CHAPTER ONE

"This is the last time you and your group oppose me, Hawke."

The Knight-Commander paced the room of her office, coming around the cherry desk that had been so neatly organized before she'd thrown down the reports. My name was blazoned across all of the pages. Damage reports, missing people, suspicious activity and murder. The blonde woman smiled softly then, out of character. She pushed a few pieces closer to me with a metal sheathed finger, the loose curls of her hair brushing out of the red hood she wore pulled above her head. Apostate, read across the top of the first page. Assault in The Hanged Man, viciously stabbed out from the second, my eyes picking out Anders' name amongst the scribble. Association with Coterie Murders, Breaking and Entering in the Alienage, Accomplice to Wanted Apostate, Association with a Wanted Fugitive, Suspicious Activity Concerning Guard Captain…

"You think I do this to oppose you, Meredith?" I nearly laughed. "Have I done nothing but show my support for your solution for capturing mages?"

Her face broke then, "Do you not think that I am aware that for every task you complete under my name, you stain it further with your dealings in Darktown and Lowtown? You don't think that every person in Kirkwall is well aware that I overlook your own illegal magic for the sake of your being The Champion?! Kirkwall would be a safer and more stable place for me to run if you didn't leave such a mark on everything you touch."

I threw an arm out. "I do nothing to cause you strife, even though you have me turning on my own kind so that you may reap the benefits of having the least incidental Circle watch."

The calm façade came back to her face again, the switch becoming a disturbing occurrence in our conversation. "Someday, I'll make you understand. But, it is of no consequence, Hawke." She took a deep breath, the action somehow forced and artificial. "Please, let me keep you no longer."

"So you just happen to push these papers around me for no reason at all, just to tell me that I'm being a nuisance with my existence?" I said, raising a brow.

I saw her bite the inside of her cheek. "Of course not."

"If you're asking me to leave, I can't," I snapped. "If you think that I'm going to let you run my home like a prison, you've got another thing coming. I do not want any more angst between us, but I will not be pushed like this."

The unnatural smile came across her face. "You'll understand one day how nice it is when everyone behaves," she said softly. "You're dismissed."

I left the Templar's quarters unnerved. Something was amiss with Meredith. I had expected to be showered with wrath from standing against her. It was true that my entire relationship with her was an unspoken agreement to keep myself out of the Circle and my comrades out of prison – or worse. But that was growing weak, I could tell.

The first thing I needed to do was to forewarn Fenris and Anders of this, seeing as they were the most vulnerable if, for some reason, Meredith pressed this even further.

The tensions between the Orsino and Meredith were growing more and more passionate every brush they could get. Blood mages, illegal Rite of Tranquility, broken phylacteries, rogue Templars – every turn seemed to hold a new accusation, a new amount of pressure put on me to act in Meredith's place now that she was appointed viscount.

I didn't know how much longer I could drag myself and my friends through this torture.

It had always been like this, though usually it wasn't just myself that was causing all the strife. Bethany had been a contributor to it as well… but this time she wasn't around to help me save our skins.

The mansion had been in a mess since he had taken it from his previous master, Denarius. A few of the upstairs windows were broken and there were tiles missing from the floor inside, pieces of the stone shattered and brushed into corners. Glass shards, empty crates and overturned furniture still littered the floor after nearly six years of being there. I shook my head and made a mental note to myself that I needed to help him clean up, eventually.

"Fenris?" I called out into the estate, my voice fading into the walls. "Hello? Anybody home?"

An echo of a bemused chuckle appeared just before he did, placing both of his spiked gloved hands on the top of the railing and leaning on them slightly. He stood just taller than I, a mess of bright white hair partially hanging in front of his angular face. Deep green eyes bore out from dark eyebrows which were raised at my surprise visit. Upon the elf's chin, starting just below his lip, were two bright white lines, curving down beneath his jaw and down his throat, disappearing into his armor, but not before branching out into smaller lines.

"Is it Ferelden custom to let yourself into other people's houses?" he asked, his tone light.

I smiled as I made my way across the antechamber. "I knew the door was unlocked. Besides, who else would let themselves into your house? It looks like it harbors demons and other nefarious things."

A smirk pulled up a corner of his mouth.

