Author's note: Welcome to First Blood, the third installment of Sanguinarius Sanctus. It picks off right where Birds of Prey ended, so this chapter has spoilers for the final chapter and the epilogue of that story. See what happens when Warden-Commander Athadra meets her match, and watch her actions bring an empire over the precipice of collapse.

Beware of spoilers for Dragon Age: Asunder and The Masked Empire, though there will be major divergences from both, owing to the established canon of S.S. Explicit violence, gore, and non-consensual sexual situations are also on the way. I answer all signed reviews, and I appreciate hearing any feedback, so feel free to tell me what you think!

Kirkwall

30 Bloomingtide, 9:36 Dragon

oOoOo

After four full years of shepherding the Hawke twins and their companions through the downright Orlesian morass of politics and business-along with the occasional shooting of competitors-that living with money in Kirkwall entailed, Varric knew he shouldn't have been surprised at how things turned out. But, for some reason, when he woke up that morning (okay, that afternoon), the beardless dwarf hadn't planned on a front-row seat at Blondie's one-man show, loosely titled Let's Turn the Motherfucking Chantry into a Goddamned Hole in the Ground. Yet here he stood, and up the hill, the motherfucking Chantry stood very much no longer. The show's audience had also comprised at least three-quarters of Kirkwall's annual supply of crazy in the form of Knight-Commander Meredith and First Enchanter Orsino, though they weren't standing anywhere nearby at the moment; after Meredith had demanded Hawke help her annul the Circle in response to Anders' crime (and after Hawke had told her to fuck off by way of killing about a dozen templars), the two power-brokers both scurried off to the Gallows, expecting Hawke and her friends to clean up their fucking messes, like always.

The moment of truth had come and gone, when Hawke's companions had to choose whether to follow her into one more fight. Siding with Orsino had been too much for Fenris, the former slave of Tevinter magisters...but the Hawkes' service to him over the years meant a clean break, without bloodshed. The rest of their company, from Aveline on down, affirmed their support of Hawke's decision...all except for Sebastian, who was just now working himself into an awful lather, demanding that Anders die for what he'd done.

"If I'd been in the Chantry today," the Chantry-boy whined, "would you be waffling now?" The irony of Sebastian complaining about waffling was almost enough to make Varric laugh, but the sound couldn't quite penetrate the shock that still settled heavily on the dwarf's chest. "You know what must be done!" Sebastian went on, cajoling Hawke.

Anders, sitting on an overturned box, breathed something too quietly for Varric to catch. Hawke glanced back over her shoulder. "Help me defend the mages," she said, her own voice blank.

Anders mumbled something else, a little louder, that he capped off with a hearty "Damned right I will!"

Sebastian's shoulders hunched indignantly, but a shadow moved in the corner of Varric's vision, and he turned to see the Commander of the Grey in Ferelden step into the glow from the still-burning hole in the ground, its light reflected back at them from the dark midnight clouds. The elf's crimson eyes fixed on the dwarf so ferociously that he couldn't speak, but the ranting human seemed unaware of the presence inching up behind him. "No, I cannot let this abomination walk free," Sebastian insisted, audibly slamming a fist into his palm. "He dies, or I'm returning to Starkhaven!" As he continued, the Commander eased both of her longswords out of their sheaths, taking a deep breath and shaking her head. "And when I return," Sebastian swore, oblivious, "I will bring such an army with me that there will be nothing left of Kirkwall for these maleficarum to rule!"

Merrill sucked in a gasp as the Commander's right-hand blade whipped into Sebastian's neck like it was a sapling's trunk. From Merrill's other side, Isabela whistled appreciatively when the Grey Warden pivoted, bringing the tip of her left-hand blade to the joint in Sebastian's armour, right under his armpit. Varric found his voice just as that sword plowed into the poor man's torso. "Holy shit," he gruffed, one hand reaching back for Bianca's stock...though he didn't like his chances, if the elven Warden turned her sights on him again. Poor bastard, Varric thought, as he saw the human's life spurt out from around the intruding blade.

Sebastian fell to his knees, and then onto his face, the last of his life spent gurgling in his own blood. His murderer grunted as she retrieved her blades. "Good luck raising that army, Chantryman," she rasped, straightening from the effort of pulling the sword from the side of his chest. Then she locked eyes with Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, her former charge. A moment of tension passed when the elf's head inclined, ever so slightly. "Let's get to the docks," she said, a hair above a suggestion.

Hawke didn't reply, but when the Warden turned around and began a silent march back into Lowtown, the Champion followed after her. Varric spared one last, regretful glance at Sebastian's corpse before he began waddling with purpose, and his resolve had Aveline, Merrill, and Anders moving in his wake. Isabela was already ahead of him, stalking in between the two Grey Wardens-one human, the other elf; both mages, both from Ferelden. Hawke had spent just over two years under the elf's command, first in Ferelden and then in Kirkwall, until the human had saved the city from the Qunari and assumed the mantle of its Champion.

