figure out where, then this mass chaos could be prevented.

There, I had the first step in my plan. After I met with the Arishok I would set out alone with Hawke’s recall of the events to guide me to the area where the gas was. There were…four barrels of saar-qamek and each was easily about the height of a man which meant they were heavy. They couldn’t have been stored far from Hawke’s battleground in an alley in Lowtown. Any further and they risked exposure.

I stopped my furious pacing across the room and none too gently collapsed on the bed. With a sigh, I glanced out the window to see the sun starting to rise. Might as well start the long process of putting on my armor that Bodahn had thoughtfully picked up from the Viscount’s office. Unfortunately it looked like one hell of a busy day and by busy I meant dangerous so a little extra protection was worth the effort of buckling straps, slipping into metal plates, and finding places on my body to hide daggers.

“Wow, Hawke you look like something the Darkspawn chewed up then spat back out.”

I took my hand from my mouth that had been covering a yawn and glared at the smirking crossbowman. “Thank you for that lovely image, Varric.”

“Always here to help.”

Kicking off the wall I was leaning against I walked over to my companions that just arrived at the docks. I halfheartedly waved a greeting to Fenris who merely nodded slightly in acknowledgment before returning his attention to the horizon line. This time no images of Hawke’s romance with him came before my eyes. Thank. God. Now I could actually hold a proper conversation without blushing like an idiot school girl with a crush. He probably thought I had some sort of mental disability.

“Did you not sleep?” He seemed toask the ocean.

“No,” I answered Fenris’s question anyway although he wasn’t facing me. “Too many thoughts on my mind.” And that was putting it simply. For all those hours I spent staring into the hearth not one idea on how to save my mother seemed plausible or even remotely possible without a SWAT team to back me up. There were too many variables such as where Quentin, the murdering psychotic blood mage/necromancer, was, how many victims he had before finding Leandra, where he was hiding, or even if he was still in Kirkwall. All those questions and not one answer to them.

However, I had no more time to ponder my predicament. With a long stride a, what I assumed, Qunari warrior who served as the gate guard into the Qunari compound came up to the three of us. To describe a Qunari I could use three little words: scary as hell. As well as other variations. How the Christians described the devil fit the Qunari almost perfectly. Perhaps these peoplewere what non-mages saw as demons? Sharp horns extended from the sides of their foreheads and stretched back along their head. Their skin was off-white with blood-red war paint splattered in unknown designs all over their bodies.

They hardly wore any armor or even clothes for that matter, but I guess they didn’t need cloth or steel to give them protection. Biceps bigger than my head would make any human body-builder envious and they had muscles that looked like they could stop bullets. Small eyes suggested that sight wasn’t their dominant sense; they more than made up for that with pointed ears for enhanced hearing and a wide nose for scenting prey. The Qunari were born predators.

It was hard to comprehend that the Qunari or even elves and dwarves actually lived and not just in fairy tales. Thousands of years ago these races all coexisted with humans. What happened in the future for every one of them to become extinct? Could they still exist in my time but were just in hiding?

“The Arishok allows your entrance,” the gate guard said in a baritone voice that practically made my bones vibrate.

I nodded my understanding. He grunted and walked back to his post as I turned to Fenris. “You’ve brushed up on Qunari culture?” The swordsman raised an eyebrow which was Fenris-speak for ‘of course you moron’. “Right. Just checking. You ready, Varric?

“As I’ll ever be. Carry on, fearless leader.”

I hated it when he called me that because I was anything but. Slivers of ice slid down my spine as I walked into the Qunari compound that had nothing to do with my magic or the temperature of the docks. I spent six months laying out the pieces on my side of the chessboard and now it was finally time for me to make the opening move. With more confidence than I actually felt, I swaggered up the steps and shoved open the gates. All around me were Qunari who could rip me in two with just a single word from the Arishok as I walked through the area the Viscount set aside for them. The Qunari claimed to be waiting for a ship as they had been stranded here in the Free Marches after a horrible storm.

I knew otherwise. There was no ship coming. Now I just needed him to admit it.

Slowly, I came to a stop before the Arishok who sat upon his makeshift throne in a relaxed posture as a king overlooked his subjects. It seemed the Qunari chose their most intimidating warrior to become General for he appeared to be molded for the battlefield. His gaze settled on my form. I tensed and clenched my hands behind my back to stop them from curling into fists. That heavy look was familiar to me. My father stared at me the same way, like I was beneath his notice, a boy pretending to be a man. I heard my companions stop behind me, but the Arishok’s attention did not waver from my form. By habit I stood a little straighter and narrowed my eyes up at him. I refused to let him threaten me.

“Serah Hawke,” the leader of the Qunari finally spoke after a full five minutes of silence.

“Messere,” I responded.

He leaned forward in his upraised chair and settled an arm on one of his thighs. “Last we met, I did not know your name. Did not care to. You have changed your fortune over the years. The Qunari have not,” he said without emphasis or care as if he was just stating facts. “I offer you a courtesy, Hawke. Someone has stolen what he thinks is the formula for gaatlok. You will want to hunt him.”

“I can hardly believe a thief managed to steal something you guarded so closely. You let them take it.”

My bold statement did nothing to change the Arishok’s expression. “Correct. It was allowed. The stolen formula was a decoy. Saar-qamek: poison gas, not explosives.”

The leather of my gauntlets creaked under the sudden pressure I put them under. Hidden behind my back my fingers pressed hard against each other. “You let a dangerous weapon be set loose on the city?” I calmly asked although I felt the runes of my right hand tingle with my anger.

“Dangerous to humans. Not to us.”

“It doesn’t excuse your carelessness.”

The Arishok finally made a reaction. He leaned even further towards the three of us with a growl. “Tread carefully, human. Do not presume to know the demands of the Qun.”

I felt the cold metal of Fenris’s clawed hand grip my arm from beside me and I knew he was saying silently that I just entered dangerous territory. However, I wouldn’t let it go. I tore my arm from the swordsman’s hold and took a step forward. Instantly the Qunari soldiers that watched carefully on the sidelines leveled their spears at my figure which made me freeze, but my temper still raged.

“If the Qun requires the sacrifice of hundreds of innocent lives to soothe your damaged pride then I want nothing to do with your religion,” I uttered in a low tone.

“Hawke, what are you doing? Being skewered is not on my list of things to do today.” Varric whispered urgently. I ignored his question and didn’t let my gaze waver from the leader of the Qunari.

“You lure a thief into your compound with intent to trap them, but you let them leave instead. No ship is searching for you. It's you that's searching.”

My accusationwas expected to be met with the sharp edge of an axe so I shouldn’t have been surprised when the Arishok suddenly stood, but I let my hand drift to the pommel of my sword that was strapped across my back. Agitated, he paced back and forth on the dais until he faced me with a considering look. His soldiers removed their spears away from my heart and stood silently once more.

“You are like the rest of these humans in this festering city and yet you are not. You share their lack of any sense but not their ignorance.”

“Is that a compliment?” I smirked.

He waved off my sarcastic comment. “It is no insult.” The Arishok paused. “Karasten are soldiers. The Qun made it so. They can never vary from that assigned path, never be other than they are meant to be. You, Hawke, would change little if you accepted the Qun.”

“I think I made my views quite clear.”

The General nodded. “Yes, but it does not matter. We did not come equipped to indoctrinate. We cannot leave until our duty to the Qun is satisfied.”

“You led the people to believe otherwise.”

“Let them rot,” he growled. “Filth stole from us. Not now, not the saar-qamek. Years ago. What you said is true. A single act of greed has bounded us to this pustule of a city and we cannot leave until I alone uncover what was lost under my command.” Finally I could feel my hands unclench as the Arishok sat back down. His black eyes focused on me. “You will not have the challenge you seek from me, Hawke. Not yet are you worthy in my eyes. Panahedan. It will be interesting to see if you die.”

I gritted my teeth at the obvious dismissal and at his perceptiveness of my intent to goad him into a fight. Nevertheless, I bowed slightly in his direction no matter how irritated I was that my plan, to end the battle before it started, failed. The Arishok had made his move by taking my first pawn. However it was now my turn and I planned on capturing the king. These were only the opening moves in our little chess match.

“Sooo…poking the bear with a stick until it bites your head off? Not one of your brighter ideas, Hawke.”

Distracted, I ran my hand back along my black hair as we walked out of the compound. The gate guard grunted at us and closed the gate as soon as stepped through it. I needed to inform the Viscount of the Qunari’s intentions while finding a way to keep an eye on his son, Saemus Dumar, as well as Mother Patrice. I hadn’t even thought of an idea yet to curb the supposed holy woman’s murderous intentions which sparked the war between Kirkwall and the Qunari over Saemus’s death. Also on my mind was finding a way to keep mother safe from the White Lily Killer while at the same time searching for the relic that Isabela stole from the Qunari which would go a long way into cooling tempers.

“Yes, I would also like to know why you purposely tried to goad the Arishok.”

From the first day…well second or third that I woke up in this time period I planted seeds deep in the information underbelly of Kirkwall. A lot of the coin Hawke received from the treasures discovered in the Deep Roads went into the greedy paws of the Coterie and Athenril’s – Hawke’s old employer- pockets. Periodically they sent updates through secret letters – the only ones I actually took time to read – about what I asked them to keep their eyes on.

So far all I knew was that the necromancer was still in hiding, the Templars were increasing their raids on families rumored to be harboring apostates, and increased open resentment among elves and humans alike towards the Qunari occupation, but I had nothing to go on about my current predicament.

Dammit, I hated walking into a situation blind.

“I think he’s ignoring us.”

“No, Varric. I was just thinking,” I mumbled.

“Did it hurt?”

Finally my eyes came back into focus as I returned from my trip deep into my thoughts. “A bit,” I responded to the crossbowman’s sarcastic question. “Have you heard anything about a big sell-off? Maybe the thief intends tounload the stuff.”

Varric tapped his chin in thought. “Hmmm,” he hummed. “Now that I think about it I did hear something like that. I don’t really know much about it, though. Haven’t kept up on the squirt. We could ask the Coteries.”

“Good,” I nodded while watching a boy run across the docks. “See if you can get any leads from them. Fenris?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to go see Anders.”

I could practically see the elf’s upper lip curl into a sneer. “Why?” He snarled.

I rolled my eyes at the obvious disdain the two warriors had for each other. Fenris hated Anders because he was a mage and Anders hated Fenris because the swordsman openly despised mages just for being what they were. It was more annoying than it was funny. “I know you two don’t get along, but I want you to find out if he’s seen any patients that experience constant vomiting, blurry vision, and/or muscle spasms. I need you to tell Anders those symptoms exactly.”

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest. “Again I’m going to have to ask why.”

“It’s what people usually experience when exposed to a toxin. If some came into contact with the saar-qamek then we can narrow down where the poison is based on where the victims live. So I need you to play nice with Anders.”

His green eyes widened at my explanation. “That is…not a bad idea.”

With a shrug I said, “I’m smarter than I look. Not a word, Varric,” I added when out of the corner of my eye I saw him open his mouth. He closed it with a dry smirk.

“All right, I will do as you say,” Fenris reluctantly said. “And you have other plans that prevent you from doing the task yourself?”

I watched the boy who had been running turn in a circle as if searching for something until his sight landed on our little group. With a burst of speed he ran to us with a waving arm.

“Serah Hawke! Serah Hawke I have a message for you!” The boy called and came to a stop before me. “Here you are serah.” Reaching into his grubby, threadbare shirt the boy that was practically made of skin and bones pulled out a folded piece of parchment.

“Thank you. Here’s a little something for your quick delivery,” I told him and traded the message for a silver piece.

“A whole silver!” The messenger marveled over the coin before bowing a few times. “Thank you, serah!” After his gratitude, the young boy ran off as fast as he could.

“That was generous,” Fenris noted.

“He needed to eat,” I absently said as I unfolded the note to read the short sentences scrawled across it. “I have to go see an elf about a dog so I’ll see you two gentlemen later.”

Waving my hand behind me to my confused group, I stuffed the paper into a pouch at my waist and exited the docks. Maybe now I wouldn’t be walking into a dangerous situation without a blindfold on, I thought as I recalled Athenril’s missive.

-H

Two alleys from the alienage with elf you described. Beware dogs with swords.

-A

It turned out that there were a lot of alleyways near the alienage. Tiredly, I put a little ‘x’ mark on the map I was using to navigate the twisting streets of Lowtown. So far the only thing I’d found were suspicious looks and closed mouths. If anybody knew anything about a group that was a little overzealous in their hate of Qunari, then they weren’t going to tell me about it. I was a stranger in their part of Kirkwall never mind the rumors about me helping them before. Elves were not going to trust humans.

I rolled up the map and put it in the pouch with Athenril’s message. Perhaps I wouldn’t find the specific alley that she mentioned seeing mercenaries on a map. It probably wasn’t even drawn in. Guess I would do this the old-fashioned way. So closing my eyes, I spun around once, and walked in the direction I randomly pointed to.

Three hours of mindlessly searching and I got a hint that I found the correct area.

“You’re not allowed through here. Move along,” the armed mercenary growled at me with his sword to my throat.

I held my hands steady in the air in the surrender position. “I was just passing-,” I began but was cut off when he placed more pressure on the sword tip.

“I said move along.”

He made it clearer when I felt his blade nick the soft skin of my throat and fresh warm blood spilled onto my collar bone.

“Fine, fine. I see your point,” I relented and slowly backed away. The man’s sword dropped to his feet but his glare told me to not try anything stupid.

Away from the mercenaries guarding the mouth into the alleyway, I slipped around the corner to the building three doors down from the one I wanted to enter while wiping away the bit of blood on my neck. Before the swordsman had denied me entry I spotted an abandoned…hovel was the word I was looking for with men moving around carrying large barrels. I was pretty sure I was in the correct place. Looking up into the sky I saw that it was almost dusk. Night would fall soon and would provide me plenty of cover.

I made sure I was out of sight before I slumped down with my back against the sandstone and clay building. A couple of hours sleep would do me some good. All day out in the heat of the day along with not sleeping the night before made me feel exhausted and I needed plenty of energy in case something went wrong and I needed to fight my way out. Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I lived by it.

However, one thought kept me from drifting off. What was I going to do with the saar-qamek once I found it?

I groaned and smacked the back of my head against the wall. Why hadn’t I thought that far ahead?

A cat’s demanding yowl awoke me from my sudden slumber. With a start I jerked from the wall and snatched the hilt of my sword on instinct to only sigh in relief that I wasn’t being attacked. I let my hand fall to my side and lifted an eyebrow. On my lap, a cat meowed indignantly at being knocked from my chest but as it saw that I was now awake it twined innocently along my thighs purring like a motorboat. I chuckled at its antics.

“Sorry, kitty-cat. I haven’t got any scraps for you. I’m more of a dog person anyway so I don’t know why you’re begging from me. You should go find Anders; I bet he would appreciate having you around. Why am I talking to a cat?”

It didn’t seem to care about my preferences or my mental state as it proceeded to purr louder. Giving in, I ran my covered hand over its black arched back and tickled my fingers underneath its white chin. White paws kneaded the leather of my pants in pleasure at my attention. This cat wasn’t afraid of humans but it was no house pet. Its body was lean and its black and white fur matted in dust and mud. I picked it up gently to put it down beside me and I noticed its sharp claws were tipped in blood. It also had a small slice of its ear gone. This feline definitely went through many fights.

“You’re a little warrior aren’t you?”

The cat meowed in agreement or so I imagined.

“As mighty as the Arishok, I bet.” Meow. Meow. “Oh really?” Meow! “Then I dub thee Purrishok, Leader of the Catari.”

It purred even louder at its new name and rubbed against my arm in satisfaction. Ah, if only the real Arishok was so easy to please. With a final pat on its head I shooed it away while I stood up to stretch out my legs. The night was black as pitch; perfect for sneaking around in.

I peered around the corners of the building to make sure no one was hanging about; I removed both my gauntlets as I squatted down to the dusty street of Lowtown. With a single finger I drew a glyph into the soft earth that I knew by memory. Archaic symbols were enclosed in a nearly perfect circle that, to a mage, listed the glyph’s function. I concentrated raw mana into my hand and let my drawn spell drink it in.

It glowed a faint green but would fade as soon as the magic I placed into it was used up. No bigger than my palm the Glyph of Propulsion nevertheless packed enough of a punch to launch me into the air in order for me to get access to the roof where I could get into the guarded hovel.

Instead of putting my gauntlets back on, I tucked them into my belt. I had a feeling I would need to use more magic tonight. I mentally checked off all my weapons and took a deep breath. With a small jump, I hopped onto the shining glyph which instantly propelled me high into the air.

“Too high! Too high!” I soared at least a couple of meters above the roof and I braced myself for the hard landing as gravity finally caught up with me.

A little too much magic, I deduced as my legs trembled slightly from the tough impact. It seemed my mana was a bit more potent than I expected from the six month long vacation it’s been on. Oh well, at least it worked. A tad better than I thought, but it got me to where I wanted. Now all I had to do was get over to the correct building and climb through a window or something to get inside.

Staying low, I quickly raced across the rooftops and jumped across the tops of alleys. I stopped at the edge of one to peer over the side. Below me a mercenary walked past and knocked on the door of the house they guarded. The door opened a crack and I recognized the female elf that stole the saar-qamek from Hawke’s memories. I was definitely in the right place. She admitted the armed man inside after speaking with each other a bit. Hold on a minute, I thought. Just how many were in there? I couldn’t possibly sneak in with that many guards running about. I needed a distraction.

I sat down on the roof to peer at my hands for a useful spell that would suit my needs. Fire was always a good choice but flames created by a mage were harder to put out and I didn’t want to unnecessarily hurt people or cause excessive damage. That excluded my earthquake spell also. Ice, wind, lightning…none of those would help and my eyes drifted back to the fire manipulation rune that travelled along my index finger whichdiffered from the fireball rune on my palm. Slowly I smiled as an idea formed. My Mastery in Fire was not granted to me by how large a flame I could create but rather how well I controlled it. I possessed a talent that clowns coveted and it was also great for parties. In the air I drew a fiery outline of what I wanted it to look like. Satisfied at the picture, I pushed a large amount of mana into the Manipulation of Fire rune and pointed at the mouth of the alleyway.

I could only imagine what the guards were thinking. At the entrance the mercenaries were standing attentively at, a giant ball of fire emerged. Some drew swords while others shied away from its intense light, but all watched fearfully as something formed from it. Four wicked paws coated in licking flames touched the ground while a blazing tail whipped around it. The face of a lion emerged from the inferno with a wild mane that burned around it. Its fiery teeth snapped at the quivering men and stalked closer; blocking the only exit out of the alley. The creature made no sound except for the crackling of its flames that coated its body. It took another step.

The men finally recovered their voices and they screamed. Braver ones, however, bared their swords in front of them as if to ward the beast off. The lion moved forward. One armed guard swung his weapon at the lion’s neck and watched fearfully as the blade whistled through the scorching creature and hit the ground. It took one step closer with nary a scratch. The frantic yelling and cursing attracted attention from inside the house. From within half a dozen men poured out with crossbows bared. The lion stilled. A bolt fired right in front of it that forced it back. With increased courage at the beast’s hesitation more pressed the trigger to their crossbows. Finally, it turned tail and began to run.

With amusem*nt, I watched my fire creature I crafted from only my thoughts lead almost every mercenary into the winding streets of Lowtown. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my forehead at the amount of effort it took to hold the shape of a lion as well as make it interact the way a predatory cat would. Master was not a title granted lightly. Hurriedly I dashed onto the roof and looked for a window. Unfortunately denizens of Kirkwall didn’t believe in fresh air and I came up empty. I would have to use an alternative method quickly because my fire manipulation possessed only a few more minutes of life before my distraction would dispel to save my mana supply.

Beside the red glowing active rune of my spell I let a separate strain of mana flow into my middle finger where the rune for earth was carved. It pulsed a golden brown as I lightly touched the hardened clay roof and drew it slowly to the right. With more of the consistency of water rather than the solid mud it parted under my will to make a hole big enough to slip through which I did once I saw that no one was below me.

I dropped into a side room of the house that had its door firmly shut. I waved my hand to replace the earth of the roof and deactivated the rune. The room was dark once the moonlight disappeared so I created a small ball of lightning to illuminate my surroundings.

It was empty.

I narrowed my eyes. That couldn’t be right.

Holding my hand in front of me for a moment, I concentrated on the lightning. Its white light crackled a bit but obeyed my command to rise in the air and hover while I overturned tables and removed the rugs covering the floor. On my hands and knees I crawled over the floor searching. I smirked as my finger touched a ring of cold metal. My bare hand swept dust off to reveal a hidden trap door. I braced myself on the floor and heaved the heavy wood up. Hiding beneath it was a ladder that descended into darkness.

It only took a thought to send my crackling lightning ball down to the bottom. I followed quickly. Right as my feet hit the floor of the secret room my fire rune dulled until it went out completely. Okay, I only had a few minutes to find the barrels of poison gas, think of a way to get rid of it, and escape before the shack was again filled with guards. Yeah, I could do that no problem.

When I turned around I immediately had a problem. It wasn’t a room I dropped into, but a system of tunnels that branched off into four different passageways that continued on for who knew how long underneath Lowtown. So that was how the thieves escaped from the docks with not one person seeing them.

“sh*t. sh*t. sh*t,” I cursed repeatedly. There wasn’t any time to check them all and I didn’t even know if all the saar-qamek was stored together in one place. “Which one?”

My eyes flickered from one passage to the next. No clues pointed to the correct choice and I couldn’t afford to pick unwisely. I shifted anxiously. Seconds ticked by as I just stood there. Dammit I had to do something! If only I see through walls!

Wait. Maybe I could.

I dug into my money pouch and pulled out a handful of silver and copper bits. I replaced the silver coins with more copper and put all but two into my left hand. I tossed them into the air to hear the dull clang they made when they crashed into each other. Both landed in my palm on top of the rune meant for the manipulation of wind. A small pinch in my chest told me that I was beginning to strain my magic, but I ignored the warning sign that I was nearing my limit.

The rune radiated a beautiful teal color that complimented the still activated purple lightning rune when I wrapped the two coins in a miniature vortex. Violently the coins slammed together and I silently thanked my tutors for giving me a thorough education. I recalled my lesson on the properties of sound. Sound waves were longitudinal waves produced by variations in air pressure and a vibrating source pushed molecules in air back and forth.

To put it simply I just created my own version of echolocation. All I needed to do was send the swirling coins into each passageway and listen for the correct refracting sound wave that imitated the one of metal hitting wood. So I did. I held my hand straight out to send the colliding copper bits into the rightmost corridor. It hit a dead end. Another miniature tornado in the next hallway didn’t reveal anything either. It was only with the third tunnel did I hear the bits strike against wood and not clay walls. Found it. I put the coins I didn’t use back into my money pouch.

My makeshift flashlight flew ahead of me as I sprinted down the corridor. A sharp right turn led me into a room with a cache rich enough to make Varric cackle in glee but I only had eyes for the four barrels spread about and not the piles of weapons, armor, and assorted chests. These had to be what I was looking for. I turned one around and my lightning ball moved closer for me to see a strange crest branded into the wood of the barrel. The hell was that supposed to be? It was nothing I nor Hawke’s memories recognized. Was that the Qunari seal? I kind of expected a decapitated human head with an axe stuck in it for their crest. I shrugged. Whatever; all I cared about was getting rid of it. Behind me I heard the sharp slam of a door.

“Well, well what sort of rat managed to crawl in here?”

I came to the conclusion that everyone went around actively trying to give me a heart attack. Although I was startled, I whirled around with my sword drawn.

“Is that? Serah Hawke? I know you.”

I knew her too. It was the elf that stole from the Qunari my memories told me. She looked like a fragile creature with her light blonde hair, pale skin, and eyes that were a bit too wide for even an elf’s. Her delicate appearance did not diminish her skill with the heavy blade she carried or her will to destroy the Qunari people. She looked up and I followed her gaze to the ball of lightning that floated above my head.

“You are a mage?” She gasped in wonder then smirked evilly. “I bet no one knows that.” Oops. “And now no one will. You’re a much better target than the sector we were going to demolish with the Qunari thunder.”

“But you didn’t steal the gaatlok. They gave you a decoy. You've gotsaar-qamek in these barrels, a poison gas that'll kill many more people than you realize if you open them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she growled. “I don’t care what it is as long as it belongs to the Qunari! They take my people! My siblings forget their culture, then go to the Qun for purpose. We’re losing them twice!”

“Your people seek answers. Would you deny them peace?”

“They are elves! They are not beasts!”

Her outrage at losing her brothers and sisters caused her entire body to tremble and made the torch I barely noticed shake in her hands. I felt my shoulders tense. The saar-qamek was harmless now when in powder form but once it touched a heat source it released the deadly gas and she was standing right next to a barrel. An open one. I needed to either kill her quickly or extinguish the fire. I took a step closer.

“Don’t! Don’t move or, or I’ll-!” She lowered the burning torch to the open lid of the barrel next to her.

I froze. “Alright, alright. I understand. You’re in charge here.” Slowly I sheathed my blade and raised my hands into the air. I felt like I was assuming this position a lot tonight.

“Good. Good, good, good. That’s right. I control your fate now, shem.”

The word wasn’t familiar to me but I doubted it meant that my devilish appearance inspired desire in her.

“Now is there some way we can work this out peacefully? I’m sure there's something I can get for you.”

She thought for a moment. “No,” she whispered then repeated it louder. “No! I want the Qunari to be hated! I want the people to see them for the beasts they are and kill them as they’ve killed our people’s culture! I just need a body. Yes, yes you’re perfect. I’ll kill you and when they finally find your body poisoned by the Qunari’s weapon they’ll go after them! Yes! You have enough importance in the city. I’ve heard the people talk about you.”

“Who’s talked about me?” I asked with narrowed eyes.

“Yes it will still work! They are hidden in your city. They will enrage the faithful! They will make sure the Qunari are blamed!”

Everything was spiraling out of my control. Diplomacywas firmly pushed from this situation and all that remained was violence. I couldn’t let her release the gas. My lightning ball that I hadn’t allowed to extinguish shot forward just as the nameless elf released the torch. In slow motion I watched the fire ignite the powder and shoot into the air a cloud of green gas that quickly filled the room while the elf dropped to the ground with a charred hole where her heart used to be. I covered my nose and mouth with my left arm as I ran to the shut door. Vainly I pulled on the handle but it refused to open.

Damn, it was jammed!

I rammed the door a few times before I remembered that I was a mage. I’d just blast the damned thing open!

The door didn’t stand a chance when I shot a mound of hard earth straight into it. But I paid for my spell. My heart constricted painfully in my chest. I was almost at my limit. Anymore spell-work could severely injure me, but I couldn’t risk the gas escaping into the streets or it seeping into the ground to poison groundwater which wells drew from.

Taking a deep breath I activated my rune of wind while ignoring the vine that seemed to tighten around my heart. Carefully I formed a tornado that swirled the toxic gas into it and I directed it over to the still open barrel. After I was sure all the gas was contained, my rune of earth illuminated once again to form a thick seal of iron I pulled from ore deposits deep within the earth on top.

I let out a big sigh of relief and pulled on my gauntlets that still hung from my belt. I turned to leave to only cough hard enough that I felt like I was going to hack up a lung. I grabbed at my chest as I struggled to breathe and coughed harder. I opened eyes that I hadn’t known I closed and saw blood flecks decorate the ground beneath me. My body trembled. My stomach churned. My vision blurred. I must have breathed in some of the gas.

Terrific. Now I would suffer from poison as well as magical exhaustion.

My conscience was clear enough for me to leave through the broken door. Exhausted, I stumbled along the passageway until I made it back to the main room with the ladder. I couldn’t risk going that way. I was in no shape to fight mercenaries so I staggered down the last corridor I hadn’t sent my coin trick down and hoped that it lead to the Lowtown streets.

I didn’t know how long I spent walking but I knew that it took me a lot longer when I stopped periodically to vomit. I wiped my mouth clean as I purged my belly for the fifth time. There was now nothing in my stomach but bile however I still felt nauseous. I grunted when my foot jammed against something. Blearily I peered in front of me to see a ladder that led upwards. My muscles felt like the Jell-O I ate as a kid. Every bone in my body seemed to ache. But I knew that if I wanted to live I had to climb.

The last of my strength I spent scaling the wooden ladder and I hadn’t a clue how I managed to lift the heavy steel grate to collapse onto the ground and out of the tunnels. Rolling off of my stomach the first thing I noticed was that the sun was beginning to rise. Just how long did I spend walking through that passage? I could hear a sort of gurgling in my lungs as I struggled for each breath. My eyes began to close. Rest. I just needed to rest for a short while…

A far off voice reached my ears as I began to cross over to the Fade.

“Oh dear it seems someone has fallen down. I do hope it’s not another victim of a mugging. Those are so dreadful-Hawke!”

I could faintly feel my shoulder shaking and desperate hands touch my chest.

“Hawke! If you see any paths in the Fade don’t take them! Stay put!”

Merrill? Was that her talking to me? I…I don’t have to worry about the Fade. I was a mage. I’ve walked its shaded paths many times before. Was that a raindrop on my cheek?

“Hawke! Hawke, no! Don’t go! Help! Help me please get him to Darktown! I’ve forgotten my ball of twine!”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by.

Robert Frost’s poem echoed as my boots carried me down deeper into the Fade.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

It seemed that Fate deemed it reasonable to wake me twice from a deep slumber by the indignant yowl of a cat. However, I didn’t spring immediately awake like I did before. Long minutes passed before I could properly open my eyes. The first thing that greeted me were black, slit pupils surrounded by yellow clouds. Then theymoved away so I could see the creature that stared curiously at me with its tail flicking back and forth on my chest light enough to tickle. It judged me awake enough to give it attention so it purred loudly and rammed its head into my chin in excitement.

Ouch. That hurt.

My groan of pain was enough encouragement for the familiar cat to continue rubbing its head along the stubble of my jaw seeking pats.

Heavier than I ever imagined it to be, my arm lifted from underneath the blanket that covered me to stroke its black back before it succeeded in dislocating my jaw. I noticed that my gauntlets remained on my forearms. Good. I shifted around a bit on the cot I occupied to ascertain whether I was naked or not because waking up in a strange bed after one too many drinks had happened before. Thankfully, I realized I was still dressed and that someone thoughtfully removed my uncomfortable armor so I could rest easier. Great.

My energy spent, I dropped my arm back down to the cot. Now that I paid my dues of affection to the feline it was satisfied to settle down to sleep curled up into a little ball on my chest. That sounded like a fine idea, my friend.

The Fade took me gently back into its embrace.

The next time I awoke I felt more grounded in reality and could think clearer. I felt the furball that radiated heat on my left side snuggled tightly between my arm and hip. Happily, it purred as the little cat dreamed a little kitty dream. It was easier this time to control my muscles and I used that new found discovery to lightly run my fingers through its soft fur. Someone had given the fellow a bath as I felt no mud or snarled tangles that certainly had been there before when I first met the cheeky feline. I let my hand still. How long ago was that?

My breathing still even and my eyes closed, I heard footsteps come closer.

“I thought I told you before to leave him alone? Come; find somewhere else to sleep besides on Hawke. I’m sure your master appreciates your loyalty, but not you clawing him while he’s unconscious.”

Calloused fingers carefully brushed over my arm to lift up my napping companion but I stopped them by trying to grasp the person’s hand. I heard a sharp, indrawn breath.

“Hawke?” The question was whispered.

The hands left the cat, that hadn’t bothered to wake up, to pick up my hand. It was squeezed gently. Carefully, I opened my eyes and saw Anders’ face come into focus. Ah, now I knew where I was. The clinic. How did I always wind up there after being knocked unconscious? A smile bloomed on the Healer’s face.

“Why are you happy?” I asked in a voice that sounded drier than the desert. A rim of a glass pressed to my lips and the back of my head was lifted. I opened my mouth to the sweet, cool taste of water that soothed my scratchy throat. I swallowed gratefully. It was taken away but my thirst was sated.

“Better?”

I nodded with a satisfied sigh as he carefully set my head back down on the pillow.

“’m tired,” I mumbled.

My hand was squeezed again.

“Then sleep. Your fever is broken and the poison has passed through your system. All you need to do now is rest.” His voice was soft.

Rest. Yeah, that was good.

This time I was accompanied to the Fade by a nagging question that hovered at the back of my mind. It sounded important but I slipped away before I could figure out why.

The third time I woke I remembered the question I wanted to ask. Something batted at my fingers that made me pause in my intent to rise off the sick bed I was confined to. I co*cked my head to the side and saw the cat batting my leather covered fingers playfully with its paws. Its rear was in the air with its head down low as it hunted. I wiggled the black digits which made the cat pounce and roll around trying to devour them. Sharp teeth nibbled on the pads of my fingers but didn’t bite down.

“Glad you listened when I told you to find Anders. I’m sure he’s happy to have someone around besides sick people and crazy spirits.”

My voice wasn’t as harsh as it had been the last time I woke up I noticed as I played with the little warrior. Footsteps warned me of someone entering the room and I looked up to see Anders walk in leaning tiredly on his staff. He saw me watching him and he smiled thinly while he walked over to my bedside. Anders raised an eyebrow at the feline who joyfully ignored everything around it to swat my still fingers into moving again. I faithfully obliged.

“Beneath the scruffy exterior you really do have something of a soft heart, don’t you?” The Healer asked. He turned around to drag a decrepit wooden stool closer to my side for him to sit on.

I shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’m merely training him to attack our enemies,” I replied. “He’s got quite a name to live up to.”

“’He’ is actually a ‘She’,” Anders informed me.

“Hmm?” I hummed distractedly. “Oh. Well she’s no lady to be coddled. This little spitfire is a warrior.”

Anders chuckled. “I can see that. I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“I don’t. She found me when I was in Lowtown. You could say she owns me.”

“Cats do have a tendency to do that,” he smiled. “Can I ask what you named her?”