"I had to come by," I said, my voice sounding uneasy, even to me. "It's Meredith…"

He rolled his eyes before pushing himself off the stone railing and into the back room where a fire burned in the hearth surrounded by a few chairs and benches. Off to the other side of the room was a table with a few leaves of paper and a few bottles of wine that I assumed were empty.

"She's… crazy," I announced rather bluntly. "You'd think that she'd laugh a whole lot more than she does for the amount of insanity in that woman."

Fenris sat in a red armchair that looked to have been rather expensive at the time of its purchase – it had seen better days. I didn't sit, instead I folded my arms and glanced out one of the only whole windows in the stolen estate – perhaps out of paranoia or the fact that I was slightly alarmed that already the sky was coloring itself oranges.

"So you think something's going to happen?" he prodded.

I shook my head, my eyes drifting back to him as I brushed a piece of hair from my face. "I don't think so, but I know something is definitely going on. She has papers on us all, Fenris. You, me, Anders, Aveline, the whole lot." I took a few steps around the small round table and then back again. "She's…. biding her time, I think. I don't know."

Dark brows pulled over olive eyes as their owner shifted in his seat slightly. "We knew this, why so worried now?"

My gaze returned to him, grazing over his face before I closed my eyes and inhaled a cleansing breath. "It's probably nothing, but I got a bad feeling over this when I was with her," I admitted. "You are one of the most vulnerable to this. They'd ship you off to Tevinter again."

"If they dared try," he said, his voice dripping black challenge. When I opened my eyes again, he was looking up at me. "Do you really think me such a terrible warrior that a few Templars would take me to the ground?" he attempted to jest.

Was this the time? Probably not. "I… am worried for you…. She is an evil, twisted woman…" I heard my voice say.

Fenris was quiet for a few seconds, a menagerie of emotions passing over his face before he decided to stand. "I'll be fine…" he assured softly. "Nothing's going to happen to me…."

"Good –" That was all I could get out before something sent a thud through my torso. Down on my left protruded the black tip of an arrow, red seeping from around it and soaking into my robes.

There was no pain from the shoulder, as I had expected, but the sight was shocking. My brain had a hard time comprehending the fact that there was a weapon that had been lodged into my body. What was it doing there? This mansion was a safe place, there was no one that was going to harm us here. Cloth had torn from around the metal tip of the arrow, glazed in a shining coat of the crimson that drained from the hole in the flesh behind it. The proximity of the weapon to my face vexed me for a few moments, I could see every grain in the wood, the scratches on the tip of the—
It was then that I felt the pain. Blooming from the red, my left arm felt nearly useless to move lest fire shoot down the length. I willed myself to snap the end of the arrow off – a wave of nausea rolling over me when I did – and yank it free from the back of my shoulder. My heartbeat in in my ears as the blood flows freely now from the puncture.

"Hawke!"

My name is being called by a familiar voice and suddenly I remember where I am. My eyes search wildly around the room for him, catching a glance as his gauntlet of light is forced into a man's chest and a dull cracking sound comes from within the victim, his expression frozen in that of surprise and pain from when life still clung to him.

A flood of glimmering armor rushed from the door, some bearing the Templar's insignia and some not, as I take my first steps towards him. I pull upon the face and force the mana down into my right hand, calling upon frost that I could lay across the doorway and perhaps buy us enough time to escape. As the spell had touched the air, it was sucked clean and dry from my body, along with any of the mana I had pooled for use. My arm went weak as its energy source served to feed the twenty or so men that forced themselves into the room.

In a mild rush of panic, I remembered the small dagger Isabella insisted I carried with me. "You rely too much on that silly little stick. Here's a big girl weapon. Flash that at the boys and you'll have their attention."

I slipped the knife from its place on my wide leather belt and lunged towards the Templar that had attempted to hold me, aiming the metal for a bit of exposed neck as the pirate had shown me. He pulled at my mana even more, my arm weakening to where it was no struggle at all for him to grip my wrist and twist it around, the limb dropping my knife and had been brought around until it was pinned between my shoulder blades. I made a small pained noise come from my throat before I was acutely aware of cold metal searing into my neck.

