She dreamed of the horizon that night.
Isabela could feel the gentle swaying of the deck beneath her feet, smell the salt in the air and hear the snapping of canvas in the brisk wind. Sailors, bronze-skinned from the sun, worked the rigging and the deck in a constant harmony. The sun beat down unshielded upon the ship, the clear blue of the sea all around, with nothing but the hazy, white line in the distance where the water met the sky.
The Tome of Koslun had been in her hands. She stood at the gates of Kirkwall, straddling the line when she stopped. She looked at the large, leatherbound book in her hands.
And then she turned back.
Why did she turn back? She still wondered.
It was Hawke's fault. She went back for him.
He handed the tome back over to the Arishok. The Arishok demanded her head. He denied the Qunari leader of it. They battled. Blood spilled. The Arishok stumbled, his hand covered the mortal wounds at his side. Hawke drove his staff down and flared electricity.
He sent the others home, but demanded her presence at his home in Hightown. He nudged her up the stairs and shoved her through the door into his bed chamber. He shut the door behind him, turning the lock with a loud click.
Hawke dropped his staff onto the floor and pulled her in, locking his mouth onto hers. Isabela began to fumble with the buttons and cords of his armor when he placed his hand forcefully around her neck.
He stared into her. His eyes were wild, still aflame with adrenaline, fury and the heat of the kill.
Hawke wrapped his fingers around the leather of her breastplate and gave a fierce tug, breaking buckles and tearing seams. He tossed away armor and clothing like discarding trash, all the while keeping his left hand firmly held around her throat. He pulled until she stood there, wearing nothing but her boots and her olive skin.
Her body was still soaked in sweat and blood as he held her, his eyes peering over her naked flesh.
Her eyes were locked upon his face. He finished surveying her body, his eyes boring back into her. She lifted her hand, grabbing his wrist. His fingers were locked so tightly into her neck that she struggled to breath.
Isabela preferred to be the captain.
Hawke grabbed her hip, turned her in one swift motion and took his prize.
His fingers snaked into her hair and then gripped, pulling her oily hair and jerking her head back as he had his passion. He pushed her down onto the mattress, pinning her shoulders to the bed as he drove through her.
Isabela's fingers clenched the sheets and she screamed into the bed - a yell filled with ecstasy, freedom, pain and rage all in one.
They fell asleep in a heap, limbs tangled. The bed was stained with the sanguine remains of the Arishok as it melted off the their bodies in the sweat of their joining.
Then she dreamt of the sea. It was a good dream, she thought.
Isabela was jerked out of sleep with a shove.
Sunlight was seeping around the still-shut drapes. Hawke stood, fully dressed, at the side of the bed.
"Get out."
Isabela stirred. Her head and neck ached. Her hips were sore. She felt bruised, the kind of feeling after a night of brawling at the Hanged Man. She could feel a sticky wetness upon her still. "Hawke. About what happened…"
"No." His voice was stern, his mouth barely moving underneath the thick, black beard that covered his jaw. "Get up. Get dressed and go."
Isabela sat up on her elbows, arching her back and letting the covers fall off her chest. She rolled her neck to the side, stretching. "You kind of destroyed what I had. Perhaps I should destroy your clothes in exchange." She smiled deviously.
Hawke was not smiling.
Isabela slid out of the bed, picking up the remains of her clothing. She slipped into what she could and walked past him, his hard eyes glaring her down. As she stepped out of the bedroom, he slammed the door behind her.
She stepped past the dwarves in the entryway, her head and shoulders held as high as she could muster in her soreness. Isabela slipped back onto bloodied streets of Hightown.
Kirkwall was upside down.
"So this Champion boards your decks - quite viciously, if I say - then throws you out on the street?" The elf tossed his head back and bellowed a hearty laugh. "Oh Isabela, it is quite cruel when you're on the receiving end for once, no?"
Zevran threw his dagger with a quick flick of his wrist, the blade spinning end over end as it drove into the trunk of the tree with a "thunk."
Isabela fled Kirkwall as the city named Hawke "Champion." She needed space. Friends were in short supply. She needed protection in case Castillon came calling. The disgraced Antivan Crow was the only one who could fill both needs.
"It's not funny."
Zevran laughed again as he walked over to pull his knife from the tree. "Oh, my darling Isabela, it sounds like you are quite madly in love and have been scorned." When she didn't immediately protest the notion, he stopped and turned. "Oh no. No, it can't be."
Isabela turned her head and crossed her arms. "I don't know. It's just… I didn't think it was like that."
