Author's Note: Thank you to my beta, jeymien, for the help (and the hand-holding). Title comes from the song of the same name by Florence + the Machine. Chapter titles are inspired by the (occasionally incorrect) lyrics.
Warning: This story contains major spoilers for all Acts, up to and including the end-game events. This chapter involves canonical character death.
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Seven Devils
On the Tearing of the Walls
"The time has come to act.
There can be no half-measures."
– Anders; Act III
I
He falls.
He falls, and as quickly as that, it is done.
(this will never be done)
The others have watched motionless, held fast by vice or virtue, thoughts weighted, pieces spoken. He has made it easy for them. He did not make it easy for her, she whom he had helped, she whom he had healed; he of such gentle concern.
She tries to be gentle. What a cruel mockery.
When none look away, they do him an honour. When none say a word, they offer him their forgiveness or their damnation, and when it is done and her knife is sheathed and they have shared that last shuddering breath, none can say that the terrible deed was not hers, and hers alone.
She has kept her silent promise, writ in blood and trust, witnessed by time, and she is bound even in death to his terms and his rebellion.
(you gave me no choice)
The blood pools on the cobbles as she kneels next to him. She studies him as if to memorize the face of a stranger, this last time of all times, and she cannot remember when exactly the soft lines had appeared at the corners of his eyes, or when precisely the silver had begun to feather his temples, but she sees him now and vows to remember him kindly, for even in her blind and righteous anger she knows that she will be the only one.
With moth wing touch, she closes his eyes. It is the only tenderness she can afford his troubled soul in front of her companions, and she fears her heart might burst with the pain of it.
It is the last respect she will ever pay him.
II
There is no time to mourn, no time to pause, or plan, or think. The smoke still rises from the hill, and the wails of the anguished and the dying carry in like ash on the evening breeze. The streets are almost empty now, an eerie calm settling like thickening mist, but she has no time to wonder who is safe, who is hidden, who has fled.
She has to lessen this monstrous wrong done by the mage she had fought to keep free, the man she had befriended, had come to respect and support because she had believed in the justice of his cause.
Now his cause is dying all around her, and faith is bleeding from the broken stones, and all the world is in pieces.
A fool she's been and a fool she'll remain if she doesn't do something before the mages burn and the whole of the city goes up with them.
She knows this will be the longest night of her life.
And so she fights, because in times such as this the words continue to fail her and for all her trying it always leads to blood. All her trying has been for naught, the quarrels and the errands and the endless helping, but she is their blighted champion, damn it, champion of a dead cleric, a broken Circle, champion of a smouldering ruin.
This chaos is her curse to bear.
She throws herself against the might of the templars, her heart breaking not only for justice undone, but for everything she's gained and everything she's tossed aside in all her years beneath the shadow of these chains. She cannot stand idly by and allow the Circle to fall.
(everything is falling now)
III
She fights, and she does not fight alone. Truly, she does not deserve loyalty such as this.
Kirkwall is their home as much as it is hers, and her titled wealth sifts away as sand through fingers and still she is left with their strength at her back, their wit and their cunning and their passion, and she knows no greater certainty than their trust.
The rush of battle fills them all, right or wrong, with me or against me fading as the steel clashes and the blood spills and the crackle of magic saturates the air until all she can see and hear and breathe is fighting and dying and loss.
Her companions endure. She endures, because even at the centre of the chaos and destruction, she is not alone. She needs them now, loves them, and knows she has them unto the ending of the world.
(until sudden but inevitable betrayal takes them one by one)
She will not let it go so far.
The Gallows is the heart of the city's trouble, pierced already by the flaming blades of the branded templars. By the Maker, she cannot put a stop to this, no more than standing on the coast with her arms held wide will hold back the tide, but she has to end it somehow or die trying.
Damn this title and all its tangled strings.
And so she plunges them into the darkness of the Gallows and the fortress swallows them whole.
Everything is still and quiet before the breaking of the storm. She gathers what remains of her strength around her, these pale faces, these trembling hands. Wayward souls, armed and armoured, cast to the winds of luck and fate.
These are all she has left in the world.
IV
(please forgive me)
There are no tears now, no bittersweet farewells.
There are soft words and promises. There is talk of ale and tales and drunken songs, of glory and memory, of firesides and tomorrows.
She cannot promise them tomorrow. She cannot promise them victory, or laurels, or songs to be sung. She can give them nothing but battle and the uncertainty of after. She takes their praise and their muted smiles, and she gives what she knows of courage and hope.
She wonders if it will be enough.
Time is against her now, stretching out languid and curious, a beast to be sated and slain. She has nothing left to offer, she has laid bare her heart, her expectation, her indecision, and when the final moments are upon her and she fears she might falter, when she is buried beneath the burden and shame and knowledge of what she helped to accomplish, he is at her side and she wants for nothing more.
What he gives her, she cannot name, that age-old and bone-deep warmth from within. He has a hand in her hair, his eyes filled with fire and purpose, and the drums are sounding somewhere far away and he says –
But no, the belly of the fortress is full of lingering echoes and there are no drums, only the hollow pounding of her heart, and the statues weep at her lies because he does not know what she has done and Fenris says –
She tastes his fear and loves him fiercely then, and she makes him no promise that she cannot keep herself.
V
Battle comes for them, as fate waits for no man – and because it seems to harbour a special hate for her for no discernible reason besides.