"Athadra," Isabela mused, as though her and the two Wardens were out for a lovely nighttime stroll with Hawke's faithful mabari. The three of them were on first-name bases with each other...and though Varric occasionally wondered just how far those bases went, he'd never been quite drunk enough to ask when Hawke and the Rivaini were close at hand. "You wouldn't be commandeering my new ship, now, would you?"

The Warden actually laughed. It sounded like gravel getting ground into dust. "Just to hop across the harbour," she countered. "But you'd better not sink her; we ain't got time to strip off our armour and put it back on."

"Small chance of that," Hawke sighed, almost wistfully. "Isabela's been trying to get us away from this madness for months, now-"

"Years," the Rivaini corrected.

Hawke sighed. "Years," she conceded. "I doubt she'd even let a hurricane waylay us."

Isabela gave them a full-throated chuckle, much more melodious than the Commander's rasp. "Got that right," she vowed. "So you'd better get things sorted out good and proper, because the Falcon's Wing isn't calling on this port again until they've got some decent booty to plunder."

The Warden spoke up again. "We'll get it sorted," she promised, in a tone that promised the kind of sorting that meant leaving behind a fucking tangle of body parts. He entertained another moment's reflection on Choirboy's cooling body, but he knew better than to air his misgivings aloud-even though the Commander had lost the outside of one of her ears in the fight with the Archdemon, her good ear was still as sharp as any elf's, and Varric thought his neck looked quite handsome with his head still attached to it.

oOoOo

Blood and sweat chilled Bethany's flesh, soaking into her leather and chainmail armour, drying on her face. The grime came from fighting templars and demons and even some of her fellow mages...and from the monster that Orsino had become, in the last hour of his madness. It was too much for her to accept, that the man she'd suffered, the man she'd fought and killed to protect, had given up on them all when he was needed most. More than that, he'd aided and comforted Quentin, the madman who'd butchered her mother. That betrayal was one too many, cutting deeper than the annihilation of the Chantry, boiling her viscera even as a shiver stole over her aching shoulders. She knelt in the centre of a vortex of carnage, bent steel and broken bones strewn about the ancient architecture of the Gallows, mocking the title that Meredith had given her.

She went through the motions of healing up Aveline, who'd mangled her left leg in the fight against the flesh-made golem that Orsino's eleventh-hour turn to blood magic had wrought in him...but Bethany's heart wasn't in it, and when Anders gently nudged her sideways, she surrendered to the abomination's superior skill. Aveline's pain must have been great, for she accepted the healer's touch without reproach.

So much death. She was glad Carver had stayed behind on the ship with Paqua and the Grey Wardens; all of the allies they'd found in the Gallows had either fled or been cut down, and it was almost miracle enough to rekindle her faith in the Maker that her friends were all still breathing. It was a close thing for Varric and Isabela, who'd both been tended back to ambulance by Anders while Bethany fumbled with Aveline's non-lethal injury. It galled her that she couldn't be more help, but after so many years of fighting to survive, of killing, of being forced to choose between factions, the Champion of Kirkwall was finished. Another shiver took her, but it settled down when a familiar arm wrapped around her shoulders. "Breathe," Isabela enjoined her. "Just breathe, Beth."

The Champion's lungs burned with the sudden rush of fresh air. "I...I can't," she whispered, falling into the pirate's embrace, burrowing her face into the crook of the other woman's neck. "It's too much."

"I know, Sunshine," Isabela affirmed, planting a soft kiss to the crown of her head. The two sat there, holding one another unabashedly in front of the rogues and killers that they called friends, just breathing with one another. Bethany did not weep, though she might have; she simply waited, waited for someone else to decide her fate, for good or ill.

After a few moments, the Champion's deliverance came, in the form of her former Commander. Thus far in the evening, Athadra had been content to compete with Barcus for the role of attack dog, unleashing her unfocused wrath on anyone unlucky enough to stumble astride her intended path; now, however, the elven Warden emerged from her bloodied corner, standing tall in her enchanted armour and holding her swords at the ready. "It's time," Athadra pronounced, in her battle-roughened voice. "Meredith's waited long enough for us."

Bethany kept a corner of her eye reserved for the elf, still unable to muster anything like the courage that Athadra had helped to instill within her. "If her patience breaks," the Champion countered, "let her come."

Athadra's blood-coloured eyes narrowed, and her tongue flicked out to smear a stray fleck of crimson over her upper lip. "If we give her the initiative, she'll kill us all," she pointed out. Then her voice cleared, like Gamlen's might have, after taking a swig of whiskey. "I ain't gonna let that happen."

Despite Isabela's presence, Bethany felt another stab of cold crawl along her spine. "So will you kill me, instead?"

