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Chapter Text

-.-.-

To-day we take the great breath of lovers,
   to-morrow fate shuts us in.
   —Homage to Sextus Propertius, VII, Ezra Pound

-.-.-

In the deep shadows cast by infrequent torches, a man leans over one of the Arcanist Hall's heavy oak tables. Its polished surface is scattered with books and sheaves of crumbling, ancient paper thick with dust; only a few squat white candles in bronze dishes hold the darkness at bay, but the man seems to care little about the weakness of the light. Within moments, a second figure slips through the aisles of tall narrow bookshelves to join him at the table, the agitation of his movements visible even under his thick, well-worked cloak. He leans close to the first man under the pretense of surveying the papers, close enough that whispers will not carry.

"I heard today that the Senate adjourned with consensus reached. Is this true?"

"Truer than either you or I would like."

"The whole situation is ludicrous! You cannot allow this—this farce to continue."

"It is done already."

"She's a foreigner! Worse, she's Fereldan! A dog-lord raised to power in the City of a Thousand Spires—it is inconceivable!"

"Lower your voice! I said it is done. The courier is already away, bearing the papers signed and sealed with the Archon's own hand."

A sharp intake of breath cuts through the hush and the second man sinks into a chair. "I don't understand. The woman is nothing more than a refugee from that barbaric little mud-country. She has few ties to Danarius save that slave, and none at all to the man's estate. How can the Senate allow this?"

"You think I did not voice these objections? The Fereldan has advocates, Lord Priscus, who bothered to unearth records better left underground." The first man slides a stack of loosely-bound papers across the table, his black-gloved hands nearly vanishing in the shadows.

"What are these? They look like the Circle's registries."

"The girl's father was recorded in the lineages at the Hall."

"What?" He flips through the pages quickly with little care for their cracking edges. "A sanctioned mage?"

"Recognized by the Circle and the Senate alike, and granted all the legal claims of a citizen of the Imperium. And not only is he included, but also—"

"—his heirs." The man groans and leans back in the chair, putting one hand over his eyes. "But what of Danarius? Citizen or no, she still has no claims to his estate."

"Danarius was a fool." Emotion shows in the first man's face at last, but the anger flits so quickly through his eyes that it is gone by the time the other man sits up. "He tied every last dram of his estate into that runaway slave of his. That elf is a fortune in lyrium, and everything in his manor from the slaves to the last linen napkin is drawn on that fortune. And you heard what he said to the woman in Kirkwall."

"I had hoped it was a rumor."

"No chance of it. He acknowledged her as the elf's new mistress, the imbecile, and every witness there heard it before he proceeded to lose that duel to her. Worse, the spies say she is the elf's master in truth, that she commands him easily and he follows at her heels like a dog."

"And there is no other heir to contest her claim? This chain is so tenuous even a bastard might break it with the right leverage."

"None have presented themselves, and with Danarius's apprentice dead before him and no new one named, we do not even have that as recourse." He collects the papers with sharp motions, and the taut set of his shoulders belies the calmness of his voice. "Her advocates in the Senate underestimate her. They think her nothing more than a delightful oddity to bring novelty to the social season. But this woman defeated the Arishok in single combat, and it would be a great mistake to take her lightly."

"She has few friends here. Perhaps she will stay in that fetid city-state of hers."

The man shakes his head slowly. "No. I think she will come, and I think she will bring the elf with her. And as long as she holds his leash, I do not think I will rest easy at night."

"You exaggerate her danger, Magister."

"Perhaps," he says, turning away from his companion and stepping into the shadows between the tall shelves, the candlelight flickering desperately in the breath of his passing. "But I tell you now, keep an eye on this woman. This...Hawke."

-.-.-

"Fenris!"

Hawke slams the door shut with her heel, her eyes focused on the letters in her hand. This is a disaster—this is impossible—and Fenris is going to kill her. Just reach his hand right in and pop out her heart, like pitting a cherry. "Fenris! Where are you?"

Maybe he isn't home. Maybe he's out doing...angry elf things, or brooding elf things, or anything, really, that doesn't involve her imminent demise. Hawke trips over the broken flagstone in his foyer out of long habit and swears absently, blowing a loose hair from her eyes and sincerely regretting a good number of recent choices. The manor seems empty enough, the morning sun spilling down clear in the silence, though his door is closed at the top of the stairs. Flipping through the letters again, the words as clear in her mind as when she'd first read them, Hawke wonders absently if it might be better to just gut herself now and save Fenris the trouble.

Well, she's come this far. "Fenris?" she tries one last time. Her voice rings in the rafters of his ruined great hall, sounding rather more plaintive than she means it, and when the last echoes die away and Fenris still has not emerged, she gives up. It might be more thorough to see if he is indeed upstairs, but the stairs seem more foreboding than usual and his closed bedroom door especially bleak and she can't seem to make herself cross the grimly sunny expanse of the hall without better incentive. At least she'll live another day, she thinks as she turns towards the door, if the weight of the words in the letters doesn't crush her before Fenris does.

"There is no need to shout." His voice drifts down from the landing, deep and rough with sleep, and Hawke turns to see Fenris yawning as he approaches the balustrade above her. His hair is tousled and his jerkin not pulled quite straight, and he looks altogether so adorably rumpled that she almost forgets why she's come. His green eyes are clear, though, and piercing in the light as he leans his forearms on the railing and looks down at her, a slim red volume of poetry dangling from one hand. "Hawke."

"Good morning." She nods at the book in his hand, inwardly delighted at the sight of it, though she wishes the words in her own hand were more pleasant. "How's Catullus treating you?"

"Fair enough," he says, glancing at his page for a moment. "He chooses his words very…precisely."

Hawke laughs. "Darevi basia mille!" she cries dramatically, putting on her most woeful gaze and throwing a longing hand up towards Fenris. Her Arcanum is passable at best, but her feigned fit of passion makes the words seem almost fluid; Fenris's eyebrows shoot into his hairline at her choice and she winks. "Dein-darevi centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum—"

"Too many," he says as he shakes his head, but she sees the corners of his mouth twitching.

"Just one, then," she says in gracious compromise. It's a fair enough trade for what she has to tell him, really, and besides, Fenris is already making his way down the dilapidated staircase, leaving behind on the railing Catullus's poetical pleas for a thousand kisses. For an instant she almost wants him to stay on the landing, kisses be damned—at least that way she'd be out of immediate arm's reach—but before she can quite articulate the sentiment he is already at her side, and Hawke figures that if she has to die she might as well have kissed Fenris first.

The touch of his mouth is gentle and quiet, perfectly suited to the kind of morning she's about to ruin, but in the end she puts too much of herself into the embrace. She knows it even as she does it, feeling the barely-calmed frustration leaking out through her hands on his arms, and far too soon he draws back with a frown. "Something is wrong."

"No! Well—yes. But not—ugh." Hawke steps back, taking a breath and squaring her shoulders; she is many things, but she is not a coward. "I have some bad news."

"How bad?"

"Frankly, Fenris, I am doing my level best to distract us both, but I don't think it's working." The corners of the envelopes prick her palm and she grits her teeth, fanning them out in the air between them. Just tell him! "Three letters were delivered this morning at the crack of dawn. One you'll dislike, one you'll loathe, and one you may try to kill me for reading." She ticks them off with her fingers and offers him a wan smile. "I did warn you about the dangers of literacy, right?"

Faint wariness lights in his eyes at the last of the list, but he only holds out an expectant hand. "Give me the worst."

She shakes her head and hands him the envelope on the end. "Read them in the same order I did. This first one's from Feynriel."

"That somniari? You write to him often?" He pulls out the letter and flicks it open, a slight frown already settling over his face.

"We have a regular but infrequent correspondence. He mostly tells me about what he's learning from that mentor you suggested." She leans over his hands, scanning Feynriel's untidy scrawl upside-down, then points to a particular paragraph at the bottom of the second page. "Read this part."

"'Your name comes up more often than ever,'" Fenris reads, pausing only to make out a word here and there. "'Lady Damia keeps me so busy I'm almost a recluse, but I've heard rumors of your recent acquisitions, and I cannot help but urge you to accept them. I know what you think of Tevinter, but it's not as bad as your friend makes it out to be,'" Fenris scoffs, "'and you could do so much good here with that kind of wealth.' What acquisitions, Hawke?"

She wonders if she looks as uncomfortable as she feels. "I had no idea when I first read it either. That would be the worst letter." She looks away as she hands him the fattest envelope, the one with her name elegantly scripted in black ink on the most expensive paper she's ever held, so she does not see his eyes narrow at the elaborate postmark. She does, however, hear his sharp intake of breath as he turns the over the envelope to reveal the insignia stamped into the scarlet sealing wax, an intricate representation of a hooded ferryman bearing a lantern. She hadn't known what that meant this morning, when the exhausted courier had thrust the letters into her hands. Now she does.

"This is the seal of the Imperial Archon." His voice is accusing. She nods, still without looking at him, and after a moment when his eyes seem to burn straight through her temple, she hears him slide the thick packet of papers from the envelope. He does not read this letter aloud, but she knows what it says anyway.

To Euphemia Hawke, called Champion of Kirkwall:

On behalf of the estate of the late magister Danarius who died on the fourteenth of Umbralis without making a will.

Be it known that this Senate, on the ninth of Eluviesta, with the approval of the Imperial Archon and in accordance with Imperial law concerning inheritance, has named you the sole beneficiary of the intestate.

Due to the unusual circumstances of the death of the intestate (viz. the private nature of the duel resulting in the death of the intestate and the remarkable conditions of your own Imperial citizenship), this Senate hereby declares that the assets of the intestate may not pass lawfully into the ownership of the beneficiary until such time as the beneficiary claims the estate, in person, in the Hall of Records in Minrathous.

Should the beneficiary fail to appear at the Hall of Records by 4 Solis of this year, the estate will pass to the jurisdiction of the Divine.

Please find enclosed an itemized list of the notable property of the intestate.

Signed 5:9 Dragon.

The Archon himself has signed the letter, a graceful looping signature that covers half the page, putting to shame the long line of senators' names that trail after it almost sheepishly. Half a page of dry legalese and her contentment had been shattered; she can't imagine what Fenris what must be thinking now.

She hears Fenris swallow and chances a look at him. His face is white under his tan, the lyrium tattoos fading into the pallor, but his eyes are preternaturally calm as he turns to the next page in the stack, and Hawke does not allow herself to glance away again. This is the sheet she fears most, but the least she can do is give him the courtesy of not flinching from its contents. The first had been bad enough, reading it alone in her study and feeling her heart drop into her stomach, but the second starts the list of Danarius's assets, and at the very top of the page, just under a truly staggering number of sovereigns, is listed the most valuable asset of the estate she now owns.

One elf, male, approx. 35 years old. Distinctive markings: white hair, lyrium brands extending over whole body.

Name: Fenris.

Fenris goes very, very still. Hawke's breath catches as his eyes fix on his name, listed like so much chattel between the sovereigns and a pair of silver chandeliers. Her property. Her property.

"I see," says Fenris. His voice is calm and inflectionless as he looks at the paper, and Hawke doesn't have the faintest idea what to do with it. "I did not know you were an Imperial citizen."

That is not what she'd expected him to say. "My—my father," Hawke says, thoroughly unbalanced. She'd been prepared for righteous anger, for hurt, for even betrayal, but she had not anticipated this…emptiness. "He studied in Tevinter for a few years before he met my mother. In the—ah, the Circle there," she adds faintly. "I didn't know until today. The last page is a copy of his citizenship records."

Fenris turns there. "I see," he says again, just as calmly. "Citizenship granted to the undersigned and his heirs. How fortunate he had the prudence to include that."

"Fenris—" she starts, but his composure unsettles her and she falls silent. He re-folds the letter along its crisp creases, sparing little notice for the six other pages of her new-acquired wealth. Hawke has read them already, anyway: iron candlesticks, lacquered end-tables, a surprising number of tapestries.

And eighty-four slaves. Eighty-four sentient beings given into her ownership with nothing more than a signature.

Fenris slides the packet back into the envelope and holds it out to her. She takes it automatically, still unable to find her footing in his unwavering blankness. "And the third letter?" he says.

"From Feynriel's mentor." He pulls it from her unresisting fingers and Hawke flushes. She'd thought to make a joke of it, when she'd first come—whatever the third letter held, it couldn't possibly have been as daunting as the second, right?—but she sees now how foolish that plan had been, how severely she has underestimated the brutality of the situation. "Lady Damia. She wants me to—come as quickly as I can. She says the Black Divine will grant the estate to a man called Priscus if I don't claim it."

"I know Lord Priscus," Fenris says, and a distant distaste edges into his voice. Hawke is grateful to hear it—anything is better than those colorless tones. "He is no mage, but he is great friends with the Archon. He does not have the reputation of…gentleness."

"Would he come after you?" She has no idea if she is allowed to be this direct, but her concern is for Fenris first and foremost and this worries her more than anything else.

He looks at her at last.

The bitterness in his eyes takes her breath away. Suddenly everything they have worked for, everything they have worked through is gone as if it has never been, as if the words on those letters had been stone rather than ink, re-forging a wall between them that Hawke had only just managed to tear down. His mouth tightens at her expression and she tries to school it into something safer, but it is far, far too late, and he jerks his head away from her transparency.

No—she will not allow him to retreat from her like this—not like this, not because of this—and she steps forward, close enough to touch him without doing so. "What should I do?" she asks, her voice sudden and forceful and loud in the still air of his mansion. He glances at her and oh, his face looks old, and so tired, but she will not falter. "Fenris. Tell me."

"I don't know." His hands hang at his sides, useless. Hopeless. "Priscus will search for me. The lyrium…" he shrugs, letting the words trail off. "I will never be free."

"Stop that," she says sharply. Part of her wonders if she should avoid giving orders with this new and terrifying thing between them, but a larger part refuses to treat him differently, refuses to let this alter what they've made of themselves. "You're free now. You've been free since the day you left Danarius in Seheron."

He meets her eye but there is no spark of his familiar defiance under that bitterness, and she realizes suddenly that she is losing him, losing everything he has given her behind the impenetrable mask of her ownership. Her heart aches at the sight of it and she tears the letter from his hands, shaking it furiously between them. "This? This is nothing, Fenris. Listen to me. I could have burned these letters when I got them and it wouldn't have made a difference between us—they shouldn't matter, Fenris, because they're nothing but ink and paper and you are the only person who can decide what you are." Hawke crushes the letters in her fist. Her throat closes and she swallows, surprised to find she is near tears but too angry to be silent. "Don't give them this victory over you just because they claim it."

"Priscus will come," he warns her, but his hands have clenched at his sides.

"I don't care." She is reckless, storming, angry because he is not, grieving because he can't. "Let him come. Danarius couldn't stand against us—he won't either. I'll burn the letters. Or better yet, let me go to him. Let me go to Tevinter and sign the damned thing and make you free in a way that even they can't contest."

Fenris draws back, astonished, and when Hawke realizes what she has said she closes her eyes, appalled at herself. Go to Tevinter? What a spectacular plan—go to the city bursting at the seams with the magisters who nearly ruined him, go to the home of the man who tore him from his family and make it hers; go and claim as her property the place where Fenris underwent the most excruciating torture of his life. Step into the part of a magister, slaves and all. But—

But she could protect those slaves.

She could free Fenris.

Hawke opens her eyes when his hands touch her chin. He has leaned close to her, the spark relit, his eyes flaring green in the sunlight spilling down from the windows, his lyrium-lined fingers holding her chin in place as he searches her face. At last he sighs almost imperceptibly, shaking his head, but he does not release her and she does not pull away. "This is a foolish idea," he says, though he doesn't sound convinced of it.

He also sounds more like himself than he has since he saw the Archon's seal. He is right, she knows, but so is she; the city will be dangerous, but Priscus's chase would carry just as much danger and she cannot abandon the eighty-four slaves of Danarius's estate to this Priscus. Of her estate, now. Hawke shrugs one shoulder, offering him a tentative smile. "I excel at those," she says, and when he almost smiles in return she adds more soberly, "I think—I ought to go. For their sake, if you won't let me for yours."

Fenris leans forward until his forehead rests against hers, until the white mess of his hair mingles with the black strands of her own. Hawke wraps her arms around his neck and feels his hands settle at the small of her back. He breathes there a moment, letting the silence of his great hall fill the air around them, and then he tightens his arms around her. "It's too much," he says, rough and quiet. "Let me…let me think on it. I will give you an answer soon."

"Take your time." Her nose brushes against his, relief and worry warring in her heart. He seems nearly himself again, but she knows the disquiet seething just under her skin is mirrored in his own. Perhaps this is too demanding of her, given everything she has taken from him today—but she needs this assurance, and Catullus's words seem as good as any to ask for it. "Darevi basia unum."

His breath puffs across her cheek in a laugh. "Solus unus?"

Her eyes fall closed at his response, at his returning humor. Safe. They have walked through the worst of the fire and emerged; they will make it through this not entirely unscathed, not unscarred, but—together. "Certe."

"Placet," he murmurs, and his mouth covers her own in the kiss she'd asked for.

-.-.-

"Seco. Secare, secui…secus?"

"Sectus," says Orana, and Hawke curses under her breath.

A week has passed since her visit to Fenris's mansion. She'd given him the space he requested, taking the others on her errands to the Wounded Coast, though the idea of letting him stew in his ruined mansion had held as much appeal as the Bone Pit on its best days. She'd done her best to keep her mind on her long list of busy-work at first, as they'd cleaned out the coast of its myriad unwelcome inhabitants, but the third time she'd failed to notice a six-foot-tall spider sneaking up behind her, Aveline had kindly asked if she hadn't better go home and leave the spiders to her. Isabela, though, had a nose like a bloodhound and the tenacity of a cat after cream, and when she'd sensed Hawke's secret she'd prodded her mercilessly until Hawke had given up and explained. The ensuing innuendos had been unwelcome, if not unexpected, but despite her teasing Isabela had offered both her ship and her services, and Varric hadn't been far behind with Bianca. Hawke had tried to explain, to say that she wasn't sure yet if they would even be needed, but Isabela had only laughed and said, "Preparation is always a good idea, sweet thing."

It had seemed like rather sound advice, which is why Hawke now sits across from Orana in the fat armchairs of her study, the detritus of breakfast still surrounding their feet, trying and mostly failing to conjugate Arcanic verbs.

"Vetui," says Orana.

"To forbid," Hawke answers, glancing down at her empty cup. "Is there any more tea?"

She tuts, her slim fingers touching the lip of Hawke's cup. "Aen thea…?"

"Aen thea amplius, dictatora?"

Orana laughs, a sound that surprises Hawke every time she hears it, and nods. "Ita est, discipla," she says, and Hawke takes both her cup and Orana's to the kitchens to refill them. The cups had been her mother's last nameday gift; they are a deep, deep red, the color of crushed berries, and delicately etched with an intricate pattern of white flowers around the base. They'd cost a fortune, but the way her mother's eyes had misted over at the sight of them had brought tears to her own—then Hawke shakes her head roughly, dispersing the memories, and reaches for the ceramic kettle. It'd been hard enough to get Orana to allow her to fetch her own tea; if she dawdles now, the woman is more than likely to take back the office on the grounds of efficiency if nothing else.

She adds a sprig of mint to Orana's cup and a dollop of honey to her own and is just lifting both cups from the counter when a footstep sounds behind her. "I'm coming—er, veni-tui, Orana—" she says as she looks up, but the face that greets her is decidedly masculine. "Oh. You're not Orana."

"I am not," says Fenris dryly.

"Do you want any tea?" Hawke asks, and he shakes his head, falling into step with her as she starts back to the study. This is the first time she has seen him in a week, and though he is a little pale, he shows none of the uncertainty she'd expected.

He says nothing for several moments. Hawke fishes for conversation topics, discomfited by the silence, but just before she can ask what polish he uses on his gauntlets, he throws her a sidelong glance. "You are practicing your Arcanum?"

"I'm trying," she offers ruefully. "I'm more out of practice than I thought. Orana's being very patient. Vetui—to forbid. Vetari, vetare, vetitus."

"It's not a simple language. You are fortunate you learned as young as you did."

She pauses at the study door, letting Fenris reach over her head to push it open, and shrugs. "My father thought it was important, for both me and Bethany. Any mage worth her salt ought to know the language of magic, he said, or she might as well stick to lighting candles and icing water glasses. Bethany was much better at it than I was."

Orana jumps up as they enter, curtseying deferentially at Fenris. Hawke suspects it is a habit she will never break despite how frequently Fenris has vocalized his dislike of it, and she shakes her head as she hands Orana her tea. "Do you mind if we break for a while, dictatora?" she asks, trying to break the tension; Orana flushes and nods, glancing again at Fenris's grimace, and nearly flees out the study door.

Hawke sinks back down into her chair with a sigh. "You scare her, you know."

"And you coddle her."

She waves away his accusations, both of them aware this is not why he has come. Fenris stands in front of the unlit fireplace, his eyes on the Amell crest without seeing it, and then he turns, pulling her letters from his jerkin. Two of them he returns to her, the ones from the Archon and Lady Damia; the third he keeps, sliding Feynriel's letter from the envelope and unfolding it.

"Do you know what this boy says?" he asks at last, his eyes turning to hers over the pages.

Confused, Hawke hesitates, cupping her tea in both hands. "He wanted me to take the estate."

"Not that." Fenris waves the letter in the air impatiently. "What he says about the senators in Minrathous, and the qunari."

"Oh!" It takes Hawke a moment to readjust her thoughts, to find the memories of Feynriel's letter that do not concern her unwelcome inheritance. "He said…oh, what was it? Something about rumors of an attack, about a group of magisters trying to strike against Seheron. They thought the qunari would be unsettled by the loss of the Arishok and their defeat in Kirkwall. He wanted me to look into it."

"Will you?"

"Ah—" Hawke blinks. "I might, if the opportunity presented itself. I hadn't really thought about it. Should I?"

Fenris looks back at the letter, his dark eyebrows drawn tight, and Hawke seeks refuge from her bewilderment in her tea. She cannot imagine where this sudden interest in the qunari's wellbeing has come from; he'd certainly seemed willing enough to defend Kirkwall against them at her side, and news of Tevinter's schemes of war since then had rarely spurred more than a derisive comment. He respects the Qun, she knows, though that hardly seems reason enough to involve them in another country's hostilities. Why now?

His eyes slide to hers, and she realizes she has said the last out loud. There is something strange in his expression, something old and long-buried, but before she can put a name to it he has crumpled the letter in his fist and turned to look out the window. "They would lay siege to Alam first," he says at last. "It's a coastal city, the nearest to Minrathous."

"I see," says Hawke, though she doesn't. Alam is a small-enough city, if she remembers her father's lessons correctly, notable only for its position at the mouth of Seheron's largest river, and for its reputation as a haven for—Oh. Her mouth forms the word without voicing it, and Hawke rises to her feet, tea forgotten, her eyes on the stiff lines of Fenris's back. "There are Fog Warriors in Alam," she says. Her voice seems loud in the quiet room.

His weight shifts, just slightly, just enough to tell her she is right. She closes her eyes—this is a deep wound in Fenris, long scarred over but never healed, and the strength of his trust in her, in allowing her to see this defenseless part of him, sucks the breath out of her. She knows the deep-seated guilt of survival, of failure—she carries it herself, after all, though hers bears different names—and when she can speak again, her next words come carefully. "I will do whatever I can to find the truth of these rumors," she says to his back, and though she means every word, the promise seems somehow paltry in the face of his regret.

"Hmm," Fenris murmurs, a low exhale rather than a real response, and then he turns to face her. The morning light glances off his hair through the window, the faint halo paling his hair to quicksilver; it makes a sharp contrast with the darkness in his eyes, and a faint part of Hawke is reminded of the stories of the old gods, descending from the Golden City in terrible beauty to bring doom upon their enemies. "You cannot go alone."

"I won't." Her heart races. Tacit permission is still permission, and though Fenris's fist tightens around the creased letter, unsteady anticipation is already coursing through her at the thought of the voyage. "I won't go alone. Varric and Isabela already said they would go. They can help me track down the rumors. Isabela said there's room for one more on board her ship; I thought maybe I'd ask Sebas—"

"They know?"

Hawke's mouth closes with a clack. Oops. "Ah…maybe. Not everything!" she adds at Fenris's deepening scowl. "Just the—just the Tevinter bit. And—the, ah, slave…bit."

"The slave bit," Fenris repeats in tones of patent disbelief, and Hawke winces. "How fortunate you were so circumspect."

Her cheeks heat so quickly that Hawke feels lightheaded. "I can be circumspect! I don't give everything away just like that, Fenris."

He looks at her, his face calm, and then he shakes his head. "You do," he says, as if it is obvious, and then says in the same tones, "and that is why I will go with you."

Her racing heart stops dead.

"No!"

The word bursts out of her. His eyes narrow at her emphatic negation, but Hawke sees only the scars on Fenris's back, the magisters pulling at his lyrium, the impossible weight of slavery bowing his shoulders again. "No," she says again, softer but just as forceful, her hand cutting through the air between them; her sleeve catches the teacup and it tumbles off the chair's arm to shatter unnoticed on the carpet. "Out of the question, Fenris."

"Oh?" he asks, one eyebrow raised, as if she has objected to nothing more than his choice of wine.

"Oh, yourself. You can't seriously be suggesting this. Why would you even want to go?"

"Aside from my wish to keep you safe, you mean."

Her chest feels suddenly warm, but she refuses to be deterred. "Yes. Besides that."

Fenris shifts to lean against the window, a loose, relaxed movement that jars against her tension, and Hawke realizes suddenly that the time he had asked for he has spent on this, on making this decision, and that he is as certain of himself in that choice as she is that it is wrong. "The benefit outweighs any risk. You will need my help in that city if you wish to have any hope of negotiating it safely."

"The danger—"

"—would be no more than you are facing. And yet you would go without question."

"I am not a—a lyrium treat for magisters with no self-control! And from what you've said, that would be all of them."

He snorts in derision. "No. You're an unwanted upstart from a backwards country famous only for its mud and its dogs." He ignores her insulted gasp and crosses his arms over his chest. "So easily they will provoke you. In truth, I think you have more to fear from the magisters than I."

"You don't mean that." He can't possibly mean that—a magister chased him across lands and seas alike, desperate for his return, not hers; they have done nothing more than send her an impersonal letter, and Hawke herself, she knows, is hardly a social threat to the entrenched blue-bloods of Minrathous. "Besides," she adds, trying a different tack, "you hate the Imperium. You hate everything they stand for. Wouldn't going back just—rekindle that hatred?"

"Not if it is by my choice. There are some things I would hate more." The light from the window at his back throws his face into shadow, though the darkness is not enough to truly blot out his expression, and Hawke blinks. There is something in his eyes, then, something she feels she ought to recognize, but she cannot shake the visions of Fenris torn away from her on a lead for no more crime than re-entering the country so desperate to own him—enslaved again, because she allowed him to follow her to his doom.

Hawke shakes her head, resolved. "The risk—it's too much. You can't come."

"You say that like a command."

This is dangerous ground, but she cannot back off now, and she grits her teeth as she says, "It's not negotiable, Fenris."

His eyes narrow, the soft thing in them gone; now they are bitterly satisfied. "So quickly she assumes the mantle of magister."

It knocks the breath right out of her. Magister, he calls her, his voice laced with humorless mirth—Hawke steps forward, flushing with anger now rather than embarrassment. "This is not a joke. You are not coming with me, and if you come to the ship I'll have Varric tie you to the pier."

He smiles then, the hard and unkind smile he sometimes gives just before he spits a slaver on his claws. "Vetui, indeed," he says. "You certainly forbid me my choices like one of them."

"Then have this instead," Hawke snaps. Her pulse pounds in her ears, racing from both her anger and the words on the tip of her tongue. She says, "Amaro," and the accusation of it strikes the air like a bell. The smile vanishes from Fenris's face and Hawke continues, relentless, closing the space between them without dropping her eyes from his. "Amareis. Amara. Amari," she finishes, her voice dropping on the last word. To love; they love; she loves.

I love.

Her anger drains away suddenly and totally, as if she has spoken the key to a great puzzle, and its passing leaves her tired to the bone. Fenris shakes his head. His lips are pressed tightly together, his face pale, but he does not pull away when she rests her hand on his chest. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same in my place."

It is the closest either of them has come to naming this thing between them, and for a moment his eyes seem to pierce through her in their green intensity. His hand closes around her wrist, gently, and without anger. "You bare your soul too easily, Hawke," he says only, but she can feel the thudding of his heart under her fingertips.

"I can protect myself from the magisters, Fenris. Minrathous nobility can hardly be much more conniving than Kirkwall nobility."

Fenris shakes his head again, and his free hand comes up to brush her hair from her eyes. "Anger," he says, his fingers brushing over her furrowed eyebrows, and then his hand slides to the corner of her eye where her faint crow's feet are pulled tight. "Worry," he adds, and then he drops his fingers to her lips in a ghost of a touch. "Unhappiness," he says at last, and suddenly he looks as weary as she feels. "You show your heart in your face, Hawke. All these things they will use against you."

Hawke has no answer for that. She has always shown what she felt—indeed, with a family as open as hers, it was hardly avoidable—but now it seems that openness is more a danger than a blessing. There is no denying that Fenris's knowledge of Minrathous, of Tevinter's men and women of power, would be invaluable, just as there is no denying that every part of her fears to take him back to that cesspit.

He is too close; she can't think properly with his fingers still on her wrist, and she pulls away, taking his place at the window with jerky steps. "The magisters will recognize you."

"The same would be true for you."

"I'm invited," she points out. "My status there would protect me. You—yours—wouldn't."

"You are mistaken," he says to her back, his voice too bland for anything but the abhorrent. "No magister would openly thwart courtesy by toying with another's property without permission."

"What a comfort." Hawke feels tears prickling behind her eyes, her wild frustration lodging in her throat and making it hard to swallow. "I don't—want anyone to think of you like that. I don't want you to have to be near anyone who thinks of you like that."

"You wish to secure the estate? To investigate these rumors, and to use the power of a magister to save the other slaves?"

The other slaves. To save the other slaves. Hawke crushes the heel of her hand against her eyes, cursing that bloody letter, the bastard of Fenris's former master, and Minrathous itself up, down, and sideways. "Yes," Hawke says at last, though they both know that it is not only that. The word sits heavy on her tongue, pressing her voice to a whisper.

She hears rather than sees him shrug. "Then you will need to ingratiate yourself with the magisters, Hawke. I already wear your crest at my hip, your favor on my wrist. What better way to show your power than to bring to heel the slave not even Danarius could tame?"

There it is. There it is, the sickening truth, the sudden breach between them. Danarius's last bequest. Hawke sags against the windowsill. "Maker, Fenris."

Fenris says nothing. Hawke stares blindly out the window at her little herb garden, the neat rows of basil and mint and thyme she and Orana have so carefully tended offering no comfort to her now. She is horrified; she is appalled; she is revolted by these very ideas, aghast that Fenris could yield his freedom to her so easily, even if it is only in appearance.

But—he has chosen this. But, the magisters—

Fenris lets her war with herself silently. The danger would be so great, so great—the very thought of it makes her hands shake, but—

But Fenris chooses to go. As a free man, he chooses to go.

Hawke closes her eyes, feeling the decision slip into place. Just as he will not stop her going, so will she not stop him no matter how much she wishes to. Her fears are hers still and no simple words will shake them, but she can respect his decision. She can trust him to keep himself safe. She can honor his trust in her.

"All right," she whispers, unable to muster anything louder. The key turns in the lock, the seal set on her word. "We go to Minrathous together."

She hears his step behind her and she slumps sideways, resting her hot forehead on the cool stone of the window. He joins her at the windowsill, looking not at her garden but at her face, and Hawke sighs without lifting her head. "How did this happen, Fenris?"

The words are meant more rhetorically than anything else, but Fenris gives her an answer anyway. "Dueling between magisters has a long history in Tevinter. There are rituals, codes of honor, long and well-kept records—and naturally, a deep tradition of blood magic to ensure the sanctity of every match is upheld."

"I'm not a blood mage. I didn't even know we were dueling."

He shrugs. "Danarius called you, a citizen of Tevinter, my mistress," he says, and though the word in Fenris's voice makes her sick to her stomach he seems to give it little notice. "He acknowledged you as an equal, he set the terms of victory, and he entered the contest without coercion. It met the requirements of a duel, if only barely."

"But you were the one who killed him!"

Fenris cuts his eyes at her as if she is being dense on purpose, and Hawke falters. Oh. Her property. A slave, with as much legal weight as a knife. "Ah," she says articulately, and shifts further into the window, away from him.

In a furious fluttering of black and gold wings that startles them both, a little finch lands abruptly in the black-eyed susans below the window. The head of the flower bends under its weight, swaying back and forth in the bright sunlight; the finch turns its eye from Hawke to Fenris, as if assessing them, and then it turns its back on them both to peck at the still-unready seeds of the flower beneath it. They watch it in silence, both grateful for the reprieve, and Hawke feels an unsteady smile tugging at her lips. The finch cocks its head, lets out a short, sharp burst of song, and then, in another sudden flash of yellow feathers, it is gone.

Hawke laughs, delighted, and the tension between her and Fenris snaps like a dry twig. She runs a hand through her hair and strides back into the room, collecting the leftover tea-things briskly and with new purpose. This conversation has not been brief—Orana must be wondering what keeps her—but Hawke feels as though days have passed, as if who she is now is so distant from who she was that she might as well be another person. It is not in her nature to dwell on a decision already made; this is done, for better or for worse, and now she will make the best of it. "Are there songbirds in Minrathous?" Hawke asks over her shoulder, kneeling to gather the dirty saucers before she sees the broken teacup. "Ah, damn it."

She stacks the saucers on the padded arm of the chair and begins collecting the cup's broken pieces into a spare linen napkin. The damage is not great, thanks to the lushness of the carpet cushioning its fall; the handle has snapped off, and the cup itself has split into four large shards on top of the dark tea-stain in the rug, the deep red dye looking less noble against the stark white porcelain inside it. Fenris approaches from the window, looking over the back of the chair at what has stopped her as he answers her question. "There are many. The wealthy prize those with the sweetest songs." Hawke rises carefully, the broken shards held in the cradle of the napkin, and Fenris nods at the porcelain. "That is not irreparable."

"I know. Sandal's clever with putting things back together—I'll give it to him and see what he can do with it. It should be all right."

"Good."

Hawke hesitates, looking down at the broken pieces in her hands, and then she meets Fenris's eyes straight on. "Are we all right, Fenris?"

It sounds like such a simple question to her ears, like something a child might ask, but—but a lifetime has passed since this morning and she needs to know, needs to hear it said aloud for them both. Fenris looks thoughtful for a moment, as if he is searching himself, and then his gaze steadies on her face. "We are, Hawke."

"Oh, good," she says, the lightness of her tone not quite convincing enough to mask her relief, and she turns away towards the door. "Will you put those saucers on the tray? I'll tell Orana to come get it." There's a clatter of ceramic behind her and Hawke throws her thanks over her shoulder, trying to reach awkwardly for the doorknob without dropping her bundle, but before she can get it open a hand has dropped heavily to her shoulder to spin her on her feet.

"Fenris, what—"

His mouth slants across her own, hot and insistent, and Hawke barely manages to keep enough of her senses to grip the folded napkin closer to her stomach to protect her precious burden. His hands slide from her shoulder to her arms, holding her firmly in place; his kiss is not possessive, but it is deep, and deliberate, a mark not of his ownership of her but of their equal ties to each other, and the intent of it would have taken her breath away had it not already been gone. His weight shifts closer to her and Hawke leans into it, matching his movements with her own, and she feels the tears burning at her eyes again as his mouth moves over hers, as his hands slip with too much gentleness farther down her arms to her elbows, to her wrists, to her fingers still wrapped in white cloth. She'd said amari earlier and meant it; this is as much a declaration as that had been, and when Fenris breaks away at last Hawke slumps against the door, as drained if she has run too long without rest. His thumbs brush over her knuckles lightly, a touch of affirmation rather than comfort, and then he straightens.

His eyes meet hers, and Hawke understands.

He has given her his freedom.

It is not the work of a letter, this time, nor a machination of Minrathous's pedigreed elite—this is all his own, a gift that no ink or paper in the world could hold, and he has given it to her. His trust overwhelms her, stunning in its magnitude; his freedom is hers to protect, hers to defend, hers to safeguard in a city that waits to tear it from her grasp.

She tucks it into her heart, into the secret place that belongs only to Fenris.

Hers to keep, until the day she can give it back to him with her own two hands.

-.-.-

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

WHO hath desired the Sea? - the sight of salt water unbounded -
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing -
His Sea in no showing the same - his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise - so and no otherwise - hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea ? - the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bowsprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder -
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder -
His Sea in no wonder the same - his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise - so and no otherwise - hillmen desire their Hills.

—The Sea and the Hills, Rudyard Kipling

Hawke leans her head back against the wall, wishing the narrow hallway were wide enough to accommodate her legs bent in front of her. "Varric, please come out. I promise you'll feel better in the open air."

"No."

"Isabela's got some ginger. She says it might help."

"No, Hawke, go—urgh." He retches again and Hawke winces. For nearly a week they've been at sea, and for nearly a week Varric has hidden himself in his cabin rather than face the heaving deck above him. Not that the cabins heave any less, as Fenris had pointed out, but with no sea legs and no sympathy from Isabela, Varric had apparently decided to salvage his dignity if not the contents of his stomach and refused to emerge.

Feet thump down the stairs at the end of the hall, and Hawke looks over to see tanned, lyrium-lined toes curling over the edges of the stairs, shortly followed by long, lanky legs and well-muscled arms leading to broad shoulders, and all of it topped by white hair and a green-eyed scowl. Fenris frowns even further to see her sitting in the middle of the hallway. "The dwarf has still not emerged, then, I take it."

"No, the dwarf hasn't," comes a muffled voice from inside the room, and Hawke shrugs against the door. "And if any nosy elves come poking their pointed ears in where they're not wanted, this dwarf reserves the right to chronicle in detail what happened the last time you played Isabela in Wicked Grace."

Fenris raises an eyebrow. "He's touchy," Hawke stage-whispers, and he shakes his head as he extends a hand to pull her to her feet. She dusts herself off as Fenris hands her a small canvas bag, and her expression brightens. "Oh, good, the ginger?"

"Most of it."

"You're frowning again. Did Isabela give you a hard time?" She peeks into the bag and nods in satisfaction at the handful of roots inside. "I'm glad she found them at last. With so many crates down there I guess I should be glad she found them at all."

"That woman," he says suddenly, his voice laced with irritation, "has no sense of propriety."

Hawke blinks at the sudden pinkness to his ears, wondering what Isabela could have possibly said to rile him so badly. "You've known her for six years. Are you really still surprised?"

He snarls in answer even as he spins and stalks his way back down the hallway, and an infuriated "Venhedis!" bounces off the walls back to her.

"Language, darling," Hawke calls, her voice floating down the hallway after him, and the door to their cabin slams closed. "So touchy," she murmurs to herself, grinning, and knocks on Varric's door again. "Varric, I'm going to open the door and throw in the ginger, all right? I promise I won't look, so don't worry about me seeing the greenness of your gills. Or the depressing lankness of your chest hair. Or—"

"Hawke," he warns, though the threat of it is somewhat negated by the sad little cough that follows. Relenting, Hawke cracks his door only enough to toss the bag of ginger onto his desk, and then she retreats without pushing her luck or Varric's patience.

"Feel better," she calls, and deciding to leave Fenris to his huff, she makes her way topside to find Isabela perched on a barrel by the mizzenmast, nibbling on a bit of orange peel and looking very pleased with herself. Hawke ducks under the boom and joins her, leaning on the mast over her shoulder as she surveys her crew at work. "What on earth did you say to Fenris?" she asks by way of hello, and takes the orange slice Isabela offers. "I haven't seen him sulk like this since the night of that Wicked Grace game."

"The one where I took him for eighteen sovereigns and a drink every night for a month? That was a good game." A sailor shouts something, a thick coil of rope thrown over one shoulder, and Isabela gestures starboard. "Nothing he couldn't handle, anyway. You'd think after all these years he'd be a little less offendable."

"That's what I thought." Hawke swallows the last of the orange and nods at a passing crewman. "So, how egregious were you?"

"I might have—might have, mind you—mentioned I was always looking for handsome men who were willing to serve."

Hawke pinches the bridge of her nose. "Oh, Isabela."

"And that I had oil in my cabin should he feel the urge to practice glistening."

"Oh, Isabela."

She laughs, leaning forward on her barrel, and the wind tugs her hair over her shoulders. "That elf," she says, her eyes bright as she looks up at Hawke, "is one of the prickliest, broodiest, repressed men I have ever had the absolute pleasure of coming across. I am wild with jealousy, Hawke."

"Repressed is such a strong word."

"And yet, so accurate. No, I said starboard!" Isabela leaps from the barrel, her orange peel and their conversation forgotten as she marches towards the offending sailor, a burly man with an enormous beard who looks torn between admiration and fear at the sight of his captain.

Probably the best reaction, Hawke thinks, and commandeers Isabela's abandoned seat for her own.

The Siren's Call II is a fast ship indeed. They'd quickly outstripped the other ships leaving port at the same time—Isabela had been delighted at the other captains' consternation—and in what seemed like no time at all they were already skimming over the waters along West Hill and Highever. A trade vessel could not have made this journey in less than twenty-five days; with fair weather and good winds, Isabela had promised two weeks, and so far their luck seems to be holding. Hawke leans back, looking up through the maze of riggings and white sailcloth that give her what little shade she has. Ten sails, the Call has—Isabela had detailed the properties of each one—and what seemed like a thousand miles of rope, and Hawke had been glad when Isabela had found a hapless sailor to chastise for a misplaced crate and allowed her to escape.

A head peeks over the edge of the crow's nest, so tiny it looks more like a doll than a man, and Hawke waves up at the sailor with a grin, unable to muster a single drop of envy at his position. The mass of ropes between them sway with the creaking of the ship between the waves, as if the ship itself is breathing under her feet.

"Excuse me, ser?"

She lowers her eyes to find a tall, well-built young man standing just a few feet away. He is bare to the waist and positively gleaming with perspiration—for a moment, Hawke thinks it is a joke of Isabela's, but when she glances after her, the pirate is nowhere to be seen. "Ah, yes? Can I help you?"

The ship rocks with a particularly large wave and the man puts one hand on the boom for balance, the muscles of his arm rippling with the movement. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I thought I heard the captain say—are you Kirkwall's Champion?"

"I—such as it is, well—yes."

A brilliant smile spreads over his face and he steps closer, into a beam of sunlight that makes his hair flare gold. "I thought so!" he cries, and then he has grasped both of her hands in his, and Hawke finds herself too surprised to pull away. "You saved my mother three years ago, in the qunari attack—do you remember an older woman named Relin? Short, brown eyes, hair like mine?"

There is no polite way to say that everyone looks alike fleeing from qunari, so Hawke settles for a simple, "No, I don't. I'm sorry."

She tries to draw her hands back, but he holds them closer to his chest in earnest admiration. "It's all right," he says, bending over her so that those brown eyes glimmer directly into hers. "Really, I just wanted to tell you how grateful I was—am—for everything you've done for the city. For people like me."

His face seems very close and he still won't let go of her hands. "I'm—well, I'm very glad to hear that."

"Truly," he says, lowering his voice into something too dark for open air, "if there was anything I could do to repay you—personally—"

"No need," she says, tugging at her hands again, but his fingers stroke over her knuckles intently enough to irk her, "but if you could, ah, let go—"

A shadow falls over their joined hands, made pointed by the long hilt of a greatsword extending over one shoulder. "Hawke," says Fenris.

The young man drops her hands as if her fingers have burned him. Fenris raises an eyebrow in a delicate threat and he retreats even further, and a moment later, the only thing left of the well-built young man is a glimpse of his far-off figure pulling on his shirt. Fenris glances down at her on the barrel. "An adoring fan, I take it."

Hawke shakes her fingers out and gives him an exaggerated sigh. "What can I say? Kill an Arishok and suddenly everyone knows your name."

"Hmm."

Hawke grins. "Invidius, amaris?"

His eyes snap to hers, but she cannot tell if the sudden flush on the tips of his ears is from the sentiment or the endearment. "I am not jealous."

"If you say so, lover," she murmurs in the trade tongue, and watches the flush creep higher with avid interest. So it had been the pet name. She stores this tidbit away for later—and then she pauses with the realization that it might be many weeks before she can use it, that soon enough, she will not be permitted any endearments at all. The thought sobers her like nothing else, and she pushes up from the barrel. "Ready to rehearse?"

"If you are."

She nods and follows him aft, climbing the narrow stairs to the quarterdeck at the stern of the ship, the only place in the open air with a modicum of privacy. Behind them the Waking Sea stretches open and unending in a deep, deep blue that hurts her eyes if she looks at it too long. A few wispy white clouds drift overhead in the salt-sprayed winds, occasionally offering a breath or two of shade; in the distance, the grey-green waves of the Amaranthine Ocean beckon to the Siren's Call with their promise of warmer waters and swifter winds, and indeed, it seems the Call nearly leaps to meet them.

They skirt a chest-high stack of crates lashed to the deck to reach their makeshift study; here there are no well-built young men to gawk at their Arcanum, or at the sight of the Champion of Kirkwall dancing in a circle by herself. Most of the traditional dances she is familiar with, the Fereldan versions she'd learned holdovers from Tevinter's occupation, but Fenris has been away for ten years, and the newer dances she will have to learn on her own. The idea is less daunting than she expects—she enjoys dancing, as infrequently as she gets to do it, and even the thought of the arms of a faceless magister is not enough to keep her from looking forward to it.

"To be," Fenris calls in Arcanum, their language by unspoken rule while they are in this place.

Hawke dips a curtsey to an invisible partner. "Bei, bese, bea. Something a little harder, if you please."

He smirks and leans back against the stern railing, throwing out verbs for her to conjugate as she goes through the steps of a gavotte. She manages all of them save the present progressive tense of acquire and they move on to pronouns, and then to dining etiquette—and never in her life will Hawke understand the nobility's insistence on so many flaming forks—and by the time she's gone through two minuets and a waltz, they have covered the first four courses and dessert. Before Fenris can begin to grill her on cheeses, though, she calls a break and joins him at the rail, sliding down to sit with her back to it and stretching out her legs in front of her.

"This would be easier with a partner," she says pointedly, and lets her head fall sideways against his knee.

He snorts but doesn't move, and a pleasant quiet settles over them, broken only by the steady wash of waves against the hull's creaking timbers and faint shouts from one sailor to another.

And the steady thumping of feet on stairs, as Varric's head emerges from the stairway up to the quarterdeck. "Here you are. I was starting to think Rivaini'd thrown you overboard."

"Not yet," says Hawke in the same language, straightening, and Varric clambers up the last few steps to join them at the rail. "You look like you're feeling better. Your chest hair's got its spring back, anyway."

"Don't even joke about that," he grumbles. His breath smells faintly of ginger. "I don't remember my last boat ride being quite this—boaty."

"You mean Tethras's merchant prince didn't spend his last voyage too seasick to stand?"

"Hilarious, Hawke," he says, rolling his eyes. "What about you? Spent it annoying perfectly innocent dwarves the whole trip over the Waking Sea?"

"Every single one."

"I'm speechless." Varric leans against the rail, facing out to sea, and sighs. "I have to say, Hawke, there's nothing like being the lone dwarf in the middle of the biggest pond in the world to make a man doubt his last few decisions."

She pats his boot. "At least there's adventure in it, Varric."

"Yeah, enough adventure to drown in. Let's just hope this tale has a happy ending."

Hawke can think of nothing to say to that. She glances up at Fenris to find him looking down at her; she raises her eyebrows in a silent question, and he shrugs before looking away. Over his shoulder, the white wispy clouds begin to gather into something thicker, and darker, and the winds wheeling around them turn suddenly cold.

The warning bell peals just after midnight.

Hawke jerks out of a sound sleep to find herself nearly pinned between Fenris's bare back and the wall. She struggles to sit up, dazed and half-deafened by the ongoing shriek of the bell; feet pound down the hall outside their room to the sound of men shouting, and in one smooth motion Fenris comes awake as well, his hand coming out automatically to press her behind him.

"What is it?" she asks, scrubbing the heel of her hand over her eyes in the dim light of the hurricane lamps—and as if in answer, the ship pitches violently sideways, nearly throwing both of them from the bed. Hawke scrambles over Fenris's legs, yanking on her pants and sleeveless tunic and throwing Fenris his leggings, and then she tears open the door to the cabin and grabs the nearest sailor she can find. "What's going on?"

"Storm, messere," he gasps, pulling out of her grasp. "Summer squall, came out of nowhere—couldn't see it in the dark—I must go!"

He vanishes down the hallway, staggering as the ship pitches again; Hawke braces herself in the doorway, and then a crack of thunder rolls through the ship so loud that the timbers shake under her feet. Fenris appears behind her in the doorway to lean over her, clothed enough for decency's sake, and even as his hand closes around the doorframe Varric emerges from his room, fully-dressed and with Bianca slung over his back. "Who's attacking?" he says, one hand on the wall for balance.

"The Maker, I think," Hawke says, but before she can get out another word, the hatch over the stairway at the end of the hall bursts open, letting in a torrent of rainwater and a rush of raucous noise.

A drenched sailor drops down the stairs heavily, her long red hair plastered to her neck. Her eyes are wild. "A healer! Is there a healer here?"

Hawke steps forward. "I know a little healing magic—" she starts, and the woman beckons her frantically.

"Come on! There's a man trapped—the yardarm snapped—the captain said you could help?"

The sailor is already climbing back up the stairs, and without hesitation, Hawke starts after her—only to be stopped by Fenris's hand on her arm. "Fenris, let go—"

"Not without me," he snarls; she nods and they race down the hallway, Varric just behind them as they climb up after the sailor, and together, they emerge into the storm.

The sudden wall of sound hits her just as solidly as the driving rain itself. The storm is deafening, a solid mass of roaring winds and blasts of thunder that drown out the shouting crew around them; the rain blows almost sideways in sharp, icy gusts, drenching her through in a matter of seconds, and Hawke has to shield her eyes with her arm to see her guiding sailor's back through the downpour. Her bare feet slip and slide on the rain-slicked deck and she nearly loses her purchase more than once, but at last, as the ship heaves under them, the woman gestures at a huddle of figures under the foremast and Hawke nods, wishing furiously that Anders were here instead of her, shouting thanks that is whipped away from her lips as soon as she voices it. Lightning cracks in the distance, throwing an eerie green cast over the mass of crewmen.

Hawke pushes through the mass of elbows and shoulders and goes hard to her knees by the broken spar and the man pinned under it, trying desperately to see through the black sky and blacker rain slicing down around her. The weight of the wood has snapped his thigh clean through, the leg crooked where it should be straight, and his hand is crushed—bad injuries, but well within her skill to heal, and Hawke heaves a sigh of relief as she reaches for the man's shoulder. "You're going to be fine," she shouts, her nose inches from his face; he nods tensely, rainwater running over his pain-filled eyes now edged with gratitude, and Hawke looks over her shoulder. "Fenris! And you, and you—the spar!"

They settle themselves around her, feet scrabbling for bracing ground, and then they heave and the wood lifts free—the shift makes the man scream, but even as he bucks Hawke leans hard on his leg, forcing the bone back into place as her magic pours out of her hands. The spar thumps to the deck behind her and Hawke ignores it; the man screams again as she feels the bone knit, as the muscles of his hand slip over tendon and sinew in the blinding blue glow of healing magic. It takes only a moment but it feels like a lifetime, and when Hawke finally sits back on her heels and shoves her soaked hair out of her eyes, both she and her patient are gasping for air. Still, the leg is mended and the hand mostly healed—Hawke rises to her feet, grabbing the rigging to steady herself as the ship tips sideways, and grabs the sailor who'd brought her here. "Get him downstairs," she shouts, but thunder bursts overhead and her words are lost—the woman shakes her head and Hawke gestures instead, pointing to the man and then belowdecks. At last the woman nods, her face illuminated in a sudden flash of lightning, and she heaves the man's arm over her shoulder before helping him limp away.

Hawke shivers, suddenly, the icy rain sliding down the back of her neck like a lover, and the fading rush of excitement leaves her knees weak enough that she wraps one arm around the mast to steady herself. Fenris grips her shoulder and she looks up; his chest is still bare, rain tracing over the lyrium as his markings flare dimly with each heartbeat, and his white hair is pressed flat against his head. He says something but the words are lost to the wind—she leans closer, trying to hear—

And as the storm slackens for an instant, a voice rings out clearly. "Man overboard!"

They both look over, startled; Fenris glances at her for an instant and she pushes—"Go on!" she shouts, and a second later he has joined Varric at the rail, both of them searching the black water for any signs of life. The storm swells again and Hawke sinks against the mast—Maker, please protect him, please don't let him die, please don't let me cost another innocent man his life—

"There!"

She cannot glimpse the drowning man from her position, but through the heavy rain she sees Varric cock a bolt with a line lashed to the end of it; she sees Fenris wrap the other end around his wrist; she sees Varric take careful aim and after a moment that feels like forever, his arm jerks back as he fires. The bolt zips through the air, catching the thin light of the storm lamps for only an instant, and then it flies out of sight into the dark. She waits, breathless—at last a raucous cry goes up from a dozen voices, louder even than the furious storm, and the line around Fenris's wrist snaps tight.

All the muscles of Fenris's back bunch at once, his markings surging white as he hauls hand over hand on the rope. Then there is another pair of hands alongside his, and another, and almost before Hawke can blink they reach over the rail to heave a shaking figure overboard. Hawke catches a glimpse of a broad chest and well-muscled arms and gasps a laugh that verges on hysterical. Relin's son, saved again. Thank you, Maker.

She sinks further against the mast, pressing her cheek to the wood. The rain hammers hard on her back and arms, pooling in the folds of her tunic like a hundred tiny mirrors, their surfaces rippling and being remade over and over again with her breath, with the wind. She sucks in air, rainwater dripping from her nose and her eyelashes and her chin, and all the mirrors shudder at the movement—a part of her wonders if it is possible to drown like this, in the rain alone—and then she looks up as lightning strikes close enough to throw the ship into sharp, hard relief.

Isabela stands at the great wheel, her hands wrapped tightly around its spokes, and even from here Hawke can see the strain of her muscles as she struggles to keep the ship on course. Her bandanna is gone and her black hair flies like a whip around her cheeks, but her eyes are wild and alive and the feral grin that spreads across her face is a challenge as much to the storm as her crew, savagely defiant of the wind and the waves that break high on the sides of her ship, throwing salt and black water in an enormous spray behind her.

Hawke's heart races at the sight. The storm rages, but Isabela is the sea.

Lightning strikes again, closer—Hawke sees the dark waters flare with electric light just off the port rail, and the earsplitting pound of thunder that follows nearly drives her to her knees. Her gaze flies up in a sudden thought, searching the stormclouds through the rain that floods her eyes; the clouds flash again further out, the lightning arcing between thunderheads in stretched, spidery trails that bruise the skies around them, and when the clouds can hold no more the lightning leaps waveward like a many-fingered hand reaching into the seas, scorching the air around it in long, booming strokes.

And they are driving right into it.

"Turn—turn the boat," Hawke says faintly, and then louder, "Isabela, the lightning! Turn!" The pirate looks down, as if her voice has carried on the gales, but the wheel slips and instead she bends her knees, throwing her weight into the spokes as if to keep the Call steady by will alone and the moment is lost. No relief there, then, and Hawke spins back to the bow with her mind scrambling. Behind her a sailor yells something to the rest of the crew and they cry out—the lightning storm spotted, then, by the men and women still fighting for their lives, and Hawke closes her eyes in a silent prayer, hoping desperately she has not yet lost the attention of the Maker.