“Purrishok, Leader of the Catari, but since she’s a girl I guess we can shorten that to just Purri so she won’t intimidate gentlecat callers.”

The cat paused in her game as if she recognized her name. She stood up to meow and butt her head into my side. Absently, I stroked her as I watched Anders try not to laugh at the name I bestowed her with.

“What? It’s a perfectly good name,” I protested as I scratched a spot on her back that made the cat purr louder.

“Oh, yes of course, a strong name for such a noble beast. At least you didn’t call her something ridiculous, like Frederick. A Warden I knew seemed fond of that name.”

“That is ridiculous,” I agreed.

It was quiet except for the content purring of Purri until Anders spoke up again while twirling the staff he used to perform his magic.

“You know, she hasn’t left your side this entire time.”

“You said I had a fever. I probably radiated enough heat to start a fire. She’s just shamelessly using me as a blanket.”

Purri knew she was being talked about because she meowed and decided she received adequate attention. With an elegant leap she landed on the floor of Anders’ clinic. I followed her with my eyes as she sniffed around for something to eat.

“It’s nice to have a cat around again,” Anders commented.

I turned my attention back to the apostate who watched Purri. “Feel free to take her off my hands, then. Besides I think the nobles in Hightown would like me even less than they do now if I strolled around the streets with a cat on my head. Probably wouldn’t invite me to any more parties." I stopped. "Oh wait, there’s an idea,” I mused.

He shook his head and looked at me. “You really aren’t like the other nobles, are you?”

“Anders, you must think so little of me,” I said with a mock-hurt tone but then continued normally when I saw the wry look on his face. “No, I’m not. I never saw the point in parading wealth or status. A person should be judged by their actions, their heart, and not the gold that lines their pockets. I refuse to let my bloodline dictate the kind of man I want to be.”

Every word rang true. I spoke from my own experiences and not from Hawke’s. My family was ancient, powerful, and held so much influence in magical and non-magical circles that we could bring devastating war with just a snap of our fingers. We couldn’t even put a figure on how much our family was worth. I was given the best tutors, the best education money could buy, but I threw it all away the day my ninth birthday came around and I carved my first rune into my hand.

The Tower where I was sent for regular teaching immediately expelled me when they finally found out about my little experiments. Private tutors hired expensively from my father took over my education then. By fifteen I ran in underground circles, bartering my exceptional skill in magic for less than legal opportunities.

I hadn’t done it to rebel. I ran to be free. Free from the politics: the false smiles, empty promises, and bound magic. I would not die a pet mage kept in a gilded cage to sing whenever a politician snapped their fingers.

“The world needs more good men like you in it. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of those.”

I left behind my brooding thoughts in exchange for a chance to throw in a witty remark. “That’s why I was made so dashingly handsome otherwise I would blend in with everyone else.”

Anders gave a small smile. “The Maker also made you more reckless than others. Varric told me.” Uh oh. That could've meant a lot of things. He narrowed his eyes, smile gone, and pointed his finger at me like I was a disobedient child caught eating a snack before dinner. “You purposely tried to start a fight with the Arishok? Have you gone mad?”

“If I’m going to be scolded can I at least defend myself sitting up?”

I held up my hand for him to grasp. He grabbed me by my forearm sheathed in my gauntlet and slowly pulled me forwards until I was in a seated position then he let go to sit back down on the stool. I took a few moments to stretch and crack my neck to work all the kinks out of it. It popped grotesquely. Just how long was I asleep? I asked Anders.

“You’ve been out of it for four days now. I’m actually surprised you even woke considering the state Merrill brought you in. If Fenris hadn’t told me about people coming in with the symptoms you described I wouldn’t have had the medicine to save you. You’re very lucky to be alive, Hawke. Just what were you doing that you couldn’t ask for help?”

I held up my hands to stave off any more questions. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! One question at a time, please! Like you said I just woke up and my brain hasn’t caught up with fact that I’m not dead. I’m still piecing things together.”

“Would you like me to..?” He held his hand up and summoned healing magic into it.

I shook my head. “No thanks. I’m not in any pain, but I wouldn’t say no to a glass of water.” My hands fell back into my lap as Anders stood up to fulfill my request. “So, Varric tattled on me?”

“Sang like a bird,” he replied as he walked back with a full glass. I nodded my thanks and took it from him to drink. “Well to be fair he only talked after I threatened to castrate him with a nifty spell I knew.”

I barely managed to swallow before I dissolved into laughter. “Really? There’s a spell for…that?”

Anders blushed a bit. “I…umm, if there is I certainly don’t know it, but it sounded good at the time and it was enough that he believed I could.”

“Oh the look on his face must have been priceless.”

“It was,” he said with a mischievous smirk.

A comfortable silence settled between us as I finished sipping at my water which had a silty taste to it due to the lack of a filtration system in Kirkwall. Perhaps I could get a head-start on the whole bottled water idea? I peered insightfully at the last drops of water in the cup and it was then that I remembered what I wanted to ask when I woke up.

“Anders,” I asked for his attention and he gave it fully to me. “What happened with the saar-qamek? Please tell me it wasn’t used.” After all my efforts to prevent the poisonous gas from being released, I couldn’t bear if it was all wasted. I gripped the cup tighter in my grasp. If I couldn’t even manage to succeed in this first step then what use was I?

The apostate mage gave me a considering look as he picked up my used cup to set it aside. “So it was you the rumors are all based on then?”

I had a smart comment all ready to fire, but I contained it…barely. “Rumors?”

He nodded. “It’s all over Kirkwall; how the thieves returned every barrel they stole from the Qunari babbling incoherently about how a demon cloaked in fire lured them away from their hideout on a chase through the city then suddenly vanished. The mercenaries returned only to find their leader dead and the lingering scent of flames in the air. They said no amount of gold was worth the curse of the Qunari.”

I really didn’t know what to say to that. “Well…I’ve never been called a fire demon before. Demon, yes, but not one on fire.”

“You’ve been called a demon?”

“More than once actually. I was a troublemaking child,” I offered nonchalantly as an explanation. I watched him smile and shake his head. “How many barrels were returned?”

Anders tapped his chin in thought. “I’m not sure exactly. I kind of had my hands full with keeping you breathing and other important things such as that. What are you doing?!” He exclaimed the last part as I tried to untangle the blanket that confined me to the cot.

I managed to free a leg but my escape attempt was foiled by a firm hand that pushed against my chest. Without even applying a lot of pressure, Anders managed to stop me from moving.

“Let me go,” I growled. “I-I have to see the Arishok; have to ask him about the saar-qamek.”

Anders didn’t move his hand and instead pushed harder against me. “And how are you going to do that exactly? Are you going to crawl there? I’m not even sure you can do that! Lie back down before you hurt yourself!”

I struggled with all I had to get up but it looked like it took no effort on Anders’ part to keep me still. He merely kept his infernal hand out and only the slightest shove made me fall flat on my back on the cot out of breath. I curled my fist and slammed it on the thin mattress in anger at my weakness. Already I could feel sweat gather at my brow and my breath came harshly from heaving lungs.

“You are the most stubborn man I have ever met,” criticized Anders with a furrowed brow although I couldn’t see it. The tone was there. “I knew the Hero of Ferelden and even he had the brains to take it easy for awhile when he had been about to shake hands with the Maker.”

I only absently listened to Anders as my body started to shake from the exertion I put on it. “Dammit, why do I feel like this? Why am I so weak?”

Anders sighed above me and removed his hand from my chest to place the back of it on my clammy forehead. “When I said you were lucky to be alive, I meant it. You are still just a man, Hawke, no matter what tales the fishwives gossip about. Good, you’re fever hasn’t returned,” he muttered and his touch left me, but not his words.

I…had almost died. I might’ve never woken up and I would have no one to blame but myself and the foolish risk I took thinking I could fix the Arishok’s problem without involving anyone around me. No single man had won a war without an army at his back. In my mind Flemeth’s words to me before she hurtled me into this world of dragons and chaos echoed. You took one look at the reward and gave no more thought to the dangers in your path. Do not be so foolish again.

Flemeth was right. I saw the goal I wanted to reach, but didn’t consider the consequences of heading into danger alone. I’d never worked with a team let alone people who genuinely wanted to help me. As a renegade mage there weren’t many chances to make an effort on my ‘doesn’t work well with others’ mark that I received on report cards from the Circle teachers.

That had to change.

I whipped my arm up and buried my eyes and nose into the sleeve of my tunic. I took in a deep breath and slowly let it out along with all my worries. First, I had to have the ability to move without my muscles crying then I could plan how to stop a civil war break out in the middle of Kirkwall.

Well, actually that was second. Apologizing came before that. I didn’t think that Anders deserved my irritation at the world in general. “’m sorry,” I mumbled.

“What? I didn’t quite hear that.”

I peeked out from underneath my arm and glared at the smirking mage. “You only get one of those a year. Are you sure you want to push next year’s quota?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t know you were quite this grumpy when you wake up.”

“And I didn’t know you were quite this annoying,” I snapped back, but the harshness of my words were negated by my struggling smile.

“Ouch, I felt that one. Tell me, did you use your vast amount of witty repartee on the boy who tugged your pigtails when you were a child?”

“…Did you just call me a little girl?”

“I also insulted your intelligence.”

“I hope you know good sir, that you’ve just insulted my honor. Which means that in accordance to gentlemanly rules I must challenge you in order to regain it.”

“Oh? And what challenge is that?”

I grinned maniacally. “Do you have a deck of cards?”

“Tell me that my eyes are just playing tricks on me and that you two seriously aren’t playing a child’s card game.”

“No, Varric. I’m winning in a child’s card game. Go Fish, Anders, and give me those Queens you’ve been hoarding over there. I know you’ve got three of them.”

Anders sighed and reluctantly handed over his three cards that I snapped up and proceeded to join it with my own Queen and made a neat little pile next to my thigh. I could only imagine what Varric was thinking when he walked into the back room of the clinic to see two grown men sitting cross-legged on a cot playing a game meant to teach children their numbers. I didn’t look up when Varric snorted amusedly at our antics and instead stared at Anders’ face trying to decide what else to ask for.

This was actually going on our third game, but Anders didn’t seem to mind entertaining me and only took the cards to shuffle when I told him that he could do other things if he was busy. He didn’t answer as he dealt the cards out for a new game. I smiled in thanks for his indulgence but didn’t say anything more after that. I think he understood that I didn’t want to go to sleep after four days of nothing but. He was a good friend.

“Do you have any…,” I trailed off dramatically and smirked when I finally asked for what I wanted. “Sevens?”

“Andraste’s sword how do you do that?” Anders muttered while rolling his eyes and handing me his pair of sevens.

Greedily I took the cards off of him and added it to my growing stash. “Did I neglect to mention that no one has ever beaten me at this game?”

“And I’m sure you’re extremely proud of that.”

“Damn straight I am,” I responded to Anders’ sarcastic comment. “Now relinquish your threes.”

Varric laughed at the disgruntled look on the mage’s face. “You know, Blondie, that Hawke counts the cards, right?”

In disgust, Anders threw his remaining cards at my head and I could only laugh as he muttered under his breath and stood up to stretch from his prolonged position on the cot. Still laughing as the Healer popped his back I picked up all the stray cards and began shuffling the deck again with quick hands.

“Aww, Varric why’d you have to tell him that? You’ve ruined my fun.”

Anders turned to the snickering dwarf. “Do you know how to do that too?” Varric shrugged with a mock-innocent look on his face. “By the Maker I’m never playing Wicked Grace with any of you ever again.”

The beardless dwarf chuckled at the mage’s outrage. “Blondie even if you did know the tricks of the trade you still wouldn’t be able to win.”

“Oh? How so?”

“You can’t lie to save your life,” Varric said matter-of-factly.

The Healer snorted his denial and crossed his arms over his chest even though Anders knew the accusation to be true. With a flourish seen only by dealers in a Las Vegas casino, I tossed the cards into the air and flicked them from hand to hand to shuffle them. Once upon a time I did actually work in a casino in the City of Sin for a bounty job presented to me by my employers when I was in my ‘mercenary phase’ as a rebellious teenager.

The senior mage, who led our little group of free mages that lived to make the Templars’ lives harder, handed over to me the bounty for a card-thief who subtly used little magic tricks to cheat at the gambling tables. The problem was that no one could prove how he managed to swindle thousands of dollars. Video surveillance revealed nothing. It all looked like he won legitimately. How to deal with the rat was ultimately up to me as long as the accused understood that his tricks were not well-received. As stupid as it seemed to cheat the owners of a frickin’ casino the man at least didn’t stay in one place more than a few days at a time and managed to disappear into a crowd with ease. I’m sure magic could explain the last bit.

For three weeks I worked as a Blackjack dealer at the Flamingo until finally the brown-haired mouse of a man wandered in. I figured a man who managed to cheat over 200,000 dollars from various gambling establishments would at least dress nicer. Out of the corner of my eye as I dealt out various cards to the prospective winners at the table I was assigned to, I watched his tattered form wander from slot machines, Craps, Roulettes, until finally he slid onto a stool before me.

Fingers with nails chewed into nubs gripped a few poker chips in exchange for me to deal him in on the next game. As soon as I scooped up his chips I immediately felt the enchantment he cast over them. A veil of cold air settled over me and I could only watch amusedly as my fingers sought out on their own winning cards to give the mage. Too bad he didn’t know I was cut of the same cloth before I flicked off the cheap bracelet that held the containment glyphs that smothered my magic. With only a blink, I severed the strands of magic that manipulated my hand and made sure it was strong enough of a pulse for the mage in front of me to feel. His eyes widened and he jerkily glanced up at me as sweat gathered at his brow. I smirked. He ran.

Too bad he didn’t see the bulky security guards that blocked his escape.

I sauntered out of the casino with a jaunty tune whistling on my lips, a generous check issued by the owner of the casino himself, and a stern warning to never set foot on the strip of Las Vegas again. It seemed mages weren’t welcome in his fine establishment. I may not have been allowed back but I didn’t leave without learning a few card tricks.

Fanning out the cards before me with a flick of my wrist, I motioned for Anders to pick out any card he wished. Curiously, he took one.

“Okay, you have it memorized?” He nodded. “Give it to me,” I told him and quickly slid the card into the middle without looking at it. I then handed the entire deck to the dwarf. “Now shuffle them.”

Varric raised his eyebrow at my demand but slowly began to shift the cards around.

“That’s good,” I said and Varric put the shuffled deck into my awaiting hand. “Now be amazed as I reveal your card.” At Anders skeptic look I wiggled my fingers over the top of the deck in imitation of magic and drew the top card. “Is this one yours?”

“By the Maker,” Anders gasped and plucked the card from my hand to stare at it. “How in all of Thedas did you do that?”

“Magic,” I said cheekily and my smile only grew as Varric outright laughed at the mage’s stunned expression.

Anders looked at me and gave the card back. “You enchant little girls by turning paper into roses, save poor defenseless kittens, and now you have the ability to work as a jester in any king’s court. What else can you do?” He drawled sarcastically.

“I’ve been told by many a fine lady that I can dance quite well.”

“Hawke can sing too if you get enough ale into him,” Varric added.

“You said you’d take that secret to the grave,” I hissed at the chuckling dwarf.

“You sing?” Anders asked, astonished.

“Prettier than a Chantry boy. Says he can play an instrument too; won’t tell me which one, though.”

“Hawke, you can sing, dance, and play. You’re just full of talents. Is there anything you can’t do?” Anders asked me with nothing short of surprise on his face. I couldn’t help a raging blush flood my cheeks and turn the tops of my ears red.

I coughed to cover up my embarrassment and grumbled under my breath, “Apparently not pick good friends who ignore the ramblings of a drunken man.”

The both of them proceeded to ignore me perfectly well now when I was completely sober as they laughed at my mortification. If there was any way to go back in time and slap the idea out of my mother’s head that her son needed to learn the gentlemanly arts then I would have to find it. Nothing was worth this humiliation.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Anders finally released me after another day of forced rest and a thorough examination to make sure I wasn’t going to hack up a lung anytime soon. The cool rush of magic he flushed my veins with made goosebumps break out along my arms as he double-checked that no poison was left in my system. Silently, I prayed to whatever god would hear me whether it be the Maker, God, or even Thor for all I cared that the glyphs burned into the inside of my gauntlets were strong enough to enclose every drop of mana in my being. They should, I put three on each glove. I let out a deep breath of relief when Anders patted my shoulder with a smile.

“Looks like you can happily flee from my clutches. You’re as healthy as an ox.”

I smiled my thanks and swung my feet over the side of the cot as soon as Anders moved away. Without his help, I carefully stood with the minimum amount of shaking in my legs. I grinned wider.

“Are you going to sing a little song now?”

I groaned at Anders’ teasing. “I will never drink again,” I swore. I also wouldn’t believe Varric when he promised to keep something a secret. Lying rogue, I grumbled.

Varric had his good points though. His visit yesterday wasn’t just a convenient stop on his stroll through the city of Kirkwall. He came to the clinic actually to speak with Anders and keep him updated on the latest scuttlebutt about the thieves who suddenly had a change of heart to return to the Qunari what they’d stolen.

Heh, scuttlebutt, that wasa funny word.

Anyway, since I was conscious Varric decided to fill me in on the happenings of the past few days. Although I attempted to do the mission to recover the filched saar-qamek in secret, everyone knew of my involvement. Word spread that I fell sick from exposure to the poison gas. The only one to suffer such ill-effects.

I hadnarrowed my eyes at Anders who raised his hands in innocence; I then turned to a whistling dwarf who seemed too innocent. He quickly confessed to helpfully informing the citizens of my daring deed and my battle with the thieves that included no less than three ogres that I tore apart with my bare hands. Varric didn’t seem to care that the last detail was completely ridiculous. He waved off my complaints and continued his tale that also reached the Arishok’s ears. The leader of the Qunari requested my presence as soon as I was able Varric mentioned, and also warned me not to do anything stupid this time. The crossbowman precisely listed that pissing off the Qunari with the giant axe was extremely stupid. Yeah, thanks Varric.

“I highly doubt that,” the mage drawled.

Shrugging because I also knew that the vow to never drink was an empty one, I began to stretch and carefully walk around. My caution wasn’t due because I still felt weak, but because of the haughty feline that twirled about my legs in search of attention. Gently, I used the heel of my boot to push the cat aside before I fell and received a put-off yowl for my offense. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time to soothe the hurt feelings of Anders’ fussy new pet.

Orders from the Arishok were not meant to be ignored, but more importantly neither were my mother’s. She wanted me back at Hawke Manor ASAP as soon as I could walk, Varric relayed to me with a shudder. My mother indeed was a frightening woman if she scared the living sh*t out of the battle-scarred dwarf. Not that I could blame him to be weary around her; I walked on tiptoes when I knew I did something that she wouldn’t approve of, for instance what I was about to do now.

“Hand me my armor would you?”

To say that the worst thing that happened the week after I woke up from my exposure to the saar-qamek was meeting with the Arishok to explain my involvement with the theft would be a lie. Although I did walk away from that meeting with one hell of a headache and an almost overwhelming urge to just scream and yell at the stubborn bastard’s face. They said that pride was the root of all worldly sins and the Arishok held onto his with nothing less than an iron-hard grip.

I could understand the warrior’s frustration at the boot-licking nobles who only served their own ideals and never gave a thought to another person. I could understand his need to punish the ones responsible for the death of an innocent boy. But nothing in the world would ever make me see how mindlessly killing people solved any sort of problem. The Arishok was no better than the Templars. Both of them killed things rather than make an effort to understand why people did the things they did. Rarely were situations the shades of black and white they cast them in.

Explaining to my mother what I had been doing to wind up unconscious for four days wasn’t even at the top of my list. I wasn’t saying that there wasn’t a hell of a lot scolding and finger-wagging at my person but my bad week didn’t end with enough guilt to level a baseball field. Oh no, the worst part of my week started on Sunday which was supposed to be a day of rest.

I thought I would take it easy, so I started my day by strolling around Kirkwall while finishing my breakfast. A merchant waved to me, that from Hawke’s memories I labeled as the local Herbalist, and I went over to see what he wanted. Hawke hadn’t really spoken to the older man outside of his second year at Kirkwall so I actually had no clue why he wished to speak to me. Turned out he asked for a favor; ingredients that I’ve never heard of before let alone knew where to find them. He said that he didn’t need them right away and to just keep an eye out on my travels.

Sure, sounded easy enough. I swung over to Anders’ place to ask him if he had heard of the things the Herbalist wanted. He said he knew exactly what they were. Even better he knew where to find two out of the three objects. Hell, to make my job easier he offered to come with me since he needed to stock up on some herbs too. Sounded great, right? On our way out of the city heading to the Wounded Coast, Anders and I bumped surprisingly into Fenris who apparently had nothing better to do on such a beautiful day so he joined the two of us on our meager journey.

Now the little walk along the coast turned into a bro-bonding fest, but I think I was the only one who enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. Fenris and Anders refused to speak to one another outside of short sentences so my new job description included playing peacemaker. I knew that I wasn’t very good at it so I didn’t even make an attempt and instead took my fill of the ocean breeze. Damn, the last time I saw the beach was when I was just a kid playing hooky from my father’s tutors.

“Tampering around in mud all day, how do the Dalish do it?”

I snorted in laughter at Fenris’s disgusted comment as he stopped walking to scrape muck off the bottom of his bare feet. I didn’t feel pity for the elf, that’s what shoes were for, but I leaned against a large boulder to wait for the swordsman anyway. My gaze instantly turned to the ocean. The water was so…blue, almost the same shade as Caribbean waters.

I tried to remember back to my extensive lessons on Earth magic that described what sort of material could be acquired from an area such as this. The rock type of this region was most likely basalt, a plutonic volcanic rock common to oceanic regions and since the water was a lovely shade of light blue meant carbonate deposits and limestone which told me that there were probably colorful reefs along the coast. Since Earth was an element I Mastered in, thorough knowledge of the landscape was required. One had to know what exactly they pulled from the ground in order to use it effectively; it was hard to summon copper when the nearest deposit was a hundred miles away.

“Is there something you want, Anders?”

At Fenris’s question, I peeked over my shoulder to see my two travelling companions and one of them was gazing curiously at the other.

“You really don’t have the temperament for a slave,” the mage idly commented.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned heavier on the grayish-black rock to look back out to the clear waters. I could sense an argument coming; I didn’t need magic to know that and I’d rather not be involved with their little hissy fit.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“I’m just wondering how your master didn’t kill you.”

I could practically see the glare that smoldered into the Healer. “How have the Templars not killed you?”

“I’m charming,” Anders quipped.

Fenris grunted in disagreement. “Let’s just move on.”

It was silent the rest of the way along the coast, but I still hadn’t covered the worst part of my day which began with a simple question an hour later.

“Why’s it called Harlot’s Blush?”

“What are you on about now? I don’t know, Hawke. It just is.”

“But it’s blue!” I protested at Anders’ simple explanation.

“So?”

My hand flashed out to point at the small flower that poked out of a fracture in the rock with distinctive blue petals.

“Well, shouldn’t it be red?”

The annoyed mage sighed heavily. “What does it matter what color it is?” He asked as he squatted down next to me.

With care, Anders reached out to pluck the flower near the roots. His other hand unfolded a white handkerchief and gently wrapped the plant to replace it back in his pouch with other samples he collected earlier that I didn’t know the names of. It looked like a bunch of leaves and twigs to me.

“Harlot’s Blush? Blushes are red which means it should be red!” I exclaimed as I stood up.

“Why does it bother you?” Fenris’s question came from behind me.

“It bothers me because it’s not red! It makes no sense if it’s blue!”

“Hawke, you focus your attentions on the strangest things,” the swordsman commented idly.

“But it’s blue,” I mumbled in protest but didn’t push my point at Fenris or Anders any longer. They just didn’t get it.

Lacing my fingers behind my head I walked around the small clearing we were in that was overshadowed by a cliff face. Other than the snarling remarks made by two full-grown adults that should’ve been old enough to learn how to play nice with the other children on the playground, and a contradictory flower, today was turning out to be a good one.

Until my senses caught a whiff of magic. It wasn’t the placid humming of a mage’s natural mana that I felt from Anders a few feet away and it certainly didn’t have the scent of the addictively sweet lyrium that drifted along Fenris’s lyrium burns. This tasted of smoke, of fire magic.

“Get down!” I yelled to my motley crew.

I didn’t have the time to check if my sudden order was followed before I threw myself to the ground as a roaring fireball came shooting across where my head was not a few seconds ago. I felt the intense heat on the back of my neck and years of battle with and against magic instilled such strong instincts which forced me to act. Act as a mage would. Before my brain caught up I already rolled to the side up into a kneeling position with my hand outstretched towards the source of the fireball. When I felt no mana rush into my runes I was a bit confused. Then I realized my gauntlets were still on with the inscribed glyphs that prevented any of my magic to exit my body. Oh, right. I was a swordsman now.

I groaned in irritation. I must look incredibly stupid. Instead of retaliating with my own fireball, I unsheathed my blade that was a constant presence on my back nowadays and glanced over at my companions who also picked themselves off the ground with weapons drawn.

Fenris growled as fiercely as his namesake with his heavy two-handed sword in front of him. “Hunters.”

It was as if speaking the word summoned three more men that came out from their hiding places among the cliff’s edge right above us. Adding to the six well-equipped mercenaries of whom two were mages, they managed to cut off all exits leading out of the clearing. What a clever trap we managed to stumble into. I placed all the blame on the not-red flower.

Slowly, as to not attract attention, the three of us held our respective weapons before us and stood in a triangle back-to-back. They wouldn’t be able to catch us off guard now. However, an ambush needed to only surprise you once to be effective.

A heavy-set man with a handlebar mustache that would put any biker to shame appeared to be the orchestrator of this little surprise attack. He seemed…familiar.

“You are in possession of stolen property. Back away from the slave now and you’ll be spared,” the man boomed his orders louder than a foghorn.

Now I understood why this situation gave me a bad case of déjà vu. This happened before, in Hawke’s memories. How could I have forgotten that Hunters hired by Fenris’ old master, Danarius, activelysought the escaped slave in order to reacquire the rare lyrium patterns on Fenris’ skin? I cursed myself a hundred times over for letting something so life-changing slip my mind.

Did I glean over this event because of its lack of focus on me?

I was a thousand times the fool for making this idiotic mistake that could very well cost my friend’s freedom. I knew, dammit! I knew that Hunters were actively searching for Fenris and yet I made this stupid mistake.

My hands tightened on the hilt of my sword in anxiousness, but I let none of it show as a co*cky smile spread itself across my lips. “Is that your first offer? Because it’s not a very good one!” I taunted the captain of this shindig.

To my side I felt Fenris twitch at the idea of me willing to make a deal with the slavers. I nudged his ankle with the toe of my boot in reassurance that I would never do such a thing. There was no telling if he understood my silent gesture but I refused to take my eyes off the men on the cliff. One of them was a mage and you never turned your back on a mage. Except for the ones that were on your side.

“Anders,” I muttered loud enough for the Healer to barely hear me at his position at my side. “Get ready to throw a fireball.”

“Hawke, you know I don’t have any fire spells,” he hastily whispered back.

“Not one?!”

“No!”

“What kind of mage can’t throw a fireball? Everyone knows how to throw a fireball!”

“Well, apparently you’re wrong!”

“I won’t repeat myself. Back away from the slave now!”

The booming voice of the lead Hunter cut off Anders’ and mine whispered conversation. Dammit, now what was I going to do?

Might as well try to stall as my brain furiously tried to come up with a plan. “You’re not very good at this bartering thing,” I called back. “You’re supposed to offer me a better deal not repeat the same one!”

I could practically feel when the entire situation fell completely out of control. There was a strong burst of pure energy that tasted of lyrium which made me tremble down to my very bones and I heard Fenris scream defiantly to the heavens.

“I am not your slave!”

“Fenris, wait!”

But my command to hold his position fell on deaf, pointed ears as he rushed the three men and women who blocked the north exit in a fit of lethal rage. There went the whole stalling plan down the tube.

Now this was officially the worst part of my week.

Hurriedly I brought the flat part of my blade in front of my face to protect it from the sudden ice spell the mage above us casted. Frigid icicles smashed against the steel and stray particles sliced shallowly across my face. Being pinned down by novice magic was dangerous as well as extremely insulting. My fingers were practically tingling with the need to show this neophyte mage how magic was really done.

But again, I was a swordsman now.

After a second wave of icicles I decided that it was enough. With Anders busy shielding and sending arcane bolts of pure mana at his set of enemies I was on my own with the smirking Hunters who clearly had the advantage of higher ground. For a moment I hesitated reaching for the knife buried in the leather of my boot but I knew that I didn’t have a choice. That mage was really getting on my nerves.

When the third barrage of ice dug deeper into the cuts on my face, I finally pulled the knife and only years of practice with short blades allowed me to flick my wrist expertly to send it straight at the robed man that had his staff coated with another ice spell. The Hunter appeared unafraid of the hurled blade that spun towards his unarmed head. His staff glowed with a different spell that I recognized as an arcane shield that would surely make the knife bounce harmlessly off.

I smirked.

The steel dip of my weapon touched the very outer edges of the bubble like shield the mage set around him and my knife burned an emerald green before it sliced through the mana barrier like warm butter. I savored the surprised look on the mage’s face when the dagger continued unhindered, if a little off-course from the burst of magic, and stuck a perfect landing deeply into his shoulder. One down, two to go.

Or so I thought until Fenris raced up the cliff-side with his colossal greatsword raised high above his head. Well, it looked like he had those two under control. I turned around to see Fenris’ original set of enemies dead on the ground and Anders struggling with the last mercenary who wouldn’t allow any distance to give Anders time to shoot off a spell. Anders raised his wooden staff in defense to block a wild chop meant to decapitate him. I could hear the mage grunt in effort to ward off the mercenary. His arms began to shake from the sheer strength of his opponent and I knew Anders couldn’t last much longer. With a hard shove, he sent the Healer off balance and into an uncertain stance that left Anders wide open.

Figuring that Fenris could take care of himself, I ran over to the mage while stepping over a young woman of a similar profession who Anders had taken out earlier. The sharp clang of metal slamming against metal echoed in my ears as I caught the blow meant to kill the staff-wielding man. I grunted when I could feel the power behind the swing all the way up my arms. These Hunters definitely ate their Wheaties this morning.

We locked blades and I dug my boots into the soft sand for a bit of traction as I tried to gain an advantage. The Hunter would have none of that. He gripped his sword with two hands to add more pressure and steadily began to push my own sword to the side. Thankfully the Captain of the Kirkwall guards had taught me a neat trick to use in a situation very similar to this one. Use your head, Hawke, Aveline yelled at me during practice one day.

So I did. Literally.

I was lucky he didn’t have a helmet. My forehead smashed into his that had me seeing stars but it was enough to end the stalemate between us. My sword, now free, whipped downwards to unbalance the hold the Hunter had on his blade and once he was unarmed I dug my sword into the gap between the straps that cinched the man’s armor together. His ribs made only a slight resistance as I twisted and struck his heart. I pulled my blade free. The Hunter was dead before he hit the ground.

Mischievously, I turned around sheathing my sword once I was sure that the Hunter wasn’t going to get back up any time soon. “So, regretting coming for an early morning stroll now?”

Anders shook his head in amusem*nt and his staff tapped the ground a few times. “I seem to have forgotten over the years how much trouble you manage to attract, Hawke.”

“Wasn’t my fault this time,” I protested and gestured up at the cliff where the real culprit struck down the last hired man.

Once the chaos of battle had died down I could hear a faint cry on the wind. “My magic! By the Maker, I can’t feel my magic!”

It was the mage I pinned with my knife. He was still alive. I didn’t wait for Anders to follow me as I took the most straight-forward path up the cliff and watched as Fenris stalked over to his hapless prey when I reached the top. With barely contained anger, Fenris knelt by the injured mage who helplessly gripped the dagger in his shoulder with bleeding fingers. In his claws, the elf clenched the front of the mage’s robes and effortlessly pulled a bit to lift his head off the ground.

“Where is he?” Fenris growled his demand.

The captured man whimpered. “My magic. My magic is gone!”

“And so will your life if you don’t answer me, mage!” Fenris slammed the back of the man’s head into the dirt. He brought the Hunter back up and snarled. “Tell me where Danarius is!”

“I don’t know!”

Again he slammed the mage’s skull against the ground. “Tell me!”

“I don’t know, I swear!”

“You lie!”

“Fenris!” I yelled when I could have sworn I heard bones crack from the force Fenris used to get answers. “A dead man can’t answer your questions!”

“Stay out of this, Hawke,” he barked at me but eased his grip a little and asked the mage quieter. “Where is he?”

Finally, the injured man confessed. “It was Hadriana!” He shouted and winced as Fenris shook him a bit to continue. The wound in his shoulder bled sluggishly. “She brought us here. She’s at the holding caves north of the city. I can…show you the way! Just please don’t kill me!”

“You chose the wrong master.”

I couldn’t have stopped him even if I wanted to. Fenris gripped the hilt of the dagger in the mage’s shoulder and smoothly pulled it free. I winced as the blade glowed in full sight of everyone around us. Fenris glanced curiously at the knife for a moment before he plunged it back into the mage but this time it sunk deeply into his heart.

Slowly, Fenris stood from his kneeling position staring listlessly at the dead man with his back to me and Anders who was silently positioned by my side.

“Hadriana,” the swordsman mused to himself in a low, dangerous tone. I almost reached for the pommel of my sword. “I was a fool to think I was free.” He turned from his stance and clenched his fist. “They’ll never let me be. Not while I still breathe.”

I really didn’t like how Fenris wasn’t yelling or flailing his fists about in his anger. Instead he stood there, still, seemingly calm. He seemed more dangerous somehow. Cautiously, I took a few steps towards the simmering elf.

“Hadriana? I assume she’s part of your past.” I already knew who the deplorable woman was. From Hawke’s memories I gleamed that she was really a piece of work: a dangerous, deluded, deceiving blood mage that lived to make other people miserable. Especially Fenris. Yes, I knew about her, but I still wanted the angry swordsman to talk to me. Maybe speaking about it would calm him down a bit.