Fenris had cleaved the head from one of the mercenary's shoulders, blood misting the shining breastplate he adorned and dotting the brightly lit lyrium in his flesh, and had drawn back again when a woman's voice echoed through the hall.

"One more move and The Champion's last hour has arrived."

Muscle tensed against the momentum, pulling and tightening flesh in ripples beneath his skin as he looked over to the threat. His movement halted, emotion passing over his face as I could see him formulate a plan. The blade at my neck pressed a bit deeper, small beads of moisture falling from the polished metal. I winced slightly as I was caught nodding my head to any form of combat that Fenris had established in his head, my wrists twisted until I could feel the ligaments in my shoulders begin to tear with crunching pops.

"Drop your weapon. Now."

He hesitated for a second, his eyes sweeping the oppressors before he decided that his chances of taking out six archers with arrows knocked were not favorable. Slowly his sword came to the ground, hitting the tile with a heavy thunk. Templars rushed him, twisting his arms behind his back and binding them before delivering a kick to the back of the knees and driving him to the ground.

"Isn't it so much nicer when everyone just… behaves?"

I flinched at the word, my eyes darting up to the woman who held the sword to my neck.

It wasn't Meredith, no, but it was someone I had seen come in and out of her office a few times in the short while that I had been working for her; a nameless upper ranking officer that held no real importance to me before this day, my life now in her hands. She knelt in front of me, smearing the small droplets of life across the flesh of my throat with the tip of her blade.

"Someone's been a bad, bad girl," she mocked, grinning sadistically. Angular and harsh in nature, her face was framed in long strands red hair, the majority tied back with a leather thong.

I inhaled sharply, my shoulder protesting against any movement. "I admit it, I came into his house without knocking. I –" the Templar behind me pushed my hands further up my spine, an audible pop coming from my right shoulder. I heard a noise similar to that of an injured animal, high pitched and muffled between teeth, before I realized I had made it.

The woman's smile deepened. "My, my, this one has some fight in her, doesn't she?" She laughed blackly. "Meredith is going to love that…."

"I'm assuming this is a big misunderstanding and you confused the word hospitality with brutality when you came to get me," I spoke again, warm wet spreading down the front and back of my robes. "I didn't think breaking and entering usually required the whole team."

The woman gazed lovingly down at her sword and nodded. "It seems Meredith has a bone to pick with you. She is most upset with your flaunting about… Breaking all the rules she's set down to keep everyone safe…. And now, you're not playing fair with the others." She stood. "Kill the elf and bring his body, she just needs the Champion alive and we don't want him running back for reinforcements. Take her back to the holding cells, Meredith wants all the time she can get before the magister gets here."

The Templar holding Fenris mechanically pulled a short dagger from his belt, bending and putting the tip of the knife at his neck, tensing to draw it across.

I could picture the actions before they would even arrive; the blade would draw a neat line across his throat, he would give me one last look with those burning emerald eyes and I would get to watch as the life bled from them and out his neck. The beautiful elf would be thrown unceremoniously onto the ground, where he would lie until Meredith needed him. Remorse stabbed through my chest more painfully than any weapon could.

"No! No! Wait! Just—just wait!"

The woman turned back to me, holding a hand up to signal a halt in the execution. She raised her brows as if she mistook my blatant cries for mumbling of curses.

"Don't kill him," I pleaded, my gaze leaving her and wandering to the dark green that regarded me warningly, as though he was fearful of having his life saved. I looked back up at the cruel Templar woman, all the traces of my sardonic nature having vanished with the appearance of the knife held to the elf's neck. "Don't kill him…. I'll go quietly if you just leave him alone."

The black smile returned to her face. "Are you really in the place to be bargaining? You're tied with nothing to do but to wave your silver tongue about and you… bargain with me?"

"Please," I asked, sincerity in my voice one would be hard pressed to find there again. "Leave him alone… it's me you want."

"Hawke." It was uncertainty that leaked through the rage on the Tevinter's face, the angry glow of his markings dying just slightly.

I shook my head in the slightest motion I could manage. "Serah, leave him. Please. I'll go with you to Meredith…. Please."

The woman appraised the offer for a few seconds, her eyes flicking between myself and the man behind me. "Take them both," she commanded. "Meredith will decide the elf's fate."

A blow came from behind. And a blackness swallowed my thoughts.