Once before, they had retired to his quarters with excitement and vigor as lust spiraled away. He had questioned, afterward, why a fling couldn't be something more. She played dismissive, as always. But then she had shared a little of her past with him. She didn't know why. It had felt right in the moment.
And then there was the other night.
"You can have me, darling, whenever you want," Zevran said. "Pirate Zevran, at your service, however you want me."
"That's not what I need," Isabela said.
Zevran shrugged, twirling the knife between his fingers, letting the blade spin carelessly as it rolled from knuckle to knuckle. "Will you go back?"
Isabela could run.
But not forever.
She could feel the prickle and the heat as her turned the blood leaking from her wounds to power.
The Crimson Weavers twisted and crumbled as Hawke twisted their blood, lifting them off the ground as he tore them apart from the inside. As she cut and blood spilled, he pulled it into fuel, leaving a metallic stink in the alley of Hightown as he tore the armed gang to pieces.
The white stone walkways were stained, Hawke's boots splashing slightly as he stepped through a puddle of gore. He examined a fresh cut just above his elbow where he had been grazed deeply by an arrow.
He lifted his hand and Isabela could feel the blood ripping out of her wounds. She fell to a knee as he pulled life straight out of her. The blood floated before the mage for a moment before it flowed onto his arm, restoring the wound to unbroken flesh.
Varric shouldered Bianca and shook his head. "No matter how many times I see that magic, it still creeps me out."
Hawke rubbed the spot where the wound used to be and pulled at the rent fabric of his robe, looking annoyed.
"You let that one through," Hawke said as he stared at Isabela.
"I had my hands full with two others," Isabela protested.
"Don't let it happen again," he said. "We're done here."
Varric clapped his hands. "Hanged Man it is. The Champion is buying."
The dwarf and the mage walked off.
Isabela gritted her teeth, standing again. Every time Hawke did that, it left her feeling weak. Since the Arishok, since becoming the Champion, he did not even bother to hide the blood magic any more. He displayed it openly, often, tearing enemies apart with the forbidden magic.
He took what he wanted from her.
Isabela cradled her shoulder, which now felt limp. She had caught a minor cut as she danced around one of the thugs, but Hawke's magic had torn it open wider as he pulled her blood away for his own uses.
"You need to put a stop to this."
Fenris offered a bandage as he placed his greatsword across his back.
Anders, Sebastian and Aveline couldn't even tolerate Hawke's blood magic any more and stayed away. The elf, Merrill, would be with him sometimes, but he couldn't stomach her naivety.
Fenris despised magic and blood magic more than any of them, yet he was always close. He hated Hawke. It was a fuming, burning hatred he didn't even try to hide any more. Yet he stayed close.
"He saved my life," Isabela said, dabbing the blood at her shoulder.
"Your excuses are pathetic," Fenris said. "It was three years ago. Hawke has become a monster, or haven't you noticed?"
Isabela wrapped the bandage around her shoulder and tied it off at the end. "Hanged Man?"
"No," Fenris growled.
Isabela's head was spinning from rum and ale as Hawke pinned her to the wall.
She grabbed the back of his head, pulling his head into her neck as his tongue slid up and into her ear.
She could feel his powerful arms locked under her knees, her legs spread wide for him. He attacked with vigor, the smell of cheap liquor strong on his breath as he grunted into her neck. She held her lips pursed together as not to scream out in the inn.
The cut on her shoulder split as she spread her arms out like wings, pushing off the wall and further into Hawke.
He had been in his cups, but he came to her. He pursued her. He pleaded for her.
She gave what he wanted.
Hawke sat upon the edge of the bed, his hands running along the sides of his neck as he kneaded his own muscles. Isabela had the thin sheet pulled just above her wait, laying on her side behind him, her fingers gently tracing his spine.
"I never thanked you, for the Arishok," she said.
Hawke remained silent.
"I was prepared to run, to never look back. But I couldn't. I had to come back, for you, Hawke," she said. "I… I love you."
He stood up, grabbing his pants from the floor and sliding his legs into them.
"Where are you going?" Isabela asked, sitting up, holding the thin sheet over her chest.
"Home," Hawke said as he buckled the front of his pants.
"Just like that?"
"Yes. Just like that." He was annoyed. He slipped back into his shirt, picked his staff up out of the corner where it was leaning against the wall.
As he began away to walk away, Isabela jumped out of the bed, grabbing his arm and yanking him back. She was nude, but modesty was the least of her worries. "Then what was this?"