For just one shining instant, Athadra's gaze grew soft, and it seemed possible that she might show a scintilla of compassion. But then she glanced away, and the instant passed, her expression growing cold and hard as frozen stone once more. "If I have to, Beth," the Warden allowed. "But I'm taking the fight to Meredith," she told them all, her voice booming high enough to fill the corpse-strewn hall. "And I will see her dead before this night is through. Which of you will join me?"

One set of feet stirred, and when Bethany tilted her head to look, she was unsurprised to see Anders' haggard form limping toward the Commander of the Grey, the woman who turned him into a Grey Warden, and whose decisions contributed to his decision to invite a spirit to take up residence within him. Athadra could have washed her hands of him long before now...of Bethany, too. This battle had nothing to do with darkspawn, after all. But instead the Commander was here, battlescarred and standing against the knight-commander, a firewall between a madwoman and the annihilation of most of the mages in the Free Marches.

That was enough of a handhold for the Champion of Kirkwall to latch onto, and as she took her next breath, she felt a bit of the ice in her guts begin to melt. "Alright," Bethany sighed, conceding her weariness to Athadra's indomitable will. She groaned as she pulled herself up to her feet, turning around in the cluttered space. Merrill, Aveline, Varric, and Isabela stared at her with varying degrees of hope, trust, worry, and determination; Barcus and Anders flanked Athadra, and that trio seemed relieved. "Let's get out of this death-trap, then."

oOoOo

Against his wont, Anders marched just a half-step behind both of his fellow Grey Wardens, while the rest of the crew kept a few paces' distance, mostly on his advice. The fight with Orsino and healing the party afterward had drained all of the mages' mana, and the fight back through the Gallows saw each of them call upon their blood to power their spells...and that made it too dangerous for the civilian companions to fight alongside the Wardens, lest they catch the foul corruption which coursed through the Wardens' veins.

After destroying the Chantry, it shouldn't have felt like such a surrender for Anders to open his veins and cast his lifeforce at demons and templars; just like Bethany, he'd learnt the skill at the Commander's behest and through her direct instruction, but he'd managed to avoid succumbing to its use in the years between his arrival in the Free Marches and this very night. It put lie to his frequent upbraiding of Merrill's folly, and while the seriousness of their task had kept her from commenting on his hypocrisy, the rebel Warden still caught glimpses of recrimination whenever he looked back at the three civilians behind him. In the end, Anders had to face the consolation-the horror-that he'd had no more choice in becoming a maleficar than he'd had in destroying the Chantry and setting Kirkwall against itself; both had followed Warden-Commander Athadra's designs, both accomplished by her characteristic stew of threats and persuasion.

There were just over a dozen templars in the atrium when Bethany and the Commander led them down the last flight of stairs into the main courtyard of the Gallows. Among them was Knight-Commander Meredith, the last remnant of Kirkwall's civil authority, now that the viscount, grand cleric, and first enchanter were all dead. The sight of her should have done something to fill the howling wilderness within Anders, but as her ice eyes took in the rebels who'd come through so many of her subordinates, who'd come to kill her, the possessed mage could muster only a sliver of pity instead of any rage. For her part, Meredith's lips curled in a snarl as the bloodied companions drew nearer.

Bethany, it seemed, had recovered a bit of her will, for she spoke up at the bottom the flagstone steps. "You'll pay for what you've done here," she sighed, still trying to catch her breath.

Meredith scoffed at that. "I will be rewarded for what I've done here," she exclaimed, her focus drawing in on the woman she'd named Champion of Kirkwall. "In this world and the next."

Bethany's shoulders hunched, but before she could offer a reply, Warden-Commander Athadra stepped in between the Champion and the knight-commander. "I'll give you your reward, Meredith," she gruffed, hefting her bloodied broadsword halfway across the distance between them. The Commander seethed with rage enough for all of the other companions put together, and likely the other Grey Wardens guarding Isabela's ship, as well. "And I'll kill any who make their stand with you."

Anders saw Knight-Captain cullen stiffen from the corner of his eye, but the bulk of the apostate's attention was drawn into Meredith's bravado in the face of the Champion of Redcliffe. "You were never part of this Circle," the knight-commander allowed. "And I tolerated that." Though you tried to put her here, Anders reflected, recalling the tale; early in the Commander's plans for Kirkwall, Knight-Commander Meredith had tried to apprehend her, supposedly to ascertain the elf's true identity...she'd brought a dozen templars with her for that assignment, as well. Meredith's tolerance had come at the cost of all twelve of their lives-eleven by Athadra's hand, and the last by Meredith's own, for dereliction of his duty to apprehend the Commander. "But in defending them," the knight-commander went on, "you've chosen to share their fate." She took a single step back, glancing to her templars. "Kill the Wardens and the Champion!" Meredith barked, her hand going for her own sword's hilt. "Kill them all!"