When she was a child in Lothering, their house had a hooked wool rug in the bedroom she shared with Bethany. She cannot remember how often they used to play with the sparks, letting them jump from finger to finger, their giddy joy when they'd discovered they could make them dance in the air between them like tiny puppets made of light. How Bethany would sometimes flick the sparks at her to see if she could change their course to the rug before they touched her.

Hawke pushes away from the mast.

She makes it all of three steps before the ship dives forward into a trough and she falls, hard, as the wave crests over the deck in a frigid blast. She struggles to her feet and pushes forward, as certain in her path as if she had stars to guide her, and pushes the soaked strands of her hair out of her eyes. Another bolt of light thuds into the waves not a hundred yards from the prow and Hawke blinks away the blinding glare—only a little more—

A hand closes around her wrist, and Hawke turns to see Fenris, the coil of rope slung over his shoulder. His stare burns into her to stop her protest in her throat—even with the lightning crashing around them in the dark, even with the wind whipping through his hair and the water pouring over his face his eyes are still so green, lit like a storm of their own—she sees adrenaline, and fear, and something deeper, and before he can pull away she leans up and pulls the rope from his arms. He lets her, but then he leans forward to be heard over the howling wind. "What are you doing, Hawke?"

If this were one of Varric's stories, she would know what to say. She might tip her head back and kiss him and whisper sweetly of her love; she might throw off a careless quip and a casual salute and let that be enough; she might burst into tears that mix prettily with the rain on her cheeks and beg him not to forget her.

Hawke does none of these things. Instead she ties the rope in a sharp, efficient motion around her waist, leaving a long, trailing end for later, and knots the other end through an iron ring at her feet meant for the jib line. Fenris's mouth opens in sudden, furious understanding and he shouts something, but the storm tears it away before she can hear it; his mouth opens again and she shakes her head, and then she pulls his head down with one hand and cups the other around his pointed ear.

"I promise," she shouts, the only thing she can say, "that we will survive this!"

He jerks back, shock and anger warring across his face, and Hawke takes advantage of that surprise to pull away from his grip and scramble her way to the base of the waist-thick bowsprit that spears up from the deck above the ship's prow, reaching forward over the sea like a sword to split it. Its braces rise from the deck as high as her chest on either side, separating the last few feet of the prow from the rest of the ship, and she leans over them as far as she can, struggling to see in the dark and roiling waves. Long trails of rope lash the bowsprit to the deck, to the railing, and to the spars of the mast above and behind her, a dozen at least within her reach before the bowsprit even breaches the tip of the prow's railing; it is as if the Maker himself has laid out her path for her, a road made of wood and rope to guide her feet and point her forward—and to protect the ship from what she is about to do. Hawke glances back over her shoulder to see Fenris approaching and before she can stop herself, before she can succumb to the stone fear in her belly, she climbs onto the bowsprit's braces, gripping one of the ropes running by her head with both hands to keep from slipping, threading just enough fire-heat through her fingers to keep them from freezing numb.

Her toes curl over the edge of the iron brace. Fenris steps forward, his markings flaring in agitation; she smiles at him, and turns away, and does not stop when he shouts, "Hawke!"

The lightning storm is nearly upon them. The crow's nest would have been better, she thinks, with its height and its actual railings, but there is no time—and she pushes both it and Fenris from her head. She twists her arms into the ropes by her head twice over, letting their taut lines bear the brunt of her weight; the bowsprit is segmented, and she braces her bare feet on the bolted joists as she makes her way forward to the very tip of the railing, where the bowsprit's girth settles into a notch in the rails like a piece of a child's puzzle. The ship pitches to the side and she staggers, but though the ropes slide over her skin fast enough to burn they hold her weight easily, and when the ship rights itself again she sinks down to straddle the bowsprit, locking her feet into the bits of balustrade she can reach. There is no defense from the pelting rain here, no mast to hold for her balance, and Hawke feels a white rush of fear surge over her before she can tamp it down.

"This is so incredibly stupid," she mutters to herself as she knots the long end of the rope around her waist to a joist in the bowsprit by her knees, and though she cannot hear her voice over the screaming winds, she feels better for saying it. "This is the most idiotic thing you've ever done, and if Fenris kills you for this, you'll completely deserve it—"

And then the ship drives hard up the foaming wall of a towering wave, and when at last they crest it, they hang at its peak for a second that stretches long into silence. Hawke sucks in one last breath, loud in the sudden hush, as the rest of the sea pours up to meet them—

And the lightning crashes down around her.

The first few bolts strike far enough away that she lets them, feeling the thunder buffeting her from side to side, but she is secure enough in her perch that she does not yet fear falling. Then a strike snaps sideways in midair, drawn to the mast like a magnet, and Hawke throws herself forward, drawing a line of her own lightning from sea to sky until the bolt swerves again to chase hers down to the waves. The power is incredible, like touching the sun, and she'd barely even grazed the lightning with her magic—Hawke lurches forward, stunned, but she has time enough only to firm her grip on both magic and bowsprit before the strikes come again; she counts two, and then four, and then a dozen, and then they come so quickly there is not room for thought between them. She drags more lightning from the water to catch each strike—her own are thin and shivery and only pale imitations of nature's rage, but even their slender channels are enough to alter the paths of those born from the clouds, cast to carry their strength the way streams are made to guide a flooding river.

She hears men's voices behind her, raised in fear and anger and audible even over the constant wailing gale, but she does not look, does not spare an instant for any thought besides more. Each bolt from the sky chains itself to the ones she's raised from the water rather than the ship it seeks so urgently; she weaves a scaffold of light over the water, the fiery wires of her will stronger even than the rain that lashes across her face.

Hawke loses herself to the tempest. She becomes the lightning, becomes the lines of white flame she pulls from the sea over and over again, tempting their greater brothers away from the ship to the black water that craves them. The sky bursts above her in livid thunder and she leans into it, her face lit in a bolt rising off the waves at her command, her hair lifting away from her neck with the power flooding through her. The bowsprit cracks longways at the tip when she draws a strike too near it and she doesn't care—she is all copper, threading electric light through her fingers like water, a figurehead made of a storm.

It goes on forever; it lasts only an instant; and then—

The sky cracks—

A bolt of lightning bursts from the core of a towering thunderhead, leaping towards her heart like the hand of the Maker—Hawke screams into it, digging up every store she has from the battered place inside her, and yanks one last crackling shriek of light from the turbulent ocean to meet it. They crash together in a blazing column that shatters the end of the bowsprit into splinters, a wild twisting thing that blisters the air around her, blinding her as she stares unblinking into its heart and forces it to follow her will into the sea. It surges through her hands like a river without end, pushing and pulling and desperate to be free, but she refuses to release it—refuses to yield—it smashes against her a final time, nearly knocking her from her perch, and then the last of it slides through her fingers with a final shower of sparks, and the embers scatter over the waves like stars.

Over. It is over.

They are through.

And she has nothing left. Hawke sags forward bonelessly onto the bowsprit, her arms dangling down either side because she is too tired to lift them. The rain still falls around her but the bite is gone, fading into nothing now but a summer shower, warmer than it was, and gentler, and when it hits her bare arms she sees the water vanish into faintly hissing steam. Tiny sparks dance along her skin, prickling and uncomfortable, and when she turns her cheek into the wood she can feel her hair standing on end.

"That was exciting," she says aloud, and above her, a tiny patch of starlight edges out of the clouds.

The waves calm under the hull, lapping once more rather than booming, and in a matter of minutes the ship is sailing smoothly enough again that she thinks she might just close her eyes and sleep forever. The idea sounds rather nice, all things considered, and she sighs, preparing to do just that—but before she can drift away, a hand on her waist pulls her back into consciousness, and she drags her eyes open again.

Fenris.

His black eyebrows are drawn down hard over his eyes which flash green with relief and banked fury, and even with his lyrium lighting up through the rain like a very angry wet cat, Hawke cannot remember ever being so glad to see someone in her life. "I knew it!" she says, delighted, and then winces—not the most romantic sentiment she could have offered, given the circumstances.

"Be silent," he snaps, but his touch is gentle as he unknots the rope from her waist, from her lifeline to the bowsprit. "Can you stand?"

"Yes. Probably." His hands slide to her waist to pull her from her perch and she hisses, pushing him away before she can burn him. "Be careful. I'm sparking."

He snorts, then deliberately wraps both hands around her wrists, pulling her back onto the safety of the deck and into his arms. She leans back into his chest, feeling his heart thud under her spine; her own races just as fast, and when his fingers ghost over her throat to feel the pulse there, she tips her head back onto his shoulder and lets him. They might have stood there forever had Hawke's legs not given out under her, and when Fenris pulls her arm over his shoulder and wraps his own around her waist she does not protest. They climb slowly over the barrier to the rest of the ship, Hawke's head sagging on her shoulders in the quiet rain. Around them, sailors relight the storm lamps, the torches guttering brightly against the night and casting a warm yellow glow over the deck.

The soft light breaking through the darkness is the only reason she manages to see the feet at all. Booted feet, the brown leather shiny and damp, and attached to the feet are a pair of long legs in sodden blue canvas. Hawke drags her head up to see that same muscled young man, Relin's son of the golden hair and brown eyes, staring down at her. His expression is impossible to interpret—she sees respect, and shock, and something that might be fear—and then he draws aside without a word. Behind him are other crew members, including the burly bearded man and the woman who'd first fetched her for healing; one by one, they pull back as she and Fenris pass them, silent and staring, until at last they reach the end of the makeshift gauntlet where both Varric and Isabela stand with their arms crossed.

Isabela steps forward first, her eyes stern and her hair still dripping wet. "Euphemia Hawke," she says in a carrying voice, bending her face so close Hawke can smell the gold of her earrings, "if you ever—ever—do something so exceptionally foolish on my ship again, I will personally shorten the plank before you walk it. Is that clear?"

Hawke dips her head in what might be a nod. "Yes, Captain."

"Good," says Isabela, and then she wraps both arms around Hawke's neck in a fierce hug. Behind them the crew breaks into laughter and cheers, the tension vanishing in an instant, and the sudden lump in Hawke's throat makes it hard to swallow. Isabela draws back, her eyes wide, then embraces her again. "Ooh! You're all tingly."

"Oh, stop it," Hawke grumbles, and Isabela allows herself to be pushed away; Varric takes her place and clasps Hawke's free hand. He looks a little peaked, and Bianca over his shoulder is dripping wet, but neither of them seem much the worse for wear.

"No one's going to believe this, you know," he says, grinning.

Fenris scowls. "So much the better."

Hawke laughs, the sound painful with relief, and the glare he gives her in answer is less heated than she expects. In fact, Fenris's face is less clear than she expects, and the world seems rather more sideways than it ought to be. A torch sweeps over her eyes to leave a streak of fire through the stars and she hears Fenris call her name; his voice is tinny, and faint, his fingers on her face too soft, and in a very distant way Hawke feels her knees buckle beneath her.

Oh, she thinks, and the silent stars go out.

She is warm.

Deliciously warm, in fact, and dry, and pinned down to the sheets by something wonderfully heavy draped over her waist. There is sunlight, too, pouring over her cheek and bare shoulder—better and better, she thinks, and even though half of her wants to go right back to sleep, she manages to fight through the comfortable drowsiness and open her eyes.

She is nose to nose with a sleeping elf.

Well, Hawke amends to herself, really more nose to forehead. Fenris's nose brushes against her eyebrows, his chin level with her mouth as if in express invitation, and she takes full advantage by pressing her lips to the lines of lyrium that snake over it before pulling back enough to see his face. She doesn't get to watch him sleep often; he rises before her more often than not, and rarely as deeply as he is now. This, though, is the sleep of true exhaustion, and with one eye still on his sleeping face, Hawke tips her face further into the sunlight in unmitigated bliss.

The porthole is open, the breeze off the ocean crisp and clean, and the waves are as calm as if they'd never been otherwise. Her clothes lie in a sodden little pile under the desk, Fenris's drenched leggings knotted with her sleeves in a hopeless tangle. The sun is high in the sky and brilliant—noon, she guesses, or a little earlier—and it falls through their window in a narrow shaft that lies perfectly across their shoulders, making the lyrium in Fenris's arm gleam where it rests on her waist over the quilt. She follows those lines with her eyes, the silver trails leading her up his arm, over his bare—and dry—shoulders, back along his neck and chin to his face. His head is bent towards her, his white hair falling loose and soft over the pillow, his expression smoothed and younger in sleep than it ever is awake; the tanned skin of his chest rises and falls in faint movements with his breath, and Hawke is not altogether surprised to find her own breathing matching his rhythm.

She settles further into the pillow, one hand coming up between them to rest on his chest. The room is warm and glowing, and between the gold of the sunlight and the white of his hair, the moment is almost perfect. "So close," she murmurs without meaning to, and one green eye cracks open at the sound of her voice.

She smiles, and when he sees that she is conscious he comes awake completely in the smooth motion that has become so familiar to her, his arm around her waist pulling her closer under the quilt. "Now it's perfect. Just needed a little patch of green, right there," Hawke says, and kisses the end of his nose. "Hi."

"Hmm," he rumbles lazily, his eyes slipping closed again in unusual relaxation, and Hawke grins.

"Cat in the sunbeam, you are."

That green eye opens again to give her a pointed look, but Hawke remains undeterred, and before he can remember that he is angry with her she leans forward and presses her lips to his. It is not the best kiss she has given in her life—they are both exhausted, after all, and she still tastes a bit like lightning—but it serves its purpose when Fenris inhales and shifts his weight on the bed, sliding both arms up around her shoulders to hold her more tightly against him. His skin feels incredible on hers; she doesn't know if it's left over from her excessive magic or simply the spell of the moment, but she can't seem to touch him enough, and when he pulls back at last she lets out a noise of dissatisfaction.

"Hmm," he says again, sounding considerably more awake this time. The ever-present furrow between his eyebrows has returned, too, and Hawke knows it is only a matter of time before he remembers the storm—and then his arms tense around her, and she sighs.

"Hawke," he says in a rather different voice.

"I know, I know," she grumbles. "Foolish, reckless, careless, all the other –lesses. I promise I won't do it again."

"Don't treat this so lightly," he says, and Hawke discovers that his glare is rather more intimidating at two inches than with the safety of two feet between them. "You could have killed yourself."

"I know," she says more earnestly—he is right, and she knows that, but she knows that she was right as well. "But I couldn't sit back and do nothing. Something had to be done to save the ship and I—well, I did it."

"With no explanation, with no preparation—"

"And how, exactly, was I supposed to explain that? 'Fenris, you know all those little lightning bolts I've been shooting bandits with? Well, now I'm going to go shoot them at actual lightning. But don't worry, I'll be fine!' No, I think I prefer what I told you in the storm instead."

Fenris says nothing, and rather than face his silent gaze Hawke rolls onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. She does not wish to argue this with him; they both have valid points, but more to the point they are both alive, and she does not see how pushing it farther will convince either of them.

Then he shifts again to move over her, bracing his elbows on either side of her head on the pillow, and before she can speak he has swallowed up her mouth in a deep, searching kiss. She turns into it, angling to fit him better as her eyes slip closed; she does not know what he looks for, and all she can give in the end is herself—and he has that already. He pulls back and she looks at him, dizzy; his eyes are as dark as his smile, and hooded, and when he speaks his voice is low. "I am not satisfied," he says, and the sudden spike of heat through her belly has her twining her legs through his under the quilt.

"Oh?" she asks, nearly as hoarse as he, but when she reaches for him he pins her arms above her head in with swift, easy grace. Hawke struggles only a moment, more for the sake of it than any real desire to be free, and when he bends down again she leans up to meet him, his white hair falling soft over her forehead to mingle with the black strands of her own. "You should do something about that," she whispers against his mouth, her thumb rubbing against the lyrium on his palm, and the lazy smirk he gives her sends another slow curl of heat spiraling through her stomach.

He does so rather thoroughly, as it turns out, and in the end Hawke is quite pleased with their compromise.

It takes two days before her stores of magic have built up enough to heal the last burns and bruises from her misadventure and a full day more before she quite feels like herself again, and by the time she emerges topside on the fourth day after the storm, they are already in Tevinter waters.

"Over here, Hawke!" Isabela calls, a new bandanna firmly in place, and she joins the pirate at the port rail. "Look at that," she says, pointing to the distant, sheer cliffs stabbing up from the water to their left. "Know where we are?"

Hawke hazards her best guess. "Near…some cliffs?"

"The Eyes of Nocen, sweet thing," Isabela says with a sudden, proud smile. "These are the Ventosus Straits we're in—we lost only a day to that bitch of a storm. We'll be docking in Minrathous this time tomorrow!"

Her stomach jolts at the thought, a horrid thump of anxiety leaping into her throat, and Hawke finds herself unequal to Isabela's glee. "So soon?"

"Hawke, Rivain came after us like a jealous lover with that squall and we got away without so much as a broken fingernail. The girl's been an absolute darling to take all this abuse."

She laughs, forcing away her concern and putting her hands up in defense. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. My apologies for any insult to the Call, your masterful captaining, or Rivain's coastline." She leans her back against the rail, considering. "Not fond of your homeland, hm?"

"More like she isn't fond of me. What can I say? One wrong step and the next thing you know, even the ocean wants to pull you in for a spanking."

"If 'spanking' stands for 'drowning you and everyone else in your immediate vicinity,' then sure."

Isabela waves a dismissive hand. "Semantics."

They fall silent for a few minutes, watching the cliffs slide by on either side of the ship, and then Isabela tilts her head. "Listen, Hawke… and maybe I'm not the one to doubt a plan for being half-cocked, as it were, but—are you sure you know what you're doing? I've been through Tevinter before, and believe me, Minrathous's port alone is nasty enough that even I'd think twice about taking my business there."

"Maker, Isabela, I don't know." She drags her fingers over her face and blows a frustrated sigh. "I was sure until about five minutes ago, and now I think I'd be just as happy if we turned around and went home instead."

"We can do that! Well, we'd run out of food around Llomerynn, I think, but one finds a way around these little inconveniences."

Hawke shakes her head, turning against the rail so that her shoulder and arm press against Isabela's. The waves break against the hull beneath them quietly, and every now and then a bit of salt spray spatters against their hands. "I think we've come too far to turn back now," she says at last. "But—thanks."

"Well, the offer still stands. If you need either me or The Siren's Call, we'll be in port and ready to go at a moment's notice."

"What, not eager to throw yourself into a city festering with blood mages? How astonishing."

Isabela winks. "Not when I have a perfectly luscious cabin all my own, sweet thing, paid for with blood and sweat. A lot of sweat."

"Fair enough." Hawke straightens, slapping her palms on the railing, and stares out at the sea. "Isabela," she says decisively, "I want to tell you something."

"Let me guess: you're going to make me an admiral for my birthday."

"You want another bottled ship to make a fleet of two? No."

"You minx! You've been having your way with Bianca all these years, and you've never told me."

"As if Varric would leave me breathing. One more guess."

"You're in love with that elf, and you're going to go have some really fantastic sex with him. And I'm invited."

Hawke laughs, throwing her head back with an abandon she hasn't felt since before this whole debacle began. "No, Isabela," she says, wrapping one arm around the other woman's waist and knocking their temples together gently. "I just wanted to say how grateful I am for your help. How glad I am that you're here."

"Oh, leave off, Hawke." She pushes away with a huff but Hawke clings on, wrapping both arms around Isabela's.

"I'm serious! I really am happy you came."

"Let go!"

"Accept my love, pirate queen!"

"I'll have you scrubbing decks, Hawke," she warns, but Hawke can see the laughter in her eyes, and after a moment more she gives in, relinquishing Isabela's arm to her unharmed. "Idiot."

"Only around you." She bats her eyes at Isabela, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, and when Isabela bats her hand away Hawke laughs and rests her elbows on the rail, letting the call of distant seabirds fill the silence. The cliffs of Nocen rise silent and bare around them, stone walls as formidable as any fortress driving them ruthlessly towards a city without mercy, and the fear in her stomach catches hold again before she can stop it.

She swallows, the smile slipping from her face, and tries not to be afraid.

Hawke flops face-first onto their narrow bed, burying her face in the pillow and ignoring the discomfort of her boots digging into her shins. "I don't think I can do this."

Fenris tosses her belt across her back unceremoniously, and then she hears the telltale zip of leather through buckles as he fastens on his breastplate. "A bit late for second thoughts, Hawke."

"I know," she says into the pillow. Maker defend me; Maker preserve me. Maker, protect Fenris; protect me from myself.

In truth, she is less worried about the politicking than she pretends. She does not fear the nobility themselves, no matter their nationality—after Lothering and the Deep Roads, after Quentin, they cannot pose a threat to her that she can possibly respect—but to Fenris they are another thing entirely, a physical manifestation of every nightmare he has had for ten years, and for her sake, and for the sake of Seheron rebels who do not even know his name, he is throwing himself back into their power with nothing but her word to defend him. For him, she is afraid. "You remember the escape plan, right? If things go pear-shaped?"

She turns her head just enough on the pillow, her unbound hair falling into her eyes, to glimpse his look of patient longsuffering as he fastens on one gauntlet. "As if I could possibly forget a plan so simple."

"Get to the boat," Hawke insists. "Whatever else happens, forget everything and get to the boat."

"I know the plan, Hawke. Put on your belt."

She groans, blowing a raspberry into the pillow, but she sits up and does as ordered. Fenris tightens the leather straps of his other vanbrace and pulls her to her feet, and Hawke runs a hand through her black hair as she approaches the little mirror hung over the desk. She looks tired, she thinks, and unhappy; she pokes at one of the bags under her eyes and frowns, tugging the skin sideways and pulling at face at her own melancholy when she meets Fenris's gaze in the mirror. But enough of this sulking, she decides; Hawke slips her leather tie between her teeth and runs her hands through her hair again, gathering it at the base of her neck—but before she can tie it back, Fenris slides his own hand under hers and she stills, letting her hands drop back to her side. The black strands slide smoothly between his fingers and over the beaten silver of his gauntlet; she watches him in the mirror as he lets her hair fall over his palm, his green eyes unguarded and intent when they meet hers.

At last, after a moment that stretches on so long her heart stutters, Fenris reaches forward and tugs her little strip of leather from between her lips, binding back her hair in a swift, practiced movement. The flash of red around his wrist blazes in the sun and she wishes, suddenly, that she had a favor of his to wear as her own, a secret thing between them to say that she belongs to him as much as he to her, obvious for anyone who knew how to look.

But there is no time. They are minutes from docking in Minrathous and hours from assuming control of Danarius's estate and there is no time, and Hawke knows that the instant they step out of the sanctuary of this room, she will lose a part of him, a part of herself, until they leave these Void-taken shores again. She fumbles for his hand at her hip, gripping his fingers like an anchor to steady her in these last few moments; she breathes in, and then out, and she closes her eyes, and when she opens them again she feels the thick blank mask of a magister settle over her skin. It is not so strong as she would like it, nor so smooth as Fenris would prefer, but it is what she has. It is what she is. She cannot be less.

Fenris squeezes, once, and then his hand slides away from hers. She turns to him and he nods as he hands over her staff. "Parata esta, magister?" he asks, his voice level.

She slings her staff over her shoulders, feeling her fingers brush against the leather strip he'd tied, and then she raises her head. "Paratus," she answers him firmly.

I am ready.

He opens the door to their cabin, and Hawke, magister, steps forward.

Fenris follows two paces behind her right shoulder, as she expects—a mix of deference and protection, he'd told her, as a magister could expect from any bodyguard. They'd decided the first day on that particular ruse; Hawke had refused flat-out to call him her slave, and he had seemed no more excited by the prospect of "mistress," so in the end they'd settled on what little compromise as could be managed. He guards her often enough as it is, job or no—so let that be what they are, here, and let the magisters make their own assumptions about the nature of their relationship. Hawke knows they will only see what they expect and if Danarius's bodyguard has found a new mage to protect—well, it is what he'd been made for, after all.

They emerge all too soon into the dry heat of Tevinter's summer and make their way to the starboard rail, and Hawke sucks in an involuntary gasp.

The Nocen Sea is greener than Kirkwall's waters, but clear, and the sun catches on the tips of the waves like diamonds before they break against the ship. Minrathous rises proudly in the distance, a thousand towering spires stabbing skyward like needles to glitter white and gold against the azure sky; even the very clouds are silver-edged and soaring, aggressive in their beauty, magnificent and utterly terrifying. The Siren's Call II draws nearer the docks, hailed now by shouting voices on the pier as they guide her into her berth, and Hawke can see the banners draped over the enormous white-stoned walls that sweep behind the docks—a golden sun emblazoned on a scarlet field, the shield of the Tevinter Imperium.

"Don't gape," Fenris murmurs in Arcanum, and she realizes her mouth is open.

Hightown had been impressive to a country girl from Lothering with its bustling market and its catty denizens—they'd been charming, in their own way, but this—

"Pretty shiny, for a city," says Varric next to her, leaning on the rail in vague distaste. "The things I do for you, Hawke."

She permits herself a thin smile to veneer her awe—appropriate, for a magister—and says nothing. Fenris, too, is silent behind her, and even the crewmen seem quieted by the show of almost offensive glory before them. Isabela shouts from the wheel and the white edges of the sails whirl around them in a cloud of canvas; overhead, a flock of gulls screams out a challenge as they prepare to drop anchor.

A man on the pier throws a rope around a mooring post and tosses the other end aboard; the sailor with the golden hair knots it around a cleat to secure it, and Hawke feels the ship bump gently against the dock as they guide her forward. Then, at last, The Siren's Call II comes to rest in the water.

Hawke swallows.

Minrathous.

Chapter Text

The house is yours
to wander in as you please—
Your breakfasts will be kept
ready for you until

you choose to arise!
This is the front room
where we stood penniless
by the hogshead of crockery.

…

Come upstairs
to the bedroom—
Your bed awaits you—
the chiffonier waits—

the whole house
is waiting—for you
to walk in it at your pleasure—
It is yours.

—The House, William Carlos Williams

The gangplank slides down to the pier with a hollow, iron boom.

Heads turn all over the docks; Fenris sees humans and elves alike staring with unabashed interest at the foreign ship and the foreign magister aboard it. And at him—he catches more than one appraising glance thrown his way, but his mask is as smooth as Hawke's and he has come prepared for that appraisal, after all. He is here to see and to be seen as much as Hawke is, his lyrium bent to her will in a living testament to her strength, her supposed mastery of him—the magister who tamed the beast. Hawke glances at him over her shoulder once, her eyes blank, and then she steps onto the gangplank and Minrathous soil, and Fenris falls into place behind her.

A woman in a dark orange robe stands at the end of the dock with two silent attendants behind her, obviously waiting for the two of them; she is middle-aged and stern-faced, her blond hair pulled back into a crisp bun, and when Hawke and Fenris reach her she dips forward in a low, respectful bow. "My greetings to you, Lady Hawke," she says in the trade tongue, and straightens. "My name is Sofia, secretary to the magister Macrinus. On behalf of the Senate, I welcome you to Minrathous."

Hawke inclines her head, unsmiling. "Thank you," she says in Arcanum, her accent lilting. "I apologize for the delay in our travels. We ran into a storm off the coast of Rivain."

Fenris feels a thrill of pride at the surprise that fills Sofia's face before she can school it into something more politely interested. "I am glad to see you have made the journey safely, then; we worried when you did not arrive yesterday. Nothing too frightening, I trust?"

She gestures ahead of them, and as they begin walking towards the city, Hawke casts a single sardonic look back at Fenris. "Not especially."

The attendants file in behind Fenris, a rear guard for two people who could not need it less, and he dismisses them from his attention. Sofia, with little more than a once-over, dismisses him in turn. "With your approval," she says, turning back to Hawke, "I would like to take you directly to the Hall of Records so that we may settle the matter of your inheritance as quickly as possible. I trust you will understand our desire to lay this matter to rest."

Hawke glances away with refined reluctance. "Will it take long? I have been traveling for many days, and I am eager to rest at the estate." Excellent, Fenris thinks, and just as he'd taught her—well-bred without acquiescing too easily; dismissal without vulgarity.

"Understandable, my lady," says Sofia, "but since we expected you yesterday, the paperwork is all prepared. The Hall of Records is not far from here, and it will not take more than a moment of your time."

Fenris throws Sofia's back a sharp look—that had been almost reproving—but Hawke keeps her composure and nods. "I understand. Lead on, then."

Sofia bows again, and the two women turn to empty small talk as they walk; after a moment, Fenris tunes them out, letting his gaze sweep to their surroundings instead.

This close to the docks there are more laborers than nobles; elves and men rush by on either side, laden with barrels and crates and overfull carts pulled behind them; half-assembled market stalls line either side of the street, brightly-colored canvases draped over their rickety roofs for both shade and appearance, baskets of fruit and worse, fish, spilling out around the feet of their hawkers. The jangling of ships' bells fades as they proceed further into the city, though, taking with it the smell of the sea, and by the time they have turned through two more avenues, the dockworkers have mostly vanished, leaving behind only the nobility and their slaves. Even the shopfronts become more elegant, the swinging placards etched and filigreed and their well-dressed proprietors nodding politely as they pass.

It surprises Fenris how easy it is to fall into a role he had thought long forgotten—and more, how at ease he is with it. Here are the golden suns of Tevinter staring down at him like unblinking eyes, though he feels no need to hide from their gaze now; here again are the wide avenues, the broad paving stones polished and smooth under his feet. Here are the stately olive trees lining the streets, their precious shade coveted by rich and poor alike; breezes sigh a soft homecoming through their silver leaves, that gentle whisper more welcome than any other thus far.

And here are the people, ten years removed and not a day different. The nobles and the magisters turn as they pass, dripping with jewels and scorn alike, the golden, glittering ropes around their necks as much a chain as any he has ever known—and trailing in their shadows are the slaves he remembers best, the elves with lidded eyes and faces as blank a mirror as his own. The nobles are swathed in rich, bold, expensively-patterned tunics: the deep orange of Sofia's robe and the reds and blues and golds of the magisters who pass them a blatant contrast to the undyed linens of the slaves' simply-cut clothing—but there is a deeper difference between them, a long-stoned wall with a longer memory, built for the sole purpose of making a people without hope.

Fenris shakes his head, resisting the urge to tug at the favor wrapped around his wrist—and a light draws his eye from one of the slated rooftops nearby. A little gleam, an instant's catching of the sun and nothing more—

And he leaps forward, not bothering with his sword as he shoulders between Hawke and Sofia, his vanbraces thrown up just in time for the throwing knife to glance off of them with a ringing clang.

Sofia shrieks as she falls back to the arms of one of her attendants and screams erupt around them, but Fenris ignores her, searching the rooftops for the assassin he knows will already be gone. Around them, the passing crowds burst into a flurry of shouts and whispers and open pointing; in the distance, he can see the copper shining of livery as the city guards rush towards them, far too late and just as ineffective. Hawke lets the brilliant flames gathered in her hands die out and kneels to pluck the little knife from the paving stones; she is calm, if pale, and after a brief inspection hands it to him. It is a plain little thing, unremarkable but whetted to a razor's edge, and when Fenris gives it back to her hilt-first, Hawke stiffens to see the narrow, shallow slice curving up the inside of his wrist.

"Fenris—" she starts, her voice low, but before she can ruin both their covers, he dips his head and steps back, pressing his wrist against his hip to soak the bleeding. Her eyes flash and she nearly follows him, but it is hardly a serious wound—and by that point the city guards have arrived, and between their deferential interrogation and Sofia's sudden longing to be off the street and away from this foreign magister, it takes only a minute to assure the captain that no one of political import was injured. The man bows and departs, spreading his guards out to search for ghosts, and Sofia nearly drags them both through the doors of the Hall of Records with her attendants fluttering behind her like concerned chickens.

The Hall of Records is cool and dim, the thick velvet drapes half-drawn over the narrow windows that stretch two stories high, and the paving-stone floor is a relief to his feet after the heat of the sun-baked streets. They hurry through the long aisles of bookshelves and marble benches, passing through the thin white slats of sunlight that fall evenly down the center of the room without ceremony, ignoring the wide-eyed stares and the hushed whispers that echo up the high stone walls. Sofia shows them into the grand recess at the end of the hall and withdraws; Hawke stands behind the lone, high-backed chair in the center of the room that faces an enormous desk littered with papers, and Fenris leans casually against one of the great stone pillars behind her to wait. He has been here before, with Danarius, and even after a decade away he is unsurprised that the record-keepers at the Hall have still not learned that their voices carry.

"I heard—assassin, already, and they've only been in port an hour—"

"What do you expect? A dog-lord from that disgusting little country, who wouldn't want her gone? She's not even pretty."

Hawke's head turns away, one hand coming up to delicately cover a snicker, and Fenris smirks. It lasts only a moment, though; when she straightens, her head raised in proud defiance at the continuing hiss of whispers, his amusement fades. Not pretty, the voice had said; he finds himself studying the pale curve of her cheek, the slope of her neck, the black fall of her hair spilling over her shoulders—and the leather strip he'd tied around it only that morning. His fingers itch at the memory and he flexes his wrist—and winces at the pull of the scabbing scratch on his arm. Assassins, he thinks in disgust, the itch vanishing behind his irritation. Clumsy, and obvious, and he has no idea who could have sent them.

"Not a scratch on her, he said, but I heard that slave got nicked."

"Which one?"

"You know, that one she brought with her—the lyrium one that ran away, Danarius's pet—"

The voices continue, but Fenris stops listening. It is nothing he has not heard before, and he has little interest in the slander of idiots—but even as he relaxes, Hawke's knuckles grow whiter and whiter on the back of the chair in front of her until he begins to think one or the other must give way. He opens his mouth to say—something—but before he can speak, a hand throws aside the heavy crimson curtain behind the desk, and the noise of the metal rings sliding over the rod silences the gossipers in the hall.

A man wearing a thickly-embroidered black robe enters with almost comical pomp to sit behind the desk, but he does not waste time; in stony silence, Hawke produces her identification papers when he requests them, skims over the documents of inheritance he hands to her—Fenris sees her linger a heartbeat too long over the page with his name at the top—and then she signs in four places as the magistrate points them out, and just like that—

The estate is hers.

Fenris is hers.

"Welcome to Minrathous, Magister Hawke," the man says brusquely, handing Hawke her own copies of the inheritance papers, and just as abruptly as he'd entered, he rises and disappears again through the curtain.

She stares after him, startled out of her annoyance, and says, "That's it?"

But the judge does not return with the returning whispers, and Fenris sighs. "Don't gape," he mutters under his breath, and as Hawke's mouth clacks closed, Sofia hurries into the recess.

"All done?" she asks, clearly eager to be through with them, and she shepherds both Hawke and Fenris back the way they came with Hawke still staring at the papers in her hand. "If you'll forgive me, Magister, I've taken the liberty of procuring a carriage for your journey to Dan—to your estate. In light of the attack earlier, I felt it would be best to remove you from the city proper as…as expediently as possible."

"That's quite all right," Hawke says, recovering herself, chewing at her bottom lip in a mixture of consternation and repressed laughter as she tucks the papers into a pouch on her belt. "I understand it's a fair distance from the heart of Minrathous."

"Almost half an hour by horse," says Sofia as two slaves push open the doors of the Hall of Records ahead of them, letting through the sunlight in a dazzling burst.

Hawke comes to a dead stop and Fenris, half-blinded, nearly runs into the back of her. The carriage is well-made but nondescript, a slender boxy frame with seats both in front and behind—but pulling it are two dappled grey horses tossing their heads in impatience. Hawke stares at them openmouthed while Sofia continues down the steps; at last, Fenris jabs her in the back, and she stumbles only once before recovering her footing and her mask. "Lovely animals," she tells the coachman, trying for nonchalance, and Fenris permits himself another sigh as he helps Hawke into the carriage. The coachman closes the door behind her and climbs up behind the horses; Fenris himself swings up into the low seat behind the carriage, meant for slaves and packages—and bodyguards—and leans back against the gilded wood, resting his sword across his knees.

The coachman flicks his whip and they are off; soon enough, they leave the heart of the city behind, turning onto streets less populated but no less grand. What few pedestrians he sees pass by on either side of the coach without pause, paying both it and the slave riding it no attention at all.

Hawke slides open the little window in the back of the coach and pokes her head through the curtains. "He's got horses, Fenris!" she whispers, her eyes bright. "Real ones!"

"Close the window," he says without looking down at her.

"Did Danarius have horses? Do you think he still does?"

"No, Hawke," he says, still without looking, and when she starts another question, he slides the little grating shut over her face.

She opens it again just long enough to reach through and grab his wrist, letting out a cool burst of healing magic that seals over his cut as if it had never been. The coachman pays them no attention, apparently well-used to eccentric magisters, and Hawke stifles a laugh at Fenris's expression as she pulls her arm back. "There are black horses here, too, right?" she asks, giddy with possibilities. "And brown ones? And bays—and chestnuts?"

Fenris slaps the window closed again, exasperated, and for almost a full minute, there is silence within the coach.

And then he hears the tell-tale slide of metal on wood and bristles. "Hawke—"

"I want to ride one, Fenris!" she says, grinning, and slams it closed herself as he scowls.

The endless line of grand white buildings does have an end, as it turns out, and soon enough the pristine marble and its gilt gives way to well-kept grounds and long, secluded drives. They are still within the city, technically—the last market they'd passed is not more than a ten-minute walk—and yet, the acres of manicured lawns seem as continuous as any country field might ever be. There are mansions here, too, dots of white hidden in the green trees of the private artificial copses, set well away from the road for both privacy and protection. Even the smallest is larger than her estate in Kirkwall—less-hindered, perhaps, by the lack of near neighbors—but the farther they go, the grander they seem to become, the drives more polished and the gardens more expansive, and Hawke cannot keep from staring at the sheer opulence of it all.

At last, when they pass the third manor in a row with enormous sunbursts trimmed into their hedges, Hawke slides open the little window in the back of the carriage. "Fenris," she starts, but instead of his shoulder she finds herself talking to his knee, and she trails off in surprise. Hawke pokes her head out to find him sprawled longways over the seat, one tan foot propped up against its arm and his head tucked into the corner between the seat and the back of the carriage, looking, to all intents and purposes, quite asleep.

"You opened the window again," he says without opening his eyes.

Hawke watches his knee sway with the movement of the carriage. "I missed you too much," she offers.

He snorts, shifting his crossed arms over his chest. "It's not that long a drive, Hawke."

"You underestimate my affection for your prickly glares."

He opens his eyes enough to give her one of her very own, and Hawke laughs as he unbends and sits up at last. "We are close," he says, glancing around them and tipping his head to stretch his neck.

"Told you to ride in the coach," she says, and rests her chin on the window frame. "Any last words of advice?"

His face darkens, and Hawke's flippancy trickles away at the sight of it. As much as Fenris had pushed to come, his hatred for this place is too grave to test, too deep-rooted for her to tear out with a few jokes and a smile, and she takes what comfort she can in knowing his anger is not directed at her. "They will fear you," he says shortly. "Give them cause and they will loathe you. You will never be safe, even in those walls—the magisters will certainly have paid some of your slaves for information. Don't let down your guard simply because Danarius is dead."

Hawke nods, swallowing. As much as she'd expected, and yet to hear it said aloud is…disconcerting. "How do I get them not to fear me?"

He throws her a sidelong glance. "That choice is not yours to make, Hawke. Slaves do not have the luxury of trust."

"Right," she murmurs, feeling suddenly rather small. The carriage jolts over a broken paving stone and they both fall silent, listening to the clopping of the horses' hooves and the quiet creaking of the wheels. A pair of slaves on foot passes by in the opposite direction with baskets clearly meant for market, their eyes cast away from the coach and its passenger as if not to wake a dangerous beast.

At length, they round the corner of a park whose iron fence they have been following alongside for several minutes, and Fenris stirs uneasily. "There," he says, his voice low, and Hawke turns.

It is by far the largest mansion they have yet seen. The front of the house alone is four times the size of Lothering's chantry and twice as tall, a dozen thick pillars of shining marble rising broad and intimidating from the front steps to brace the black-slated roof. There are too many windows to count in one glance, but the least of them is taller than she is, and the thick scrollwork around the crown of the building is visible even from this distance. Lush gardens unfold across the lawns around in stark majesty, bushes and slender trees untouched by any softening flowers but clearly well-cared-for. The thick woods that spill down from the park edge up to the western grounds but no further, as if the forests themselves fear trespassing on this land, and Hawke can see that they have been thinned immediately behind the mansion as well to make room for what she guesses must be the guardhouse and field slaves' quarters. The manor is raised up on a sudden prominence jutting out from the hillside behind the park, set an impressive distance back from the road as if to warn away the curious, and a long, imposing avenue made of grey stone sweeps before its doors, curling close around the artfully-placed trees near the house before making a sharp turn down the hill and towards the road, straight as the lash of a whip.

There is no privacy wall, here, to guard against prying eyes; this estate was built to be seen, a proud and vicious temple to the prouder man who'd owned it, and the brutal beauty of the place takes Hawke's breath away.

The coachman flicks his whip to turn them onto the long avenue, and as the wind streams through the evenly-spaced olive trees lining it, Hawke feels her stomach drop clear to her feet.

She twists in the seat to see Fenris looking nearly as pale as she feels. "I changed my mind. I want to go back."

He smirks, but it has no bite to it. "I warned you about second thoughts, Hawke."

"Have you seen that house, Fenris? If Varric were telling this story it would be dark, and it would be raining, and lightning would be striking around us so close our hair would be on fire. This is not a good house."

"I will restrain my surprise at this revelation," he says, but his voice is thick and when Hawke reaches through the window for his hand, it is ice-cold.

"Say the word," Hawke says then in the common tongue, not caring if the coachman hears. "Say it, and we'll turn around right now. We'll find another way to protect the Fog Warriors. If this is too much—"

He shakes his head, sharp enough that his hair catches the sunlight like threaded silver, and she sees his jaw clench. "I will not give his ghost another victory over me. We should move on." His tone is hard, but he does not release her hand until they pull close enough to be seen through the windows. Then he pulls away and straightens on the seat, and the last thing Hawke sees of him before he slides the window shut is the lyrium trailing along the inside of his wrist glittering with anxious light.

It takes an age to crawl their way down the avenue, but at last they pull to a stop before the great double doors, the stone crunching under the wheels and the horses snorting in displeasure. The coach shifts as Fenris's weight lifts off the back, and a moment later she accepts his hand as she steps out into the light of day, out onto the grounds of her mansion.

Hawke, Champion; Hawke, magister.

Hawke, owner of men.

It takes a second or two for her to catch her breath from the sheer grandeur of the building looming over her; it had been impressive from a distance, but this close it is almost threatening, and she is glad when Fenris pays the coachman from their little bag of gold solidii and takes his place behind her. "Don't gape," she whispers to herself, holding back a smile at Fenris's answering snort, and then the magister's face settles down over her skin, and she steps forward.

The double doors swing open just as she reaches the top of the stairs and Hawke sweeps through them without hesitating, without paying more than a cursory glance to the white-faced elves holding them back. Fenris has coached her in this, warned her what to do and not do, and she searches the two dozen men and women grouped in her enormous foyer, the presentable members of her eighty-four slaves, for the one who leads them, who has managed the estate while the matter of inheritance was settled.

One of them steps forward, then, an older elf with intelligent eyes and light brown hair just greying at the temples. His clothes are better-made than the others', though not by much; dangling from his belt are two thick rings of keys, iron and bronze jingling softly together, and when he is about four steps away he sinks to his knees and elbows on the intricate mosaic floor and bows his head.

"Magister Hawke," he says to her feet, and behind him the two dozen slaves bend at the waist and murmur mistress.

She is going to be sick.

The slave kneeling in front of her, though, seems to have no such compunctions, and without missing a beat, he continues in a stilted, awkward attempt at the common tongue, "Welcome to home." He hesitates like a man trying to remember his lines, then adds, "I am steward Dalos."

"Thank you, Dalos," Hawke says in Arcanum, and neither she nor Fenris misses the man's obvious slump of relief. "Please—get up."

He does so with alacrity, though his eyes do not lift from the floor, and Hawke takes advantage of the moment to study the room. The atrium is vast, built up rather than out, and every rustle of clothing sends a soaring echo to the carved ceilings more than two stories above them. A wide, grand staircase sweeps up to the second floor on her left, the mahogany treads oiled and gleaming in the cool light from the windows; under them, the mosaic floor is patterned in white concentric circles that culminate perfectly around her feet.

It's a small, petty thing that will mean nothing to anyone but her, but Hawke takes a step to the side, out of those circles, before continuing. "I am Euphemia Hawke," she says clearly, and the rafters ring back Euphemia Euphemia like a particularly wicked joke of her father's. She suppresses a sigh. "The magister Danarius died by my will and my hand on the fourteenth of Umbralis, and by right of victory in that duel, I lay claim to all of his possessions. Is there any here who would contest this?"

Silence. Nothing so much as a cough.

"No contest, then," Hawke says with more confidence than she feels—that is to say, none—and she crosses her arms to keep them from trembling. "Well then, introductions—I'm Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall and refugee from Ferelden before that, as I'm sure you're aware—and this is Fenris, my bodyguard." His gaze is level as it meets hers over her shoulder, and then it turns to sweep impassively over the slaves gathered before them. She'd asked him, once, if any of them might remember him; he'd frowned and looked away, and when she'd pressed he'd said only that Danarius's slaves were not known for their longevity. She hadn't asked again.

"Orders from him are orders from me. I don't know how Danarius ran things here—" Hawke takes another subtle step away from the center of the circle, just in case the Maker decides to strike her down for her falsehoods, "—but I don't plan on following in his footsteps, and if anyone wishes to register a complaint about that, you may speak to Fenris privately."

A number of slaves shift nervously on their feet, and Hawke wonders with a swallowed laugh how fiercely he is glaring at her back for that one. "I have no intention of making this transition any harder than it has to be, so if we could all be patient with each other, I'm sure everything will be running smoothly again soon enough. For the time being, continue with your duties as they were; we'll sort out who needs what as time passes. And—please," she adds, knowing that Fenris will disapprove, knowing even as she says it that it is futile, "I hope—you won't be afraid to speak if you need something."

A few of them blink, but the rest stare at her knees as blankly as ever, and with a sigh, Hawke dismisses them and gestures to Dalos, who bows again as he approaches. "Now, Dalos—please stand up, really—if you have time, I'd like to get a brief tour of the villa, to see how things are laid out and what I need to spend most of my attention on."

"Of course, Mistress," he says, sounding somewhat surprised at her phrasing, and Hawke remembers uncomfortably that his time is hers. "If you please, follow me."

She hears Fenris's soft step on the floor behind her and chances a glance backwards; he is still pale, but no longer shaking, and the lyrium in his arms has quieted. Dalos leads them both through the archway at one end of the atrium to a large sitting room; the couches are long and expensively-upholstered in white brocade, and the floor is covered with pale green rugs that match the curtains. There are gold-framed paintings of indifferent landscapes and expressionless nobility lining the walls and the enormous stone fireplace at the other end of the room is swept and unlit—unsurprising, in the Minrathous heat. Dalos points out the harp in the corner under the dust cover and the lacquered end table beside the wing-backed armchair; Hawke nods in acknowledgement if not appreciation, and when he has finished detailing the major items in this room they move on to the next.

The mansion is shaped like a horseshoe, the enormous atrium and its adjoining rooms a bridge between the east and west wings. Through the atrium's windows she catches a glimpse of a roofed, colonnaded pathway lining the interior of the horseshoe, the eastern branch stretching out just a hair farther than the west to reach a small square outbuilding, but she finds herself distracted by the lush gardens she can see beyond it, thick and green and more comforting than anything she has seen here thus far.

In very little time, though, the succession of decorations becomes little more than an ornate blur, and she can register only bits and pieces of each room as they pass through it. The dining room is a ludicrously elaborate crystal chandelier and a mahogany table so long she needs to shout to reach the opposite end; just off it is another sitting room, smaller and done in deep blues. The study is little more than a desk far too large to be practical and chest-high stack of ledgers that she will need to go through with Varric, while the adjoining library is two stories high and lined wall-to-wall with books and leather. Hawke glances at some of the nearby titles as Dalos leads them through it and chews on her lip—they are all conventional books, literary and safe, and more than likely that means Danarius's private collection—and his notes—are hidden elsewhere. She needs to find them, she is certain, not just to destroy the books of blood magic, but to prevent even the chance of another slave suffering the same tortures as Fenris.

By the time they pass through a music room, a sunroom overlooking the rear gardens, and a third sitting room, Hawke is beginning to flag, and at her suggestion Dalos leads both her and Fenris upstairs to the private bedrooms of the mansion. Hawke is only half-listening to the elf's words, her mind still on Danarius's library and that stack of ledgers, and that is why she does not notice where they are heading until Dalos has thrown open a set of double doors carved with twin sunbursts before her. "Your rooms, Mistress," he says, stepping back to allow her to enter. Hawke takes two steps in and turns.

Fenris is sheet-white.

The sight tears the words from her mouth. His eyes are wide and exposed and terrified, staring through her like a nightmare made real, and without thinking Hawke whirls on Dalos, sudden certainty creeping along her spine like cold water.

"Were these—did Danarius sleep here?" Her voice sounds nothing like her own—it is louder than she means it and blank with fury, and Dalos drops to his knees in abject terror at her face.

"Yes! I'm—I'm sorry, Mistress, I didn't—it's the master's suite—"

She stalks out without waiting to hear another word, slamming the doors behind her so hard they rattle in their frames, and pulls Dalos to his feet with the bare minimum of courtesy. "I will not be using these rooms," she snaps, and the slave jerks a nod; a moment later, he has shown her to the bedroom suite least used by his former master, Fenris's wrist like ice in her fingers, Fenris's steps stumbling blind into the room ahead of her. Hawke barely registers the scarlet coverlet, the ivory wallpaper, barely remembers to thank Dalos before closing the doors in his face. She rests her head against the cool wood only for an instant, struggling to let go of her anger, and then she turns.

Fenris stands in the middle of the room, facing away from her. His back is ramrod-straight, his skin still white with dread; his hands flex over and over at his sides, helpless, and when Hawke circles around him she sees that his eyes stare into nothing, his mind somewhere else entirely: somewhere long ago, and ugly.

"Fenris," she says softly, but he does not seem to hear her. She hesitates, then reaches to take his hand—and he explodes backwards, lyrium lit up like a firecracker and a snarl tearing out of his chest as he falls into a defensive crouch. His claws gleam in the sunlight as he crooks them towards her heart, their points glittering with deadly intent; Hawke goes very still, her empty hands raised in front of her, and his eyes flare green and wild for a long second before they focus on her face.

"Hawke," he rasps, a tortured sound that breaks her heart clean in two, and then he relaxes all in a rush and sags forward, unsteady on his feet. Hawke is there to meet him, to catch his weight as he stumbles, as the light of his lyrium goes out. There is a little settee done in dark wood and red stripes under the double window that she guides him toward without resistance, and when they reach it he sinks down onto it and bends forward, boneless. She kneels in front of him and finds his palms are like ice; he does not object when she strips him of his gauntlets and folds both of his hands in her own, his fingers spasming around hers, and when Hawke dips her head to see his face, his eyes are closed and his skin is beaded with sweat.

"Well," she says, striving to keep her voice light, "that could have been done better." Fenris does not open his eyes, but he does give her a tight smile, and, encouraged, Hawke rubs his fingers briskly between her own. "Perhaps the next time we march into your own personal house of horrors, I'll remember to tell the steward not to give us your old master's bedroom."

"How generous." His voice is low, and his breath hitches between the words, and when she reaches up to wipe away the sweat from his forehead he turns his face into her hand. She brushes her thumb over his cheekbone and he shudders, and the feel of his fear breaks her heart all over again.

"Fenris," she starts, desperate to apologize without knowing how, but before she can get another word out he leans forward and buries his head in her neck. He mumbles something that is lost in her skin and she curls her hands over the back of his neck, slides her fingers into the thick whiteness of his hair. "Hmm?"

"It smelled like him," he says, clearer, and she feels the slickness of his sweat on her shoulder. "This whole place…every room is full of his stench, but that—those doors—I cannot tell you how many times I…"

He trails off and drags in a breath through his nose, a ragged sound laced with the broken edges of blind terror, and the battered desperation of it rips Hawke to shreds. She looks up, blinking furiously, but it is far too late; the delicately painted ceiling blurs into a swirl of creams and whites, and her hands twine further into Fenris's hair. They have never discussed his basest tortures. He has allowed her to see the scars, and that had been enough; now, as Fenris's hands clench into impotent fists on his knees, as he drags in another agonized breath against her neck, she wonders if it is too late to curse Danarius even deeper into the Void.

"I hope," she starts, forcing a smile he cannot see, but her voice catches on a sob and she has to swallow twice before she can speak again. "I hope I smell better than that carriage. They never talked about odeur d'horse in any of my books."

He laughs, a silent shudder of his shoulders, but he does not move, and Hawke continues to draw her fingers through his hair. The tears spill down her face, unchecked and ignored save when she sniffs them back every now and again, more than one dripping off her chin to puddle in a fold of his jerkin. Sunlight pours in through the window behind his back to drape itself over their shoulders like a lazy cat; bits of dust dance in and out of the beam in flecks of light, twirling with Hawke's breath as she sucks in silent gulps of air, alighting on Fenris's hair turned quicksilver in the sun. The sky is a painful blue, cloudless and stark, and Hawke stares at it blindly without stopping her fingers in Fenris's hair. She will not move until he does, until he has locked away the demons she cannot banish for him.

At last, he lets out a long, long sigh and folds into himself, into her, and something painful in the air gives way with it. His arms come up to grasp her shoulders, steadying them both as he lifts his head, but before she can wipe her eyes he leans forward and kisses her. It is short, and chaste, and unbearably gentle, and then his mouth moves to her cheek where the tears still track down unhindered, and when he pulls back at last she feels like crying all over again. Instead, Hawke scrubs furiously at her eyes, taking refuge in any activity that might stop up her sorrow, and the smile that Fenris manages at her transparency is less brittle than she expects. She stills at his unguarded gaze, letting his smile quirk one of her own in response.

"Hopeless, the pair of us," Hawke murmurs, sniffing as she reaches up to touch the edge of his mouth, and he presses his hand against hers to hold it to his jaw. His color is much better, though the tightness around his eyes tells her he is far from well.

"And yet you refuse to give up."

She grins, then, watery as it may be, and pushes to her feet. Her left ankle has gone to sleep and she wobbles for a moment, and then she finds her balance and tugs Fenris up with her. "Giving up is for boring people," she tells him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Let's go storm a city."

Hawke makes what apologies she can to Dalos without frightening him further, and at her request he shows the rest of the main house. He does not take her to the slave quarters and she does not ask—those she will go through with Fenris and no other—but by the time they circle around again to the open atrium, nearly four hours have passed since their initial arrival.

Hawke leans against a fancy little table set against the stairway, nearly dislodging a beautiful arrangement of orange and gold roses in a slender ceramic vase. "This estate," she declares, "is enormous."

Dalos looks uncertain, but Fenris throws her a wry smile behind his back. She shakes her head, still marveling, and turns to her greying steward. "Tell me, Dalos, how long have you been here?"

"Six years, Mistress. Master Dan—my previous master purchased me from a city magistrate to help keep his accounts in order."

"His accounts? Then you can read and write?"

"Yes, Mistress," he says, suddenly uneasy, and for the moment, Hawke lets the matter drop.