Hawke twisted his arm, wrenching free of her grasp and slapping her hands down. He had that same grim look on his face that he did as he stared down the Arishok, nothing but challenging rage. "This was nothing."
Once, Isabela might have liked to hear that. Now, it felt like Hawke had punched her in the stomach.
Hawke's hand touched the doorknob. He turned it and opened the door.
"Don't pretend that I killed the Arishok to save you."
The elf girl softly closed the door and turned the lock, which engaged with a loud click.
She turned, her long pale longs stretching down from the black and red leather bustier she wore that pushed up her small chest. It cinched in her waist in just the right place. She was thin and nubile, but Maker, even Isabela had to admit she was beautiful.
But Isabela had to remember she was still a whore, a whore who had been entertaining Hawke frequently these past few weeks.
"What is your desire, my lady?"
Isabela dropped a bag of coins on the bedspread, the loud, audible clink of multiple sovereigns banging against each other. She had already paid a premium to get the girl, Katriela, into this room. It had cost her triple the price and a heavy-handed threat, because a certain patron - whom Lusine would not name -had placed a large down payment to make sure the girl did not see anyone else. She knew that was Hawke.
"You're going to take this money and you're going to leave this place and never come back," Isabela said.
Katriela eyed the bag of gold and bit her fingertip playfully. "That's very generous of you, my lady," she said. "But I rather like it here at the Rose."
Isabela tossed another, equally stuffed bag of coins on the bed next to the other one. The cord around the top unraveled, spilling a few of the coins out onto the soft, soft sheets. "You're going to take this money, and you're not going to see the Champion anymore."
"My lady, I don't-"
Isabela plopped a third bag on the bed and Katriela's eyes widened. "I suggest you take this, because my next offer is a dagger through that long, pretty neck of yours."
The elf girl smiled, taking a step toward the bed and the bags of coin. As she reached her thin out toward it, Isabela's hand snapped around her wrist before she could finger the first coin. "You're going to tell the Champion you don't want to see him any more. But you're not going to tell him why. And after that, if I find out you speak to him again, I will find you. Do you understand, sweetie?"
"Of course," the elf girl said, her fingers wiggling, trying to touch the gold.
Isabela reached her other hand around the back of the girl's head, grabbing the intricate twists she had pinned to the back of her head. "Good," Isabela said, pulling her head back to expose her neck. Katriela did not startle though. She was obviously no stranger to rough treatment and she grinned, her breath quickening in arousal.
The elf was clearly Hawke's plaything.
But no more.
The door creaked open.
Isabela turned her head, seeing Hawke slipping in and resting his staff against the wall as he shut the door. She turned back around in her chair, dragging the small whetstone across the edge of her dagger, the soft scrape like music to her ears. "What do you want, Hawke?"
"I wanted to apologize," Hawke said, crossing the room, draping his arms over her shoulders, planting a kiss on the top of her head. "I was out of line the last time I was here." That had been a month ago, Isabela reminded herself.
His hands crept down her shoulder, sliding down across her collatbone. His hands ran over her breasts, sliding underneath them as he lifted and squeezed them together. "I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me." He leaned down, his teeth tugging at her left ear.
Isabela leaned forward, shrugging her shoulders and lifting her arms to pull his hands off of her chest. "Hawke, you're drunk." The smell of rum on his breath was overpowering.
"I am," he admitted, placing his hands on her shoulders again as he continued to nibble her ear. "I'm highly suggestible. Easy to take advantage of. Powerless to resist." His hands began to creep again and Isabela smacked them away and stood up, turning around as she slid the chair back to divide them.
"Perhaps you should go home," she suggested.
Hawke stumbled around the chair, placing his hands at Isabela's hips, pushing her back into the small desk, lifting her in one swift motion and placing her on the surface as he bent to kiss her neck. "You don't really want me to go," he said. "I need you tonight, Isabela."
She closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of Hawke's lips on her neck. His hands were busy again, pulling at the strings to try to open the front of her shirt with one hand, his other creeping up her thigh. Isabela reached down, grabbing his wrist before he could make it all the way between her legs as she shook her head. "Stop." Isabela pressed her fingertips against Hawke's chest, pushing him back slightly. "You're drunk. Come back tomorrow morning. We can talk."
Hawke groaned, trying to move his hand, but Isabela had a firm grasp on his wrist and resisted. "I want you," he said again. "Now."
Isabela slid her leg up, planting her feet into Hawke's hips and pushed, giving him a hard shove backward. Hawke stumbled back off-balance and tripped over the chair, falling hard into the wall. He was so drunk, she realized, as she slid down from the desk, grabbing her dagger and holding it behind her back. "Go home, Hawke."