“Yes,” Fenris answered after a few breaths. “She’s my old master’s apprentice. I remember her well.” He turned his head to the side and crossed his arms defensively over his chest as if to ward off invisible blows. “She’s a sniveling social climber that would sell her own children if she thought it would please Danarius. If Hadriana’s here, it’s at his bidding. I knew he wouldn’t let this go!”

The last part of his explanation finally showed his fury that was boiling beneath the surface. Furiously, he began to pace.

“The holding caves held slaves in the old times, but apparently they are no longer abandoned. We must go quickly, before Hadriana has a chance to prepare…or flee.”

“We’re the ones that need to prepare. I don’t think it’s a very good idea to storm a fortress brimming with an unknown amount of traps, blood mages, and most likely innocent slaves with only three people. We’ve got friends who wouldn’t mind helping you, Fenris,” I spoke my plan softly and slowly, but his temper ignored my placating words.

“Friends? I don’t have any friends!” He spat the word like it was poison. Fenris stopped his pacing and pointed a claw on his gauntlet at me. His deep voice rumbled like thunder. “And speaking of ideas, just what were you thinking when you tried to negotiate with slavers? Have I outlived my usefulness to you? Were you going to sell me off? Maybe buy a slave of your own? Tell me, Hawke!”

It took a lot of effort not to slug the elf who basically accused me of being a slaveholder. He was upset and was just lashing out, I told myself. Anger made people do stupid things.

I took a deep breath. “Fenris, when have you ever seen me take the slavers’ side?”

“Bah. Humans change their minds so quickly.”

Because what sort of one-sided argument wasn’t complete without a few racial slurs?

I hadn’t been accused of being an elf-hater before but that was probably because there were no elves in my time. The insult barely stung me though. Being a free mage in a non-mage dominated world presented me with plenty of opportunities to be openly hated. I’m not saying I enjoyed the prejudice, but I was sadly used to it. Although, some people feared us instead and that was something that never set well with me. Only tyrants, taxes, and tarantulas had the right to be feared.

“Believe me, I’m not going to change my mind to hit you if you keep taking your frustration out on me,” I told the swordsman firmly.

Fenris paused for a moment to take in the not so subtle threat but waved it away a second later. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. We need to find her. I will not allow Hadriana to escape my grasp so easily.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “But first we go back to Kirkwall.”

“No! That takes too much time. We go now, or I do.”

He was making this diplomacy thing really hard; I wasn’t even good at it in the first place.

“Do people from Tevinter not know how to bargain?” I muttered under my breath, perfectly aware that Fenris could hear me. “Fine,” I said again. “But I’m stating, for the record, that this is a bad idea which means I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ if sh*t hits the ceiling. Let’s go…Anders?”

When I turned around to address the mage he wasn’t standing where I last saw him. I was about to ask Fenris if he’d seen where Anders went, but I answered my own question as I turned. Crouching low to the enemy mage’s body, the Healer was curiously examining the knife that Fenris had used to kill the Hunter. Clean of blood, the dagger shone brilliantly in the early morning sunlight. However its sheen wasn’t what interested the mage, but rather the arcane symbols engraved in its blade.

Elegant black loops encircled in a ring bore a striking resemblance to a blazing sun. Of course I couldn’t have known that from where I was standing, the symbols were much too small, but I didn’t need to see them to know that they were there. I mean, I burned them on the steel edge myself. Containment glyphs were meant to be used against mages; I just used them more creatively than the Templars.

They were perfectly harmless unless a magical source strayed into their reach and then the glyph would clamp instantly onto a mage’s mana like a Venus Fly Trap ensnared prey by just the lightest touch. It wouldn’t even give off a spark if a person without mana sat on a containment glyph. However, it would glow if any mage, with their natural mana, got near it…exactly as it was doing now with Anders drawing his finger closer to the archaic writing.

“Anders, I really don’t think-!”

“Ah!” The Healer yelped and immediately jerked back his finger as if the knife had bitten him. “Andraste’s blood,” he swore in surprise.

His shock didn’t stop his curiosity though he was a bit more cautious when he reached for the glyph again. The symbols flushed a demure emerald once magic came into contact and faded into obscurity when the mage removed his hand. A brilliant smile overcame his face and Anders stood up from his crouch to wave the blade in front of my face.

“Hawke, do you know what this is?” He asked me with the excitement akin to a boy hiding a toad in his pocket.

“Um, a knife?”

“Of course it’s a knife! But do you know what this does?!”

“…Stabs people.” Well, it did. He couldn’t fault me for that.

Anders ignored my obvious attempt at playing stupid. “It somehow removes magic from a mage if touching this strange symbol, more specifically their skin. It won’t work if it’s on cloth. It’s also temporary! As soon as I’m not touching it, I feel my magic again! Hawke, where in Thedas did you get this knife?”

“I bought it from a merchant,” I told him honestly while completely dodging the fact that I had indeed bought the knife just sans the containment glyph.

“Do you remember which one?” He asked me urgently.

I shook my hands in front of me. “I haven’t a clue. It was a while ago.” Also true.

Anders looked downward in disappointment, but quickly seemed to get over it. “Can I keep this? Well, borrow it actually; I want to study the symbols.”

There weren’t actually any rules that one had to follow when time-travelling as anyone caught messing with the past was quickly found, arrested/killed, or no one found out about it and life went on. I, however, have read a few science fiction novels and I knew giving future knowledge to the technologically-handicapped locals of the past never worked out for the main character in the end.

“Well,” I began.

“Thanks, Hawke.” Anders expressed his gratitude absently as the knife absorbed his full attention.

“Anders, wait a minute-!”

“Hawke, let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time,” Fenris ordered gruffly and didn’t bother to wait for the mage and me to respond before walking away.

sh*t. This was going to end badly, my gut told me by twisting itself into knots.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

I really didn’t want to go in there.

The smell alone made my toes curl not to mention the overall appearance of a dank, dark cave splattered delicately in rust-colored blood made me want to retch. Nothing about the foreboding mouth of the entrance to the holding caves came close to convincing me to even take one step inside. Suddenly, as I reluctantly perused the opening, the feeling of my body being dipped in slimy gelatin really, really cemented uneasiness in my mind.

Fire magic tasted like smoke, ice magic reminded me of eating popsicles on a hot day, earth magic smelled like the desert, and blood magic made me feel like I was encased in a cheap, lime-green gelatin dessert. It was the only way I could describe how my skin felt slimy and cold at the same time.

Every mage experienced magic in a different way. In tomes older than my great-grandfather’s grandfather, there were numerous descriptions of warnings mages felt when spellwork was performed. A breath of mana-infused wind might tickle a mage’s sides like a summer breeze or they might taste the salt from a gust of sea air. The most popular accounts of sensing ice magic included the feeling of dipping one’s fingers into a bucket of ice. Me, I tasted grape popsicles. Weird, but it saved me from being skewered by icicles summoned by the magister only a few hours ago.

“Come. We’re wasting daylight.”

I rolled my eyes without Fenris noticing. We were going to dive into a cave. I was pretty sure it was going to be dark in there no matter what time we entered. I was also sure that my nonsensical comments wouldn’t be properly appreciated at the moment by the aggravated elf.

So I nodded instead of inserting commentary and motioned for Fenris to go ahead. I preferred for his murderous rage to be directed at the enemies in front of us rather than have him at my back. I’d seen how long the reach of his greatsword was. The further away from its sharp edges, the safer I’d feel.

“We’d better go, Anders,” I sighed and readjusted my sword into a more comfortable position on my back. “I doubt he’d wait for us to catch up.” When I didn’t get an acknowledgment from the ex-Grey Warden who stood beside me I co*cked my head at him curiously. “Anders? Helloooo?”

“Hm? What? Did you say something, Hawke?” He softly asked as if coming out of a daze.

I leaned forward to see what captured his attention to see Anders fiddling with my knife again. In frustration I groaned at his current obsession to figure out the symbols branded in the blade, but I didn’t worry overmuch. The reason the Containment Glyph was classified as temporary was because of the ease it took to destroy the cage on a mage’s magic. The fanciful loops weren’t just for decoration, it served as a conduit for the spell. As long as the current remained unbroken the spell would continue to fulfill its function, but if the solid lines were to snap so would its hold.

“We’d better go,” I repeated and stuck my thumb out in the direction Fenris had gone.

“Oh, right. Of course.”

Again my eyes rolled, but I didn’t say anything about his lack of excitement to spelunk in a trap infested cave to battle against a drove of blood mages. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy either. Taking a deep breath of clean air, I marched boldly through the eerie entrance and careened headfirst into an invisible wall of the most eye-watering stench no more than three steps in.

“What the f-! What is that smell?!”

Anders stopped to sniff the air. “Blood and urine mostly. Probably some fecal matter mixed in,” he answered matter-of-factly as if the smell was familiar to him. Which it probably was, I thought, since he ran a free clinic for the poorer people of Kirkwall.

My nose-hairs practically shriveled in the…potent concoction. “Ugh. Why does it smell like that?”

“Hadriana knows we’re here. She’s preparing for our arrival.”

It looked like I was remiss in saying that Fenris wouldn’t wait for Anders and me to catch up. The elvhen swordsman leaned against a corner with a foot braced on the wall; hanging torchlight illuminated his features. His arms were crossed and he glared at the stone floor in a broody manner that told me his thoughts were black indeed.

Fenris must have sensed my question before I asked it because he continued. “Magisters depend on two things: slaves and blood. It is convenient for their source of magic to be shackled to them.”

Alright, so that was the strong presence of blood. “That explains part of the stench.”

Finally Fenris looked up from the floor to fix me with a pain-filled expression. His green eyes pleaded with me to understand although his face was silent.

“Not all slaves desire death as a release,” he spoke quietly into the silence.

I did understand. Slaves, no matter how their masters treated them, were people and every mortal feared the unknown. Death remained the ultimate enigma. The promise of freedom from cruel masters still wasn’t enough to mask their complete and absolute terror of a knife dragging across a pale throat.

For a moment, I spoke not a word. I sighed and ran a hand down my tired face. Covered fingers absently brushed my cheek that not long ago bore the scratches of the blizzard the mage set on me. A health poultice soaked rag applied to the marks on my face easily erased any evidence of such a battle. Handy stuff, that was. I was going to have to remember the recipe. I could deal with a few less scars, at least for vanity’s sake.

“So, we’re walking into a trap?” Anders destroyed the silence.

I tapped my fingers against my cheek then shrugged. “Basically.”

“We cannot turn back,” Fenris growled. “This is an opportunity I will not waste.”

“I didn’t say we would turn back,"I soothed."I’m just suggesting we go into this with a little caution and not wave our swords-,” Anders coughed, “-and staff around like a bunch of lunatics.”

Fenris pushed off the wall he was leaning against and shuffled from foot to foot most likely to rid himself of anxiety. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

In all my years of throwing myself, without reservation, into dangerous situations, learning volatile spells without blinking an eye at the utter insanity of my uncouth methods, and more than once leaping off impossibly tall buildings in order to escape police or Templars with nothing but a flicker of an idea of my animal shape, I could only count a handful of times that I’ve hesitated. When Fenris stood before me, his giant blade sheathed and eyes cleared of his red rage, I saw his loyalty towards a man he thought to be trustworthy.

My limbs seized and my stomach rebelled its meager breakfast as I caught that small peek into Fenris’ thoughts. That-! It was so-! I was the last person to ever place trust in! If it was between me and a smiling politician, I would shake the elected official’s hand and promise him my first born child if they asked it of me. A mercenary received coin in exchange for loyalty. However, as soon as that coin dwindled away I was in line for the next high-paying job no matter if it required me to stand on the opposite side of my previous employer of just a few minutes ago. I was muscle-for-hire; a detective or bounty hunter when paid. I was bought and used for a specific purpose just like a common whor*.

There were probably thousands better to choose from, but this escaped slave who saw nothing but hatred, abuse, and violence placed his trust in my unworthy hands. He stood beside a man who was not the same half a year ago. Fenris thought me to be Garrett Hawke, an aggressive, impulsive, skilled swordsman when instead I embodied everything that Fenris detested. My true identity was that of a mage. I was no swordsman beside the fact that a blade ran across my back.

So I hesitated. I hesitated because fear made my blood run cold. I feared because I was no fool; I knew that my secret would not stay hidden forever. In the future, my magic would reveal me for a mage and I would watch that trust Fenris mistakenly gave me shatter. I was also no fool to not be frightened of Fenris’ fury. It possessed not the quiet intensity of a calm storm, but of the unbridled rage of a hurricane.

A blink was enough power to dispel the haze that trapped my mind. Anger welled up within me, but I buried it under forming plans to get through this cave alive although it simmered quietly under the surface. Shame along with hesitance wasn’t something I experienced often and I was angry at both myself and the brooding elf. I was born with magic. I excelled, surpassed, and dominated aspiring rivals with my magic. Fenris hadn’t the right to instill shame within me for having a gift few others did, and I hadn’t the time to indulge ‘what-ifs’.

“Hawke?”

“The quickest way to find Hadriana would be to follow the trails of her blood magic,” I said, ignoring Anders’ misplaced concern. “Can you sense the freshest trail?” I asked the Healer.

“Hmm,” he hummed. “I could give it a try.”

While Anders closed his eyes to feel out where the greatest concentration of the foul magic was located, I did the same. It was a faint feeling, but I recognized the meaning of the sudden sliminess of my skin. Hadriana hid herself deep within the twists and turns of the cavern if the sheer amount of blood magic told me anything.

Anders came back with a gasp. I opened my eyes to see him rubbing his hands up and down his arms as if warming himself up from a sudden chill. “She’s further in, but I’m pretty sure I could lead us there. Sodding blood magic,” he mumbled the last bit in annoyance.

Fenris nodded in thanks or acknowledgement that Anders was a human being, whichever it was he followed after the mage who led the both of us deeper into the cavernous maw.

Sodding blood magic indeed, I cursed under my breath as I dodged the deadly swipe of a rusted blade that sought to rid me of a kidney or two. I managed to parry the next blow and knocked the sword away which allowed me enough room to maneuver my own blade to decapitate my opponent. Its skull rolled away into a dark corner of the open room and its body crumpled at my feet. My victory would only last for a few minutes before the skeleton rose to fight again no matter if it had a head or not.

Only a few minutes ago, our party managed to spring a hidden trap laid before us by Hadriana. I glared at Fenris and managed by the skin of my teeth to not tell him ‘I told you so’, but it was implied as I unsheathed my sword and prepared to face the undead that clawed their way out of the ground with a dark look on my face.

Back in my era, I only brushed with necromancy a couple of times and only once on a scale such as the situation before me now. It had been about two years ago during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Purely by chance I was in the area when a few townspeople came screaming down the streets in their colorful costumes. Most of the tourists and locals thought their antics to just be part of the excitement of the wild night on Bourbon Street. The screaming men were soon drowned out by rumbling music, but I put down the beer I had been sipping on and excused myself from the table away from the twins done up in nothing but purple, yellow, and green feathers. It proved to be an interesting night with the giggling blondes however the beer tasted like ash in my mouth once the men ran past my little table outside the jumping bar. Ash specifically tasted of necromancy, a branch off the blood magic tree.

By Templar law, mages were wanted fugitives no matter of their age or magical prowess. Any of us could be turned in for a bounty dead or alive. Because of that, many of my kind refused to venture out of their self-forged golden prisons, but I was curious. My inquisitive nature allotted itself as my hubris in a Greek tragedy.

Following the men’s trail through the crowds of dancing, drunk people was actually extremely easy. The whiff of necromancy was potent enough that blinking arrows couldn’t have led me clearer to the one graveyard out of many that littered the city of New Orleans. Mausoleums carved from granite were decorated with crying angels and Christian crosses. Eerie shadows played with my vision and set goosebumps travelling up and down my arms. The ground was damp from the early morning showers that luckily cleared up by the afternoon for the parades. Evidence of my involvement clinked dully around my neck in a prism of colors. Perhaps it would have been better to remove all my collected necklaces before I skulked around a seemingly abandoned graveyard.

All the noise I made however didn’t make a difference as I peeked around a decaying crypt to see a wildly grinning man. Blood ran in rivulets down his arms from the deep wounds he inflicted upon his wrists and dripped steadily to the ground where it greedily soaked it up. I hated blood magic. It gave me the willies. I also hated it because there was never a set profile on mages who dabbled in the forbidden branch. There were no specific types who solely used blood magic. Men, women, children, old, young, beautiful, poor…every mage was susceptible to its siren-like call. In fact the man in front of me wore blue jeans and a gold and black t-shirt with the Saints football team emblazoned proudly on the front. He had scruffy brown hair that matched his beard. There wasn’t anything remarkable about his face except his insane grin as he raised his hands in the air as if pulling something from the ground.

A hand with little bits of rotted flesh hung on delicate finger bones followed the blood mage’s motion. Several more followed. Oh I really didn’t like where this was going. In a circular pattern, granite tombs placed above ground were shoved aside to let the dead access to the fresh air.

Before the blood mage gave orders to the surrounding undead I flung the fireball I summoned into my hand into the crowd of skeletons. Although dead, they shrieked something awful. There was one definite way to banish the effects of necromancy: kill the source of the magic keeping the undead from unraveling. The three ways to do that included getting rid of the mage controlling the magic, destroy the spell through a cleansing hex, or simply destroy the skeletons. The last, however, was the hardest to do. In order for the undead to walk, the mage had to plant a piece of his necromantic magic into their bodies. Unfortunately, that one piece could be anywhere and as long that one small bit of magic still existed so would the spell to animate the dead. Fire was the easiest spell to completely consume the skeleton to ensure that every fragment was wiped out.

Let’s just say after I was done, I wasn’t willing to stand around in a simmering crater to wait for the authorities and explain why I desecrated private grounds with illegal use of magic.

Now I stood practically in the same situation but with a mage who knew no fire spells and me with my magic bound. With instinct I didn’t even know I possessed, I blocked the chipped sword swinging towards my head and sliced the skeleton across its chest. A few chunks of ribs and mangled flesh dropped to the ground but the walking foul piece of magic wasn’t bothered by it as it stalked closer.

“Anders! Now would be a great time for a cleansing hex!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Kind of busy here, Hawke!” The mage yelled back and grunted as he fended off a pair of undead himself.

Damn, Anders needed a few undisturbed minutes in order to draw the glyph and push his mana into it and he couldn’t do that while fighting for his life at the same time. I would have to draw their attention away from the Healer. Okay, what did the undead like? I thought hard to myself as I chopped through scraggly tendons to take the arms off a skeleton warrior. They liked flesh, bone, and were oddly drawn to hair which was probably because they didn’t have any of their own. Oh wait, that was trolls who liked hair. Or was it ogres? Was there a difference between the two? No, no, no this internal debate wasn’t helping. What was something that the undead really, really liked?

Blood! Of course! The undead craved the precious liquid that gave them life.

A plan in mind I backed up a few steps, closer to Fenris rather than Anders.

“Hey!” I called out and whistled sharply. “Death Eater rejects! I’ve got a tasty treat for you!”

The edge of my sword was easily sharp enough to split the thin section of showing skin between my chainmail and elbow-length gauntlets. As blood welled up in my relatively shallow wound I realized how monumentally stupid that idea was. Good news was that it worked, phenomenally well. Bad news included the fifteen ex-humans all turned their vampiric tendencies on me and that I just cut myself with the sword I used just moments ago to pierce the rotting flesh of previously mentioned ex-humans. That was an infection waiting to happen.

However, I didn’t have to time to further ponder why I thought injuring myself was smart as clambering skeletons stalked after me. Even the decapitated skull in the corner of the hollowed out room followed my careful steps backwards by rolling across the cold, stone floor. I glanced up to see Anders gaping at me in shock as his enemies walked past him. His staff was still raised in the air as if blocking the swing of a sword. It was only a few moments of utter bewilderment before he took the opening I gave him and began to concentrate mana onto the floor of the cavern through his wooden weapon.

As if with a pen, Anders careful, precise strokes yielded a light blue ring filled with ancient writing and symbols. I didn’t even notice Fenris rush to my side to help defend against the hungry party while I watched the Healer put the finishing touches on his hex that was favored more among Templars rather than other mages. In my mind I traced over the pattern as if I was drawing it instead of Anders. Along the rim Anders swirled the final character of the sketched spell into the glyph and I went ahead and imagined the next step of which the artist would indicate the direction the hex would travel.

That step never happened. If no route was given the magic would-!

“Wait!”

My warning came too late. Anders pushed mana through his staff to activate the cleansing hex and I could feel the wave of neutralizing magic slam into me with enough power to rival a semi-truck. Sparks danced across my armor and buried themselves underneath my skin to feed off any hint of mana they could greedily suck up. I felt the nature of the hex chew on the containment glyphs hidden in my gloves until the stronger nature of the two swallowed Anders’s spell. I sunk to my knees among the disembodied skeletons with a groan. Dammit, I felt like a horse kicked me in the chest. A similar noise echoed mine.

Anders leaned heavily on the wooden staff with his usual tied back blonde hair drifting into his clenched shut eyes.

“I forgot to put the direction,” the mage grunted and attempted to stand straighter with obvious effort. “First Enchanter Irving would’ve tanned my hide if he saw my sloppy spellwork.”

A witty remark would’ve been my response if I could take a breath without wheezing like an asthma kid running the mile. Tomes didn’t mention the consequences of two neutralizing magics clashing with one another or at least none of the two I’ve read before. I wasn’t even sure if anyone had ever tried it before as the concept seemed kind of redundant. Two hexes meant to neutralize mana? Overkill, if you asked me. My magic, kept under control by containment glyphs, repelled the seeking tendrils of the cleansing hex, but the hex knew I had magic although it couldn’t find it. All in all, it felt very uncomfortable to be a battleground.

Iron claws entered my field of vision and I looked up to see Fenris offering his assistance for me to stand. Bastard, I grumbled and took his hand, the botched hex hadn’t bothered him since he hadn’t any mana.

“Thanks,” I muttered. Fenris nodded, took his hand back, and crossed his arms over his chest with a raised eyebrow.

I ignored him for the moment. My knees protested their sudden meeting with the cold, hard stone and I rubbed my apology into them.

“What you did was very foolish.”

My eyes rolled at Fenris’s constructive criticism of my fighting methods. “One could say that ‘foolish’ is synonymous with ‘brave’,” I quipped as I examined the self-inflicted wound on the lower part of my left bicep. I grimaced at the black dirt that encrusted the edges.

Fenris grunted but I could’ve sworn there was amusem*nt in it. “Here,” he said.

A red strip of linen that at one time might have been white had it not been dipped in elfroot potion, I noticed from the smell, was used by Fenris to wrap the cut tightly on my arm. He tugged the knot tighter than it needed to be, but figured it was his silent way of telling me not to get hurt again. I thought. The elf was very difficult to read with his whole brooding demeanor thing he had going on.

“Thanks,” I said again and sheathed my sword. “Anders,” I called over to the mage who stood easier and wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his robes. He turned to me at my call. “You alright?”

Anders walked over to Fenris and me while carefully sidestepping the corpses his magic managed to return them to. “I’m just a little drained from the hex. Stupid thing of me to forget,” he annoyingly muttered. “I should be fine in an hour or so.”

That was pretty quick. Most mages recovered fully hours after being hit with neutralization magic that potent. Could his fast recovery have something to do with his possession by a Fade Spirit?

“I can still lead us to Hadriana, so don’t worry about that,” he continued I suspected for Fenris’s benefit. “Should we move on or do you want to walk into another trap, Hawke?”

“I should have let those skeletons eat you,” I mumbled. How was I to know that stepping on certain tiles triggered traps of the magic variety? In my time if someone wanted you dead they just shot you. I guess without guns, people in the past had to be more creative.

Empty eye sockets of the once animated skeletons gazed innocently up at me as if they never moved in the first place. I kicked the skull into the wall in annoyance and watched in satisfaction as the brittle bone shattered. Sodding blood magic.

The next trap our little party stumbled into was more creative than the last, if that was even possible. And this time it wasn’t my fault although I was stuck in the middle of it.

“Hawke!”

I experienced weightlessness for a split second until my body remembered that it was subject to the law of gravity and began to fall swiftly into the pit that suddenly opened beneath my boots. Hastily, my hands scrambled for the edge and caught onto nothing but air until a calloused hand snatched my own. It was a long way down, I noticed as I hung precariously from Anders’ grasp which remained the only thing keeping me from hitting the bottom of the hollowed out pit that was at least fifty feet deep. Who in their right minds dug a freaking crater into a mountain? Well, blood mages were all a little nutty and I guess a trap like this one prevented any escaping slaves from getting too far.

“Nice catch.”

Anders weakly chuckled. “I do my best. You alright, Hawke?”

“Considering I’m hovering over a fifty foot drop, I’m not doing too badly. Could use a drink though.”

“Is nowreally agood time for sarcasm?” Anders grunted and strained his muscles trying to pull me up, but it proved futile as my armor was much too heavy for the mage to lift on his own.

I braced my feet against the dark rock of the pit but they slid away. I couldn’t get any traction. “Damn, I can’t get a grip. Well, can you think of a better way to pass the time? I mean, I can give you a couple of riddles if you’re really bored.”

“Fenris, I could use some help here!”

“Okay, see if you can guess this one. ‘I go in hard, I come out soft. You blow me hard. What am I?’”

The fiery blush that spread across my wannabe rescuer’s cheeks made me guffaw in laughter although he was the only thing keeping me from probably breaking my leg.

“I really don’t think-!”

“It’s gum!” I chuckled. “Isn’t that clever? You thought it was going to be something dirty. Naughty, naughty Anders what a filthy mind you have.”

Anders glared despite the bright flush still on his cheeks and uselessly pulled that did nothing more than jar my arm. Where was Fenris? He was only walking a few feet ahead of Anders and me; he must have heard my entirely manly yell when the ground opened up underneath me. Something wasn’t right.

“Anders-.”

“I’d rather not hear another one of your riddles. Really, Hawke, I believe you spend too much time at the Hanged Man with Isabela and Varric.”

“I came up with that one all on my own, thank you very much.”

“I’m sure you’ll be an inspiration to romantic poets for generations.”

“…That was mean.”

“The truth hurts. Come on now, Fenris! I can’t hold him forever! If you would ple-!”

The mage was suddenly cut off by a savage blow to the back of his head by the pommel of a wicked looking broadsword. Shocked, pain-filled eyes watched as the grip around my hand loosened and my leather gauntlet slipped from the tether that prevented me from falling to my death. Gravity, a friend to me once before when I battled the Templar so long ago in the library, found amusem*nt in my situation and gave me no quarter.

Downwards I fell. Anders desperately tried to reach for me again but the slaver allowed no such thing. His blade came down again onto the ex-Grey Warden and Anders barely had enough time to roll away before his head joined me in the pit. Plummeting down close to the sides of the trap I braced my feet, hands, and my back against the wall in hopes to slow my fall enough to where I wouldn’t break anything. There were stories about people falling from high places all the time and surviving, right? sh*t, what a time to not being able to transform into my animal form. Heights were never a problem if one had wings.

My current predicament held such a sweet irony for me. I came into this world by plunging headfirst off a building. What would happen the second time around?

Well, I would have to find out later.

I hit the ground hard. My head cracked against the wall.

I blacked out.

One Friday night, my friend Carter –who was the aspiring origami artist I told the story about to the stuttering girl in Anders’s clinic-, dragged me to a club to celebrate his twenty-first birthday. We proceeded to slam back way too many shots and tried the newest drink called a Purple Nipple multiple times which was more than five. I woke up in jail in a town so small that it couldn’t be found on a map the next morning with an interesting new piercing in my ear, a headache that felt like miners tried to dig a tunnel into my brain, the taste of dead dog in my mouth, and blurry memories of a blonde girl named Tootsie. Dammit, it was always the blondes.

What I felt now was ten times worse than that crazy Friday night.

I groaned pitifully as I turned over onto my back from the side position I had, unfortunately, woken up in. My head ached something fierce. I gripped at my throbbing temples and hissed in pain. It was too dark to see if there was blood on my gloves but I was damn sure that there was one hell of a bruise if the chiming bells in my brain meant anything. I dropped my arm back onto the floor and absently clenched and unclenched my stiff fingers. Where else was I hurt?

I squirmed a bit. No, nothing was broken. Sore, yes, but altogether I was very lucky to only knock my head a bit after a fall like that. Hopefully I didn’t have a concussion. Although I couldn’t tell if I did because my medical knowledge only went as far as how to put a band-aid on a cut.

Faint muttering reached my ears that might have been words if they could be heard over the Carol of the Bells rendition playing loudly in my skull. Great, now the song was going to be stuck in my head all day. Slowly, the mumbling became clearer.

“-a trap meant to hinder a slave’s escape or rival hunters.”

“He hasn’t responded to my calls. Do you think he’s alright?”

“I repeat myself: it’s meant to hinder not kill. Perhaps he merely hit his head and is unconscious?”

“Merely hit his head? An injury like that can be very serious! He could be really hurt. We have to get down there!”

“And how do you suppose we do that, mage? Sprout wings? Levitate ourselves?”

“I would think rope would be an easier solution.”

“Is conjuring rope from thin air a talent of yours, mage? Because it certainly isn’t included in my repertoire of skills.”

“We have none?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re a load of help.”

“Mages in glass houses shouldn’t throw fireballs.”

“Maker help me I will hit you.”

“I invite you to try.”

“You really test my self-control, elf.”

“One can only be possessed if they had none to start with, abomination.”

They were not making my headache any better. “Girls! Can we please stop arguing and go back to the part where we figure out how to get me out of this hole!” God, the two of them picked at each other worse than a vulture did at a carcass.

“Hawke!” They both cried out in surprise that I was still alive.

“Hawke! Are you alright?” Anders called out to me. If I could see his face through the darkness that extended all around me I was sure that it would be pinched in worry.

“No, Anders. I think I might be dead,” I drawled from my lying position. I didn’t want to try and move just yet.

“His sarcasm might indicate that he’s not seriously hurt,” Fenris said.

“Both your use of sarcasm is not appreciated,” the Healer scolded. “Now, are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so. Hey, how are you guys?”

“No injuries. The Hunters thought they could play the part of assassin and failed,” Fenris answered. I let out a sigh of relief.

“You don’t think so?” Anders asked incredulously. Figures the Healer would focus on my inability to know if my body was hurt or not.

“Fine, give me a minute to stand up,” I relented.

With a grunt, I rolled over to my belly and positioned my arms underneath my chest to slowly push up from the ground. Brilliantly colored lights flashed in front of my eyes in an explosion worthy of Fourth of July celebrations. I stopped for a second.

“…Well?”

“Hold on! My head’s…spinning,” I groaned and went a snail’s pace to kneel and finally stood up on shaky legs. Perhaps that fall hurt me more than I thought. God, I felt like my brain was about ready to leak out of my ears. “Okay, I’m up now and the only thing out of place is the ringing in my head. I think I knocked it against the wall pretty good.” I grimaced as I touched my throbbing temples again.

“sh*t,” the mage above me cursed. “Dizziness and ringing in the ears. Those are classic signs of a concussion. Hawke, do you remember how you got down there?”

“What? Of course I do! I fell down a f*cking hole, Anders!”

Anders didn’t seem bothered by my annoyed reply. “Good. No amnesia or slurred speech. Any nausea?”

“No, I’m fine. Can you just hurry up and get me out of here?”

“Hmm…you most likely don’t have a concussion or if you do it’s a minor one. It’s probably just a nasty bruise. If you have a healing potion, drink about half of the vial. That’ll take care of any swelling.”

“Fine,” I gritted out through clenched teeth noticing that he hadn’t addressed my other concern, but I wasn’t willing to disobey a doctor’s direct order.

Relying on touch to find the small pouch attached to my belt, my seeking fingers glided on something smooth and I brought it out up to my face. The cork keeping the liquid inside the vial was easily pulled out and I carefully sniffed the potent mixture to make sure that I found the elfroot potion instead of the flask of lyrium I kept in case of an emergency. My nose scrunched up at the bitter smell which told me I had the correct bottle.

I made a note to not buy anymore potions at the Herbalist’s stall as I tipped back the vial for the restorative properties of the elfroot that went to work on my stiff muscles and sore spots. Anders at least tried to make the stuff taste and smell somewhat decent by adding some crushed up mint leaves.

Only a few seconds after I swallowed the thick mixture I felt my head clear and my body relax once the haze of pain evaporated. I also felt a bit of a tingle in my hands that I realized had been there since I woke up from my little bout of unconsciousness. I replaced the still half-full bottle. What I had mistaken as stiff fingers was actually a warning of magic that was close by.

Depending on the concentration of magic I could sense a spell from thirty feet away if it was very potent. The only reason Anders and I could feel Hadriana from hundreds of feet away was that the cave was almost drenched in the heady smell of blood magic. Many magisters and abusers of the forbidden art had touched the walls of the cavern. It was difficult to sense a spell that required little to no mana to use and even harder to tell if someone was a mage unless they stood right in front of you. So I was counting on the distance between my companions and me to muffle my magical signature.

Glancing up at the mouth of the pit although I knew Fenris and Anders couldn’t see me, I warily unclipped my gauntlets. Finger by finger I removed the leather gloves. Once the containment glyphs no longer touched my skin I paused to stretch my hearing as far as it would go. There were no sounds of horror or curses so I assumed I was safe and stuffed my gloves into my belt. However, I still proceeded cautiously and pushed the slightest bit of mana into the rune set into the middle of my hand which resembled an open eye trapped in a triangle. My mage-sight called for only a sliver of mana to activate it and only drained a mage’s mana if kept awake for an extended period. I only needed a quick look at what caused my palms to tingle. Well, now that my magic was free once more the tingle turned into pins and needles.