"Dalos!" The shout comes from the far side of the room. All three of them turn in surprise to see a young elf with short brown hair hurrying across the mosaic floor. Her eyes are trained out the front windows, her light green skirts held up in one hand, and her face is lit with excitement before she turns to see Hawke and Fenris standing there. "Dalos, there's—oh—"

She comes to a dead stop in the center of the room, her wide brown eyes fixed on Hawke, and then, belatedly, she throws herself into a bow. "Forgive me, Mistress," she says, her head still bent, and the sudden hunch of her shoulders saps away any amusement Hawke might have felt at her bewilderment.

"Mistress, this is Palla," Dalos says, his voice stiff with disapproval. The girl flinches at the sound of it. "If she pleases you, I had thought she would do well as your personal maid."

"I'm sure she'll be fine," says Hawke, trying to smooth over the situation before she frightens another slave out of her wits. "What brought you in here, Palla?"

"There's a dwarf on a cart coming, Mistress," she says to her feet.

Hawke laughs and the sound of it startles Palla out of her bow. "No, it's fine," Hawke says, gesturing when she looks as if she might bow again. "It's a friend of mine. I should have known he'd come." She moves to the front doors, throwing one of them open herself before either slave can reach for the handle, and sure enough, Varric is rolling up the drive on a mule-pulled cart, reclining on the top of her trunks like Andraste in repose. The man driving the mule keeps flicking glances over his shoulder, as if he doesn't know what to do with the dwarf behind him, and when Varric sees them standing in the doorway, he winks.

Hawke laughs again. Fenris rolls his eyes.

"Brought your things," Varric calls in the trade language, sliding off the back of the cart as it rolls to a stop. "Nice place, Hawke!"

"For an estate steeped in years of immeasurable cruelties, I guess it's not half-bad," she answers him in the same language. Behind her, Dalos goes off to fetch slaves to carry up her trunks, and Palla takes a few jumpy steps behind Fenris, clearly too enamored with the sight of Varric presiding over the cart like a lordling to stay back. "Is Isabela coming?"

Varric shakes his head. "Couldn't talk her into it, even with a promise of fine wine and glisten. She really hates this place, Hawke."

"I know." Hawke chews on her lip, hesitating, but then a thought strikes her as Fenris gives the cart driver another gold solidus. "How did you get here?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yes. That's why I asked."

"Bianca is very persuasive."

Hawke gasps. "You did not threaten the driver, Varric!"

He bursts out laughing. Palla's head swivels back and forth, clearly unable to follow the conversation, but Hawke cannot include her without raising uncomfortable questions. "I have secrets," Varric says in Arcanum, grinning, but the syllables are awkward and heavily-accented, and he reverts to the trade tongue immediately. "I know a bit, anyway. Picked it up when we thought Bartrand was going to have to marry into one of the dwarf families out here years ago. Never thought I'd have to use it again when that fell through, though."

"No, that's perfect. Listen, Varric, as my boon companion and the scriber of my stories, how would you like to do me a favor?"

"I never bet before all the cards are on the table, Hawke, you know that."

"I know," she says, but before she can say more, Dalos returns with a handful of field slaves trailing after him. All of them bow deeply to Hawke, something Varric observes with undisguised interest, and then they heft her trunks over their shoulders and follow Dalos upstairs. Palla hesitates, torn between her interest in Varric and her duties to Hawke's things, but when she catches Hawke's questioning eye she flushes deeply and curtseys before hurrying after Dalos.

"They're all afraid of me," Hawke says wistfully, watching her go.

Fenris frowns as the cart driver and his mule disappears down the avenue. "I told you they would be."

"I know. Damn it." She turns to Varric, then, eager to tell him her plan before they are rejoined by anyone else. "Listen, Varric. There are some ledgers in the study. I know I can't just set them all free without working through the finances, but my head's not made for numbers—yours is, though, and that's what I need you for."

He puts up a hand to stop her. "All of those words I understood, Hawke, but none of them made sense put together. Try again?"

"I want to free all of Danarius's slaves."

There. It's been said—now it is real. She meets Fenris's eye over Varric's head and he nods, once. When she looks back to Varric, though, his expression seems somewhere between dismay and resignation. "I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am. Why do you need me, again? What was that about ledgers?"

"Because if I just sign some papers, they'll be on the street and penniless and Maker-knows-who will be able to snatch them up again before they can get any kind of life together. Danarius's accounts are in the study, in a stack of little black books as high as my chin, and I need to go through them with you to see how many slaves I can free if they're given enough coin to defend themselves."

"Remind me why you don't do this yourself, or with your steward? He seems…tactful. And eminently more appropriate for the job."

Hawke rocks back on her heels, ticking the points off on her fingers. "One, because Fenris thinks I have spies, and because the magisters I'm trying to impress would not appreciate me freeing their primary source of income out from under them. Two, because I trust you more than almost anybody else in this country, and as you can see, they'll like you too and that will make my job easier. And three—" she gives him her most charming smile, "—because you're a prince, Varric, merchant or otherwise, and I know you want to help me with this."

"Hawke," he groans, and she can hear his teeth grinding as he deliberates. "Oh, fine," he says at last, throwing his hands into the air. "I give up. Let's free all the damned slaves in your Maker-blighted mansion, because I have nothing better to do in the City of a Thousand Spires than go through someone else's bookkeeping."

"You're magnificent," Hawke says, kissing his cheek, and still grumbling, he follows her and Fenris into the house.

"Don't give me that look. I know it's awkward."

"This is not awkward, Hawke. This is exquisitely excruciating."

"Really, Varric. How long have you been saving that one?"

"Since about the second bowl of soup."

Hawke forces a smile, fiddling with the fish on her plate and fully aware Varric is right. They have used two spoons and three of their six forks and the food is still coming; even as she forces down the last bite of perfectly-cooked trout, the tall elf with pale curly hair who has been serving them—Lydas?—sweeps in with another plate cupped in a careful grip, a linen cloth draped between the ivory and his hands to protect her from his fingerprints. He exchanges her plates so smoothly she almost misses it; to her immediate right, another slave does the same for Varric. The elaborate chandelier gleams in crystal opulence above them, shining down proudly on a mahogany table that is, save the two of them, completely empty.

Hawke stares down at the enormous chicken breast waiting expectantly on her plate. It is clearly a work of art: sweetly spiced and garnished with a wafer-thin slice of lemon, and she cannot stomach the thought of tasting it. She glances at Fenris where he leans against the wall and he shrugs; a moment later, it is tucked into the napkin in her lap, hidden along with a hunk of bread the size of her fist and a tiny sweet orange. She'd known he would not eat as well as them, at least in the presence of the kitchen slaves; she'd been livid all the same when, two forks in, one of the servers had handed him a bowl of something white and unidentifiable without even a spoon to eat it with. He'd shaken his head minutely at her outrage and downed the bowl without protest, but when the slave had accepted the empty bowl and withdrawn, Fenris had permitted himself a grimace of distaste.

"The cooks might have changed, but that still tastes precisely the same."

"This will not happen again," Hawke had promised, and that had been that.

They go through two more forks and a dainty spoon in silence, and when at last Lydas brings in the final little cup of chilled glace, Hawke stops him. "Please send my compliments to the kitchen staff," she says in Arcanum, wondering if this will offend the cook but unable to make herself care. "Everything was delicious, but—it's just too much, I'm sorry. In the future, please just have three trays made up and sent to wherever we're working." She smiles, trying to soften the order, though it cannot be construed as anything else. "There's just no reason to use the whole room like this when something smaller would do just as well. It's too much of an inconvenience."

Lydas bows, his face betraying neither approval nor disapproval, and departs to relay her order to the kitchens.

Hawke watches him go, feeling wretchedly guilty, then slaps her bundle of stolen provisions on the table and stands in a huff. "I am not emotionally equipped to handle this," she declares to the room at large, and then she plucks the last polished fork from the table and brandishes it at Fenris. "I am going to take this fork, and this food, and I am going upstairs. You are welcome to join me if you want." She spins on her heel and stalks from the room without waiting for his answer, but he pushes away from the wall with a twisted smile and follows her through the high arched doorway at the end of the room.

Varric's laugh rings out behind them.

Hawke is irritated beyond reason, she knows, but by the time she reaches the top of the sweeping staircase with Fenris's silent footsteps close behind her, she still has enough presence of mind to take the side hallway to her rooms, skirting in the process the double doors with the sunbursts on them. The doors to her own room are less heavily adorned, a simple pattern of leaves carved around the frame, and as she pushes them open, still grumbling, she is greeted by the sight of Palla turning down her bedcovers.

"Good evening, Mistress," she says as she turns and bows, her eyes carefully trained on Hawke's feet. Her voice is more careful, too, than it had been earlier, steeped in servile deference and a thinly-veiled desperation to please. "Would you care for a fire this evening?"

"No, thank you," says Hawke, struggling to rein in her temper. No need to frighten her again; no need to set free her anger at an insult unperceived by anyone but her and Fenris. "No," she says again, quieter. "I think—I'm just tired."

"Of course, Magister," Palla says without hesitation. "If you please, follow me."

Hawke does so and discovers to her delight the lovely little washroom tucked through an ivory-painted door on the south wall. An enormous bathtub already waits, thick curls of steam lazily inviting her further into the room, and in a trice Palla has pulled off Hawke's robes and nearly thrust her into the tub. The hot water feels incredible after so many days without it; as its warmth seeps into her bones, Hawke forgets even to protest Palla's obedient attendance, and in no time at all she has been soaped, scrubbed, and scented to within an inch of her life. Palla hands her a sleeveless linen tunic and matching pants, apparently the preferred nightwear in Minrathous's summer heat, and once she has dressed, Hawke emerges back into the bedroom cleaner and considerably less unhappy than she'd left it.

Fenris has bathed and found himself similar attire as well, his hair still beaded with water, although Hawke has the nagging suspicion that his bath was considerably less comfortable than hers. A handful of candles lit in short order gives the room a cheerful glow that warns away the encroaching night and Hawke smiles to see them, though Palla's brown eyes remain blank as she helps Hawke into bed. Across the room, Fenris stands with his arms folded in front of the unlit fire, impassive and silent in the deepening evening like a living shadow himself, his eyes green in the candlelight.

"There's no need to wake me tomorrow," Hawke tells Palla as she arranges the third pillow behind Hawke's head. "I'll be up early."

"Of course, Mistress. Thank you," Palla says, and withdraws at last, bowing again at the door.

It closes behind her with a click.

Hawke waits all of two seconds before throwing back the coverlet. "Finally!" she exclaims, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. "Maker bless that girl but she's a chatty one."

Fenris snorts at the obvious untruth and tugs his shirt over his head, wincing as the loose fabric drags at the brands of lyrium. "She is handling it better than some."

"Ha, ha, ha. So tell me, is a shirtless bodyguard truly that offensive?" Hawke pulls out the drawer of her dark-wooded nightstand, retrieving the bundle of food she'd only barely managed to hide from Palla and perching on top of the crimson coverlet. "Come on, we'll picnic."

"Yes. There will be crumbs," Fenris objects, but he is already padding over to the bed.

"You don't get to be fastidious if you have a corpse in your foyer."

Fenris takes the proffered fork. "Fair enough."

Without a moment more of hesitation, he joins her on the coverlet as she spreads out the napkin, his back to the walnut headboard and one leg drawn up under him. He makes short work of the chicken and when Hawke goes for the last bit of his bread, he raps her knuckles with the fork.

"Ow! Possessive bastard."

"It's generally considered indecorous to steal food from the master's table."

"Hilarious, Fenris." She sits back with a mock scowl, but there is no tightness in his voice, no hidden pain, and the gaze he turns on her at her ensuing silence is merely inquisitive. She flaps a hand. "Nothing. Ignore me."

He pauses, the little orange half-peeled in his long fingers. The smell of citrus bursts sharp in the room, but he lays the orange on the nightstand without a second thought and turns his full attention to her. "Something is wrong."

"Nothing's wrong with me," she says, picking at the coverlet by her knee. The candles on the mantelpiece flicker gently, making all the shadows in the room dance and twist at the edges. "It's only…I don't know. Are you—all right? This place, all of this…" She waves a vague hand without meeting his eyes. "It's overwhelming for me. I can't imagine what it must be like to come back here."

A minute or two passes before he responds, and Fenris settles back against the headboard in contemplation. "I did not expect to see this place again while I lived," he says at last. His head turns to look out the window and he continues more thoughtfully, "But it has not been as bad as I feared."

His face flashes into her mind, then, as it had been that afternoon, empty of everything but memories and choking fear and the glassy desperation of a man adrift at sea. All of that—and not as bad as he'd feared. She sighs and leans towards him, propping her chin on her hand. "It's everything I feared," she tells him frankly. "I keep waiting to stumble across a room full of bloodstained manacles."

His jaw tightens, and Hawke mentally calls herself every name she can think of. "There's a room with bloodstained manacles, isn't there?" she says, resigned.

"Obedience often necessitates restraint."

"What a practical concern."

He looks away, his jaw still clenched, and before she can talk herself out of it Hawke pushes up and slides forward on the bed until she straddles his waist. His eyes flick up to hers, surprised but not apprehensive; his hands come up to rest on her thighs and she leans over him, her hair falling around her face and his, to cup his jaw in her fingers, smoothing away the tension with long strokes meant to ease them both. He closes his eyes and she feels rather than hears him hum, a deep, soft noise that would not have been out of place coming from a cat. Her hands slide over his skin without ceasing, the lyrium in his chin catching at her thumbs when they sweep too close; when she feels the last of the tension seep out of his neck, she bends and presses her lips to his.

The kiss is not heated, not after this day—it is gentler, and quieter, and made of the things Hawke cannot say aloud in this place, and when it is over she pulls back and meets his eyes in the shadows without flinching. Another night they will do this properly, will reaffirm what they are to each other, but tonight they are both exhausted and fading with the candlelight, and this will have to suffice.

Fenris's hands move to her waist, his thumb dragging over the loose linen tunic. Water drips from her hair to his neck to slide gently down his throat. "I think," he says at last, "that you will not be feared for long."

It is a halfhearted concession, but a concession all the same, and Hawke smiles and kisses his nose. "I'm relieved. They're like—statues, Fenris, except they move. I don't ever see anything but blankness and anxiety."

"Most slave-owners would consider them well-trained."

"It's creepy. They keep looking to me for orders like I'm—I'm—"

He raises an eyebrow. "Danarius?"

Hawke grips his shoulders with both hands. "I could never be Danarius," she tells him earnestly.

"Oh?"

"Absolutely not. I don't have the beard for it."

He laughs, then, and rolls over, taking her weight to one side with his. She tugs the coverlet free and pulls it over them both, letting his arm settle over her waist as he curves around her back. The last candle gutters out, leaving the stars their only watchers, and Hawke lets her eyes close at last to the feel of Fenris's chest against her back, rising and falling with his breath, and the room filling with the sweet, faint smell of oranges.

Chapter Text

I have lived with shades so long,
And talked to them so oft,
Since forth from cot and croft
I went mankind among,
   That sometimes they
   In their dim style
   Will pause awhile
   To hear my say;

And take me by the hand,
And lead me through their rooms
In the To-be, where Dooms
Half-wove and shapeless stand:
   And show from there
   The dwindled dust
   And rot and rust
   Of things that were.

—I Have Lived with Shades, Thomas Hardy

Hawke slams the front door so hard the hinges rattle, so lost to her anger that she barely even registers the frightened faces of elves scattering before her. Fenris is somewhere at her heels, silent and implacable and as furious as she is—though for a different reason—and their feet beat a sharp staccato on the marble floor of the atrium as they move through the suddenly-silent manor. They are neither stopped nor interrupted, and the instant they achieve the relative privacy of the study Hawke whirls on him in a towering rage.

"What was that? Why—why did you stop me?"

Fenris's fingers twist around the key in the door, locking it against unwanted intrusion, and then he crosses his arms in a tight, controlled motion. "You know why."

It is more difficult than she expects to keep her voice below a shout. "No, I don't! That was—I could have stopped that. We could have stopped that."

"How?"

"Shut up. You saw that mage—he was young and he was weak and you could have killed him with your eyes closed. And instead we just stood there—"

A muscle jumps in Fenris's jaw. His eyes are harder than she has seen them in a long time, hard enough that she would be cowed if she were not so angry. "You would have assaulted a magister in open view of a hundred witnesses without cause. An excellent plan."

Hawke slaps an open palm on the enormous oak desk, making a delicate wire-and-crystal lamp on the corner tremble wildly. Flecks of light shiver over her face and arms, as if her fury itself has broken into a thousand glinting pieces. "He killed that girl! For no reason!"

"His property," Fenris snarls.

"She was a child! Oh, damn it. Damn it!" For a moment the book-lined walls of the study fade away to be replaced by white-stoned streets, by a crowd of impassive onlookers, by a young man with dark hair and a sneer bent over a terrified girl, his long-fingered hand at her throat— "Shit," Hawke breathes, blinking, and the illusion vanishes to leave only Fenris's silent glare instead. "You shouldn't have stopped me."

"I came here to protect you, Hawke! You think a foreign dog-lord can act with such impunity in this place after only a week?"

"You didn't even let me try! I could have said something. I could have bought her. I could have—"

"You could have done nothing," Fenris says, stalking towards her across the room, weaving around the couches and tables without dropping his gaze from her face. For a wild moment Hawke is glad he has locked the door—no eavesdropper could possibly believe in Fenris's show of subservience after this—but the brief thought scatters to the wind as he stops in front of her, his nose inches from hers and his eyes alight in anger. "You would have thrown away all the support you've gathered, jeopardized everything you are working for—for one slave."

"I'd have done it for you, you bastard," Hawke snaps, and Fenris recoils as if she has struck him. For a moment his face is open and hurt and Hawke almost winces—and then it closes off again, his eyebrows drawing down in hard, black slashes.

"I would not have thanked you for it," he says, voice thick with fury, "and neither would she."

"At least she'd have been alive," Hawke says, her teeth clenched, and when Fenris gives no answer she pushes away from the desk, shoving past him roughly enough to knock him off-balance into the tinkling wire lamp. He is quiet for a long minute as she crosses the room to unlock the door, silent and fuming, and then—

"You cannot save them all, Hawke."

She pauses with her fingers still on the handle. "I could have saved that one," she says without looking back, and then adds with a sudden rush of vicious rage, "And she's dead because you stopped me."

Fenris says nothing, and Hawke slams the door behind her.

Danarius's halls whip by in flashes of blurred, brilliant color. Hawke has little idea where she is headed save away—she is choking on anger and on sorrow, and when she collides with Palla coming around a corner it takes all her willpower not to snatch the decanter of water from her tray and smash it on the marble floor at her feet.

"Mistress!" Palla yelps, and then ducks a hurried curtsey. "Forgive me, I—"

"Never mind," says Hawke, raking one hand through her hair. "Never mind. I'm going outside. I'll be back later."

"Of course, Mistress," Palla says uncertainly. Her fingers are white on the edges of the silver tray.

Hawke cannot pretend she is not angry; instead, she gives a tight-lipped nod and hurries on, shoving open the tall, glass-paned doors in the drawing room with all the desperation of a drowning woman. She can feel Palla's eyes burning into the back of her head but she doesn't care, can't care a moment more—her mind is trapped in a Minrathous street with a young, terrified girl, long white fingers wrapped around her neck, silent with impotent horror.

The sky is a brilliant blue and the winds cool, but Hawke notices little of either. Her feet move down the well-kept garden path of their own volition, leading her around laughing fountains and elegant fluted columns that throw slender stripes of shadow across her steps. She passes through a grove of olive trees and silver crocuses, and then through narrow rows of well-tended lilies; soon, though, the flowers give way to mint and celery and hyssop, to herbs and spices she has known since she was old enough to walk, and when Hawke crests a little hill to find a small stone bench tucked into a patch of basil and thyme it seems like the Maker himself has decided that she needs nothing more than to sit down and cry.

So Hawke does, planting herself on the bench with little ceremony and burying her face in her hands. A songbird in a nearby willow twitters sharply through the breeze as if in reprimand—or consolation—and then lets loose a clear, bright burst of melody that wings straight to the bruised and aching places of her heart. The wind carries with it the smell of thyme and the lighter crispness of mint, and Hawke sucks in a breath as she bends almost double to press her forehead against her knees.

"What am I doing here?" she asks the wind, eyes burning, unsurprised when it offers her no answer. She is a Fereldan farmgirl playing dress-up with the adults; she belongs barefoot in a wheat field, not glittering in a marble hall with someone else's wine in her hand. Bethany would have enjoyed this, she thinks, not without grief—the fancy dresses, the subterfuge, the doomed and daring rescue of a household of slaves—she would have excelled at this, and Hawke can only imagine her laughing like a delighted child at Hawke's clumsy and graceless attempts to mimic her sister's poise.

"Maker, Bethany," she murmurs into her knees between her tears. "I miss you." And Mother, and Carver as lost to her as if death had taken him too—and then, for a moment, she feels her sister's hand on her shoulder and her laughter in her ear, and she doesn't know if she's crazy or if the Maker has granted her one precious instant of hope out of pity—but when the feeling fades Hawke sits straight again on the bench and scrubs her face clean, stopping her tears with sheer force of will.

"Enough," she says aloud, determined and mostly without wavering. The spark of anger lingers still, hot and tight in her chest like glowing coal, but the smoke is no longer thick enough to choke her as she squares her shoulders into the wind. The girl is dead; the moment of rescue is past and gone; she will not waste another second on what might have been when there is so much left for her to do now.

Starting with the patch of thyme and basil beside her, which is in desperate need of weeding. The herbs are nearly choking with the cheerful green plants encroaching around them and Hawke almost smiles: a fitting job for a farmgirl from Lothering.

She sets to work with good will, rolling up her sleeves and shedding her boots as she moves further into the plot. It is hard work and tiring, but an outlet for the heat of her frustration and familiar in a way no balm could ever be to the soul of a woman raised on the turning of the fields. She loses track of the time in the soothing motion of coax and pull, in the dirt under her fingers, in the heavy warm smell of basil leaves breaking under a careless foot; the sun is well along the sky by the time she comes back to herself, but though her hair is stuck to her neck with sweat and her feet filthy to the ankles the garden is cleared to breathe again, a pile of uprooted weeds heaped high enough beside her to make even her father proud.

"Hey! What are you doing—get away from there!"

Hawke sits back on her heels, shading her eyes as an older elf with brown hair and a furious glare approaches from the path. She'd gone farther than she'd thought in her anger, she realizes; the house is out of sight over the hills, well out of shouting distance. She glances behind the elf in the opposite direction then and blinks; further along the path, just before it makes a sharp bend into the woods, are a number of short, squat wood-and-clay chattel houses and a larger stone building overshadowing them that she hadn't even noticed. "Hello," she says, and ineffectively dusts her hands over her stained and muddied shirt.

The man doesn't stop until he's practically looming over her, one hand clutching a sturdy walking stick as if he'd like to beat her about the shoulders with it. The knees of his trousers are as stained as hers, and Hawke suspects that this is at last her capable and mysterious groundskeeper. "You can't be here," he snaps, and brandishes the stick at her pile of discarded greenery. "What are you doing?"

"Weeding," Hawke says, lifting a handful of plants between them in both proof and defense. "Mostly cockle and ground ivy, though you've got a bit of couchgrass working in from the south corner there."

"Damn that couchgrass," the man mutters, momentarily distracted by an obviously old and bitter grievance. "You can't turn around in the summers without it sprouting out of your ears."

"My father used to say there were only two certainties in farming: the day is never long enough and there's no getting rid of couchgrass."

The man gives a short laugh, easing his weight onto his walking-stick. His frown has eased, though he still looks wary at her presence. "Wise man."

"I thought so." She picks at a loose tendril of ivy by her knee and tosses it towards the heap. Safe enough, for the moment—best to keep him away from the question of her presence. "It's a shame these beds are so overgrown."

"Can't be helped." He scratches behind one long, pointed ear and shrugs. "New mistress at the house. Not enough time for both the herb gardens and the lily-beds until she settles in."

"Oh." Hawke looks down at the black earth jammed under her nails. "That makes sense."

He shrugs again. "Doesn't matter much; they're all the same. I've been through three magisters here and it never changes—every one of them watches the grounds like a vulture the first few months or so, ready to lay about with the whip at the first broken stem, but after the novelty wears off they mostly keep to the house. Then we can start taking care of the useful plants again."

"That's too bad," Hawke says, and tries to hide the flush creeping up her neck. This is less hedging now and more outright deception, but she finds herself unwilling to give up her name just yet. There are hardly any herb gardens in Kirkwall save her own, and precious few gruff gardeners either. "The grounds are lovely, though."

"I do what I can," he says, pleased and embarrassed, and then his eyes narrow. "You still haven't told me what you're doing here, girl. You're not from here, not with that accent, and the magisters don't appreciate trespassers."

"No, I know," says Hawke hurriedly. "I'm from Kirkwall—and Ferelden." She hesitates a moment more, but the groundskeeper seems to fill in the blanks on his own and interrupts her before she can speak.

"Ah," he says with dawning satisfaction, "part of the household the mistress brought with her then, hm?"

Hawke chews the inside of her cheek. "Something like that. I just came out for some air."

"Only free thing in this place," he mutters, then eyes her sideways. Hawke finds herself abruptly conscious of her swollen, red-rimmed eyes. "Just some air, hmm?"

"Yes," she says too quickly, and looks away towards the woods. "I just ran up against something I couldn't change, that's all."

He curls his lip and leans more heavily on his walking stick. "Coming out here to cry on a bench won't help that, girl," he says, and adds after a brief pause, "Better work on what you can change instead." Hawke does not answer and he shrugs, then bends and gathers up her pile of weeds in one arm. "I'll take care of this—go on and find the mistress before she finds us."

"I—thank you," Hawke says at last, pushing her way to her feet. The groundskeeper shakes his head and scowls, setting back down the path towards the chattel houses further down; after a moment Hawke sighs, plucking her boots from the earth and turning the opposite way, and with each step the wind brings her the smell of basil and mint leaves.

"Are you even listening, elf?"

Fenris glances back towards Varric from where he stands at the wide, uncurtained window of Danarius's study. "Yes."

Varric leans back in his chair and kicks both feet onto the oak desk. The little wire-and-crystal lamp trembles again, and Fenris thinks without mirth that it will be a miracle if the thing survives the day. "Then what did I just say?"

"Hawke has spies," Fenris says, and turns back to the window.

He hears Varric snort behind him. "Lucky guess."

It is not luck—but Fenris says nothing as he scans the grounds again for any sign of Hawke. He knows she can take care of herself, but she has been gone for hours and even with the lump of anger still sitting hot in his belly, he finds himself more and more uneasy the longer she is away. He says, "How many?"

"Two active at the moment, so far as I can tell."

"So few?"

Varric shrugs. "Unless you think the nobles here would hire master-class Crows to infiltrate the mansion, yes. Probably another two or three latent ones paid to look for specific information, I'd guess, though I don't know who they are yet." He slides a folded scrap of paper across the desk with exaggerated intrigue, and Fenris suppresses a snort as he holds it up to the light to read the two names scrawled there.

"This is a joke," he says after a moment, glancing back at Varric.

"Do I ever joke about things like this, elf?"

"Yes," says Fenris, tossing the paper into the small fire burning in the hearth. He knows, though, that Varric is telling the truth; all that is left now is to see what Hawke wishes to do with it, and he looks again out the window.

Varric's weight shifts on the leather chair. "I'm sure she's fine, you know. One little fight's not going to send her running back to Kirkwall."

"It was not a little fight," he says shortly, and then, "I do not wish to discuss this."

"Of course you don't. Now come over here and sit on my knee and tell Uncle Varric all about it."

"Varric," Fenris snarls, and he hears two solid thumps as Varric's feet slide from the desk to the floor.

"That bad, huh," the dwarf murmurs to himself; the leather creaks as he shifts again, and then the scratching of quill on parchment fills the quiet room as he returns his attention to Danarius's ledgers. He is silent enough that for a brief, shining instant Fenris thinks he will truly leave it alone, but then—"Did something happen when you two went into the city this morning?"

"Dwarf…"

"Scowl once for yes, twice for no."

Fenris grits his teeth and turns away from both Varric and the window to glare at a bookcase in the corner. He does not appreciate either the dwarf's insistence or his manipulation—but he knows that Varric will not let it rest until he has ferreted out the root of the issue, and after a brief, silent battle, he says at last, "A girl was killed."

"A slave?"

"Yes."

"And Hawke tried to stop it."

"Yes."

Varric makes a note on one of the entries in the ledger, his pen's scratching like an insect skittering over the page, and Fenris suppresses a shiver. How many times has he stood here, just like this? His back warm from the wide window, pliant and still at Danarius's side and at Danarius's whim, guarding his master from little more than errant beams of sunlight as he sat at the same great oak desk, his delicate fingers turning pages as if each one held something far too grand and precious for an illiterate slave to dare abase with his gaze—"I take it she couldn't save her."

Fenris blinks, forcing his mind back to the conversation, and the image shifts—a white, long-fingered hand around an elf's neck; her eyes wide and luminescent with fear as her master bends over her in the open market; and in the faceless crowd his own hand squeezing Hawke's arm just as tightly as she opens her mouth to shout—and he shakes his head sharply to disperse it. "I stopped her."

The pen stills on the page. "Ah," says Varric, his voice carefully neutral, then adds, "If I'm honest, that seems…unusual for you."

"Honesty you are known for," Fenris mutters, but Varric is right to be surprised and he knows it. In Kirkwall—but they are not in Kirkwall, not even in the Free Marches, and he tells Varric as much.

"And you're okay with that?"

Fenris glances out the window just as an undersized hare races across the lawn, a brown streak that vanishes into a lilac bush under the dining room window almost before he is sure what he has seen. The bush shudders a moment, and then the hare's head reappears between two branches, its nose twitching wildly. "The price would have been Hawke's life instead," he says without looking at Varric, "so I do not regret it."

"Bullshit."

"Varric," Fenris warns, but before he can speak a polite knock sounds at the door to silence them both. Fenris turns his back to the window and crosses his arms, the picture of an attentive bodyguard, and Varric shuts the ledger away in the desk's drawer before calling entry.

Dalos enters and bows. "The magister Damia is here with her apprentice Feynriel," he says to Varric. "They wish to pay their compliments to the mistress."

"Dammit," Varric says in the trade language, and then in heavily-accented Arcanum he adds, "Hawke's out on a walk, so you'll have to send someone out to find her. Please show the guests to the larger sitting room. We'll be down in a minute."

"Of course, messere," Dalos says, bowing again, and disappears soundlessly out the door.

"Well," Varric says to Fenris then, his teeth flashing in a sudden grin. "Let's go see what our somniari has to say, hmm?"

"Go as you like," Fenris says, and stalks out the door after Dalos.

There's a hare in the bush.

Hawke can see it from where she stands half-hidden by a tall sapling, its whiskers bobbing as it turns its brown head from side to side between the branches; she hardly dares to breathe for fear of frightening it, but before long it darts back into hiding anyway and Hawke lets out a disappointed huff. "A woman so gentle that even the beasts of the fields did not fear her," she mutters to herself, thinking of the heroine of one of Varric's impossible novels, and moves out from the sapling's slender shield. A sharp motion above her head catches her eye and she glances up—and freezes in place like a hare herself when she realizes that Fenris is standing squarely in the wide, open window of the study. His head is turned over his shoulder to someone else in the room, but even from here she can see the black anger in his eyes, and the sight of it stirs the quietly seething pit still in her own heart before she can stop it.

Fenris says something—snarls something—and moves away from the window. Hawke waits a moment out of both curiosity and irritation but he does not return, and when the hare pokes its nose out of the bush again Hawke's mood is dark enough that even its inquisitive stare cannot break through to ease it.

"Son of a bitch," she says to no one in particular, and sets off to find somewhere to wash the dirt from her hands.

It takes her ten minutes and what feels like almost an entire lap around the mansion, but at last Hawke finds a large stone cistern almost full of clear rainwater set against the east wall. The open window above it is set too high for her to see which room overlooks the cistern—she thinks she might be near the dining room, but she can't be sure—but she doesn't dwell overmuch on the thought as she plucks a polished wooden ladle from a hook on the wall and sets to freeing herself from the ravages of her herb garden. The water is clean and sweet when she steals a sip between washings, and when her stomach growls she realizes that she has missed both lunch and tea.

A door slams open in the room above her and a woman's voice carries out over the breeze like a song. "…absolutely untouched, can you believe that? Not even a black eye."

A man's voice, then, deeper and faintly amused: "Don't be too jealous, Ara. There's always a cost to being the master's favorite, even if you can't see it."

"I know," grumbles the woman with the clink and rattle of a dish-laden tray being set down on a table. "But if you'd heard the way he'd raised his voice! I swear he was shouting at her in the study. I thought for sure he'd end up flayed open on the block."

"Could you understand what they were saying?"

"No. They were using the trade tongue." She pauses a moment to the clank of metal on metal, and Hawke smells the faint, acrid scent of silver polish floating out the window. Her hands are almost clean; she quietly picks the last of the dirt from under her nails, then begins rinsing her bare feet. A part of her is hesitant to listen to this—it is eavesdropping in its purest form, and on people who would be terrified to learn of her presence—but she is burning with curiosity at this unexpected glimpse of herself and she cannot make herself leave. Inside, she hears two glasses quietly filled with water, and then the woman speaks again. "Marcus. Do you think she uses him as a—"

"Guard your tongue, Ara."

"Master Danarius did," she retorts, and Hawke's knuckles are suddenly white on the ladle. "It was no secret then. Why should it be now?"

"The moment you assume something about a master is the moment you find yourself whipped for the insolence. Besides, not all magic leaves marks."

"True." The woman sounds bitter, as if from experience, and then for several seconds there is no sound but the irregular clink of dishes being lifted and replaced on the table. Hawke rubs wet fingers against the worst stains on her trouser knees as if sheer force might be enough to remove them, but her efforts do little more than embed the dirt deeper.

Then the man speaks again. "What is that look for?"

"Nothing," the woman says, slow and thoughtful. "It's just—she's odd, isn't she?"

"Ara—"

"No, I mean it. Look at how she dresses. Look at how she speaks to everyone. Even Palla says she's kind, and you know that girl would shy at a seed-cake."

"A blade in a velvet sheath, that's all."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Don't!" The man's voice sounds like it splinters out of him, frightened and loud enough that Hawke jumps and nearly drops the ladle. "Oh, Ara, don't be careless. Please—for my sake—don't let your guard drop in front of her. I don't—I couldn't—if you were sold away—"

Hawke hears a chair push back across a carpet, then two quick steps and a pause. Then the woman's voice comes again, softly. "I won't, Marcus. I'm sorry."

His voice is muffled, as if in her shoulder. "Be careful."

"I will," she says. "I will. I promise."

And then they say nothing at all, and under the window, Hawke replaces the ladle on its hook and slips away without a sound.

The lady Damia, Fenris thinks, is what Varric would dub in his more discreet moments a formidable woman. She is tall and thick and strong despite her years, her eyes flashing with cool intelligence as she surveys the room and her steel-grey hair pulled back in a stern bun, though there are tell-tale waves at her temple that suggest her hair would prefer to curl if the magister permitted the insolence. Her dress is dark green and cut severely, though not without style; she carries herself like a woman born to power and well-used to it, a magister in every sense of the word, and when her gaze falls on Fenris standing by a high-backed armchair against the wall he feels the sudden, deep-seated urge to drop his eyes in deference. Fenris shoves back the instinct like a live coal, glaring at Damia instead; one immaculate eyebrow lifts into her hairline, and then Varric bustles in all suave gentility and easy rapport, and Fenris crosses his arms and looks away.

"Magister," Varric says in Arcanum, the title nearly an endearment in the honey-smooth warmth of his voice, "in the absence of our host, please allow me to welcome you to the manor. Varric Tethras, at your service."

She gives him a smile as warm as a winter wind and responds in the trade tongue. "Thank you for your courtesy, ser. I apologize that this visit is so sudden, but a number of things have come to light in the last few days that I must discuss with the lady Hawke as soon as possible."

"Please, sit. She'll be back shortly, I'm sure," Varric says. And then his eyes dart to the wall where Fenris leans and the dwarf hesitates, just for an instant—and if Fenris did not know Varric so well he would have missed it—before sinking into the chair opposite Damia's couch. "Hawke's steward said that Feynriel was with you."

"My apprentice wished to see the grounds," Damia says stiffly, as if the idea of looking at trees for the sake of it is ludicrous. "He will join us shortly."

"Of course. Can I offer you some refreshment?"

"I thank you, no," says Lady Damia, but her eyes turn again to Fenris where he stands against the wall. Varric opens his mouth to ward off her interrogation—but Damia speaks first, and directly to Fenris. "You seem familiar to me."

Her eyes are sharp and piercing as any of Sebastian's arrows, and again he feels that blood-deep drive to bend his head before her. He says instead, "I do not know you."

Varric sucks in a hissing breath through his teeth and Damia's eyes narrow. "I say that I do," she says, and her voice is the smooth and warning coil of a snake before striking.

He is reckless with irritation, defiant because he wishes to be and because he can be, even in this house, and exactly as deliberate as he'd been with Hawke this morning he says, "You are mistaken."

He does not know what reaction he expects, but Lady Damia only leans back on the sofa with a small, opaque smile. "You are very impudent for a slave," she says softly.

"Fenris isn't a slave."

All three of them look to the door as if on a tether. Hawke is there, her voice level but her eyes tired and, Fenris thinks, redder than they ought to be; she is barefoot and her canvas trousers stained with earth at the knees, and though her hands have been washed there is a stripe of dirt across her nose that she clearly does not know exists. Feynriel stands behind her, taller than Fenris remembers but just as fair, and when Hawke moves into the room the somniari follows to sit at the side of his mentor.

Hawke looks nothing like the magister she is supposed to be, and Fenris wants to shake her until her teeth rattle. Aside from the unspoken insult of her careless appearance, she has contradicted and insulted a superior—and worse, with a truth neither she nor Fenris had planned to reveal. Damia might have been instrumental in allowing Hawke to inherit Danarius's estate, but she is a Tevinter magister before she is anything else. Fenris does not trust her so easily, and Hawke knows she should not either.

"My apologies, Lady Damia, for both my delay and my appearance." Hawke continues, holding out her hand—blessedly clean—to the magister. "I didn't know you were here until I ran into Feynriel in the gardens. I hope you weren't waiting long."

"Not at all, child," she says with more genuine warmth than they have seen in her yet, and rises to her feet before taking Hawke's hand. "I am so pleased to meet the Champion of Kirkwall at last."

Hawke inclines her head. "The pleasure is mine."

There is a pause, and then Damia's gaze turns on Fenris again as if to pin him to the wall. "But not the elf, it seems."

"Fenris is a free man."

His stomach jolts the way it always does when Hawke says such things with such surety, but under the wild euphoria is the sick, gut-twisting thought that since she entered the room Hawke has not looked at him even once. Damia, however, seems to want nothing more than to pry him open with the force of her gaze, and Fenris looks away from them both.

"In name or in spirit?"

Hawke smiles, thinly but not without humor, and does not answer the question. "Feynriel says you have news."

Damia inclines her head in a mirror of Hawke's earlier movement and places herself on the edge of the white brocade couch; Hawke settles into the wing-backed armchair next to Varric's. Her shoulders slump for a moment as if she is too tired too lift them—and then she straightens and her exhaustion falls away like a cloak. "I do," Damia says. "May I speak freely?"

Fenris hears the hidden question—is it safe to speak freely?—and Hawke nods. Fenris moves to the door and glances down the hallway; it is empty, as he expects, but he closes and locks the door behind him all the same. Hawke watches him with half-hidden surprise—now she looks at him, he thinks with more bitterness than he means—but Damia looks as if she expects this and is glad to see it. Her pleasure irritates him, even as taken as she seems to be with Hawke, and before he can concede to either his fear or his still-lingering anger he crosses the room to stand with folded arms beside Hawke's chair. Feynriel's pale cheeks color with a faint flush.

"Ah," says Damia, that same blank smile curving her mouth again, but she continues without questioning either of them further. "I have news of the man who attacked you the day you came to Minrathous."

"The assassin?"

"Not him—but of the man who hired him. He is a powerful nobleman in the heart of Minrathous, a man named Priscus."

"I see," Hawke says, and she glances up at Fenris silent understanding. "You mentioned him in your letters. He would have taken Danarius's estate if I hadn't."

Lady Damia nods. "Lord Priscus was…not pleased when word reached the city that you were claiming the inheritance. His wealth is stretched thin, thinner than he would have the rest of us believe, and it seems he had counted a great deal on certain…assets of Danarius's."

"On me," says Fenris, and he cannot keep the bitterness from his voice.

"Yes. You represent a considerable fortune, el—Fenris, whether you will it or no. There are more people than either of you know interested in that lyrium. If your heart is still beating when they take it is of little consequence."

Hawke curls her lip. "Charming."

"How do you know this?" Varric asks. "I'm going to guess Priscus didn't offer this information himself."

"I discovered it," says Feynriel, the first time he has spoken since entering the room. His high, curious voice is quiet and carefully modulated as if he is unaccustomed to easy conversation, but he quirks a smile at himself. "Not many people take care to lie even in their dreams."

"That is so weird," Varric says, propping his chin on one hand. "No offense."

"None taken."

"Do you think he'll try again? If we need to get Hawke out of the city…"

"I don't think so—at least, not soon. It would be far too dangerous, even for him, to strike again so quickly after the first failed attempt. Besides, Priscus does not like loose ends. He'll need time to find a—new assassin."

"You sound sure of yourself."

Feynriel shifts, uncomfortable at Varric's scrutiny, and says, "His dreams are, ah. Vivid."

"My apprentice is quite talented," Damia says with faint pride in her voice. "He was very concerned when he heard of the attempted assassination."

"Because I was the one who'd asked you to come," Feynriel says hurriedly with an awkward, unsubtle glance at Fenris. "If you'd been hurt because I'd brought you here—"

"Don't worry, Feynriel," Hawke says with a smile. "No harm done."

He flushes again and Fenris grits his teeth. He has no wish to insult Hawke's friend, but neither is he willing to watch this milksop of a mage try his hand at clumsy flirting. "Your letter mentioned an assault on Seheron," says Fenris, perhaps a bit rougher than he intends. "What news of that?"

Feynriel's gaze flicks to Fenris, Hawke beside him, and back again before he speaks. "I haven't heard much more since I wrote then. There are rumors everywhere and nothing solid behind any of them, even when I'm Fade-walking. All I know for sure is that of all the magisters I've heard tied to this thing, the only one whose name has come up more than once is a man named Jaculus."

"Magister Jaculus?" Lady Damia says with surprise. "I know him. I did not know you were so interested in the qunari."

He shifts in obvious discomfort under his mentor's stare. "I just thought that the Champion might look into it while she was here. Qunari affairs, you know—they might affect Kirkwall too. I thought."

Damia folds her elegant, lined hands in her lap and it is as good as cracking a whip. "I do not appreciate surprises, Feynriel."

He laughs sheepishly and tugs on the end of his braid in nervous habit. "I know. I'm sorry."

She purses her lips and Hawke barely smothers a laugh at Feynriel's embarrassed cough. The sound makes Fenris smirk, and when Hawke leans back to catch his glance with her eyes merry and unshadowed by either anger or grief, for a brief moment it is like all the death and sorrow of the morning has never happened. His heart lifts despite himself and his smirk widens to a smile; Hawke sees it and smiles herself, and then she reaches up and touches his wrist with a gentleness he neither expects nor deserves, and for an instant he thinks that his heart will burst from his chest.

"Feynriel, no." Damia's voice is quiet but sharp, and Feynriel falls silent as she smoothes a wrinkle of her skirt in calm, precise movements. "You are not to go near him either awake or asleep. That is an order. And if I could command you," she adds, looking at Hawke, Fenris, and Varric in turn, "I would have you do the same. Priscus is a dangerous man, but Jaculus is a snake. You must be cautious."

"Why's he so dangerous?" Varric asks.

"It would be easier, I think, to list why he is not. Jaculus is a magister from a very old and very powerful line that is well-respected—and well-hated—in the Imperium. Archon Nomaran was a cousin of his family. He is fond of dueling and of power, and he is not afraid to use one vice to further the other."

"Sounds like someone the rest of the Senate wouldn't mind being rid of."

Damia permits herself a thin smile as she meets Varric's eyes. "The last magister who tried left the stadium without fingers."

Varric winces. "An accident?"

"He froze her to the earth and severed them one by one."

Hawke flinches beside him, and even Varric looks a bit green around the edges as he says, haltingly, "That…is disgusting."

Fenris, however, knows better—this is what a magister is, Damia notwithstanding. "He left the woman alive. A show of power?"

Damia nods. "It is difficult to forget a man when the evidence of his strength walks through the streets of Minrathous in lamed, living proof."

Hawke sinks back into her chair as if her spine has gone fluid. "Void take this city."

"Hawke—"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." She straightens again, smiling, and adds, "Forgive me, Lady Damia. I seem to be trampling all over your kindness."

"I understand your difficulties," Damia says kindly. "Feynriel too finds many of our practices…unsettling."

"What can I say?" Feynriel says with an awkward shrug. "I'm never going to get used to open displays of blood magic."

"I know what you mean," Hawke murmurs, and Fenris knows she is thinking of a frightened elf girl and her own failure—and of his own. Damia smiles at her, the gentle and tolerant smile of a parent indulging a fussy child, and though Hawke seems neither surprised nor offended Fenris finds himself bristling on her behalf. The atrocities of Tevinter should not be something to get used to, he thinks, its magisters' brutalities not the standard; it should not take blind flight and a decade of sleepless nights to realize that Minrathous is a cesspit, that if anything its mages should be more like—

Fenris startles at his own thought. Like Hawke.

That—is something he needs to consider further, to turn over and examine in the privacy of his own room and his own mind, but without the luxury of solitude at the moment he has no choice but to tuck away the thought in the back of his head until later. Varric quips something inappropriate about blood and slippery slopes, and as Hawke responds with a dry comment of her own Fenris forces his attention back to the conversation.

"Which is another reason for my coming," Damia says. "If, of course, you are amenable to the idea."

"What did you have in mind, Lady Damia?"

The magister smiles, the lines at the corners of her mouth deepening with humor. "How would the magister Hawke like to be introduced to Minrathous society?"

Varric leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. "Well, I'm intrigued."

"Ah," says Hawke, sounding about as stunned as Fenris feels. "I suppose that depends. How would you feel being saddled with a foreign upstart who can't recognize the business end of a grapefruit spoon?"

Feynriel laughs. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Hawke."

She shakes her head, smiling. "My nobility was bought and paid for, Lady Damia, and my title earned with blood. I'm not—genteel."

"But you are a novelty. Our glittering echelon is willing to forgive a great deal for that rarity."

"And so I become a prize for the magister with the greatest tolerance for social gaffes. Forgive me my lack of enthusiasm."

"You laugh, child, but you underestimate your strength. You could wield formidable power here if you wished, I think."

"I didn't come here to wield power."

Damia raises an eyebrow. "Didn't you?"

Hawke is quiet, her fingers twisting in her lap, and then she looks up at Fenris. "What do you think?"

"You will hate a great deal of it," he tells her frankly, too surprised to demur. His mind is spinning. If Damia had any doubt about their relationship, it must have vanished with this respect for his opinion—but more than that is his astonishment at the magister's offer. To be introduced to Tevinter high society by such an established member is an advantage they had not dared to consider, but at the same time he knows that the lavish and opulent displays of power at these fetes will strain even Hawke's tolerance for excess. "However," he adds with reluctance, "it is not an idea without merit."

"By all means," Varric snorts. "Let's entertain the idea of Hawke as entertainment."

Hawke props her head on one hand and grins at Varric. "I've got to be good for something, right?"

"Somehow, this wasn't what I had in mind," says Varric, and then he throws up his hands. "Fine. The inherent drama's more interesting anyway. Just warn a dwarf before you end up in a silk-and-satin catfight; I don't want to miss a detail."

"You know I can't disappoint you," Hawke says as Damia rises from the couch to signal the end of the visit. Hawke stands too, her face relaxed and open in the gold glow of dying sunlight, and when she extends her hand again to the magister Damia takes it in both of hers.

"You look so much like your father," Damia murmurs. "I see a great deal of his strength in you."

Hawke's mouth falls open in unfeigned surprise. "I didn't know you knew him, Magister."

"We studied together for a time in the Argent Spire. He was very handsome, very young…and too focused to notice a lowly apprentice like me." She smiles at the memory, and there is no pain in it. "He was always kind to me."

"To me as well," Hawke sighs, and Fenris can see the weight of sorrow line her face even as he watches.

"Have courage, child," Damia says warmly, and Hawke falls still. The magister's steel-cool gaze flicks to Fenris then, just for a moment, but it feels as though she has reached into his heart—lyrium fist or no—and touched his secrets all the same. "Your friends will not let you fail."

"I know," Hawke says, and sounds surprised at herself for the admission. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it. I'll write you soon with the name of my dressmaker—she is excellent with foreign fashion."

"Thank you," Hawke says again as she unlocks and opens the door; Dalos appears in the hall as if summoned, and in a flash of green chambray and Feynriel's narrow, smiling face, they are gone.

Dinner that night is a quiet affair in the study. Hawke's mind is too scattered to make casual conversation; her thoughts circle like birds without a perch, jumping from Fenris to Damia to blank-faced magisters and the cringing, frightened slaves at their heels. She cannot imagine silk and perfumes making them more tolerable—with as little as she herself has to offer, somehow Hawke feels that the promised gala offers less. Still—she is not reticent enough to ignore the obvious generosity Damia has afforded her, and if she can gain even one ally against Jaculus's invasion of Seheron or an advocate against Priscus, then surely, surely it is worth it.

"You going to eat that, Hawke, or keep mashing it into pulp?"

"What?" Hawke says, startled, and looks down to see the mutilated remains of her potato crushed into a mess of skin and butter. "Oh. I'm distracted, I guess."

"And you're taking it out on the tuber."

Hawke draws her fork through the remains of the potato in long strokes, making neat, even furrows across her plate, and says, "Better the potato than the property." Fenris lets out a sharp, derisive snort from where he stands at the fire, and Hawke realizes belatedly the implications of what she has said. "That's not what I meant," she mutters.

There's a pause, and then Fenris says quietly, "I know, Hawke."

She says nothing. Night has fallen all at once, wrapping close around the mansion like a heavy blue cloak, dark and silent and barely broken by a thin, pale sliver of moon. Paper rustles gently over the fitful snap of the fire as Varric pages through another of Danarius's ledgers, his bold and rounded hand a sharp contrast to the narrow, spidery handwriting of the ledger's former owner. The air is thick with twilight heat and unsettled arguments, pressing close enough that Hawke feels its tightness in her chest, and when she can bear it no longer she begins nudging her peas into the furrowed potatoes to make a field of round, green sprouts.

Finally, Varric closes the ledger with a decisive snap. "I am going to bed," he declares as he shuts the black book into the desk. "This cloud of angst is distracting enough that even I can't work through it, and I once finished five thousand words of torrid romance while persuading Aveline not to confiscate my press."

Hawke wonders if her smile looks as forced as it feels. "Torrid romance? That sounds more Isabela's style than yours."

"It was a collaboration. I did the writing; she provided the inspiration."

"In word or in deed?"

"Don't laugh, Hawke. Sovereign Booty sold faster than I could stock it."

"Good night, Varric."

"Sweet dreams, you two. Try to leave the house standing."

The door clicks gently closed behind him, and Fenris and Hawke are left alone.

"So…" Hawke says eloquently. Fenris says nothing, does not even turn from the fire, and when one minute stretches into two, Hawke looks down at the plate on her knees. She is a grown woman and she will not fidget like a blushing schoolgirl, she won't—and then two minutes becomes three, and when a branch breaks over the fire to let loose a shower of sparks she feels the sudden urge to shout, to scream—anything to make him break his stubborn silence.

Hawke moves a little piece of her braised beef into place between two rows of peas: a rock in a new-plowed field. Her father would have been appalled. The branch settles; the fire quiets itself; Fenris still says nothing.

Enough.

Hawke drops her fork to the plate with a clank that hangs loud in the air and places the plate on the ottoman at her feet. Fenris turns at the noise and she catches his gaze, holds it steady; he looks as if he would like to run but that will not happen again, not if she has anything to say about it, and at her challenging stare his chin lifts in defiance. They speak at the same time.

"Hawke—"

"Fenris, look—"

They pause; Fenris nods, deferring to her. His eyes are tight at the corners but less guarded than they have been all day, and she takes it for the opening it is.

"All right," Hawke says, feeling suddenly as if she is plunging blind over the edge of a waterfall, unable to see if the mists at its feet hide open water or the solid and sharp-edged rocks of disaster. "All right, Fenris, look. What happened this morning—"

"Hawke—"

"No. Maker. Don't interrupt or I won't get through this." She sucks in a breath through her nose. "Fenris, what happened this morning was—horrible. More than horrible—an atrocity. That girl died, and all I could see was that I was strong enough to save her, and she lost her life because I did nothing. And I was very, very angry and I took it out on you and I shouldn't have and I am—I apologize for that. And for saying that I blame you. Because I don't, Fenris, I swear—I never should have said that and I'm—I'm sorry." She lets out the last of her air, the admission easy now, and her twisting fingers relax in her lap. "It won't happen again."

"Hawke," Fenris says—breathes—and his eyes are so wide that she can see the reflection of candleflame in the dim and shadowed green.

She shifts uncomfortably. "What?"

"You are—" He drags a hand over his eyes, laughs without mirth, looks back at her as if she is not quite real. "You are impossible, Hawke."

"I'm not trying to be," she snaps, hurt and half-offended; before she can turn away, Fenris crosses to her with a quick step and pulls her to her feet.

"That is not what I mean," he says, his voice low; his thumbs move over the inside of her wrists in slow, unconscious circles that soothe her temper despite herself, and when he speaks again she listens without protest. "You do not understand what you are."

He is so close—so close, close enough that she can feel the soft-feathered ends of his white hair falling against her forehead. "So explain."

"Euphemia Hawke, magister of the Tevinter Imperium, apologizing to her slave for offending him. Novelty indeed."

She jerks back, sickened. "Don't say that."

His lips curve up in a barely-there smirk. "And now you shrink from the truth?"

"Stop it. That's not the truth, that's a—a farce. Fenris, I don't—" she blinks back a sudden, unexpected prickle of tears, "I don't want what we—what we have to be tainted with words like that."

He relents, softening his smile into something real. "Forgive me. You simply take me by surprise more often than I expect."

"You always say the sweetest things," Hawke mumbles thickly, dropping her forehead against his chin to hide her watery eyes.

"Forgive me," Fenris says again, and this time she knows he means for more than his words. His hands draw smooth and slow up her arms. "This morning…I regret it as well."

"Regrets all around," Hawke says, her voice light, and gingerly lets her arms settle around Fenris's waist. "It's done. I know what to expect now. Let's move on."

He hesitates, then lets out a short, frustrated breath that stirs her hair. "I wish that you did not have to see this place, Hawke."

"I could say the same thing, amaris."

His hands tighten on her back. For several moments there is nothing but the burn of candles and the fire crackling in the hearth, throwing shards of light through the wire-and-crystal lamp like gold tongues. The lyrium in Fenris's arms glints as the glow ripples over their skin, as Hawke draws in what feels like the first breath she has taken all day, and when she lifts her face to Fenris his eyes are gentle as he kisses her. The embrace is as quiet as the room, unhurried and calm, and when he draws away he murmurs, one last time, "Forgive me."

"What for?"