Hawke laughed as he stood back up. "And after I save your life from the Qunari, this is how you repay me?" he said. "I'm not leaving. Not until I get what I want."
Isabela's arms and legs went rigid as she could feel magic coursing through her veins, a tingling pain wracking her as her arms bent back involuntarily behind her, her body levitating just inches off the ground as Hawke lifted her by the blood coursing through her throat. The sphere of red magic swirling around his hand seemed to kill all the light in the room.
"I own you now," Hawke said as he raised his hand, lifting her higher off the ground. Her blood felt hot, pain pulsing through her body as every ounce of her blood was pulled toward her front, toward the invisible point in the air he was lifting her toward. She couldn't breath or move and it felt like her skin was about to burst. "Your are mine to use as I see fit."
"Hawke."
It was a cold, threatening growl, as Fenris stood in the doorway, watching what was unraveling. His right hand was over his shoulder, fingers wrapped around the grip of his greatsword as he crouched slightly in an aggressive stance. Hawke eyed the elf, smirked and then released his power.
Isabela fell to the ground, gasping for air as her hand instinctively went to her throat. The magic had been slowly choking her, her windpipe being crushed under the pulsing power of the blood magic.
Hawke put his hands up, trying to prove his innocence. He walked toward the door, grabbing his staff and shooting a dirty look at Fenris.
"I hate you," Isabela mustered, her throat pulsing with ache.
Hawke shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't care."
The papers crumpled in between her blood-stained fingers.
The incriminating documents, tying Castillon to the underground slave trade in the Free Marches were useless. They were useless because Castillon was now little more than a pile of bloody meat on the ground before her. Hawke stood above the body, his hand extended, magic swirling around his palm as he lifted the red blood from the ground and absorbed it into himself, the cuts and slashes on his own body mending as he pulled his foe's blood into himself.
Isabela threw the papers down onto the ground.
"Why…" It was not a question, so much as it was an utterance of her hate. She had tracked Castillon here, had set the trap and sprung it on him. She had not even asked Hawke to come, but the Champion's ears seemed to be tuned to all of Kirkwall and even she was not able to hide Castillon's presence from him.
Hawke turned his head, his magic sputtering to a stop as he looked upon Isabela, her blood-soaked clothes, the slashes Castillon had left in her armor and across her exposed arms, the blood that trickled down the side of her face. "I don't need to justify myself to you."
Even Varric looked uncomfortable, shouldering Bianca and turning toward the door of the warehouse. Fenris stood nearby, his face twisted in disgust, his arms crossed over his chest, watching.
Castillon had agreed to cancel the contract on her life. He had agreed to leave Kirkwall and leave the Marches. And he had agreed to turn over his ship, a beautiful, white-sailed brigantine she had lustily spied sitting in harbor. He was defeated and dealt with. For the first time in seven years, she knew the hunt was over.
She had a ship. She had freedom. She could get as far away from here as she needed.
And then Hawke determined that wasn't good enough. Only Castillon's blood could suffice.
"You owe me a ship," Isabela demanded.
"I owe you nothing."
"Did you kill Castillon because he was trafficking slaves? Or did you have to kill him to slate your sickening bloodlust?"
"He deserved to die. It was the right thing to do."
Isabela laughed, a single, powerful "ha" that she couldn't have stopped from bursting from her lungs even if she cared to. "Yes, of course. You're the Champion of Kirkwall," she said in a mockingly spiteful tone. "Protector of the weak. The source of all good, setting all of Kirkwall right. Walking down its streets and alleys ripping people in half with blood magic."
"We're finished here," Hawke said, turning away.
"Yes, done with the killing. I'm sure you've got quite a hard-on from all the bloodshed that you need to go thrust away," Isabela taunted. "I hear that pretty elven whore at the Rose is no longer there. Have you gone to standard service now or are you brutally defiling Merrill, trying to forget that you've become a fucking demon?"
Hawke snapped back in one movement, that blood-red color on his hand once more, the same, sickening, paralysis gripping her body. The blood that ran from her wounds burned like fire as her limbs twisted, Hawke's magic forcing her down onto her knees. She struggled, using all of her will to keep her grips on her daggers, though she could not lift her arms under the blinding pain that coursed through her. The pain was too intense and she could not maintain her hold, the daggers clattering to the ground.
"And what are you, Isabela?" Hawke asked, stalking over to her, grabbing the sides of her head with his two hands. "A stupid, scared little girl who is running, always running. You lie, cheat and steal and then are surprised when it's time to pay for all your misdeeds, hiding and whining as if you don't deserve every misfortune that rains upon you."
