Prologue
Anders hated the Deep Roads. He wished he could shrink into the stone. To find some solitary corner to clear his head and let rational thoughts take over. Fat chance of that happening down here in the blackness with the stone surrounding him and his head spinning from the darkspawn voices screaming in his mind. He flopped to the ground, squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his knees to his chest, and shivered as his head fell against the cold stone wall.
He had left Ferelden for a reason and no matter how much that choice nagged at him, he took comfort in knowing that he had done the right thing and that there was no going back. Until now, at any rate. Until he somehow ended up back in the Deep Roads, watching Hawke, his best friend turned lover, uncover the ghosts of Anders' past.
"Anders."
The Commander's voice echoed off the stone. Anders smelled leather and oil—the Commander's smell. A calloused hand brushed against his and he recoiled. Maybe if he willed himself away, he'd somehow wake up in his clinic and discover that this whole blighted trip to the Deep Roads had been nothing more than a nightmare.
The touch followed his hand to where it rested atop his knee. Anders took a deep breath and allowed his eyes to flicker upward. "Fancy meeting you here."
"I heard an old friend was living in Kirkwall. I had to see if it was true."
"If I see your friend I'll be happy to tell him you stopped by."
The Commander ignored his sarcasm, as usual. "You look different, Anders."
"Different? I'm lucky if I grab a few hours of sleep on a cot in the corner of a sickbay. More days than not I forget to eat until it's well past sundown. What I think you mean is, I'm skinny and scrawny and tired and overworked and I look like hell."
"I find it hard to believe that you put anything before eating and sleeping."
"I'm not the man you once knew. I'm reformed, as it were. Anyway, is there anything I can help you with or is this merely a social visit?"
"I see you're still unable to have a serious conversation. That much hasn't changed."
"Yes, well. I'm not that reformed. Seriously though, what do you want? Have you come to march me back to Ferelden for the good of the order or some nonsense like that? Instructions from above to reclaim the lost apostate? I don't much like the idea being forced back into captivity to suit some sort of grand decree, you know. Besides, I rather like it here."
That earned him a scowl from the Commander and a stifled snort from Hawke. "I am not forcing you anywhere. I am, however, asking you. Come back to Ferelden with me. To Amaranthine. I understand that you have built a home and a new life here with Hawke, and I don't want to take you away from it, but we are in desperate need of a healer, and . . ."
The unspoken words hovered in the air. The Commander's eyes fixed to the rock above Anders' head. Anders tried his best to look anywhere but at the Commander.
". . . Vigil's Keep has been lonely without you these past years, Anders."
Anders heaved a deep sigh and forced his gaze upward, straight into the eyes of his former lover. A mistake. Those eyes had rendered him powerless from the first moment he'd looked into them. This time was no different. His heart pounded, his palms slicked with sweat. His breath caught in his throat. He craved the Commander's touch across his skin. Lips pressed to his. Tongue exploring the corners of his mouth in just the right way.
"You came all the way across the Waking Sea to ask me to come back to Ferelden? Wouldn't a letter have done just as well? Sounds a bit desperate to me, Commander. Not to mention expensive. Where do the Wardens getting all their coin these days?"
"Maker, you're as exasperating as ever. If you must know, I was sent here on business from Weisshaupt. I merely chose to take advantage of the opportunity. Surely you can respect that."
Whatever else had gone on in the six years they'd been apart, the Commander hadn't forgotten the fine art of twisting Anders' words around on him.
Anders lifted himself from the floor, took a deep breath, swallowed, and put his hand on the Commander's shoulder. "I have a clinic in Darktown. It's cramped and dirty and, well, it's a terrible hole, but it's all I have. I'll take you there and you can rest awhile. Before anyone goes back to Ferelden with or without anyone, Hawke and I need to talk."
When the Commander was settled on the cleanest bed in the clinic and Anders and Hawke were seated around the fire in the bedroom they shared, a bottle of Orlesian red nestled on the floor between them, Anders took a deep breath and addressed his lover.
"Hawke, do you remember when I told you that I would break your heart?"
"Oh, Anders, not this again. I won't let the Wardens drag you back to Ferelden, you know. Not without a fight. Unless . . . Andraste's arse, you want to go, don't you?"
"It's complicated, Hawke. I never regretted leaving, not for an instant, but I confess the decision has haunted me since I made it."
"Surely you're not worrying about some debt you owe the Wardens or something ridiculous like that. Since when do you have a sense of duty to anyone other than the severely oppressed mages of Thedas?"
Anders frowned at Hawke's flippant attitude toward his work, but he let it slide. Now wasn't the time to start another fight. "It's not that. It's . . . Maker's balls, this is hard to explain."
"Here's an idea. How about telling me the truth for once. Why did you leave the Wardens? Why did you run away?"
"You ought to know by now love, running's what I do best."
"Not good enough this time, mage. This time I want a real answer. I've let you keep your past a secret until now because I didn't think it mattered, but this is different. This time, your old boss shows up and all of a sudden you're talking about leaving me and going back to a life I was under the impression you hated and I need to know why. I need to know what makes the blighted Grey Wardens so important all of a sudden that you would leave me, leave your mission, leave your clinic and your life's work, leave everything we've built here, and return to them."
"You're right, Love. I'm sorry. I suppose that somewhere inside myself I always expected the Commander to turn up again. I knew better than to think that I could ever be free of the Wardens. I should have told you about my past long ago. You deserve it, Hawke. You deserve to hear everything. From the beginning—"