"I would…my life here. As it was. I know you are curious."

"Only to avoid making you suffer more."

"Only that?" he asks with a slight, ironic smile.

Hawke winces, knowing he has seen through to her hidden, shameful interest. "Fenris…"

He shakes his head to forestall her excuses and the smile slips away. "I would show you. If you wish."

"Are you… are you certain?"

"Yes."

"Then yes," she says, and her heart skips in her chest. "Yes, please."

He hesitates, a flash of anxiety flaring in his eyes, and warns her, "It may not be an—easy thing to see."

"No worse than living it," says Hawke, quietly. "I am not afraid of ghosts."

"Then follow me," he says, and she does.

It is not yet midnight, but the manor is silent and still as they move through its halls. The torches are unlit in their brackets and the white marble floors dimmed with night, the long carpet runner a black and soundless river that swallows their feet in shadow. Fenris does not speak and neither does Hawke, and the moon falls across their shoulders in slender shining bars through the tall windows lining the passage in regular intervals, spilling over Fenris's hair in sudden silver flares that fade just as swiftly to the softer grey of smoke over water. His lyrium catches in lines of white fire as they pass through the soft, slanted shafts of light, and in a single moment of startled clarity, Hawke thinks that of all the scars Fenris has carried from this place, these are the most beautiful.

He leads her through the glass-paned doors of the drawing room into the crisp Tevinter night, then along the colonnaded pathway that lines the inner garden walls of the mansion. They move east in silence—even here, her household is asleep—and when they reach the small, square building at end of the pathway, Hawke follows Fenris through the door without hesitation. He steps away once they are inside, his eyes inscrutable, and Hawke realizes that before he speaks she is to see this place first on her own.

The interior is a single room, small and spare but finely crafted, the floor laid with black porphyry pristinely cut and polished to a mirror shine, the walls burnt brick with marble insets. There are no windows save a single large opening in the ceiling, and set squarely below that opening, surrounded by four slender white pillars, is a shallow stone pool with a flat granite slab laid just beyond it by the far wall. The pool is longer than it is wide, ankle-deep and lined with slate, the rippling reflections it casts glowing faintly on the ceiling. A mosaic design has been set in silver under the surface in meticulous detail that Hawke cannot make out at first, its curling contours obscured by the shiver of pale moonlight thrown back in her eyes by the water; tiny waves lap faintly at the stone lip of the pool as Hawke approaches, turning her head from side to side to make sense of the pattern—and then understanding comes all in a rush, sudden and overwhelming like a summer storm, and she stops dead in her tracks.

"This is—" she says, and the room catches the whisper to throw it back, this is this is this is.

Fenris's markings. Twining veins and drops of worked silver, shimmering and fluid in the water and darker set of slate, laid out at her feet like a map.

Hawke lifts her head, abruptly reminded of the granite slab beyond the pool; without another word, without even a glance at Fenris, she skirts the edge of the pool and hurries towards it, barely even noticing the quiet step of Fenris following at her heels. The slab is set waist-high, long, and flat—just the size of a man, her mind informs her—and embedded deep in the stone, black like unpicked scabs, are wide and iron shackles.

"Ah," says Hawke, and something aches like a fist inside her heart.

The manacles are intricately carved, and even though they have not been used in ten years—she hopes, at least, she hopes—there is no sign of rust on the hinges, on the unfastened hasps, on the thick and square-headed bolts that secure them to the bloodless stone. Even here, she thinks, Danarius spared no expense.

Hawke touches the one nearest her with the tip of a finger. The left foot. The left foot would have been here, bound tight at the ankle. She touches the other beside it—the right foot, the right ankle, spread just far enough apart from the other to prevent its prisoner from shielding even an inch of skin from the unsmoothed granite. She moves, dazed, to the next: here the right hand held flat, rigid, to stop any thrashing, any resistance—and across the slab its twin, for the left hand, set deep and strong to bind a man against his will to unyielding stone, to keep his agony restrained to screams alone.

Someone is breathing hard, and quick, and a dry sob echoes off the shallow pool—and then Hawke realizes it is her breath, her voice resounding in the small, square room, and when Fenris touches her shoulder she turns on her heel and throws her arms around him. It is both instinctive and deliberate, desperate as she is to seek comfort and to give it, and though she does not break to tears Hawke cannot hide her unsteady gasps as his hands settle carefully on the bow of her back. He does not speak and neither does she; instead they wait together as her hysteria calms, as her breath slows again to normalcy and she forces her shivers to ebb.

Eventually, Hawke backs away without releasing him to suck in a steadying gulp of air. They move together to the head of the granite slab, and Fenris's hand is solid on her back as she reaches out and touches two finger-thick holes in the stone, round and even and about six inches apart. "Was there another restraint here?" she asks, and her voice does not waver.

"For the neck," says Fenris, quiet and rumbling. The neck, the neck—not my neck, though the words are floating there between them as if he has said them anyway. "When the ritual was complete, it was made into a collar."

A collar for Fenris. An iron band around Fenris's throat, iron shackles around Fenris's hands, Fenris's feet, and no expectation, no desire, no hope for a life with anything other than that.

"Oh, flames," Hawke says to no one. She blinks up at the ceiling, watching the veins of reflected light ripple across the stone. "I really, really hate this place."

Fenris laughs then, softly, and says, "Do not fear my ghosts, Hawke."

Hawke stares—and then she laughs, too, and leans up to kiss him. "Your wish is my command."

His eyes darken, half-closed and shadowed, and when Hawke draws away his hand slides into her hair to pull her back again. "I wish for this," he murmurs against her lips, and then his mouth closes over hers in quiet need, and Hawke abandons herself to his demand. She does not see this vulnerable side of Fenris often, even in his rare moments of contentment; his hands drop to her shoulders, her waist, and then with a breath he lifts her in one movement to place her on the stone slab behind her. Hawke does not protest, barely even notices the shift—her fingers are on his neck and chest and arms, stroking down the lines of lyrium there in blind memory, tracing the patterns mirrored in the silver pool behind her as if she might erase them by will alone.

Soon enough he pulls back, and her hands fall from his chest to the stone beside her thighs; Hawke opens her eyes to see his face turn away under the white fall of his hair. The cool edge of a manacle presses hard into her hip.

"Something wrong?" Hawke asks, touching her mouth in uncertainty.

"No," Fenris says, startled into looking up again, and when he sees her worry his face relaxes. "Unexpected circumstances," he offers in dry explanation.

Her fingers curl hard over the lip of the stone table. "Where to next?"

He sweeps out one hand to encompass the stone, columns, and pool together and says, "The beginning. Morning, so to speak. Next, then—day."

"Lead on."

It is easier to breathe once they reach the cool night air again, leaving behind the shining pool that guards the granite slab, and this time when they pass under the columns of the walkway Hawke tucks her hand into Fenris's. He leads her back into the mansion and through the endless corridors to the atrium, silent and grey in the weak light of the stars, and then up the gleaming mahogany staircase to the second floor. Their room is in the west wing—but again Fenris turns east, following the thick rugs to a tiny alcove set just off the main hallway, small enough to go unnoticed in the determined grandeur of the rest of the hall. There are narrow wooden doors set in either wall of the alcove, painted white but otherwise unadorned; Fenris throws open the left and says, "Day."

Hawke thinks, for all of a half-second, that it is a closet, shallow and not even wide enough for her to spread her arms across. And then she sees the dusty canvas cot crammed against one wall, the single thin blanket tossed carelessly at its foot, the high, barred window just large enough to let in a single star amid the oppressive darkness of the sky. There is no handle on the inside of the door.

"Day," Hawke murmurs, and paces the full three steps of the room. "How much time…?" Did you spend here, she wants to ask, but to personalize it would make it real, and she is resolved to hold herself together until Fenris has shown her everything he wishes. Everything he needs.

"Some," he says. "Not much. It was meant more for recuperation than sleep."

Hawke lifts the blanket without looking at Fenris and begins to refold it. "Recuperation?"

"After injury in battle. Or punishment."

"Illness not permitted. Still, a private room—a prerogative for a favorite?"

"Just so."

Hawke replaces the folded blanket on the cot and pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes. It would be so easy to fall apart here, so easy—but she will not yield to her sorrow and her anger, not yet, and she pulls her hands away with a decisive lift of her head. "Come here," she says, turning to Fenris; he approaches warily, but she takes little notice of his hesitation before pulling him down into a kiss. It is shorter than the first, and harder, and when it is over she pushes him back with a hand on his chest. His smile is as brittle as hers. "Now where?"

"Night," he says, almost to himself, and leads her from the room.

It takes only a moment for her to realize where he intends to take her for this last glimpse into him as he was, and for the first time this evening Hawke nearly balks. Fenris glances at her over his shoulder, his gaze level and impassive, and her own words flicker through her mind like lightning—I am not afraid of ghosts.

They stop before a set of double doors made of dark and heavy oak, shut and gold-handled and carved with twin sunbursts.

Fenris does not falter as his hands twist sharply on the knobs, as he pushes open both doors and moves inside. Hawke follows behind him, less certain but no less determined, and when he pulls apart the thick velvet drapes that hide the enormous, floor-to-ceiling window, Hawke finds herself at last bathed in the rich and gilt-edged elegance of Danarius's bedroom. Everything is white marble and deep-stained wood and the yellow shine of new brass, gleaming and spotless and more opulent than she remembers from that one brief glance before—even the bedspread is embroidered cloth-of-gold lined with immaculate ivory silk.

Hawke steps forward almost gingerly, as if even her breath might profane the luxuriousness of this room, until her bare toes sink into the plush, heavily-patterned rug laid to soften the dark wood of the floor. A colossal, two-tiered chandelier of gold and glass dangles from the high coffered ceiling in aggressive magnificence; a dozen more light fixtures in the same style dot the walls on insets of carved whitewood. The headboard of the bed is a monster in itself, taller than Hawke and sculpted in dark, intricate whorls, and well above it is mounted a half-crown of polished mahogany with a spread-winged eagle as the frontispiece. Bronze silk cascades down from either side of the eagle in liquid folds to frame the headboard, tucked gracefully behind its spiraled posts to drop hidden behind the wood.

It is beautiful, Hawke thinks, touching a grape vine carved into the footboard, and as brittle as a mask made of dry bone.

She does not have to look hard to find the brutality hidden under the gold veneer, even without Fenris's guidance. The rug is worn thinner at the foot of the bed, as if someone has knelt there too long over the years; a hook near the doors holds a cured leather collar attached to a thick rope lead; and on the mantle over the great stone fireplace lies a whip, its handle well-used, its curled cord short and serpent-thin.

Hawke circles the room in silence, reaching here and there to brush her fingers over the anchors of a painting's edge, over the cool wood of a straight-backed chair, over a stack of Tevinter books on a low table by a luxurious chaise. This is unreal—this is unimaginable—never in her life did Hawke think to be standing here in Danarius's room, among Danarius's possessions, his once-life claimed as her own. Fenris stands before the window, his head half-turned to follow her progress; his green eyes are pale in the moonlight, guarded but calm, and when she completes the circuit to end at the elaborate footboard he turns fully towards her to lean back against the window and crosses his arms over his chest.

Night.

Hawke wants to scream. Fenris is standing there with his arms crossed, his eyes steady, his shoulders limned in star-pale light and Hawke wants to scream, wants to set the room on fire until nothing is left of the base tortures that occurred here but ash and smoke-black slag, until the graceful chandelier is as scarred and twisted as the man who'd had it placed above his bed. Her fists are clenched in fury and shaking, her back rigid enough to hurt, and when Fenris speaks the sound cracks across her face like a slap.

"Do not waste your anger on him now, Hawke." He says it evenly, quietly, as if he has not spent a decade in fear and in flight, as if her grief and her rage here has somehow washed his own into nothing.

"If I could," she says without looking at him, her throat tight, "I would raze this place to the ground. Not a single stone still standing, not a brick left in place—I wouldn't even need magic, I could do it bare-handed—"

"Hawke."

She whirls on him, hot and wild and hurting. "What? What, Fenris? What in this place is possibly worth saving when I know that—that what he did here, all this—" she sweeps her hand out, "—this depravity is just—just permitted, as if they don't—as if you don't—" She breaks off, choking, and Fenris pushes away from the window.

"Be easy," he says, gently, and stretches out his hands as if to calm a wounded deer. "I did not bring you here to hurt you."

"Oh, Maker!" Hawke cries out, and recoils. "Don't comfort me here—Fenris, in Andraste's name—don't."

"You are upset—"

"Angry—so angry—" Her throat closes—so angry she cannot speak—so angry that she cannot explain that this is not a rage that needs comforting, not here and not from Fenris, not when the agony that clenches around her voice was first his to bear alone. He falls silent and she whirls, stalking across the room to retrieve the leather collar from its hook; the whip comes next from its honored place on the mantle, and then Hawke throws both of them into the empty grate of the fireplace.

There is no wood, but she has no need for it here. Her hands light bright enough that for a moment the room turns to day, and then a bonfire roars into being before her, scalding hot and brilliant and licking the edges of the stone with wild hunger; she clenches her fists and for a moment the flame's heart burns white as it spreads across the whole width of the fireplace to devour her bitter offering.

Fenris says nothing.

Her rage dies back as quickly as it has risen and the flames wither with it, settling to a quiet, simmering fury that matches the heat in her blood. She cannot even comfort him, she thinks as she stares at the dying fire, not in the way she wishes to—he did not show her these things to be comforted and soothed and told you need no longer fear; rather, this is his concession to her wants, to her selfish wish to know the horrors he suffered here at the hands of a man without mercy, to know him as he was before he learned to lift his head and answer, No.

He does not look for pity; he looks for only understanding.

Hawke raises her eyes to Fenris's, meeting his level gaze with her own uneven grief. She cannot save someone who has already saved himself, cannot offer freedom to a man who has already won it on his own; this is Fenris, whom she loves, and in the midst of this gleaming golden tomb she can only offer what he has already. He lifts his hand to her cheek and she leans into it, feeling a muscle jump in her throat; and then his mask slides away as if broken, and Hawke sees the deep and terrible anxiety he has hidden from her since before they left the study.

"Hawke—" he says, his voice low and rough, rippling with something she cannot place—and then his eyes flick away from hers as if burnt.

Fenris is afraid.

The thought of it stops Hawke's heart in her chest for an instant—how many years has she known Fenris, and how often has she seen him truly frightened?—and then like the quiet click of an opening lock she realizes that his fear is not only for himself but for her, afraid that this might have been too much, that he has bared the pale, scarred bones of his past and she has found them too repulsive to accept.

That fear, at least, she can ease.

Hawke lifts her hands to Fenris's face. She is not gentle as she forces his eyes again to hers, her palms rough on his cheeks and her fingers crooking sharply into his hair, but this is not a gentle place and she is not a gentle woman, and when the green of his eyes snaps like sparks at her harshness she pulls him into a hot and vicious kiss.

It takes only a moment before his shock gives way to something harder, and she feels it when the dam breaks, when the fear and shame and muted fury he has buried for so long surges out in a whitewater rush to swallow her. He claims her mouth and she lets him, yielding to his need and his desperate want like a sapling before the west winds, bent but unbreaking in the wild storm of his urgency. His hands clench on her spine, pressing her closer to his chest; she goes willingly and further, wrapping her arms around his neck until she can barely breathe, until she is lost in his mouth and his taste and his heat.

Tears prick at the back of her eyes. Hawke curses against his mouth and Fenris draws back; she grips his face with both hands and says, plainly, her eyes burning, "I love you."

Shock flashes across his face, chased by something fierce and glad—he opens his mouth, but Hawke cuts him off and says again, "I love you, Fenris." Her fingers press into the skin above his heart and she says, "This," and then they drift to his temple and she says, "And this, and—this, too," she adds, almost hiding the trembling in her voice, and her thumbs slide over the lyrium in his chin to send a frisson of fleeting light down his throat.

"Hawke," he says, his voice naked with emotion, and she threads her fingers into his hair. This would not have been the place she would have chosen to tell him this—it ought to be sickening, this room, ought to be wrong enough that the thought of baring such a rare and fragile truth to its brutal jaws would dissuade her-but above all else this is a room of truths, a place stripped of the softness that cushions the easy things, and Hawke thinks that if her words can lessen even a fraction of the suffering Fenris once endured in this gilded jail—then that is enough.

"There is nothing," she murmurs, "that I would not give to have kept you from what happened here."

"I do not regret it," Fenris says, eyes blazing, and he pulls her hard against his chest. His breath comes quick and shallow by her cheek and his pulse jumps wildly in his throat, but he does not falter as he repeats, more firmly, "I do not regret it."

They stand like that for a long time. The sliver of moon slides higher in the sky, impassive and serene through the clouds, its narrow shafts of light their only witness as they gather in their broken edges into something smoother. Her breathing eases and Fenris's does too, though neither of them moves to release the other; then, when the last guttering flame dies out in the hearth to leave only ash, Hawke lifts her head to look at Fenris.

"Stay with me," she says, and does not mean only now.

"I will, Hawke," he says, his voice low, and between them his fingers lace easily through hers.

They cross through the room in something almost like peace, leaving their ghosts behind them, and when they reach the double doors Hawke lifts a hand to touch the sunburst emblazoned in the dark and shining wood.

"Morning," Hawke murmurs, almost to herself, "day—and night. And then—"

"Hmm?"

Hawke turns back as a cloud clears. She is caught for a moment in the slender light of the moon, Fenris's hand in hers, and a sudden wild rush of joy swells up in her chest so swiftly it hurts.

"Dawn," she says, and smiles.

Chapter Text

Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secresy the human dress.

The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.

—A Divine Image, William Blake

The morning begins, as Hawke's mornings are not unknown to do, with a scream.

"Whasphit?" Hawke asks intelligently. She is blurry with sleep and vaguely aware of something pressing her down into the sheets—she'd been having such a nice dream, too, of Lothering and Bethany looking up at her, laughing, from her seat on a hooked wool rug—and then she realizes the thing across her shoulders is Fenris's arm, and that that arm is glowing blue.

"Fenris," she says then, suddenly fully awake, because his other, also-glowing arm is wrist deep in Palla's chest. The girl is white with terror and pain, her brown eyes huge and fixed on Fenris where he leans over Hawke, her half-raised hands frozen in futile supplication under the implacability of Fenris's strength.

"Fenris!" Hawke snaps—and that works; he blinks as if sun-touched, then pulls his hand from Palla in a sharp and graceless gesture as if he is startled to find it there. She stumbles back, weeping, and Hawke pushes Fenris out of the way as she sits up, barely remembering to pull the sheet over her nakedness as she reaches out one hand to the trembling girl. "Palla—"

Palla lets out a frightened sob and flees.

"Oh, damn," Hawke says as the door closes behind her, and then she turns on Fenris. He is as bare as she, the white sheets pooled around his waist a sharp contrast to the tanned skin of his stomach and chest; he looks at his hands as if they are not quite his own, brow furrowed and fingers crooked in unconscious threat, and the lyrium laid over his bones still leaks sporadic tremors of light. "What was that?"

"She surprised me," he says, clenching his fingers to extinguish the glow, and adds more uncertainly, "There—was a knife."

Hawke glances over the side of the bed to see a little silver tray upended on the rug, five or six sealed envelopes scattered around it, and beside her foot, just peeping out from under the bedskirt—

"Deadly indeed," Hawke says, and plucks from the carpet a slender ceramic letter opener.

Fenris scowls. "This is hardly the time for your mockery."

"I mock with love," she says, though her heart is still thumping out a sharp staccato behind her ribs. "Fenris, that was Palla. She's been bringing me breakfast for over two weeks and she hasn't tried to kill me even once. That's practically a record in Kirkwall."

"You know she is not safe to trust."

"Or used to finding a naked elf in my bed," she mutters to herself, but Fenris is right and worse, they now must manage the added complication of their relationship exposed for scrutiny—but still Hawke cannot shake the memory of Palla's pale and pleading face, frightened past tears, and she resolves to seek her out at the first opportunity to make sure she is all right. "That doesn't mean you should kill the girl for trying to save me paper cuts."

"She should never have entered without permission," Fenris retorts, but Hawke knows his concern is for more than a disobeyed order. "If she wished, she might have killed you."

"Accidents happen."

"Hawke."

"Sorry—I'm sorry. Don't give me that look." She leans over to drop a quick kiss on his frown, then slides free from the sheets and runs her fingers through her hair. "Okay. Turn off the glow and let's go see how bad the damage is."

"You sent her where?"

Dalos is pale with anxiety but still standing, though his eyes are trained firmly on the thick blue rug under Hawke's feet. "The market, mistress. For fresh candles."

"Dalos," Hawke says through gritted teeth, and Fenris can almost hear the drag of her fingers over her face. Fifteen minutes it had taken them to dress and track down Dalos—but apparently that had done nothing but give Palla a healthy lead in her flight. "She was distraught. Was it really a good idea to send her, alone, to the middle of Minrathous?"

Her steward opens his mouth, hesitates, and says nothing; his eyes dart to Hawke's chin and then away, and Fenris raises an eyebrow. Dalos is old enough to know his place, certainly careful enough to be circumspect if he survived six years under Danarius, and Fenris does not know if it is a mark of his growing nerve or Hawke's own nonexistent discipline that he dares to dissemble now. "Magister…" says Dalos, "I…"

"Spit it out."

"I feared for her," Dalos says all at once, and then he licks his lips as if to take the words back. His eyes fix themselves to Hawke's like a frightened rabbit's to a falcon's, wide and glittering with dread, and when she says nothing Dalos flinches back as if she has struck him. It does not matter that Fenris knows her silence is from surprise and not displeasure—Dalos's admission is as much a betrayal as a confession, as dangerous as the naked edge of a blade, and Dalos knows as well as Fenris does that any other master would have him flayed. "That is—I only—"

"It's all right," Hawke says, her face softening, but the words tumble from her greying steward like an unstoppered faucet.

"She—was terrified, Mistress, and weeping—she said she'd been—" and here a quick, anxious glance at Fenris, "—punished—because she trespassed on your privacy and I thought that, if you saw her, if she roused your anger again—"

"Better to send her out of the path of the storm, you mean," Hawke says, and her voice is gentle.

"Yes, Mistress," Dalos says miserably, his jaw clenched. "Just as you say."

"It's all right," Hawke says again, and when Dalos still does not ease his white-knuckled fists, she reaches out to touch his shoulder. "Honestly. It's fine. She didn't upset me; it was an accident. I just wanted to make sure she wasn't hurt."

She might as well have told the man she wanted to leap off the roof. "What?"

Fenris barely keeps from grimacing. Almost a month they've been in this marble mansion and still they are surprised when Hawke reaches for mercy over the whip—but in truth, he knows he should not be so surprised. Danarius was not known for his compassion and Hawke is, after all, his direct and legal heir; that she is foreign-born makes little difference to her slaves when her title and her tongue are those of their oppressors. A padded collar is still a collar, and Fenris knows that Minrathous slaves are not unused to the barbs hidden in a magister's honeyed touch.

Or too-sweet smile, he adds to himself, though Hawke's grin has precious little artifice in it. "Why, Dalos, I do believe you're showing your spine."

"Mistress, forgive me—"

"No need. No—Dalos, stop it. Look at me." It takes both hands on his shoulders, gentle but steady, before Hawke can keep the man from going to his knees, and Fenris mentally consigns their every effort at blending with Minrathous nobility to the flame. "I swear, Dalos, in the name of the Maker, that as long as I am mistress of this house I will never lift a hand against you. Any of you. I swear it."

Hawke, Fenris groans silently, but Dalos is staring at her like a man who has found himself in the presence of Andraste herself, startled and disbelieving and deeply afraid, and when she smiles he mimics the expression with something far too tremulous to be sincere. Still, there is something in the elf's face, something strong that was not there before, and he opens his mouth—

But before he can speak, the far doors to the drawing room creak open and a tall elven woman with blonde hair steps towards them with a bow. "I beg your pardon, Mistress," she says, "but the carriage you ordered has arrived."

Hawke lets her hands drop from Dalos's shoulders. "Thank you…?"

"Ara, Magister," she murmurs, and Hawke throws Fenris a glance as if the name is somehow meaningful.

"Of course. Thank you, Ara. Find Varric, please, and tell him we'll be right there. We're going to the docks," Hawke adds to Dalos, already reaching for the small satchel she'd left on a table against the wall, "and then to the amphitheater. Don't keep lunch—we won't be back until late."

"Yes, Mistress," he says smoothly, his face already composed into the placid obedience of a well-trained slave, and Hawke sighs as she heads for the door with Fenris close behind her.

"So long, Dalos."

"Goodbye, Mistress."

The Siren's Call II stands alone in the Minrathous harbor, tall and sleek and proud even with her sails furled tightly against her spars, and Fenris can feel his spirits lift despite himself at the clean, crisp sea breezes that blow in from the north. It takes little time to pay the driver and send him on his way; soon enough, he, Hawke, and Varric are aboard the comfortably rocking deck of the Call, quiet and private and as safe as they can hope to be in Minrathous without actually leaving her shores. Isabela meets them at the rail, tanned and grinning, and when they reach her Hawke practically leaps into the woman's arms.

"Isabela! You're still here!"

"You sound so surprised. I think I'm offended."

"No, you aren't, and don't even try to tell me you're spending your days just sitting in the harbor waiting quietly for our call."

Isabela laughs. "You don't believe I can lay low?"

"Not alone, no," Hawke says frankly as she holds the other woman at arm's length.

Isabela scowls. "Ooh, Varric. You've been blabbing."

Varric grins and doffs an invisible hat. "I do have friends, Rivaini, even here."

"Friends with sticky fingers and big mouths."

"We all have our vices."

"Some more than others," Fenris mutters, and gestures at the hold. "We should continue this inside."

"Spoilsport," Isabela says, pouting, and before he can protest she has slung him into a rough, one-armed hug. "Sounds like someone doesn't like his cushy mansion."

"It is not mine," he says shortly, ducking into the cool and slant-dimmed shadows of the ship's interior and shrugging her arm from his shoulders.

"Touchy," Isabela stage-whispers to Hawke, who at least has the courtesy not to laugh aloud.

The hatch falls closed behind them with a gentle thud, and Varric sighs. "Trapped again. If I don't make it back to the surface, tell Blondie I always liked his feathers."

"There are worse places to be, Varric."

"Yeah, like actually at sea."

Isabela rolls her eyes. "Does Tevinter always turn people into such squalling babes?"

"We mock because we care, Rivaini."

"But you care the wrong way—"

"If we could," Fenris says, voice even as he pushes open the door to the captain's cabin, "return to the task at hand?"

"Touchy and bossy," Isabela huffs, but she sails into her quarters without further complaint.

The room is not as large as he would have expected, given the size of the ship, but Isabela's cabin is still considerably grander than the rooms the rest of them had used on the voyage here. The centerpiece is a large, sturdy table covered in maps and star-charts, held in place with inkwells and an expensive-looking brass sextant; the walls themselves are light-wooded but well-made, lined above and below with intricate, mosaic molding; and on a platform raised two steps up at the very stern of the ship, jutted hard against the wall under the short, wide windows that let in the clear morning light, is Isabela's low bed, heaped with soft, warm blankets.

"Did I tell you last time that this is cozy?" Hawke asks, moving a half-full wine bottle away from the edge of a roll-top desk. "Because it is. Very cozy."

"You say the sweetest things, Hawke."

Varric sinks onto the narrow chair placed in front of the desk as if the wood itself is an anchor, gripping the sides of the seat so hard Fenris hears it creak in protest; Isabela pulls the other, grander chair from under the table strewn with maps and takes her seat with a flourish. There are no other chairs in the room, but she waves a generous hand towards her bed, and after a moment's silent, shared deliberation, Fenris finds himself and Hawke perching carefully on the edge of a red and black quilt.

"I knew I'd finally get you two in there."

Hawke snorts. "Don't push it."

"Anyway," Varric says, cutting off the argument before it can begin, "I think it's time to call this meeting of the Elfin Liberation Society to order."

"Ha, ha, ha."

"Varric Tethras, presiding." He pulls from his coat his little black book of Danarius's accounts and places it on the desk at his elbow with pronounced gravitas. "Who wants to go first?"

"I've got the numbers—"

"The chair recognizes Captain Isabela."

"Recognize me again and you're going over the rail." Varric grins, holding up a placating hand, and Isabela turns back to Hawke. "I've got the numbers you asked for, Hawke. It depends on the ages—we can manage two children for every adult, I think—but conservatively, I think I can take up to eight or nine extra bodies if we handle the rations carefully. I might be able to push it to ten if some of them can work abovedecks, but it'll be more crowded than the Rose on a feastday if we try for any more than that."

"Good. I don't even know if any of them will want to leave—Minrathous is their home, such as it is, and I don't know if they'll be willing to give that up for a city like Kirkwall, but it's good to know we at least have that option if we need it. How's the crew holding up?"

Isabela leans back in her chair, kicking one booted foot over the other on the lip of the oak table. "They're my crew and I'm their captain. They're paid to hold up and keep it up as long as I ask them to."

Hawke coughs into her hand. "Fair enough. Varric?"

"His books are an accounting disaster. Well, not a wreck, really—in fact, they're meticulous in their detail—but they're spread out over six different ledgers and accounts all over the city. The man really didn't want anyone to know how much he was worth—which by the way, elf, seems about a wink and a smile more than you're worth. I had no idea you were so, hm. Precious."

"Dwarf…"

"I'm just saying I can see why the guy chased you across the continent, is all. I mean, when the major controlling interest of a very valuable estate suddenly disappears into the Fade like a—"

"Varric!"

"Okay, okay! Look, you've got eighty-four slaves right now—eighty-three, not counting the elf with the glare—and even though it wasn't easy to get these figures straightened out, as far as I can tell you've got sovereigns to spare."

"Really? Even with the plans we discussed?"

"Hawke, I don't think you understand how much Danarius actually had. You could free another thirty slaves if you liked, each with a year's salary, and you'd still have coin to burn when you were through."

"Another…" Hawke straightens next to Fenris, her eyes looking off into the middle distance. "Another thirty."

"Don't lose your focus now," Fenris warns, and her gaze snaps back to his face, "or you will ruin them all. We still have unfinished business in this city."

She smiles. "The Fog Warriors. I haven't forgotten."

Fenris sits back, appeased, and the conversation turns to Varric's not-inconsiderable network of subterfuge. Hawke had been right about his effect on her household; with his easy charm and a judicious application of silver, he'd managed to turn all but one of the spies in her household away from enemy magisters—or simply noblemen with too much money—and into his own veritable army, but he'd had less luck curbing the outrageous rumors about Hawke herself spreading like brushfire through the whispering city.

"And they're saying the most delicious things, too," Isabela says with evident glee. "Every bar I go to I hear about the peculiar new magister and her…peculiar handsome elf."

"Are we really doing this again?"

"Bodyguard, they ask, or bodyguard—"

"And I'm sure you're the soul of discretion."

Isabela links both hands behind her head as Varric guffaws. "You know me, Hawke. Tact is my middle name."

"Really. Isabela Tact."

"It's got a ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Stop helping, Varric."

Fenris snorts. He is not usually so easy with Isabela's teasing, especially at his expense, but the clear sunlight through the windows is warm on his back and Hawke is laughing and they are safe, and even if he wouldn't trust the pirate with his coin he would with his life, and with Hawke's life, and if the price for a few moments of certain safety is a gentle dig at his pride, he thinks the cost is not so steep as to begrudge it. Besides, there is no ill will behind the jibes—and that in itself sets his companions apart from the whole of the city lying with sheathed claws at their backs.

Varric mutters something and Isabela explodes in laughter, her booted toe knocking over a small brass spyglass that had been standing on the corner of a faded, flaking map. It rolls back towards her on its side and bumps to a gentle stop against the raised lip of the table, resting there a moment, and then, with the rocking of the ship, falls away from the edge towards the center of the map. Sunlight pulls along the long amber lines of the barrel in narrow gleaming stripes as the spyglass passes from land to open sea; it hangs there for the space of a breath as the ship leans under it, and then, as Varric sits forward to explain something to Hawke, it retraces the gentle curve of its path to thump against the lip of the table again.

Fenris is caught in the sway of the ship and the sea beneath it: in the easy, rolling glide of the waves; in the sun warm on his back and sliding hot gold on the spyglass; in the sooty rhythms of Isabela's voice playing countermelody to the high, wild cry of a distant seabird. The blankets are soft and Hawke is safe, here; surely it can be no danger to lean his head against the wall, just for a moment, and close his eyes as Hawke murmurs something beside him, quiet, and lulling, and low…

"Well, well, well."

"Shh. If you wake him up, he'll kill us."

"But what a way to go! Look at those drooping ears!"

"Come on, don't tease. It's been a rough few weeks. He hasn't been able to relax since we got here."

"He looks pretty relaxed to me—oh, by all the bloody stars. His nose is twitching."

"Isabela."

"Now, now, Hawke, keep your voice down. Don't let your assassins know he's out like a light."

"Ouch, Varric."

"Aw, I think it's sweet. A moment of calm and he's out like a light. …Hawke? What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're—are you all right?"

"No. Maybe. Shit. Oh, Maker, I'm tired of this city."

"Really? Huh. I rather like the odeur of oppression and total despair. Very classic."

"It's the piquant aftertaste of betrayal that gets me. What's wrong, Hawke?"

"Nothing. It's only—he's just so unhappy and there's—nothing I can do about it. I'm all right, really."

"He's a big boy. He knew what he was doing coming here."

"I know. I mean, I think he knew, but—it's so frustrating. I'm lying to people I'd rather help, brownnosing people I'd rather kill, and I can't even give him the courtesy of a handshake in public. And I can't even tell him about how sorry I am that he's suffering because of me, because he made his choice of his own free will and I promised myself I'd respect it, no matter the cost, but it's just as bad if I ignore it, and this place is hurting him and I don't know what to do. And I don't know how to stop Priscus from attacking Seheron, which is the whole reason he came here with me anyway."

"Hawke."

"What?"

"You love him?"

"Yes."

"Then that's enough."

"But…"

"Mm. Trust me. He's all right."

"But how do you know?"

"Because I know you, sweet thing. And I know him. And you should know me well enough to listen when I say a man's all right. This isn't too much for him, and you'd know it if it were."

"But I—are you sure?"

"Yes. Trust me, Hawke."

"...Okay."

"She's right, you know. Give the elf a little more credit. And we'll give you two a little privacy, in the interests of keeping our hearts where they belong, inside our chests. Hawke—I'll meet you in a few days. Come on, Rivaini."

"Aw, shit. And it was just getting interesting, too. Privacy and chests…and Fenris in my bed…"

"Wait—Isabela. Thanks."

"Don't think twice about it, pet."

Awareness returns slowly to Fenris, quiet and warm like the licking of sunlit bronze around the edges of his mind. He must have moved in his sleep; he is flat on his back on the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes and the other lying loosely over his stomach, his feet stretched out until they just brush the opposite wall. Hawke herself sits on the edge of the bed beside him with one leg curled under her, her back pressed into his hip, and he can see the sharp curve of gold turning over and over in her hands: the rolling spyglass.

Fenris shifts, pressing his toes flat against the wall to stretch the muscles in the back of his legs, and Hawke looks over with a raised eyebrow and a smile. "Welcome back."

His lips twist wryly at his own inattention, too lazy to be annoyed and too comfortable to muster the effort of regret. "How long…?"

"Not long. We still have plenty of time to make it to the amphitheater." She extends the spyglass to its full length and peers at him through it, the broad end less than a handspan from his face. "You know, you have very good skin. It's not fair."

"My apologies. I will endeavor to ruin it as soon as possible."

She laughs, collapsing the spyglass, and tosses it gently to the pillow beside his head. Hawke says, "Do you feel better, at least?"

"I do not feel worse."

"Small victories, I guess," she says with a grin, and then it slides away under the furrow of her brow, and she leans over his waist to prop one hand on his other side. "Fenris."

"Yes?" he says warily.

She opens her mouth, hesitates, lifts her hand to touch his cheek, to let her fingers draw over his jaw and neck to the place where his tattoos disappear behind his leathers. He waits, saying nothing, and she hesitates again, and then she threads her fingers into the hair behind his ear and says, softly, "I love being able to touch you, you know."

"Oh?"

"Yes," she says, her thumb feathering back and forth over his cheekbone. "I always have. Ever since that first night." He shifts, uncomfortable and shamefaced at the memory, but she does not mean to spur his guilt and she presses on without giving the moment time to linger. "Part of the reason I was so happy you came back was because I knew it meant I'd be able to—to embrace you, or to kiss you just because I wanted to, or even just hold your hand. Even the little things like that…they're important to me." She looks away, her cheeks coloring, and her hand drops away from his face. "Is that embarrassing? That's embarrassing, isn't it."

"No," he says, and he catches her hand to hold it against his skin. Hawke closes her eyes, the back of her hand pressed to his cheek, and then she curls her fingers over his knuckles. "Not to me."

"Just to the rest of the city."

Fenris tips his head in acquiescence. Hawke looks at him a moment, her eyes shifting from bitterness to something sweeter, and then she leans forward to lie across his chest, tucking her head under his chin like a tired bird might hide its face under the shelter of a proffered wing. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and she sighs, deep and slow and pulling all along his side where she rests with one booted foot still on the floor. The sunlight catches on her black hair in thin lines of flame and traces down her side; he follows it with his fingers until his hand passes out of the shadows to spark his lyrium into silver fire, until the moment they have captured here stretches into something longer, and lasting, burnt into his mind with the white and distant clarity of a beacon lit to guide the weary home.

He says her name to seal it.

"Fenris," she answers, and curls her fingers into a fist over his heart.

The boat rocks gently in an errant wave, as if to remind Fenris that there is still a gleaming city just outside that waits to welcome them back with sharp and shining teeth—but here, on Isabela's bed with Hawke's head nestled against his own, just for an instant, they steal in the golden silence falling through the high, wide windows something infinitely more precious:

Peace.

The amphitheater is just as Fenris remembers it: elegant and enormous and reeking with blood. It had been built over a century ago from shale and limestone ferried in from the nearby quarries; Archon Vespasian had meant it for the arts, for great plays and orators and philosophers' symposiums, but the natural cruelty of the city had triumphed even here in the end to replace the podiums with stakes and heavy chains, to fill the stands with bloodlust instead of students. Even in the city proper the symbolism is inescapable; on hot days the wind carries the scent of death as far inland as the Valerian Fields. The only survivor of the original building's loftier purpose is an inscription above the main gate: ad honorem.

For honor.

They pass quickly through the open-air atrium, three stories high and tiled in mirror-bright mica, paying little attention to the chatting nobles and magisters alike with their delicate glasses and plates of refreshments held for them by silent, attendant slaves. From here they can only hear the faintest of roars from the distant crowd, but even that is enough to spike discomfort up Fenris's spine; more than a decade since he has been here and yet the scent and sound of pitched battle still strike something primal inside him, something frantic and base and desperate to flee. He swallows once, and then again, and when Hawke glances at him over her shoulder he only hopes he is composed enough for scrutiny.

"You okay?" she asks under her voice, and Fenris sighs. Perhaps not so composed.

"Yes," he says in the trade tongue as they pass to either side of a pair of magisters, scented cloths pressed under their noses to mask the scent of dried blood. "Old memories," he adds, and Hawke's mouth quirks.

"Spent a lot of time here, did you?"

"Not so much as others." Danarius's entertainments had tended towards the more private and the more precise, though he had from time to time indulged himself in the vulgar amusement offered by the amphitheater. Fenris had never been sure, though, if his own presence had been demanded for the sake of the magister's protection or his own, whether the death-matches at his feet were meant to be inspiration or veiled threat of what his fate might be should he displease his master. But he has a new master now—no master—and as they cross the open expanse of the brightly-lit hall Fenris focuses only on Hawke's shoulders and Hawke's steady stride until the last of the lingering fear withers away.

At the other end of the atrium is a wide stairway leading up to the grand mezzanine; they move up it without pausing towards the open-throat shouts of the multitude in the arena proper. Here at Damia's suggestion, Fenris reminds himself, suppressing a scowl; here to meet a pair of magisters to garner more support for Hawke, and only in Tevinter would the screams of the dying be considered nothing more than ambiance.

A slave in a short white tunic meets them at the top of the stairs, the sun behind him bright enough to make Fenris shade his eyes. "Magister Hawke," the slave boy says with a deferential bow. "If you will it, I am to take you to your party."

"Yes, thank you," Hawke tells him, and they pass into the sun.

There is already a match in progress in the dust below them, a pair of elven men with short swords facing off against a tall human woman with a longsword and a shield as tall as she is. All three of them are bleeding from numerous wounds—one of the men's faces is more scarlet than flesh—and as they follow the boy deeper into the stands, the crowd around them rises to its feet with a bellow at some point well-scored. Fenris sees Hawke shift closer to him, uneasy at the open bloodlust in their faces, and he cannot pretend he is not relieved himself when at last they reach the secluded, shaded box reserved for the magisters and visiting dignitaries.

Fenris hands the boy a coin as Hawke steps forward. The boy takes it impassively, then bows and departs; a moment later he disappears into the crowds, and it is not until Fenris has followed Hawke into the relative privacy of the box that he allows himself to glance down at the small scrap of folded paper the boy had slipped into his hand.

Not here, says the scrawl on the outside, and Fenris tucks it into his belt to wait.

Then: "Domina," comes a charming male voice, and Fenris forces himself to put the letter from his mind, glancing up to see a pair of human men approaching Hawke with wide smiles: the Arras brothers, Damia's contacts. They are both tall, even for human men, broad-shouldered and bearded, and though one is fair and the other dark they have the same noses and the same jaw and even without Damia's information Fenris could have discerned the shared blood between them. The dark one takes Hawke's hand in his, smiling, and says, "My lady Hawke, daughter of Malcolm and Leandra. A pleasure to meet you at last."

Hawke smiles in return as he lifts her fingers to his lips. "The pleasure is mine, Ser Arras. Lady Damia has told me so much about you."

"And not a whit of it flattering, I'm sure," says the fair one in grey, laughing, and takes Hawke's hand when his brother releases it. Neither of them looks at Fenris. "But we've been warned about you as well, Euphemia Hawke," he adds with a wink. "I am Nius, and this is my brother Pol, sons of Claudius and Elia. Please, sit, make yourself comfortable." He gestures at a white-robed attendant who steps forward with alacrity. "May I offer you some refreshments?"

"No, thank you," says Hawke, easing herself onto the cushioned bench as another roar erupts from the crowd. "We—I've already eaten."

Now the dark one—Pol—glances at Fenris, but there is only frank appraisal in his gaze. Fenris meets his eyes levelly, a challenge in itself—and yet aside from a lifted eyebrow Pol does not seem overly surprised. Warned about Hawke in more ways than one, Fenris thinks, and settles into place at Hawke's back.

The magisters' box is relatively large, open at the front and sides and lined with a short white-painted railing to separate them from the rabble, but even with the cooling linen canopy it seems few magisters are willing to brave the heat this afternoon; save a cluster of giggling women at the far corner and a handful of silent slaves, they are alone. Pol and Nius seat themselves on either side of Hawke, their own slaves banished to the back of the pavilion, and begin the ancient and time-honored ritual of focused and empty flirtation. They speak of Ferelden, of Kirkwall, of even the Arishok—everything except their true purpose here, and Hawke plays along for a while, though her attention is divided and she winces more than once in real sympathy at the battle still raging below them. The human woman has lost her shield, her red hair flying loose, but one of the men is dead and the other limping badly on a fast-bleeding foot. Fenris would wager on the woman, but he knows as well as she does the sudden strength one sometimes finds when facing at last death's dark and lifted sword.

The elf screams in the dust, distant and defiant and just like a thousand screams Fenris has heard here before, and just as always the crowd screams back in rage and brutal joy. He closes his eyes, just for a moment—and just for a moment it is Danarius, not Hawke, before him, Danarius's smooth voice, Danarius's long fingers plucking iced grapes from a slave's proffered tray. Too many afternoons spent here and all of them like this, the smell of dust and rot and unwashed bodies, Hadriana giggling, Danarius laying a possessive hand on her knee as his eyes turned possessively to Fenris, smiling, knowing everything he saw to be his as he wagered favors and gold and men alike—

The crowd gasps and Fenris opens his eyes to see the redheaded woman staggering back, one hand clutched to her shoulder. Then the woman feints, trying to draw the elf she faces into closer range, and Hawke stiffens at the slice she suffers down her stomach for the effort.

Hawke turns then to Nius and Pol each, the smile gone from her face, and Fenris knows her patience has run thin. "Gentlemen, this is very kind of you," she says, her fingers folded politely in her lap, "but I'm sure Damia has told you my time here is short. I do not have the luxury of dissembling."

Pol leans back on his hands, raising his black eyebrows again in wonder. "So quickly you rush to the point, Domina," he murmurs, though his eyes flash with something closer to keen insight than Fenris would prefer.

"I am Fereldan, Ser Arras," Hawke tells him, and Fenris can hear her deliberately thickening her accent. "We are not raised to the intricacies of carrying on more than one conversation at once."

"We should do away with civility's golden raiment, you mean, and speak nakedly, without veiling ourselves."

"Not the metaphor I would have chosen," Hawke admits, glancing at a broadly-grinning Nius on her other side, "but yes."

"Plainly, then," Pol says, "we would know what you hope to achieve here. Minrathous is a place well-set in its ways, and the lady Damia is not known to give her support easily."

"Or ever," Nius adds helpfully. Fenris grits his teeth. Fool magister—fool man, toying with the cuffs of his grey robes as if he has nothing better to do with his time. At least his dark-haired brother in blue has given Hawke the courtesy of sincerity. Or at least the appearance of it.

But Hawke smiles at them both. "I have come to ask for your help in securing my estate against Lord Priscus," she says, and her voice does not waver.

Nius whistles. "Only against Priscus?"

"He poses the most open threat. Though," Hawke adds, her lips twisting, "there may be another magister whose power I have to fear as well."

"Jaculus," Nius offers.

"How did you know?"

Pol rests his bearded chin on his fist. "Minrathous trades in flesh and rumors," he tells her, his eyes on the woman in the arena below them. "This falls under the heading of both."

Hawke blinks, unbalanced—and then Pol's eyes cut from her to Fenris, and Hawke stiffens even as Fenris prepares to tear the hearts from them both—but before he can act, Hawke says, stunned, "You know."

Pol says, "We guessed."

Fenris does not relax—this had not been part of the plan—but Nius only glances between the two of them and smiles. "There are rumors about you two," he says, his face alive with intrigue and appreciation, and for a moment he meets Fenris's eyes before dropping his own, as if yielding him the victory. "And besides," he adds, his voice somehow both amused and resigned, "You are Fereldan."

"I could be Fereldan and want a houseful of slaves."

"Do you?"

Hawke looks away. "No."

"So," says Pol. Below them on the field, the woman snaps the neck of her one remaining opponent, and the crowd bursts into a mighty, wordless cheer as she gives an exhausted wave. Her shield arm looks broken. "A foreign magister who wants to set all of her slaves free, without the slightest regard for centuries of Imperial tradition and several actual laws."

"Yes," says Hawke, and Fenris watches as the woman disappears into the great, iron-barred gates at the southern end of the arena. A handful of white-robed slaves appear to clear the bodies; a moment later, the gates open again, and a boy who looks about sixteen enters the arena with a frantic, helpless stumble, clutching a knife in one hand. No professional fighter seeking glory, this one—either a slave or the son of a debtor, body sold to save his family. Fenris turns away.

"And what would we get in return?"

"The gratitude of Lady Damia. My gratitude."

"Riches indeed, Domina."

Hawke says, "Will you help me?"

Nius and Pol exchange a look, disparate eyes bearing the same expression, and then Nius gives a careless shrug and Pol smiles. "We will," he says, and looks up at Fenris. "Both of you."

"Thank you," Hawke says, rising to her feet, and if her hand finds Fenris's too easily neither of the Arras brothers comments.

"We'll be in touch," Nius promises, lifting her free hand to his lips again; Hawke grins, inclining her head to both him and Pol, and then at last, they are free.

Hawke rolls her shoulders as they pass briefly through the unshielded sun and then into the cooler air of the atrium, aching in the release of relief. That had gone so well—far better than she had dared to hope, and now all she has left to do today is finish a letter to another of Damia's friends, a young widow who has managed to acquire a reputation of gentleness even among the men and women who serve her—and that is more than enough to win her favor in Hawke's eyes, anyway, and if she has a bit of a bounce to her step then she can hardly—

It is nothing more than an indrawn breath, too soft to be even called a gasp, but the sound of it from Fenris's mouth is enough to stop Hawke in her tracks.

She turns on her heel, tensing for an attack, but there is no flash of sun-bright steel; instead, Fenris is staring at an unfolded letter in his hand behind her, brown parchment in steel-shod fingers, his face white with fear and rage—and when his head snaps up and his eyes look hot enough to spark a fire Hawke takes him by the arm and pulls him to one of the more private alcoves set into the atrium's walls before he can give away them both.

"What is it?" she asks in a low voice.

His fingers tense on the paper to shred its edges, his eyes moving so quickly over what is written there that Hawke is sure he can make no sense of it; he tries twice to speak as he reads, but the abortive attempts are as futile as his expression, and in the end he only thrusts the page at Hawke and leans his head back, hard, against the wall.

The handwriting is round and clumsy, but the first word is enough to spur Hawke's understanding. She glances up at Fenris quickly, trying to gauge his reaction, but his eyes are closed and his hands are fisted at his sides, and when he does not move Hawke turns back to the letter without speaking.

Brother—

I write to you in warning. I know you have no cause to trust me, but please believe I have nothing to gain from this. I only wish to caution you for your sake and the sake of the magister you travel with, and for what we once were to each other.

I am apprenticed to a magister who keeps records for a number of senatorial committees. He asked me not to give his name, but he knows of my relationship to you and wished me to pass on a warning to your companion. Two nights ago he overheard dealings between a senator named Priscus and another man whose name he could not hear, plans to hire men to do you harm as you traveled through the city. The day was not mentioned, only the place: a corner where the Grand Way meets the Vicus Iceni. You know as well as I how near this is to the estate of our former master.

I know it means little from me, but—I trust him. I beg you: move carefully, and do not relax your guard. I have too many regrets to add your death from my inaction.

Varania

Then, at the bottom, a postscript: They say that betrayers have a place only at Maferath's side in the Abyss. I would welcome that if it meant you did not suffer any longer for my choices.

Hawke rereads the last line again, more out of shock than anything else, and when she lifts her head she finds Fenris watching her, his eyes hooded with something deeper than anger, his mouth tense and implacable. She takes a breath, then lets it out and says, quietly, "What do you think?"

This is apparently the wrong question to ask; his lip curls in disgust and he snatches the letter from her hands, crushing it into one fist. "What do I think?" he snarls, barely able to control his voice, barely able to look at her. "I think that that wretched woman will never be satisfied until she destroys everything I have ever touched. First Danarius, now this—this unnamed magister—" he tears open the page again, searching the last line of the letter as if there might be something more there, something hidden, and then he says almost to himself, bitterly, "I would be a fool to trust her now."

Hawke shifts her weight closer, trying to read past the harshness in his face. "What could she gain from this?"

"She is apprenticed to a magister," Fenris snaps, and the derision in the word is sharp enough to cut. "His approval, his favor—what could she not gain?" He pauses for breath as if he means to continue, but his gaze is drawn again to the final words she'd written, the thing that is almost an apology, and instead he mutters, "Her choices. What have her choices ever brought me but torment?"

"She brought you your name," Hawke offers.

His eyes narrow in warning. "You sound as if you trust her, Hawke."

"No. Not all of her. But…this letter…" Hawke trails off, looking at the gauntleted hand clenched in a tight fist at Fenris's side, at the tendons straining the lines of his throat, and even though they are only half-hidden in a room wholly exposed to the easy cruelty and sharper spite of Minrathous, she reaches forward and cups his jaw in her palm. He does not relax, not quite, but his mouth eases and the tight corners of his eyes loosen, just a bit, and when Hawke's thumb strokes over his cheekbone he lets out a low, frustrated breath that stirs her hair. "You want to trust her," she says.

His eyes close. He says nothing, but the word is written in his closed fists at his sides, at the unsettled, sporadic flickers of light down his throat: yes.

Hawke looks down at the paper still clutched in his hand; then she looks up to meet his eyes and offers him a crooked smile. "Okay. Let's do it."

"What?"

"Can't be worse than last time, right?" She lets her hand slide from his face, ignoring his surprise. "I mean, Danarius is dead and we're already in the Imperium—what else can go wrong?"

"Hawke—"

"Look. It won't do us any harm to check it out. We'll go home a different route tonight, and then first thing tomorrow we'll ask Varric what his spy network says. A day's delay won't make any difference."

He stares at her a moment, and then something shifts and he shakes his head. "No. I'll go tonight."

"There's no reason—"

"No," he says again, softly, and the tone of his voice silences Hawke mid-word. "I cannot—I will not wait on this, Hawke."

"Then I'll go with you."

His eyes soften, but he shakes his head again. "I will go alone."

"Not a chance, Fenris," Hawke says more sharply than she means to. "We go together or not at all."

"I faced danger alone before I met you."

"I'm sure you did," Hawke snaps. "Now you don't have to anymore."

She can actually see the moment Fenris relents, the moment her stubbornness wins out over his pride; he sighs, and his hand relaxes on the letter, and the corner of his mouth twitches up in a smile he looks like he would much rather repress. "You are impossible, Hawke."

"And fully intent on keeping you alive to suffer through it."

"So be it," he says, and with one more glance at his sister's signature, he folds his letter and replaces it in his belt. "Tomorrow, then."

The sun is setting by the time they return home at last. Palla is still in the city, Dalos tells Hawke when she asks, out on other errands that needed doing—all the same she can see the uneasiness in his eyes at her absence, and Hawke cannot pretend that she herself is any less concerned by the time they finish dinner, by the time the sun sets, by the time night falls in earnest and the guards change their watch in the streets and Palla still has not returned.

She is staring out one of the enormous windows in the front sitting room, the one with the expensive white settees and the cloth-covered harp, when she hears the footsteps behind her.

"The girl is not back," Fenris says in the trade tongue.

"Not yet," Hawke murmurs, letting the curtain fall closed on the dark, empty gardens. "I'm worried."

"There are safehouses in the city for those caught unawares by night."

"Will she be safe in them alone?"

Fenris does not answer; that in itself is answer enough. Hawke draws herself up and sets her jaw—but before she can fetch her staff Fenris has caught her by the wrist, his eyes hard on hers. "I will go."

"I'll come—"

"No," Fenris says, and this is not the pleading of this afternoon but flat and absolute denial. "Some of these places are not safe for you."

"We just went through this, Fenris."

"Not for any magister," he insists, his fingers firm on her arm, and Hawke understands. Not just safehouses, then, but places made for secrecy and sanctuary—and flight. A magister's sudden arrival would decimate their strength, weaken every effort they have made to aid the slaves of Minrathous, and even if she is sympathetic to their cause Hawke will not jeopardize their freedom with her presence. A slave, even Fenris, might pass through without notice; a magister would only threaten them all.

"All right," she says, briefly covering his hand with hers. He relaxes at her understanding, but before he can pull away completely Hawke leans forward and kisses him, swiftly and without compunction. "Be careful," she says when she draws back. "Don't go by the Grand Way if you can help it. And if she's—" already free, "protected, then—don't force her to come back."

His lips twist into something wry and almost amused, and he says, "As you wish."

Hawke watches as he steps away, as he slings his greatsword home over his back, as he gives her one last look over his shoulder at the threshold—and then he is gone.

The scream wakes her just after midnight.