The mages fall, true treachery come to wretched light. The templars stand fast. The lyrium burns. It is a terrible power, this red-veined madness, and the knight-commander is consumed. The fortress itself rises to fight against them, and Hawke's arms ache even as her bowstring sings and her arrows turn to breaking against the ancient bronze and stone.
And then –
And then there is a streak of wild white fury, a blur across the battlefield; there is a laugh and a wink and the flash of cold, curved steel; there's a call and a cry and a bellow like thunder; there is a branded breastplate and a burning blade, an unforeseen guardian who owes her nothing, and suddenly –
(blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow)
It is over.
It is over, and through the billowing smoke and choking dust Hawke looks around, dazed and reeling, struggling to pull herself to her knees and searching for each bewildered face, and she counts as she always counts after the fighting is done, breath held tight in her throat as she –
(one, two, three, four, five, six, why only – where is)
"Anders," she whispers as she lets loose that long-held sigh, a last eulogy only she will ever hear. She closes her eyes, mindful of each breath that comes after for it is one he will never draw, and it settles a little firmer then, that he is gone, he is gone because it had to be done, he is gone and done by her hand.
She wonders who will tend their wounds now. It's a knife twist in her heart and she misses him and she misses her sister, her mother, and damn the Maker's bloody will and all the good it has ever done. Her head hangs and she is almost undone to shameful tears, but there's a tugging at her elbow now, the familiar touch of cruel black steel made gentle with great care.
"We must go," says Fenris, and the others are calling her name, ragged and desperate, and all eyes are upon her. All eyes are upon her, and oh, but she is so very tired, and she feels she might break to a thousand bright faceted shards of herself, but the claw of his gauntlet is around her wrist now, that insistent pull, and she knows there will be no rest for her.
And so it is with a last glance back to the templars, stunned to silence, and to the knight-captain, her undeserved protector, that Hawke pulls herself to her feet and follows after the others.
VI
The city falls behind them into darkness, and the road stretches on, eternal.
With naught but the weapons in their hands and the armour on their backs, she leads her weary band west into the coastal forest. The Vimmark Mountains are an impenetrable wall to the north, but that matters little. There is nothing for them over those stony peaks, nothing but raiders and slavers and ancient roads that lead to the spires of magic and misery.
No, she will not go north. Hawke has had her fill of mages.
(what mages have touched, and taken, and burned)
It is full dark beneath a crescent moon when they escape the city, and the smoke and the fires blazoning in the night have hidden all the stars. She cannot stop glancing back over her shoulder, dreading pursuit from templars driven by the anarchy and the cries for justice from their ravaged, leaderless city. They'll want her head.
(someone always does)
But justice is gone and vengeance is all that is left behind, and so Hawke splits her companions into two groups, and sends the others ahead to scout the road and watch for troublemakers who would take advantage of the discord to further their own ends.
Even in exile, she must play her part.
Most citizens who would run had done so as the fighting started in the late hours of the afternoon, and there are only a pitiful few on the roads now. They carry their meagre sacks and spindle-thin children on their backs in the dead of night, defeated as she is, and so, so hollow.
She hears stories of the violence in Lowtown, and the dark rumour that fuelled it and sent it spiralling, and she bites her tongue lest she give herself away. She also hears tell of the valour of the city guard, and smiles to herself, and says nothing at all.
Soon, the farmsteads and villages become fewer and farther between, and the forest looms in closer to the edges of the road. The hours and the miles are behind them and dawn is not long off, but the stars are bright above them now, and it makes the travel seem a little safer.
And so Hawke follows her feet, for they seem to know the way.
VII
Their camp is a rocky outcrop overlooking the coast, far off the road where the treeline meets the cliff in a tangle of roots and loose soil. They seven come to their respite here as the dawn begins to gather beyond the horizon, and the Waking Sea turns to pale shadow.
Hawke takes the first watch, for she knows no sleep will come to her. Her mind is a wild, dark place just then, full of fresh guilt and old cruelties where slumber will not find purchase.
(I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads)
So she sits, quietly watching the others fight their rest as they fight aught else, by sharpening blades and waxing strings, whispering to each other across the cold mist of morning. There is a clinging emptiness they do not speak of, his absence as immeasurable as his betrayal, a black mark upon each and every heart among them, and soon words fall away as tears, useless and clumsy.
Hawke's eyes are dry, and they burn with the weight of the night. The distance has done nothing to assuage the disquiet she feels within, and her grief begins to seep in at her softened edges, like water under a door locked and barred.
The sun rises; her companions sleep, and keep their weapons close.
She cannot sleep; she will not sleep. She fears her dreams. More, she fears what this day will bring – this day, and the next, and all that will come after. There is no peace to be found for her sorry band of misfits, no shelter, no safe harbour. She has made them homeless, she has made them abettors and traitors of the faith. Were there any justice left in the world for the likes of them –
(what you have created, no man can tear asunder)
No, her contrition will be no easy path; she cannot simply water the ground with her very blood and call herself free of her burdens, a martyr ever after for a cause she didn't choose. She is no coward, whatever else may be said against her.
For now, though – for now, she will run. Not cowardice, some would say, but preservation. She must endure. She will run, and her companions will follow. They would do no less for her.
She does not deserve loyalty such as this.
(neither did he)