Absently, I shook my hands out and turned in a circle. A flash of orange caught my attention and I zeroed in on a part of the wall that glowed brighter than a neon sign in my mage-sight. There was definitely writing, but it was faint. I pushed more mana into my rune. Ah, that was better. Now, I could clearly see the arcane loops and writing on the wall that stretched upwards about seven feet and was about three feet wide. It took me only a minute to define what the symbols meant.

That wasclever, I admitted. A doorway that only opened at a mage’s touch. That would be highly effective on keeping slaves trapped but easily accessible because if this was a doorway then it must've led somewhere only the magisters could go.

“Hey, I think I found a way out of here!” I called up to my companions.

“A way out?” Fenris asked.

“I stumbled onto a passageway. I’ll follow it to see where it leads. You two go on ahead, I’ll catch up to you later.”

“Hawke, are you sure? We can-.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I interrupted Anders kind of impatiently. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is. Go find Hadriana; I’ll be right behind you.”

“Fine,” Fenris grunted and I heard retreating footsteps.

“Fenris, wait! Andraste’s sword can he not wait one more second?” Anders said more to himself than to me although I heard him loud and clear. “I don’t think it is a good idea to split up like this, Hawke. One blood mage is dangerous to a whole group of Templars, but now we’re up against Maker knows how many with two people now instead of three. And what if you come across one by yourself?”

“Anders, I’m hurt that you doubt my level of awesomeness.” I could practically hear Anders roll his eyes. I chuckled. “With all your worrying I’m starting to believe you don’t find me the same annoying sword-swinger you met three years ago.”

There was a pause. “No, I would not describe you as annoying,” he said softly.

I could feel heat flush my cheeks for some reason I couldn’t explain. I coughed. “Well, umm…be careful. Look out for Fenris too. He’s not in his right mind at the moment. A man dead-set on revenge is not one you should turn your back on or trust.”

“You don’t trust him?” Anders asked incredulously as if he didn’t believe me.

I shook my head although the mage couldn’t see me. “Not right now I don’t. Go catch up and remember to be careful.”

“Same to you.”

I waited until his footsteps faded away before I turned my attention back to the puzzle emblazoned in front of me.

Now, how did I get rid of it? Casting spells was my specialty, not dispelling them. Perhaps if I just placed my hands on the…ah ha! I crowed delightedly in my mind as the orange emblems fizzled out into nothingness and I was plunged into darkness again. Suddenly I heard a whoosh of fire and a torch came to life followed by its brothers which revealed a circular hallway that reminded me of a tube. Thoughtfully, I placed my right hand on the wall of the corridor and simultaneously cut off the mana to my mage-sight rune and redirected it into my middle finger where my earth rune lied.

My magic brushed over and into the rock surrounding me. I detected very high concentrations of magnesium; which would mean I was probably standing in a room that once was filled with boiling magma. I seemed to have stumbled into an old volcanic kimberlite pipe from a dormant volcano. Well if one had kimberlite, diamonds were usually not far from it. The slavers probably overtook these cave systems from miners once the diamond supply was exhausted. Dead ends, blocked off passageways, and corridors that stretched for miles littered this extinct volcano. Hadriana could be in any one of them.

Well, better start walking then.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

After talking myself in circles, I decided to strap my gauntlets back on to prevent any mage from detecting my mana. It put me at a severe disadvantage if I was backed into a corner by blood mages with only my meager sword skills to protect me, but it was too risky otherwise. If even one stray word reached any ears in Kirkwall the Templars would be all over me quicker than coin spent in a brothel. I couldn’t afford to be locked up in the Gallows. Of course, if Fenris found out I wouldn’t have to worry about being arrested. The swordsman would probably kill me first.

That wasn’t a very happy thought.

I sighed to dispel any more discouraging notions and concentrated on the twisting passageway before me. I didn’t know how long I’d been walking, but it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes before I heard my first sign of life in the old magma tunnels. What I thought for a moment to be the beating of my heart was actually harried footsteps becoming louder and louder. They were heading in my direction and they were coming on quick.

In silence, I unsheathed my sword and held it defensively in front of me edge pointed outward to the source of the noise. The torchlight illuminated the tunnels clearly so it was only a few minutes of not-so-patient waiting until I got a clear image of what was sprinting towards me. Fair of hair and skin, an elvhen male ran with bellowing lungs in clothes I wouldn’t have let a dog lie on let alone made a person wear them. Dark streaks of dirt striped thin arms that were more from lack of nourishment rather than the elf’s natural petite physique. Cheeks were sunken and I couldn’t tell his eye color from the dilation of his pupils. This elf was scared, no, terrified of something. This was no enemy. He was a slave.

What was also clear was that although I could obviously see him, the slave could not see me. I barely had enough time to sheathe my sword and hold my hands in front of me before the blonde elf barreled at full speed into me. Even with my arms out to act as brakes I still felt all the air depress from my lungs as I managed to elbow myself in the gut. I groaned. That hurt.

Wide, black eyes stared up at me and tiny fingers gripped onto the leather of my chest armor that overlaid a thick tunic of chainmail. Maybe the elf wasn’t malnourished. Hewas very young; probably in his early-teens. He was shaking. My heart tightened in sympathy.

“Adiuva me,” the elvhen boy whispered up at me.

What language was that? As if speaking to a spooked horse, I spoke softly. “Calm down. Calm down, you’re safe.”

“Adiuva me,” he repeated. “Adiuva me!”

“Please, I can’t understand what you’re saying,” I said calmly.

The boy’s eyes pinched together in frustration at my lack of knowledge of his language and he pulled at my clothes. He didn’t move out of arms reach though. He still shook so I wrapped an arm around his impossibly thin waist to hold him up.

“Lorem. Ego egestas.” The last part was so soft that I barely heard it.

Slowly, I loosened my grip and grasped his bony shoulders gently. I bent down until I was at his height and spoke just as softly as before. “I know you’re scared, but I’ll help you. Are you running away? Are you running from Hadriana?”

He stared blankly at me until my last word. That certainly provoked a reaction from him. The petite elf jumped slightly and tensed tightly enough that I was afraid he’d break something. He definitely knew Hadriana. It quickly cemented assurance in my mind once the dam broke and the boy began to babble in his own language and I could only stare dumbly at him as his words washed over me.

“Quod est domina! Non quasi ea. Cursus sit amet terrere. Nullam et Orana nocuerunt mihi, sed nescio quid. Dicit lupus est eam. Proin egestas est.”

Ionly caught one word out of everything the slave said and that was the word lupus which was Latin for wolf. Thank you Harry Potter. I knew that was what Danarius, Fenris’s master, called him: his “little wolf”. Mischievous glee rose up within me. Hadriana knew that Fenris was coming for her and she did something to scare the elvhen boy enough for him to run away. Perhaps Hadriana was scared also? I was counting on it.

I rubbed my suddenly itching neck in thought. A tug on my arm that was still lightly gripping the boy’s shoulder brought my attention back. The slave pulled at me and pointed down the passageway from whence he came running. I looked. There was nobody there. I co*cked an eyebrow in confusion.

The boy sighed and pointed to my sheathed sword whose pommel peeked out from my right shoulder. “An lupus?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not the wolf, but he certainly is coming.”

Still he tugged, harder this time. “Lorem. Adiuva me.”

There was that phrase again. I was beginning to think it meant “help”. The elf jabbed incessantly at the air in front of him then pointed at my sword again.

“Veni mecum! Festina! Gimel reddet damnum meus amicus.”

This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea to fight Hadriana alone, but how could I not help him? Dammit, I was a sucker for blondes.

I stepped forward and unsheathed my blade once he released me from his surprisingly strong grip. “Then let’s go. Lead me to her.”

He didn’t need to understand my language to know that I would help him. He grabbed my free hand and pulled me further into the labyrinth at one hell of an impressive sprint that Istruggled to keep up with.

Another problem presented itself as the boy guided me through twists and turns deep underneath the earth. If indeed Hadriana lied at the end of this long tunnel, then how would I defeat her? I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that I would survive facing an experienced blood mage with my paltry swordsmanship. I was probably more of a danger to myself than her. More than half a second of thought needed to go into my plans, I decided.

I gripped the smooth hilt of my sword tighter as did the slave’s grip on my hand. Slowly, we came to a stop. The boy started shaking and carefully pointed further down the corridor that curved sharply to the right. Hadriana must be close; probably just around the corner. I jerked my sword forwards and raised an eyebrow in question. He nodded and placed a pale finger against his lips in the universal sign for silence. I nodded back.

Gently I squeezed the boy’s hand to get his attention and when his, now blue eyes I saw, focused on me I carefully started to untangle our hands. For a second he refused to unclench his shaking fingers, but reluctantly released me after a second’s thought.

Drawing the boy close to me, I whispered into his pointed ear as quietly as I could. “Stay here. Stay safe. I will come back,” I promised although I knew the elvhan slave couldn’t understand me.

I backed up and motioned with my hand to stay and not move from his spot. The boy squirmed, but did not follow me as I stalked further down the tunnel. My palms were sweaty, my stomach tied itself into knots worthy of a sailor, and I fully regretted letting Fenris talk me into going after his master’s apprentice without any backup. Going in there alone -armed with a weapon I knew partly how to use and first-hand experience what blood magic can do to a person’s insides- seemed like suicide.

I stepped around the corner anyway.

It was a room carved deeply into the earth. Large and open, pillars stretched toward a ceiling that disappeared into an inky blackness. Iron cages lined the left side: small, dingy, and thankfully empty. Ancient symbols drafted in an ink eerily the shade of fresh blood coated the dark walls.

A shiver, which had nothing to do with temperature, travelled up my arms as the powerful feeling of blood magic swept over me. As silently as I could, I inched around a thick stone column that partially blocked my view, but a woman’s melodic murmurs forced me to retreat behind it. My back cemented itself to the cold pillar, but it seemed Lady Luck still left me her favor this afternoon as there were no cries of alarm raised. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and strained my hearing to listen to the frantic humming that quickly transformed into words.

“He is coming. He’s picked up my trail like the mangy wolf he is! He won’t let me leave alive! Blood. I need more blood!”

Hadriana was panicking. She feared for her life. Good.

“Mistress, please. If you need power you can gladly take it from me. I live to serve you, my mistress,” a male voice said in a low voice.

There was a light shuffling that sounded like heavy cloth rubbing together before Hadriana spoke again. “You are a loyal servant. Stupid, but loyal. Why risk a promising pupil when there are willing slaves that will gladly slit their own throats?” A slap echoed in the room. I flinched at the loud crack. “Don’t be too quick to sacrifice yourself in order to acquire favor, foolish boy. Get me a slave and be sure not to let this one escape like the last,” the woman harshly ordered.

“Yes, mistress,” the boy squeaked.

His footsteps thudded dully and rusty hinges squeaked. I heard struggling.

“Papa! No, don’t take Papa! Why are you doing this? We’ll be good! We’ll be good, I promise just don’t take Papa!”

“Do not speak out of turn, slave!” Crack!

I could feel my heart break as the girl’s heartfelt pleas turned into sobbing. Metal slammed against metal and I heard the clicking of a lock snap into place. More footsteps…then silence.

“Good,” Hadriana cooed. “Strap his head tightly to the table. I need his throat.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Cloth rasped, but I heard no struggling. Would the slave not even fight to save the life of his daughter who was surely going to be used in the blood mage’s sick ritual? Dammit, I had to do something!

Muscles tensed in preparation to leap out of my hiding place, sword swinging, but I was forced back into my corner once again by an unforeseen interruption.

“Subsisto!” A young voice cried near where I was standing in the shadows. Why hadn’t the boy done as I told him? Even dogs knew the hand motion to “if you move from this spot there will be dire consequences of the no treat kind” and I sighed my frustration as loudly as I dared to. Today had been filled with just one disappointment after another.

“Subsisto!” He commanded again, but it seemed much closer.

I looked over my left shoulder. Pale hand held outwards, fingers spread; the enslaved boy swallowed heavily at his bravery but did not waver. Stray flaxen strands stuck to the gathering sweat on his forehead. He couldn’t have presented his nervousness any clearer than having his knees shaking, which thankfully wasn’t the case. The elvhan boy was scared, but he did not flee. That, more than anything, showed his courage.

“You, slave? You dare speak to your mistress with such disrespect?”

The nameless boy took a step forward with his arm still outstretched. “Non amplius tibi nocere nobis. Occisus es mater mea non sit in aliquot vestrum ritus et occidas Orana vel patris sui,” he rattled off quickly in his language.

Hadriana’s apprentice cackled in glee. “Do you hear that, mistress? The slave thinks he can threaten the power of two of his betters let alone experienced blood mages.”

A frown settled on the boy’s lips and spoke. “No. I learn. More than slave to clean. I watch. Learn.”

I barely had to time to pick up my jaw from the floor in my surprise that the boy actually understood English to sheathe my sword and grab onto the stone pillar before a wave of pure mana swept across the room in an impressive arc. That was a Mindblast. A very powerful mind spell that could fling objects across the room depending on the strength of the mage casting it and from seeing how I practically had to hug the column to stay grounded –which didn’t work as well as I hoped- I guessed that the elf could do more than levitate a matchstick. Arcane magic: deadly stuff that was. I must have been too distracted to realize what the tickling on the back of my neck meant which I felt pretty clearly now. He was a mage.

My acquaintance with the air was short lived before the fast-travelling spell raced past me to hit the two blood mages. I grunted when I hit the ground, but I wasn’t injured which was more than I could say for the rest of the room as I heard loud thumps and a sharp cracking noise that never meant anything good. I glanced over at the boy who performed admirably well for his first attempt at spellwork and saw him slump to the ground with only his shaking arms preventing him from kissing it.

There wasn’t a second’s thought before I rushed, perhaps foolishly, from cover to kneel by the blonde-haired elf’s side. Gently, I pressed a gauntleted hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright? Do you feel any pulling in your chest or a stuttering in your heart?” The first spells were always the hardest and the most dangerous. “Didn’t I tell you stay put? And don’t try to pretend you don’t understand me. You kinda already gave that one up.”

His might have been laughing if his body wasn’t trying to hack up a lung. “No. No, I fine,” the boy rasped. He cleared his throat and his breath came a bit easier. “Just…tired.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “As you should be, kid. You just knocked out two mages in one hit.”

“Don’t be so quick to dole out worthless praise.”

My head jerked backwards at the source of the snarled comment. With the help of her wooden staff, the wounded sorceress stood as gracefully as she could from the ground. Next to her –not moving- was the body of her apprentice, his head turned at an unnatural angle. Only a foot away, the willing sacrifice crawled out from underneath the overturned table bearing a slightly bleeding gash along his collarbone.

Hadriana’s cold eyes focused on the grey-haired elf. She sneered at his struggles to stand. A hand with perfectly manicured claws reached out towards the older elf and moved back slowly in a pulling motion. I felt the blood magic before I saw it.

It began slowly, droplets of blood appeared around the exposed wound on the slave’s chest and shoulder then I had to clench my fist to stop myself from shivering as Hadriana infused more mana into her spell. A red ribbon curled upwards from the gash, swaying underneath the snake charmer’s enchantment into her awaiting palm where the slave’s blood collected into a forming ball. Her other hand raised the staff to twirl the tip in a tight circle. The crimson trail followed. As a leech sucks blood to feed, so does a blood mage to heal.

A macabre scene played out before my eyes that I had only read about in tomes along with so called eyewitness accounts I glanced over from bounty sheets the leader of the mercenary group I was a part of for a couple years or so gave me. Running across her cheek was a jagged cut she probably received from scraping her face against the cave wall. The stolen blood veiled across her cheek in an uneven sprawl and slowly seeped in. Every speck vanished along with the mage’s wound. With the self-satisfied smirk of a conspiring mistress who knew she had the cheating husband wrapped around her finger, Hadriana stroked her flawless skin.

“Hmm,” she hummed in pleasure. “Much better. It’s too bad about Parvul,” the sorceress sighed mockingly as she used the butt of her staff to prod the deceased apprentice. “He wasn’t much use alive and now he carries that same trait in death; couldn’t even die in a way that would benefit me.” Ah. Blood mages could only pull blood once it was exposed to the air as in a cut. Her student was killed by a broken neck. No blood there.

The elvhan boy trembled underneath my hand I still kept on his shoulder. Neither of us had moved an inch, paralyzed by the work of her brand of magic; Hadriana still drew from the gasping slave whose blood gathered in a hovering cloud above his head. Her victim began to pale dramatically in the torchlight and his breath became harsh and irregular. He collapsed, unconscious from blood loss.

“Stop! You’ll kill him!” I shouted.

Hadriana narrowed her eyes in my direction. “I don’t know who you are, but do not presume to give me orders. I am a magister! You take orders from me!”

She flung her arm out towards the boy and me and the blood cloud followed, but it was a hell of a lot more substantial than water vapor. I flung my body over the boy and I felt my back being buffeted by what felt like an anvil colliding into my spine. The force pushed all the air from my lungs, but I did not move and clenched the terrified slave tighter to my chest.

Another wave hit me hard enough to surely crack a couple ribs. I was pinned down, and she knew it. Alright, this getting hurt every time I left the house thing was completely ridiculous. Shifting my arm closer to my mouth I clamped my teeth onto the leather edge of my gauntlet ready to yank it off to show her some real magic but something stopped me. It was like a…ringing? No, that wasn’t it.

Hadriana heard it too because she stopped trying to strip the skin from my back. Her head co*cked to the side waiting for the sound to come again. This time it was clearer. It was a shout.

“Hadriana!” That kind of sounded like Fenris’s voice. “Hadriana, don’t think you can hide from me!” The swordsman must have been roaring for his echo to come in clearly through the labyrinth of magma tunnels underneath the earth. “I will find you, Hadriana! You hear me!” His promise reverberated off the cavern walls and made Hadriana visibly tremble in its black intensity. She knew that the former slave would never let her leave alive.

Her concentration broken, the stolen blood that hovered around her body dropped to the ground to puddle at her feet. Her hand shook as she brought it to her lips.

“He’s going to kill me,” she whispered. “I-I don’t have enough power. Not enough blood.”

Her eyes shifted rapidly back and forth as if searching out an answer in the air. Hadriana’s gaze finally settled on me. She smirked. Cautiously I released my grip on the blonde elf I protected from her blood magic and slowly stood with my hand reaching behind me to grasp the hilt of my sword.

“Well, well,” she murmured and sauntered closer. “There’s a solution to one of my problems.”

In a smooth move I learned from the guardsmen of Kirkwall, I unsheathed my blade and took a wide defensive stance in one movement with the edge of my weapon settled diagonally across my chest to protect vital organs. Aveline had to demonstrate the technique more than once for me and I was glad that she had the patience to teach a man who supposedly was a master of the blade.

I made the flimsy excuse that I didn’t know many defensive maneuvers and relied on offensive swordplay. I was no wizard of weaving tales as Varric was, but nonetheless the red-haired knight looked over my tiny lie in favor of chewing out a new recruit who managed to splinter another wooden training sword.

“Take one more step and I’ll run you through,” I growled in warning.

Damn Fenris and his revenge. If the witch even swayed over the imaginary line I drew in the dirt I would take care of her myself. Rule number one with blood mages, or perhaps number four since I could never remember what my mercenary leader told me, was to never let them get close. They only needed one cut to drain a body dry.

Hadriana stopped with a scowl that only lasted a second before her face transformed into one usually reserved for the bedroom where a lover waited. “There’s no need for your ‘sword’ just yet, my dear. I want you to listen to a…little proposition of mine first. I am a powerful magister. What do you think about riches beyond your wildest imaginings?”

I probablythrew up a little bit in my mouth from her attempt at seduction.

Did she think that I would conveniently forget her trying to kill me by flashing a bit of cleavage? …Alright that only worked one time and the crazy chick tried to blow up my –stolen- car which I wasn’t even in so technically that was defacing private property not attempted murder. The blonde –it was always the blondes that got me into trouble- later claimed she won three wet t-shirt contests. I believed her. Things escalated from there.

However, at the moment we were not discussing cup sizes. “I’ve played this game before, multiple times in fact, and I’ve got to say you’re no master at it so I’m going to tell how the rest of this situation is going to play out.” I paused for a little dramatic flair and purred into her scowling face. “I know all about you, Hadriana.” She balked. “Oh, yes. Fenris has told me many rather unflattering things.”

“Fenris?” The mage whispered in fear of the name, but quickly recovered her misstep in our bluffing game. “So you’re claiming to be that mangy wolf’s new master? How quickly he barks for freedom then whimpers back at the show of a strong hand. Careful now, wild animals tend to bite the hand that feeds them.”

In a slow motion, I waved the sword from side to side in an admonishing gesture. “I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m his master; more like part of a pack. That’s how wolves hunt, isn’t it?” I looked upwards in a mock-expression of thought but did not let my sword waver from her form. “You’ve seen wolves hunt before, right? They break off from the pack to surround prey they’ve tracked miles off. From all sides they stealthily close their trap on the unaware animal until one hunter deliberately reveals itself to startle the prey. And what does a cornered animal do? They either fight or flee.”

My eyes focused completely back on her now trembling form, but my voice did not lose its purring quality no matter how my anger bubbled underneath the current of my words. “So what will you do, Hadriana? Will you fight? Or will you flee?”

For a moment the magister was frozen in place as my words settled between us. A heartbeat later her foot twitched and stepped back. Another beat, another step until she turned fully around to flee directly towards where Fenris had howled his revenge upon her. She was too flustered to remember that little detail, as I hoped she would be when I made my –self-admittedly- clever analogy.

I stood watching the tunnels where Hadriana disappeared into for a few breaths before I groaned pitifully and dropped my sword. With a sharp clang it hit the hard rock, but I didn’t care as I wrapped an arm around my middle and swore violently under my breath. Damn it, I really couldn’t step out of my fancy mansion without getting hurt. I used to go for weeks even four months –a personal best- without limping to the free clinic a few blocks from my old apartment.

Judging from the beating bongo drums emanating from my chest, Hadriana managed to crack a few ribs from her bulldozing blood spells. Any longer standing, taunting the magister, my bluff would definitely have been called and I would be holding a pair of twos to her full house in our game. I didn’t stand a chance on my own against a trained blood mage with no magic to back me up, so I had to rely on pure intimidation.

“Is…bad feel?”

I jumped in surprise and the motion jarred my aching ribs which set off another bought of swearing. I turned to look at the wide-eyed elf who flinched at my black expression. Abruptly, I bit my tongue to stop scaring the kid.

“’m fine,” I grunted. I jerked my head towards the cage that still held the crying girl. “Go get her out of there. The apprentice should have a key.”

He nodded and went to follow my orders. At least that was one elf that didn’t growl and snap back when I was just trying to help. I grumbled under my breath and bent to pick up my sword. I sheathed it without giving myself any more injuries and hobbled over to the older slave that was so ready to give up his life for his mistress.

I sighed under my breath, but gritted my teeth at the pulling in my chest as I squatted down to check for a pulse in the grey-haired elf’s neck. I felt nothing.

“Papa?”

The soft cry caught my attention and I turned my head to the warily approaching young female elf with the boy clinging to her skirt. She was petite, as all elves were, and had her blonde hair pulled messily into a bun. Her wide green eyes did not move from her father’s still form. Pink lips trembled.

“Papa?” She called again. He did not move. “Papa!” Downtrodden, I shook my head.

The slave collapsed onto the hard ground. She buried her face into her hands; my heart began to break at the sobs that broke through the flimsy barrier of her fingers.

Hesitantly, I reached out a hand to try to comfort her, but the nameless elvhan boy graciously took that duty from me. Even though shorter and younger, the kid drew the crying girl to him in a half-hug and whispered Arcanum words of comfort into her pointed ear. The girl would have none of it.

“Why would she do something like this? She loved Papa’s soup and we tried so hard to be good. We did everything she said. I-I don’t understand!”

“Orana, neque erunt omnia.”

“Orel, I’m scared that you can’t make everything better,” she whimpered. “She’s killed so many of us. Papa and I were the last.”

Gently, I spoke. “Here, take this. Pretty eyes like yours shouldn’t be hidden behind tears.”

The blonde girl peered through her fingers to see a hovering handkerchief that was meant for oiling my sword but was clean enough to dry her eyes. Shakily, she took it and dabbed her wet cheeks.

“There that’s much better. Tell me, what’s your name?”

“Orana,” she sniffed.

“A beautiful name. You can call me Hawke.” Orana smiled delicately at the compliment.

“Thank you, Master Hawke. This is Orel. I’ve known him since he was but a babe in the scullery maid’s arms.” The boy looked up from his comforting of his friend and nodded politely in my direction.

I smirked. “We’ve met.”

Orel co*cked his head and stared at me questioningly before he suddenly turned to Orana and whispered something fervently into her ear.

Orana nodded. “Orel is asking if you are our new master now.”

“W-what?” I stuttered, startled at the absurd notion. Slavery in my day and age? “Of course not!”

“But I can cook! I can clean! Orel can fetch things very quickly. He is a very fast runner and never gets lost!”

I held my hands in front of me to stave off anymore of her and the boy’s qualifications. “I’m sure the both of you are-,” I began.

“I help! Magic help Master,” Orel interrupted.

“That was you, Orel?” Orana gasped. “You could have told the magister you had magic and she would’ve made you her apprentice. You could be a magister!”

Orel shook his head and bit his lip. “No. Mistress magic…bad. No…,” he struggled to find the word he was looking for in a language I understood but finally gave up and spat. “Ut venenatis est et foeda nigro. Me tremere facit.”

There was enough emotion behind the words he got out through his gritted teeth to get his point across. He really didn’t like the feel of blood magic.

“You probably wouldn’t be much protection for me if that’s what you’re thinking. One spell had you nearly knocked out.”

"Ilearn. I fast,” he said determinately.

I sighed. “I’m sure you are, kid, but people in Kirkwall don’t take kindly to magic. One mistake and you’ll either be locked up or killed.”

“I learn.”

“Damn it, kid! If the Templars catch you they’ll drag me into questioning too and small cramped places have never been my best friends; especially ones complete with iron bars.

“I learn,” he repeated with his jaw set stubbornly.

“You didn’t even understand a word I just said.”

Orel grunted neither confirming nor denying. We glared at each other unwilling to back down, but I finally threw my hands up in the air in defeat when I realized that arguing wasn’t getting me anywhere. I needed to go after Hadriana and if taking in a couple of Tevinter elves allowed me to leave the room with a clear conscience then so be it.

“Beaten by a frickin’ child,” I grumbled. “Fine. You two can come with me.”

“Oh thank you, Master! I promise that you will not regret-!”

I held up my hand to stop Orana’s gushing appreciation. “There will be a few conditions though. Number one,” I pointed with my finger, “I am not your master, but your employer. You are servants, not slaves, and as such I will pay you both for your work. Number two,” here I focused my gaze on Orel who stared blankly at me, “there will be no magic outside of my home and absolutely none around my mother. I will teach you everything I know about magic, but in return you will only practice under my supervision. These two conditions are absolute and are completely non-negotiable as long as you both are in my employment. Do I make myself clear? Orana, please explain everything I just said to Orel.”

She nodded and bent to whisper an Arcanum translation. I shifted impatiently in my kneeling position but I would not leave until I was sure they both understood what it meant to work for me. Especially Orel. If I was going to help him then I wouldn’t take any chances. As soon as Orana finished, Orel whispered something back to her.

"Orel asks how you’re going to teach. He says he’s heard of the Circle here and doesn’t want to go there.”

“I will personally teach him.”

The boy narrowed his eyes and pointed at my chest. “No magic.”

“Ah. Right, I nearly forgot.”

Was I really going to reveal the secret that kept my head firmly on my shoulders and not on a Templar’s pike that I’ve kept from everyone for six-and-a-half months to a complete stranger? I hesitated for a moment before unclipping the buckle that strapped my gauntlet to my inner arm. Yes, I was because the elvhan boy impossible reminded me of myself all those years ago. Desperate to learn everything I could about the gift I was born with, I clung to any knowledge without a care to its origin. Perhaps that was why I carved my first rune into my flesh.

I knew the consequences.

I knew that it would be seen as blood magic although it wasn’t the same.

I just wanted…I wanted…I actually didn’t know what I wanted. Just…something more.

When I removed both gauntlets I could tell the exact moment the boy sensed my magic when his eyes widened to a point I was half-afraid they would pop out from his head. With a magician’s flair I summoned a fireball that hovered above my right palm. I bounced it a couple times as if tossing a baseball into the air before I curled my fingers into a fist to extinguish it.

“I have plenty of magic.”

Orel’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “How?”

I picked up one of my gauntlets and rolled back the leather until he could see the faintly glowing containment glyphs that were grouped in a triangle.

“These have the ability to mask my mana. They don’t completely cut me off from the Fade, but it weakens my connection enough to prevent me from using any spells or letting another mage sense me while these are touching my skin. In fact,” I muttered then trailed off as I activated my earth rune.

A small piece of the floor no bigger than my thumb floated upwards and settled gently into my awaiting hand. I tossed it to my left. My fire rune activated as my earth one dimmed and a tiny flame sprung from my index fingers. I concentrated on the burning ember until it glowed blue and lengthened. It was quick and messy, but I managed to melt a similar symbol from my glove into the rock I held.

The flame extinguished when a cold veil of ice covered the stone to cool it. Ice was never my strongest element. I could summon a shield of it in emergencies, but those never lasted too long. My ice spells stood up for a few seconds before melting away, so I used it mostly for cooling hot food or in this case hot rocks.

“Here,” I said while holding out my amateurish looking enchanted object. Sandal really had the monopoly on that enchanting stuff. “I want you to hold onto this. Make sure that you don’t let go of it until we’re safe inside the manor. Templars can sense magic as well as any mage. I’ve also got a friend who’s a mage and I’d rather not let him know that I’m harboring an apostate. He’d never shut up about his manifesto then.”

Orel looked at me uncomprehendingly but took my little gift anyway. He gasped once his bare fingers came into contact with the glyph and marveled silently at it. I made sure that I couldn’t sense even a drop of his mana before I slipped my gauntlets back on and stood up. Orel hurriedly did the same while helping Orana.

“I have to go help my friends now, but I will be back to help you both. I promise.”

Orana hesitated, but nodded. “We will wait here.”

“I’ll be back,” I repeated. “Stay here. I mean it this time,” I specifically told Orel. He nodded sheepishly.

With a final look at the two blonde ex-slaves I sucked in a deep breath ignoring my creaking ribs and sprinted in the direction that Hadriana had disappeared though about ten minutes ago. For a moment the only thing I could hear were my pounding footsteps and my grumbled curses as each step jarred my upset injuries, but as I ran further there was no mistaking the sounds of battle. I didn’t bother to use my ears to their location.

My senses were familiar with the feel of Anders’s mana and I automatically locked onto his strong signature which meant a lot of spellwork in a small amount of time. I drew my blade once I got close enough. My boots slid as I rounded a corner quickly and came into full sight of the makeshift battleground.

Hadriana was the bitch that laid the trap with the undead!

Encased in a magical barrier, Hadriana safely sunk her foul magic that stimulated from a bleeding wound on her arm into the earth where rotted skeletons clawed their way out of unmarked graves. Fenris, a murderous scowl on his face, swung his giant sword in a semicircle around his body that cleaved multiple opponents into pieces. Every time he tried to move forward to where Hadriana taunted him, more corpses surrounded the tiring elf and forced him to destroy them instead of their master.

He was too far away for me to help, but Anders wasn’t. My abused body, tired from fighting, falling into traps, and acting as a target for a battering ram protested my movements. I ignored it in favor of sprinting off to the side where Anders stood with his back to the wall and his staff aimed at grotesquely smiling skeletons. He waited for a breath as I effectively crippled an undead with my blade by taking off both of its legs. It wasn’t dead…well more dead…whatever, but it definitely slowed it down enough to where it wouldn’t be a threat for a little while.

Once the lumbering skeletons were close enough, I assumed, Anders unleashed the built up mana he stored in the tip of his wooden staff. Erupting from the tip was a cone of pure ice energy that engulfed two corpses completely, turning them into undead popsicles. Anders nodded to me when I reached his side.

“Very cool,” I smirked.

Anders rolled his eyes. “That was horrible.”

“Hey, it was short notice. Chill, man.

“Stop it, you’re hurting me.”

I laughed at his disgruntled expression. Anders shook his head in exasperation and twirled his staff impressively before jabbing the end into the frozen corpse’s neck, collapsing any support for the head which rolled off to the side. He did the same for the twin. I whistled lowly in appreciation. My ice spells had nothing on his. To make it cold enough to freeze flesh and bone where it’s brittle enough to shatter? I hadn’t the skill for that.

“Come on, let’s get closer to Fenris. Give him a clear shot to Hadriana.”

He grunted in agreement, but more in exhaustion than anything else. Anders began to follow behind me as I began to make my way to the fighting swordsman, but he suddenly stopped and gripped my shoulder.

“You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you?” He asked and gave a pointed look at my wrapped forearm where I had the brilliant idea to draw enemy attention by injuring myself.

“No crazy stunts,” I promised. “Maybe,” I added under my breath.

Fenris suddenly roared and the passive white markings on his body were flooded with a blue energy that spoke of him invoking the power of lyrium. His body glowed brightly enough for a moment to blind me temporarily and I had to stop and blink the dots from my eyes. Like a beast, Fenris savagely tore into his enemies with his clawed gauntlets. He snapped spinal columns with his hands and tore limbs from the decomposing corpses. A veil of rage covered his eyes. Fenris forced a path to Hadriana too quickly for the blood mage to summon more to defend her. Still, the magister did not move although she must have seen her death in his eyes.

The furious swordsman finally reached his prey. His great sword raised high in the air; the elf brought it down with considerable strength to split Hadriana in half. Unfortunately, it bounced innocently off the white, bubble-like arcane shield she encased herself in. The woman cackled at the runaway slave’s thunderous expression. Fenris swung his sword again at the shield in hopes of cracking it out of sheer force. Again he struck. Again. Again. There wasn’t even a dent when he finally backed off with an irritated growl.

“Fight me, Hadriana! Are you too much of a coward to face me properly?!” Fenris snarled wolfishly.