At first it is nothing but a collection of frantic shrieks without meaning—then, as Hawke blinks her darkened room into existence the sounds resolve into syllables she recognizes, a desperate and violent cry of one word over, and over, and over: "Mistress!"

In an instant she is up, not even bothering with a robe as she races from her room in the sleeveless linen sleeping clothes Palla had given her a lifetime ago. Her bare feet pound down the scarlet runner in the halls, around the corners, slide only a moment on the bright-polished wood at the top of the grand staircase that sweeps down into the marble atrium—

And there she stops, because Palla is at the foot of the stairs, staring up at her with eyes wild with horror and her spring-green dress dark with blood, and because behind her in the doorway are Dalos and her gruff gardener supporting a third figure between them, a figure beaten and bruised and bleeding from too many deep gashes to count, his head lolling low on his shoulders as his feet drag limp on the beautiful mosaic floor, his white hair stained scarlet with his own blood.

Fenris.

Chapter Text

Stone walls do not a prison make,
   Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
   That for a hermitage:
If I have freedom in my love,
   And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
   Enjoy such liberty.

—To Althea from Prison, Richard Lovelace

-.-.-

Dalos is not a fool.

Quiet, yes; mannered, yes—one did not survive long in the slave markets of Minrathous without judicious applications of silence—but if he chooses to watch and to wait where others would leap to attention that does not mean he is a coward; it means only that he has learned when to act and when not to act, when to draw the master's eye and when to let that fury fall on another's unprotected head, and until now that had been more than enough to guarantee both his survival and his protection.

Until now.

Until Hawke.

Dalos watches from the servants' corridor as the mistress murmurs something to her favorite, her hand on his where they stand by the night-darkened window, before leaning forward and kissing him. Her slave closes his eyes and lets her—far too well-trained for any wince or hesitation, Dalos thinks, and a mere kiss not the worst of his duties if Palla is to be believed—and Palla, little fool, where has she gone?—and then a moment later he has vanished out the front door, his enormous sword slung over his back, the mistress watching him from the window until he has passed out of sight.

Very well-trained, Dalos notes without much bitterness, to be so trusted to bring back a runaway slave. Then the mistress turns away from the window, her forehead creased in thought, and as she moves towards the door and the upward stairs beyond it Dalos draws back into the corridor, unseen. He waits until he hears the click of her door closing at the top of the stairs, then steps forward with purpose towards the kitchens. Never seen unless wanted, never heard unless wanted, and though this foreign-born Hawke has not yet raised the whip Dalos knows that it is only a matter of when, not if. The magister may keep her pretty promises of kindness and fidelity; he has known too many like her before, and every one the crueler for the sweetness of their smiles.

A mirror catches his eye with the thumbprint on the glass—he'll have to get Mari out here with her rag, and Lydas for that mud-stain on the carpet from the fresh flowers they'd brought in earlier—and before he can stop it, his own reflection stares back at him. Old man, he tells himself uncharitably, and getting older. Wouldn't Dara laugh to see him now, silver at his temples, lines on his face and on the backs of his hands, his back aching on cold nights just the way his father always complained. Maker, he can still remember the way she looked all those years ago, sweaty and perfect as she'd looked up at him, smiling, and told him to come meet his newborn d—

"Stop," he says aloud to his reflection. Dangerous thoughts for anyone in Minrathous, twice over for a slave, and before another dangerous flight of fancy can take hold he turns his back on the old elf in the mirror and moves on.

The kitchens are noisy tonight, a handful of house-slaves finishing the evening's chores early. Dalos does a brief head-count: Lydas is working on the last of the pots in the largest sink, his sleeves rolled to his elbows; one of the younger boys stands ready to receive it with drying cloth in hand, and his smaller sister is already replacing the finished china in the cabinets to be used tomorrow. Blond Ara and her lover Marcus are at the table polishing the silver and Dalos cannot repress the familiar surge of disapproval at the sight of them together—sensible in so many ways, the two of them, except in this most important one, and he knows they know it is only a matter of time before they suffer ten times over what little happiness they have now. But time enough for that later; Cork stands by the one candle in the room, a battered recipe-book held close to its meager light as he plans tomorrow's menu, and Dalos joins him.

"Here," says Cork without preamble, thrusting the stained pages under Dalos's nose. "What's that say?"

Dalos has to hold the book at arm's length (old man, getting older),but even in the dim light he can make out the word Cork struggles with. "Parmigiano."

"Ah. Yes. Complicated cheese number nine."

He hands the book back; Cork finishes the recipe slowly, shaping the words with his lips as he reads, and then he closes the book with a snap. "Braised beef, I think. With garlic and tomatoes and some of Canut's crispy fresh rosemary. And parmigiano. Wine, wine…Malan? No—Varro. Yes. You—" he gestures at another boy lingering for scraps and sketches some characters on a piece of wrinkled cheese paper. His grip on the pen is awkward due to the two missing outside fingers of his right hand, removed by Danarius after a catastrophic dinner years ago, but he finishes the note quickly. "Go to the wine cellar and find me a bottle with these markings on it. Bring it up—gently, mind you—and let me see what you find. Don't jostle it!" The boy sketches a bow and flees; Cork turns to Dalos, his mind already lost in the rows of dusty bottles below them. "Varro's the best with beef, but I can't remember if we've got 8:34 or 8:45 down there. The '34 is good enough, but the '45…" he smacks his lips, "is perfection."

Dalos does not try to stop his smile. Even now Cork takes pride in his work, though his culinary efforts had been throttled at the start by the mistress's request for small meals; fortunately, he'd seen it as a challenge rather than a reprimand, and considering the plates frequently come back licked clean Dalos supposes he has the right of it. Not that Cork is ever the type to complain, anyway—his third-previous master had been the one to stick "Cork" to him, after all, because of his irrepressible chatter—but the name had fit and the name had stuck, and now as Cork leans his lanky frame against the sideboard Dalos finds he cannot even remember what he'd been originally called.

"Turned in early tonight, has she?" Cork asks him, his always-busy hands suddenly peeling an apple.

Dalos blinks, then: "Yes. She saw Fenris off and then moved upstairs. The door is closed."

"Saw Fenris off," Ara repeats from the table, her low voice thick and sour. "Poor bastard." Marcus throws her a quick glance across the table, but she waves it off. "Don't fret, I'll keep my tongue. It's not like she's the type to creep around doors and listen for sedition."

"Like Hadriana, you mean?" says Cork, and the shudder that rolls down his spine is only half-feigned.

Ara grimaces, and Dalos remembers more than one whipstroke brought down across her back for incautious words. "Not yet, anyway," she murmurs, and Marcus's hand finds hers for a moment between the unpolished silverware.

"Speaking of," Cork says, switching from the apple to a pear as he looks at Ara, "did he ever remember you?"

Ara shakes her head. "Fenris left with the master when I was only a child. Ten years…I'm not surprised he doesn't remember me." Ten years' flight, Dalos thinks, and here he is back again, with the chains of slavery still hanging just as heavily around his neck. How did the adage go—death changed everything but the whip?

"At least she seems to care for him," Cork offers, and Ara snorts.

"He's nothing more than a pretty toy to her," she mutters, and Dalos remembers the stories he'd heard of certain tastes Danarius had entertained, certain toys he'd turned to when Fenris had first vanished and left him bereft. He wonders if it was kindness or cruelty that Ara survived it—and from the expression on her face, he suspects she wonders the same thing. "The moment he complains of an ague or the first time his hands shake with rheumatism—she'll drop him like a burning coal and move on to someone younger."

Lydas finishes the last pot, and after the boy with the drying cloth hands it off to be put away he joins Ara and Marcus at the table and begins to help with the silver. Cork passes him a few pieces from the sideboard, then says, "Did you hear that Palla found them in bed together this morning? Bare as newborns, the pair of them, and from what I hear it's not the first time either."

"I told you," Ara says with a glance at Marcus, an echo of a conversation Dalos did not hear, and Marcus's mouth lifts in a bitter smile.

"You were right," he tells her, and her smirk is empty with unwelcome victory. Then Marcus draws in a breath, visibly shakes himself free of thoughts of the mistress's pet, and turns his dark eyes to Dalos. "Any word of Palla?" he asks then, and this time it is Dalos's turn to grimace.

"Not yet."

"She's only been gone a day," Ara offers. "She can't have gone far."

"Not with Dalos still here."

"And they'll know not to interfere with Magister Hawke's possessions. She'll be all right."

"It won't be long with that wolf after her, either," Cork says thoughtfully, and though he means it as a comfort Dalos hears only the slamming door of inevitability. Palla, slave to be owned, slave to be hunted, slave to be run to ground and dragged without mercy back to the house of her master.

Dalos says, "She's just a child," and realizes only after he has said it that he is shaking.

Cork reaches a hand towards him in concern; Dalos draws back, unwilling to be touched, to be comforted, and turns towards the door. "Send Mari out if you see her," he says, and his voice is shaking too, damn, "and Lydas, there's mud on the east carpet."

Lydas touches his forehead in acknowledgement, his gaze wooden, and before another one of them can offer him their too-painful consolation Dalos turns on his heel and flees.

Not a fool—just an old man, getting older.

-.-.-

Even in the cloudy mess of concern and sorrow, there is always a part of Dalos that folds everything he sees into the dominion of his duties. He moves down the hallway towards the slaves' quarters and breathes a prayer for Palla's safety, and in the same breath he cannot help but note the chip in the plaster molding around one of the doors, the fallen orange petals from a summer rose on the carpet and the mistress had quite liked that little lemongrass sachet Ania had made for her; he needs to remember to tell her to sew a dozen more, just in case, and where is Palla—

Dalos runs an unsteady hand through his hair, composing himself before opening the door; slave as he is he is the only advocate and the only guardian for these people against the ephemeral whims of their master, and he will not undermine their faith in him no matter how he is personally shaken. They have so little to trust and to place their trust in him…a slave has few things he may treasure, but Dalos treasures that. He draws in a breath, and then two, and when he is sufficiently calmed he opens the door and steps inside.

The room is small and square, just like the ones that adjoin it on either side and across the hall, six beds stacked two high against the walls and just barely leaving room for a washbasin and a small storage trunk each. Luxurious accommodations compared to some Dalos has seen in the past—and fresh linens all, thanks to the generosity of the mansion's new mistress, but even here Dalos knows that the kindest gifts bear the sharpest barbs. A few of the children playing with a doll look up when the door opens, but the moment they recognize Dalos the hitch of fear fades from their faces. One of the older women pushes herself up from a bed to meet him halfway.

"Dalos," she says by way of greeting, pushing a loose pin back into her knot of silver hair. "How goes it tonight?"

"Smooth enough," he says, though his heart aches at the thought of Palla. "The mistress has retired for the evening."

"So early?" she asks, surprised, and then lets it fade into a shrug. "Ah, well. Oh—and if she asks, please tell her Silvia's cough is much better. The brew she made worked wonders."

Dalos blinks. "Silvia was ill?" Then, aghast: "The mistress was here?"

"Of course. She's come by several times—she heard Silvia coughing down the hall a few weeks ago and the next thing I knew, she was standing in the door like a dream." She pauses a moment, putting one wrinkled hand to her chin, then adds, "Nightmare, really, at first. No one told you?"

"No," Dalos says shortly. "Did she—what did she say?"

The old woman spreads a hand at the room. "New bedclothes the next day, mended basins, the windows unbarred and let open for the first time since I've served here. Clean new clothes for the growing ones as well. And a tonic for Silvia made by her own hand."

Only barbed gifts, only hidden thorns—but Dalos cannot see the lie in this, cannot see any back-biting trap in clean clothes, in the healing of a sick child. He does not understand. He says, faintly, "The children were afraid."

She laughs. "Fenris frightens them. He is not so easy with the children as the mistress."

The world is upending itself around him, long-known truths turning quietly into mist. A magister caring for the sick child of a slave—a woman with all the glory and might of the Imperium behind her bending her hand to brew tonics—impossible. Impossible. But—here are the open windows, and the new, thick bedcovers, and the children better-fed than they have been for years—

Long-ingrained instincts take hold, then, smoothing out the lines of concern on his forehead and leveling his voice to the milder tones of a man in perfect command of himself. He says, "I see. Thank you. Do you need anything else?"

He thinks, I do not understand!

The woman lifts an eyebrow as if she sees behind his mask, but she shakes her head. "Everyone is doing well. Nothing else is amiss." Dalos inclines his head, makes some comment appropriate as the steward of the household, then bids her and the children goodnight.

He does not remember making his way to the other rooms, barely manages to keep his wits when Ania asks him to thank the mistress for the extra thread she'd sent, misses entirely the significant look Ara gives him when she and Marcus return from the kitchens. The doors pass by in a blur and his throat is so dry—where is Palla?—and he does not understand this foreign magister and her foreign, dangerous practices, and he does not understand how slaves whose trust he'd worked long and hard to win have given it so easily to a woman who can crush them with nothing more than a word.

Dalos makes his last rounds of the mansion's main floor, locking the doors and windows with numb, mechanical motions, his thoughts circling desperately from Palla to Fenris to the mistress and back again like lost ships in a storm, dark and aimless and without hope. Do they not see the danger; do they not see the jeopardy they place themselves in when they open their hearts to a woman who by her own name cannot be trusted? Safety—magister—the very words are anathema to each other.

The hours creep onward; the house slowly falls silent in darkness, and in sleep, and still Dalos finds himself a ghost in the halls, wandering like a forgotten spirit the uneasy places of the marble mansion, touching empty corners and quiet walls as he passes. Here, Danarius had bled a child dry to strengthen his magic at the yearly gala; here, Hadriana had chained a boy for three days and three nights because his eyes had wandered in inattention; here, Lydas's screams had echoed without end until Danarius had cut out his tongue and burned it.

And here—

Here, he had seen with his own eyes Hawke helping Palla with a spilled tray. Here, she had used her magic to soothe a child's skinned knee. Here she'd smiled—here she'd laughed. Dalos had forgotten how a woman's laughter could sound when it was not cruel.

And one night, here, under the tallest window, Hawke had turned to Fenris and asked him the names of the stars.

Dalos doesn't remember what answer Fenris gave; he doesn't remember if she'd asked in the trade tongue or in Arcanum. He remembers only the smile Fenris had given her, and he wonders, now, if he could have been mistaken, if he had thought then that smile something less than what it was, if it had truly been something other than the look of a man who only tolerated her touch, her kiss—

Then, through the last window of the atrium, floating in from the far edge of the front gardens, Dalos hears a girl's faint cry. He stops, turns his head, listens again—and again it comes, and this time it is not a cry but a sob, and a sob in a voice he knows better than the beat of his own heart—

"Palla," Dalos breathes, and breaks into a run.

It takes only an instant to reach the front door; he flings it open, uncaring of the noise—and now her voice shrieks in, slicing through the silent night air like a whistling blade, a handful of words repeated in an endless hysterical babble: "Dalos! Mistress! Dalos!"

His bare feet slap against stone as he races down the steps, thump through the dirt of the avenue that leads to the main street—and there she is, Palla, disheveled and tear-stained, Fenris beside her, his arm heavy over her shoulder and his feet stumbling badly, the both of them covered in blood, her voice crying out for him. For a moment he cannot breathe, his heart arrested by fear—her blood? her, wounded?—but his body kicks into motion before his mind, and before he realizes he has moved he is already at her side, his hands on her face, on her shoulders, on the dark wet stains of her dress that blessedly, mercifully, hide no mortal wounds beneath them. He is breathless with relief.

"Dalos, you have to help—he's hurt, he's badly hurt—"

"Where have you been? What happened?" Fenris is heavy, Dalos discovers as he replaces Palla's shoulder with his own, heavy and freely bleeding from a number of deep gashes, his leathers torn ragged, his body bruised and battered and barely conscious. One gauntleted hand is still pressed tight to his side, though Dalos can see blood seeping fast and thick around his fingers; Palla lets out a low, terrified groan as Fenris's head slumps forward and his knees buckle and for a moment Dalos thinks he will lose him and oh, if that happens, the mistress—

But before he can speak there is a shout from across the lawn and then Canut the groundskeeper is there, his head bare and his eyes wide, his hands dirty but strong as he hefts Fenris's other arm over his own shoulders. "What happened?" he snaps, gruff and alarmed, but Palla is mute and choked with tears, her head shaking in silent denial.

No time for that, though, no time to waste on pity and terror; Dalos grabs Palla with his free arm, holding her in place until her eyes, wet and wild, lift to his. He says, "Go wake the mistress. Palla. Go find her, now." She stares at him a moment, uncomprehending; then Dalos shakes her sharply enough that her eyes snap back into life, that his hand slips on the blood still hot on her wrist. "Go!" he shouts, and she whirls on her heel and goes.

He watches as her pale figure vanishes into the darkness of the house; then he turns the full force of his attention to the weight of Fenris on his shoulders and the weight of fear settling, stone-hard and hot, in the pit of his stomach. Canut is still talking, still asking questions that Dalos cannot answer, can barely hear, lost in the rush of blood in his ears and the slow, stumbling drag of Fenris's feet in the dust—

They make the steps, the wide marble archway, the threshold—

And then, from above them, Dalos hears a single sound that is less a word than a desperate breath.

"Fenris."

Dalos looks up, and for a moment there is nothing in the world but the woman standing at the top of the wide staircase, lit by a wind's brief break in the night clouds, dressed in undyed linen like a sacrifice to the ancient gods. Her hair is dark and her eyes are darker, terrible in their expression, all the light gone from them as they fix, arrow-like, on the penitents at her feet; she draws in a breath and Dalos realizes she is white, pale as ash, as the stripped bark of a birch, and when a twist of wind from the open door catches her hair Dalos half-thinks she will vanish with it, substantive as so much smoke.

Then she takes a step downwards, towards them, and then another, and by the time she reaches Palla's trembling figure at the bottom of the stairs she is human again, solid again, mortal fear and mortal fury warring on her face. "In here," she says, her voice clipped and curt as she throws open the doors to the front sitting room. They stagger in after her, Fenris's breathing shallow as a stream, and when she gestures they lay him on the settee upholstered in white brocade, the one inlaid with hand-polished black oak and imported from Montsimmard at a price well upward of fifteen thousand solidii.

And yet, as Dalos watches Hawke go to her knees beside Fenris, as her hands brush too carefully over the cold sweat on his face, he suspects she does not care about the cost of the furniture at all.

She leans forward and Dalos realizes the room is still dark with stars—"The torches," he murmurs to Canut, but before either of them can move the mistress has lifted her hands to either side and the room flares with light, all the candles bursting into flame at once, all the torches suddenly burning and brilliant in their sconces.

Canut falls back a step, choking, horrified; Dalos averts his eyes, blinking at the carpet until the smears of light fade away. Then the mistress says his name and he steps forward, his heart dropping into his stomach, but she does not look away from Fenris's closed eyes or his still-bleeding wounds or the way his chest heaves for each wet, gasping breath.

"I need hot water," she says, her voice steady, her hands steady as they fight the blood-soaked knots of Fenris's armor. "I need rags, and as many clean bandages as you can find, and a needle and thread. Quickly."

Dalos bows at the waist and goes, as quickly as he can and faster. Cork is still in the kitchens slicing carrots—he jumps when Dalos enters, but sets water to boiling with no more than a word; then Dalos moves to the slave quarters to find Palla already there, weeping as she tells Ara what has happened, and that is a story Dalos would like to hear but there is no time—he sends Ara on behind him and Lydas too, and in a matter of moments the three of them are back in the sitting room, arms full and silent as stone, waiting for the orders of their mistress.

She speaks little at first, her attention wholly focused on the knots under her hands, on the metal clasps bent and twisted from sword-blows. She says only, "Water, here," and "hand me that rag," and "watch out, that's sharp," punctuating each order with a pulse of healing magic so bright it is almost blinding. Then she says, "Dalos, see if you can get his gauntlets off him," and his mouth goes dry.

But he is not a fool, and he is not a coward, and he hands his unrolled bandages to Ara and steps forward. He reaches for Fenris's left hand and his fingers do not shake, they don't, and then he is holding cool steel and colder flesh and the weight of his hand is such a dead weight that he nearly drops it again in surprise. Hawke throws him a pointed glance—there, he thinks, is the face of a magister—and he turns Fenris's hand until the sweat-damp palm faces the candles. The gauntlets are a work of art, he sees, tiny intricate catches at the wrist and at the elbow holding the whole thing together, and though he nearly scores a line of blood down his own wrist when he underestimates the sharpness of the talons it takes little effort to free his arm from the thing. Emboldened, Dalos reaches for the other arm—but when he touches it Fenris writhes on the couch, his back arching, his throat straining out a high and desperate whine of agony.

"Stop," Hawke says sharply, as if Dalos has not already drawn his hands back; she leans over Fenris and grasps his wrist herself, gently, as if a press too hard might shatter him. Then she lets out a hiss of air through her teeth and says, "His arm is broken."

"Mistress—"

"Leave it for now. I'm not going to worry about setting bones when he's bleeding out in front of me."

"Yes, Magister," he murmurs, but she is already back at his cracked and dented breastplate, little rivulets of light flickering from the tips of her fingers down the lyrium embedded in Fenris's skin. The smaller scrapes close as the light passes, bruises fade, bleeding slows—but something is wrong with the breastplate and Hawke cannot get it free, and she bites out a vicious curse in the trade tongue before drawing back her hand.

"I can't—I can't," she says, more to herself than anyone else; then her head comes up hard and she snaps out, "Ara!"

"Mistress?" she says at Dalos's back, jumping so hard she almost loses her grip on the bandages.

"Your hands—let me see your hands—no, the same as mine—" The mistress chews her lip, lost behind her eyes—then her gaze focuses like the strike of lightning and she breathes, "Palla."

An icy hand settles on the back of Dalos's neck. "Mistress?"

"Get Palla here now," she says, already putting a white-glowing hand on the slice in Fenris's throat. "And a small, sharp knife."

Ah, Dalos thinks, barely aware of Lydas bowing and departing. There, magister; there, the hidden, deep-set barb at last. All of it a farce, all of it, a pretty show put on to amuse herself, a cat toying with its mouse before devouring it whole. A tonic for a cough and a touch on a scraped knee—and now, as always, when the need rises above the sham kindness, the true mettle of the magister emerges in the blade of a knife and the thick, hot-swelling drops of blood. He knows he is swaying on his feet; his heart groans at the thought of blood magic, here, and blood from Palla, his Palla, his—!

Palla, in the door, still terrified, still weeping, Lydas solid and immobile at her back.

"Good," says the magister without even looking around. "Come here."

He does not know how she has the strength. He cannot stop her and he cannot save her; he can only watch as Palla places one foot in front of the other until she stands before the mistress, her face white, her hands trembling, her spring-green dress stiff with another man's blood.

"Let me see your hands," the mistress says brusquely, and Palla lifts them for inspection, turns them over, shows her the unmarked pale skin of her wrists and the blue-beating veins beneath it. The mistress nods; then she holds out one bloody hand for the knife and Lydas hands it to her, and Dalos is going to be sick. He opens his mouth—Ara sees him and makes a frantic, abortive gesture, but he cannot—he can't—

Then Hawke flips the knife in her hand and thrusts it at Palla, hilt-first, and Dalos's voice dies in his throat.

"Here," says Hawke when Palla takes it, blank and uncomprehending. "There's a strap caught on the inside of the breastplate. My hands are too big; I can't get it free. I need you—Palla?"

Palla falls to her knees, voiceless, breathless, her face twisted in some unnamable emotion that tears the beat from Dalos's heart. He starts forward but Hawke beats him to it; one hand still presses on the open wound in Fenris's neck, still pulses light with each passing moment, but her other hand goes to Palla's arm, gently, and in comfort. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she says, a whisper with no strength behind it. "Yes, Mistress."

Hawke's brow furrows—and then like the first day after a storm, Dalos sees the harsh light of understanding dawn on her face. "You thought—" she says, staring at Palla, turning her stare on the others, "you all thought—"

Ara looks down, shamefaced, but Dalos meets Hawke's eyes in defiance. She knows their history as well as they, and she knows that here she does not deserve the luxury of indignation. Hawke swallows and something painful and deep-set passes behind her eyes—and then she shakes her head and turns again to Palla. "I can't worry about that now. Will you help me?"

"Yes," says Palla again, stronger, and when Hawke pries the breastplate away from Fenris's chest she reaches in with her small hands, with the sharp little knife, and a second later they hear the snap of leather and cord and the breastplate comes free.

"Thank you," Hawke murmurs, dropping the breastplate to one side, her eyes already cataloguing the new gashes laid open for inspection. This time when she gestures Palla does not flinch, cutting where she asks and where she points, and soon Fenris's leathers have been sheared away to leave him bare to the waist.

Then Palla rises, laying the knife gently at the feet of her mistress, and steps out of the way; Lydas takes her place in silence, his deft fingers drawing clean, damp cloths swiftly over the shredded edges of the wounds still open, then wringing the rags out in the basin soon staining more red than clear. Hawke follows after him just as quickly and just as quietly, magic pouring from her hands as she works to close the worst of the open slices, to stop Fenris's heart pumping his lifeblood onto the white brocade of the couch beneath him.

The gouge in his side is the worst. Long as a spread hand, and deep enough that Dalos can see even from here the torn muscle and sinew, the blood that trickles down his skin to cut through the silver trails of lyrium. He knows the massive cost of that lyrium, knows too the suffering it must cause; now, with the lyrium dead and thin where it curls over bare, battle-hardened muscles, Dalos wonders if Fenris—or Danarius, for that matter—would think them worth the pain. But Hawke does not even seem to notice them as she guides her magic into the still-bleeding gash, her hands moving as easily over the markings as they do over the flushed and sweating skin beside them, as if they were nothing more than paint, than simple tattoos. She must know their worth, their strength—more than once he has heard her mention them to the dwarf and to Fenris himself, but she treats them now as if they are wholly unimportant, meaningless in comparison with the life of the elf who bears them.

Fenris draws in shallow, hitching breaths, and his eyes still do not open.

He is a slave, Dalos thinks, despairing, bewildered. He is a slave—he is a slave, nothing, less than nothing, a toy, a weapon to be wielded by will alone. And yet—and yet, when Dalos watches the mistress's eyes flick in anguish to Fenris's tortured face, sees her lips try to shape words that in another time would be reassurances, endearments, he knows somewhere in the twist of his gut the truth:

She cares for Fenris.

For him, deeply, not for his strength or his appearance or his sword. And for Palla, and Ara, and himself, Dalos, and for a little girl with a cough. He does not understand, he thinks—but no, that is not true either. Rather, he understands and does not wish to. The world has laws; Minrathous has laws, and this is more even than their breaking. This is full and total scorn for those laws and everything they represent.

Hawke murmurs something to Fenris, too softly for him to hear, but her voice is gentle.

Dalos wonders what they teach their children in Ferelden.

He doesn't know how long they kneel there in the quiet hush of the room, faces lit only by the yellow glow of the candles and the brighter, cooler flare of magic. Ara steps forward to join Lydas by the settee at some point, as sure with the needle and thread as Hawke is with her healing, the three of them working together in wordless tandem as minutes pass, hours, lifetimes. Dalos replaces the water in the basin when it grows too filthy to use; bandages a wrist and an arm and a shoulder when the mistress points, and the slice in his side, and a long gash down his thigh; he changes the water again and brings fresh rags, replaces the candles at the walls as they burn down to nothing. Fenris has not made a noise since Dalos had touched his broken arm; now, even as Dalos watches his breathing evens out, slowing with his blood, coming easier and more relaxed, and further apart—and further apart—and further—

And then his chest falls, and it does not rise again.

He opens his mouth in alarm but Hawke has already seen it, is already lifting herself above his unmoving body—her hands hover an instant above his chest and then she snaps, "Get back," and almost before Ara and Lydas have thrown themselves away from the couch she slams her palms down on Fenris's bare chest, just over his heart, and the room lights up as if she has made herself a sun.

Dalos flings an arm over his eyes but it is like a leaf standing against a gale; the room crackles with lightning and fire and all the hair on his arms stands on end, and for a moment he thinks they will be wholly consumed in this working of magic, moths helpless before the blazing torch—but before he can move even a step the light blacks out again as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind only his gasping breaths and the smell of rain.

He staggers forward, blinking, blind, and hears Ara groaning somewhere beside him. Lydas's breath comes harsh on the other side of the couch and Dalos blinks again, harder, until the darkness resolves itself again into bodies and candles and a basin full of warm, half-bloodied water. The magister is bent over Fenris, all the lyrium in his skin alight at once—and then it fades, slowly, like a dying star, and Dalos wonders suddenly if she is dead as well. Then she draws in a breath, and another after that, and he sees that under her arms Fenris is breathing too.

"How dare you," she mumbles. Her voice is different, somehow, and then Dalos realizes she is using the trade tongue, the one she uses in private with Fenris and the dwarf, the one she does not realize he knows. "How dare you try to die on me now, you bastard."

There is no answer but she laughs all the same, the sound choked with tears and something past exhaustion, drained dry as an empty well and echoing. Beside her Ara and Lydas struggle upright, white-faced but steady, and Hawke pushes herself back to her knees. "Did—" she starts in Arcanum, but her tongue seems too dry and she has to start again. "Did Danarius keep lyrium draughts in the house?"

"Yes, Magister," Dalos tells her, his voice softer than he means it. Don't let your guard down, old fool, don't risk yourself—

"I need all of them," Hawke says. "Please."

"Of course," says Dalos, bowing, and knows when she smiles at him that he is lost.

-.-.-

Four draughts are all that is left of Danarius's once-remarkable stores, but the mistress seems grateful all the same. She downs two of them immediately, shuddering as the lyrium floods through her veins, and then she and Ara and Lydas turn again to the business of cleaning and healing and sewing closed the wounds left in Fenris's skin. Dalos helps only to set the broken bones in Fenris's right arm, grasping firm hold of his elbow as Lydas pulls the arm straight to allow Hawke to seal the bones again where they ought to be, ignoring both Fenris's agonized groan and the short, unsteady gasps he makes as his chest heaves for air. Then, when Hawke is sure it is splinted properly, she throws up into a discarded rag, wipes the bile from her lips, and turns again to her magic without the slightest change in her expression.

Lydas she sends to bed first, just after dawn, when the man's head drops too hard on his own fist in exhaustion; Ara lasts a little longer, finishing up the stitches in the slice down Fenris's left calf, and then she stumbles after Lydas in a sunlit daze. Hawke herself does not stop until nearly mid-morning, until Dalos musters all the strength he has left and places a hand on her shoulder.

The room looks more like a battleground than anything else. The mistress's linen sleeping clothes are stained and smeared with blood from shoulder to hip. The white brocade settee is beyond ruined, scarlet handprints smudged into every expensive inch of the fabric, deeper pools drying under Fenris's unconscious body and on the wooden floors beneath him. Fenris himself is more bandage than man.

Hawke rolls her head back to look up at him, bleary-eyed and unfocused, her skin sagging with fatigue and sallow with lyrium. Her fingers tap together absently on her thigh, the tips tacky with drying blood. She sighs, "Dalos."

"Mistress," he says softly, "you must rest."

"Rest?" she says, surprised, her accent as thick and awkward as he has ever heard it, and then her eyes seem to draw together on his face until she sees him properly. Behind her Fenris looks better than he has for hours, better still in the sunlight, his color good, his breathing strong. His eyes are still closed. "Enough," she murmurs, her voice worn thin as a shell washed too many times by the sea, "yes. Safe."

"Yes," he tells her as she tries to rise, his hands catching under her elbows as her knees go out from under her. "Safe. You must rest."

Her eyes go up to the ceiling as if marking the steps needed to reach her rooms; then she looks again at Fenris and shakes her head. "No. Much not close. Much—too—" she blows out a frustrated breath, then says all at once in the trade tongue, helplessly, "I need to be here when he wakes up."

A flush of heat crawls up Dalos's throat, but his voice does not waver as he says in the same language, "Ania and Mari have prepared beds for you in the next room."

The mistress sags in relief against him. "Thank the Maker. I was afraid he was going to have to stay on that filthy sofa all—"

She stops mid-word and stares at Dalos with her eyes narrowed. His heart thumps hard, but he says, evenly, "Magister?"

"Dalos," Hawke says, the faint traces of a grin lifting her mouth as she returns to her clumsy Arcanum, "your spine shows."

"Thank you, Magister," he murmurs, guiding her through the maze of dirty cloths and blood-stained bandages to the ivory walls of the music room next door. There is indeed a pair of small folding beds made up between the piano-forte and the little low cloth-of-gold couch opposite, and Hawke collapses onto the nearest one without ceremony, without even realizing that Ania stands behind her with clean clothes and clean water, ready to help her change as soon as Dalos gives her the privacy for it.

"I'd say wake me in four hours," she says in the trade tongue, smiling vacantly at a space just left of his head, "but you wouldn't do it, would you?"

"Forgive me, Mistress," he says primly, his accent impeccable, "but I am not as fluent in your language as you are in mine. Eight hours, you said?"

"Bastard Dalos," she says in Arcanum, and closes her eyes. "He wakes, wake me."

"Of course, Mistress," Dalos murmurs, and when Ania shoos him from the room he goes without complaint.

It does not take long to relay the necessary instructions to Marcus, the only one he trusts who is not half-dead with exhaustion, and less time still to watch more out of prudence than any real sense of necessity as they change the blood-soaked leather trousers for clean cotton, and carefully—so carefully—move Fenris's silent, bandaged body to the clean sheets of the bed beside Hawke's. The mistress is already deeply asleep—Dalos lingers long enough to see her head turn towards Fenris, all the same—and then, finally, Dalos heads to his own bed. He does not mind being the last to rest, even with his aching back and his drooping eyes and his silvered hair falling loose in his face; he is a good steward, after all, the keeper of their trust, and if that trust includes his mistress now he still knows his duties when he sees them.

He pulls the covers to his chin: an old man, getting older.

He thinks Dara would be proud of him.

-.-.-

The room is warm with afternoon sunlight when Dalos wakes again, refreshed if not rested, and he permits himself several luxurious seconds of unmoving peace before standing and stretching out the last tingling cramps in his back and shoulders. He changes swiftly and heads directly for the music room, ignoring Cork's cheerful chopping and the heavenly smells wafting out of the kitchen. Something is different today, something fundamental and indefinable shifted out of place, or into place, and Dalos finds himself curious to discover what that shift will mean.

Hawke is already awake and dressed when Dalos pauses at the doorway. His stomach lurches out of habit, anticipating the rough blow across the face or the careless biting reproval, but Hawke only looks over to Ania from the little desk where she is writing. She appears much healthier than the night before, scrubbed and dressed and, as far as he can tell, free of Fenris's blood. Her little folding bed has been removed to make room, but Fenris is still asleep and has apparently not moved since the previous night. Ania sits in quiet attendance on the other side of the room, the twists of lemongrass in her fingers filling the room with its crisp, clean scent.

Hawke does not look away from Ania, clearly unaware Dalos stands so near. "And so we understand each other?"

Ania lifts a corner of her mouth in a shrug and smiles. "Your understanding is not the only gift you have given me, Magister."

"What can I say? You make the best lemongrass sachets. I can't give those up."

"Regardless," Ania says, her fingers twisting the sachet in her lap closed, "your compassion—"

Dalos shifts in the doorway to announce his presence, sensing that the undercurrents of this conversation are too treacherous for him to breach without invitation, and both Hawke and Ania look to him with open surprise. Ania flushes and looks down; Hawke offers him a brief, distracted smile.

"Morning," Hawke tells him. "Or afternoon, I guess."

"Good afternoon, Mistress," he says with a bow.

"Did you sleep well?"

It is insouciant cheek, but: "Well, yes. Enough, perhaps not."

She glances up at him and grins, and for a moment the whole room grows warmer around him. "I know that feeling. Palla and Ara were still asleep last time I checked. Have you eaten yet?"

He has not. He is also very, very hungry, but he knows his duties and his place, and he can wait a little longer—

Hawke sees the truth in his face before he says a word and props her chin in her hand. She says, "Go eat, Dalos."

"Mistress—"

"Shoo," she says, lifting an eyebrow, and Dalos shoos. Behind him she calls out, "And if Lydas is still in there, tell him not to come out until those bags under his eyes are gone!"

A smile spreads across Dalos's face before he can check it, but by the time he has reached the kitchens he has composed himself again. A slave laughing at his master—and yet, somehow, he suspects Hawke would not mind much. Lydas is indeed still in the kitchen, perched on a stool at the end of Cork's higher chopping table with a bowl of something thick and steaming held close between his elbows. His eyes are already drooping shut—Dalos sees what Hawke meant by bags—but he looks calm enough and well, and he does manage to muster enough energy to give Dalos a respectful nod when he joins him at the table.

Then a bowl of his own clatters to the table in front of him, and Dalos does not even wait for it to cool before bringing the spoon to his mouth. Cork is a genius, the soup hearty and delicious, potatoes and cheese and just a hint of garlic, good enough for any master's table and far beyond their normal fare.

Well, normal before Hawke came.

The thought spurs him onward. He doesn't dally, though he does finish every bite in the bowl, and with thanks for Cork and a nod at Lydas he makes his way back to the music room just as the mistress is finishing her letter. She signs her name with a flourish and looks up. "That was quick."

"I was hungry."

She laughs as she folds the letter in half, and again Dalos feels that curious flush of warmth. "You get some of that amazing soup from Cork?" she asks.

"Yes, Mistress."

"I can tell. You look like a real person again."

The mistress has turned away from him as she rifles through the desk for an envelope, so she misses Dalos's startled half-stumble at her words. Like a real—Dalos is a slave, an owned thing, a mere possession in the eyes of the law and the city around them, and yet she says it so easily.

He wonders when this magister will stop surprising him.

He takes another step forward as she finds an envelope at last in the bottom drawer, thinking to say—something—but even as he opens his mouth an indrawn breath cuts gently through the air, whisper-soft and as arresting as a sudden blow.

Then, quietly, Fenris says, "Hawke."

Just Hawke. Just that, no "mistress", no "magister"; only her name breathed in a voice rough with sleep and pain. Ania starts to rise but the mistress is already on her feet; three quick steps and she is beside him on the bed, bending over him, her fingers lifting to meet his face as he turns it towards her. Fenris's eyes are barely open, narrow slashes of green flicking around the room before focusing on Hawke, and Dalos does not miss the clear relief that spreads across his face at the sight of her.

"Hey," murmurs Hawke, her hand sliding to cup his jaw. "Welcome back."

Fenris closes his eyes and hums an answer, but the sound breaks in the middle as if his throat is too dry to sustain it. The mistress reaches across him for the glass of water she'd left on the side table, quick and without spilling, and then with as much care as Dalos has ever seen from her she helps Fenris lift his head and drink, holding the glass steady until he has drained it dry.

"Enough?" she asks, setting the glass aside.

"Yes," Fenris says, his voice stronger, his eyes stronger. He shifts on the bed and winces at the pull of stitches, at the jostling of the splinted arm lying across his stomach, then says, "What happened?"

Hawke snorts, but Dalos can hear the tremble in her voice. "You scared the shit out of me, that's what happened. A perfectly normal escort mission and you come back closer to dead than alive. I should be asking you that question."

His eyes lose their focus for a moment as he tries to remember; then his vision clears and he says, "The girl."

"Palla. Yes. She's here. She's safe."

"I went to find her. She was not at the places I knew. The streets were empty and it was growing darker, and I was going to return here to start the search again in the morning. Then I heard screaming."

"And you went rushing right over. Soft touch."

Fenris snorts, then pauses to catch his breath when the movement strains his injuries. "You would have been there faster than I."

"Don’t I know it."

"The girl was on the Grand Way." Hawke draws in a hiss of air when he says that, but Fenris shakes his head minutely. "They did not know she was yours. Not at first. She was only young and alone."

"But they recognized you." It is not a question.

His good shoulder lifts in a shrug. "Just so."

"How many?"

"Eight. Nine."

"So few?"

"They had a mage with them."

Her mouth opens in an oh of understanding and Dalos sees her eyes flick to the lyrium, drained thin and pale, that stretches across Fenris's chest under the bandages. "How many did you get?"

"All but the mage."

Hawke's eyes close, then, to stop the sudden sheen of tears in her eyes before they can fall. Her mouth twists in a delayed flood of fear and worry, her dark hair sliding across her shoulders as she dips her forehead to rest against Fenris's own. She breathes there a moment, then says, so quietly that Dalos can barely hear it, "I thought I'd lost you."

Fenris's good hand lifts, slips over her neck, twines into the loose tendrils of hair there, and then, with the ease of long familiarity, pulls her gently into a kiss. It is not the touch of a slave to a master, nor even of tentative equals; it is the touch of one lover to another, reassurance and tenderness and something deeper, something nameless that belongs only to the two of them.

Dalos understands that.

The mistress draws back before long without bothering to hide her watery smile, her thumb moving over Fenris's cheek in open affection. Fenris lets her, his hand falling through her hair to wrap around her wrist, and he says, "I heard your voice in the darkness."

"Possible. I said a lot of things last night."

"You ordered me to come back."

"You did seem rather determined to bleed out all over my sofa."

His eyebrow quirks. "I said I would not leave your side again, Hawke."

"Not for lack of trying," she retorts, visibly gathering her emotions back under her skin. "No! Don't you dare move. Ara worked too hard on those stitches last night and if you tear any of them out I'm putting them back in with a fishing hook."

"Ara."

"The blond one. You remember."

"Ah. The one with the lover."

"Mm," Hawke agrees, as easy in the admission as Dalos is not. He should warn Ara and Marcus—the mistress knows—but the look on her face is only peaceful, only content as she brushes Fenris's hair back from his forehead, and Dalos's frantic worry ebbs. He will tell them, he decides slowly, curious and unafraid, but somehow, he thinks they might be safe all the same.

Then the mistress glances over to him where he stands in the doorway, her gaze casual at first and then sharpening as she realizes who he is, and Dalos is surprised to see her cheeks color in discomfiture. She stares at him and then over her shoulder at Ania, who has both hands over her mouth as if to stifle a cry—or a smile—and then Hawke sighs, her face absolutely flaming, and she says to Fenris, "By the way, we appear to have company."

His whole body tenses on the bed, and then tenses again at the pain, and when Hawke puts a calming hand on his shoulder he settles for twisting his head on the pillow until he can see Dalos framed by the open door. His mouth opens; he says, tightly, "Hawke—" but she only shakes her head ruefully and blows her bangs from her face.

"I think it's too late, amaris," she tells him wryly. Dalos inclines his head, hoping his expression speaks loudly enough by itself: too late, yes, but the right time all the same.

Fenris snorts with displeasure, but allows his gaze to drift back towards Hawke. "Careless," he mutters.

"Distracted."

"Dangerous."

Her mouth softens. "I don't think so."

Fenris turns his head away on the pillow, his lips pulled down in a frown, but Hawke gently squeezes his cheeks until his lips purse. "You start sulking and I'm leaving," she warns him, laughter obvious in her voice.

He bats her hand away irritably. "Idle threats, Hawke."

The mistress begins to rise from the bed with her nose lifted in mock pique, but even as she gains her feet Fenris's unbroken arm shoots across his body to catch her wrist. She looks down again, startled, and Dalos can read the naked distress in his face from the door.

"Stay," says Fenris.

Hawke's mockery vanishes as she sinks again to the bed beside him, her hand sliding into the hair behind his ear. "Okay," she says quietly, the look on her face private, meant only for Fenris, and over her shoulder Dalos catches Ania's eyes and gestures at the door. She nods, gathering her lemongrass sachets into her skirts; then she moves smoothly towards him around the mistress and her lover, slipping out without disturbing either of them.

Dalos closes the door behind her, softly.

-.-.-

Fenris eats enough for two men that night, sleeps soundly enough to frighten Dalos into thinking he's died again, and the next morning after another extended healing session manages to make it all the way to his feet before collapsing. Dalos and Lydas are there for that one, Lydas catching Fenris under both arms when his knees buckle, a small but visible grin on his face when Fenris lets out a frustrated oath. Another try, though, and he is standing; with Lydas's help and the mistress's mostly-sardonic-but-occasionally-sincere comments, he staggers his way across the full length of the room and back again.

"There's no use for it," Hawke says at last as Fenris collapses onto the cloth-of-gold couch with a groan. "We'll have to get you a cane."

"I will not use a cane."

"Snob. You'll have to use something."

"My sword."

"You can't even lift it," Hawke points out, but Dalos can see the question rising behind her eyes as she turns to him. "Actually, do you have any idea what happened to it? I don't remember seeing it the other night."

He bows, pleased to know the answer to this one. "Canut the groundskeeper found it this morning on the western edge of the grounds. He has it in safekeeping in the small lodge."

"Canut!" the mistress says, snapping her fingers. "I knew he had a name. Will you ask him to bring it here, please?"

"Of course, Mistress."

He turns but Lydas is already touching his forehead and heading for the door; a few minutes later they hear the tell-tale footsteps of two men carrying a heavy burden between them thumping down the hallway, and as Hawke rises to her feet Canut and Lydas appear in the doorway together, the battered Blade of Mercy hefted over their shoulders. Lydas pulls a face and puffs air as they ease it to rest against the wall, the hilt making a noisy, heavy thud as it slams against the plaster, but Canut is as white as a sheet, ducking a quick bow and darting again for the door almost before Dalos realizes he is moving.

"Canut, wait," says the magister, coming around the furniture with her hand outstretched. He stops like she has snapped tight a line, trembling hard enough that Dalos can see it where he stands; then, as she touches him on the shoulder, he swivels on one heel and crumples, prostrate, at her feet.

"Canut," she exclaims, obviously alarmed, but before she can say anything else apologies spill in a torrent from his mouth.

"Forgive me, Mistress," he says, his face buried in his arms, terrified, babbling, "I didn't know—I didn't realize, that day in the gardens—forgive me—mercy, Magister, I beg you."

Hawke draws back, aghast, then drops to her knees at Canut's side. "Please stop," she says, softly, as if easing a frightened horse. "Canut, please. I asked you here so I could apologize."

Wonder of wonders, Dalos thinks, with less surprise than he expects, but it appears to be that sort of day. Canut lifts his head, still white with fear, and says nothing.

"I'm serious. You found me that day in the gardens and I—" here her eyes go quickly to Fenris and back again, "—was not myself. I took advantage of your ignorance and I'm sorry. Please, that's all I wanted to say."

"Magister—I…don't understand."

"You helped me." She lifts him to his feet, holds his hands in hers. "With your advice, back then. And last night, with Fenris. I'm grateful. That's all."

His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again—Dalos knows how he feels—but he gets out nothing more than "You—are welcome—" before Ara stumbles through the door at a dead run, her skirts flying, her short blond hair in disarray around her face.

"Mistress," she pants, not even bothering with a bow. "Please, there are city guards at the door, they've brought Palla, they say she's been spying on you and they're going to hurt her if you don't come, please—"

Hawke is already moving, already hastening towards the atrium behind Ara, Dalos at her heels. Palla in danger again—she'd been in her room just this morning, talking about the new hatchlings in the dovecote—

The mistress stops just before the doors to the atrium, takes a breath, then sets her face and throws them both wide open.

The doors slam back with a hollow boom, drawing every eye in the atrium towards the magister emerging between them. Four human men stand in the entryway in full armor, wide-eyed and mute at her appearance; one of them, wearing the scarlet and gold shield of Tevinter on his surcoat, holds Palla by the arm tight enough to bruise. Her brown eyes are half-shut in pain, her brown hair falling free of its tidy bun. Half a dozen slaves stand across from them, Cork and Marcus included, silent in fear and fury, silent at the entrance of their master.

Hawke says quietly, and with utter command, "Explain this to me."

The leader swallows twice, his confidence shattered in the cool disapproval of the magister before him, then refirms his grip and shakes Palla by her arm, hard. "Your slave," he says, his voice hoarse. "We're returning her."

"I see that," Hawke says. Palla lets out a choked gasp. "I see also that you are doing so quite forcefully."

"Standard—standard treatment for slaves caught spying on their masters, Magister. We found her at Lord Priscus's door, disturbing the peace and trying to gain unlawful entry."

"Ah," says Hawke, in the way one might remark on the breeze being perhaps a bit strong. "And so you took the great trouble of coming so far out of your way to do me this favor."

"Yes," says the leader, two spots of color burning high on his cheeks. "Magister. A favor to you."

Hawke steps forward, then, her footsteps steady and echoing through the high ceilings until they sound like the drums of death-rites. She stops an armslength from the leader, from Palla, and when she lifts an eyebrow the man releases the girl's arm as if he has been scalded. Palla stumbles forward, clutching her arm, and Hawke steps into place between her and the guard.

"I thank you," she says, and if her voice had been cool before it is now arctic, glacial calm veneering the hot-running river beneath it. "But the next time you discover one of my household in the city on my business, I pray that you do not inconvenience yourselves again."

"On your—on your—"

The magister lifts her chin and it is as good as cracking a whip, and then she draws from her belt a single silver stavrata which she hands to the man in the scarlet surcoat. "For your efforts."

The leader stutters, his fingers closing helplessly around the coin, and his men stare at him in equal bewilderment.

"Gentlemen," Hawke says in clear and unquestionable dismissal. "Thank you for your time."

Somehow they find it in them to salute; somehow they manage to back out through the archway and down the stairs, and as Dalos shifts just so to see them through the tall windows he can see the leader shaking his head as they retreat, stunned. Hawke closes the door behind them calmly and locks it, then turns to Palla.

"Let me see that," she says, unsmiling; Palla offers her arm, and without another word the room fills with the blue-white glow of healing magic. Most of the other spectators drift away to their duties, though Cork, Ara, and Dalos remain, and when the healing is finished and the pain on Palla's face eased Hawke asks, "Why did you go back?"

Palla flinches away. "Mistress?"

"To Priscus's estate. Why did you go back?"

"Mistress—I don't know—"

The magister's voice is even. "You were free of him two nights ago. You were safe. And you went to him again this morning anyway. Why?"

Dalos starts to step forward—this doesn't make sense, this impossible accusation, this feeling that something very important has somehow slipped his notice—but a hand closes firmly around his arm and he looks back to see Fenris leaning heavily on the wall. He shakes his head, his face pale and grave, and Dalos clenches his teeth but does not move.

Palla's eyes dart side to side, searching for an escape where there is none to be had; then she looks up to where Hawke still waits in silence for her answer, and to her credit she sucks in air and lifts her chin, meeting her fate without cringing. Her voice rings out like a bell in the atrium. "Because of you!" she shouts. "Because—because you were kind, always, and because you cared for Silvia when she was ill, and you didn't hurt Ania when you found out she was working for Macrinus. And because, on the Grand Way—" she turns a flushing face to Fenris, her lips white with remembered fear, "he protected me and was hurt for it. Because even to save him you did not use my blood." She swallows and her voice drops. "I wanted to tell Lord Priscus I was—finished."

"And you had to go in person?"

"No," Palla says, her back straight, her eyes defiant. "I was going to return his coin." She pulls a small purse from her belt and thrusts it forward; it jingles, loudly, and with the heavier sounds of solidii. "He wouldn't see me."

"Palla," Hawke says, inhaling. "You could have been killed."

"Better that than live a traitor!" she retorts, and Dalos's knees go weak. An admission of betrayal—and of a magister—but Palla continues, lowering her voice, lowering her eyes to her feet. "I was taught better."

"Oh," says Hawke, startled. She flicks her gaze to Fenris, then to the others still standing quietly around them, and then she sighs and says directly to Dalos, "You could have raised her worse, I suppose."

His heart stops dead in his chest. The magister gives him a rueful smile as if she knows his fear; slowly, awkwardly, his heart thumps forward again, and though it comes out hoarse he says, "Her mother's influence."

"You do yourself too little credit."

He shakes his head, mute as Palla removes her hands from her mouth; behind her, Ara offers him a bolstering nod. He swallows and says, "When did you know?"

"That she was spying for Priscus or that she was your daughter?"

"Both. Mistress."

"A long time ago," she admits. "You have to understand: Varric is very, very good at what he does. The subterfuge we were aware of in the first few days." Ania shifts her weight, giving the magister a crooked, embarrassed smile, and Dalos suddenly remembers how frequently the curious dwarf brought her torn coats and scarves and things that needed mending. "The relationship became clear just after that."

"How deep—how much did you…?"

She shakes her head in a mirror of his earlier motion. "Not much. Varric discovered the shop you built with your wife, years ago, and that you used to keep books for a number of minor magisters. And that you had three children, the oldest a daughter. And the daughter disappeared and you did too, and then somehow here you were. I wasn't clear on that part."

"One of the magisters," Dalos murmurs. This is a dream. This is a long, very realistic dream. "Very wealthy. Came in one day and accused me of defrauding him, embezzling money from his accounts. He had men, and money, and the ear of the magistrate. The fine was…colossal. Impossible to repay. He said he always needed more slaves. Young bodies, strong backs."

"He wanted one of your children."

"I refused. Palla was barely ten years old, the boys five and six. I offered myself instead."

"But he didn't want you."

He is dizzy with the memory, awash in the worst moments of his life. "I was too old. Untrainable. Literate. He came to the shop with city guards and told me to choose among my children who would belong to him."

Hawke closes her eyes, her brows drawn tight in sympathetic agony. "How could he ask you to make such a decision?"

Palla steps forward then, carefully, comes to Dalos as she hasn't in years and leans against him. His arm goes around her shoulders in both comfort and the deep, unrelenting regret he has carried with him for the better part of a decade. "I volunteered," she tells the mistress. "I was the oldest. I could work. My father…" she swallows, looks up at Dalos, "didn't know until it was done."

"And then I…spoke with my wife. I said goodbye to my sons. And I went to the magister's estate and sold myself to him on the one condition that I could not be separated from my daughter. I drew up the contract myself."

"Dalos," the mistress says, and fists a hand against her forehead before pulling it away. Her eyes are bright with sorrow. "How did Danarius come by you?"

"The magister died." It is unexpectedly freeing to speak of this, lancing the long-infected wound left by his past. "His friend the city magistrate inherited us, but he had no use for an old man and his too-young daughter. Danarius needed a steward and the man told him I could read and write. We cost nineteen solidii together."

"Oh, Dalos." Hawke steps away suddenly to the tall window that overlooks the front gardens, turning her back on the people standing behind her. Dalos looks to where Fenris still stands against the wall, silent and still; he shakes his head again, and Dalos turns back in time to see the mistress's shoulders shudder in an uneven breath. But she composes herself and spins back towards him, and she says, "How long since you've written your wife?"

"Two years, Mistress. A little longer. It was not…safe."

She takes a step forward, and when she passes away from the window he can see that she is smiling. "Then you're long overdue," she tells him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "And—if you want, she and your sons are welcome here."

"Yes," he breathes, and the rest of the morning is a blur. Ara says something to him, smiling widely; Cork pulls Palla into an awkward embrace; somewhere in the background Hawke helps a sweating Fenris back to bed. Someone gives him a sheaf of blank paper and a pen and the walls flash by him—

—and then he is sitting at his desk, in his room, Palla leaning against his knee, a hum of a lullaby drifting through the air that he has not heard in eight years.

He is older than he was when he last saw his wife: an old man, getting older, grey in his hair and lines on his face, his back aching on cold nights. But—she is older too. How long has Dalos has dreamed of finding all the wrinkles he has missed, counting every silver hair on her head? Of finding out whether her fingers still fit perfectly through his?

He lifts the pen.

