He knows that this is the moment in which he will lose her love forever. He can see it in her eyes, the moment when she realizes what has happened, what he must have done. The noise of the explosion is deafening, the resulting shock wave rolling out behind it almost knocking them to the ground. Her face goes through a myriad of emotions as a moment later the dark ash starts to softly drift down like black snow. The acrid smell of burning is everywhere. She stares at him, her eyes wide with horror and disbelief, as she tries to grip what she has just witnessed. All normal sounds are gone, replaced by a horrible pounding silence in his head that is followed by an excruciating ringing in his ears.
She screams at him across the distance "Anders, what have you done?" but he doesn't hear her voice as she says it, just sees the words as they are forced out of her mouth. She instantly doubles over coughing from the intake of dusty ash. Now he sees other emotions as they start to fly across her face, so fleeting in her world, but in his everything is slowed, he sees every one of them cross her face for what seems like an eternity. First the shock, then fear and despair, followed by betrayal and anger, each one in turn a dark cold knife that stabs into his heart with heavy agony. As the ash thickens, turning the sky from day to night, sound suddenly erupts back into his world. There are panicked shouts and screams all around, everything is turning into madness. The streets are full of people trying to flee from this horror, the wide empty eyes of the survivors staring at him as they push past.
He is responsible for this.
She walks up behind him, the rage and a horrifying realization at what she is contemplating waging a war in her mind for control. Tears are streaming down her cheeks now leaving trails in the ash that covers her face. Her hands shake as she reaches across to her left side with her right hand for the sword that is sheathed there. The metal makes a whispering sound, like that of a lover's lie, as she slowly pulls it free from the scabbard. Seated in front of her, Anders stiffens as he too hears the telltale slithering of her weapon being drawn. In his mind he can already feel the blade slicing through his neck,the thought making all the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise and he shivers in response. He lowers his head for the blow that he knows will inevitably come, that it will come from the one person he loves most in this world is somewhat ironic. Is it better to be executed by a loved one instead of an uncaring stranger? his mind thinks as it wildly tries to come to terms with what she must do. He pushes down hard against Justice as the spirit tries to claw his way to the forefront, to protect this body from harm.
He feels her place the sword lightly against his neck and his breathing becomes faster as she tries to make sure the arc of her swing will not go wide, to insure that he will not have to endure a second strike of the blade. His downcast eyes close as he shuts out the ruin of the courtyard. He desperately tries to bring up the memories of her in his mind, of their time together. A single tear falls down to the hard ground below as his heart rails against the cold choices he has made, the fateful decisions that have brought him here. He frantically tries again to picture her in his mind as he braces himself for the sharp edge that will sever his connection to this world.
Her hands are shaking horribly now as she tries to line up her strike. She presses the metal against his bare neck; this same neck that she has kissed so many times over these last years, her shaking grows worse overtaking the rest of her body. The others look on, their expressions ranging from horror to acceptance and everything in between, but no one steps forward to stop her. They all know that the mage has brought this punishment down onto himself by his own actions. She steels herself to deliver the final blow, her muscles fighting against what her mind is screaming for her to finish. She cannot.
The sword drops to the ground, the pommel sliding out of her sweating hands and striking the stone in a metallic clatter that echoes loudly over and over again in the sudden silence. For all that he has done, even in his betrayal of her, she cannot take his life. The others still do not say anything as she pulls him to his feet, the familiar feeling of magic passing between them as her hand touches his, but the shocked look in his eyes as he finally lifts his head and meets her gaze tells her that he expected to die this day by her hand.
Maker help her, he had tried to tell her. He had tried to warn her many times of what he was, what he could become. Looking back she knew now she had seen the signs in him lately but had tried to ignore them. His withdrawal from her, the hurt and sadness that he thought he was hiding behind his eyes as he deliberately made sure their previous closeness to each other faded. His growing paranoia, the dark clothes he now favored that were black as death. He had become a wraith of his former self. The Hawke of before shuts herself away from the Hawke she now has to become. She somehow has to find the strength to get through the coming night, to survive through the battle that she knows will soon follow. She will have to deal with this maelstrom of emotions when she has the luxury to do so; she has to have her mind clear for what is coming.
"Help me defend the mages" she says to Anders in a voice that is pure steel.
There are no excuses he can offer her, nothing he can do to change this situation so he just merely nods his head in agreement. He has no idea now what the future will hold for them, if she will be even able to look at him now without revulsion, if they even will both survive the coming battle. He steels himself as he says under his breath "One problem at a time, we will tend to the future when it is certain there is one to attend to" Hawke moves off to regroup before the battle and he follows after her, their love even though now twisted and tainted still binding them together.