Lean muscles bunched as he heaved his sword again at the indestructible shield. It skittered harmlessly off.

Hadriana cackled at the elf’s attempts. “You can’t hope to beat me, Fenris!”

“And you cannot stay protected forever!”

Fenris was right. She couldn’t. Made of pure mana, her shield couldn’t be broken through by physical or magical means. The downside was that it had a time limit. Sooner or later, Hadriana would run out of the magic needed to fuel the high-powered barrier.

“I don’t need forever, fool! Just enough time to do this!”

Ireally didn’t like the sound of that. Neither did Anders who wildly looked around for something I couldn’t see.

"What is it, Anders?” I whispered to him.

Brown eyes peered distantly off to the side. “I…I can sense the Veil weakening.” I co*cked my head to the side. I didn’t feel anything. He was silent for a moment until he gasped. “She’s tearing into the Fade! She’s trying to summon demons to help her!”

Oh that was not good. “Fenris!”

The swordsman must have already heard Anders' warning before I called out to him as he began pounding away at Hadriana’s shield with even greater determination if that was possible. Was the woman completely crazy? Summoning demons? Demons were just as likely to eat their masters as they would their prey. I already dealt with one in the Fade when I first arrived in this time and I had no desire to face one again. Demons gave me the willies.

“Justice can feel the scar growing bigger. We don’t have much time before Shades feel it and slip through.”

An idea suddenly hit me. I sheathed my blade. “Anders, where’s that knife?”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I began to pat the pockets of his coat in search of my knife that Anders borrowed –stole- from me when he saw the Containment Glyph engraved on its blade. Usually used on mages, I wondered if the ability to null magic would work on something else, like, say, a magical shield. A dull clang met my tapping fingers and I reached for the lip of an inside pocket.

“H-hey! Not there! Get your hand out of there! It’s in my right pocket! No, stop! I’ll get it for you,” Anders scolded me and slapped my hand away.

I pouted. “Here,” he said. Anders gave me the dagger hilt first. “What do you need it for?”

Flipping the knife idly in my hand, I told him. “You know when I promised that I wouldn’t do anything stupid?” Anders narrowed his eyes. “I crossed my fingers.”

“Hawke!”

Anders’s yell did nothing to stop me as I ran through the now empty battlefield, thanks to Fenris, and up to the milky barrier that prevented any harm to Hadriana. Well, we would see about that.

“Get back, Fenris!”

“Wait, what are you doing!?” Hadriana shrieked.

I didn’t know if Fenris took my warning to heart before I stabbed the shield.

Nothing happened.

I pushed harder.

Sparks danced across the pulsing service and I felt my arm tingle then go numb a second later. Sweat broke out in droplets on my forehead; I twisted the knife trying to break through and almost gave up until I felt the very tip find purchase in the mana barrier. It sunk in. One hand gripping the hilt, I palmed the pommel with my other and threw my entire body weight into pushing through. Slowly, as if traveling through mud, the knife’s blade inched towards Hadriana’s terrified face. I smirked once the white, round barricade curiously stroked the emblazoned glyph.

The two magics instantly recoiled at each other’s touch. Bubbling, the shield retreated from the glowing glyph and the knife in my hand became white hot to the touch. I jerked back once the heat ate through my glove and dropped the dagger. As if I was its anchor holding the magic back, the knife exploded with energy that sent me careening backwards into the air. Thankfully, I landed on something soft. Or someone, I noticed when I heard my pillow groan.

Arms rose from either side of me to wrap around my middle. I moaned pitifully as they unintentionally jarred my protesting ribs. In response, cold air enveloped my lower chest and I sighed in relief at the wonderful feeling of healing magic. Once I had been wary of this certain branch of magic, but now I had to wonder why I hated the immense satisfaction of all my bruises and aches fade away.

“Is that better?”

I practically melted into a pile of goo. “Anders, I love you.”

There was a heavy pause and then I felt a cool hand touch my forehead. “Do you still have that concussion?”

My sarcastic response was cut off. When the backlash of the magic threw me across the room Hadriana’s shield crumbled into dust around her feet along with my knife. Damn, I only had one of those things. Now I would have to make another just in case a situation like this one arose again. God, I hoped not. Shakily, the woman dropped to her knees and her staff fell from limp fingers. Fenris kicked the mage’s weapon away; his sword, nearly as long as his body, was raised to the side in preparation to run the blood mage through. Desperately, the magister flung her hands in front of her and cried.

“Stop! You do not want me dead!” It worked to stop Fenris for a moment, but he did not drop his sword.

“There is only one person I want dead more,” his gravelly voice ground out. He inched his blade closer to her chest.

“Wait! Wait, please! I have information, elf, and I will trade it in return for my life.”

“Ha,” Fenris spat. “What do you have that I could possibly want?”

In a rush she confessed. “You have a sister.”

That was the only thing that could have stayed the swordsman’s hand. It threw Fenris off balance enough for his blade to waver. I could only see his back from where I was collapsed but I was sure his eyes were wide in confusion.

“Explain.”

“I will only tell you if you let me go. Do I have your word? Will you let me leave?”

Iheld onto my breath as Fenris mulled over the deal that Hadriana presented him with. I would not interfere. This was entirely his call. He slipped his blade into the harness on his back.

Leaning down until his face was inches from his master’s apprentice, Fenris growled. “Yes,” he bit out. “You have my word.”

Hadriana seemed calmer now that she had the illusion of control.

“Her name is Varania. She is in Qurinus serving a magister by the name of Ahriman.”

Fenris caught the distinction just as quickly as I did. “A servant. Not a slave.”

“She’s not a slave.”

Silence. “I believe you.”

Hadriana’s sigh of relief turned into a silent scream as a hand reached inside her chest to grasp a terrified, beating heart. Fenris’s glowing arm pushed into solid flesh and I could see his muscles work as he clenched his hand into a fist. There was no explosion of blood to follow the sickening sound of Hadriana’s heart being squeezed into pulp. Watching from feet away, I saw her ice blue eyes widen in pain and then close a second later. She slumped to her side and was still.

I shifted uncomfortably, but I didn’t move much. I looked down and realized the hands that helped heal me still hadn’t let go of my body. I followed the arms to their source to see Anders not even looking at me, but instead followed Fenris who slowly pulled his arm out of Hadriana’s chest without a drop of blood on it. Softly, I cleared my throat to catch his attention. Anders absently looked at me and raised an eyebrow in question to what I wanted. I glanced from him to his arms wrapped tightly around me and then back again.

To give him credit, it only took Anders a second to understand what I wanted. He leapt backwards and scurried away on his hands with a bright flush on his cheeks that stained the tip of his ears and neck red. Comically, I winked and blew him a kiss as I stood up stretching my limbs that still felt cool due to Anders’ magic that loosened my muscles and quieted my complaining rib cage. That knot in my neck that bothered me for a few days was even gone. Damn, Anders really had a knack for healing magic. I felt brand new. Anders also got back on his feet, but made it a point to not look at me. He bent to pick up his staff he must have dropped in order to catch my flying body when the backlash of my brilliant idea sent me soaring.

“We are done here.”

I left my game of staring at Anders until he looked at me again to see if he would do that funny blush thing again to glance at Fenris who stalked quietly by me to a set of tunnels I hadn’t noticed were there. My hand snatched onto Fenris’s arm before he got out of reach. His lyrium burns reacted violently to my touch and Fenris growled. I hurriedly retracted my arm as if he had snapped at it. Okay…someone was in a bitchy mood.

Anders could bring someone back from the brink of death, right? So I risked a question. “Are you all right?”

Fenris stopped walking. “All right? Am I all right? Of course I’m not!” Fenris whipped around and pointed an accusing claw at my face. “This could be a trap! Danarius could have sent Hadriana here to tell me about this ‘sister’. Even if he didn’t, trying to find her would still be suicide! Danarius has to know about her and has to know that Hadriana knows.”

Wait…so he knows that she knows we know that he knows? No, that wasn’t ri-never mind, I didn’t care.

Fenris’s hand turned from accusing to anger and curled it into a fist. “None of that matters though. I finally got to crush that bitch’s heart. May she rot and all the other mages with her.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Ah, good. I’m glad you’re all right,” I drawled while rolling my eyes.

“And here I thought you were unreasonable,” Anders muttered under his breath although he knew that Fenris could hear him anyway.

Fenris uttered unflattering things about Anders’s mother in Arcanum, I assumed from the unknown curses from the elf’s mouth. He could have been talking about roses and puppies, but I sincerely doubted it.

I decided to play the unrewarding role of peacemaker. “C’mon, Fenris. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for her. I’m sure Varric knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a pigeon carrier.” Damn it, now hehad me doing it. “We can probably hunt down your sister pretty quickly.”

"I don’t want your help,” Fenris sneered. “Even if I found my sister, who knows what the magisters have done to her. What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?”

Alright, now he was really pissing me off. It took my temper a long while for it to flare up enough to do some damage, but when my fuse was ignited it became very dangerous and Fenris was managing to hit all the right buttons.

“And what do you mean by that?” I quietly asked with frost on my lips.

The swordsman did not back down, instead he drew even closer. “What else should it mean? Mages whimper and cry about their oppression and how they are like any other man and deserve their freedom. It is a noble idea but this is what mages do with freedom!” He made a wide sweeping gesture that included the pile of bones and Hadriana’s lifeless body. “They will always try and justify their need for power.”

I glared harshly at him. “You know nothing about mages.”

“Ha!” He laughed loudly. “You think you know more about the atrocities of mages better than I? I have lived among them unwillingly my whole life. I have seen Danarius sacrifice a small boy in a blood ritual in order to impress Senators.”

“And I’ve seen people so scared of the idea of magic that they slaughtered a woman and her child in their own home. Yes, that woman possessed magic but she could do no more than boil water. Her little girl had none. Tell me that makes more sense than Danarius killing that boy you saw.”

“Are you suggesting that I fear magic?”

Ishook my head in denial at his hissed words. Already my anger was fading. “I’m just saying you need to wake up or you’ll become just like those murderers.”

Fenris flashed blue right before he seized the front of my light armor and pulled me down to his height to look me straight in the eyes. “Hadriana deserved a harsher death. I granted her mercy.”

“You’re right. I’m glad she’s dead. Now, let me go and go take a walk, Fenris. Get some air to clear your head before we both do something at least I’ll regret.”

The wolf’s hackles raised a bit more before settling down. “You’ve changed, Hawke, and I’m not sure it is for the better.” Fenris released my front and turned smartly on his heel towards the exit without another word.

Groaning, I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples to soothe away the headache that was surely forming when I felt a presence in front of me. It didn’t seem like they were going to kill me so I assumed it was Anders. I opened my eyes slowly to see him gazing curiously at me.

“What?” I grumbled and dropped my hand to my side.

A smug smile plucked at his lips and I made a motion with my hand for him to close his mouth. “Shut up, Anders.”

If it was even possible, his self-satisfied grin grew even haughtier. “What? I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Of course you weren’t. You’re just smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary for no reason,” I said sarcastically.

Without bothering to hear the Healer’s response I went into the opposite direction of Fenris and back where I first entered the room.

“Wait, where are you going? The exit is that way.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve just got to make a quick stop to pick up a couple of elvhen slaves I rescued and took into my employ.” A choking sound of disbelief almost made me laugh out-loud. “What? It’s not as if Fenris can get any madder at me.”

“…True,” he admitted.

“Hey, Anders, wanna hear some more riddles?”

“Maker help me.”

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

“Good, good. Now hold it steady. Breathe in. Now breathe out. Feel the weight of the object in your mind. Acknowledge it and now make it move slowly towards the sound of my voice. Slowly. Slower. Slower than that. Too fast, too fast!”

Hurriedly, I hit the floor with my arms clamped tight over my head as the tool we were using for a test subject zoomed at a break necking speed –literally- where I was standing a moment before. A crash of glass followed and a yell of protest from outside made me rise and stare out the now broken window. From across the road an elderly gentleman stooped to pick up the heavy tome that knocked him in the head. He rubbed the forming bump and looked up to see me before I could jump out of view. He lifted his walking stick and began to yell creative obscenities in my direction that I made a note to remember. They were quite imaginative.

“I’m sorry, Lord Reinhardt!” I yelled the apology safely from the second story. “I was very unsatisfied with the ending of that book! Maria should have married the gallant Ser Geoffrey and not run off with her ex-husband’s best friend who everyone thought was dead for fourteen years! A great read, though! You should give it a try!”

I snatched the silk ties that held the curtains open and satisfactorily watched them close on the Lord’s reddening face.

“I-I am sorry. I tried, but it runned away.”

“Ran,” I absently corrected.

Turning away from the holey window, I smiled at Orel’s guilty look for having broken another piece of fragile material in the Hawke household. Mother still gave me a dirty look for the vase I supposedly cracked last Thursday. Since then, I made Orel practice with things that were not as precious such as one of the questionable books Isabela stowed away in the numerous bookshelves where she thought I wouldn’t notice them.

It had been three weeks, almost an entire month since I let Orel and Orana into my home and I’d been stuffed with freshly made meat pies ever since the elvhan girl practically took over the kitchen. She couldn’t quite make anything else outside of pastries, but I sure as hell wasn’t complaining and neither was my belly. Orel, who I learned was actually twelve years old and not a teenager like I first thought, definitely kept me on my toes when I agreed to help him with his magic. Nearly every day we practiced while Mother was out and again later at night once she had gone to bed. The boy was making astonishing leaps. He was a natural. Unfortunately, I was fast running out of the basics to teach him before I was forced to delve into specificities of a field I didn’t know much about. Arcane magic, his greatest strength, was not my forte.

“Don’t worry about Reinhardt,” I assured him when he still looked like I kicked his puppy or something. “I never liked him anyway. He’s been trying to marry his daughter off to me and after that little stunt I think I’ve been moved down the list of potential suitors. I should probably be thanking you.”

Orel still found the floor too fascinating to even look up at me. I smiled in amusem*nt and bent down to his level with my hand on his shoulder.

The elvhan boy wrung his fingers together in nervousness. “But…I brokes things again.”

Along with my new role of magical instructor, I also became a language professor for both Orana and Orel. Neither of them knew how to read or write and Orel could barely speak English, so sometimes I spent the night explaining how little Jimmy pet the pretty kitty to both the fascinated elves. Orelpicked up the language quickly.

“Hey,” I called to get his attention. He lifted his tear-stained eyes. “Really, it’s fine; it gives Bodahn something to do.” Orel chuckled, knowing how the old dwarf liked to fuss over the smallest details. “That’s better. Now, c’mon, let’s take a break. I’m sure that Orana has something delicious baked for lunch.”

His cheeky smile grew even larger at the idea of a good meal. A pale hand snatched a hanging cord from where he carefully placed it on the banister of the staircase before we started our lessons and slipped it around his neck. Settling heavily in the dip of his collarbone, my amateurish attempt at enchanting an object on the fly quickly vanished beneath Orel’s tunic as he lovingly tucked it in.

When I offered to make him a newer, certainly better looking glyph the boy adamantly refused to exchange it. He insisted on keeping the half-melted stone saying that I gave him a gift. No one had given him a gift before and proceeded to wrap a left over piece of string the local butcher used to tie the parchment paper he wrapped meat in around the rock so Orel could wear it like a necklace. I could only shake my head at his stubbornness and made the condition that the glyph had to touch his skin and remain out of sight, especially around a nosy mage who bemoaned the fact my knife was destroyed in the battle with Hadriana.

The man still bitched about my “careless” and “idiotic” actions even three weeks later. When I rehashed the tale for Varric, the dwarf thought my idea was ingenious if a little visceral. I glowed in his praise; Anders merely snorted at my pleased look and proceeded to explain that visceral meant impulsive or primitive. I shot back over my tankard of ale that Varric still called me a genius so the ex-Grey Warden could shut his pie-hole. He had to have the last word by muttering under his breath how I was the most “puerile, inarguably frustrating man”. I stuck my tongue out in response. Understanding why the both of them smirked superiorly only came after I learned what “puerile” meant. Bastards, the both of them.

A tugging on my hand pulled me from my thoughts.

“Come, Master Hawke! Smells good!”

I smiled lightly at his exuberance, but sighed at his persistent habit of calling me Master. If Fenris ever heard…I co*cked my head to the side in thought. I hadn’t seen the elf since our little…disagreement three weeks ago deep in the holding caves. It seemed we were still playing “if we ignore the problem it will go away”, and Fenris was playing to win.

Damn, that elf really got underneath my skin. He was so frustrating, close-minded, and one of the few people whose opinion I valued. But really, why should I give a rat’s ass what he thought of me? I shouldn’t care if he despised the fact I sympathized with mages, took in a couple of Tevinter slaves, or could cause a lightning storm with just a blink…

sh*t. I did care what the surly jackass thought.

He was a good man, just ignorant of what good mages were capable of instead of destruction the swordsman identified my kind with. Mentally I sighed as Orel dragged me down the stairs towards the kitchen. For a long while I tried to figure out why my ancestor was so inexorably drawn to Fenris, but I figured it out. Garret Hawke and Fenris were nearly identical. They would’ve been fools to not see the common spark between them, and it somewhat troubled me that I would never feel that shot of electricity to my heart.

Yes, I looked like Garret, but our souls were so different. Our thoughts, actions, morals, and even our sense of humor differed so greatly that I felt not even a jolt when I looked at the scarred elf. It was sad to think about at night when I laid in bed all alone; probably why sleep hadn’t come easy for me since I dropped –literally- into the past.

Suddenly, there was a pounding on the heavy wooden door to the Amell Mansion. Bodahn, who had taken it upon himself to organize my letters since I refused to, looked up from his vellum pile to walk over and let in whoever came to visit.

“Don’t worry, Bodahn. I got it,” I said and waved him gently off

The aging dwarf nodded. “As you wish, serah.” He bowed slightly although he knew it annoyed me to no end.

I rolled my eyes as he returned to his work. Orel glanced curiously up at me. “Should go?” He asked while pointing off in the direction of the kitchen where Orana was most likely working on lunch.

“Yeah, just in case. Why don’t you go snitch something from Orana?”

He smiled enthusiastically and didn’t wait another second to dash off to the source of the smell of fresh-baked bread. I didn’t blame him. I was about to do the same.

Little favor my ass.

“So we just have to sneak by seven bandits who are camped in an open field in broad daylight and are armed with many sharp objects that make my innards cringe, pick the lock on a chest located in the middle of their surrounded camp, sneak back out with…what do we need again?”

“Log books.”

“Right, to see if that lyrium idol was sold by Bartrand within the past few months. See, Varric, I was listening. Anyway, after we steal the log books we have to get out without anyone noticing because they have a blood mage!”

“Did I offend your delicate disposition, Lady Hawke? And keep it down, there’s a blood mage down there.”

“I know,” I snarled, but in a whisper. “What I don’t understand is why you think this is a brilliant idea?”

Lying on his belly with Bianca strapped carefully across his back, Varric peered from the overhang out to the group of outlaws who laughed obnoxiously at something someone said. Their smell alone could do someone damage, let alone what their swords and knives could do to a dwarf and human.

“I mean, do you realize how outnumbered we are?”

Varric mumbled something under his breath.

“Come again?”

The crossbowman spoke up. “I might have underestimated their numbers a bit,” he finally admitted.

I buried my head in my crossed arms and groaned. “A bit, Varric? Why did we rush out to the Wounded Coast without any backup?”

Varric’s nerves might have been a little frayed because he looked at me and explained slowly enough that even a retarded child would have no difficulty following.

“Because, Hawke, you and Elf are still having that hissy fit you think no one else knows about, Blondie has been busy with that wet cough that’s been spreading around Darktown, we’re doing something illegal so Aveline is out, Rivaini wasn’t around, and Daisy won’t leave that mirror alone to even get some sunshine.”

Well, it wasn’t as if me avoiding even looking at Fenris was subtle, but the part about hunting down shady conmen was illegal confused me. Did we need a license or something?

But wait. He asked everyone else before me? “…so you came to me last?” Wow, I didn’t know how that made me feel.

Varric rolled his eyes. “Are you pouting now? Really Hawke, you have more mood swings than a woman.”

Someone was in a snappy mood. He really wasn’t doing a great job on convincing me to commit suicide via stupidity, either. I couldn’t just walk away from this, though. I owed Varric a great deal…well Garrett Hawke did, but that made his selfless acts no less heroic in my eyes. The surface dwarf really did a great deal for those he cared about. He looked out for naïve Merrill who still didn’t understand that walking around at night in Lowtown was a very bad idea and he also bribed the thugs in Darktown to stay away from Anders’ clinic. Varric would never admit it, but he truly had the cliché heart of gold. So covering his flank as he mindlessly charged into danger was the least I could do.

Besides, this was for family. I understood how that became a blind-spot in your life. Of course, Varric wanted to kill his brother and I could understand that too.

I gave in. “Alright, Varric, how are we going to do this? Wait ‘til dark?”

Varric looked back out to the celebrating marauders who began to break out their stores of questionable alcohol. Only a few however indulged themselves, others took to making our lives harder by using the locked chest that Varric wanted to get into as a convenient seat. sh*t.

“We can’t wait that long. Their disadvantage will be ours too. Unless you can pick a lock in the dark?”

I gave him a mocking half-bow from my sprawled out position. “I leave the rogue skills up to you, my friend. I’m just the muscle to your brains.”

A familiar smirk worked itself up to Varric’s mouth. “I might just have to take you up on that. How do you feel about distractions?”

One week, just one bloody week I would like to not meet crazy blood mages. It seemed that they all had a screw loose somewhere and that made them all the more dangerous because they weren’t afraid of the armored man who came yelling into their camp waving a sword above his head like a mad man. By the way, that was me.

“Take him down!” The blood mage roared from his post by the chest.

As the thugs drew their blades and quickly surrounded me I hoped that when Varric offered me up as a distraction meant the dwarf had a plan to make sure his “distraction” didn’t die a painful death.

I parried a blow meant to run through my heart and traded the sneering, oily faced bandit a broken nose courtesy of the pommel of my sword. He went down with a yelp while attempting to staunch the waterfall of blood streaming from his dented face. Quickly, I turned around to avoid another strike and raised my blade in time to ward it off. The hit had my arms trembling from the force of it. I had to get my back to a wall.

An edge of a sword glanced off my shoulder guard. The bandit’s opening was enough for me to kick out with my armored covered leg into his vulnerable gut and follow up with a slice to his hunched back. My blade sliced through his spinal column like butter. He dropped immediately.

The other members of the group were much warier of the mad swordsman that came charging into their camp. I had whittled down their numbers to five only because of the element of surprise, I would not be so lucky now that they had a chance to recognize the threat and act accordingly. From behind the wall of jeering faces that cut off any chance I had of escaping, the blood mage pushed himself to the front of the crowd.

My skin felt clammy. I could practically taste the gelatin that came with the whiff of blood magic. And it was strong. Fenris’s tormenter, Hadriana, hadn’t made my bones shiver like this mage did. He was middle-aged; silver hair peeking out from light brown sideburns. His dark chuckles did nothing to settle my nerves as he sluggishly twirled his staff. The end stabbed into the soft sand of the coast and he leaned against the top of it with a lazy smirk.

My blade did not waver as I held it in front of me like a shield with both hands gripping the hilt tightly to hide how the mage’s aura caused them to shake.

“Well, well, men what do we have here, a swordsman looking to find glory in killing the infamous Evet’s Marauders, perhaps? More like a little boy quivering in his father’s boots.” Like a prepared crowd, the thugs around the mage broke into obnoxious laughter. Dammit, I was trembling like a leaf in the wind. “You made a big mistake, boy,” he said when his audience quieted down. “You’ve killed one of my men and for that I can’t let you leave.”

Anytime now, Varric, I pleaded in my mind. When rescue wasn’t immediate, I pulled out my backup plan: bluff. Readjusting my sweaty grip, I let out a calming breath and matched that co*cky smirk with one of my own.

“These men?” I questioned. “I highly doubt you’re the Evet of Evet’s Marauders.”

That superior mask the blood mage wore slipped for a moment. “Really. Are you confident with your assumption?”

I nodded. “I would bet money that you’re just another one of his henchman that was sent to babysit his other minions on a task usually beneath your notice. Yet you’re here. Tell me, did you do something to piss him off or am I severely overestimating your ability?”

The mage leapt forward faster than I could block and rammed the knot of his staff underneath my chin. Dark purple smoke emitted from his eyes and his voice took on the duality of one possessed by a spirit…or a demon. “Do not think to toy with me, mortal. I am powerful. More so than your puny human mind could possibly comprehend.”

The men in front of me backed up a few steps when the demon rose to the surface of their leader. A hand grabbed my sword, tore it from my hands without a care of how deeply it sliced into the palm of the mage, and tossed it carelessly behind him. Small droplets of blood dribbled down my neck as fingers clenched my face tightly. It, for it was no longer purely human, turned my head from side to side as if examining a creature it hadn’t seen before.

“Hmmm,” it hummed, “Maybe you do know a little of what I speak. I sense great power within you, but something…,” it released my face and slowly trailed its dripping hand over my right arm down to my gauntlet, “…is masking it.”

A flash of its true form was my only warning before claws pierced through the reinforced leather of my gauntlet into my hand. I felt a sharp pain before being replaced by excruciating agony when the claws retracted. I felt the Containment glyphs shatter once their conduits were broken. With my back to a granite block, there weren’t many options for escape. So I decided to fight instead. Desire demons, for that was what was buried beneath the surface of the possessed mage, didn’t like to fight and instead preferred other…creative means to get what they wanted. With my uninjured left hand, I knocked the staff out of the demon’s grasp and followed up with a devastating punch.

It never landed.

Easily, the demon swiped my hand out of the air and peered at it curiously.

“How clever to hide oneself in plain sight, but I desire to taste that magic that boils just under such delectable skin,” it cooed.

Its tongue peeked out from chapped lips and lightly licked up my covered fingers which would have worked quite efficiently as a seductive technique if it wasn’t a forty year old scraggly mage nipping at my fingertips.

“Did somebody order a shot buffet?”

From behind me, I heard the now familiar sound of Bianca’s lovely spring loaded system release a deadly arrow that sunk into the chest of the sexually assaulting demon. I tore my captive arm from its grasp, but my gauntlet tangled in its extended claws. A captivating rush crashed into me hard enough to steal my breath as I felt my mana fill every vein and crackle like dancing embers. I shivered under the sudden assault.

The demon shrieked its displeasure that seemed to wake the other marauders from their stupor. They noticed my injured, weaponless figure and slowly closed in on me. f*ck, f*ck, f*ck where was my sword? Purple smoke draped the blood mage’s figure and the demon fully took over its host. As with all Desire demons, its form was one meant to pertain to every man’s fantasy. Its full figure was enough to make any woman jealous and its horns and purple tinted skin only enhanced its sexual energy that oozed from every pore. Its reptilian like tail whipped angrily behind it as the demon tore the arrow from its breast and threw it angrily to the ground.

“You will pay for that,” it promised, its voice an eerie mixture of masculine and feminine tones.

Bianca fired again, but the arrow was batted away. With the Containment glyphs no longer touching my skin, I felt the evil energy the demon summoned more acutely than a non-mage and it made my stomach curdle. Black fire caressed naked legs and slithered up unblemished skin to nestle in the awaiting palm of the demon. No spell I knew of could create black fire, but I knew it wasn’t anything good.

My vision blacked out around the edges until I could only see the sneer on the demon’s face and the crackling fireball that was much stronger than anything I could ever create. It was going to throw that at Varric. He would die if I didn’t so something to save him. My sword was nowhere within reach. However, my magic was.

It didn’t take longer than a second to pour mana into my earth rune and slam my hand to the ground. With my mage-sight rune destroyed by the demon’s talons, I couldn’t watch my tendrils of magic travel across the ground to erupt into a wall that barely managed to block the thrown fireball. The salt infused earth melted underneath the intense heat of the demon’s spell and I quickly reinforced it with a towering shield of granite that could withstand higher temperatures.

The hole in my hand took away my fireball spell, my wind and ice runes, and nicked my earthquake spell just enough to make it too dangerous to use, though it didn’t stop me from using lightning which was an area I proudly held a Master in. Purring in my hand, I let the shimmering bolts twine sensuously around my fingers and right arm.

“A mage!” The cry was repeated among Evet’s marauders and I knew that I couldn’t let any one of them escape still alive. This secret of mine was too dangerous for them to have.

The whine of electricity accompanied the bolt as I directed it to strike the string of men conveniently lined up close enough to one another for the lightning to bounce from one person to the next. Charred flesh flooded the air with its putrid smell, but I was familiar enough with the smell to not falter. One by one they fell until only one remained who hadn’t enough metallic armor to absorb the electricity effectively. He hastily threw his bow down and turned to flee. He could not run fast enough though to escape the earth that swallowed him and dragged him deeply down.

Amber light faded from the earth rune. I turned to the Desire demon whose attention was fixed solely on me. It blinked not an eye at the men’s death and instead stroked provocatively along the delicate golden jewelry that decorated its throat.

“Your magic makes me shiver, mortal. Such strength you possess yet it stems not from a deal from my kind. How curious,” it wondered. “I taste an exotic flavor, one I have not felt on my tongue before. It is strange.”

I froze. Could it tell I wasn’t from this time? Could demons feel that?

“But you could be so much stronger, my dear,” it cajoled and sauntered over. “Let me make you a little proposition.”

My hand rose between us with lightning crackling between my fingers. “I haven’t met many demons before, but I’m not stupid enough to make a deal with one.”

It chucked seductively, its confidence not diminished a bit, but warily stopped a few feet from me when I pushed more power into my rune. “Yet many have. Have you ever wondered why? They cannot all be as foolish as you believe. Could it be that I have something that all of them desired? I can offer you power, knowledge…perhaps pleasure?”

“You have nothing I want. Release the mage and I won’t kill you.”

“Oh, now we both know that it isn’t true. For all your attempts to play the part of hero, you will kill this man regardless of your decision here.”

I was silent.

Slowly it smiled and took a step closer. “I can see into your mind; it is writhing with delicious, dark secrets. Secrets that you would do anything to keep.”

“Don’t move,” I snapped when it took another step. It was almost close enough to reach me with those talons. “Let the mage go, bitch. Now! I won’t repeat myself!”

It sneered. “Do not presume to order me around, mortal. This foolish human made a deal for power and in exchange I walk outside the Fade. It was a fair bargain. You can do nothing to change that.”

“I can kill you.”

“You will destroy me as well as this vessel,” it warned

Purple light encased my hand from the mana I flooded the rune with and lightning screamed as I pushed the multiple bolts I collected during our entire conversation towards the possessed mage. The demon locked its black eyes on me. Words were uttered but the shrieking bolts drowned out its message. A second before the lightning impaled the demon, it fled from its vessel and my mana opened a gaping hole in the chest of a confused mage. He dropped to his knees, the edges of the wound a smoldering black, and a look of permanent shock etched on his face. The sand cradled his fall, but the mage would not be standing up.

I stared down at him. I warned the demon that I wouldn’t tell it again to release the mage from his deal although the stupid man had walked into his own death by consorting with creatures of the Fade in the first place. For a moment the fallen mage was replaced with Anders’s reddish blonde hair and his slightly crooked nose. I could easily see the road the Healer was headed down because he would end up like this. Broken, with me standing over his body, my hand going into spasms from the sheer amount of electricity I created, and I would have no choice but to end his life if he continued to walk the misguided path of Vengeance.

I gave my word that I would change the future and my word was my bond.

My injured hand clenched tight as it was wracked with another tremor and I gritted my teeth together as my wound came alive with fresh pain, but I couldn’t do anything until my arm went numb from the repeated exposure to pure energy. Carefully bending down, I picked up my stolen gauntlet from the loose grip of the dead blood mage and examined it with a grimace on my face. Damn, this one was ruined as well, I swore mentally at the scratches on the inside that ran across the glyphs. It was a small tear, but it was enough to neutralize all three glyphs. I tossed it to the side and weathered through another miniature seizure before standing up.

With my magic this out of control I couldn’t risk going back to Kirkwall until I fixed the broken runes on my palm. I really wasn’t looking forward to that herculean task. It was both painful and time consuming. I pinched my brows together with my left hand and sighed loudly.

A low whistle made my eyes snap up. Varric steadily walked along the empty coastline towards me with Bianca strapped to his back and his hands shoved into his coat to ward off the chilly sea breeze.

Well…f*ck. “Any chance of you not seeing anything?” I asked despairingly.

He shook his head with a smile and pointed in the direction towards town. “You know, this outdoors thing is kinda growing on me. Like a tumor. C’mon, Hawke let’s get back to Kirkwall.”

“Varric, you just found out I’m a mage and you’ve got nothing to say about that?”

“Templars, mages, it’s a lot of humans in skirts. I get them mixed up sometimes.”

“No opinion at all?”

“Opinions are like testicl*s. You kick them hard enough, doesn’t matter how many you got.”

I chuckled dryly until a strong tremor shook me enough for me to grab my arm and hold on for dear life. “I’m alright,” I said in response to Varric’s concerned look. “It’s just an aftereffect of that spell.”

He nodded in understanding that I was sure was faked. “Don’t you guys usually twirl a staff about? I know Blondie does, nearly took my head off one time. Where’s yours?”

I sighed in relief when my arm finally went numb and I slowly released my arm. I held up my left palm for Varric’s scrutiny while my right arm hung uselessly at my side. “A staff is merely used for a focus. I just skipped a step and engraved spells into my hand.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Blood magic?” He asked cautiously.

“No,” I shook my head negatively. “I don’t make deals with demons. It’s more like…soul magic I guess is the best way to explain it.” My thumb tapped my pinky emblazoned with a telekinesis rune. “I tie these markings to my spirit where mana gathers in a human body.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Practically suicidal,” I agreed humorously.

Varric stayed silent for a moment. He reached up to my hand and took it fearlessly into his grasp. We shook firmly. I was shocked. Wasn’t he scared of what he just saw? Didn’t he know I could effortlessly kill him with –literally- a snap of my fingers?