He writes, My Dara—

Chapter Text

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
--We Wear the Mask, Paul Laurence Dunbar

-.-.-

Fenris wakes as he has the last two mornings: with Hawke clinging to him like a barnacle. In truth, he does not mind much; he'd stirred that second night to find her staring out the window, her eyes as haunted as he'd ever seen them, and when he'd asked she'd only shaken her head and slipped into the bed beside him, tucking her head under his chin until her ear rested directly over the one-two beat of his heart. He had said little, after that, and she had said nothing, and her fingers had worried the edge of the white bandage along his ribs for a long time.

Besides, he is hardly so removed from the regret of three years' wasted time to disdain Hawke's touch now. She sighs in her sleep and twines her legs further through his between the sheets, turning her face into the pillow and away from the morning sun draping over their bed, and Fenris does not try to stop the smile that tugs at his mouth as she lets out a muffled hmph of irritation at the persistent light.

"If you would draw the curtains at night," he tells her, his voice quiet and coarse with sleep, "you would suffer less in the morning."

She tips her head sideways until she can glare at him with one bleary blue eye. "Elk tuffars," she says, her mouth still buried in the pillow.

"Hmm?"

"I like the stars," she says more clearly, twisting to her side and draping one arm over his waist. She finds the thick-wrapped place on his side with the ease of habit, the one that marks the gravest wound the thugs had given him; her fingers rest there in reassurance for them both, and Fenris places his own hand atop hers for the same reason. "Besides," she adds, her breath warm on his neck, "it's been dark in here too long."

Fenris shifts at that, drawing back until he can see her face, but Hawke only lifts an eyebrow as a smile plays over her mouth. He drops his tone into something closer to accusing. "Spare me your double meanings."

"I can't help it. I am a veritable font of profundity."

"Of mockery."

"I always say what I mean," Hawke tells him, the smile broadening into an insufferable smirk.

So Fenris kisses her. She may say what she means—so he will show her what he means, without the possibility of misunderstandings and without wasting time with such an inadequate thing as words. She makes a surprised noise and draws back only for an instant—and then her hands are in his hair and her knee sliding higher between his thighs, her smile turning into a laugh against his mouth as he drags her closer to him on the bed.

He takes advantage of her distraction to pull her leg across his waist so that she straddles him. His wounds twinge, yes, the worst in his side suddenly enough to make his breath catch, but the pain is not unmanageable and Fenris allows himself a hint of smugness as his good hand goes to the hem of her shirt.

She smacks his hand away and shifts her weight forward to her knees, off of him. "Fenris, no. Right now you're held together with little more than hope and a prayer."

"And several stitches."

"Which I refuse to help you strain—"

"Hawke," he says, lifting his hips to meet hers, his voice low enough to growl, "the stitches will be strained whether you assist or not. The choice is yours."

She narrows her eyes.

In the end, he pops two stitches and Hawke nearly brains herself on the headboard, but it is worth it.

The sun is higher in the sky than Fenris would prefer by the time they finally make it downstairs, but the lines of worry and fear have eased from Hawke's face for the first time in three days and he finds himself more than content with that achievement. Dalos meets them at the bottom of the stairs, pointing them towards the study with a slightly desperate eyebrow, and as they near it Fenris can hear the throaty voice of a woman drifting through the open door. A step or two closer and Hawke hears it too; her eyes light up as she slips out from under his arm and heads towards the study, leaving Fenris to stagger the last few steps on his own. He does not begrudge her the haste, knowing who is in the room ahead; instead, he stops to lean heavily against the doorframe as Hawke bursts forward with a laugh.

A pair of booted legs propped on top of the massive desk, one toe tapping idly at the little wire-and-crystal lamp to make it shiver, thighs muscled, tanned arms crossed behind a head of tousled black hair, eyes flashing gold in the morning light.

"Good morning," Isabela says, and grins.

"Isabela!" Hawke is halfway across the room before Fenris sees its other occupant: Lydas, leaning casually on the back of an elegant armchair, tall Lydas of the broad shoulders and the pale, curly hair, Lydas with a slight smile playing over his lips as he watches Isabela behind the desk. "How long have you been here? When did you leave the docks—why didn't you say you were coming?"

She kicks her feet off the desk and stands as Hawke reaches her, allowing the other woman to pull her into a hug. "You think I'd miss the chance to see a pouting, wobbly Fenris?"

He becomes abruptly aware of the white bandages on his broken arm, on his wrists, peeping through the collar of his shirt. "I am not pouting."

"Oh, I bet you are adorable when you're convalescing." She grins, taking the sting from her teasing, and gestures at Lydas. "Besides, I had tall, strong, and silent to keep me company."

Hawke looks back over her shoulder, startled, and Lydas ducks a bow. "Lydas!" she says in Arcanum. "Do you know the trade tongue?" And then, switching languages, to Isabela: "Do you speak Arcanum?"

Isabela rolls her eyes, then winks at Lydas, who makes several quick gestures with his hands. The last one involves pretending to snip off the longest finger of his left hand, and Isabela snickers. "Oh," she says, "I think we understand each other just fine."

"I don't want to know," Hawke says, covering her eyes. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"If you insist," Isabela sing-songs, wiggling her fingers in a cheery wave as Lydas bows and departs. "My sweet spirits, Hawke. You have some wonderful help around the house."

"Not for long. Did you bring the papers?"

"Varric has them," she says, resettling into the chair behind the desk with a sigh. "He's around here somewhere."

"Varric's here too?" Hawke asks, but with the impeccable timing of someone who makes good coin crafting dramatic narratives, the dwarf himself enters the room almost before she has finished the question.

"Everybody's here already," he says around a mouthful of pastry. "Good."

"Were you in the kitchens?" Hawke asks, her mind obviously skittering off on a tangent. "With Cork? Did he make scones?"

"He made scones," Varric says.

"Did you bring me one?"

Varric pops the last bite of crust into his mouth. "I did not."

Hawke deflates. "Ah."

"Do you want one?"

"I'm…okay."

"Are you sure? They're good."

"Yes. Thanks, Varric."

"Well, I tried," he says, licking the sugar from his fingers before pulling a sheaf of papers from his coat. "Now, are we ready?"

"Ooh, yes," purrs Isabela, propping both elbows on the massive desk. "So, is this going to be open bidding, or…?"

Hawke rolls her eyes. "No, Isabela."

"Are you sure? Because there are a few I wouldn't mind getting my hands on—or around, as it were—"

Fenris knows Isabela is only teasing—she'd been instrumental in designing this part of the plan, after all—but the words are too similar and the attitude is too similar, feigned as it is, to a hundred conversations he has heard before in this room, and he eases himself forward with the furniture's help until he can sink down into one of the gold-and-white striped armchairs and close his eyes. Isabela continues her cheerful nonsense with occasional comments from Varric as he spreads the papers on the desk, but even with his eyes closed Fenris can feel Hawke's heat as she leans over the back of the chair.

"You okay?" he hears directed at the top of his head.

"Yes," he says shortly; then he looks up and forces a smile. "I am ready to be done with this."

"You and me both," she sighs, glancing at the not-inconsiderable stack of documentation on her desk. "Has to be done, though, and better now than putting it off until later. And later and later."

He follows her gaze as Isabela starts folding one of the scrap pieces of paper into a crude boat. "Before the opportunity is gone."

"Agreed," she says, and straightens with a clap of her hands. "Okay, witnesses, ready to get started?"

"Beyond ready," Isabela says, adding a stiff little piece of straw to make a mast. "I was bored five minutes ago."

"Then here we go," Hawke says, and pulls the first sheet towards her.

They stay in the study for nearly two hours after that, piles of neatly pressed parchment growing and shrinking alike as they work their way piece by piece across the desk. Isabela becomes more and more volubly unenthused the longer they work—it takes open bribery to stifle her complaints in the end—but they do not slacken the pace between them, and by noon the whole stack is signed, sorted, and done.

Hawke sits back in her chair, tossing her third empty inkwell to join the others in the little ceramic graveyard by the desk. "Finished," she says, sounding both triumphant and slightly stunned at what they have just done. "Finished and sealed and not a word can be said against it now. Varric, you'll send the copies where they need to go?"

"Already have a man on it, Hawke."

She shakes her head, mute, and passes a hand over her eyes. Fenris knows how she feels—feels it more, in truth, because he knows how impossible this is, how much of a blow this will be to the glorious majesty of Minrathous. Not just the nobility, not just the glittering magisters—this will reach farther, deeper, striking at the very root and foundation of Tevinter's strength and the Archon's strength until the whole of the Imperium will shake with the sound of it.

Two hours' work in a sunlit study.

"Only you, Hawke," Fenris sighs, and presses his fingers to his head where it aches.

Varric begins gathering the papers up, sliding them into a number of large envelopes and returning them to their home inside his coat. Isabela jumps up from behind the desk, her eyes gleaming, her energy apparently restored, and says, "I'd like my reward, please."

Hawke looks up. "What, now?"

"Yes. As you promised. Ladies' afternoon out."

"Plus Varric," says Varric.

"Plus Varric. Free rein of the bazaar on your tab. And lunch. Not that I'm hungry, but, you know. Principle."

"But—I—now?" Hawke stares at her a moment, then looks helplessly at Fenris, who shrugs. Isabela puts one hand on her hip, expectant, and when she shows no sign of relenting Hawke blows out a sigh and pushes to her feet. "I suppose you still don't want to come," she says to Fenris, tying her hair back at the nape of her neck.

"I have seen my share of this city's markets," he says, drily and not without a trace of bitterness.

Varric puts both hands to the small of his back as he stretches. "You don't need to be lugging your half-dead body through the streets anyway."

"It's a very nice body," Isabela puts in, offering a perfunctory leer.

"I appreciate the sentiment," Fenris says, not appreciative in the slightest, but his wrists hurt and his side is throbbing from too many hours without rest, and he has little interest in wandering the hot, shadeless streets of Minrathous's most crowded district for hours while Isabela paws through trinkets and brittle baubles. "But I will remain here."

"Fair enough," Hawke tells him, and soon the little elf girl with the brown hair—Palla—has her robed and belted and gilded into a magister's presentable attire. Isabela is already out the door, singing something improbable about a man and his ass made of gold; Hawke pauses, tugging the heavily embroidered collar of her outer robe into place, then moves to where Fenris has risen by the armchair. "Don't strain any more stitches," she murmurs with a wry grin.

"Be safe, Hawke," he tells her.

She kisses him quickly and is gone.

Fenris would not be pleased with her saying it, but—Hawke likes the bazaar. It's noisy and crowded and alive as few places have been in Minrathous, filled to bursting with brilliant color and jewels and the smell of foreign spices. Elves and humans alike court her favor as they pass ("Would the lady care for a taste? The freshest fruit this side of the High Reaches, no fresher to be found!" and "Orlesian silk! Imported directly from Val Royeaux, approved by the hand of the Empress herself!"), and although Hawke laughs and tries what samples they offer and murmurs approvingly over their embroidered silks and satins, she finds little that catches her eye.

Unlike Isabela, who seems determined to line the pockets of every merchant on the streets.

"Isabela," she sighs when the pirate plucks a broad gold band from a nearby display, "you've already picked out enough jewelry to sink a ship. Do you really need more?"

Isabela slips the bracelet on, admiring the shine of the etched gold in contrast with her dark skin. "I think I need it, Hawke. Need it. Without it now, my arm would just feel…naked."

Hawke and Varric snort together and she yields to him the obvious line. "You say that like it's an unusual state for you."

Isabela rolls her eyes and replaces the bracelet. Behind the counter, the merchant's face falls, just slightly. "You wait, Varric. A few more comments like that and I'll drive through every swell and cross-breeze I can find on the way home."

"Eugh. Point taken."

"Here, Varric," says Hawke from the next stall down, "look, they've got weapon oils. Anything Bianca's taste?"

"That dagger's to my taste," Isabela says, her eyes lighting with open lust at the array of blades. She pulls a long, slender one with a steel-and-silver hilt from the stand and holds it critically in the flats of her hands. "Good balance, great edge. Oh, I could make her sing for me with the right…attentions."

The merchant clearly does not understand her words, but the language of money transcends all tongues and in a matter of moments he and Isabela are haggling over the price of the dagger as if they'd grown up together. He makes a face at her second offer and slaps his palm on the wooden stand in disgust; Isabela sniffs at his counter and stabs the dagger between his forefinger and thumb before turning to walk away. Hawke watches, breathless, but the merchant caves first, his pointed ears practically wilting in resignation as Isabela passes over a handful of Hawke's coins and relieves him of the dagger. Still, he offers his hand with a smile at the conclusion of the bargain, and Isabela only leers at him a little before heading on her way.

"That was impressive," Varric says, his own little pot of verbena-scented wood oils tucked away into his belt. Hawke nods in agreement.

"That was fun," Isabela corrects, and three stalls down absently picks up a lute.

Hawke crosses her arms. "I am not paying for that."

"You promised me a reward!"

"Do you even know how to play?"

"I could learn."

Hawke buys her a whistle instead. They continue through the bazaar, laughing and browsing and being generally as carefree as they haven't been since docking in the city. Hawke loses track of how long they've spent in the marketplace between the bustling cheer and the winding, unending streets, but her bags grow heavier and her pockets lighter the longer Isabela has her fingers in her coinpurse, and she is just nearing the point of actual pennilessness when they come across a corner shop with leatherwork and steel armor in the window.

"Oh," says Hawke, startled, and before she can talk herself out of it she hurries inside. It takes only a moment to describe what she wants repaired and for whom she wants it—the proprietor is an old, grizzled elf eminently familiar with such things—and then she is back outside, blinking in the light, and her purse is completely empty.

"That was not for me," Isabela says, pouting.

Hawke lifts an eyebrow. "It was not."

"I guess that means the shopping trip is over, then."

"You sound so sad," Hawke says, laughing as they turn the corner into one of the farther streets. "You're carrying enough bags and boxes for three people and that's still not enough?"

"Absolutely not, Hawke, because I—oh, what is that smell? It smells like Anders's clinic, only with more hopelessness—"

And then they see what causes the smell, and Isabela says nothing at all.

Servorum – Mancipia, etched on the wall; a small wooden stage with a cloth-draped roof raised two feet from the street; and five elves arrayed against the white stone wall, a short man in yellow robes at the edge of the stage bellowing prices out over the gathered crowd before him.

The slave market.

"Shit," says Varric somewhere behind her, but Hawke is already stepping forward into the crowd. There are maybe thirty people around her, but the stage and the empty wooden pens beyond them are large enough to hold fifty—too late, then, for most of them, purchased by unknown masters for unknown fates, sold away like cattle while Hawke played with whistles and pretty bolts of cloth.

You can't save them all, Hawke.

"I can save these," she mutters, and when the bidding opens for the next slave, a boy no older than ten with light hair and enormous eyes, she waits for only two other bidders before raising her own hand. "Six," she says loudly, a jump of two solidii; the other bidders scowl and grumble and wave away their bids, yielding to her, and the auctioneer calls out her victory in open appreciation. One down, four to go—

The next one she wins easily, too, a short woman with red hair and a scar down the side of her throat; the third gives her more trouble as the tide of the crowd begins to turn against her, this foreign woman stripping good wares from a populace ready to buy, but when Isabela casually thumbs the shining edge of her newly purchased dagger and smiles with no small hint of danger, they quiet their mumbling and a few bids later the young girl joins her brother at the side of the stage, her small chest heaving as she tries to keep back her tears.

The auctioneer peers at Hawke from his lofty vantage point, the tip of his crop drooping as he eyes her robes suspiciously, but she only lifts an eyebrow as if daring him to comment and he flinches back before gesturing the next slave to the block.

The crowd lets out a sudden roar of hoots and laughter and Hawke's heart sinks. A young woman—a beautiful woman, dark skin and black hair, curvy and fit and only a few years younger than Hawke herself, and wrapped only in a thin, gauzy length of pale pink barras that does little to hide her nakedness—and less, when the auctioneer tears the fabric from her shoulders and tosses it out into the crowd to another violent, appreciative bellow and hands tearing and grasping for a share of the cloth. The woman fists her hands at her sides and lowers her eyes. Behind her Hawke can see the one remaining slave, tall and tanned and dark-haired, bare to the waist, his ragged remains of a blue robe held in place only by a wide leather belt; he watches the back of the woman's head without blinking, his jaw set so hard Hawke thinks it might crack.

"And the jewel of the lot," the auctioneer says cheerfully, and Hawke jerks her attention back to him. "The lovely Clodia, not four-and-twenty and already as experienced as you could desire. Young, beautiful, unmarked—turn, girl," he says, smacking her hip with an open hand, and she bares her naked back to the jeers and shouts below her without a word. Hawke does not miss the look the last slave gives her, and neither does she miss the swift blink the woman gives in return, as if at dust—or at tears. "Trained by a magister's own hand at the more, ah, delicate arts—" and here another roar of laughter, "—and guaranteed to be both ready and willing to meet your needs. Your every need, masters," the auctioneer adds with a wink, and the crowd explodes.

Isabela lets out a soft, vicious curse behind her, but Hawke swallows down her rage. Calm, now; fury, later, when she is safe and the woman is safe and she can cloud her head with enough anger for an army.

The bidding opens at fifteen solidii and jumps quickly to twenty, then twenty-two.

"Twenty-five," says Hawke, and the people gathered around her let out a groan. Thirty, thirty-five, then—

"Forty," comes a new voice, male, cultured and low and carrying nonetheless. The crowds part and Hawke sees an older man, human, with black-and-silver hair pulled back in a neat braid and dark green robes as intricate or more than her own. He steps forward, inclining his head at Hawke politely, and around her the crowds hiss Jaculus, magister.

"Magister," says the auctioneer, his voice wavering as he bows low, "you do us too much honor with your presence." Beside him, Clodia's hands have begun to tremble with fear.

"Nonsense," the magister Jaculus murmurs, waving an elegant hand in dismissal as he turns to Hawke. His eyes are dark, somehow, darker than they should be, and hard, implacable as ice over stone. "Your stock is as good as any in the High Streets. Please, I believe the lovely young woman here and I were bidding…?"

Hawke tips her own head in return, meeting his gaze with a level one of her own, straightening her spine against the sudden fear that claws up the back of her throat. Priscus's ally, the architect behind the impending attack on Seheron, the man who might have had his hand in Fenris's own assault—here? Here, now? A coincidence?

Impossible.

"F-forty," says the auctioneer in the yellow robe. "Forty to Magister Jaculus—"

"Forty-five," Hawke says, and every head in the throng turns to stare.

Jaculus smiles. "Magister Hawke," he says directly to her, and the growing crowds around them burst out with another vicious whisper of magister. "I have heard a great deal about you, but I was led to believe that certain…tastes are not so common in Ferelden. Perhaps I was mistaken."

"My tastes are my own," she tells him. "Perhaps I was mistaken to believe that in Minrathous, my coin would be good enough to allow me to indulge them."

The smile broadens and Jaculus laughs, smooth and easy as falling off a cliff. "Then permit me to assist in your indulgence. I withdraw my bid," he adds to the auctioneer, whose own smile bears little but white terror. "Let the lady have her toy."

The crowd lets out a disappointed sigh but the auctioneer bows so low his back creaks, and a moment later the lovely Clodia has joined the others at the side of the stage. Isabela is already there with several yards of thick blue silk from one of her earlier purchases in her hands, wrapping it around Clodia's shoulders and whispering to her until the flush of fear and shame begins to fade from her cheeks.

The auctioneer's throat bobs as he swallows, his eyes darting between Jaculus and Hawke, his hand trembling as he gestures the last slave forward, the man with the bare chest and the dark hair. "The last—" he tries, swallows, and starts again. "The last of today's lot, the handsome Cato, strong, hale, hearty, used to field work but not untrainable…"

The man's stertorous voice fades out of Hawke's ears. The slave is staring at her, his black hair hanging loose in his face, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his thick black brows snapped down wire-tight over his eyes, hot and furious and green. He looks, Hawke thinks wildly, like Fenris.

He looks like Leto.

Not enough to be blood, not quite—his face is too narrow, his eyes too dark, his skin a base shade too pale—but the spirit is the same, the unbroken, untamed thing raging behind the thin mask he has made for himself, and Hawke barely realizes the bidding is continuing around her until the slave's eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, at her silence.

"Thirty-five," she whispers; then, louder, "thirty-five."

"Forty," says Jaculus.

A few more spectators throw in their own bids, more for the novelty of bidding against two magisters than out of any real desire for the slave, but before long it is only the two of them, Hawke and Jaculus, caught in the throes of quiet, well-spoken war.

"Sixty-five," Jaculus offers.

"Seventy."

He sighs, patient and longsuffering as a doting uncle. "Come now," he tells Hawke, his voice chiding. "You are greedy for too much. You have your prizes—let others have a share in the sale."

"Forgive me, Magister," Hawke says with a smile of her own, "but I am new to this country and I find that my predecessor's needs are…quite different from my own. Seventy solidii."

"Seventy-five."

"Eighty."

"Eighty-five."

The crowd is silent now, heads swinging from one magister to the other as the price for this last slave climbs higher. Jaculus is still smiling, though Hawke thinks she can see the first cracks of anger in his eyes; behind her, somewhere, Varric is muttering oaths to every god he has ever heard of, including the ancient ones, and Isabela stands still and ready by the other slaves she has purchased, ready to herd them to safety at a moment's notice if needed. And Cato—

Cato's eyes are burning into the side of her head.

"One hundred solidii," Jaculus snaps, and a ripple runs through the crowd. One hundred, for one slave—unheard of. Unimaginable. "Surrender the game, Magister Hawke."

The sound of her name rings in her ears like a bell, reminding her at once of all the things she is and all the things she is not. Hawke lifts her chin and steps forward, towards the stage.

"One hundred and twenty," she tells the auctioneer to total silence, and then she turns to Jaculus and says, more quietly, "I will not yield."

Something changes in his face, then, like a flash of rage behind his eyes or a strand of that impeccable braid slipping out of place, but Jaculus drops into low bow before she can pin it down. "Your choice, Magister," he tells her as he straightens, unsmiling. "And your mistake."

She inclines her head; he turns on his booted heel and the crowd parts before him like wheat before the scythe.

"Auction concluded," says the auctioneer, faintly.

The people around her begin to drift away, still quiet, stunned like the survivors of some terrible storm. In truth Hawke feels much the same; her palms are sweating and her throat is dry, dry as a bone, terror and fury sweeping up in equal measures to throttle her. Jaculus should not have been here—should not have—she had meant to prepare more before meeting him at Damia's impending gala, to have more time, had meant to face him with grace and humor and an easy smile, every word prepared and scripted to eke the truth from him about Alam and about the invasion without raising his guard. No use for that plan now, and no use pretending it is not her fault; in ten minutes of uncautious bidding she has lost the advantage, lost his trust, lost the best hope for Fenris and the Fog Warriors.

Oh, she has won here, but it was Jaculus who granted her the victory.

Hawke turns in time to see Cato vault from the edge of the stage with easy athleticism and head straight for her, his eyes as fixed on her as a hound might fix on the hare it has run to ground. He draws so near she can see the snapping fire in the green of his eyes and she braces herself—and then, just as he reaches her, he goes to his knees in the dust of the street and bows his head.

"Mistress," he says, his voice low and rough and sounding as if the very word has been torn from his throat, "I thank you for my purchase."

Behind him, the other slaves follow suit, though Clodia struggles a moment with the blue silk in an effort to spare it from the dirt.

"Oh, boy," says Varric, and Hawke buries her head in her hands.

"Hello, Fenris, I bought some slaves today. I hope you don't mind."

"No good," Varric says, tucking the newest paperwork into his belt.

"Fenris, I'm so glad to see you! I bought you some things in the market, and also some slaves, and also the magister Jaculus was there and I bested him in the bidding but I think I might have made him extremely angry at the same time, oops?"

Isabela makes a claw with her hand and thrusts it into the chest of an invisible opponent, then twists it slowly in a circle, gurgling in the back of her throat.

"How…vivid." Hawke kicks a rock into the bushes lining the street, trying to ignore the curious looks of the passerby and the quiet, steady padding of five pairs of feet behind her. "Perhaps you could be so kind as to stop mocking me and help."

"I much prefer the mocking," Isabela tells her, but she deigns to drop the invisible heart in her hand.

Varric adjusts Bianca on his back. "Just tell him. He'll understand."

"Mmph."

"He'll probably be glad you stepped in."

"Pfgh."

"At least now you know what Jaculus looks like."

"Ngh."

"I remember you being more articulate a moment ago. Oh, thank Andraste's sweet-boiled bottom, we're home."

And so they are, the street curving away to reveal the wide expanse of her lush green lawn, the trees spilling down from the western edge, the mansion as white and formidable as a tomb. The little girl gasps behind her and Hawke thinks she should offer them some peace of mind—but she has no peace in her left to give, not now, and she can only manage a tentative, uncomfortable smile over her shoulder. The girl has her hand white-knuckled around her brother's, both of them wide-eyed; the young woman with the red hair hovers close behind them, protective as she can be in the face of her own terror. In the back are Cato and Clodia, close but not touching, both of them clothed in actual robes from one of the market stalls and bearing identical expressions of suspicion.

Hawke sighs, unsurprised, and finds herself grateful beyond words when Dalos emerges from the front door of the mansion to greet them.

He bends in a polite bow as they approach, the long, slender shadows from the poplars lining the avenue stretching across their steps like bars. "Welcome home, Mistress. Mistress Isabela, Master Varric."

"Thank you. Dalos, these are—" are what? Slaves purchased at a whim, bodies paid for with coin and a ready tongue with as little forethought as a dagger. "—the newest members of our household. If you would, please take them inside and get them some food and some rooms, and I'll check in later."

"Of course," he says, bowing again, and even as he gestures Palla and Ara have hurried from the house behind him, smiling and warm as Hawke cannot be at the moment to herd her fresh slaves into the house. "Oh, and—" he adds when Hawke tries to move around him, "the tailor is here."

Oh damn it all— "The dressmaker? Was that today?"

"Yes, Mistress," Dalos says, his eyebrows lifting as if he has heard her silent invective. "She arrived just a few moments ago with her staff and a good deal of supplies. I showed her to the solarium overlooking the gardens."

"Perfect," Hawke sighs, stepping into the cooler dimness of the grand atrium. "Thank you, Dalos—"

"Hawke."

The voice comes hard and seething with fury above her, sudden enough and sharp enough that it stops her in her tracks. Hawke looks up to find the owner of the voice—and there is Fenris at the top of the stairs, trembling with anger, his good hand so tense around the banister his knuckles are white.

"Did you know about this?" he asks Hawke as she starts up the stairs, his eyes tight, his voice tighter, lyrium sparking down his throat.

Somehow, she doesn't think he means the slaves. "Know about what?"

"About—" he makes a frustrated, wordless gesture at the hall behind him before grabbing again at the railing, and Hawke realizes that the only reason he has not tried the stairs is that he does not yet have the strength for them. "About—"

"About me," says a woman's voice, cool and even, and Fenris turns his head away as a slender elf with bright red hair emerges from the shadows of the hall behind him.

"Your tailor, Magister Hawke," Varania says, and bows.

"So."

Fenris doesn't even move, the black scowl on his face dark as thunder as he stares out the window. Varania, for her part, ignores him equally, sipping from her teacup as she and Hawke chat amiably about nothing.

"Yes, Magister?"

"You…you're still doing the tailoring thing, I see."

"Yes, although less frequently than I used to. The magister I am apprenticed to has encouraged me to keep certain…pastimes as I choose. Between lessons."

"Ah, yes. I remember you mentioning you were a mage the last time we…met." Hawke winces as she stumbles awkwardly around dangerous ground, but Fenris does little but snort. "I, uh, hope your studies are going well?"

"Very well. I prefer the research, but I am assured that my practical skills are adequate."

"That's good. That's…great."

"Yes."

Hawke crosses one leg, then the other, then reaches for her own cup. Varania looks down at the saucer in her lap, fiddling with its filigreed edges; Fenris still stands by the window, immobile, immovable.

Enough. "Varania, not to be rude, but…why are you here?"

"To fit you for Magister Damia's party."

"The real reason."

Her slim fingers tense on the edge of the saucer; then she says without looking up, "You would not believe me if I told you." Not an excuse, nor a point to be argued: a simple truth.

"Try me."

She looks up, her mouth thin. "I wanted to see how my brother was."

Hawke sees his head turn in the corner of her eye, but she does not spare Fenris a glance. "He is healing."

"I saw the bandages," Varania murmurs, and for a moment her hand goes to her own throat, to her wrist, as if in sympathy. "I heard that—he—had gone by the Grand Way at night and had been attacked." Her voice drops in bitterness, in disgust, hatred turned inward at herself and the irony of her next words. "I was worried."

Fenris turns to face her, then, his eyes hard, his arms crossed as he speaks for the first time. "This is a show. A farce."

Varania shakes her head. "It would be easier if it were."

"After what you did to me—after what you did for Danarius—do not insult me by pretending to care now!"

"I tried to warn you!"

"A note!" Fenris shouts, crossing the room as Varania rises to her feet. Her eyes are the same as his in anger, Hawke notes with the part of her mind not currently trying to keep the room from burning down around them; her lips curl the way his curl, her shoulders curve the same in both defense and threat— "After everything you did—after everything you tried to do, you sent nothing more than a letter!"

She lifts her chin. "Would you have seen me? Heard a word I had to say? Or would you have struck me down at first sight the way you wish to now?"

Fenris flinches back, averting his eyes to the wall. His hands clench and unclench at his sides; then he mutters, "I will not strike you."

"No," Varania agrees. "not now. But before, if you had only seen me with my betrayal closest in your mind?"

He glances at her and says nothing. The room is quiet for a long time, Varania watching Fenris, Fenris watching the walls, the floor, and Hawke watching them both, wondering if she should give them their privacy but afraid to leave Fenris alone—for both his sake and Varania's.

Then, so quietly she almost misses it, Varania says, "I did not believe you."

Fenris looks at his sister, confused; she meets his eyes and continues. "In the beginning. When you first won the boon. All Mother and I knew was that you were there to protect us and then you were gone, and when I saw you again in the street you were—changed." She gestures helplessly, as if she still cannot believe it. "Your hair, the markings…your expression. My brother was gone. You did not see me."

Fenris's face goes wholly still, wholly blank, and for a moment Hawke thinks he might fall, but before she can rise Fenris has stepped forward, quick as the strike of a snake. "I do not remember," he says, and does not mean only that time.

"I know," Varania says, "now. Then I didn't. Then, I only saw that we were starving and weak and you had abandoned us for the pampered palace of a magister."

He turns on his heel, one fist pressed against his forehead. "It was not—like that," he says tightly.

Again Varania says, "I know, now." Her voice has softened; it softens further as she continues. "I was…very angry at you, when we had to beg for our food and when we slept on the street and when Mother grew ill and died. I wanted to hurt you for a long time in the same way that you had hurt me. Then your letter came from nowhere and…Danarius offered me a way."

"A victory for you both," he says, but he does not sound blank with rage—only resignation.

"Just so. I made little enough as a tailor in the Low Street markets; with tutelage I knew I could be more. He offered me that."

"With betrayal the only price."

"Justice, as I saw it," she says bitterly. "Until I saw you in the tavern. The face was so different, but—the eyes were Leto's. Then I knew."

"I would have killed you."

"I would have deserved it."

He shakes his head, disbelieving and frustrated and wavering with fatigue. Now Hawke does rise, crossing the room to put an inconspicuous hand beneath his elbow, bolstering him as he gathers his thoughts and faces Varania. He admits, "I have no knowledge of you as my sister. Only—flashes. Only parts of memories."

Varania smiles then, a sad, twisted thing left behind by a little girl forced to grow up too fast. "And my brother is dead," she tells Fenris. "I grieved for his loss. I still grieve for him. You are like him in many ways, but…" she glances at Hawke, "in many ways you are not."

"I cannot go back," Fenris warns her, tensing against Hawke's side.

But Varania steps forward, her hands lifted between them, her eyes, so like Fenris's eyes, not quite guarded enough to hide her hope. "Then perhaps we can start again."

Fenris pauses, drawing in a breath—then reaches out to cover her hand with his. "A start."

It takes several minutes of uncomfortable pauses and a number of false beginnings, but the three of them eventually manage a sort of tentative conversational refuge around the topic of Hawke's wardrobe. Once her staff musters the courage to breach the battlegrounds they move with swift efficiency, draping fabrics and swatches and paste jewels over the furniture until the whole of the room is swathed to Varania's satisfaction. She moves from one fabric to another briskly, talking all the while to Hawke about her tastes and her hair and the statement she wishes to make ("Statement? Can the statement be: 'clothed'?"), draping an expensive cambresine over one shoulder even as she hold two more under Hawke's chin. Varania is indeed an excellent tailor, practiced and deft with an eye for both fit and color, and she waste little time before pinning Hawke head to toe in a floaty gold organza.

"You look like a bulbous potato," Isabela says from the door.

Varania purses her lips but says nothing, adjusting several pins as Isabela and Varric saunter into the room. Hawke does not miss that their eyes go first to Varania and then to Fenris, who meets their silent inquisition with a flinty gaze of his own, but they say nothing about his sister's presence—and besides, knowing them, Hawke is certain they stood outside the door and heard the whole conversation anyway.

But a pin tweaked here and a ruffle tugged there, and suddenly the dress fits much better, siphoning down to a narrow waist before flaring out at her hips. It isn't bad, Hawke supposes, peering at herself in one of the large mirrors provided by Varania's assistants, but—

"Not right," Varania decides, nodding, and in a moment the organza is gone to be replaced by silver silk. And then a coppery sort of satin, and then a pale crepe, and then a white lamé so reflective she seems to glow.

"This is ridiculous," Hawke says when even Varric winces. "I'll blind everyone at the damn thing."

"It is the current fashion," Varania explains as she folds away the lamé. "Golds, silvers, diamonds—rare metals, rare jewels."

"Precious things," Fenris murmurs.

Varania throws him a quick glance. "Just so."

Hawke sighs and runs a hand through her hair as another assistant ties a silk scarf around her neck. "Well, whatever it is, it needs to include pants."

"Oh?"

"Well, if today was any indication, I wouldn't count on not having to run for my life at least once."

Which of course confuses Fenris, which naturally requires an explanation of the afternoon's events, which leads to a number of people shouting and stomping and tossing tulle about without care. Fenris curses in three languages and Hawke throws a buckled slipper at him while Isabela seems content to cheer on the contenders right up to the point where a nervous assistant knocks her into one of Varania's large pincushions. It takes both Varric's charm and Varania's icy scorn to restore order after that.

In the end Fenris resettles into his chair, seething quietly; Hawke sets her jaw and forces her arms back into Varania's little coat. "Can't even move my shoulders in this," she grumbles. "Can't defend myself if I can't move."

"A point not worth the deliberation," Fenris says acidly, "seeing as you throw yourself at death the moment my back is turned."

"You were the one who went to the Grand Way by yourself!" Hawke shouts—shouts, she tells herself, not shrieks, because Hawke does not shriek even when she is very, very irritated—but before the argument can break out again in earnest Varric leans back in his chair.

"Just call a spade a spade," he says, shaking his head. "You both have a suicide wish."

"I believe," Varania interrupts, cutting over them all with a voice that does not brook interruption, "we were about to discuss trousers?"

Varric crosses his arms. "And if I had any doubts at all about the two of you being related, they'd be gone now. I've never seen so many glares of withering disdain shot at Hawke in so little time."

Fenris and Varania share a startled look, then turn as one to Hawke, who purses her lips to keep from laughing through her annoyance. Identical. "Yes. Trousers. To run in."

She turns side to side, eyeing Hawke critically. "All right…perhaps robes, then? Layered, long-sleeved undertunic and a light sleeveless outer robe, with a belt—yes. I like it." She gestures at an assistant who scurries up with the white lamé again, but a thought is growing somewhere in the back of Hawke's mind and she puts up a hand.

She says, "I have an idea."

"All right. How do I look?"

"…Acceptable."

"Oh, wow, thanks."

"You know how you look, Hawke."

"Like a magister, you mean."

"You will understand if I fail to find the costume…comforting."

"Then I guess that means it's doing its job. Your collar's crooked. How's the repaired armor fitting?"

"Well enough. Your measurements were not far off. And the steel is sound."

"I suppose I should be glad you brought that spare shirt."

"I did tell you I brought what I would need."

"And yet with all your foresight, you still ended up bleeding all over my sofa."

A vexed sigh, then: "You waste time. The carriage has been standing for ten minutes."

"Then help me with this damned sash—belt—thing. Varania made this look so easy last week but I can't—oh. Well. That was quick."

"Parata esta, magister?"

"…Paratus."

And with little ceremony and less notice, a richly adorned magister and her slave step into a black carriage, one behind the other; a moment later it rolls forward, smoothly, soundlessly, until the swift horses that draw it vanish into the night.

Chapter Text

Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours -- friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.

--Ballade of Dead Actors, William Ernest Henley

The closer the carriage approaches to Damia's mansion, the tenser Hawke seems to grow. Fenris does not so much as shift his weight, wholly absorbed in her sudden inability to sit still; she fiddles with her sash, tugs her boot back up to her knee, twists the long chain of her necklace into a knot—then curses under her breath when she realizes the knot has caught around her thumb.

He cannot stay silent any longer. "What…are you doing?"

Hawke looks at him over her hand, the knot between her teeth as she tries to free her thumb from the chain, and accidentally knocks her staff sideways with her elbow. "Making an ass out of myself, apparently."

"We have not even arrived."

"Just getting a jump on the scheduled humiliation."

He shakes his head as the narrow carriage bumps over an uneven patch of road and replaces her staff against the wall. "You know your part," Fenris tells her, and she does; they have spent the last week preparing and rehearsing for this evening, and there is little now left to chance but chance itself. Outside, a few youths shout greetings to the carriage driver on his box and he rumbles something cheerful in response, his waving hand a flash of shadow before the lamps that light the evening streets in orange and gold. Hawke untangles her chain at last and lowers her hands to her lap, and Fenris watches her face slide from darkness into the softer glow of the lampfires; then he says, more heavily, "And I know mine."

She says nothing. There is nothing to say to that, no further apology to offer, no conciliation to his pride that she has not already made and he has not already rebuffed. Fenris had known what that damned letter from the Archon would mean the instant it had arrived—and now the moment has come, at last, and he will shrink neither from its reality nor its consequences. He has prepared Hawke as best he can; he has prepared himself the best he can. There is nothing left to do.

He will not be afraid.

The carriage rocks slightly to the side as they round a corner and Fenris knows they are getting close. He glances out the window one last time, then straightens in the seat and does up the last few clasps of his tunic above his breastplate. He had not been lying to Hawke—it does fit well, the style similar enough to his old armor that he does not mind the few changes the armorer had been forced to make, but the cut is looser here and tighter there, the steel weighted differently, and he would prefer not to court open battle before he has the chance to adjust to it.

At least he is healing well. Hawke's magic has always had certain undeniable applications—he remembers, vividly, the storm on Isabela's ship—but he cannot deny that he has healed more thoroughly in the last week with her magic than he could have in two months' bedrest without it. His right arm barely even twinges now, even with the full weight of his sword bearing down on the once-broken bones, thanks to Hawke's magic. Hawke's affection.

"There's the gate," Hawke murmurs, shaking Fenris from his thoughts. The carriage makes one final turn, the high polished gates swinging open on silent hinges before them, and at last they can see Damia's villa, smaller than Hawke's but just as ornate, torches burning in every window.

"And please," Hawke adds under her breath as they pull up to the circular avenue before the door. "If you can possibly avoid it, I would really much like not to have to clean your dried blood from my fingernails again."

"I make no promises," Fenris tells her, and opens the carriage door. His bare toes dig for purchase in the dirt; then he turns, blank, implacable, obedient as any slave, and reaches out his hand.

The magister Hawke emerges from the carriage.

Her appearance makes little commotion in the relative quiet of the lawn. It is not until he has followed her up the steps and across Damia's threshold into the brilliance of the glowing candles and sconces and gigantic chandeliers that he hears the first disquiet whispers ripple through the assembly. There are maybe a hundred honored guests in the great hall, almost that number again in servants and slaves. The servants are in dark blue and the slaves in short, plain tunics of muted colors, but the magisters and nobles are as Varania had said and more, gleaming in golds and bronzes and platinums, jewels and robes alike throwing firelight through the air to dance across the walls, the molded ceiling, the polished cut-crystal decanters that rest swollen with red wine on the tables lining the walls.

Many of the magisters ignore the two of them as they slip through the crowd, lost in their own conversations, a many-ringed hand fluttering here or a coiffed head nodding there so that the white peacock feathers sway forward pleasingly, but the majority does at least cast an appraising eye over Hawke if not the silent shadow behind her. Even the air is expensive, perfumed with sandalwood and jasmine. The smell as familiar to Fenris as lyrium, as sweat and worn leather, and out of deep-ingrained habit rather than intent he finds himself gauging each noble's potential threat to his m—his mage—as they pass.

This one: no staff, no scars on her wrists, her shirred bronze dress so sheer she might as well not wear it—no threat, despite the poisonous glare on her face. Her partner, though, tall and pale in silver: magic, certainly, and sharper eyes. Keep aware of that one. And of that slave with the heavy mirror-bright tray on the other side of the room, staring at Hawke too intently—but there, struck across the face by his master for inattention. A woman toying with her long necklace, the drops of rubies like blood dribbling down her throat; an older magister in pale gold and polished jade, leaning heavily on his staff; a senator in a headdress of yellow garnets and sunstones, her dark eyebrow lifting in open interest as her slave hands her a wineglass.

And Hawke, her father's staff in her hand, striding through them all in plain and practical black. Not even true black, not a black that could be compared to the dark and moonless heavens or the lustre of deep onyx. Just the dull, dusty black of iron, like the blade of a shovel, of a rough-hewn forge-hammer, of shackles before they are broken.

Boots, pants, tunic, sleeveless robe: all dark, all fine cambric to allow some freedom, although Varania had persuaded Hawke to allow for some embellishment on the high collar and the hems. Even the steel-grey sash had been a fight; Hawke had found her statement and was determined to stick to it, and it had been only Fenris's insistence that she wait to mortally offend the magisters until after Damia's party that had convinced her to permit the color's intrusion.

But Fenris shakes his head, clearing his mind of his sister and her busy needles, and as he surveys the room afresh he sees the two figures moving through the guests. It takes only her name under his breath and Hawke turns, smiling widely, to greet the men approaching her: the Arras brothers. Nius and Pol are as unlike as he remembers, the one gold and cheerful while the dark one remains quiet, but they are both in heavily-embroidered robes of lustrous ivory tonight and both smiling to see Hawke despite—or because of—her attire. They chat for a few minutes about nothing of consequence, and then Pol points her towards the back of the room where Damia is presumably standing. None of them looks once at Fenris.

Circuitously, Hawke begins to lead him in that direction, pausing here and there to speak to acquaintances and allies, more than even Fenris had suspected she'd managed. Damia's aid, he's sure, though he knows Hawke has been writing enough letters to paper Danarius's atrium—and yet there is sincerity in the eyes of the ones she speaks with, real affection in their voices when they take her hands, and Fenris wonders if Damia is the key after all.

Then Hawke's steps falter, just the slightest hitch in her stride, but it is enough to have Fenris quicken his pace to match hers. "There," she murmurs, and Fenris follows the cut of her eyes to a man by the eastern tables, a man in white and diamond-bright silver, his black hair pulled back in a neat braid down his back. "Magister Jaculus."

As if he has heard, his eyes slide to her face through the crowd. Dark eyes, pitiless eyes, predatory and cold —and fixed on Hawke like an arrow finds the heart of a beast. To her credit she holds her own, lifting her chin in level challenge, and after several tense seconds the magister raises his glass in polite acknowledgement. Hawke nods, silently, but when Jaculus turns again to the woman standing beside him Fenris sees her shudder in a sudden chill and he thinks that if they were not in the middle of a crowded room—but they are, and Fenris is only who and what he is, and if he cannot guard against her fear he can at least try to keep her safe.

"Magister," says a woman warmly, and Fenris and Hawke both swivel to see the lady Damia stepping towards them with outstretched arms, her grey hair piled on top of her head, her neck draped in ropes of pearls. She kisses Hawke on both cheeks, then holds her at arm's length. "Unconventional attire, but you Fereldans have always perplexed me. How are you?"

"I am well, Magister," Hawke says, smiling. "I was honored by your invitation."

"Nonsense, child, I'm glad to have you. Senator Perina, come meet the magister Hawke who's been writing you." The woman in the gold headdress approaches and Damia continues the polite show , but Fenris turns his attention elsewhere. More eyes are on them now, more magisters and nobles sizing up their newest prey, more slaves skirting the edges of their little clearing in the hopes of overhearing something of value for their masters. A stronger murmur breaks out at the entryway as someone arrives, but Fenris cannot see through the glittering throng and he has little enough interest, anyway, in such a relatively distant threat; he simply notes it and moves on.

Then Hawke says, "Fenris," and threading through her voice is all the cool, implicit command of a master speaking to a slave he knows to be wholly subject to his whims. A magister's voice.

Danarius's voice.

Fear zips down his spine like lightning, the primal terror of a cornered animal, but even as his mind blanks white his feet are already moving, already carrying him forward, every instinct in his body demanding he submit, that he surrender, screaming that despite ten years of flight and freedom and despite everything Hawke has been—is—to him, he has only ever been meant to follow at her heels like a dog.

He reaches her side, eyes low, knowing she is a magister of Minrathous and knowing at the same time she is Hawke—he bends his head obediently and for a moment, the voices are silent.

"Wine," she says in that same cool tone. He knows this, he tells himself desperately—they'd agreed on this, planned this signal together, wanted a chance to gather what information they could without attracting too much attention—but there is only thin dread coursing through his blood, freezing his fingers, telling him in no uncertain terms that his only refuge is servility.

He bows at the waist and murmurs, "As you command, magister."

Hawke's fingers twitch, suddenly, as if she wants to reach for him, but Fenris does not give her the chance. In a moment he is halfway across the room; in another he has weaved between a number of giggling young women in diamonds up the few steps to the shadowed side of one of the room's massive support pillars. There is no true privacy here, certainly not with the number of guests filling the room, but it is close enough for his needs. Fenris leans his head back against the cool stone and sucks down short, shallow breaths, only vaguely aware that his forearms are flickering with faint, sporadic light.

Just like that, he'd lost himself. Just like that—his name, two syllables, said in quiet command, and the last ten years had been gone. He is such a fool. He'd come here to free himself, to put to paper what he had already known to be real, a formality for a privilege he has already fought for and bled for and killed for. But now he sees the truth; now he knows:

He will never be free.

The tips of his gauntlets are digging into his palms. Fenris forces himself to relax, to ease aching joints and muscles not quite ready for the strain he has placed on them. His breathing steadies, slowly; his hammering heartbeat slows to something less desperate for battle. Then, when he feels he is in control of himself again—control, ha!—he steps sideways, out of his dim sanctuary, looking for the easiest path to the ballroom on the other side of the hall.

His gaze lands on Hawke instead.

She is staring straight at him, ignoring Damia and another young lady talking to her, at her, her eyes fixed on his as if there is nothing else in the room worth her attention. Her face had been closed before, her magister's mask cloaking off her eyes like shutters drawn around a candle. Now, though, the shutters are flung back, the light blazing, every trace of openness he'd ever accused her of cutting through the crowd like a shout. There is no name for her expression but agony.

The sight of it strengthens him as no words could, bolstering the things in him that she strengthened once before, the parts that say even now Fenris is a free man and you are not alone and I am in love with you. His screaming instincts recede, then vanish altogether; his fear withers like an uprooted vine. Hawke loves him. He is not afraid. Hawke loves him.

He loves her. That is freedom enough.

Fenris draws in a breath and feels something in his chest loosen; the next one comes easier, and easier still the one after that, and when Hawke takes a half-step towards him he is anchored enough in himself to shake his head no. She stops; he shakes his head again, firmly; she lowers her eyes and yields. Then she turns back to Damia and the young woman, the one black mark in the sea of gold and silver, and she is swallowed whole by the gleaming host.

There: a break at the edge of the throng. Fenris moves around it swiftly and with purpose, ignoring the curious looks and occasional outstretched hand as he moves towards the ballroom. More guests in there—more magisters, more movement and shadows in which even he might avoid notice. Jaculus is here; perhaps Priscus is too, and there is still the matter of that curious flurry of activity he'd noticed earlier—

A hand wraps around his wrist.

It takes everything he has not to turn and tear the offender's heart from his chest. All the muscles of his arms and chest go rigid in sudden effort and he bites down hard on the tip of his tongue, trying desperately to keep the lyrium in his arms from igniting, and that is enough time for the owner of the hand to step forward and peer worriedly into his face.

"Fenris?" says Feynriel.

Pale Feynriel, dreaming boy, light, nervous eyes above his watery grey robes—and wholly unaware of how close he has come to death. Fenris unlocks his jaw enough to say, "Yes?"

"I was looking for—are you sure you're all right?"

Better than you nearly were, Fenris wants to say, but suppresses the urge along with his irritation as he frees his wrist from Feynriel's fingers. "Is there something you need?"

"Yes! I was going to tell Hawke, but I'll tell you." He leans closer in confidence. "I just saw the magister Jaculus and Senator Priscus step into a side room off the great hall. There were other magisters with them. It looked…" he pauses, flustered, and searches for the word. "Secretive?"

Fenris straightens. "When did this happen?"

"Now? I mean, just a minute ago. That room over there—ack!"

Fenris does not loosen his grip on the high, embroidered collar or flinch away from the human's startled face. "Tell Hawke," he says, his voice low. "And tell her I am handling it. Do not let her near that room on pain of your immediate and personal suffering. Do you understand?"

"Yes—ah. Yes, Fenris."

Feynriel staggers back with poorly-concealed relief when Fenris releases his collar, but Fenris pays him little attention. His mind is already two rooms away. "Good," he murmurs. "Show me to the slave corridors."

"You said…wouldn't…promised me!"

Fenris edges closer in the darkness of the narrow, unlit corridor, all his weight forward on his bare toes as he nears the bright outline of the meeting room's closed door. The voices are not loud inside but the walls are thinner, here, the expense of quality spared where no magister's eyes would ever fall, and by the time his shoulder brushes the door he can hear the hushed conversation clearly.

"That was before I knew you were incompetent!"

An insulted gasp. "You…how dare you!" A high tenor, higher with affront: Priscus's voice, familiar as an old tune despite the fact that Fenris has not heard it in years. "I acted on your advice—I did exactly what you suggested!"

"If you'd done that then the slave wouldn't be alive, now, would he?" A woman this time, dripping with scorn.

A staff's end cracks hard on the stone floor. "Calla, enough. The senator is aware of his…shortcomings."

"Jaculus, I—"

"Be quiet, Priscus."

"I only followed your instructions! I went to the River Presid just as you said, gave Jamis the money—he said it would be simple! You said—"

Priscus's voice cuts off midword with a sickening gurgle and a thump, as if a forearm has suddenly slammed against his throat. Then Jaculus says, very softly, "I told you, Senator, to be quiet."

A tense, pregnant silence hangs over the room for several seconds before Fenris hears Priscus's feet drop to the floor again. There is a slight knothole in the door near the hinges on the opposite side, the light spilling through it from the room brighter and warm; Fenris holds his breath and moves silently across the width of the door, dropping his head until he is level with the gap. It isn't large by any means, half the room still obscured by hinge and white-painted wood, but he can make out five figures clustered close near the opposite wall, all of them in the bright gilt of nobility. Jaculus is there, and slender Priscus slouched against the wall, looking furious, and a woman with lilies in her hair who must be Calla—and beside them another woman, elderly, and a older man with a staff that Fenris recognizes as the magister Macrinus, a once-great duelist who'd retired after losing an eye to Jaculus in a friendly match.

Then Macrinus speaks, and his deep, stentorian tones seem to rumble the floorboards under Fenris's feet. "Enough. Does the plan move forward or not?"

Jaculus turns towards him, though his gaze stays on Priscus. "Yes. My men are nearly ready. We will move within the week."

"And the ships?"

"Hidden at Carastes. A longer voyage, but the harbors of Minrathous have too many…inconstant tides."

"Loose lips sink ships, as the saying goes," says the elderly woman, stepping forward for the first time. Her hair is white and her skin twice as dark as Isabela's and heavily lined, but her eyes are clear and her hand around her staff does not waver. She continues, "I warned against this meeting for the same reason. End this discussion before you jeopardize everything we have worked for."

"Imperator, you over-worry," Jaculus says, his hands open and placating, and Fenris cannot stop his indrawn breath. Imperator—she is Petra, one of the Archon's most favored advisors, the woman who had once led more than a dozen assaults into the humid jungles of Seheron. If she is here—

"My worry has kept me alive many times," she says severely. "Your arrogance will kill you faster even than the vipers of Alam if you do not check it."

"We break no laws in this consult. If our methods have been private to this point it is only due to discretion, not fear of reprisal. If the people discovered our goal they would rise up and cheer!"

"They would riot, Magister. You underestimate the desire of the majority for peace."

"For stagnation," says the senator named Calla, her voice dripping with scorn. "Look at how they've flocked to our newest little bird."

"Hawke is not a threat." Macrinus, now, rolling his one eye in disgust. "Neither is her pet. She has not once attended a judicial session."

Fenris's stomach lurches in alarm, but Petra is already curling her lip in disgust. "Are you all so short-sighted? The girl has been here less than three months and already her name is on every magister's lips, her voice emerging from the throats of our senators. Not all revolts are led by sword and steel, collegas, regardless of the Chantry's doctrine—or do you forget that before Andraste brought down on us the strength of her barbarian armies that she first sang as a slave in the fields?"

"Come, Imperator. Hawke is no Andraste, and the weak-minded magisters who listen to her are certainly no Maker—save in the similarity that neither shows any power of worth in this city."

"Do not interrupt me," snaps Petra, hard as ice and as cold. Calla falls back with her cheeks coloring in humiliation and anger. "Even the greatest blazes start with one spark. If you do not check the woman now she will soon be too powerful to touch. Her number of friends grows every day she is in this city. They listen to her, and they will listen to her even when she commands them against you."

Jaculus tightens his grip on his staff, his knuckles whitening to the color of his robes. "She is not the only one with friends, Imperator. Our support will not erode so easily as you suggest."

"No? Then tell me, Magister, of the latest news of her household. Tell me what your spies have discovered."

Jaculus jerks his head away, silent in fury, and Petra turns her piercing stare on Priscus. "And you?" she asks. "Your little elf girl who was so fanatically devoted to you?" But Priscus only shakes his head so that his light brown hair falls into his eyes, his beardless chin tense with irritation, and Petra's tone turns mocking. "Nothing? A pity. You cannot keep the loyalty of one slave against her and you still presume that she will falter at your majesty."

They say nothing and Petra stalks to the door, her staff beating like a knell on the stone. "Be prepared to move against Alam within the week," she says then, as commanding as if they are nothing more than her lowest infantry, "or consider your ties to my allegiance forfeit. This meeting is concluded."

One by one they move towards the door after her like the bewildered survivors of a storm, faces discolored with fear and fury. Jaculus is the last out; he takes one final glance around the room, as if only realizing now its relative exposure, but Fenris is already gone.

Finding Hawke in the crowd is easy enough: all Fenris has to do is follow the trail of disgruntled magisters. A few of them even throw longing glances his way, but he hears one woman whisper to her companion no, don't touch, you heard what she said she'd do if we go near him, and as twisted as it is Fenris cannot stop the curl of affection winding around his heart. Hawke, you fool.

Suddenly, her voice drifts over the crowd to his left. "I beg your pardon, sers," she is saying, sounding absolutely wracked with guilt, "but I regret that I have need of my slave. The one you are, ah. Holding between you."