Hawke's fingers dug into the sides of her head, his hands squeezing, his glowing hands slowly crushing her head, the blood trapped in her skull pounding as he manipulated it inside her head. His nails dug into the sides of her face, deep scratches forming in her flesh.
"It was naive of me to think that I could help you. I should have known from the moment I laid eyes upon you that you were trash, that you were only chaos and destruction," Hawke said. His fingertips dug into the scratch wounds, the pressure forcing more blood up through the open wounds. "What I am, everything I do, the horrors I am forced to daily are your doing, Isabela. I rot as Kirkwall rots. I give my body and my soul to save this city that you tear apart without thought or care."
She struggled, lifting her arms slowly, wrapping her hands around Hawke's wrists. It was all she could do, though. She had no strength to try to break him off of her. Her head spun, struggling to keep consciousness as the darkness grew heavier every time she blinked her eyes.
"I," Isabela forced out under the crushing pressure of Hawke's hands. "I am not to blame for you." It was a defiant as she could be, a pulse of burning blood dripping between her lips as she said it.
"This is something I should have done long ago," Hawke said, his hands glowing more vibrantly now, red light shining in his eyes. "I'll rid this city of your corruption and your taint. Right here. Right now."
Isabela could feel the magic coursing through her now. The blood that veiled her vision now glowed as Hawke converted it to power. Isabela was aflame, pressure building in every part of her body, ready to burst. It was as if her veins were filling with molten rock, expanding and ready to burst from the inside out.
And then it all ceased in a moment. A glowing, white hand wrapped around Hawke's neck from behind, scorching his flesh as he squeezed the blood mage's throat. Hawke's body shuddered and grew limp, the sound of metal on flesh, the point of the longsword piercing through the mage's ribs, his black blood bubbling around the wound and flowing down the front of his robe in a gentle trickle.
His hands were limp on Isabela's face and fell away as Fenris dragged the slumping blood mage backward away from her, the lyrium brands on his body shining like moonlight. He turned, his hand still clenched tightly around Hawke's neck, his right arm jerking the sword out of Hawke's back in one bloody, swift movement.
The mage dangled in his grasp, arms and legs limp as Fenris dropped him, Hawke crumpling down to the ground and falling flat, resting in a widening pool of his own blood.
Isabela dropped onto her hands, struggling to breath as red drops pooled on the ground beneath her face.
Fenris shoulders his bloody sword without wiping it, his eyes casting a cautious, fearful look down at the motionless body of Hawke on the floor. "That ship," he said. "Is it still in harbor?"
"Yes," Isabela said, huffing, her fingers curling against the floor. "But without Castillon's papers, I can't claim it."
Fenris stretched his hand down, the lyrium power now extinguished as he extended his mailed fingers to her. "If the entire crew is dead, no one will be able to object to you taking it."
How much more blood could Isabela stand on her hands?
At least a little more, she decided, as she reached up, taking Fenris' hand.
The deck swayed below her feet, the wind whipping across her face and the smell of salt heavy in the air.
Isabela adjusted the large plumed hat atop her head as she watched the deckhands moving around, tending to ropes and rigging, scrubbing and mopping, oars rising and falling in the heavy chop of open water.
"It's a good wind," Fenris said, his chin lifted to the air, the breeze blowing through the black feathers he wore now and his silver hair.
The bow of the ship dipped, waves crashing up over the deck. The spray of warm seawater splashed across Isabela's face. The sails snapped as the Sirens's Scream slashed across the water. Kirkwall was days behind, nothing but open, crystal sea around them.
"The best," Isabela said, smelling the wind. She crossed her arms, looking down upon the deck of her new ship. The crew was scraped together from whatever willing souls she could find at the docks before Aveline at the city guard could investigate the numerous bodies floating in the harbor.
She didn't turn her head, but pulled the brim of her hat down a little lower to shield her eyes from the sun. "I meant to thank you, for your help back in Kirkwall." She supposed she had already thanked him by allowing him to join her crew. And she had further thanked him in the captain's cabins for the last two nights.
"No one deserves to be a slave," Fenris said.
She was no longer marooned in Kirkwall, a hellish cage of a city. She once again needed to rely on no one except her herself. Her heart was once more steeled, locked away where no one could stab and twist it.
Once more, Isabela stood with the deck of a ship under her feet, the wind at her back and the hazy line of the horizon far, far off in the distance.
Once more, Isabela was free.