“You may have killed those guys, Hawke, but you also saved mine with your magic. I won’t abandon you even if you decide to start wearin’ skirts or dance naked in the moonlight,” the crossbowman assured me as if he read the worries coating my mind. “Just warn me when you do, so I can sell tickets.”

I could feel tears gather in my eyes and I hurriedly tried to blink them away before the dwarf made a smart-ass comment. I squeezed Varric’s hand in thanks. I then gripped it a little harder and drew him closer.

“This better not end up in any of your stories, Varric,” I warned.

“Why not,” he whined. “The dashing hero, an expert swordsman turned mage, fights off an army of angry demonic pirates with nothing but his two bare hands, saves the captured princess, and rides off into the sunset on his trusty mabari war hound.”

“Demonic pirates?”

“Hawke, whenever you go somewhere danger follows. Since we’re on a beach, demonic pirates fit.”

“Varric,” I growled warningly.

“Alright, alright. No demonic pirates.”

“And no magic.”

“No magic,” he agreed. “I’m still keeping the part about the princess. What’s a good tale without a bit of romance?”

“A true one.”

“How boring. Now c’mon, Hawke, let’s see what’s in that chest.”

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

“So how long have you been able to…you know?”

Varric made an offhand gesture in my general direction. I glanced up with a raised eyebrow from the smoldering fire where a dented pan was precariously balanced on top. It held a long, metal needle that Varric brought back from town at my request. Sitting next to my crossed legs was a vial of dark ink that would serve as the visual anchor for the runes I was about to permanently etch into my palm.

“Do a backflip? Walk on my hands? Curl my tongue? Whistle? Or light people on fire with a snap of my fingers? 'Cause I can do all of those.”

“I’m interested in seeing you doing the second one, but let’s elaborate on that last bit.”

I turned over the needle with a scrap of cloth to make sure every inch of it was sterilized; I took a deep breath before I began my story.

“Since I was five,” I answered his question. “I sneezed one day and the couch caught on fire.”

Varric chuckled a bit disbelievingly. “Are you serious?”

“You can’t make this sh*t up,” I said dryly and recalled that interesting day all those years ago. “Anyway, it got worse. I panicked. I ran and got a bucket of water to put out the now sizable fire hazard the room had become, but I sneezed again. This time the water in the bucket turned to ice so when I went to throw it, it rebounded and hit me in the eye. By this time I was beginning to hate magic,” I drawled over the dwarf’s guffaws at my pathetic attempts.

“This story really doesn’t need any of my…embellishments.”

I shook my head. “It more than meets your standards.” The thin needle radiated red at its edges. It was ready. There were four runes I had to fix and I would be too exhausted to fend off any threats. Gingerly, I picked up the needle and dipped it into the open bottle of ink with my left hand. “Are you sure you want to stay for this? It’s not going to be pretty.”

Varric settled himself more comfortably against the cave wall with his hands behind his head, Bianca cradled in his lap. “I’ve got nowhere to be at the moment.”

It was three days before I was healthy enough to return to Kirkwall, shiny new runes hidden beneath gloves that Varric bought for me when he made his daily visits to check up on me. Worse than a mother hen he was, but I appreciated it. The first time he came back to the cave on the Wounded Coast he stashed me in, Varric was complaining bitterly about the log books we managed to recover from the hands of the Evet’s Marauders. Apparently their bookkeeper was Orlesian and wrote everything in their native language which Varric couldn’t understand a damn bit of.

I decided to take a crack at it armed with my paltry years of French my mother and father shoved down my throat when I was younger. Of course, I hadn’t spoken a lick of it in about fifteen years, but it was just like riding a bike, right? Between bouts of consciousness while magical runes were carved around my scarred palm, healed courtesy from one of Anders’s elfroot potions Varric managed to nick from his clinic, I studied the foreign tome. Apart from a few phrases I recognized I came to the conclusion that French was a stupid language and I cursed in frustration at their apparent need to have five hundred vowels in each word.

With the un-deciphered book underneath my arm, I pushed open the door to the Hanged Man and already felt my mouth water for anticipation of a stiff drink or it could have been the rotting rat smell. I hadn’t bathed in three days, my arm still shook once in a while, and I had bags the size of nugs underneath my eyes from lack of restful sleep, but I would be damned if I didn’t get a small buzz before heading back to Hawke Manor. Mother was going to give me an earful for not coming home and I would rather be a little tipsy for that lecture.

“Hawke, there you are! Come on over here and join us!” Varric called over from his usual table near the back of the tavern.

I heaved a tired sigh but shouldered my way past the drunkards who must have had an early start to be that far gone at seven in the evening. When I finally cleared through the crowd I noticed that when Varric meant ‘us’, he actually meant nearly everyone I knew. Anders raised his cup, most likely filled with water due to Justice’s growing influence, towards me and smiled. Isabela did the same but winked provocatively at me. Aveline was most likely doing her rounds as guard-captain and Merrill sat innocently in a chair while puzzling over the card game her and Isabela were attempting to play. I would have to warn the younger girl about the pirate queen’s tendency to stow away cards in her cleavage to be used later for a winning hand. Taking up the last seat was Fenris who made to stand up and leave the Hanged Man mid-conversation with Varric.

I was not ready to deal with this kind of bullsh*t after three days spent in a haze of pain. Before the swordsman could completely get out of his seat, I walked up behind him and shoved him back in it without a word and sat down next to Fenris. He stared at me with those kicked puppy eyes the elf swore he didn’t have, but relented to my need to play nice and stayed seated. I nodded to him in greeting and dropped the log book I studied for the past few days on a rare clean spot on the table.

I turned to Varric. “Order me a tankard of whatever you’re having and put it on your tab. You owe me for this headache you’ve dumped in my lap.”

The dwarf chuckled. “Sure thing, Hawke. Corff! A drink for my friend over here!” He yelled across the room while holding up his cup.

Anders raised an eyebrow at the thick, yellowing pages of the tome. “A little light reading?”

I groaned while opening up the book to where I left off before I made the long trek back to Kirkwall. “Surprised that I can read, Anders?”

“I’m completely dumbfoun- is that in Orlesian? You can understand that jumble of letters?” He began sarcastically but tapered off into surprise once he realized what language the writing was in.

“Not very well,” I admitted. “I haven’t studied it in a while, so it’s slow work. It also doesn’t help that this idiot wrote in code and doesn’t mention anyone by name. I mean ‘deux chevras et une pomme,’ two goats and an apple? What does that mean?” I whined childishly and propped my cheek on my hand and took a drink from the swill that Corff dropped off at my elbow. The stuff made my eyes water.

“You find something about Bartrand?”

“When I come across anything about a lyrium humping bilge rat I’ll let you know, Varric,” I mumbled offhandedly into my tankard.

“He might be listed under motherless nug-licker,” Varric chimed in helpfully.

“Ah. I’ll be sure to double-check that.”

“You know multiple languages?” Anders asked as I set down my mug. I looked up to nod affirmatively.

“Eh, I can read and write bits and pieces of about five different languages.”

I was met with stunned silence. Curiously, I looked around the table to see all my companions staring at me. “What?” I asked. “If my father knew I was reading then I would be too busy to cause trouble outside.”

“So you weren’t exaggerating when you said you were a troublemaking child.”

“Not even a little bit of embellishment,” I confirmed Anders’ comment.

“I find intelligent men incredibly sexy.”

“You think men with two arms to be sexy, Rivaini.”

Isabela shrugged at Varric’s comment. “True,” she quipped and turned her attention back to me. “So where’ve you been, stranger? I haven’t seen you around for a few days.”

Varric took a large gulp of his drink and set it down after a loud belch. “I told you, Rivaini, rescuing damsels in distress. Isn’t that what all heroes do in their spare time?”

“Is this before or after he arm wrestled demonic pirates?”

“Obviously after. He had to beat them at their own game before he could claim his prize.”

Isabela and Varric continued to embellish their ridiculous story and I ignored them in favor of trudging through a few more sentences of obnoxious code words before I headed home. My right arm decided to shake a bit as it had the habit to do after my adventure on the Wounded Coast. As subtly as I could I rode out the waves of spasms by holding onto my tankard tightly and I quietly wiped away the spots of ale that spilled from my drink after it calmed down. I looked up from the table to see Anders narrowing his eyes at me in deep thought. Damn, he probably saw that and would ask questions about it.

Quickly, I stood up from the table and waved off the round of protests that came at my obvious intent to leave.

“But you just got here, Hawke,” Merrill said with a handful of cards that were half exposed to Isabela who sat across from her.

“I’ve been too busy playing hero the past few days to get some proper rest. I’ll meet up with you all later to play Diamondback. We still on for that, Varric?”

“Every Thursday,” he answered.

“Right. I’ll see you all then.”

Scooping up the log book, I danced around the crowd until I breathed the fresher air of Lowtown. I took a deep lungful of air that smelled less of piss and vomit and took a moment to lean against the wall of the Hanged Man. I rolled my shoulder to rid it of the tension that built up. For all my attempts at avoiding Anders asking questions about my injury I would most likely have to go visit the Healer. My sizzling light show a few days ago probably caused deep tissue damage if elfroot potions weren’t potent enough to heal my arm, but I couldn’t skulk through Darktown to see Anders without a good excuse since I couldn’t obviously say I stuck my finger in an electrical socket. Although I had done that before. I was a curious kid.

I opened the unlocked door of Hawke Manor and was thankful to not see Bodahn milling about or any other members of the household this late at night. Quietly, I closed the door and turned around with a yawn which turned into an unmanly squeak when I saw Fenris step out of the shadows of the entryway.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said before I could get a word out. I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart.

“For what? Giving me a heart-attack? Damn it, Fenris. What are you doing here?” I harshly scolded underneath my breath.

Uncharacteristically of the fearless swordsman, he tilted his head to stare at the floor. “I wanted to apologize,” he repeated. “Your mother was kind enough to let me wait inside for you.”

My hand dropped from my chest where I had gripped it in an automatic reaction and stepped over Varric’s log book I dropped when Fenris scared the ever-living sh*t out of me.

“Couldn’t this have waited until morning?”

Fenris didn’t look up from the fascinating tile floors that must have been cold on his bare feet. “I…I have been thinking of what happened with Hadriana. You did not deserve my anger and I owe you an apology.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Nearly a month later?”

Fenris sighed and finally looked up. “I did not think you wanted to see me. Varric suggested to me to let you cool off for a bit and I was admittedly not…eager for this conversation.”

I had a feeling this was going to last a while longer and I didn’t want to have this standing up after the long day I had. I motioned Fenris inside the foyer with a careless sweep of my hand and coaxed the smoldering fire back to life with the poker. The warmth of the flames felt good on my face. Fenris still stood awkwardly when I turned around again and politely refused my invitation to sit. Shrugging my shoulders, I took the chair from the desk still piled high with unopened letters and turned it around to prop my arms up on its back.

“Apologies are never easy otherwise how would the tragic love stories Varric likes so much happen?”

Fenris chuckled softly. “They are unreasonably difficult.”

“So what happened that day?” I asked although I already knew his suffering under Hadriana through Garrett Hawke’s memories, but Fenris needed to get out this confession. It would help him heal. “You nearly took my head off.”

The swordsman winced and scratched absently at his chin with the claws of his gauntlet. I felt my own hand twinge at the sight of those talons. It took a moment, but Fenris finally let out a deep breath and began to pace.

“When I was still a slave, Hadriana was a torment. She would ridicule me, deny my meals, and hound my sleep. Because of her status, I was powerless to respond.” He stopped his hectic pacing and turned back to me with a sneer. “And she knew it. She knew that I could not raise a hand against her. When I saw her for the first time in three years I could not bear the thought of her slipping out of my grasp. I wanted to let her go, wanted her to know the feeling of being hunted as I did, but I couldn’t.” He breathed deeply. “I couldn’t.”

The only sound in the room for a moment was the crackling of the fire and if an elf’s ears were as good as they said I bet he could hear my teeth grinding in frustration.

“There is a difference in couldn’t and wouldn’t, Fenris. You decided the moment you heard about Hadriana that you were going to kill her. Don’t try to dress up murder.”

Fenris snarled and stomped over to the chair I was gripping tightly. He bent down until his head was level with mine and he growled hoarsely. “And what would you have me do, Hawke? Hadriana came after me! I have never had the option to simply walk away!”

I pushed myself off of the chair and winced as it crashed to the floor. I hoped it didn’t wake anyone up. “There’s always an option,” I said while jabbing my finger into Fenris’s chest. His growling grew like a rabid dog’s. His lyrium markings glowed angrily. “I’ve killed many men in my life, but I’ve never lied to myself about it. You killed her because you wanted to, Fenris.”

He smacked my fingers away. “Yes, fine! The thought of letting her go never crossed my mind, but what was I supposed to do? Am I supposed to forgive, no matter how many times they hunt me down? Am I supposed to forget all the things they’ve done to me?”

“You gave your word, Fenris. You promised her that you would let her go.”

“Then you tell me what I was to do. She would have gone on to torturing more slaves, killing innocent people, and you question my decision to remove filth like that from this earth?”

“You gave your word!”

“I gave her nothing!” He roared and I didn’t care anymore if the whole manor woke up. Fenris had managed again to lite my fuse. It seemed he was the only one that could.

I yelled back. “You gave her everything! I don’t give a damn if you killed her or not! Hell, I would’ve killed the bitch myself! But you gave your word!”

“Why are you so obsessed?! Why do you care whether or not I lied to extract information from her harpy like lips!”

“I care because it’s sometimes all you have left!” The truth exploded from me in one last breathless yell and my chest heaved from our heated argument. But I wasn’t done. “You might notwear chains anymore, but you’re still a slave!”

Wrath came at me hotter than a dragon’s breath and I felt the punch to my face before I saw it. It glanced off my cheek, but it was a powerful blow that knocked me back a few steps with my hand cradling my scratched cheek from his sharp gauntlet. Fenris stood with his arm still extended. His breath came in short pants as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Green eyes blazed. Silver hair stuck to a slick brow.

“You know nothing of being a slave,” Fenris snarled.

My hand dropped from my face where it clenched at my side. My voice was quieter now, my anger spent. I felt the past few days crash on top of me and the wave of tiredness almost dragged me under its dark surface.

“I know the feeling of being powerless,” I began slowly, quietly. “I know the fear of not being able to see tomorrow’s sunrise. I know what it feels like to be thrown away, forgotten like garbage. Don’t tell me I know nothing, Fenris because I know more than you think.”

He blinked a few times in confusion until the red haze of rage dissolved from his eyes. I could see when he came back to reason for he looked at his fist with my blood spattered on the very tips of his gauntlet and cringed. He looked at me with desperate eyes.

“Hawke, I-I…” he trailed off not knowing what to say.

I held up a hand.

“No apologies. Just hold still for a second.”

I evened the score by giving Fenris a matching shiner on his left cheek. It wasn’t a strong knock to the elf’s face, but enough for me to feel like I leveled the playing field between us.

“There,” I said satisfactorily as I pulled my fist back. “Now we’re even.”

He gaped at me in shock until he saw my smile and open hand meant for him to shake. Fenris hesitated for a moment before grasping it tightly in his own.

I held onto the swordsman’s hand as I spoke. “We may not agree on everything, Fenris, but that doesn’t mean I don’t count you as a friend and as such I will look out for you. I want to see you free, Fenris, from your master and your hatred.”

He unclasped my hand to stare at it as if it held all the secrets to the universe. “This hate,” he uttered, “I thought I’d gotten away from it, but it festers inside of me like a dark growth that I can’t ever get rid of.”

“Let me help you,” I told him sincerely.

Fenris turned away. “I don’t know if you can,” he said as he walked out the door and into the brisk chill of the early morning.

I woke to the sound of banging that I wasn’t sure emitted from my head or somewhere from within the mansion. Varric’s log book slipped from my chest to the floor that only added to the forsaken pounding. After Fenris left in a hurry last night, or I should say early in the morning, I hadn’t the strength to make it up the stairs to my room and instead collapsed on the bench located in the entryway of the manor while trying to read the Orlesian code by the light of the dying fire. Now I deeply regretted my bout of laziness as my back popped obscenely as I stood up to stretch. My neck sounded even worse. Whoever was pounding on my door this early was really going to regret that poor decision. I ran a hand absentmindedly through my tangled excuse of hair and wrenched open the front door with a scowl on my face.

“What?” I snarled.

“Hawke, are you just now getting up? It’s the middle of the afternoon for the Maker’s sake,” I was chided by blonde hair and a bleary vision of feathers.

Really, it was that late? And nobody woke me up? Huh. Where were Bodahn and Sandal? What day was it? Wednesday? Must be shopping day then. Or I fell asleep in someone else’s mansion. Wouldn’t be too surprised at the last one.

I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand and blinked a few times before a scolding Anders appeared clearly before me. I almost closed the door in his face, but my mother instilled some kind of manners into me so I left the door open and walked back into the mansion with my arms stretched high above me in order to pop them. My tunic rode up my stomach enough for me to feel the breeze of the shutting door. I felt my shoulders give a satisfying crack; I sighed in relief.

Anders cleared his throat behind me. “Rough night?” He asked.

I turned around after I felt limber enough to greet the new –mid- day. “You could say that,” I quipped.

“Andraste’s sword what happened to your face, Hawke?”

I was confused at first until Anders gently prodded my swollen cheek that made me hiss in displeasure. Oh, right. Fenris and I had gotten into a little pissing match that ended with souvenirs.

“Ow, ow, ow,” I whined as the Healer continued to examine my injury.

“Nothing broken,” Anders muttered. “Someone just knocked you pretty good. I can heal that real quick.”

Childishly, I batted the man’s hand away. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. ‘m fine,” I barely managed to say through a strong yawn. I winced as it pulled my cheek.

Anders glared. “Don’t be such an infant, Hawke. It’s nothing,” he asserted and reached for my face again.

I took a step back with my arms raised to ward him off.

"If it’s nothing, then you don’t need to heal it. Really, forget about it and save your energy for people who, I don’t know, are missing a leg or something. I’ll live.”

For a second, it looked like Anders was willing to tackle me to the ground and forcefully take care of my bruised cheek, but relented.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

Anders looked around the manor for a moment while absentmindedly tapping the end of his staff on the floor. Warily, I lowered my arms. It looked like he would let this thing go.

“So, how did you manage to injure yourself not hours after I saw you last night?”

Or not.

I scoffed in annoyance while rolling my eyes. “It’s a talent of mine. You hungry?” I asked in a rapid change of subject, hoping the Healer would drop it.

It worked when his interrogating look turned to one of surprise. “I-I had lunch not too long ago,” he managed to get out.

I ignored his assertion that he already ate and headed into the kitchen to see if Orana stored away any leftovers as she liked to do once she discovered that I couldn’t stop myself from snacking during the day. On the counter was a loaf of bread with only a slice missing as well as a hunk of freshly made cheese. Greedily, I scooped up my find into the crook of my arm along with a knife. There were also a few yellow apples, barely wrinkled, so I added those to my pile before I entered the foyer again where Anders still stood awkwardly. I tossed him the piece of fruit and Anders barely managed to catch it before it bounced off the floor. He turned it over in his hands then looked up at me in confusion.

I took a nice chunk out of the sweet apple before answering and pointed at him. “I doubt you’ve even eaten breakfast. You’ve lost weight, Anders,” I took a page from his mother-hen routine and chided him. “Orana forbids me from using the stove but I managed to find some bread and cheese so today we shall feast like kings,” I said while holding up my prize.

He didn’t smile at my teasing like I expected him to and instead worried at a knot in his staff. “You noticed?”

Rolling my eyes, I took another gaping bite from my rapidly disappearing breakfast/lunch. “I do have eyes, you know. I’ve also noticed Seneschal Bran pay visits to the Blooming Rose, Corff sometimes skims off the tops of ales before he brings them out, there’s a special on adequacy boosters at that questionable stall in Lowtown that I can never quite make myself stop at because of the owner with the lazy eye, and if you squint and turn your head a bit while covering up the lower part of the Hawke coat-of-arms it kinda looks like-.”

“Alright, alright, Hawke. You notice more than your stomach, I get it,” Anders admitted with a sigh of mock-exasperation, but that smile on his face made one appear on mine in reaction. He looked years younger when he smiled, I also noticed.

I claimed victory when the ex-Grey Warden took a small bite of the apple that quickly became a bigger one when he tasted its sweetness. I tossed the nibbled down core into the bin Orana put next to my desk and started on my juggling act of slicing cheese and bread at the same time without dropping either. This would probably be easier if I sat on the floor. Somehow I succeeded on not dropping everything, so I offered Anders the first slice and shoved the next one into my mouth.

“So why’d you come here?” I asked around my mouthful as I settled down as comfortably as I could on the chilly floor. Anders followed me.

“Hawke, that’s disgusting. Chew first,” he told me with a grimace.

I swear I did more eye-rolling than a teenager when Anders was around, but I agreed to chew then swallow my food before repeating my question.

“I was taking a walk and I was in the neighborhood so I dropped by,” he offered as an explanation.

I didn’t buy that for a second. Anders took the second slice of bread with cheese when I offered and I took a half-slice for myself.

“All the way from Darktown to Hightown?” I asked disbelievingly. “That’s quite a stroll. Wanna try for a more believable excuse?”

His cheeks flushed at being caught in his obvious lie, but quickly covered it up with a leering smirk that had me raising an eyebrow in caution. “Maybe I just wanted to see you,” he purred.

It took a lot of effort to not stutter in my drawled response. “Not buyin’ that either. Hawke: two, Anders: zero.” The hell kind of personality turn-around was that?

“Fine,” he admitted with a dramatized pout. “I came to ask a favor.”

I nodded. “Now the world makes sense again.” I cut up another piece to give to Anders. He snatched it up. I knew I was right. The man most likely had skipped more than two meals and healing took a lot out of a person so I didn’t understand how Anders was still able to walk around without collapsing. Cutting up the rest of the bread and cheese and balancing them on my upturned thigh, I thought of places Orana would squirrel away food that I could wrap up and give to Anders. “How can I help?”

Polishing off his latest slice, Anders patted his robes a few times before digging into a pocket of his tattered beige robe. He pulled out a folded piece of parchment – the same color as the dreaded letters piled on my desk – and handed it to me.

Before taking it, I warned him. “If this is an invitation to another stupid ball, I’m going to make you eat that piece of paper.”

His lips quirked and he shook his head. “I’m sure I would make quite an impression if I showed up to one of those noble’s parties smelling like the sewers.”

I shrugged as I traded the letter for a piece of bread. “If you brushed your hair, I’m sure you’d fit right in. They all make my nose cringe with all those perfumes, scented soaps, and they wear enough flowers to make me sneeze.”

“Not one for parties I take it?”

“If mother makes me go to another one, I’ll set their house on fire,” I deadpanned.

“They can’t be that bad,” he said humorously, clearly not knowing the horror it truly was.

Straightening my back, I pitched my voice a few octaves higher. “Oh, Serah Hawke it’s so lovely to see you again. You make my heart flutter quicker than a bumblebee’s wings with those manly muscles and eyes bluer than my daddy’s sapphire ring. Come let us dance until we’re nauseous from all the needless spins and twirls while I make inappropriate advances on your person.” I pouted as Anders exploded into laughter. “It’s not funny! I am a person, not an object!” This only served to make him laugh louder. I pretended to be offended a little while longer if only to hear the usual serious man have fun every now and then.

Anders wiped tears from crinkled eyes and I unfolded the parchment.

Greetings,

I hope this letter finds you well. I've often thought of you in these past three years. Without your kindness, my Feynriel would have been long since sold to slavers. Instead, he has thrived and begun to master his magic. But now his nightmares have caught up with him, and neither the Keeper nor the first enchanter know how to help. I don't know where else to turn. I have heard of your kind words you’ve written my son through Feynriel’s letters and desperately ask for your help.

Please, come to my home in the alienage. I will be waiting to speak with you. Thank you again for the compassion you have shown Feynriel in the past.

Sincerely yours,
Arianni

I reread it silently a couple more times before I looked up at Anders.

“You’ve kept up with the boy since he’s been in the Circle?”

Anders nodded. “I wanted to make sure he would settle in all right. The Circle can be a very lonely place despite all the people in it. Feynriel’s written that the Templars continuously threaten to destroy his mind in fear of his growing powers. I know what it’s like,” he said quietly, “and I thought it would help if he had a sympathetic ear.”

“Ah,” was all I said while I tried to recall why this letter jumped out at me so vividly in my mind. Why was this picking at me so…oh…oh sh*t that’s right.

I groaned in protest while rocking on my heels. This was when Garrett and his party dipped into the Fade to try and pull Feynriel out of his dreams. Garrett hadn’t succeeded and was forced to kill the boy in his dreamscape which made him Tranquil outside the Fade. I was dreading this for two reasons: one, I wasn’t sure it was a brilliant idea to take my fresh new runes out for a test drive in the highly unstable world of the Fade where demons and spirits roamed, and two, saving Feynriel might not be a possibility.

“So, will you come with me to meet his mother? See if we can try and help the boy?”

Sighing, I stood up and brushed off crumbs that collected on my trousers which was a lost endeavor due to them being buried in four days’ worth of grime. I crinkled my nose in disgust once I realized that stale smell hanging in the air was actually me.

“Mind if I change first?” I asked while picking curiously at my tunic that seemed to almost stick to my dirt smudged skin.

“I was beginning to wonder when you’d notice you smell like eau of cheese.” Anders said cheekily. I rolled my eyes at him and started up the stairs to my room. “Take your time, Hawke,” he called up after me as he stood up as well. “The Keeper hasn’t arrived yet.”

That made me pause mid-step and turn around. “The Keeper? You called the Keeper?”

At lease Anders had the sensibility to nervously tap the end of his staff on the floor. Its metal cap struck the stone tonelessly.

“Well, Arianni did after I told her that I would gladly help earlier this morning,” he cautiously admitted to me.

“You knew that I would help?”

Twirling his staff which I recognized as his nervous habit, Anders shrugged. “No, not really. I hoped that you would, but I was prepared to go alone if you didn’t.”

This was like pulling teeth. “Anders, I’m going to go upstairs and pick out clothes that don’t smell like garbage and then you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on with Feynriel,” I explained slowly as if speaking to a child.

“You’re not going to like it,” the mage muttered underneath his breath.

I was pretty damn sure that I wasn’t.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

“You make me feel like I’m livin’ a teenage dream, the way you turn me on. I can’t…something, something don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back. My heart stops when you…la la la something or other teenage dream tonight.”

It was music that I missed the most from back home. Not Hawke/Amell Manor which I’d gotten into the habit of calling home, but the 21^st freaking century where we had cars to ferry us across the city and plumbing.Damn, I missed taking hot showers. And toilets. You really don’t understand the sheer majesty of pipes and flushing and sewage treatment plants until you have to take a sh*t where thirty other people have already.

But what I really missed was music.

I quietly sang the chorus, the only part I sorta remembered from when it was repetitively played on the radio, under my breath as I took in Feynriel’s dreamscape. Now that I think about it, the song seemed oddly appropriate for the setting. Huh, no wonder Katy Perry jumped into my head.

“My heart stops when you look at me, just…just damn. What came after that?” I muttered to myself.

I looked around the illusion that was Feynriel’s mind while trying to find a word that rhymed with ‘me’ that would eliminate the mental block in my mind. See? Bee? Goatee? Guarantee? Cucumber tree? Cucumbers didn’t grow on trees, so that wouldn’t make sense. Wait, what did cucumbers grow on? Bushes?

I shook my head to get rid of that distracting train of thought before I walked into a pillar or a floating box that littered this section of the Fade. It must've been moving day in the spirit world, I mused with a raised eyebrow as I carefully stepped around the wooden concussion waiting to happen to some poor, unsuspecting bystander. Damn, the Fade made just as much sense as a cucumber tree. I could never find my way around this place.

The Fade and I never got along. It was comparable to my relationship with computers: everythingwas all fine and dandy until it got sassy and made my life a living hell just because I wasn’t patient enough or I did something incorrectly and it would tell me my problem in the most frustrating way. Error 451. Please address our website for solutions. But the problem is with the internet, I can’t access the website if I have no internet. Well, you’re f*cked now, huh bitch? Goddamn you technology! And then I buy a new computer.

The Fade worked in a similar way. As only computer whisperers could make the touchy piece of technology work, only spirits and demons knew how to control the Fade. Mortals, visitors in the obscurest mall of America, could only walk on the path presented to them and if it led into a trap, well then your error message was your head being bitten off. Mages were just a tad bit better off because demons liked mages. What they liked better than mages were young mages. And what they liked best were young mages who had enough angst swimming around them to float a boat. A boat full of demons.

My metaphor was quickly derailing so I went back to my previous train of thought on what rhymed with ‘me’.

“Cease that infernal humming, mortal. It is becoming quite annoying.”

Huh, and I thought I almost managed to ignore Anders’ less tolerable half who had done nothing but glare at me as soon as the Keeper completed the ritual. Justice even found fault in my breathing too loudly. Technically, one didn’t have to breathe in the Fade since it was our spirits that were transported and not our bodies, but habits, especially vital habits, were hard to break. Justice just glared more at my flippant explanation and channeled Fenris’s grumpy disposition. That’s probably when I began singing.

“Not a fan, Justice?” I asked.

“Of your inability to stay silent? No.”

“Touchy,” I muttered while rolling my eyes. “Can you bring Anders back out? He appreciates my sense of humor.”

“No.”

I finally turned around and resisted the urge to put my hands on my hips and instead pointed an accusing finger at Justice who wasn’t amused by my gesturing, or amused by anything really. The spirit was really quite boring. I ignored my gut’s reaction to the blue veins that littered Anders’s body and the glowing terminator-like eyes that narrowed in annoyance.

“No? No to what? Letting Anders come out and play or him liking my sense of humor?”

“Must we dawdle? I can feel Feynriel’s mind straining. We have to move quickly.”

I didn’t move. It was more out of wanting to piss the spirit off rather than me not caring about the teenager’s fate. He would be fine for another minute or two.

“Changing the subject, Justice? I thought it was demons who liked to dodge questions, not noble spirits,” I drawled sarcastically.

“I do not like you,” Justice answered.

“Well, at least you’re honest about that.”

“You are very annoying.”

“True,” I quipped.

Justice had a constipated look on his face. “I do not understand Anders’ obsession. It is dangerous and unwise. He should focus more of his attention on the plight of the mages and not on mortal…pleasures.”

The hell did that mean?

I could feel my eyebrows recede into my hairline. “Mortal pleasures? Is Anders’s Mage Underground actually a secret brothel? You know, that would kinda make sense. He disappears at odd hours of the night and comes back exhausted with his clothes dirty and rumpled. It’s hard to come up with a slogan though with that name. I’m thinking a play on words with ‘under’ and ‘underwear’. Any thoughts, Justice?”

Justice glared at my flippant question.

“How do you know about that?”

I shrugged off my mistake. Right, Anders hadn’t told anyone about that in case it accidentally leaked to the wrong people. And by people I meant Templars.

“I’m a genius.”

I swore that Justice snorted. It was a disdainful snort, but it was just so human of a gesture that I couldn’t help but smirk.

The staff in Justice’s hand twirled lazily about. I stared at the motion automatically recognizing it as a habit of Anders when his mind was elsewhere. It worried me. The two were more symbiotic than I thought.

“I am beginning to understand,” Justice uttered cryptically and tapped the end of the staff against the illusion of the Gallow’s floor. “Come, we have idled enough. The boy is in danger.”

I nodded in agreement instead of making a smart-ass remark.

Then I realized that the spirit never answered my question.

I know that I mentioned it before, but I really hated the Fade. My disdain was doubled when my back collided with the extremely solid, dream wall and I groaned in pain as I slid slowly down. Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

“Get up! I cannot banish the fiend on my own!”

Oh, don’t worry about me, Justice. My back isn’t broken or anything. I wasn’t just hurled clear across the room by a ten foot tall Pride demon who was pissed off because we sent his prey running into another corner of the Fade. Now I was going to have spirit bruises.

My mental bitching was cut off when Justice suffered the same fate as me and landed two feet away. Justice’s glare in my direction quieted my sarcastic quip before I could say it. I leaned my head against the wall and smirked tiredly in rebellion.

“This is not working. I foolishly did not think the stronger demons would find the boy’s mind so quickly.”

“Can’t you just,” I waggled my fingers in the imitation of magic at the steadily approaching demon who chuckled at our defeated positions.

Amazingly, Justice seemed to have understood my reference. My mannerisms must be growing on him. It. Whatever.

Justice nodded. “I could.” Huh, I wasn’t expecting that. “It is a spell of great magnitude, however, and would require much of my energy. If it does not work I will be helpless to defend you.” And there’s the catch.

I co*cked my head to the side and gave Justice a sh*t-eating grin that hid my nervousness. “The princess is in another castle. I can take care of myself.”

Justice stared at me silently with those glowing blue eyes. Slowly, he nodded even though I knew he didn’t understand my abstract reference.

“All right. Stand back.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I scurried to the side as the spirit of Justice stood with all the grace of an ancient soul. The blue veins that cracked Anders’ skin opened wider until his entire body glowed the brilliant blue of lyrium and chills pricked my skin as I felt a tremendous amount of magic channel through a single focus, namely the arm that Justice held before him. His fingers were clenched and something began to form in his hand but it was vastly becoming too bright to see. I threw an arm over my eyes to block the blinding magic, but still miniature suns burst beneath my eyelids even as I buried my head into the crook of my arm.

A wave of mana poured seductively over my skin and I carefully lowered my arm when the brightness faded.

“What? What are you doing?” The Pride demon rumbled in fear.

It took a moment for the dots in my eyes to fade, but I soon saw what had the demon cautiously backing up. The blue mana that soaked into Anders’s skin was steadily leeching into his hand in a clear outline of a fearsome sword. Soon all the mana transferred into the sword that looked more solid by the second.

Justice’s voice boomed in the Fade and I resisted the urge to cover my ears. “You are a spirit of injustice. Your sins have been weighed, demon, and my blade shall render your sentence. Prepare yourself!”