"Your slave? I thought—"

"We only wanted to have a little fun—"

"I'm sure, gentlemen. Thank you all the same. Excuse us—" and then Hawke herself is pushing through the cluster of jewels and lace and giggling ahead of him, her hand wrapped firmly around the wrist of an elf girl sniffing back tears. Fenris does not miss the way her shoulders slump in relief when she sees him, though she manages to keep her mask in place long enough for the three of them to gain the raised outer edges of the hall and a bit of relative privacy between two increasingly intoxicated groups of senators.

"Are you all right?" Hawke asks the slave, who nods and wipes her eyes firmly. "Good. Try to stay out of their sight, if you can—I'll keep an eye out as long as I'm here."

"Yes, Magister," the girl whispers, sliding with a grateful smile back into the crowd.

Fenris shakes his head. "Even here you collect the lost."

Hawke sniffs, turning away from him to lean against the curve of the support pillar beside her as she surveys the room. "If I don't, who will?"

Instead of answering, Fenris steps closer behind her, a slave bending his head to impart a secret to his mistress. Her back just barely brushes against his breastplate, but he can feel her sharp inhale when he brings his mouth close enough to skim her ear. "I have news," he murmurs.

"Is that—so?"

"So," he agrees, watching with interest as gooseflesh raises down her neck.

"Tease later," Hawke says tightly, her eyes half-closed in concentration. "News now."

He laughs, but the memory of what he has to impart sobers him. It takes little time to tell her what had occurred in the hidden conference, of Jaculus and Priscus and the impending siege, and by the time he has finished Hawke's smile has vanished as well.

"Then we'll have to move up the next stage," Hawke says. "Tonight."

Fenris nods, an unpleasant bolt of apprehension spearing through him at the thought. But Hawke is right; they have no choice. "Are you ready?"

"At least I'm dressed for it. We'll get Varric on this Jamis and the River Presid—with that much information he'll have the first words of the man's childhood sweetheart by dawn. What do you think of Petra?"

"Powerful, but a reluctant conspirator. More interested in waging the war than in its political effects."

"Should I still go for Jaculus, then?"

"Yes," Fenris says, certain. "He is the linchpin. The others depend on him for leadership; Petra needs him to guide the Senate towards war. She is too close to the Archon to tether herself to this plan openly."

"All right. Let's go hunt ourselves a magister."

They start down the few stairs towards the brilliant, laughing guests, but it seems they are too late; the magister Jaculus stands near the center of the room, the shining white eye of the glistering storm, slender Priscus behind him, both of them looking directly at Hawke. Jaculus raises the hand that does not hold his staff and, smiling, beckons her forward. His mouth shapes the word, "Come."

"Ohhh," says Hawke under her breath. "This is going to be bad."

Fenris cannot disagree. Each step forward seems to bring them closer and closer to some terrible doom, the air growing heavier and charged until the hair on his arms stands on end. It is the breath before the swollen clouds burst with lightning, a bone bent just to the point before breaking, the last sheer inch of cliff between safety and the spired rocks below.

They reach the magister and his senator in the center of the hall, Fenris drawing a hair too close to Hawke's shoulder for propriety's sake. Jaculus smiles again, his teeth white, and lifts Hawke's fingers to his lips. "My lady Hawke," he says. "I am so pleased to see you here."

"Damia was kind enough to invite me," Hawke tells him as she draws her hand away. "I owe her more than gratitude for her generosity."

"The Lady Damia is generous indeed," he says, "and if rumors tell, with more than just her time." Hawke almost frowns at that, but Jaculus continues smoothly before she can speak. "And how are you finding your new toy? That lovely girl from the other day?"

"More than adequate for my needs," Hawke answers with a thin smile. Fenris supposes that is better than the truth, anyway, which is fashioning children's dolls from rags and walking the grounds with Cato.

"Perhaps I could borrow her some time. It seems a shame to let her go to waste."

"I appreciate your interest, Magister, but you must understand that this is all so new to me. I find myself quite…possessive of those under my care."

"Possessive?" Jaculus asks, his eyes sliding pointedly to Fenris behind her. Priscus shifts his weight, uneasy, and edges back towards the crowd. "Or protective?"

A trap, Hawke! But she does not look back to him, does not see his warning, and says only, "I fail to discern the difference."

Jaculus snaps his fingers, his broad smile returning. "Yes!" he says with evident pleasure. "That is the word I have been searching for. The problem of you, so to speak. You have no discernment."

Hawke draws herself up in affront. "I thank you for your assessment, Magister," she says icily, "but if you have quite finished—"

"I have not," Jaculus says, his voice quiet and hard. The smile is gone from his face and all Fenris can see is those eyes, pitiless, implacable, reflecting no light. "You pretend to nobility, but you are little more than a farmer's daughter, born to live in mud; you pretend to kindness only as a fragile, transparent mask to gain power; you pretend to have the strength of our magic the way a bitch in heat begs to be mounted, desperately and without shame."

Hawke goes white with insult and fury, her fists clenched at her sides and trembling. Fenris draws closer to her without meaning to, his lips curled in hatred, but Jaculus only looks down at them both in disgust. "You have no idea—" Hawke begins, nearly spitting, but Jaculus cuts her off.

"You think I have not seen you before?" he asks, low and smooth and cool with impersonal disdain. "You think I have not watched you and your kind win your little victories over the years and pretend them triumphs? I have watched a hundred of you stumble into power, blind and helpless as sheep, caught up in lofty ideals and empty promises as unkind in the end to your chattel as to yourself. I have watched a thousand more pollute the Argent Spire with your foreign blood and your foreign minds and your foreign tongues, leeching from us our knowledge and our history and our strength until you are gorged and fat, then turning to shriek into the night of injustice and dishonor. Oh, yes," Jaculus hisses, moving closer, "I know you. And I know too that like all the others, you will drown just as easily in our waters. Only ripples will remain, and soon enough even those will vanish, and Minrathous will be safe from your repulsive taint once more."

His face is hard with contempt; Hawke's burns with anger. She opens her mouth, finds no words for her rage, closes it again, shaking with emotion. Jaculus gives her no other opportunity to speak.

"Go home to your little cesspit, Euphemia Hawke," he murmurs. "Go wallow in your filthy city and be grateful you were permitted here this long."

"You go too far," Hawke snarls, her mask gone, vanished, shattered into a hundred pieces, her staff coming up even as Fenris surges forward, the lyrium blazing up his arms and throat, the crowd forgotten, Damia forgotten, everything lost but the driving need to tear out this man's throat—

Jaculus smiles. "And now you mean to share your treasures?" And before Fenris knows what has happened, the magister has tipped his staff forward until the ash-white tip rests over Fenris's heart.

The lyrium ignites.

He'd forgotten. Ten years on the run and Hawke's gentle touch and he'd forgotten the hellish agony of magic forcing its way under his skin. His veins flood with broken glass, fiery thorns scraping across his bones until they are torn raw and he is screaming, he knows he is, but every inch of his skin is being shredded apart under this torture and it hurts—

—And the pain stops, just like that, to leave him twitching in the aftershocks, gasping, broken, staring sightlessly up at Damia's painted ceiling. The world is muffled around him, all sound deadened as if he is underwater, though he can hear a man laughing and a woman shouting in rage—a woman—

—Hawke.

The fog clears.

"How dare you," she hisses in a room suddenly gone silent, as wild with fury as Fenris has ever heard her. "How dare you touch him—"

"My, my, my, such jealous anger. I don't mean to abuse your ignorance, but it's well known Danarius had him in his day, thoroughly and often—"

A sudden cracking noise splits the air and a hundred throats gasp. Fenris rolls to his side, pushing back the pain, pushing desperately at the floor, frantic to get up and get to Hawke—

But before he can rise, a thousand whitewood splinters scatter across the stone at his knees.

Fenris looks up. Hawke has her back to him, her whole body shielding him from Jaculus's malevolence, her staff held across her chest in both protection and open threat—but her other hand is outstretched, still potent with electric light, fisted around the place where Jaculus's ash staff used to be. She is more than a woman, here, with the lightning streaking down her hair and the slope of her cheek, kindling the metal trim of her robes into a blaze, closer to Toth made mortal than any creature of earth chained to human desires and despairs. They are like two sides of a mirror, Fenris thinks hazily, with Jaculus in glittering white and Hawke in her dull black, but their faces are twisted in the same rage, the same intent focus, the same wholly-consuming fire of anger.

She says, low and deadly, "You will not touch him again."

Jaculus closes his hands around nothing, his face open with disbelief and black anger—and then, before Fenris can even think of standing he has drawn back and struck Hawke across the face with all his strength.

Hawke staggers back, her head whipped around by the force of the blow, her lower lip split open, and for a moment her eyes meet Fenris's before she straightens again. The crowd lets out a protesting murmur but not one of them lifts a hand to either help or interfere; this is a personal battle between magisters, private even in public, and they will not—

Someone is moving through the crowd.

Fenris hears it before he sees it, the buzz of alarmed voices and scattering feet, of fabric shifting in hurried movement; then he sees the shift of bodies at the edge of the crowd like glittering insects in a jar that has just been shaken violently, scurrying away from the too-brilliant light in their midst.

The Archon steps forward from Damia's guests.

The Imperial Archon.

Hawke says very, very quietly, "Fuck."

Fenris does not move. Throughout the hall heads are bowing, magisters going to their knees, slaves falling prostrate as the Archon of the Tevinter Imperium moves calmly and without haste to the storm's eye. He looks so much the same, Fenris realizes, his mind latching crazily onto the memory of the last time he'd seen Archon Nomaran at one of Danarius's galas: the same long, straight grey hair, the same hooked nose under piercing green eyes, the same Tevinter sun emblazoned on the back of his scarlet robes. Nomaran always had liked scarlet—

Jaculus has bowed at the waist, his braid slipping over one shoulder, Priscus vanished into the crowd; Fenris has not risen from his knees. Hawke lowers her head but not her gaze, her lip still bleeding, her eyes guarded as she watches the mage-lord of the Imperium approach with his staff clacking on the stone. Then the Archon stops before her, and Fenris's heart stops with him.

He says, mildly, "Magister Hawke."

"Archon," Hawke says, her voice even, but she does drop into a full bow before straightening again. "I hope you are passing a pleasant evening."

"More pleasant than yours, I see," he replies, and before either Fenris or Hawke can move he has reached out to wipe Hawke's blood from her lip.

The crowd lets out a murmur and Hawke flinches back, but the Archon only lifts a silver eyebrow and wipes his thumb on his leather belt. Hawke sucks in a breath, her hand tightening on her staff, and says, "I suppose the current situation might appear—less than amicable—from a certain point of view."

Nomaran laughs. This time Fenris flinches—danger, run, danger, get out, take Hawke and flee!—but there is no flight, here, no escape, no hope for anything but mercy from the merciless.

"Then do tell me, Magister Hawke," Nomaran says, "your point of view."

Jaculus stiffens, opening his mouth, but the Archon holds up a warning hand and he settles for glaring murderously at Hawke. She raises her eyebrows. "Nothing more than a disagreement between peers, Archon," Hawke says. "Magister Jaculus was expressing his…displeasure at my use of my predecessor's possessions."

The Archon turns to Jaculus. Fenris can see Damia in the grave-silent crowd flanked by the Arras brothers, but they are mute, openmouthed, as helpless as he. Jaculus lifts his chin. "It is as the magister says," he says, and to his credit there is none of his hatred in his voice. "A disagreement."

"How fortunate. You know how little I enjoy strife between my magisters." Nomaran smiles and the glittering throng relaxes—but there is steel behind that smile, and ice, and Fenris knows this is far from over. "And yet," the Archon murmurs suddenly, and the murmuring goes out like a snuffed candle. "And yet there is blood on your lip, Magister, and your slave injured on the floor. And you say…only a disagreement?"

Hawke seems to sense the danger and straightens her spine, stepping forward so that her boots crunch over the splinters of wood still decorating the flagstones. Nothing to do now but face it, no way to go but forward now that the Archon has as good as called her a liar. Fenris's back is heavy with the weight of all the eyes on him.

"You are right," she says, and her voice carries over the breathless throng like a winging bird. "It was not only a disagreement. I wished to make peace because I am a guest in this house, and because I am a guest in your country, but if I may not have peace, Archon, I would ask instead for satisfaction."

"Enlighten me, Magister," Nomaran says. His eyes are riveted to her face.

"The magister Jaculus did me grave insult here. He wounded me and mine out of anger and without cause," Hawke says, swinging out an arm to encompass Fenris, the shattered staff, and Lady Damia. "He did harm to people under my protection and by extension to me, and in the presence of these magisters and of these senators, I would call on you, Archon, as witness."

The Imperial Archon smiles, the flash of amusement across his face as quick as a viper and as cruel. He says, "I will witness."

Hawke inclines her head and turns to the magister still half-bent behind her. "Then, in accordance with Imperial law and custom, according to the rights granted me by my father's citizenship and my own citizenship, I hereby issue an open challenge to you, Jaculus, magister, for the offenses you committed against me. I demand you meet me in single combat or, if you will not, yield to me now and name me victor by right of renunciation." She offers him a thin, humorless smile. "So witnessed, Archon?"

His voice is rich with pleasure. "So witnessed."

Jaculus's head swings from the Archon to Hawke and back again like a weathervane in an indifferent wind, but there is nothing in their faces but quiet patience, quiet expectation; nothing from the crowds around him but silence. He opens his mouth, closes it, then says in an empty echo, helplessly, "I will not yield."

"You accept, then."

"I—accept."

"So witnessed," Nomaran says again, spreading his arms wide to the gathered guests, and their own whispers of so witnessed hiss back like the tongues of a thousand snakes. "I will leave the details to you, Magisters, but I thank you both for a most…unusual evening. Magister Jaculus, my friend—" Jaculus bows, still stunned, and the Archon turns to Hawke, lifting her hand to kiss it, "—and the newest member of our assembly, already showing herself equal to even its most senior members. Magister Hawke."

The Archon releases her hand as she bows and for a moment Fenris thinks that is it, that they've made it through—and then the Archon slides his gaze to him where he kneels on the floor, that same cool smile curving his lips. He says, "Fenris. I am pleased to see you have returned to our City of a Thousand Spires."

Fenris's jaw is already tense with fear; at that it tightens into anger, and he lowers his eyes before Nomaran sees the hatred in them. His mind is blank with rage and terror and lingering pain, his tongue dry and wordless—but the Archon seems to expect that, to be pleased with it, and with the quiet swish of his scarlet robes he disappears, once more, into the crowd.

There is silence a moment more. Then the place erupts, shouting and questions and women swooning and Jaculus snapping something in his face before Petra drags him off—and Hawke, Hawke's hands on his arms, Hawke's voice in his ear thanking Damia for her most enchanting hospitality but they really must be going and would she be so kind as to see them to the door? Then more voices, more hands, a crushing pressure in his chest; and at last night air and grass under his toes. The world is as piecemeal as it had been the night he'd fought for Palla in the Grand Way, coming in flashes of light and sensation that lift him, only momentarily, out of the welcome blackness.

In the dark he can see his lyrium is still flickering.

Then they are in the carriage, Hawke's hand slapping against wood, snapping out, "Home!"

Fenris drops his head into his hands and tries to breathe.

"Oh, my Maker. My hands won't stop shaking." Hawke swivels on her heel, lacing her trembling fingers together as she makes another pass across the bedroom. "The Archon. The fuck—the fucking Imperial Archon and I—oh, blessed Andraste. Maker help me. Maker help me."

Fenris says nothing from where he sits on the side of the bed. The lyrium in his arms has stilled to dormancy again and he is in less pain, now, but his face is immobile and blank, made more rigid in the light of Hawke's sudden inability to be still.

She turns for another pass, her swollen lip already discoloring. "And he punched me! Maker, I haven't been suckerpunched like that in—years, since Carver—the Archon witnessed for me. The Maker-damned Imperial Archon was my witness—I did not see that coming—"

She reaches the fireplace and swivels on her heel. "And you!" she says to Fenris on the bed, her eyes wild, her voice shaking. "Going after the meeting like that and telling Feynriel of all people to keep me away, scaring me half to death with that—blank—faced—thing, then going off and dying—almost dying—all over again. My heart is going to burst out of my chest. This hurts—"

"Hawke."

She stumbles to a stop, wide-eyed, as Fenris rises from the bed. It takes him two steps to reach her, another to cup her jaw in both his hands. He says, "Be still."

"I can't."

His mouth twists; he pulls the sash from her waist and the over-robe from her shoulders, then pushes her to the bed. "Sit down. Take off your boots."

She does, though it takes three tries to get the buckles undone, and rids herself of her pants for good measure. Then, clothed only in her long-sleeved undertunic, she flops back onto the bed and covers her face with both hands. "The Archon was at Damia's party," she says muffled through her fingers. "I hope that little slave girl made it out all right. The Archon saw me shatter that staff—I am going to die waist-deep in my own shit. Fuck!"

"Hawke," Fenris says again as the bed shifts under his weight, and she drags her fingers down her face to find him kneeling on the coverlet beside her in nothing but his leggings.

"Yes?"

"Stop talking."

"Okay," she breathes, and slides her hands back over her eyes. His fingers ghost over her bare knee, her thigh where the hem of the tunic hits, her waist, her shoulder—and then they go lightly to her cheek and rest there, and a moment later his mouth slants over hers in a gentle kiss. She does not try to deepen it and it does not turn heated, and when Fenris draws back she does not chase him.

Then he says, "Look at me."

Hawke lets her hands fall to either side of her head as she meets his eyes. Fenris kisses her again, holding her gaze until she tears up, reminding her with his touch that they are alive, that they have survived despite the Archon's presence, despite Jaculus's treachery, despite even themselves.

He pulls back. His finger glides over her bruised cheek. Then he bends forward, over her, and buries his face in her neck, drawing in a breath against her skin that sounds less like a breath and more like the ragged gasp of a man who has come too close to drowning.

"Touch me," Fenris whispers.

She does.

Chapter Text

Blind fools of fate and slaves of circumstance,
Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.
From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Free-will
I heard a voice cry: "Say, give us a chance."

Chance! Oh, there is no chance! The scene is set.
Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette,
Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires.
They've got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!

--Quatrains, Robert Service

Dear Hawke,

I hope things are going well in Minrathous. We haven't heard much here, but what has made it through makes me wonder if you're lighting up the city with your sparkling wit or with actual fire. Please don't get yourself arrested. I don't think they're quite as careful with their prisoners as we are.

I got your letter about incoming parcels. It wasn't easy, but I pulled a few strings and you have approval to bring in any packages willing to come under the code of asylum. Just give us some warning so we can bring the appropriate papers to the docks. But I'm warning you: if you liberate the whole damn country and bring them all to Kirkwall, I'll liberate your head from your shoulders.

And as to your questions about Kirkwall: when I wrote to you last, I told you everything was fine and not to worry. I wish I could say the same thing now. There's nothing real, nothing I can put my hands on, but the city's getting tense without you. Meredith and Orsino are at each other's throats more often than not. Last week Orsino was going on about templars and magic in the middle of the square in Hightown when Meredith showed up and the two of them just about burned the square down shouting at each other. It took the Grand Cleric herself to defuse the situation. Can't say I've ever seen Meredith called a "good girl" like that, though. Wish you'd been here to see it. You'd have laughed hard enough to split a seam.

Donnic sends his love. Tell Fenris and Varric and Isabela hello for me. And Isabela.

Aveline

The straw dummy goes up in a flash of flame and smoke.

Hawke settles back on her heels as bits of straw and rope float down to the grass, still smoldering and ember-red at the edges. She's thankful in a way that she has so few near neighbors here—in Kirkwall, they'd have called the guard on her for the racket hours ago—but at the same time if she were in Kirkwall, she wouldn't be practicing for a potentially-fatal duel against a magister either.

"Not bad," Varric offers from his bench by the hedge. "If he comes out in hay armor, I'd say you've got it made."

Hawke snorts as Lydas pulls down the charred dummy and replaces it with a fresh one. "If you'd like to volunteer as target, I have absolutely no objections."

"No, no, I'm good here. But I'm sure Lydas wouldn't mind, would you?"

Lydas throws Varric an obscene gesture from behind the dummy stand, then makes his last few adjustments before jogging back behind Hawke. She checks to make sure both he and Varric are clear; then she closes her eyes, counts to four, and a lightning bolt leaps from the cloudless sky to incinerate the grass six inches left of the straw man.

Hawke opens one eye. "I meant to do that."

"Naturally. One day from a duel with a very powerful magister who also happens to be spearheading his own little invasion, and you're missing on purpose."

Hawke grimaces and clenches her fist. The dummy explodes in flame.

"Subtle."

"Oh, shut up." She stalks over and drops heavily to the bench beside Varric, burying her head in her hands as Lydas dutifully extinguishes the fire and starts to knock bits of charred, smoking straw to the grass. Effigy number five—and she still feels no better about this duel. Hawke drags her fingers down her face, staring at Lydas; then she says, "I wish I was less afraid of this fight."

Varric closes his little black ledger with a snap. "Afraid? Pfft. You've got this one in the bag, Hawke."

"It's just so different. Even from the Arishok. When that happened, I had about thirty seconds' warning—no time to get nervous, or to overthink things, or…I don't know." She sighs and covers her eyes again. "I don't like having so much time. I feel like I'm thinking so hard about this I'm defeating myself before I even get to the arena."

"Because you are. Hawke, you kill more bad guys in a year than I can put in my novels. Readers just won't believe it. This one's no different just because he speaks a different language."

Ara's head appears in an upper window, calling down to Lydas about some china platter; a moment later, the blonde heads of the young brother and sister flash by behind her, laughing. Lydas makes several sharp, quick gestures in answer and Ara disappears again with a noise of annoyance. Hawke says, "What if I lose?"

He snorts. "So what if you lose? You know the terms; you were there when we signed the contracts. This is a pride match only—all you have to do is knock the guy out. The only way property changes hands is if someone dies. Which won't happen."

"Which shouldn't happen."

"Which won't happen. Maker, Hawke, what's gotten into you? Why so maudlin?"

She leans back on her hands and stares up into the cloudless sky. Bluer than Kirkwall, bluer even than Ferelden and she is tired of it, tired of the oppressive heat, tired of blood and two faces and the heavy weight of iron chains. "Oh…I don't know. Thinking of Kirkwall, I guess. Thinking of going home and leaving this place at last. Thinking of what'll happen to this place after we go." She hesitates. This is not a fear she can express to Fenris, not a sentiment she would ever voice aloud in his hearing—if he knew she carried this doubt he would have them both out of the city by nightfall. But Fenris is not here and Varric is, and of all her friends he is perhaps the one she trusts to give the most honest answer. "Varric, what if he kills me?"

He pauses a moment, then tells her, "We'll have a very elegant funeral with lots of choked-up singing and slender white candles. And you laid out very lovely on a bier. And then we'll hunt down the bastard and gut him."

"Huh. That actually makes me feel a bit better."

"Good. Now stop whining about dying and finish up. I have some notes to finish up from that interview I had with Priscus's assassin and no time to waste bucking up the stalwart Champion."

"Oh, thanks," she mutters. Varric grins and pushes up from the bench, dusting off his coat; Hawke watches with a sigh and adds, "At least he talked, I guess."

"Like I said: a judicious application of silver. But—I will say this, Hawke," and he turns to look at her, his eyes uncharacteristically serious, "I won't be sorry to get away from this city. There are too many secrets here, even for me, and nothing here is dwarf-sized."

She tries for a smile; it falters, then fades, and Hawke settles for touching his shoulder instead. "I'm glad you're here, Varric."

His rueful grin is stronger. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Hawke," he tells her, and then he heads for the house with a wave.

Hawke watches him until he disappears into the shadow of the doorway, Lydas following at his heels with a coil of unused rope slung over one shoulder. The last intact dummy perches on his wooden post, his blank, eyeless face staring at her in something like accusation. "Stop staring," she tells the straw head. "What, you've never seen a little crisis of courage before?"

Predictably, it says nothing. Hawke rolls her eyes and continues. "Oh, sure, judge me if you like. At least I've got feet."

Silence.

"What's the matter? Twine got your tongue? Get one of those horses out here to nibble on your face and then you'd talk, I bet."

A breeze picks up, just enough to tip the dummy's head an inch sideways on its neck, giving it an aspect of curious inquisition, and Hawke looks away. It would be so much easier if she simply knew she was doing the right thing here in this city, placing as she is all her hopes—and all the hopes of the people under her protection—squarely on her shoulders alone. Just one fight, just one—but when the price of her failure is invasion, unchecked war, and the death of thousands of innocents, she cannot bring herself to take it so lightly. Disgrace she can handle, has handled before, and will again; wholesale slaughter is another thing entirely. Even if they don't know it, the people of Alam are counting on her. Fenris is counting on her. And all she can do is her best.

But she's seen already that her best is not always good enough.

Her mother's face flashes through her mind, and her father's, and Bethany's, her history littered with her dead. It feels as though she has been trying to scale the twisting stairways of one of Minrathous's towering spires for untold days, one foot dragging after another, exhausting, despairing, with no idea how far she has come and no hint of how much she has left to go. Worse, she does not know what she is climbing towards, whether her journey's end will see her sunlit and triumphant or simply falling from that untold height to her death, the outstretched hand driving her there belonging to a man with war in his eyes.

Her fingers are trembling. Hawke knots them together in her lap, cursing under her breath. She is the Champion of Kirkwall, for the name of the Maker; at this point surely she should be beyond uncertainty and anxiety and needling fear. But—she is human and she isn't, and she wants—she wants—

She wants her father to pat her head and tell her everything will be all right.

Hawke shoves the thought away as soon as it appears. She might allow herself doubt on very special, rare occasions, but she will not tolerate useless, painful dreams of hopeless impossibilities. Her father is not here. She has Varric instead, Varric and Isabela and Fenris all beside her, all believing in her. She can't let them down. She won't.

Hawke lowers her head into her hands again, closing her eyes against the hot sunlight spilling over her back and arms. She doesn't do this often—not instinctively, anyway—but now seems as good a time as any to see if she still has even a fraction of the Maker's attention, and before she can stop herself she takes a breath and begins to pray. It doesn't last long and it is far from eloquent, mostly half-whispers for Fenris's safety, and for her household's safety, and for everyone who has dared to lift their voice in her support; when she thinks of it she adds her friends still in Kirkwall, and smooth seas to sail home by more for Varric's sake than anyone else's. She does not ask for her own safety. She thinks only, I do not want to leave Fenris alone, and hopes the Maker understands.

Still, when she is finished she feels a little less worried and, somehow, a little closer to Bethany. "Still miss you, sister," Hawke adds on softly, hoping that if the Maker does not hear at least Andraste will be able to pass the message along. Then, enough—she pushes decisively to her feet and beats the last bit of drifting ash from her shoulders. No more wallowing—no more fretting in indecision. She knows what she has to do; she has only to do it.

Hawke marches towards the house, giving the straw dummy a hearty slap on the back as she passes it. Its head wobbles just a bit, but manages to stay upright. "Good for you," she tells it. "Carry on."

She thinks it might be smiling.

To the magister Jaculus:

I realize that the sanctions exist, but as I stated in my first letter, I am willing to take the responsibility for both your part and mine if you will consider my proposal. This conflict is unnecessary, and I would spare both of us the pain and inconvenience of a duel if it were avoidable. I have one goal left in this city, one purpose, and whether I must shed blood or only coin to achieve it matters very little to me. There must be a compromise possible that will please us both!

Please. Consider my offer. There is still time to call off the invasion of Alam.

Magister Euphemia Hawke

It is strange, Fenris thinks, how little and how much at once has changed since he was here last. The flowers and herbs are different from the ones he remembers but the gardens are still the same; the stone of the mansion is lighter in places, or darker, but it is still the same stone. He need only half-close his eyes in the clear morning light and the two elves ahead of him on the other side of the fountain are Danarius and Hadriana, sneering in place of those soft smiles, their fingers crooked in imperious command instead of gently linked together at their sides.

Startled, they both rise as he comes around the fountain, and Fenris recognizes the defiant young man and the dark-skinned woman from Hawke's accidental venture to the slave markets. The woman bows before he can speak. "Are we needed at the house, Master?" she asks, her voice surprisingly low-pitched.

His grip tightens on the long iron bar in his hand, but he forces his face to calmness. "No," he says, and then because he cannot help it, adds, "I am not your master."

The woman hesitates, glancing at her partner; his brows draw down and he opens his mouth, but Fenris has little patience for explanations at the moment and none at all for slaves careless enough to fall in love, and he cuts them off with a raised hand. "Never mind," he says tersely, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that whispers of his own hypocrisy. "I am only passing by."

The woman bows again, uncertain, but Fenris has already turned away. He has his own destination today, his own shades to exorcise, and he will not allow his dwindling hours in this city to keep him from his revenge. He has waited too long for it.

It doesn't take him long to reach the small, square building at the end of the eastern wing, and after only a brief pause he slips inside. This room, at least, is unchanged. The granite slab at the far end is still solid as a grave; the shallow, rectangular pool still dazzles with the sunlight falling down from the open roof; the map of laid-silver and slate under the water shines almost as bright as the lyrium in his skin. He swallows, refirming his grip on the iron. No Hawke to anchor him, now, no strong hand to keep him clear on what is real and what is only the spectre of memory.

That she has been here at all is a truth he can barely comprehend.

Fenris steps further in, letting the door swing closed behind him to seal the room in a dim, cool half-twilight, the shadows broken only where the sun falls in a straight white shaft into the pool. The water nearly glows beneath it, haloed so brightly that it hurts to look at it directly—but he is not here for that anyway, and his toes press silently against the shade-chilled stone as he heads for the back of the room.

There are no words for how eager he is to be done with Minrathous. It is not just the soul-burning hate he feels, either, when he sees a slave cowering at the feet of a magister or an elf girl with hollow eyes and too many scars on her wrists or Damia's indulgent sighs at Hawke's refusal to be part of either. Nor it is the fact that he himself is sickened the longer he is here—he knows he has been harsher, lately, with Hawke and with the others, quicker to loose his ever-present anger at this place at whoever dares to draw it, in part because he can be angry, can voice his disagreement without repercussions, and in part because every day spent in this city stretches him thinner and more hollow, scraping at his careful walls like fingernails to drag him back down into its gilded filth.

The truth is—he misses Kirkwall. Misses the language, the broken flagstone in his foyer, even the rust-colored swill of the Hanged Man and Corff's unapologetic cheer behind it. Misses Corff. And Sebastian, and Aveline and Donnic and late-night games of diamondback. And to his surprise and faint irritation, he would not mind seeing even Anders and Merrill, missing them in the way one misses a familiar, yapping dog before reuniting with it and remembering the annoyance.

A peculiar thing to have, friends.

But first things first. Fenris puts one hand on the granite slab at his waist, his thumb just touching the shackle that once pinned his left wrist to the stone, holding him steady while Danarius burned him and bled him and smiled—and then he tenses all the muscles in his arms until the lyrium ignites, lazy tongues of white fire curling up his fingers, his wrist, his forearms, until his hands are glowing blue. He digs the tips of his gauntlets into the rough granite around the shackle's bolts and pushes, driving in his hand as far as it will go, the needle-sharp steel digging deeper, deeper—

There. Fenris pulls his hand out again, shaking out the numbness left by phasing through things harder than flesh and bone, and levers the end of the sturdy iron bar through the shackle's loop. It takes only a moment with the weakened stone, only a swift bunching of his back as he bears his weight downward—and the thing shatters, the two-inch bolts shearing out of the granite as easily as paper, iron tearing free like an old, dried scab to clank flatly on the stone at his feet. Fenris pauses a moment to run his fingers over the crumbled hole as big as his fist left behind, then moves with purpose to the others. Regardless of whether she achieves victory or defeat, he and Hawke will be gone from this place in a matter of days. No need to leave a thing meant only to torture standing ready to be used by whatever magister might stumble across it.

His own personal history with the table, of course, is merely an afterthought.

By the time all four shackles are little more than heaps of twisted slag on the ground around him, Fenris is sweating and the strength of his brands is running dry. But he swallows, straightens his shoulders, and flexes his wrist for one more aching, painstaking line drawn deep through the center of the table.

Then he takes a step back, takes a breath—and brings the iron bar over his head with every shred of strength he has left.

It is so simple. It astonishes him how easy it has been to destroy this thing, how it takes only one final blow to shatter it into pieces. His first memories had been here in this place, in these shackles; his first words had been to name the shadowed man that stood over him as his master. One blow—and both the stone that had birthed him and the magister that had made him upon it are broken; one blow and the man that lovingly and carefully forged piece by piece this altar to his torture, to his loss, to the sacrifice of everything that was once him—is dust.

The granite slab cracks clean in two. Overbalanced, the split ends of the table thump down hard on the black stone beneath them with heavy, hollow booms, cracks spiderwebbing out from each point of impact like the fist of the Maker himself has struck them down. The iron bar follows with a clang, forgotten. Fenris cannot quite catch his breath.

Aveline had told him once he had to know where he was from to know where he was headed. Fenris turns his back on the broken granite, the broken shackles, the broken pieces of the place where he was made, and steps forward, towards daylight, towards clean air, towards Hawke.

There is nothing to chain him here any longer.

Serah Hawke,

I received your most recent letter concerning your visit to the amphitheater. I rejoiced to hear of your victories there—may the Maker grant you many more allies in your fulfillment of His work! I pray daily for your safety and the safety of those in your care. Fenris, if you are reading this, I am aware you are not in her care. You may stop glowering at me from across the ocean. (If he is not there, Hawke, then I very much hope you are keeping an eye on him. His soul suffers under the strain of that city's evil.)

If you happen to attend a Chantry service there, I would be most interested in hearing about the service. I cannot imagine a man's voice leading the Chant, but I suppose the Maker's sons may sing as devoutly as His daughters. Although, considering it is Tevinter, perhaps I should not count heavily on piety.

We are all much the same since you left us, if the shadows under Anders's eyes are perhaps a bit deeper. He had us mucking through the sewers the other day for bits of drakestone and sela petrae for his clinic. If I did not know the man was a healer…but grace is given to us in great abundance. Surely I can spare a measure for a man so driven to aid his friends. (He is very, very driven, Hawke. I wish you were here to temper him. Some days I wish you were here to beat sense into him. I fear my bow is not as hard as his head.)

Elthina suggested I recommend a passage or two from the Chant to comfort you in your trials. It is impolitic of me, but I could not help but think the Canticle of Shartan the most appropriate.

Affectionately yours,

Sebastian

For a mansion built on the backs of slaves for a man who was, by all accounts, almost absurdly depraved, Hawke thinks the grounds are surprisingly lovely by daylight. It's all due to her groundskeeper's good taste though, she supposes as she leans more heavily against the window of her study overlooking the gardens, and his harder work, but the elegant beds of hydrangeas and green ferns are a better balm to a farmgirl's soul than all the gold trappings of the house. Dear Canut. She drops the side of her head against the cool glass and smiles; from here she can see Clodia and Cato on one of the far paths by the fountain, their heads close together, Cato's face softer than she has ever seen it herself. Not that she should be surprised—he's only been here a few weeks, hardly enough time to learn the layout of the building much less come to trust a foreign magister, but she had hoped to see him smile, just once, before she ran out of time.

Her own smile slips. One day. One more day, and everything is decided.

"Varric told me you were here."

Hawke straightens, glancing over her shoulder at Fenris. "Just taking in the sights one last time."

He pads across the study, his feet silent on the rugs, to stand behind her at the window. He says, "It will not be the last time."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" Hawke asks, but before the air can thicken with anxiety she gestures to the fountain. "Look. Cato's courting."

Fenris snorts. "Careless."

"Hypocrite," Hawke says without malice, and after a moment Fenris's weight shifts closer to her back. She looks down at the envelope in her hands and out the window once more; then Hawke sucks in a breath and turns to face Fenris squarely. "Did…ah, did Varric tell you why I was looking for you?"

"No," he says, one eyebrow lifting.

"Well." Hawke rubs her thumbs over the envelope's edges, wishing she'd thought out this part a little better. "You know what tomorrow is. Of course. And it's not that I don't think there's not going to be a chance later, because I'm sure there will be—and it's not like that matters anyway since everything's on file with the magistrate but—I thought. That is…I wanted to give this to you. Myself. Now."

She thrusts the envelope at him a little clumsily. Fenris's other eyebrow has long since risen to join the other, but he says nothing as he takes the envelope and carefully slits it down one short edge before sliding out its contents. A single sheet of paper, nothing but black ink on vellum, but—

At the request of the possessing magister in accordance with Imperial law, this court, as witnessed 6 Solis by the undersigned magistrate, does hereby totally and irrevocably declare the bondslave Fenris to be—

Free.

Hawke watches his lips shape the word, lingering on the curves and points of each letter, his white hair falling loose to hide his eyes. Her heart is pounding in her chest.

But he is quiet. Still as a stone beside a river, unmoving, unchanging, neither approval nor condemnation in the blank tightness of his mouth. Surely he'd known this would happen—but perhaps she should have chosen another time? Perhaps she should have waited until they were free of the city, safe on Isabela's ship; perhaps she should have left him alone to read it—

Surely he has been quiet too long; surely his hands are too tense on the edges of the page. Hawke clears her throat. "Not that, ah, you weren't already," she offers. It sounds very loud in the quiet room. Has her voice always been this loud? "Now it's just…legal. No matter what happens to me."

Now Fenris looks up, and the sheer weight of the expression on his face slams into Hawke so hard that for a moment she cannot breathe. There is so much sorrow there, and grief, and an old, weary rage—but in his eyes there is also the fierce and potent light of sudden triumph; of an exultant, unfettered swell of gladness that brings an unexpected lump to Hawke's throat.

He turns, takes two steps as if he would like to pace, then swivels again to stare at her. "Hawke. How—when did you—"

"The same day I did the others. Isabela came with me as witness." She laughs and it sounds like a sob. "You sound so surprised. You knew this would happen."

"No slave dares to dream of this. The hope is too dangerous."

He looks down again, shapes again the word free, and shakes his head as if the very word is an impossibility. Hawke grins through the threatening press of tears behind her eyes, at once exhilarated and inexplicably sad. "Well," she says, linking her fingers together at her waist, "now it's done. You're a free man. You don't belong to anybody."

She means it lightly, but something in her words seems to penetrate the cloud of disbelief that surrounds Fenris all the same. He blinks, slowly, his eyes turning from the page in his hands to someplace else, someplace deeper, focusing inward until Hawke has almost begun to worry—and then he lifts his head and his eyes snap to hers and in the space of two heartbeats the letter is on the desk and Fenris is there, right in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, on her neck, his fingers curled around her jaw, his thumbs sliding over her cheeks.

He holds her steady, holds her true, and his voice is as strong and as proud and as free as she has ever heard it.

He says, "I am yours."

Hawke's eyes slip closed. This is too much—her heart already ached and now it is filled to bursting and it is too much, and when Fenris's mouth brushes carefully across her own she cannot check the tears that force their way down her cheeks. To his credit, Fenris seems to understand the unbearable press of so much so quickly; he neither withdraws nor attempts to console her, only holding her cheeks in his hands and her forehead against his own as he waits for her to regain mastery over herself.

"Sorry," she says at last, when the tears have slowed and her breathing has steadied and Fenris's skin doesn't feel quite so hot on her own. "I, ah. Was not expecting that reaction."

"So I gathered," Fenris tells her dryly, but she does not pull away and he does not release her. Instead he kisses her twice more, still quietly, still gently, and when Hawke wraps her arms around his waist with a sigh he obligingly pulls her closer. "Although," he adds by her ear, "I would suggest that you restrain yourself when you are with the others. They might find such a reaction…"

"Completely inappropriate and maybe also a little crazy?"

"Perplexing."

Hawke drops her head against his chest, smiling. "If you insist," she says, and then: "Will you come with me?"

She feels his lips press against her hair; then he says, so quietly she can barely hear it, "Always."

To the so-called Hawke—

And even now you pretend to the mantle of magister. You tarnish the name, little bird, and you insult me with the presumption.

Keep your begging. I am not a coward, and I will not yield Alam.

Jaculus, Magister

They don't even believe her at first, which does not surprise Hawke in the slightest. They even laugh when she tells them about the year's salary waiting for each of them at the exchequer. It's not until Dalos pulls the top page from her hands and carries it over to the better light of the kitchen's bay window that the room even begins to fall quiet; not until he reads aloud the words totally and irrevocably that Ara sucks in a harsh, biting breath and Cork begins to cry. Then they are all around her, hands outstretched, shouting and staring and calling to each other in something between disbelief and open abandon as they tear open the envelopes and unfold the pages within.

Ara catches Hawke's attention, standing as she is under the window so that her short blonde hair looks like fired gold. Her eyes are moving frantically over the page, darting here and there without fixing on any one word—then she looks up as if she feels the weight of Hawke's gaze, and before Hawke can even think to move Ara has crossed the room to thrust the sheet of paper at Hawke's chest. Her hand is shaking.

With furious desperation, she says, "Read it to me."

So Hawke takes the page, moves to stand beside Ara so that she can follow along. She reads it all the way through, from At the request of the possessing magister to the words declare the bondslave Ara to be free to even the smaller lines at the bottom, the ones that read immediate and binding and all present and future issue and so signed and sealed this day by Magistrate Orsis with his grand signature and Hawke's more narrow, looping handwriting following after.

Ara closes her eyes. "Again."

Hawke reads it again, and then a third time through, and then at Ara's request shows her the three characters that make up her name in swoops of graceful black ink. She does not comment on the tears standing in Ara's eyes, or the trembling in her fingers as she refolds the letter along its creases, or the thickness in her voice as she turns and calls Marcus to her side. He is so pale his light hair looks nearly brown, but the smile splitting across his face is bright enough to light the room. Ara takes his arm like a lifeline. "And—and Marcus? Show me his—"

"Here. M-a-r-c-u-s."

"His is longer."

Marcus laughs—laughs, for the first time Hawke can remember—and slides his arm around Ara's shoulders. "But yours the more precious," he says, and Ara colors from throat to ear-tip. But she only looks up at him, her eyes soft, her smile softer, and as Marcus pulls Ara close Hawke safely slips away.

The room has quieted now, she realizes, each of them drawing apart to examine their new freedoms. Cork is still openly crying, his forgotten serving spoon clutched against his forehead as he slowly sounds out the words in his own letter. At the table Lydas sits as if struck marble, staring into nothing, his face white, the fingers of one hand resting lightly on his throat; Hawke moves forward, concerned—but his eyes draw into focus on the wall, and then on her face as she approaches, and though they shine with unshed tears they are warm and utterly at peace. She puts a tentative hand on his shoulder, unsure of what to say, but Lydas only covers her hand with his own, gently, and it turns out that says enough for them both.

From here she can see that Dalos has Palla seated on the other side of the table, kneeling in front of her with as much open happiness in his face as she has ever seen. "Issue," he is explaining, his hands wrapped around his daughter's. "Children. All present and future children, mine and yours. Free."

"Then—we can go home," Palla says, choking on the realization. "We can go home for good."

"Home—Vol Dorma—Ferelden—anywhere we like. Anywhere you and your mother and your brothers want to go."

"Home first," Palla says firmly, and Hawke laughs as she slides free of Lydas. Fenris has been waiting for her against the wall by the door with his arms crossed over his chest; as she nears him he pushes off to meet her, his hands falling to hang loosely at his sides.

"What do you think?" Hawke asks, her voice low as they leave the kitchens at last. "Held back my tears appropriately, did I?"

"Hmm. How near to them are you now?"

"They prickle at my very lashes."

Fenris laughs and lets the door swing closed behind them, giving what privacy they can to those still inside. "Perhaps you should find a handkerchief before we continue."

"Better get a tablecloth instead. This is going to be a long afternoon."

Hawke finds herself to be right, in a way; the afternoon is long, with over seventy more letters to deliver, each by hand and each with a face and a name, even if she doesn't know it, but even when the shadows begin to grow longer and the sunlight more golden with setting Hawke still cannot keep the gladness from her face. The gardens erupt with cheers when she tells the field hands, Canut dropping his pitchfork to give her a delighted kiss on each cheek; Cato even forgets himself enough to award her a brilliant smile at long last when she corners him and Clodia by the fountain. In the house, the little girl who'd had the cough—Silvia—does manage to give Hawke a hug around her knees, and the little brother and sister pull her down to kiss her cheeks, but most of the children are too young to understand more than the facts that the mistress is there and that their favorite nurse is weeping.

"But I don't understand," she tells Hawke, wiping her face furiously with the corner of her apron. "Where are we supposed to go? Some of the children are too young to travel—some of them have no parents any longer. They won't survive on the street."

Hawke puts a hand on her shoulder. "They won't be thrown out. I promise. You and the children, and Dalos and Canut and all the rest—all of you are welcome to go or to stay here as long as you like. But know that if you do stay, it'll be as paid help—you're free men and women and you'll be paid the appropriate wages for your service."

"But you—can you even do this? I've never heard—and you've been here so short a time…"

"Oh, it's all legal. Apparently being a magister has some perks." Hawke gives her a wry grin. "I'm only sorry it wasn't more."

She shakes her head, speechless, and lifts one of the little girls to her hip. "Maker keep you, Mistress."

"I'm counting on it," Hawke tells her, and she and Fenris leave them to it.

The sun has set in earnest by the time they climb the stairs to the second floor at last. The halls are quiet, dimmed and purpled with twilight haze, only the occasional distant shout breaking the mansion's peace. And—it is peace, Hawke thinks as she pushes open the vine-carved door to her and Fenris's room, despite the atrocities committed here and the blood shed on its stone and the countless nameless horrors Danarius once allowed within these walls. She will not pretend she has wiped them clean, will not deceive herself into thinking her efforts anything more than what they are; she has only bandaged the wound and stopped the bleeding as best she can. Their shadows are their shadows still, and no effort on her part will lift those.

She has given them only what she was once given herself: a fighting chance.

Slowly, Hawke pulls the curtains closed on the largest window, finding herself less eager than usual to watch the stars track silently across the sky tonight, marking away the last few hours she has before battle. Her head is suddenly so heavy and the tears still press behind her eyes, but she forces them back. No reason to waste her sorrow. No reason to waste her strength.

Fenris's voice comes quietly through the stillness, closer than she expects. "You did—a remarkable thing today, Hawke."

She snorts at herself. "Some signatures and a bit of paper, that's all."

"Don't make light of this." Fenris's tone is stern as he turns her away from the window, though his eyes are gentle as he adds, "I cannot think of a single other occasion in the history of this city where so many were freed at once by a single magister. They owe you a great deal."

"They don't owe me anything. I just didn't want them to—go to someone else. A real magister."

"And what are you, then?"

"A pretender to the throne," she tells him, her lips twisting. "Magister by happenstance doesn't look good on legal documents."

"They are still legal."

"And thank the Maker for that," Hawke sighs, leaning into Fenris's chest when his hands settle at the small of her back. "The Maker and sheer blind luck."

Fenris says nothing to that, apparently allowing her the meaningless victory even though he clearly disagrees. They stand together for a long time, breathing, being; then, at last, Hawke straightens and, without preamble, presses her lips to Fenris's. He draws back only a moment in surprise before coming back to meet her, tilting his head to fit her better, letting his hands slide up her back to pull her closer against him. Hawke revels in that, revels in his taste and his heat and the pressure of his fingertips on her spine—but when she tries to deepen the kiss he pulls away, his head turning to the side, his eyes flashing with regret.

"You should rest," he says. "Tomorrow is too important."

Hawke rests her hands on his chest. "Tonight is important, too."

He closes his eyes, but he does not step away and his hands do not loosen on her back. "Hawke…"

She moves closer, letting her forehead rest against his own. "I'm afraid of tomorrow, Fenris," she whispers, and does not try to hide the weariness in her voice. "Remind me of what I'm fighting for."

His eyes open at that, and Fenris looks at her as if seeing her for the first time all evening, as if he has forgotten until now that the mask of confidence she wears for her household is—only a mask. He sighs, very gently, and brushes one hand down the slope of her cheek. "You will not fail," he tells her, guiding her backwards even as he does so, one step at a time, towards the bed. "You will not falter. Your purpose is just and your—magic—is strong. He will not stand against you."

The backs of her knees hit the bed, and Hawke laughs despite herself. "You almost said that without grimacing. I'm so proud."

But Fenris does not rise to the bait, instead pressing gently at Hawke's shoulders until she sinks to lie back on the crimson coverlet. He follows after without waiting, his knees settling on either side of her thighs, lowering himself over her until the white ends of his hair brush over her forehead. His eyes burn like coals as he murmurs, "Na via lerno victoria."

Hawke finds one of his hands at her shoulder and laces her fingers through his. "Only the living know victory."

"Live for me, Hawke," Fenris breathes, and kisses her.

They do not speak after that. The room grows darker with the passing of hours, the rustling household quieter, and somewhere in the small hours of the morning, untended, the fire at last goes out.

My very dear Hawke,

Oh, lethallan, how I wish you were here! I hope it's all right to say that, since I really didn't set out to make you feel guilty about leaving and I know, honestly, that you had to go, but there's really nothing like hearing a dear friend's voice and letters just aren't the same. I found a litter of stray kittens last week and Orana and I have been taking care of them, which reminds me that perhaps you shouldn't spend too much time in your library before I've had a chance to clean it out. Purrfoot has taken to leaving headless mice behind the books and every time I think I've gotten them all, I find another one. I suppose she likes your selections.

It feels like something very exciting's about to happen in Kirkwall. I saw Carver when the Wardens passed through the other day and he told me that half your letters come blacked out now. Isn't that curious? Like a hunt-the-riddle game. He told me to make sure to tell you to be careful, because even though he couldn't read a lot of it he didn't like what he could, so. Be careful.

Oh dear, you'll have to forgive the pawprint in the corner. Purrfoot just knocked over my inkwell. Anyway, we've been keeping the bandits and spiders manageable for you until you come back. Anders and I have started a competition over who can collect the most pouches of pebbles. I have forty-three. He keeps saying he's not playing.

Bodahn says to tell you Sandal's put the teacup back together. Orana says bona fortuna! I hope I spelled that right.

I miss you quite a lot, Hawke. And Varric and Isabela and Fenris too, I can't forget them. And even though Carver already said it, here's one from me too, lethallan: be careful. I'll see you soon.

Love,

Merrill

Hawke is awake before the sky even begins to lighten. By the time the clouds have paled to grey and gold she is already bathed and pulling on the metal boots and gauntlets and wide leather belt of her Champion's mantle; by the time the first edge of sunlight shafts through her window she is already down the stairs, alert, intent, her hair tied back and her father's staff gripped in one hand. She stops by the kitchens only for a moment to liberate a glass of water and a piece of dark, buttered bread from Cork—and does he ever sleep?—before heading for the front door. The carriage will not arrive for a half hour yet but she cannot be indoors a moment longer, cannot stand the walls closing in on her with all their polished trappings. The marble steps down to the avenue are hardly the stoop she remembers from Lothering, but for they are good enough for what she wants—what she needs—and she drops to the top step without the slightest hint of ceremony. There, Hawke eats her bread and drinks her water, and as the sun begins to rise in earnest she does her level best to think of nothing.

She is not as successful as she would like.

Still, by the time Fenris steps out to join her, armed and armored himself, she is as prepared as she supposes she can be. He pulls her to her feet as the carriage turns into the far end of the avenue; behind them, Ara steps out of the fading dawn shadows to complete the arena's traditional requirement of three.

It is so quiet.

In truth, it reminds Hawke of nothing so much as the stories of ghosts she and Bethany used to trade in the middle of the night, when the moon was high and the fields silent with stars and the whole town asleep but for the two of them. The carriage wheels make almost no noise on the dirt as they draw closer, the horses' steady gait as muffled and measured as a funeral procession. The coachman pulls to a stop, flicking his crop delicately and without noise, and Hawke squares her shoulders and steps forward.

"Mistress."

A man's soft voice—and as loud as the crack of a whip. Hawke turns.

Dalos is standing in the doorway, Lydas and Marcus behind him, and Cork and Canut and even Palla wiping the sleep from her eyes. His fist lifts to his chest; he bows his head, then straightens to look her in the eye, and echoes of the movement ripple through each one of them until even Palla is smiling at her with her hand over her heart. Dalos says, "Good luck."

"Thank you," Hawke says, too numb to even cry, and steps into the carriage.

There is no one on the streets. Hawke knows her match is not set to begin until the eleventh hour and it is yet early, but there is no one, not a servant or a slave or even a stray dog. Ara sees her confusion. "The revelries last night," she offers from her seat across from Hawke and Fenris. "It has been over two years since the city has seen a sanctioned duel."

Hawke sighs and glances back out the window. "I'm here to entertain."

"And to bleed," Fenris adds sourly. No one says much after that.

When they arrive at the arena at last, Hawke cannot help but note how different the thing looks without the crowds of bloodthirsty magisters and the heavy rust-thick scent of blood. Here, in the early morning stillness, it is almost possible to see the nobler purpose for which the building had been intended in the elegance of its architecture, the fingers of pale gold light spilling down the fluted columns, the inscription above the gate: ad honorem.

Hawke shakes her head to disperse the image. Nothing but a passing fancy—and she needs every part of her wits about her if she is to win this fight. Her hand tightens on her staff.

Without a word, the three of them disembark from the carriage at the eastern entrance, the one through which all hopeful combatants enter and later men remove the bodies of the dead. Ara pays the driver, then falls into step beside Hawke, both of them following Fenris into the corridor's dim and yawning throat. There is still no sign of any life other than theirs.

Fenris had explained this to her once, before they'd gone to the arena that first time so long ago. One magister would challenge a second; the second would accept; both of them would draw up careful contracts and citations of offenses and terms of both victory and defeat—including the illegality of blood magic, as the city's law required—until the whole thing seemed more a duel of penmanship than magical talent. They would set a day and arrive at the arena well ahead of time in order to prepare—which, as far as Hawke could tell, involved a good deal of excess bathing and massaging and scenting for someone who was about to try to freeze off someone else's limbs. While they were preparing the crowd would arrive, the herald would read out the list of offenses and the terms of the match, and then they'd open the gates and just like that, the duel would begin.

Hawke, though, has little need of any of it.

She has no interest in the enormous inset bathing pool, no tasks for the dozen or so slaves in white tunics that dot the walls of the preparation chamber at regular intervals despite the early hour. No need, either, for the thoughtful rack of very sharp-looking daggers and assorted blades; she has her staff and her little knife, and she will not weight herself down with more than that. Instead, she places herself very carefully on a low bench by the far iron gate, the one that guards the ramp up to the arena's ground level, and she waits.

The room smells like death. Hawke dislikes that realization and its implications and casts about for another; her gaze lands on Fenris as he prowls the edges of the chamber in restless tension, his eyes marking each point of escape as if he is a beast caged, and finds even less solace. Ara has her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap on the opposite bench. Hawke hopes she is only praying. Her fingers flicker with uneasy sparks, dancing along the dark, polished wood of her father's staff; Hawke lays her staff beside her on the bench rather than incinerate it wholesale at such a decidedly inopportune moment, then drops her head into her hands and breathes, in and out, in and out.

Over an hour has passed by the time Hawke realizes she can hear, faintly, the roar of a distant crowd. She leans her head back against the wall, trying not to think of all the souls who have sat here before her and not lived to speak of it, and counts to ten. And then to a hundred, and then two hundred, and by the time she loses track around six hundred and fifty the roar is definitely louder and certainly more wild, and she cannot stop her leg from jittering in anxiety. Her hands are rough with calluses and old blisters, too much effort too quickly; she picks at the edge of the one of the calluses until it aches, worrying the flesh with her fingernails like a child unraveling a blanket. Less than an hour to go, now. Fifty minutes—maybe forty. How quickly did heralds speak?