Pride didn’t manage two steps before Justice raced forward with his radiating sword raised high. With a mighty slash, Justice tore the demon in two. Holy sh*t! When did Justice subscribe to Badass Monthly? As soon as the parts of the demon hit the ground, the Fade began to eat away at the body until nothing was left except for the panting possessed mage who still gripped the sword with both of his hands as if afraid he’d topple over if he loosened his hold on it.

Carefully, I stood up and walked over to Justice who didn’t notice my presence until I put my hand on his shoulder in comfort.

“Are you alright?” I concernedly asked.

It took a moment for Justice to speak around his panting. Sweat dripped from his brow onto the floor. Damn, when he said it would take a lot out of him, I didn’t think he meant it would almost kill him.

“Belegthôlion is a dear friend of mine, but I mistook the energy needed to summon her from a body not my own.”

“That was awesome, but I think you need a break, man.”

Justice tiredly agreed. “I think you are correct, mortal. I shall retreat for now. Tell Anders I apologize for not being able to keep my word.”

“What?”

Suddenly, the sword disappeared and I reached out to catch Anders’s body before he could topple over and brain himself on the floor. Anders was by no means heavy, but he was all deadweight at the moment and we both fell to the floor with his head thumping me soundly on my chest.

Groaning, I sat up and maneuvered Anders until his head sat comfortably in my lap. I peered at him curiously, noting that there weren’t any blue cracks in his skin that usually gave away Justice being in charge. Just to be sure, I thumbed open an eyelid and saw only amber; no trace of lyrium blue. Gently, I closed his eye and leaned back on my hands as I glanced around the room.

“Well, aren’t we a sad, rescue party?” I mused to myself. “Hawke could do a hell of a better job.”

“Referring to yourself in the third person is the first sign of craziness.”

I jumped as the voice emitted from my lap…which didn’t sound creepy at all and I glanced down at Anders who tiredly smirked up at me.

I smiled like a fool. “That ship has already sailed. Glad your back, Anders. I can’t play hero by myself.”

His friendly smirk faded a bit into thoughtfulness. “We’re still in the Fade?”

“Did the floating bookshelves give it away?”

This time his face melded into a frown. “Justice was supposed to stay until we left the Fade, and I can barely feel him.”

I shrugged. “He said he needed a nap, so now you’re stuck with me.”

He co*cked an eyebrow. “May the Maker preserve me,” he drawled.

I jostled him with my thigh in retaliation and it was then that Anders must have realized he was sprawled across my lap as a giant blush crept across his face.

“Help me up, Hawke,” he said in an embarrassed rush.

Shaking my head, I leered playfully down at the mage. “I’m quite comfortable here, Anders. In fact, think we can rescue Feynriel just by sitting?”

“Hawke.”

“Oh, fine.”

I sat back up and braced my hands beneath Anders’s shoulder blades, idly feeling the smoothness of his honey colored hair that drifted across my fingertips, and gently pushed the ex-Grey Warden up until he could sit by himself. My arms stretched toward the sky to pop my aching back before I jumped to my feet with a surge of energy I didn’t know was in me. Idly, I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders.

I reached a hand down to Anders who clasped it warmly in his own and stood up without much difficulty. Good, it looked like some color was coming back into his skin. He really was too pale, I noticed, getting him out from underneath Kirkwall was fast becoming a main concern on my list right underneath ‘Save the f*cking World’ because having tanned mages obviously deserved second place.

“So what happened?”

Anders’ question drew back my focus from my skewed list of priorities I was mentally rearranging. I co*cked my head in question.

“You don’t remember the light show? I’ve still got damn spots in my eyes.”

Immediately Anders put on his ‘concerned healer’ expression and took a step towards me. “Are you all right? Do you need-?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I’m fine. Just complaining because I can. Hey, some women find that adorable,” I defended myself when Anders shot me an amused/exasperated look.

He hummed underneath his breath in agreement or him just humoring me so that I’d shut up…I didn’t know which so I just crossed my arms over my chest and walked to the open door out of this section of Feynriel’s mind. I heard Anders jog up behind me to keep pace.

“So tell me what happened.”

“Hmm?” I questioned as I contemplated which door led to the other demon that would try and coerce the vulnerable teenage boy into allowing a possession of his body and therefore access to a very dangerous skill set the boy owned: mind control. “Oh, right,” I muttered to myself as I chose the door on the other side of the room. If I remembered correctly, there was a desire demon behind those doors and that kind of demon favored persuasion over pummeling which was vastly preferable right at this moment.

“I mean, what happened with Justice disappearing? He shouldn’t have done that. It’s very odd.”

“You know what else is odd?” I chimed in after finally tuning back in to what the Healer was saying. “It’s odd that Justice doesn’t like my singing; called it ‘annoying’. He just doesn’t have an ear for music.”

“Hawke.”

I peeked over at Anders who finally tired of my dodging of his question and outright glared at me.

“Fine,” I sighed. “We were fighting the Pride demon and we weren’t doing so hot so before we got flattened into pancakes…hot, manly pancakes,” I added in case there was any confusion to my masculinity, “Justice did this weird mumbo-jumbo stuff that summoned this badass sword and he chopped the demon in half. Literally. It was pretty freaking sweet.”

I could tell that I was grinning stupidly throughout my entire explanation because I was gesturing with my hands which I only did when I was particularly excited about something. Anders did not look as impressed with my story as I was. In fact, he looked quite confused.

“What?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “I did not understand a word that came out of your mouth. Repeat what you said but this time in words that actually make sense. Sweet? Hot? Are we talking about the previous event or biscuits?”

Damn it, now I wanted biscuits. Since we were in the Fade, could I imagine myself up some sandwiches? It probably didn’t work that way. Did I mention that I hated the Fade?

I was going to have to teach him American slang because Anders cut out half of my word bank with his ‘forbiddance’ of what I thought to be common idioms. I thought a bit about what I would say and retold Anders what happened. He nodded his head in deep thought.

After a minute or two of silence, he spoke. “I suppose Justice used up too much energy to stay manifested in the Fade and is merely resting. I’m relieved it wasn’t something more serious.”

“Oh, and he’s sorry for not keeping his promise or something,” I remembered and commented idly.

Anders quickly looked up from his pondering state. “What did he say? Did he tell you? Did he say anything about the promise?”

I held up my hands in surrender to his rapid-fire questions. “Whoa, whoa. He didn’t say anything except to tell you he’s sorry. Geeze, Anders, take a breath.”

The mage did as I suggested and I absently followed the movement of his chest as he took in a deep breath of air and slowly released it.

“You’re right, I apologize.”

My eyes flicked up to his face from his oddly distracting chest and smirked a bit. “Is it some sort of secret? Something that you don’t want me to know?”

“It’s nothing, Hawke.”

“A dirty secret? It’s a dirty secret isn’t it? Has to be or you’d tell me. You’d tell me, right? Anders, it’s not nice to keep secrets from your best friend. I’m hurt that you don’t tell me everything.”

The annoyed mage narrowed his eyes at me. “You really want to know what I had for breakfast this morning?”

“Pssht, that’s no secret. I already know that since you ate it at my house. I need something juicier.”

“For the love of the Maker, Hawke, do shut up.”

“…It’s a dirty secret, I know it is!”

“Shut up, Anders,” I grumbled as I stalked down the side corridor towards the demon that awaited us in the next room.

“How did you manage to do that?”

“I don’t know, alright! It just happened. People do that sort of thing all the time so stop looking at me like I’m a moron or something.”

“But I can’t see how! You have it with you all the time!”

“It’s not like it’s attached or anything, okay? I made a mistake. It happens. Rarely, but I do make mistakes sometimes.”

“Hawke, it’s not like forgetting to put on a hat. I cannot believe you did this.”

“I lost my sword, alright! There, I admit it, you happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he deadpanned.

Petulantly, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the stone of the hallway to pout. Just because I made a little mistake didn’t make me incompetent. Forgetful? Yes. Putting us into a dangerous situation with me unarmed? Also yes. Stupid? Okay…maybe a little bit, but I honestly forgot to pick up my blade after the Pride demon knocked it loose from my hands from the battle beforehand. I wasn’t a natural born swordsman and I wasn’t used to carrying anything on my person at all times besides my wallet which I didn’t even need for this timeline.

Anders rubbed his forehead and sighed as if my forgetfulness pained him physically. “Fine. It’s alright. We’ll just go back and get it and when we do please try to remember that swords belong in sheaths and not on the floor.”

I grunted in rebuttal and made to turn around, but as soon as I did the door, which led to the chamber Feynriel and the demon were supposed to be in, burst outwards in a fiery explosion. Quickly, I plastered my front to the wall with my arms covering my head to prevent any pieces from skewering us. I hoped Anders had the same idea as me.

Small pieces of wood pattered harmlessly at my side and I looked up from the safety of my forearms when wood stopped clattering against stone. Carefully, I shook myself and brushed stray shards from my clothes and armor. I whistled lowly in appreciation at the effective battering ram a large fireball could cause and admired the half melted debris that littered the hallway. Impressive amount of force. It was difficult to adjust energy, mass, and acceleration simultaneously so although I was nearly turned into a pin-cushion I admired the neat bit of magic.

“Hey, Anders. There’s motivation to learn some fire spells. If you could do that then we wouldn’t need Varric to pick locks to get into places. Fireballs are less subtle, I admit, but look like a hell of a lot more fun.” I turned my grinning head towards the mage. “What do you thi-? Anders!”

My playful bout instantly transformed into shock. Slumped against the wall with sweat branding his brow, Anders clutched his side that bore a proudly standing piece of wooden shrapnel buried in his abdomen. Red stained my hands as I furiously tried to staunch the bleeding before my movement to the mage’s side even registered in my brain.

“sh*t. sh*t, sh*t, Anders c’mon. Where’s that fancy healing magic of yours? Let’s save the dramatics for another time, huh? Oh, wait where’s your staff? Where…oh there it is! Here you hold that tighter there and I’ll just reach over…”

“Hawke.”

I was beginning to notice a pattern with my babbling and its increase with Anders’ proximity. As usual, I audibly clicked my teeth shut and worriedly looked over the ashen Healer. Alright, maybe tanning mages would really have to move up the list, they really didn’t look good that pale. Kirkwall would have the damn-most tanned mages anyone had ever seen if I had anything to do with it. sh*t, now my own damn thoughts were beginning to babble incoherently. I couldn’t help it though, I tended to ramble when I was nervous or worried and I was both in this situation. Why wasn’t Anders healing himself?

“Hawke,” Anders wheezed. “My…magic it-.” Anders coughed as his breathing stuttered. A thin line of blood dribbled from his lips. Internal bleeding wasn’t a great sign.

“Anders, shut up. Less talking more magic healing stuff,” I ordered as I circled the protruding piece of wood with my gauntlet covered hands. Anders hissed in pain as I put more pressure onto his wound. “It’s alright, everything’s fine. Barely even a scratch,” I whispered with hollow hope. I would have to pull the thing out before Anders worked his magic, but the mage had to work fast or he risked major blood loss. From what I knew of healing magic, which was very little and should never be seriously taken into consideration, it could speed up the reproduction of blood cells but couldn’t actually create new ones.

“I have a…piece of wood sticking into…me and not the good kind; I can tell…it’s more than a…scratch.”

My eyebrow rose skeptically and I was forced to repeat his halting sentence in my head a few times just to make sure that I heard correctly. “Sexual jokes, seriously? Now?”

His chuckle was pathetic as he wheezed for air. “It seemed to work…for you.”

I thought back to when we were traipsing through the old slave tunnels and my attempt to diffuse a tense situation. “I was dangling over a very long drop. Completely different set of circ*mstances.”

“My…apologies. I’ll stick to dirty limericks.”

The gentle rumbling of my chest from laughter seemed to calm the mage down. Around his light brown eyes, those laugh lines crinkled as he smiled and the furrowed brow seemed to lighten.

“Besides, you’re being a big baby,” I continued without turning on my brain filter. “This little thing is barely six inches long; you can complain when it’s bordering on ten and you didn’t even get a drink first.”

It was silent for a minute while the both of us processed that statement. I felt a flush creep onto my cheeks as Anders just stared at me with his mouth open slightly in response.

“…Are we still talking abo-?”

“Shut up, Anders,” I hurriedly rushed. “Can we fix this thing or not?”

The Healer looked quite amused by my hasty –poor- change of subject but thankfully let our deviated conversation slip off the deep end into the category of ‘never bring up again’. Or at least I hope so because that’s where I buried it.

Anders headed back into safer waters although I was sure that if we were in a less dangerous situation he would continue making me suffer for my stupid comment. “As I was trying…to say.” He stopped to cough for a second and more blood flecked his chin. “Something’s wrong with my magic,” he said once Anders got his breath back.

Wrong? The hell does that mean?

“I may have something to do with that.”

My head whipped around fast enough to cause whiplash when I heard the sultry voice come from behind me. Desire demon. Not as powerful as a Pride demon, but a whole lot more clever and quick. Definitely quick. Before I could blink, the mauve temptress glided before me and knelt gracefully down to my level, her horns and eyes aflame with dark, powerful magic. All demons essentially looked similar due to embodying the same sins, but this one looked…familiar. Recognition lit up my eyes.

“You,” I rushed out in a wary breath and took one hand from Anders’s wound to grab at empty air where a sword hilt should have been.

Her chuckle sent shivers up my spine as she realized my predicament. “Oh, yes, my pet. I’m so glad you remember me because I have such delicious plans for you that were unfortunately interrupted the last time we met. But now,” she laughed shrilly, “now you’re trapped in my domain.”

Two clawed fingers came up between my eyes and lightly tapped. My eyes felt incredibly heavy and I wanted nothing more than to sleep. I was…so…tired. Just wanted to rest. Sleep.

“Hawke! No!”

The yell followed me into oblivion.

The purpose of an alarm clock was to drag you kicking and screaming from dreams with the most annoying sound producible by man, so if that was the case then my alarm clock must have been made by the Devil himself. I groaned heavily as I reluctantly came back into consciousness. I refused to open my eyes even though the alarm repeatedly attempted to rouse me I instead stretched lazily on my back underneath the sheets. My hand escaped the warmth of blankets and rubbed the sleep from my eyes that were grittier than usual. I must have been sleeping really hard. Funny that I don’t remember what I was dreaming about, I usually did.

My alarm continued to blare comparable to a high-pitched fog horn, but I would move from my comfortable cocoon when I was damn well ready to. I hadn’t felt this well rested in ages it seemed and no alarm clock was going to rush me. Slowly, my eyes finally opened to greet the white plaster ceiling idly tracing coincidental patterns as I scratched my bare stomach with my fingertips over the blue and white striped sheets. Pale sunlight drifted through half-closed blinds from the window and warmed my legs nicely and created interesting slats on the large king-sized bed. It was going to be a nice day outside.

Wait. Hold on. Something was off. I crinkled my nose in thought as I tried to figure out what had my instincts firing in alarm while my brain struggled to catch up. I groaned. It was too early for this sort of thinking.

Suddenly an arm, male by the sleek muscle and coarse hair on it, glided across my field of vision and slapped across the wooden nightstand to my left until it hit the intended target and turned off the offending source of the noise. It rested there for a moment before it retreated back to somewhere on my right, but not before long, thin fingers stroked my chest.

A hum of appreciation followed the movement and I heard the bed creak and moan as I assumed the owner of the arm shuffled around. I couldn’t move. I was frozen in complete bafflement even as the arm returned and grabbed me by my left hip to drag me closer to the radiating wall of heat to my right. It took me a second to realize that I was naked. It took even longer to register that the man who snuggled his face into my shoulder was just as bare but was more…enthusiastic about that fact if the poking into my thigh told me anything.

Wait, wait, wait.

There was more shuffling around and a blurry face appeared above me. I blinked a few times to try and bring the man into focus, but it was useless as he moved in closer. His lips were a little dry and chapped and settled over mine in a chaste close-mouthed kiss that seemed to be more intimate than I cared to analyze at the moment.

Stunned and hopelessly confused, I didn’t kiss back and instead stared wide-eyed trying as hard as hell to understand how I got into this situation. The mystery man didn’t seem to mind my lack of participation and pulled back gently with my lips clinging to his for a second as if they didn’t want him to leave. My breath came in light pants as if I just climbed a flight of stairs. Finally, we disconnected and he leaned back enough for me to get a clear look at his face.

It was his smile, his gentle half-smile that made me realize who he was before anything else.

“Good morning, love,” Anders greeted in a sleep-heavy voice.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Hiding in the bathroom wasn’t a particular brave or manly thing to do, but I thought it would be less traumatizing to completely flip a sh*t behind a locked door and not…and not wrapped in Anders’ arms cuddling together like it was a rainy, Sunday morning. I braced my back against the wood of the door and noticed that my mad dash to safety was done in the nude. I smothered a pained groan with my hand that I slapped to my face as my mind desperately tried to come up with a reason for Anders being in my bed. So far I was coming up empty. Damn it, why was my mind so hazy? It shouldn’t be so hard to remember. Why? Why was I f*cking naked?!

I went to the sink and turned the faucet on to splash water on my face. Nothing. Aggravated, I twisted the handle a few times but still no water. Really? This was going to happen to me today?

“Love, are you all right?” Anders called from the other side of the bathroom door. He jiggled the handle a bit, noticing it was locked. “Are you okay? Why’s the door locked?”

“Uh,” I uttered while I quickly flittered about looking for an excuse. My eyes landed on the shower. “I’m gonna take a shower. Yeah, so you’ve got to wait your turn,” I explained as I nearly threw myself into the glass shower door. I fumbled with the door and twisted the glass knob until it was directly over scalding hot.

“Sharing’s never been a problem for you before,” came the low, seductive answer but his footsteps retreated from the door all the same.

It took a minute to remember how to breathe and how it was important if I wanted to continue on living. I also noticed that again there was no water. Did I forget to pay the water bill? Fruitlessly I kept turning the handle with more force than necessary but still no water. Well, now I didn’t have an excuse to hide away in the bathroom. With a petulant scowl, I closed the shower door and took in a couple of deep breaths before flicking the lock on the bathroom door. Cracking it open, I stuck my head out and peered around the room. I even checked behind the door to make sure that the man wasn’t playing a sick game of hide and seek. I was naked and I wasn’t comfortable about that.

My room was laid out simply. A dresser, a bed, and a nightstand filled the room but all I cared about right now was the dresser which held the promise of clothes. The drawer was torn open nearly off its track with my excitement at the prospect of underwear. I crowed triumphantly as I unrolled a pair of simple dark blue boxers and happily slipped them on. After that I dug up an old t-shirt and my favorite pair of threadbare sweatpants. Now I was ready to confront anything, starting with the man whistling from my kitchen.

Anders. Anders was whistling his tone deaf self through an unrecognizable ditty in my apartment’s kitchen. He better not burn anything down in there. The super was already upset with previous incidents. I took in a deep breath to steady myself and marched right out of the open door to the small kitchen. Immediately that breath was knocked completely out of me.

“Anders! Put on some damn clothes, man!” I yelled while throwing my arm across my eyes to hide the portrait of flawless, smooth flesh and intriguing patterns of freckles that I was curious to follow with my ton-. Whoa. Whoa there. Back up a bit. “Anders! Pants! Now!” I ordered.

I heard footsteps and chuckling but I didn’t move my arm. A soft touch to my shoulder made me jump back a bit in surprise and my back collided with the wall.

“Ow,” I muttered. Slightly calloused fingers drew idle shapes along my upper arm all the way down to my wrist where it was lightly gripped. Slowly, my arm was drawn away from my face, but I stubbornly kept my eyes closed.

Goosebumps formed on my skin and my mouth fell open slightly as heat drew closer to me, engulfing my body, as Anders leaned in towards my face. I expected a kiss to my lips, but instead soft pecks were placed on my closed eyelids. His gentle gesture made shivers crawl down my spine. Lips followed the arch of my nose then trailed across my cheekbone to perch for a moment at my ear. A kiss was dropped there before blazing the same path on the other side.

“Anders,” I gasped.

Continuing, his lips captured mine and moved softly across them. It was slow, almost worshipful and I felt myself push back against him, my eyes still closed. The hand that loosely held my wrist to my side was released in favor of cupping the side of my face. The coarse hair of my stubble rasped lightly against his palm and I had the same urge to stroke the seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow on the mage’s face. So I did.

My fingertips were light on his face, barely there at all, but it seemed to ignite something in Anders and he pushed harder against my lips and stroked along the outer edge of my mouth with his tongue. I opened my mouth and gripped the back of his neck to steady his head as I drew his tongue in with my own, fighting him for control. One of us moaned, I didn’t know which, but I did know that Anders’s other hand was creeping underneath my shirt to splay across my lower back. I arched against him from the touch on my sensitive skin, fingers tangled in the strands of his dark blonde hair that for once wasn’t pulled back. Anders hissed against my lips as our bodies came together for that small instant and I suddenly realized that Anders was still very naked and very…interested in what we were doing.

I pulled back fast enough to knock my head against the wall. I managed to wiggle myself out of Anders’s grasp and slide quickly away into the safety of the kitchen. Anders panted harshly and I managed to stare at the back of his head rather than roaming down to his other assets. Great, assets had the word ‘ass’ in it so now I had no choice but to look at his.

“I made breakfast.”

…What? Why did that matter?

“It’s on the counter. Go ahead and eat and I’ll put on pants since it’s so important to you.”

Well, now I didn’t care as much. My eyes followed the mage as he padded out of the room and my stomach grumbled its disagreement to my previous statement of not caring. Now I cared very much about breakfast, so I gave up trying to pick up my melted brain from the floor after…after that just happened and walked to where I smelled toast and eggs. My favorite. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, as they say, but for different reasons. It wasn’t the nutritional value, it was the coffee. I really, really loved coffee.

I made a detour from the plate of fried eggs to the coffee machine. Empty, I noticed and I pouted a bit. I must have forgotten to set the automatic timer so I would have a fresh pot brewed in the morning. Sometimes, the smell of it was the only thing that got me up in the morning. Well, no worries, I could make one right now. The motions were automatic for me: open cupboard, pull out coffee filter, scoop grounds into filter, pour water into the specified slot, and turn on the machine. Turn on the machine. Turn. On. The. Machine.

“Why aren’t you working?! Why isn’t anything working?! Work, damn you!”

My finger jammed the poor power switch at least fifty times during my fit in a vain hope that it would magically start working. No such luck. This was f*cking ridiculous. I hadn’t had a crap cup of black coffee in ages and I wanted–needed--one now. No, wait. That wasn’t right. It was my routine to have at least one cup every morning. I had one yesterday. I must have. I couldn’t function otherwise. Right? I couldn’t…quite remember.

“Fine,” I muttered hatefully at the stupid, non-working machine. “Have it your way. I’ll just have eggs instead.”

Defeat shrouded me as I slumped to the plate of freshly fried eggs, over easy just the way I liked them, placed next to the stove. By habit, I flicked the knobs that controlled the gas stove to make sure that the burners were turned off. They weren’t. Now that was just an accident waiting to happen.

My thoughts were finally being put back in order after being jumbled around earlierand a niggling question bit at the back of my mind. If the stove was on, why wasn’t there a flame? My fingers, still on the knob, turned it slightly to hear the clicking noise of the lighter that was supposed to light the gas. Nothing. No flame. Don’t do this at home kids, but I leaned down with my ear close to the burner to try and hear the soft whine of gas that should be coming up through the stove. Nothing.

I snarled. “No f*cking water, no f*cking electricity, and now no f*cking gas. Did I just completely miss all the bills this month? This is ridiculous.”

Well, at least I had eggs. I opened the drawer below the counter and picked up a fork, ready to dig in, and then I stopped. How did Anders cook when there was no gas?

And then a hundred questions at once hit me in a single rush that nearly sent me toppling. Why was Anders at my place? I never invited anyone back to where I slept, call it a paranoid thing, so why Anders? And when did I find the man attractive? Granted, he was a very fine-looking man: strong, passionate, kind, and a love for small creatures – not Fenris-, but when did I start looking at him in that way? Good God, I had a list?! When did I have a list of his qualities? I was focused on saving Kirkwall, saving him, trying to put Thedas together with mage and Templar shaped pieces, so why-?

Kirkwall. I was in Kirkwall, not my downtown apartment with the crazy Czech lady next door with a kinky fondness for vanilla-scented candles and the superintendent with my picture on his dartboard along with the other pain-in-the-ass tenants. I’d never met Anders before. He didn’t belong in the 21^st century no matter how easily he fit in my bed with his hair gently stirred by the motions of the overhanging fan. He didn’t fit in with the chrome appliances in the kitchen even when he swayed back and forth on the linoleum floors to a toneless tune.

I heard footsteps behind me and I turned with my fork still stuck in midair. Anders may not have fit in my time, but those denim jeans sure fit him enough to where it would practically be a crime if he removed them. He was also wearing a faded, over-washed AC/DC t-shirt of mine that was tight over his broader frame.

He co*cked an eyebrow at my obvious look of longing with my mouth open and everything. “Did you really make me put on clothes just so you could take them off again?”

My mouth snapped shut then opened again with nervous babbling. “What? No. There are no plans involving removing clothes. You keep your clothes on and I’ll keep mine on and we’ll all be happy, you know, clothed.”

Anders seemed to have other plans. He stalked forward with an intense gleam in his brown eyes that had me worried, but yet definitely intrigued.

“Are you sure?” He purred his question.

I dropped the fork on the counter when I put up my hands in a stay motion.

“Whoa, yes. Very sure, so you can back right on up. No, not keep on walking towards me. Hey!”

Anders backed me up, ignoring my hands on his chest that did nothing to deter him from trapping me with his arms on either side of me, against the countertop with the cold granite touching my lower back. His jean clad leg slipped in-between my legs, his thigh dangerously brushing my own. Anders was a tad bit taller than I was, broader than my own lean body, with muscles I didn’t think one could form by being in the healing profession. They were tight, I could personally attest to that.

His head lowered towards my ear and whispered, “You don’t actually want me to walk away. This is what you desire.” Warm air dampened my skin and traveled to my neck that arched to the side on its own to bare more skin to the soft-talking mage. He chuckled. “See? Your body wants me and I can make it crave all sorts of delicious things. Love, I can do anything you want; you just have to tell me what that is. Let me into your body, your mind, your soul and I will be everything you could ever desire.”

“Anything?”

“Oh yes, love,” Anders purred.

I leaned in close enough to share breath and whispered exactly what I wanted him to be. “How about charred corpse?”

Anders sucked in a surprised breath. My hand that was placed directly over his heart suddenly sparked.

“Don’t move,” I ordered. “You may be a demon, but I’m still pretty sure your kind has a heart and I can make it stop with just a twitch of my finger so don’t move.”

“I don’t understand, love. Why are you doing-?”

“Shut up. I’ve seen this trick before: different player, but same rules. Besides, I can see you.” The mage-sight rune, hidden by the shirt on Anders’s chest, was alight along with my lightning spell that I was more than ready to use on this demon I was tired of dealing with.

Instead of panicking, the demon, still disguised as Anders although I knew its true form, laughed.

“Oh well done, pet, well done indeed. Tell me, when did you figure out my little game, hmm? It’s rare that my…playmates see past my illusions.”

The demon twisted its disguised face into a patronizing sneer as if a bug managed to do a surprising trick but was still going to be squashed.

I co*cked an eyebrow. “Really? This illusion is flimsy at best. I am very disappointed,” I mocked.

It frowned at my mock displeasure at its attempts to fool me. I wasn’t going to admit that it had me completely fooled for most of the morning, but I was…distracted. Reasonably so.

Anders shrugged. “This place is very strange to me. I have never seen trinkets such as these,” he motioned idly at the microwave and sink. “But I can learn how this place works. I’ll do it for you; keep you happy.

“And what makes you think I would help you?”

The demon hiding under Anders’s skin chuckled. “Why, darling, I know your secret. I know you’re not who your friends think you are: a mage and a man that doesn’t even belong in this time. I can’t imagine what they think will be worse. They’ve fought beside Garrett Hawke for years, think of him as a true friend, and what are you? I’ll tell you, you’re their friend’s murderer.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I protested angrily.

“Now, you and I both know that isn’t quite true. You may wear his face, but you are not the same man. Oh, darling,” the demon cooed and lifted Anders’s hand to cup my cheek. “Anders would never forgive you if he knew that you stole his love away.”

“Love? He doesn’t love me. I don’t even know why you used him to tempt me when-!”

Calloused fingers pressed against my lips to silence me. “Hush, dear. You forget that I can see into your mind, his too. Mortals hide such juicy secrets; it only makes temptation so much easier, especially if by just one look fantasies spring into his mind, fantasies I would gladly show you. Such lovely, delicious things I could show you, do to you. Give me a chance to please you.”

I shook my head to rid of the demon’s fingers and snapped. “And what? You’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart? Please, there’s no such thing as a free lunch and you’re offering me an endless dinner buffet plus dessert. You want something.”

Fingertips trailed along my cheek, gentle, but I wasn’t fooled and kept my hands pressed tightly over the imposter’s heart.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a deal if you didn’t give me something in return, but it is such a small thing, what I want.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure.”

“If you must know, all that I want is knowledge. I know you’re from the future, hundreds of years out of time, and all I want is just a tiny bit.”

“Here’s my counteroffer: I kill you and we both just get on with our day. Well, just me; you’ll be dead.”

I forced my palm tighter over Anders’s chest and pushed lightning into him. The illusion shattered as the demon, now in her true form as a lavender seductress, staggered back until her back hit the fridge (most likely not working if following the theme of the day). Around her bare chest was a ring of charred skin, but there was no obvious mark on her from a lightning bolt to the heart. Damn it, I hated the Fade. I was on her turf now. She snarled at her marred chest and hatefully snapped her fangs at me.

“What? I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. You should know that. Oh, surprised?” I asked as her dark eyes widened a bit. “Yeah, I remember you, bitch. We’ve got a score to settle for you ruining my hand,” I promised with a forming fireball.

“Fine. If I can’t convince you in a dream, I’ll destroy you in your nightmares!”

A waterfall of her mana washed over me and the floor disappeared from underneath my feet.

I fell.

A slap to my face awoke me instantly. I placed a hand over the sting on my cheek and I could feel tears gather in my eyes, but I held them back. I wouldn’t cry. Not in front of him.

“You’re a disgrace to this family’s name. Everything we’ve given you, taught you, everything that your magic has blessed you with you’d throw away? I didn’t raise my son to be an idiot.”

“Go to hell, old man. You didn’t raise me at all! You sent me to the Circle the second I showed signs of magic!”

Anthony Amell glared at his disobedient son and I glared right on back with blue eyes that was always passed down to the sons of the Amell line. I wasn’t at all intimidated by unexpectedly being called away from my evening lessons into his study. He drew in a deep breath to beg for patience and rubbed at his greying temples to ward off a headache.

“I did it to protect you, son. My position as First Enchanter allowed me to watch over you, give you the protection that I cannot give you here at the manor.”

“Bullsh*t! The only time we talked was the day you kicked me out of the Tower five years ago!”

I was so angry, so angry at the bastard who called himself my father.

The Amell patriarch snapped back. “You were practicing blood magic! Blood magic, Isaac! You know that it’s forbidden. Too many mages have been led down that path and I refuse to have any sort of that taint at my school!”

“It’s not blood magic!” I screamed, trying to get him to understand. “I’ve never even met a demon!”

He sighed and seemed to wave off his anger with a tired hand. “You will. You’re fifteen, Isaac, and strong enough to go through your Harrowing; one of the youngest to ever do so. Demons are attracted to wild magic,” he explained. “I can sense you from across the room and without a staff to harness that chaotic energy they’d find and kill you in an instant.” Anthony turned away to gaze into the burning fireplace that warded off the chill of the coming winter. “And the Templars, Isaac, they can sense you just as well as I can. If they catch you, death is what’ll happen if you’re lucky. Most likely you’ll be turned Tranquil.”

“So I’ll work a government job the rest of my life, then?” I asked co*ckily with my arms crossed over my chest.

“No, Isaac no,” my father snapped impatiently and jabbed a finger in the air between us. “You can’t turn everything into a joke when you’re scared. A man faces his problems not push them aside with clever repartee.”

My hands clenched my forearms to prevent me from doing something incredibly stupid, like hit him. If my father taught me one thing it was not to be stupid. I knew I would lose if we exploded into a magic fight. He had more experience, stamina, and more tricks up his sleeve than I did.

“I’m not scared,” I hissed between gritted teeth.

Anthony Amell narrowed his eyes. “You should be. This is your final warning, Isaac. If you do not desist in this foolish pursuit of knowledge-,” he began but I cut in angrily.

“You’ll what? Send me to my room with no supper? Have me watched at all hours of the day to make sure I’m not slitting my wrists to dance naked under the moonlight? Ram books and lessons down my throat until I’m too tired to do anything but breathe? Sorry, Dad, all those punishments have been used up already. You’ll have to find a new one.”

I could feel my magic react strongly to my build-up of emotions and I tried to bite it back as the air in front of us crackled with the snap of electricity I was sure was leaking from the new rune I finished the day before. It needed to be tweaked a little to account for atmospheric pressures though in order for it to work. I also hadn’t been able to create a bolt directly from my hand and right now only managed to establish a magnetic field with small discharges randomly within that field. Although, electrical fields enhanced around water so maybe if I connected part of my lightning rune with an ice rune I could control the direction. New ideas buzzed rapidly through my head and I desperately wished to get away to write them all down. I may have hated all the advanced tutoring, but it sure came in handy when I felt like misbehaving.

“You’ll be disowned.”

What? I blinked rapidly as I tried to comprehend what he just said. Disowned? Like, cut off from the family money?

“Disowned, Isaac,” Anthony repeated to my dumbfounded expression. “You will be erased from the Amell line. You will have no inheritance, no resources, no connections, and no name. You will be as if you never existed to this family.”

I couldn’t quite catch my breath and I almost choked when I tried to protest.

“But I’m your only child! Your heir!”

He couldn’t do that! I was the firstborn and an only child! If he cut me completely off from the family the Amell line, which extended for well over a thousand years, would end! It would be my fault our magically steeped knowledge would disappear with me! I couldn’t-! He wouldn’t-!

Anthony nodded stiffly as if the motion pained him. “Your mother had…complications during your birth but it only lowered her chance of having another child, not prevent it completely. You hold great value to this family, but not enough to allow you to consort with demons. So choose, Isaac. Make a choice between family and power and know that I can’t help you if you choose the latter.”

My vision was blacking out around the edges and I stopped my rapid-fire thinking for a moment to stop hyperventilating. I just couldn’t quite catch my breath. Was the air thin in here or something? Wait, could I make it thinner? If I crafted a wind rune I could probably create some sort of vacuum or if I combined it with part of the fire rune I sketched between pages of my textbooks I could…

And I knew my answer. Even now, my mind couldn’t stop crafting new ideas for this brand of magic I dove headfirst into. I would rather drown than be tethered to the shore. So I took a deep breath and stared my father right in the eyes with my own, I’m sure, showing the stubbornness I was certain ran deep within the Amell bloodline. I nodded to my father...no,Lord Amell to cement my decision.

“You’re leaving,” Anthony realized, not at all surprised.

“Yeah, so don’t expect any Christmas cards.”

I turned around, my knees quaking but my back straight as I walked out of the room.

Anthony called out. “You won’t last a week on your own. The Templars don’t have mercy for our kind, even if they are children.”

“I don’t plan on getting caught,” I muttered as my fingers touched the ancient, golden door handles.

The doors burst open and I had to quickly jump back to avoid getting hit by the flurry of skirts that ran into the room. Her features were pale, the preferred color of aristocracy, with long dark hair and green eyes which were wide open in panic. She was a beautiful woman, still in her prime. I hated her.

“Serah Hawke! Serah Hawke where are you?”

Why was my mother yelling for a strange man? Coraline Amell searched frantically for something, or someone, and tilted her head down at me. She was a tall woman and I had yet to hit my growth spurt, but that condescending scowl I had come to always expect when she spoke to me was absent and replaced with confusion.

“Hawke? Hawke, is that you?”

“What?” I blurted out. Was she sleepwalking? Too many prescription pills for pretend disorders A through Z finally took their toll?

My mother smiled, an expression I rarely saw on her face, and her eyes brightened. “Wow, you look so small. I never imagined you would look this way. Iimagined you an ogre-slayer even when you were crawling around on the floor,” she quipped and peered around the study as if she’d never seen it before.

Again, what?

“You? What are you doing here? I thought I sent you away!” Anthony growled.

That was what surprised me the most. I may have hated my parents, but I could never hate the love that they held for one another. It was sickeningly the stuff of fairy tales and my father would never yell at his wife or even raise his voice towards the only woman, he claimed, he ever loved. I…I…something was wrong. I groaned as my head began to throb.

Coraline Amell awkwardly crossed her arms over her chest as if she wasn’t used to it and looked down at her body.

“W-what? What’s this?” She gasped and awkwardly plucked at the expensive Armani dress that formed light blue petals around her knees. “I’m a woman?”

Seriously, either she overdosed on her meds or something was very wrong here. You just don’t forget your gender. Or at least I hoped not.

From against the bookshelves, my father picked up his ornate staff carved to look like three dragon heads springing from one branch and pointed it at his wife. “You’re interfering,” he said. “I don’t need you anymore now that I have him.” He jerked his head towards my frozen form.

My mother stamped her foot in irritation and almost fell when her ankle twisted from the high heels she was wearing. She quickly recovered and pointed at my father with her palm outstretched.

“No, I think it’s you, demon, who has to leave. I can see the Fade now; see the stitches and seams that hold it together.”

The Fade? We were in the Fade. Wait, I think I remember.

Anthony cackled and a wide smile deformed his face. “You think you have the power to banish me, boy?”

Coraline -no, that wasn’t who she was- nodded.

“Yes.”

A surge of mana permeated the air as my father’s study seemed to cave in on itself. The Amell patriarch scowled furiously but was pulled into the rapidly disappearing scenery that vanished with a pop. Now this looked like the Fade I wandered into when I dreamt at night. I looked down at my hands as they glowed brightly and I was forced to close my eyes as that glow engulfed my entire body. Carefully, after the stars stopped twinkling in front of me, I looked back down at my hands to see that they were covered artistically with numerous runes instead of the three that were there when I was fifteen.

Quickly, I glanced at my mother who was swallowed by streams of light until they reformed a grinning, blonde half-elf who was more awkward teenager than holder of one of the most powerful magics in the world.

“I’ve never been a woman before,” he cheekily said and I couldn’t help but let a bark of laughter escape.It was just so f*cking ridiculous.

I walked over to him and ruffled his hair affectionately that I hoped portrayed my thanks for getting me out of that demon’s trap. A dream within a dream within a dream? Inception already had that madness cornered. I smirked at his annoyed expression as his hair escaped from that ridiculous braid of his. I stepped back, making sure to clench my hands behind me so that Feynriel wouldn’t see the markings on them, and asked an important question.

“How’d you find me, kid?”

The teenager scoffed at the ‘kid’ comment and shrugged. “I don’t know how I did it, I just did. I wanted to find you and the Fade just…led me here, I guess.”

“You make it sound so easy,” I said in amusem*nt.

Again, Feynriel shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t hard.”

And that was what would lead Feynriel down a path I didn’t think he was ready for. He tried so hard to control his power, but slipping into dreams, pretending to play super hero, would hurt him. Damn, he was so young, so…still a teenager who thought they knew everything. I knew all about that. I was a co*cky asshole in my teens, probably still am according to some people, but age gave me the wisdom to look back and say ‘yup, I was a dick’. Age doesn’t actually give you wisdom, it just makes you see all the mistakes you made and gives you a chance to change them. Or something like that.

Feynriel, lucky bastard that he was, had grown tall very quickly for his age so I didn’t need to kneel down to get his attention but it was awkward trying to be dramatic with me just standing there with my hands behind my back. I tried, though.

“Kid,” I began and the mini-mage scoffed. “Kid,” I repeated, “I’m gonna tell you something that I really want you to listen to and not just throw away later. It’s important.” Feynriel nodded, his attention solely focused on me. I coughed nervously at the obvious adoration. “Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility.”

The kid looked confused. “What? Who told you that? What’s that mean?”

“One of the wisest guys I know, Stan Lee, but what’s important to understand is that even if you can do something it doesn’t mean you have the right to do it. You need to master these powers of yours, Feynriel, they’re too dangerous to leave you a neophyte. So be careful, young padawan.”

“What?”

I sighed. Would anyone ever get my jokes? I’d never fit into this century.

I waved off my previous comment. “Never mind, just watch yourself out there, kid.”

Feynriel nodded and smiled goofily. “I will, serah Hawke. Can…no, never mind.”

“Whatcha need, kid?” I encouraged him to ask his question.

He looked a little nervous at first, switching from foot to foot, but he took a deep breath and asked his favor all at once.

“…What? You’re gonna have to repeat that. Slower this time.”

His fingers twisted together in nervousness. Finally, he spoke up.

“Well, can you tell my mother that I’m not coming back? That I’m leaving and I’ll probably never see her again?”

I chuckled. “Scared to tell your mom?”

“Terrified.”

“Sure, kid. If she kills me though I’ll find you in the Fade and haunt your ass.”

“Can people actually do that?”

“I’m sure gonna try.”

This won a smile out of him. He nodded. “Thanks.” Feynriel turned to the shifting, iridescent landscape to leave the Fade but stopped.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’ve always been scared of my powers,” he confessed. “But Anders, the Healer from the Undercity, told me that they were a gift I should be both proud of and humbled by.”

I co*cked my head in thought. “Do you think he was right?”

Mini-mage replied after a moment of thought. “Yes. He was right about everything else, so I think I should believe him.”

“Everything?”

“Anders said you were an honorable man: proud, stubborn, but honorable. He said you would help me. He wasn’t wrong.”

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that I completely ignored Anders after the Keeper woke us up from the magical trance she put us in order to enter the Fade to save Feynriel. Anders had exactly zero ideas as to why I shot out of the cot in a cold sweat with a raging blush on my face that I conveniently blamed on a fever. Of course, I had forgotten that the man was a Healer and so that excuse was invalid. My sudden bout of shyness, which came upon me every time I looked at Anders’s face and remembered our…steamy session, completely confused the ex-Grey Warden but I wasn’t about to enlighten him.

So it was safe to say the only way to forget the most awkward conversation of my life was to go to a bar. And where was the best place for alcoholic beverages? Well, I was biased to the Brass Monkey on 12^th street in New York, but since that wasn’t convenient for me I settled for the Hanged Man. I didn’t know how I managed to convey my need for beer at eleven in the morning to Anders with my tongue in knots, but I must have gotten it across when he nodded –albeit he was most likely indulging my crazy behavior- and said he had to get back to his clinic. Anders thanked me for helping, I might have said something coherent back, and we went our separate ways.

And it was definitely safe to say that is was necessary for my subconscious and I to have a long talk. It really needed to tell me if it was thinking about something that would turn my world upside-down, preferably before a demon found out and used it as a more than effective distraction. Anders? Really? Anders, subconscious? Fenris apparently wasn’t a stupid enough choice to fall in lo-like with and Isabela or Merrill? Nope, not crazy enough for me. I had to go and pull the pigtails of the man who was possessed by a spirit and wanted to start a civil war between mages and Templars.

I was so f*cked.

It took more of Corff’s version of ale to get me stumbling drunk than usual -he was either watering it down or I spilt more on the floor than into my mouth- but I proudly made it home through the front door without puking into the decorative hedges. What was the point of hedges? Sure they looked nice, but they didn’t do anything practical. Now an apple tree, or an orange tree, or a steak tree! Now those were practical! Essential even!

“Bodahn! Bod’n! We…we neeeeed a steak tree!” I called from the entryway as I wrestled with the door that was trying to eat my key. It refused to release it from the lock even when I called the door’s mother something incredibly impolite it wouldn’t give it back. Damn, and it took four tries to get the little key into the lock correctly. I carefully lifted one leg to brace it against the door and pulled hard to dislodge it. My arm whipped back with my prize and I crowed triumphantly at the slightly bent key. Ha! Me: 1 and Door: 0!

“Ah, you’re home Master Hawke. I say I was beginning to wonder if I would see you again. We seem to just be missing each other,” the dwarf said with a chuckle.

I whipped around and smiled widely at our housekeeper to proudly salute him with my crooked prize in hand. “Howdy there, Bod’n! What’re you doin’ up so late?”

“Tis only five in the evening, messere.”

Really? Huh, no wonder those Orlesians were turning their noses up at me in the street. Idly, I scratched my chin slightly cringing at the dark stubble on my face. Scraggly beards weren’t sexy. The monotonous chore of shaving had escaped me these past couple of days and was beginning to itch.

“You didn’t happen to see your mother while you were out and about, did you? She was supposed to meet with Gamlen –prickly sort of fellow, he is- for lunch but your uncle came by saying she never showed.”

The room started to tip on its side so I grabbed onto the decorative pillars in the entryway with one hand to hold on. My stomach roiled. What the hell? I pounded my chest a couple of times and belched. Oh, it was just gas.

“Oh, it’s probably nothing, just an old dwarf worrying over silly, little things. She’s probably with that new suitor of hers.”

A sharp pain struck my gut that made a sweat break out on my forehead. Did someone spike my drink back at the Hanged Man? “A suitor? Mother’s been seeing someone?” Something about that stirred the alcohol fog in my head.

Bodahn continued. “I haven’t met the man personally, but he’s got Mistress Amell all aflutter so the chap can’t be all bad. She wanted you to meet him, but you’ve been running about all over the place recently so she hasn’t had the chance.”

I had been busy these past couple of days and I actually couldn’t remember the last time I even talked with Mother. Orel needed a lot of training so I was in and out of the manor trying to find tomes on how to teach the young elf control without blatantly announcing to the Templars that I was purchasing basically manuals on how to train your mage. Then there was that thing with Fenris, then Varric asked a favor which ended up with me licking my wounds for three days in a cave, and then Anders decided to join the ‘let’s ask Hawke for help’ club. The only good thing about that club was that I was president. I’d never been president of any club before.

“Oh, Master Hawke! Good evening,” came the cheerful greeting from the living room.

I looked up from Bodahn’s face to see a smiling Orana with an ornate –Orleasian- vase full of beautiful white lilies she was arranging on the small table next to the entryway.

Lilies.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

As if I had been drenched in cold water, the haze cleared from my mind and I recognized the signs of panic my body was warning me about. My mother-! The White Lily Killer-! Too early-! Too soon-! I wasn’t ready for this! I wasn’t prepared! She was in danger!

So many thoughts sent me to my knees and I collapsed heavily on the carpeted stone with my lungs heaving, starving for air.

“Master Hawke!”

I couldn’t breathe. I thought I left these kinds of panic attacks back in my teenage years, but I guess one snuck up on me or I hadn’t been scared in a long, long time.

I clawed at the light breastplate that I wore more for Garrett’s image rather than my need for protection and tried vainly to get it off. Dainty, pale fingers flicked the latch on the side to loosen the armor that I recognized as Orana’s. Thicker hands untied the scabbard for my broadsword and removed it so that the metal plate could easily fall to the floor. I gulped in lungful after lungful of air after my chest was free to expand but still felt as if the world was caving in on me. All I could think was that it was too soon. I wasn’t ready.

A squat hand patted the back of my tunic now soaked through with set. “Are you all right, serah?” Bodahn asked.

“I’m fine. Mother,” I gasped out. “When…when did she leave?”

“I’m not quite sure. It might have been before noon, serah. Are you certain you’re feeling well? Would you like to lie down for a spell?”

“I said I’m fine,” I grated out harsher than I meant to. “When did the lilies arrive?”

“I’m not quite-.”

“I need to know when the lilies arrived!” I suddenly yelled.

My anger echoed in the foyer, but Orana didn’t even blink as she calmly swept up my breastplate to perch next to the table holding the flowers in question. The elf lightly swept her fingertips across the white petals.

“It was one bell after midday, Master Hawke. I remember for I immediately went to search for a vase. I had never seen such beautiful flowers before. Lilies won’t grow in Tevinter. Too dry I believe,” she answered calmly.

I never heard Orana speak so much, but now wasn’t time to congratulate her on getting over her shyness. Slowly, I took in a deep breath and held it for a few counts before releasing it and speaking.

“Okay. Okay, then she couldn’t have left too long after that,” I reasoned. “I need…I need to find- Orel? Where’s Orel? Orel!” I called without bothering to wait for an answer.

Hesitant footsteps sounded from the library. I looked up to see him shyly peek from around the corner, his blonde hair all in disarray and a streak of dust marked his cheek. He’d been studying the tomes again tucked away in a corner practicing his magic.

“Yes?” he asked cautiously.

I motioned him over with quick sweeps of my fingers. “C’mere kid, I need you to do something for me,” I said with a calmer tone of voice. He was a little frightened from my anger, but he fearlessly walked over to me. The kid really was something else. I was proud of him. “Help me up.”

Orel took my hand and almost effortlessly hauled me to my feet. Huh, it seemed three square meals a day were really helping. I was stunned at the building muscle on the pre-teen elf, but quickly shook it off as I rose to my feet.

“Orel, I need you find Athenril for me. Check around the Red Lantern district and remember what I said about that place?”

The boy nodded, his blonde hair flopping about in desperate need of a haircut. “Yes, I remember. Only for grown-ups.”

I nodded, ignoring the sudden urge to plant a hand on my hip and wag my finger at him. Good lord, was this what parents felt like?

“Right. Exactly. Tell her that Hawke needs her help and to meet me in Lowtown. She’ll know where.”

Dammit, why wasn’t I told that the murdering bastard was crawling about? I specifically said that tags on Quentin were a priority. Nothing went in or out of his “hideout” without someone seeing it and reporting it back to me. Orders to the Coterie and Athenril included a wait-and-see approach as I didn’t have any evidence –yet- of his involvement in the murders of young woman in Kirkwall. I tried playing by the good guy rules, but now this required more of a…personal touch.

“Yes. What she look?” Orel asked while circling his face with a finger miming his question of what Athenril looked like as he couldn’t find the right words.

I waved off his question already beginning to pace from the anxiety that previously stole my breath and needed to be worked out of my system. Usually I just set something on fire if I got nervous about something, but right now didn’t seem like the appropriate time.

“She’ll find you. Now go, Orel. Quickly!”

He nodded so fast I was afraid his head was going to come off his neck and he dashed out of the still open door. In bare feet. I sighed. Elves.

“Is Mistress Amell in danger?”

Suddenly overcome by tiredness, I ran a hand over my face. “Yes, Orana, but I’m going to find her and bring her back,” I said firmly believing whole-heartedly that I would find the woman I had come to greatly care about. She’d only been gone four hours and I knew blood magic rituals were notoriously overcomplicated so she would be fine. She had to be. “You two stay here in case she comes back.”

Bodahn and Orana both slightly bowed their agreement.

The cool air of the early evening did a lot to chase the alcohol fog from my brain and after an unwilling, literal trip into the hedges –f*cking hedges- I was in Lowtown arguing with Athenril who, as I guessed, knew exactly where to find me.

“You’ve got a smart boy there, Hawke. Found me before I found him.”

I smirked proudly at Athenril’s compliment towards Orel.

“But like I told you, Hawke, no one has been in or out of there in weeks,” she continued. “There’s been no sign of any bewildered virgins being lured into this abandoned hovel or animal sacrifices or whatever blood mages do in their spare time. I’m telling you, it’s dead.”

I shivered at the unintentional poor choice of words.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I anxiously asked her if she was sure and she checked all the entrances. Of which I only knew of one, the front entrance, but I asked anyway.

Athenril glowered. “Hawke, you’re talking to a professional here.”

“f*ck,” I spat. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck!” I cursed louder and louder until I lashed out and punched the crumbling wall.

This was impossible. Garrett Hawke clearly remembered the place where Quentin took his mother. It was burned so severely into his memory that it was one of the first things I saw when Flemeth sent me into his body. Fat load of help that was. I meddled enough in this time that previously set events were beginning to unravel and my knowledge of the future that I considered one of my only advantages was dwindling down into nothing. The one time that I really needed everything to work, to fall neatly into place…it was all worthless.

“I need to see,” I mumbled and staggered up the stairs to the entrance.

A slim hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“What’s the matter, Hawke? What’s happened?” The thief gently asked me. I mentally chuckled. I must really have looked like hell if Athenril, the cold-hearted smuggler of Kirkwall’s underbelly, wanted to know if I was okay.

“My mother,” I admitted. “My mother’s gone missing.”

Comfortingly, Athenril squeezed my shoulder. “Well that’s what you’ve paid us for; quite handsomely I have to say. We’ll find her,” she promised and vanished into the encroaching shadows the setting sun cast over the buildings. It set an ominous mood; one I wasn’t prepared to deal with, so I ignored the poet’s foreshadowing scenery and wrenched open the decrepit door to the warehouse. Just one clue, just one. That’s all I needed. I had to find Leandra because what good were the powers of a seer if I couldn’t use them to save innocent lives?

Nothing. There was nothing here!

Angrily, I threw the book on the dirt floor where it laid with all the other useless yellowed papers I tore through. I snatched the next book in line on one of the four bookshelves that were strewn across the room and quickly flipped through it. I didn’t need to know how to preserve a liver fifty different ways so I tossed the thing behind me to grab another creepy ‘How To’ on necromancy.

Papers littered a path of my destruction of the room that I thought would help point me in the right direction. The blood mage’s hideout was empty just like Athenril said it was and from the dust and lack of the taste of ash in my mouth Quentin hadn’t been here in quite a while. The room literally made my flesh crawl. Demons made their homes in this place as I could feel the tears in the Fade where the dark spirits emerged to make deals with ignorant mortals or to inhabit the corpses of the women that the necromancer took.

It was really a cesspool for blood magic and with me being incredibly sensitive to magic (carving sigils into one’s flesh and binding my mana to them really hyped up the ‘spidey’ senses) I was feeling incredibly nauseous. Or that might have been the alcohol coming back up to say hello. Taking Justice’s advice on cutting down the drinking might have been a wise thing to do.

“Your Undead Corpse and You, how lovely,” I sneered and carelessly pitched the volume over my shoulder. “The hell?” I asked the chillingly empty room as I felt something touch my head. I pleaded mentally for it to not be a spider. Ghosts were fine; I could handle that, but not a spider.

My hand quickly swiped across my hair and I was thankful for my fingers to touch paper and not creepy crawlies. I pinched the parchment and brought it to my face to read. Squinting finally brought the chicken-scratch handwriting into focus.

Used quicklime to preserve her feet. Unsure whether texture of the skin is to my liking. Will try other methods.

“Oh that’s just gross,” I complained with a scrunched up look of disgust on my face. The note must have fallen out from between the pages of the book I dumped to the floor and I let it join the other scraps.

Like a hurricane, I tore through the remaining textbooks ranging from topics on arcane magic to cookbooks. The man was more of a hoarder than I was and I picked up pebbles from the street and put them in my pocket. Well, my mastery in earth magic came from identifying and extracting minerals and my large mana pool let me draw those elements from deep within the earth, so picking up shiny rocks was practically required of me.

“Still nothing,” I cried loudly, throwing my hands up into the air as I yanked the last book from its shelf.

A single piece of paper, of a higher quality than the other pieces lying about, fluttered down from the manhandled book in my hands. I dropped the tome and scrambled to catch the falling scrap. The first thing I noticed was the handwriting: elegant cursive, the hand of a scholar. My eyes rapidly scanned the penned missive.

My dear friend,

I have obtained the books you requested. I'll leave them at our usual hiding spot. Please collect them as soon as possible. I would hate to see them in the wrong hands!

Your last letter was fascinating! You have proven me wrong, once again, by doing the impossible. I shouldn't have doubted your resolve, and I hope you will keep me apprised of further progress.

Your friend and colleague,
O

O. That single letter struck a deep chord within me that vibrated such an intense anger I was shaking with it. This…I never saw this before. Garrett never found this single piece of paper that unraveled a whole new murderous plot within the story of Leandra’s death. The corruption within Kirkwall ran deeper than I thought.

O, huh?

I was going to kill him.

“Hawke! There you are! What’re you doing running around here?”

I barely heard Varric from the ferocious pounding in my ears and I barely stopped myself from barreling into the smiling dwarf who opened his arms wide in greeting although I only saw him just a few hours ago clanking our tankards together cheerfully.

“Anyway, I was surprised to see Chicky wandering around the Red Lantern district since you hate having those adopted chicks of yours too far from the nest so I sent him back home. I was tempted to have the old ‘birds and the bees’ talk with him, but I decided to leave that mental scarring up for you to do. ”

In the corner of my mind, not covered in a red haze, I groaned at Varric’s insistence on giving nicknames to the elves I took under my wing. He insisted on calling Orel ‘Chicky’ due to my mother henning over the wide-eyed boy and Orana ‘Dove’ for her quiet, grey demeanor. Naturally, once Varric opened his mouth stories flowed over how my rescuing two slaves from an evil Tevinter magister was a noble deed. Also naturally, my good luck ran out and Fenris found out about it. He didn’t openly confront me about it, but those icy glares of his did more to make me feel unreasonably guilty than yelling. Women had passive-aggressive cornered, my ass.

Varric’s cheer morphed into a concerned frown. “Hawke, you okay, buddy? You’re lookin’…a little pale. Hey, what’re you holding on to?” He asked while pointing to my right hand.

I blinked stupidly, not even noticing my tense grip on the parchment from Quentin’s private library of death. I brought up my arm and glanced at the scrap and back to Varric a few times. Still slightly shaking, although now thinking a little clearer, I held out the note to him.

Giving me a pondering look, Varric plucked the paper from my hand and scanned over it. He raised a blonde eyebrow in confusion.

“You’re worrying me a bit, buddy, but I’ll bite. What’s this?”

That feeling of nausea was returning and I anxiously hopped from foot to foot while gazing up at the darkening sky. It would be risky because of the poor night vision, but I would have to take that chance. There was no other way to sneak in without being noticed.

“Hold onto it. Don’t lose it. Please,” I finally said and turned away from the confused crossbowman.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath to fill my lungs completely with air. In my mind, I saw russet colored wings spread wide to lazily catch thermals that allowed me to glide effortlessly across the sky. I saw a curved beak as sharp as my eyesight and talons. My heart beat faster and faster and I released my held breath. All at once a shimmer of light coated my figure and without opening my eyes I saw the transformation. Feathers sprouted along my arms and through my tunic that slowly integrated itself into my mass. I could feel my body shrink, instincts change, and a power -an awareness- so unlike being human.

“A hawk. Hawke, you’re a hawk. That’s a little too cliché even for my tastes.”

I snapped my beak at him in bird-speak for ‘f*ck-off’ and took off for the Gallows uplifted by a strong breeze and Varric’s amused chuckles.

The room was dark; lit only by a single candle that illuminated strewn papers across an ancient wooden desk and a quill that dipped methodically into an ink pot. A delicate hand, marred only by age, traversed through a scribbled note and tapped a staccato of notes in thought at the end of the sentence. It was a quiet evening, peaceful, a night one spent in contemplation.

I tapped relentlessly at the glass window.

Tap-tap-taptap.

A wrinkled brow lifted in question towards the sound, but turned his attention back down at the half-written letter on his desk. It was pretty dark outside, the moon only a sliver in the night sky, so I probably wasn’t seen. I would make myself heard though.

Taptap-tap-taptaptaptap.

This time the glance towards the window was more of annoyance rather than curiosity, but he still didn’t rise from behind his desk and was content to ignore me.

TAP! TAP! TAPtaptaptaptaptap.

The quill was thrown down in disgust next to the letter, almost upsetting the well of ink, and angry stomps towards where I was made me swell in arrogant satisfaction. I hopped from foot to foot anxiously, but not once took my eyes from the mage who forcefully unlatched the window. Before he could shoo me away from his windowsill with a sweeping hand I flew into the room in a flurry of feathers. Arms crossed instinctively over his head to prevent my wings from buffeting his face, but it wasn’t the talons of my hawk form that caused him injury. Shimmers of gold flecked my skin as wings stretched into arms. My newly reformed fingers clenched the lapels of his robe and threw the dumbfounded man against the office wall as soon as my leather boots touched the floor.

“Where is he?” I snapped and pushed the mage harder up the wall until he dangled. “Where is he, Orsino?! I know you know!”

Wrinkled fingers clawed at my hands and left red trenches down the pale skin; the dull pain was numbed in the coldness of my anger and I merely squeezed harder in response. I held onto the neck of his robes so tightly that the fabric cut into his windpipe making the First Enchanter of Kirkwall’s Circle wheeze.

“I-I don’t-!” Orsino gasped.

I growled darkly and shook the wildly struggling mage. “The blood mage, Orsino! Tell me where he is!” I shouted into the aging elf’s face, spittle flecking his cheek.

“You-you’re a mage?”

My lip curled angrily at the choked response of astonishment instead of telling me what I wanted to know. I hurled Orsino from the wall to the floor, my hands releasing him to bounce a fireball intimidatingly in my palm. The light from the fire cast hardened shadows on his frightened face, but the sole focus of his eyes was not on the burning flame but on the burning red light of the rune.

I smirked cruelly.

The lightning rune radiated brightly from my fingertip and a curl of its pure energy snaked around the circle of flame. I was showing off—controlling two elements simultaneously was notoriously difficult and usually mastered by only the most powerful mages—and I wanted the First Enchanter to know that he was outclassed. I could utterly destroy him with just a flick of my fingers before he even reached for the staff that was propped on his desk.

I glanced at the ornate staff and a bubble of anger rose within me. It was an exact copy of what my father carried around with him; the three dragons sprouting from the tip, fangs dripping from open mouths. The thin lightning lazily curling around my fireball sparked wildly for an instant as my anger overrode my control for a second. I took a deep breath to calm myself down, but I couldn’t stop the wildfire of rage from burning the edges of common sense.

In my mind, I knew that a rogue mage assassinating the First Enchanter didn’t spell good news for the Circle. With Orsino dead, chaos would ensue. The mages would have no one to lead them. Knight-Commander Meredith would take control, most likely call for the Right of Annulment which was like an extermination order for the entire Circle of Magi, and the reason for Flemeth pushing me into this time would be meaningless because inadvertently killing all the mages obviously didn’t save them.

But, damn it, I really, really wanted to kill him.

Thankfully, for Orsino or me I didn’t really know, I heard the clang of armor and heavy footsteps from down the hall.

“First Enchanter?” A voice called from behind the door after a polite knock. Orsino and I both froze, his eyes skittering to the potential rescue. The Templar continued. “You know that it is past curfew. Practicing magic at this late hour is forbidden by order of the Knight-Commander.”

Orsino glanced warily from me, or rather the licking flames between my fingers, to the patrolling swordsman who was polite enough to wait to be invited in. Damn, the mana summoned to form my spells must have caught the attention of a passing Templar.

“First Enchanter? Ser?” The young Templar, from what I could tell from his voice, asked and I heard him jiggle the door-handle.

Time was running out. Acting quickly, I swung my hand behind me and pushed the fire from my hand with a quick jerk of my wrist. A slight bit of wind magic, courtesy of my green illuminated rune, directed the fireball to the handle and lock of the door. The metal melted almost instantly into unidentifiable slag and I heard the Templar yelp and jump back in surprise from the white-hot handle. That would buy me a precious few minutes until someone broke down the now permanently locked door.

I turned, smirking, from the Templar banging forcefully on the door to Orsino who had inched towards his staff while my back was turned. The lightning that still played amongst my fingers cracked centimeters from the First Enchanter’s searching hand and he snapped it back to cradle his singed fingers. Oops, my aim was a little off.

Green eyes narrowed at me in confused frustration. “What do you want? You will get no coin if you hold me hostage, although, by the Maker the Knight-Commander would name you Champion of Kirkwall were you to get rid of the main source of her problems,” the mage mused calmly.

Fire burned its hottest at its center: calm and non-moving. So when I crouched to the ground, my elbows braced on my inner thighs as if I hadn’t a care in the world, my face wiped clean of all emotion, I had never been more angry in all my life. I could tell Orsino saw through my façade of peacefulness if his widened eyes told me anything.

"Make no mistake, Orsino. I will kill you.” Orsino jerked back reflexively from the deadly promise in my emotionless tone.

“But why?” He asked desperately. “I don’t even know who you are and you’re a mage just like I am! Why would you want to kill me?”

“First Enchanter! Ser, is there someone in there with you! Are you in danger?!” The Templar yelled. “Hurry! Help me break down this door!” More footsteps told me of approaching Templars and the door began to shake in its frame from the force exerted on it. The wood was thick though, it would hold through a few more hits.

“I am nothing like you,” I snarled over the pounding the Templars were giving the ancient door. “I don’t preach about the dangers of blood magic and then turn right around and shake the hands of demons.”

“I have made no pact with demons!” Orsino instantly defended.

I shrugged casually. “Not the Fade kind,” I admitted thinking of how similar some humans and demons were. “Not yet, but in the corner of your mind you think about it, don’t you? That tiny, little voice that whispers seductive ideas of an easier life if you just gave in?” Orsino’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“How? How-?”

“How do I know? I hear it all the time. No mage is completely removed from temptation, but some are stronger than others. And you, Orsino, are the weakest of them. You will give in. I know it.”

And he would. Garrett’s memories proved it.

“So you would murder me for something I might do? You are no better than the Templars,” he accused.

I shook my head. “No. I’m going to kill you because you’ve hurt my family.”

The pounding of the door increased and the wood creaked ominously.

Orsino was positively shaking. A dark glee rose inside of me to see that. I needed to hurry this up.

“You-your family? But I have done nothing!”

“You’ve started everything. Did you ever stop to think of why corruption runs so deep in Kirkwall? Why blood magic is used so casually among apprentice and enchanter alike?” I bombarded him with questions as I rapidly tried to pull him into a confession.

“I have never taught my students blood magic. Don’t you dare accuse me of such blasphemy!” Orsino’s chest heaved with anger instead of fear as he protested my accusation.

“But you support it. I know about Quentin and your correspondence with him.” The First Enchanter froze as I caught him in my trap. “If I were to search the Gallows’ Library would I find a certain amount of missing books? Perhaps checked out under your name?”

He said nothing, so I continued.

“I’m going to ask you one last time, Orsino. Where. Is. Quentin?”

“You’re going to kill me no matter if I tell you anything or not.”

I nodded. “True, but the difference is if you don’t tell me where Quentin is I’m going to let everyone know you conspired with blood mages. Your name will be ruined, First Enchanter,” I mocked his title.

“No,” he gasped. “All my students-! They’ll be considered blood mages no matter if they’re innocent or not because…because of their association with me. The Grand Cleric will have no choice but to approve the Right of Annulment,” Orsino slowly realized as all the consequences of his decisions came crashing down on top of him. He had doomed the Circle the moment he helped the blood mage with his research.

I didn’t bother to respond to the mage’s roiling thoughts that paralyzed him into stillness. He deserved no pity. Orsino opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to swallow or breathe past his guilt, but finally he spoke.

“Darktown,” he whispered. “He moved to Darktown in an abandoned Coterie cache when he realized that his previous base was being watched. You’ll find it where Deathroot grows.”

With a mighty crash, the carved oak doors finally gave under the constant onslaught of a slew of Templars banging their armor-clad shoulders against the wooden surface.

“First Enchanter!” One of them cried when they saw the older elf sprawled motionless on the ground.

“There he is! Get him!”

I leapt from the open window; my arms outstretched with the wind screaming in my ears as I fell towards the ground. Golden light streamed upwards as I burst into my hawk shape and pulled up into a gentle glide before I clipped the parapets of the Gallows. I had to hurry. The sun had almost completely set and this form was only famous for its eyesight during the day.