She wants to calm down, desperately, but her heart will not stop racing. Not with the cold lump of dread in the pit of her stomach; not with the growing apprehension needling up the back of her throat. If only there was something left to do—but the papers are signed and filed, Isabela's ship ready to flee at a moment's notice—and Fenris had laughed at her plan, but "get to the ship" sounds like an absolutely marvelous idea at the moment—why won't time move faster?

A hand settles over her knotted, white-knuckled fingers.

Hawke looks up in surprise. She hadn't even heard Fenris approach, much less settle to the bench beside her. His fingers are cool on hers and she doesn't know whether it's his calmness or her fevered disquiet causing the difference, but the touch seems to leach something thick and stifling from her chest that she hadn't even realized was there. His eyes are steady on her face, his restlessness gone—or at least well-hidden—and Hawke sucks in an uneven breath as she drops her forehead against his temple.

"How did this happen, Fenris?" she asks, quietly, an echo of a question she asked him long ago in another city, another lifetime, where a finch landed on the flowers below her window and Minrathous was nothing more than the name of a shadowed city without substance. Without suffering.

He smiles; he remembers. He tells her, "One letter at a time."

"Vetui—to forbid. I remember."

"How fortunate for us both that you did not try to tie me to the pier."

"My impeccable foresight," she sighs, and adds, "Too bad I didn't foresee you constantly flinging yourself at death."

He snorts and she feels the air brush over her cheek, though he does not pull away. "As I recall, I was not the one who lashed herself to the bowsprit of a ship during a storm."

"Certain sacrifices must be made in the name of bravery."

"In the name of stupidity."

"Semantics," Hawke says with a quiet laugh, and then sighs again. The crowd is chanting something; she can hear the rhythm rolling under her feet. She says, "Fenris…"

"Hmm?"

"Darevi basia unum."

He turns his head at that, the faint hint of a smile curving up one corner of his mouth. "Placet," he says gently, and he kisses her. It does not turn heated, but they do not pull apart until Ara softly clears her throat at Hawke's other side.

"Mistress," she says, "it's time."

Hawke's mouth goes dry as sun-parched bone. Her heart is pounding out of her chest and it takes her two tries to get control of her rubbery knees, and she is suddenly, terrifyingly aware of the bellowing voices above her. Awaiting her.

Fenris puts one hand under her elbow as one of the silent slaves unlocks the iron gate. Ara steps forward only long enough to quickly kiss Hawke's cheek and hand over her father's staff; then she moves back, her face pale, and Hawke and Fenris turn away. The ground slopes gently upward, the polished stone of the preparation chamber abruptly cutting off into light brown dirt, the smooth walls giving way to rougher, unfinished rock stained with old, dried smears of blood that grow thicker the closer they come to the end. The sun is high in the sky and brilliant, a sharp square of dazzling light marking the end of the tunnel ahead of them, so bright Hawke can hardly stand to look at it without tears.

They stop, just at the very edge where the shadow gives way to sunlight. A faceless guard waits a handful of paces away at the last gate, black in silhouette and silent.

Fenris grips her shoulders, then, turns her to face him so that he is the only thing she sees. His jaw is so tense lyrium flickers down his throat; his eyes are alive with green flame. "I will be here," he growls. His grip on her shoulders is so tight that it aches. "If it goes poorly, forget the Fog Warriors. Forget Alam. Hawke, if the battle turns against you, call for me."

The dry brambles of her throat catch hold of her voice and she has to try twice before she can speak. "The gates will be sealed. Enchanted. Even you won't be able to get through."

His hands slide to grasp her face. "There is nothing in this world that would keep me from you, Hawke," he snarls, and before she can talk herself out of it Hawke crashes her mouth against his. There is nothing gentle here, no tenderness, no sweet reassurance—she kisses him like she is dying and then she wrenches away, yanks her gauntlets into place and grips her father's staff, strides forward into the harsh and unforgiving light of the Tevinter sun.

The gate slams closed behind her.

She lifts her chin, breathes in the smell of dust and death and blood, listens to the deafening howls of ten thousand voices crying out for her slaughter.

No turning back.

Distantly, Hawke is aware that the herald is finishing her introduction, that half the crowd is roaring her name against the cloudless sky even as the other half jeers and whistles in scorn, but her attention is elsewhere in the seething mass of humanity. The private box for the magisters is full to bursting, many of their slaves banished to the shadeless risers in front and to the sides, but Hawke can make out the tall figures of the Arras brothers and Lady Damia seated near the front of the box with their faces solemn and unsmiling, and she sighs in relief. Not wholly friendless, here—and even with the Archon lifting his white hand in amused welcome from his more private dedicated box, Priscus standing anxious at his elbow, not wholly hopeless either.

The western gate opens.

Jaculus sails forward like the flagship of an armada, elegant and proud and glittering in the sunlight. Today he is in scarlet and gold, his long, tailored tunic a shade lighter than his close-cut trousers but fitted just as impeccably; his dark hair hangs in the same neat braid down his neck, and when he lifts his new white oak staff in salute to the chanting crowd Hawke realizes he has had the rising sun of Tevinter embroidered on his back. How subtle, she thinks, and wishes she'd thought of it.

As the herald shouts his name, Jaculus comes forward to meet her with a benevolent smile and a hand outstretched for her own. "Barbarism even to the last," he tells her pleasantly, and lifts her fingers to his lips.

Hawke does not bother to return his smile. "You underestimate me, magister."

"Considering I have no estimation of you at all," he murmurs as he releases her, "I suppose that is possible. But be wary, girl—party tricks won't save you this time."

"How fortunate I do not intend to rely on them."

His mouth curling in contempt, Jaculus steps backwards, matching Hawke stride for stride until they are roughly thirty paces from each other. He does not look away. Neither does she.

"Magisters! Are you prepared?"

A battle of pride. A battle only for name and reputation, only for victory by submission—but this is Minrathous, where laws mean very little to most people and even less to the more powerful.

"The magisters are ready. By the leave of the Archon Inasir Nomaran and in his name, I declare—"

Jaculus smiles. His eyes are dead things.

"—that this duel may now—"

Her heart hammers against her ribs.

"—Begin!"

Their staffs slam into the ground at the same moment. The air between them ripples as a wave of force thunders across the arena, whipping the dirt in its path into a frenzied cloud; Hawke throws herself sideways as his magic screams by in a froth of dust and sharp little rocks that dart like needles. She looks back to track the path of her ice but he is already closer, his lips peeled back in a snarl, his veneer of civility shattered and vanished with the frost on his gold tunic, but when he snaps the staff at her she is ready, her own staff thrust upright so that his attack shears away to either side of her like a forking river.

She pulls fire from the skies and he shields himself in shimmering opal; he yanks stone from the earth at her feet and she roots her magic into an ice-thick wall. They trade blows for several minutes, neither landing one on the other, bits of fire and ice and earth ricocheting into the lowest benches to shrieks of both delight and pain from the spectators. Some shout; one throws a rock that passes so close to her face she feels the wind of it. Jaculus laughs at that—but Hawke must have her own supporters, because a few moments later a hail of dirt and gravel sprays out from the crowd and the magister has to turn away to shield himself.

Hawke reaches for the place where her soul touches the Fade and grasps a fistful of flame—but before she can loose it the earth trembles under her feet and cracks open and rocks reach up like clawing hands to drag her under. She stumbles backwards—not quick enough!—and one of the crags catches her across her calf to tear open a line of agony. It takes a sharp twist and a hand planted hard on the ground but she yanks herself free, flings the fire forward in a wide scything swath of raw power. Somewhere Jaculus lets out a sharp sound but she can't tell whether it is distress or mocking amusement over the crackling flame; she does not wait to find out, whirling her staff into a blaze of light and throat-choking heat until the end of it explodes in fire. Jaculus cries out again and her heart leaps—

—and then the scorching wall splits open so that the air shudders with heat and he strides forward, not unscathed, not unscarred, his sleeves smoldering and his braid lit with sparks but his eyes—blazing to put her fire to shame.

He lifts his hand and speaks and she burns, agony searing in a line from stomach to sternum as if he has torn her in two. With a shriek she bends forward and then backwards and the pain does not ease; through her sudden tears she sees him nearer and she drags together enough sanity to put her hand to her forehead and blast him backwards. The pain cuts off like a blown candle and Hawke nearly collapses at its absence, but Jaculus is already climbing back to his feet, already sputtering something thick and noxious and dangerous from the end of his staff. There is barely enough time to breathe, let alone act, but Hawke tries anyway, pulls fire from the Fade and hurls it forward—

Jaculus lifts his staff. The fire strikes it and recoils, ricocheting upwards like a missile screaming for freedom's sky.

She tries again. This one he sends into the crowds, a dozen spectators leaping sideways as her magic cannons towards them. Hawke grits her teeth and Jaculus smiles—but no time to waste, no time to let the terror scrape deeper into the lines of her face. Hawke swivels on one heel and lunges backwards, ignoring the gasps and shouts of the horde in the stands, calling down a storm of fire in blind desperation as she races to put what distance she can between herself and the magister at her heels. She can hear his feet on the dirt behind her, implacable, impossibly steady—she hits the far wall of the arena and turns, flattens herself against it, grips her staff so hard her knuckles are white as Jaculus strides towards her through the charred and coal-glowing debris at his feet. His staff still spews that black smoke; as he draws closer he spins the white-polished wood around one hand and then the other, allowing it to trail a dark and intricate pattern around him like the caress of the Void itself.

"Come now, my little bird," he says, his voice as gentle as a lullaby. "Why do you still beat against the bars of your cage? Lay down your staff and rest."

Pinned against the wall—but pinned, not defeated, not yet. "Try it on someone else, you snake," she snarls. "You haven't beaten me."

He lifts an eyebrow. "No?" he asks her, and faster than she can track it a shard of rock slivers open her cheek. Hawke lets out a cry and flinches to the side—and another slices through the meat of her upper arm deep enough to scrape bone. She screams at that one, clutching her free hand to an arm suddenly more blood than skin—and before she can even lift her head a rock the size of her fist thuds into her stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and then another to her knee, and to her thigh and her shoulder and the swell of bone at her hip—and to her temple with all the subtlety of a hammer.

Hawke drops like a stone, dazed, deafened, mute with shock and pain. The sky is so blue—so blue—the crowd roaring—her head splitting—

Jaculus kneels beside her. His lips curve around a word. Hawke forces herself to understand as her fingers scrabble at the dirt.

"Surrender."

She whispers something—nonsense—an answer that is lost to the breeze and the burning flames. Everything hurts—

Jaculus leans closer. "Again, girl."

She lifts her eyes to his, knowing her face is as open and easy to read as any book. "I said," she breathes, "shut up."

And she smashes the end of her father's staff against his mouth.

The thing explodes with white light, bright enough to blind even through Hawke's tightly clenched eyelids. Jaculus lets out a broken, hitching gasp and his pressure jerks away from her shoulder like a kick from a horse; Hawke rolls the other direction and shades her eyes as she shakily regains her feet, her staff held across herself with more apparent strength than she feels.

At the tip of the staff, lit like a sun, is a small, polished white stone: a rune, carved exquisitely in the shape of a bird.

The light fades, slowly, enough to see Jaculus bent at the waist, his free hand over his mouth, his eyes tightly closed. Blood dribbles between his fingers. She waits until his eyes snap open, until he straightens with a groan and black hate in his eyes; then she lifts her chin and says, again, "You haven't beaten me."

Jaculus snarls and strikes the dust with his staff—but there is no wave of force, no wind-tearing blast of raw magic to knock her from her feet. There is only a gust of air that lifts the ends of her hair from her neck, gentle and without bite. Blank shock flashes across his face before he steps forward and clenches his fist at his heart, but save a faint tremor like the earth turning over under the arena's foundation, nothing happens. The crowd bellows around her, torn between their lust for victory and the deprivation of the show; Jaculus himself looks as though he cannot decide whether to kill her or be sick.

"What is this?" he spits between torn and swelling lips. "What have you done to me?"

"I have a friend who dabbles in enchantment," Hawke tells him. Enchantment, and the reparation of broken teacups.

"This is—I am silenced!"

"Not quite. Just…quieted." Hawke takes two quick steps forward and rests the bladed end of her staff, very carefully, over the thudding pulse in his throat. "Now," she tells him softly, "surrender."

Jaculus looks more like a wild animal than a man, his black and silver hair sliding free of its braid, his eyes afire with rage. "This is base deception. You lured me too close. This is outright treachery—!"

"No treachery," Hawke says without moving. "Your long and time-honored traditions explicitly permit the use of runes in battle. Surrender."

He lifts his hands and his staff together, but nothing emerges but a thin, wavering trail of smoke that vanishes like a breeze. Hawke presses the blade-tip a breath closer. "I will kill you," she warns.

Disdain passes over his face as swiftly as a shadow. "You do not lie well, Magister," he says, and drags the blade of his dagger across his wrist.

Blood magic explodes around him like a bomb, blasting Hawke back with its thick and oily pressure. She throws a hand up over her face but it is a twig standing against a gale; she stumbles backwards, acutely aware of every bruise and every bleeding cut now bared for him to devour. If only it had been a true Silence; if only she'd struck when she had the chance—the grease of his magic clings to her skin and she chokes once, then again at the too-heavy scent of blood filling the air. The maddened screaming of the people in the stands is so loud her chest rumbles with the strength of it. Somewhere in the stands Priscus goes white; somewhere the Archon leans forward in his chair.

Jaculus smiles.

"You've ruined yourself," Hawke snaps, trying to hide the fear in her voice. This had not been part of the plan, not like her runes and her ruses and her midnight plots with Isabela; they had both been sure no magister would resort to the illegal practice with so many eyes to see, even if that magister was Jaculus, and—she has no hidden trick to counter the outright use of blood magic. "Ten thousand witnesses—even here you won't—you can't—"

"One may do many things," Jaculus tells her, "if only one leaves living."

And he attacks.

This is not the careful testing of his early blows; this is not the measured strength of a man seeking only victory. His magic bears down on her like an iron hammer, like a swollen tide that eats away stone, inexorable and unrelenting. Her mock weakness she abandons without a thought—a ploy like that will kill her now as surely as a knife between her ribs, and without waiting she swings her staff forward and snap-freezes him to the ground from the waist down. Jaculus falls backwards, startled—but his weight breaks his feet free and the rest falls away with a blow from the end of his staff, and even as Hawke follows her ice with white-hot flame he has swiveled his staff to point its very tip at her heart and she flinches back—

She flinches—

She cannot move.

For a split-second she can feel her heart stop in her chest, every muscle in her body seizing at the impossible commands—then, slowly, the tip of his staff moves in a tiny, controlled circle, and she can feel her blood sludge forward at the motion. Jaculus steps closer, his eyes hard and bright with victory, one hand still locking her in place; Hawke seethes, unable to move, barely able to breathe, tracking him only with her eyes as he circles her rigid form in the center of the arena. The crowd is shouting something, chanting something; she can taste copper on her tongue and her left arm is hot with her own blood.

"Now, now, now," Jaculus murmurs, tucking the polished end of his staff under her chin, "who's the trapped one now, little bird?"

Hawke cannot speak, would not respond if she did; she settles for the hatred in her eyes and turns every other strength she has to breaking this hold he has over her, to breaking free—

She can see Isabela over his shoulder.

Hawke blinks, stunned, and for a moment she forgets entirely the magister sliding his staff from her chin to the center of her chest. Isabela is there, right there in the first row of seats, Varric at her side, both of them shouting and struggling with nearly a dozen arena guards as they try to get to Hawke. They know as well as Hawke does that the use of blood magic should have ended the match and awarded Hawke the win by forfeit, but Archon Nomaran makes no motion and the guards seem little interested in their words. Jaculus is saying something, taunting her about—something—but Hawke is looking elsewhere, now, her eyes sliding as far as they can to the left until she can see—

Fenris.

Her heart stutters again, though this time it has nothing to do with blood magic and everything to do with the elf trapped behind the gates. The guard is gone, dead, threatened away, Hawke doesn't know; all she can see is the sunlit blur of his white hair and the rage in his eyes as he tries, again and again, to break apart the enchanted iron hinges, the lock, even the bars themselves, his lyrium lighting up over and over like a torchflame struggling to catch in a storm.

"And he goes next," Jaculus murmurs directly in her ear, and Hawke jolts back to earth. The magister is so close behind her she can feel his heat on her back, his hand sliding up her spine to wrap around her throat—to squeeze—

The choice, when the choice comes, is as simple as a song and as clear as polished glass. She will not die here, she won't; she has too much to do and too little time already, and if nothing else she will not give this bastard the satisfaction of throttling out her life. The Arishok himself did not stand against her and she will not permit it now—

Amari tua.

No.

The chains around her heart snap like frozen twigs. Hawke staggers forward, unbalanced with the sudden release, but as Jaculus bites out an oath she is already swiveling on one heel, fire and lighting sputtering from her fingertips in great roiling gouts to strike the magister in the chest. He reels backwards, his eyes wide with shock and fury, and Hawke presses her advantage, presses forward, driving him across the arena with the wind itself at her back, pulling on a line so deep in herself it hurts; she cannot remember the last time she dragged so much out of herself so quickly, wrung the gold Fade-spark in her soul so dry that there is nearly nothing left. But Jaculus is bleeding from a dozen wounds, limping as he retreats, scorched and scarred and as ragged as she is before the implacable wall of her magic and she is so close.

And then, in a heartbeat, everything stops.

The truth is: Hawke has no idea how it turns against her. She doesn't know if it's a lucky shot, or if it's the same luring trap that she'd used earlier turned against her, or even a last-second burst of desperation. She only knows that Jaculus slams his white staff into the dust at his feet and a solid fist of blood magic pounds into her stomach like a stone, like a battering ram, hammering her back across the arena as if she weighs nothing more than dried leaves. The wall smashes into her spine or her spine smashes into the wall but either way it is agony, a cudgel-blunt blow that knocks the air out of her and sends her sprawling to her knees.

Hawke struggles to her feet—her staff, where is her staff?—but Jaculus is already there, that oil-thick smoke billowing from the end of his staff towards her against the wind, twisting around itself like the dark funneled clouds she used to see in the spring as a child before they moved to Lothering and she sucks in a breath as the shapeless mass of it hurtles towards her—

There is nothing but pain.

Every vein, every artery in her body—her blood is boiling inside her skin, surging and seething and scraping her raw and she screams as if that will help relieve the pain. Jaculus laughs somewhere and the torment ceases, just for a moment; Hawke shudders and rolls to her knees, blind, deaf, conscious only of her desperate need to flee. Her stomach heaves and she chokes, coughs up bile and blood that spatters to the dirt between her torn hands. Somehow she convinces herself to move along the arena wall away from him, but it is little more than a half-crawling drag of her legs behind her. The low rumble of Jaculus's laugh ripples over her again and something distant in her mind rages at the sound, but she cannot—she can't—she is so tired.

Fenris. Fight for Fenris.

Hawke forces her eyes open—when had they closed?—but before she can coax her limbs to move Jaculus's magic floods over her again, painting her skin in fire and her blood in thorns and vinegar. Her back arches off the ground and seizes rigid as granite—it goes on and on and on and she is dying, surely, because no mortal woman could survive this torture—

It stops. Blood pools and bubbles in the back of her throat and she gags, twisting to one side, spitting out blood as she drowns inside herself, her legs trembling uncontrollably, her chest heaving, her head as heavy as a grave. Her eyes are half-lidded in weariness and anguish and she can see little more than the shadow of the magister's boots moving towards her across the arena. Forty feet, thirty feet. Twenty.

She is suddenly very cold.

It seeps through her like water rising to fill a cracked cistern, slow and frigid and wholly bitter, and she closes her eyes. She cannot quite remember why she is here, why everything hurts so badly, but surely it wouldn't hurt to rest, just for a moment…

Oh, child, sweet mage-girl. Are you tired?

The voice is wrong, she thinks, dazed, too heavy and too layered with something she cannot place, but—Yes. I am so tired.

I know, dear grief-wearied child; your song has thinned with sorrow, your voice broken with fatigue and with hurt. Oh, child! Come to me. I will give you such sweet sleep, such rest so deep that it cannot be torn away.

Oh, how she wants it! The very thought makes her heart slow to stopping, easing out of its panicked, pointless racing. Her head tips forward, her eyes closed; then, with the certainty of dreams, or of death, she senses movement by her shoulder, the slow lazy spreading of a proffered hand, gentle and kind—but too many fingers, or too few, and Hawke draws back in hesitation. Wait.

Time is short, child, and ever shorter. Choose—quickly—!

No, she thinks, startled, appalled, and names at last the thing that whispers to her. No, demon. I will not turn.

A fierce, raging snarl and too many teeth—but dwindling, descending, torn from its hold on her soul by her refusal. The Fade recedes from her mind like a shadow before noon, leaving her only the white and glaring pound of agony. There is no passage of time, no respite; there is only pain.

Then, suddenly, a voice:

Hawke!

She stirs. No demon's voice, this; no layered coaxing under the despair.

Hawke, get up!

Something—her name? Her name, faint, and distant, like the call of a voice across the sea. It is so hard—so hard—but she looks—up—

Fenris. Fenris on his knees inside the bars of the eastern gate, his arm stretched through the unyielding iron in desperation, towards her, for her, as Jaculus draws ever closer. Lyrium-light ripples down the veins of his arms like the reflection of sunlight on water. He is so close. When had she gotten so close?

He says her name again and it sounds in her like a bell, pealing out her history like the knots in her father's staff. She is Hawke, daughter of Malcolm and Leandra, Euphemia Hawke of Ferelden and of Kirkwall, and she will not die here.

Hawke swallows air, swallows down her pain—this will hurt—and pulls herself towards him. Two lengths—one length—three feet—

Jaculus reaches for her—

And Hawke reaches Fenris.

The world explodes. Her blood-slicked fingers slide down the bare skin of his palm and it is like seizing the heart of the sun, the years of untapped lyrium in his skin scorching through her like a wildfire to set every inch of her ablaze. A distant part of her is aware that Fenris is shuddering, bowing over their joined hands with a deep groan as what he gives is overwhelmed by what she takes, as every curled line of lyrium from his chin to the soles of his feet lights up at once under the strength of her pull. She is drunk with power, frantic with it, focusing every scrap of will she has left into the lyrium flooding her veins as she tries to keep her head above water long enough to breathe. The strength running through her is terrifying in its sheer might, dormancy shaken off like a living thing as the unchecked beast roars through her blood.

Hawke realizes that she is standing, burning alive, scorching the air around her with base strength. The Fade-gold inside her is an inferno—her skin is electric—Jaculus is staring at her like she has twisted into an abomination right before his eyes and Hawke bites back a wild and sudden urge to laugh.

Fenris says from behind her, his voice rough but strong, "Kill him."

"Yes," Hawke breathes, giddy, omnipotent, and her hands explode in light.

Only once has she ever felt this alive, one starless night when she'd lashed herself to a bowsprit in the middle of a storm and reached out her hand to white lightning. She reaches for it again, now, drawing it hot and blazing from the maelstrom in her heart, and lifts her palm to the silent magister Jaculus.

The first bolt hits him square in the chest, knocking him to his knees like a blow from a giant. His mouth opens helplessly, wordlessly—then the second arcs down his spine, and the third sends white sparks spraying over his arms and his eyes and between his teeth. His dark braid chars at the end and smolders; Hawke clenches her fist and Fenris's lyrium surges in her like the froth of whitewater rapids, searing through her skin as badly as Jaculus's magic ever had but it feels right, somehow, cleansing, as Andraste's pyre cleansed even as she burned and died.

As Jaculus burns and dies now.

Strike after strike shrieks down, one after the other, so close Jaculus becomes little more than a white star in the center of the arena. Hawke gives a name to each one—this one for Palla, for Dalos; this one for Clodia; this one for Varric, and Isabela and for Alam and for Fenris—

And for herself.

Thunder rolls with the last, so fast and so loud the pressure of it nearly drops her to her knees. She opens her mouth in a desperate struggle for breath—this strength is too much, Fenris's strength—so long has he carried its power untapped in his veins that now it scorches hers to ash in its race for freedom. She is nothing more than a conduit for this raw Fade, for the ferocious storm that rages both inside and out. Somewhere in the sun-bright blaze Jaculus screams, screams again—but she does not release the storm in her hands, urging the lightning unerringly to the fire's heart, to his heart, drawing out every drop of power Fenris has given her and more, unloosing all the bright shreds that remain of her magic until she reaches to the bottom of her soul and finds herself bled dry.

Suddenly, so suddenly that she nearly falls, she is empty.

The sparks between her fingers sputter out with a soft hiss. Slowly, gently, the thunder dies away into the distance; the white and blazing star in the center of the arena collapses in upon itself, withering like a vine with its taproot cut. Her rage dies with it.

Hawke straightens, her chest heaving, and takes in the work of her magic. Jaculus is little more than a charred and broken body, his skin burnt black, his eyes staring sightlessly at the brilliant blue sky above him. His scarlet robes are stained darker with his own blood and hers, his staff cracked clean in two where he'd tried to defend himself from her wrath. One hand still stretches towards her in the dirt, as if in a silent, useless plea. The crowd is utterly silent.

Victory, she thinks, and tastes ash.

But there is still one thing left to do. Hawke licks her lips with a dryer tongue and looks up to the stunned faces of ten thousand men and women who have just watched her burn a man alive, to the magisters in their linen-draped box who seem torn between appalled and terrified. To the Archon of the Tevinter Imperium, who watches her with his fingers folded at his mouth.

"I claim right of victory," Hawke shouts, her voice hoarse and cracking but carrying easily through the quiet crowd, "in spite of treachery and the violation of tradition. Who will witness for me?"

A silence, long enough for her heart to stop—and then Damia stands, straight and tall in pale green, and says, quietly, "I will witness."

The Arras brothers join her, dark and light, their wry smiles identical. "We will witness."

Then another stands, then another—Hawke's heart leaps as magisters and nobles alike rise to their feet; some she recognizes by face, some she knows she must have only written, but five, and then six, and then a dozen, and then something in the air catches and the tide turns in her favor for the first time she can remember since she has been in this city, and with all the slow inexorability of a landslide the crowd begins to rise to their feet and ten thousand voices cry out witness! The Archon himself does not rise—but neither does he speak against her, and neither does he stop the crowd roaring in her favor, and when Priscus falls to his knees beside the private box Nomaran looks at her and inclines his silver head to her victory.

A fierce, wild smile spreads across Hawke's face. There is little left in her but gratitude, a faint spark in the vast, echoing emptiness of her exhaustion, but at least that she can give freely. The long winding stairway has ended at last; she has reached the crown that crests it, bloody but unbowed; she stands atop the spire with her head thrown back and her arms spread wide in the clear and blinding exultation of triumph.

Hawke raises her eyes. The magisters, both seated and standing, look down at her expectantly and she starts to speak—but even as she does the arena goes dark around the edges and the sky speckles over with marks like the scatter of ink blots, deep black bleeding across the clouds, and the cheers suddenly seem as if they come from a thousand miles away. There is copper blood in her mouth, hot and thick and choking, and she thinks something must be wrong with her chest because it seems suddenly very hard to breathe—

She realizes, distantly, that she is on her knees.

Then the ground tips up to meet her, and she thinks nothing at all.

Hawke—

Come home.

Anders

Chapter Text

Wandering oversea singer,
Singing of ashes and blood,
Child of the scars of fire,
Make us one new dream, us who forget.
Out of the storm let us have one star.

—Prayer after World War, Carl Sandburg

There are fingers stroking through her hair. Long fingers, gentle fingers, delicate and warm, brushing over the nape of her neck like a whisper. It has been so long since she has felt this touch.

Hawke sighs where her head rests on her mother's knee, and the movement frees the faintest hint of the scent her father had once brought her mother from Orlais. A tiny little bottle, no bigger than her thumb, the winking, delicately-cut glass brought out only on very special occasions: the rare party, Satinalia, their anniversaries. The memories are so warm they hurt.

"There, now." Her mother's voice, low and soothing like she is a child again; her mother's hand on her shoulder. "There, now, my sweet girl. You're all right."

Hawke smiles into her mother's lap, closing her eyes at the obvious untruth. "You know Bethany was always the sweet one. I was the one with muddy feet that Carver kept giving black eyes."

Her laugh, as easy and gentle as Hawke remembers, and with none of the pain and grief and agony of their last meeting. But not here, not now—Hawke pushes that shadow of thought away, twists her fingers into the wine-red fabric by her cheek. Her mother says, "All of my children are sweet in their own ways. You were just more…difficult about it."

"That's a very generous way to put it."

"I knew you would never be one to stay safe at home with me. You take too much after your father."

That one stings her eyes before she can stop it. Hawke swallows, hard, and manages a smile. "I miss him," she admits; then she adds, quietly, trembling, "I miss you."

Her mother does not even pause her fingers in her hair. "There, now," she says again, as if she is chasing away the nightmares for her little girl once more, banishing the darkness with a candle and the immortal strength of a mother's love. "Don't cry, my darling girl. Hush. I'm here."

"This is a dream. You'll be gone when I wake up."

Her mother smiles so warmly Hawke can feel it on her back. "Do you think I will stop loving you just because I'm gone? Oh, my daughter, there is nothing in this world or the next that would ever keep my heart from yours."

Hawke shudders, clenching her eyes closed against the tears. "It's so hard. It's so hard—so many people are looking to me for answers and I don't—always have them. And I can't—ask you."

"And you think I am the keeper of all knowledge?" She laughs again and the sound is like a lullaby, like the warmth of a hearth-fire, like coming home. "I was a nobleman's daughter living hand to mouth in a foreign country, married to a mage on the run, with both my daughters every bit as magical and in just as much danger. Do you remember when you and your sister froze your father's entire pumpkin patch solid?"

"Oh, yes. I haven't thought about that for—years. And…I suppose I never told you, but that was my idea. Bethany didn't know what I was planning."

"I knew. Poor Bethany. But what did I know then of raising mages to keep them safe, from both others and themselves? Who could I possibly ask about concealing my children from templars, about keeping everything important in light bags and boxes so that they'd be easy to carry if we needed to flee during the night?" She sighs so that Hawke's hair slides down her cheek, then lightly tucks the strands back behind Hawke's ear. "Sometimes, my dear," she murmurs, "you can only give your best effort, and hope the Maker takes care of the rest."

"I…We never knew. You always seemed so in control."

"As I meant it. Those were cares too great for you to carry."

"Mother…"

"Shh." Her mother smiles again, but this time when she speaks there is a new, teasing tone in her voice. "Besides, you have no reason to be afraid. You are not alone now."

How stupid, that even in the Fade her mother could still make her blush. "He…well. You knew back then, but…it's different. Now. We worked it out, I mean."

"I know. You may inform him that I expect my first grandchild to give you as much trouble as you gave me."

Hawke doesn't know if she's laughing or crying. "Mother!"

"Oh, tush. I've been after fat-cheeked grandchildren since you first began courting seriously, you know that. And your father's wanted them even longer."

"Oh, tush yourself. You knew I…you knew…" A sudden lump surges in Hawke's throat, hot and hard as grief and just as hard to speak through. "I wish you were here, Mother, so much. It hurts how much I miss you. I wish you could see Fenris again. I wish Father could meet him at all. I hope—I hope he'd—approve—"

Her mother's fingers smooth over her cheek, wiping away the tears. "You know he would," she tells her quietly. "All he ever wanted was for you to love and to be loved. That's all he needed. And that's all I wanted."

Hawke's smile is thick and watery, a damp patch growing on the fabric under her cheek, but it is a smile. "I'm only sorry you won't be able to hold your first grandchild."

"You shouldn't be. You know I'd spoil them rotten."

"They'd have loved you for it."

"And I love you." Her mother's voice is fading, like a breeze has picked it up to bear it away. Hawke fists her hands harder in her skirts as if to anchor her there, with her, but it is of little use. The fingers in her hair slip away. "My sweet girl," her mother breathes, and a kiss like wind brushes over her forehead. "Be happy."

"Say hello to Father and Bethany for me," Hawke whispers, and she is gone.

She can feel her heart beating.

This is a good sign, Hawke thinks; beating hearts generally go hand-in-hand with life in her experience, and the steady one-two thump in her chest seems to indicate at least some spirit still remaining. She also feels like she's been run over by both her father's buck wagon and the mule pulling it, which is further encouraging on the alive front if not overly comfortable. Piece by piece, her world filters into existence around her: a pillow under her head, cool sheets, soft sunlight on her shoulder and softer voices at her feet. Her limbs are heavy as lead and her eyes feel like they're glued shut, but she did not survive Jaculus only to lose a battle of will to sticky eyelashes, and after a brief but invigorating battle she manages to coax them open.

Slowly, the blur of sun and shadow resolves into a red coverlet and ivory walls—her room in Minrathous, she realizes, and her bed—and two figures at the foot of the bed in quiet conversation, one with flaming red hair and the other white, their noses alike in profile. Fenris, she realizes muzzily, and Varania, his sister, Varania who even as she watches gives Fenris a nod and a small smile and slips from the room. Hawke blinks like an owl, lazy and slow, and watches dazedly as Fenris circles the bed to settle into a dark-wooded chair pulled nearly to her elbow. He drags a hand through his hair and glances a moment out the window, his green eyes old and tired, weary with something more than simple fatigue, and the sight of it makes even her bruised soul ache. It is time, she thinks, to go home.

She sighs, "Fenris."

It comes out hoarser than she means it to and rough as if she has screamed herself raw, but Fenris's head snaps around as if she has yanked a line. The rest of him follows, sliding forward to the very edge of his chair. "Hawke," he says, and then as easy and as open as she has ever seen him, Fenris smiles.

The sheer warmth of it takes her breath away. It doesn't matter that her bandaged arms are throbbing in remembered pain or that her head might as well be tied to the bed; she must touch him, must feel the confirmation that this is real and she is alive and he is here, despite every threat to the contrary, and Hawke fumbles her hand from the bedclothes to reach for him. He meets her halfway, catching her trembling fingers in his own, folding her hand into the familiar, honest calluses that line the creases of his palm. Hawke closes her eyes.

"Welcome back," Fenris murmurs, the smile still there in his voice.

She grins without looking at him. "A reprise with the roles reversed? I think I prefer the first one, where you were the one doing all the bleeding."

His tone turns wry. "I do as well."

She tightens her hand around his in answer, stretching her toes downwards as far as she can, feeling out the tug and pull of half-healed wounds and deeply sore muscles. Then she rolls her head on her shoulders until it loosens enough that she can ease her way up the pillows, until she can see Fenris clearly in the morning light. "How long?"

"Not long. Two days."

"Dare I ask what happened in the arena?"

Hawke means it lightly, but Fenris's face darkens like a thundercloud, his smile vanishing under the sudden weight of shadow. "You nearly died," he tells her, his words clipped at the ends. Hawke cannot blame him; she does not enjoy that memory either. "The gates opened the moment your victory was registered, but you were already…" He makes a short, helpless gesture in the air. "There was nothing but blood."

The haunted look in his eyes is too much, too deep for her to fathom; she twines her fingers through his more firmly, pulling him back to the present. "You brought me back," she says, and means it. "I wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been there."

"I could not protect you."

"No?" Hawke runs her thumb over the vein of lyrium lining the inside of his wrist, resting it over the place where his pulse beats. "What about this?"

He turns his head away, though he recaptures her thumb with his fingers. "A curse."

"A gift. Fenris, you saved me with it. You saved me, not the lyrium or anything else. I owe you my life."

"You owe me nothing," Fenris snarls, his eyes snapping sharp enough to cut as he turns back to her, as he stands and bends over her on the bed, as he slides his free hand behind her head and presses his lips hard against her own. The suddenness of it shocks her—and then her mouth opens under his and her hands fist themselves in his shirt to draw him closer, and for the next several minutes there is no sound in the room but the shift of weight and the hush of her own breathing. Eventually, though, the kiss quiets, and the tense lines of Fenris's jaw ease under her fingers, and he pulls back enough to rest his forehead against her own. "A gift," he repeats ruefully, and closes his eyes.

He has one knee on the bed already; when Hawke tugs he yields and settles at her hip, the room so heavy with sorrow and something deeper that she cannot quite breathe through it. Instead, she feathers her fingertips up his neck, over his jaw, letting them slide into the white mess of his hair; his eyes slide shut at her touch and her heart twists. The crow's feet around his eyes have deepened in worry and fatigue, his forehead stuck in a permanent crease that has not relaxed since they docked months ago. She smoothes her hand over his eyebrows until they ease, sliding her fingers across the bridge of his nose to the corners of his eyes, erasing the years from his face as best she can until the anxiety becomes something more yielding.

She says, "I love you, Fenris."

He had been leaning into her hand; at that he stops, suddenly, and pulls back just enough to look at her, and there is something alight in Fenris's face that sets her soul on fire. His thumb glides over her bottom lip, and then he bends and kisses her again, and this time it is so gentle that she is heartsore at the sweetness of it.

"Do not leave me again, Hawke," he tells her, his voice low and heavy with emotion. "I could not bear it."

"I never left," she says, and then as if in a dream, or in the memory of a dream, she adds, "If there is a future to be had, remember?"

His eyes soften; his mouth turns up in a smile. "I have not forgotten."

"Neither have I." She smiles at him in return, then, sensing the heaviness returning, turns the conversation to something lighter. "I saw Varania was here."

"Yes," he says, and there is a new thing in his eyes that she has never seen there before, a sort of surprised pride and gratitude and relief that together make him younger than his years. "She healed you," he continues, touching one of the bandages around her upper arm. "She was at the match, and afterwards she was the only mage I—was willing to trust."

"Oh, I see how it is. Any mage will do in a pinch, hmm?" Hawke grins to lighten her teasing, probing with her own still-drained magic at the half-healed cuts and gashes still left behind. It is not bad at all, she realizes, only a step or two below her own blunt healing, and when she touches the place on her cheek that Jaculus had split open she finds only the faintest line of a scar. "Remind me to thank her when I see her again."

"I will."

Hawke smiles; then she draws in a breath and her gladness fades away behind anxiety. No reason to put this off longer—no time to waste if she has not succeeded. "What happened with Jaculus?"

"Dead," Fenris says shortly, his eyes going hard. "His funeral was this morning."

"All pomp and no substance, I'm sure."

"A spectacle worthy of the Archon himself."

"Of course. What else?"

"With his death in the arena, you have officially inherited the majority of Jaculus's property. You are now a magister twice over."

"With twice the enemies. I was afraid of that." She scrubs the heels of her hands over her eyes, then sighs. "I'll tell Dalos the plan today."

"Do not linger overlong. The sooner we are free of this city, the better."

"Why, Fenris, you say that like you want to leave."

Fenris smirks, but Hawke's heart is racing for another reason, a question she both dreads to ask and desperately wants answered. "Fenris," she murmurs, her voice now serious, "what of Alam?"

The lightening of his face is answer enough. His eyes brighten, his smile turns real—and the weariness slides away from his face like water. "Safe," he tells her, and Hawke's eyes slip closed in relief. He continues, "The invasion has been abandoned. The Imperator Petra has returned to Carastes to salvage what she can from the armada. Even Priscus has fallen into disfavor, close as he was to the magister Jaculus. The Fog Warriors…" Fenris sighs like an iron band has lifted away from his chest, as if he is taking his first real breath in months. "No more of them will die. Not from this attack."

"Then we did it." She laughs, giddy and bright. "We won."

He throws her a sharp glance that encompasses every cut and bruise still peeking out like spilled wine around her bandages. "The cost was almost too high."

"But paid willingly. Besides, there are—others—who paid much more."

"I do not regret it," Fenris tells her, his mouth quirking, an echo of another night of granite and ghosts and broken chains.

She smiles. "Neither do I."

"I owe you my thanks, Hawke."

"A gift," Hawke reminds him, and places her hand on his chest. The sunlight spills over her hand where it touches him, warm as a summer stream, as an overfull heart, as a glad voice calling home at the end of the day.

Fenris looks down at her in the rumpled crimson coverlet, her hair in disarray and her skin pale and mottled with bruises, and he smiles, and then he mirrors the motion, resting his palm over the place where her heart beats out a song solid and steady, a rhythm meant both for him and for herself: alive, alive, alive.

A full two days pass before Hawke is able to make it down the stairs on her own, two more before she gathers the strength to stagger anywhere but the study. Weak as she is from both blood loss and the absolute draining of her magic, she can do little but sign paperwork and talk, but with her recent acquisition of Jaculus's household and a number of important magisters visiting to either curry favor or dispense polite threats, she finds her days more than full enough of both. Varric and Isabela visit often, one with information about Hawke's conquests and the other with information about conquests of her own—Hawke suffers through recitals of her necking with Lydas more than once—and then on the fifth day after the duel Isabela saunters into the study and collapses on a low couch with a sigh.

Hawke doesn't look up from the stack of manumission papers in front of her. A few minutes later, Isabela sighs again, louder and more pointed, and Hawke suppresses a smile. As casually as she can, she says, "Is something wrong?"

Isabela toes a stack of books on the arm of the couch, then throws an arm over her eyes. "I'm bored."

"Already? It's not even noon. You usually don't expect to be entertained until at least three o'clock."

"So entertain me."

Hawke rolls her eyes. "I can put you to work, if that's what you mean."

"I'd prefer to play."

"I thought you and Lydas had a—thing—going."

"Lydas," Isabela says, her voice aggrieved as she stretches both hands over the end of the couch, "has found himself a suitor. One of the field hands from that dead magister's new place outside the city."

"Oh, really?" Hawke lays down her pen and props her head in her hands. "I didn't know he'd been over there."

"Oh, yes. He's all calf eyes and mooning and lovestruck sighs, and as good as that looks on some people, I prefer it not to be the ones I'm sleeping with."

"Even if they're directed at you?"

"Especially then." Isabela gives a little mock shudder. "Faint with love? I'd rather be faint with fu—"

"So Lydas has a suitor," Hawke says hurriedly. "Sorry for your loss, but I guess that's what free will does for you."

"Sweet thing," she purrs, "I am the embodiment of free will. But I suppose there are plenty of good-looking dockhands who know enough of the trade tongue to strip when I tell them to."

"It's the little things that count." Hawke grins, turning back to the last of the paperwork from her victory. She signs her name with a flourish to the bottom of the manumission documents, then slips the whole stack into an envelope for Varric. One last stop at the magistrate's and these slaves will be free too; then all that will be left is Dalos's instructions and her own final goodbyes.

The very thought is arresting enough to still her hands. All this and they are nearly finished; all this and little left to do but pack. Isabela starts humming something from the couch, her leg swinging in time, her voice throaty and low, and the melody drifts through the room like an errant thought to vise around Hawke's heart. The song is simple and sweet and sad, sad enough to make her ache with longing—and despite everyone here and the things she has learned and the friends she has made Hawke knows one thing to be true:

She is so ready to be home.

The siren spell of Isabela's song lasts until footsteps pound outside the door to shatter it. Varric bursts in, his hair wild and Bianca askew on his back, and slams the door closed behind him before flattening himself against it. "Rivaini," he pants, ignoring Hawke where she has half-risen from the desk, "did you really have to do that?"

"I don't have the faintest idea what you mean," she sing-songs, crossing her hands behind her head and staring up at the carved ceiling.

"Really? Because Hawke's steward is on the warpath and it's actually a little frightening how angry that elf can get. I didn't even know faces could turn that color."

"What's going on?" Hawke asks, straightening behind the desk.

"Nothing sordid," Isabela offers at the same time Varric says, "Rivaini drew a giant cock on the wall of Danarius's bedroom."

Silence.

Then, faintly: "Did you…did you really?"

"Maybe."

"Did you…I mean, is it…recognizable?"

"Let's just say Varric neglected to mention my obvious and marketable talent."

"My apologies," he says, chuckling in both amusement and despair. "You are truly a master of the medium."

Isabela grins widely as Varric leans back against the desk. Hawke closes her eyes. "Isabela. You drew a cock on Danarius's wall."

Varric nods. "Six feet tall. In bootblack."

"I go where the muse moves me."

And because she can do nothing else, Hawke throws back her head and laughs.

Slowly, room by room, Hawke's possessions begin to make their way into boxes and crates and canvas bags, bits and pieces piling up here and there like the moldering suits of armor in Fenris's mansion. They aren't leaving with much more than they arrived with, thanks to both frugality and the natural savagery of Minrathous's preferred souvenirs, but the packing still does require a not-inconsiderable amount of Hawke's attention as their tenure in Tevinter begins to draw to a close.

The Arras brothers visit, along with Varania; Damia comes too, with Feynriel, to both wish her well in her recovery and to say goodbye. Feynriel tries more than once to convince her to stay, but Hawke refuses to be swayed; Dalos will be more than capable in her absence and besides, there is another city with an older claim on both her time and her heart, and Hawke refuses to abandon either Kirkwall or her people there until the city burns down around her ears. Feynriel seems to accept that even if he does not approve, and when he and his mentor rise to leave he even manages to muster enough courage to kiss Hawke on the cheek.

All that is left is Dalos.

Hawke finds him in one of the west wing's guest bedrooms, fussing over the placement of a pillow on an already-immaculate bed. He tugs it one way, then the other, then rotates it to an identical side before standing back and eyeing it critically.

Hawke leans against the doorframe and grins. "Nervous?"

Dalos jumps so hard his wide sleeve catches a candlestick on the nightstand, just about knocking both the silver and himself to the floor in his recovery. "Mistress," he says in both acknowledgement and reprimand, and replaces the candle. "I didn't hear you."

"You were very focused. When is she supposed to get here?"

He glances at the sunlight pouring in through the tall windows. "Perhaps an hour. Palla is watching for her in the yard."

Her tone softens as she steps into the room, taking in the polished bronze, the gleaming oak, the high, cosy heap of quilts on the bed. "I'm sure your wife will love it."

Dalos smiles at the very mention of her, suddenly enough that Hawke does not think he realizes it, and his eyes are warmer than the light. "I have—missed her. A great deal."

"I believe it," Hawke murmurs, and then the smile slips from her face as she sinks into one of the straight-backed chairs tucked into the corner of the room. "Dalos, I want to ask you something."

He straightens, his own smile fading. "Of course, Mistress."

"You know I'm leaving. That Fenris and I are going home to Kirkwall in the next few days, and that I've given over the management of this estate to you and to Ara while I'm away for as long as you're willing to do it."

"Yes."

"You know we may be gone a long time. Years."

His eyebrows furrow. "Yes, Mistress. Ara and I have already discussed some long-term plans for the building and the grounds, if that's what you mean."

"Yes. No. Not really." Hawke leans her head back against the wall and inhales, trying to order her thoughts and her words into something closer to coherency. Just say it. "Dalos, I want this estate, and Jaculus's estate, to become part of the slave's underground."

He tenses so suddenly Hawke thinks he might snap in half. "You…what?"

"I'm serious," she says, and there is no doubt in her voice. She'd had the idea from one of Anders's letters, a rare missive where he'd been more humorous than angry; then she'd run it by Isabela, who'd approved of the intrigue, and Fenris who'd approved of the irony, and Varric had been the one to find her the contacts she'd needed in one of the safehouses itself. But regardless of her intentions she cannot stay here, not yet, and if Dalos refuses to jeopardize his family and his home she will not begrudge him the choice.

Still. She hopes.

"A lot of it's set up already," she continues. "Varric has made some introductions and arranged certain routes of transportation both in and out of here that won't attract notice. But, Dalos, I won't lie to you—it will not be safe for anyone who lives here, and if you say no I'll find another way—"

"I will do it."

She pauses. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes," he breathes, and his brown eyes are afire with something hard and elated and desperately painful. He says, "If there was ever—ever—if I could have—"

"I know," Hawke says, her throat thick, her chest aching. "I just wanted to give you—a chance. I want to give them a chance. Even if I can't be here myself to do it."

Dalos nods, short and sharp, his gaze a thousand miles away, and when Hawke stands he lets her pull him into a brief embrace. "Thank you for everything," she tells him. "I'll write. I'll send whatever I can."

"I will look forward to it, Mistress," he says, smiling—

A woman's voice rises from the stairs.

There is no need to wonder whose; Dalos's sharp, indrawn breath is enough. His hand is on the door before Hawke has moved, his footsteps vanishing rapidly down the hall before she can even open her mouth to speak. A cry echoes up from the atrium, sounding and resounding, a man's voice and a woman's and a third she thinks might be Palla—Hawke makes her careful way through the door to the banister overlooking the wide, polished stairs in time to see Dalos practically collide with his wife halfway down, flinging his arms around her and lifting her from the ground with a wild, joyful laugh she had not known him capable of.

"My Dara," she can hear him repeating, broken and glad. "My Dara, my darling."

His wife is no less overcome; her shoulders shake with sobs, her tears running down into her smile, and Dalos smoothes her faded auburn hair from her face like a buried man glimpsing sunlight. Palla stands beside them, smiling, laughing, talking so quickly to them both that Hawke suspects even she doesn't know what she's saying; and on either side she holds the hands of two boys with dark hair, neither of them older than twelve but both already the image of their sister.

Dalos laughs again and opens his free arm to his children, and quietly, without notice, Hawke slips away.

The day of their departure dawns grey and pale, clouds seeping across the sky to hang heavy and cold as if in mirror of Hawke's heart. She does not speak much as she and Fenris prepare for the day; every moment is a moment of lasts—the last time she will sleep in this bed, the last time she will put her hand on the carved leaves of her door, the last time she will make her way down the high, stately hallways that overlook the green spreading of her gardens.

The last time she will see many of her people here.

One by one, Hawke makes her way through her farewells. Palla cries, just a little, when Hawke gives her the little silver necklace she'd had made for her; Lydas winks and throws his arm around her shoulders as she stumbles through her gratitude for his help with Fenris. Canut gives her a little basket full of seed packets and one of his most sturdy trowels and that makes her cry, though she manages to compose herself enough to save them both from embarrassment. The tears come again, though, when Ara shows her the slender gold ring on her finger, and when Marcus lifts that hand to his lips with a smile more bare and honest than she has ever seen him.

Even Fenris does not seem wholly glad to leave; she catches him clasping hands with both Lydas and Ara, who grin and prod gently at the thin paler lines of scars tracing over his arms, the only remaining traces of their struggles on a sleepless, starless night. Then the carriage arrives and they load up the last of the boxes behind it, the horses stamping in impatience, the driver with his cloak pulled close against the chill, and a different pallor settles over the few still waiting in the echoing marble atrium for their magister to depart, something deeper and colder and more quiet, as soft and as wreathing as mist.

Fenris ties the final knot into place and steps to the open door of the carriage; behind him, Hawke hesitates, half-down the steps, caught in the instant between past and future as she turns one last time to face the white marble of the home that was once Danarius's. For a moment, she cannot move.

Then Dalos steps forward, Dalos of the sharp, intelligent eyes and light brown hair streaked through with grey, Dalos with his wife and children standing behind him, smiling. He takes both her hands in his, and he looks her in the eye, and he says, "Travel well, Euphemia Hawke."

"Thank you," Hawke says, and means it, and when he lets her slip free she sees the understanding in his eyes. Then she turns away, turns her back on the gardens and the windows and the polished stone, and she follows Fenris into the carriage. The driver clucks and the horses prance forward, and at last they pull away down the avenue, the wheels spinning over grey stone, the clouds spinning out a grey sky.

The drive is at once too short and an eternity too long. Minrathous rolls by them in shades of life and memory, shopkeepers' muted voices calling out their wares to passersby, slaves moving past with their eyes lowered, men and women strolling through the street's high archways with baskets and envelopes and purposes of their own, little noticing and caring less that a magister's laden carriage has passed them by. The road turns eastward, carrying them through an avenue lined on either side with olive trees, and Hawke watches as the silver leaves play faint shadows across Fenris's face. He turns to watch them as they flow by the window, swelling and fading like the rush of the sea, and though Hawke cannot be wholly certain she thinks she sees in his eyes—

Peace.

His hand is relaxed on his knee; when the avenue gives way at last to narrower streets, to more people in poorer clothes raising their voices in greeting, to the great stone walls and their scarlet banners made dim and faded by thick, heavy clouds, Hawke reaches over and threads her fingers through his. Fenris glances at her, surprised, and then he matches her smile with one of his own as the familiar forest of ship-masts lifts beyond the walls.

They are truly leaving.

Soon—too soon, at last—they slow to a stop at the end of a long and wooden pier. A few sailors saunter forward, chatting, laughing cheerfully in spite of the sullen weather, and hoist Hawke's boxes over their shoulders to load them; Hawke herself steps from the carriage and straightens, staring up at Isabela's ship where it stretches out against the somber sky. The sails are furled tightly against the spars, but even still The Siren's Call II strains against her moorings, the ropes that bind her stretched taut to breaking as if the ship herself is eager to be away. To be free.

Isabela stands high on the stern deck, one hand on the great dark wheel, her other fisted at her hip as she surveys the final preparations for two weeks at sea. Cork stands at the starboard rail, grinning, his head turned to Ania beside him as his ever-busy hands twist lemongrass into little bundles for her sachets. The little blonde brother and sister stand at his other side, peering under their new caps at the smiling sailors around them and the half-dozen other members of her household joining them, all bound for the newer life awaiting them in Kirkwall. Varric is there, too, a little bag of ginger tucked into his belt, grinning down at her and Fenris from where he leans on the open railing. Hawke waves; he beckons, laughing, and a crisp wind swirls up behind her as if to urge her forward.

Fenris turns to look at her. "Parata esta?" he asks gravely, though there is a light in his eyes as yearning and as impatient as hers.

"Paratus, amaris," she tells him, and bumps him gently with her hip. "Let's go home."

It takes only a moment to stow what little they still carry in their old, familiar cabin, only a moment more to join Isabela and Varric aloft the quarterdeck where they can watch the end of their stay in Minrathous draw nearer. Men's shouts carry closer on the salt breeze only to be borne away again; a sailor lifts his hand on the pier to signal the lifting of the gangplank; another waves and calls out as the anchor rises, dripping, from the water. Ropes ripple and snap as they are loosed from their anchors, as the first white sails unfurl like birds' wings, hesitant but strong, ready to catch the wind and fly.

Isabela spins the great hardwood wheel, her face alive with joy, and the Call leaps forward.

Fenris steps closer behind Hawke, close enough that she can feel the weight of him against her back, and she does not try to check the wild fierce thing surging in her heart. She can hardly believe they have been here so long; she can hardly believe they are leaving, now, with so much still to do and so many uncertainties ahead. But Kirkwall calls, and so do Aveline and Merrill and Anders and Sebastian, and despite the unexpected tethers this city has placed gently around her heart she will not let the place that made her, the people that made her, struggle forward without her beside them.

As for Minrathous—one day, maybe. She has a place here; she has a family here too. If she can, and if Fenris is willing—one day.

The wind picks up in a sudden rush of snapping, billowing sails and white-flecked foam, in sailors laughing, shouting, in the swift swelling of the deep green waves that surge against the Call's painted hull in rhythmic song. Hawke lifts her head, looking forward, searching out the horizon that even now murmurs a call so strong she cannot help the helpless longing it shapes in her soul. Isabela turns her face into the wind; Varric steps forward to the rail beside them, smiling, Bianca straight and steady over his back.

Ahead of them, eastward, the steel-grey clouds break. A shaft of sunlight tumbles down like water, staining the leading sea as green as glass, as the deep crush of cypress leaves, glancing through the cresting, weightless spray like the shatter of white stars, then falling again to gleam along the waves' long sweeps before the wind breathes through the spindrift once more.

Hawke leans her head against Fenris's shoulder. He laughs, low, and strong, and triumphant, and looks with her to the east, towards Kirkwall.

Home.