The Commander tensed, but an unexpected voice stilled her assault; Knight-Captain Cullen spoke up, sounding like a man trying to negotiate with the plague. "I thought we agreed to arrest the Champion," he said, though his eyes fell heavily on the elven Warden.

Meredith's eyes frosted anew as she looked at her subordinate. "We are well beyond that, Cullen," she breathed, almost a plaintive call. "You must support me in this."

A heartbeat passed before the knight-captain shook his head. "I am truly sorry, Knight-Commander," he insisted. "But I cannot."

"Fine," the knight-commander hissed, drawing a deep breath. "If even my most trusted lieutenant is insubordinate, I will take care of it myself!" And, with that, Meredith's hand closed on the jutting handle of her odd greatsword. It glowed angrily when she drew it, a demonic red, prickling and whispering a half-familiar siren's song in the back of Anders' mind. Then Meredith's ice eyes lifted, crossing over the Commander, over Anders, settling over the apostate's left shoulder. Right on Varric. "You recognise it, do you not?" She said, almost a chant. "Pure lyrium, taken from the Deep Roads. The dwarf charged me a great deal for his prize."

The bottom of Anders' stomach fell out, but behind him, Varric let out an indignant bellow. "It stole Bartrand's mind away!" He yelled. "It nearly killed him!"

"He was weak," Meredith spat, running her left hand down the flat of her lyrium blade, almost seductively. The metal hummed, as if in anticipation of her touch. "Whereas I am not!" Then she rounded on her templars, swinging the sword in a slow, accusatory arc. "You have before you four maleficarum with their mundane thralls," she growled. "You will do your duty and destroy them! It is the Maker's will!"

Cullen stepped forward, drawing his own longsword. It was fine steel, but likely no match against the knight-commander's blade; even so, he held it steady, pointing directly at her. "You go too far, Knight-Commander Meredith," he declared. "I am relieving you of your command. Stand down, and we shall end this madness."

The balance of power shifted, all in a rush, and in another few moments the templars had Meredith surrounded in a loose circle, their swords and shields all drawn against the woman. In response, she accused them of being thralls of blood mages themselves, and began calling upon verses in the Chant of Light in her defence.

Meredith spun around, looking from one templar to the other, and for a single heartbeat it seemed as though they had all forgotten about Bethany and the Commander, and even him. For that simmering heartbeat, Anders had a thought that they might let the templars' coup occur by its own devices, and escape in the chaos. But then Meredith looked beyond her circle of accusers, her eyes fixing upon the elven Warden, the woman she'd tried and failed to apprehend. No, Anders thought, halfway between a curse and a prayer...but, of course, the Maker had never seen fight to listen to him before. There was no reason for Him to start now.

The two women moved as one, coming together, both cutting through a pair of unfortunate templars who couldn't flee in time. The ten remaining, including Cullen, scattered and scrambled as the Commander of the Grey and the Knight-Commander began their duel.

Athadra's greatblade was called Starfang, the only weapon she'd named; it was beautiful, more than a handsbreadth from edge to edge, nearly as tall from crossguard to tip as the elf herself. The name came from the material from which it had been forged, during the Fifth Blight-star metal, fallen from the heavens. The steel was forked through with blue-green channels of raw lyrium, a form even rarer than the red variety out of which Meredith's blade was forged. The warriors matched one another blow for blow, swinging their thick weapons much more quickly than a naive onlooker might have thought possible, each clash of steel cracking the air like a thunderclap, punctuated by the exchange of wordless warcries.

The templars seemed awed and terrified in equal measure, and could not reorganise themselves adequately as Athadra and Meredith gained and lost ground over the flagstones of the atrium. Sensing his chance, driven by a thirst for vengeance and this unmissable opportunity, Anders bared his forearm once more, intending to slice it open with the bladed end of his staff and join the battle once more.

Bethany's hand landed heavily on his wrist, and for the space of a breath, blue tinged the edge of his vision as he glanced sharply at the Champion of Kirkwall. "No," she breathed, vocalising his earlier hope. "Not unless she needs our help." Her blood-smeared face was set as she looked back to her companions, her friends, only softening for a heartbeat as her gaze landed on the pirate who'd somehow let the mage into her heart, even if neither would admit it to the likes of Anders. "We will rest," she commanded, raising her voice over the sound of the battle-it was single combat, but could hardly be termed a skirmish-and then she turned back to observe Athadra and Meredith. Slowly, like he was easing a cramped muscle, Anders felt his inner companion loosen its grip around his vital organs.

A few more of the templars seemed to come to another conclusion, for they tried stepping into the ongoing combat, seeking weak points or unguarded flanks. Three templars gathered up enough of their courage to do this, and three times Meredith and Athadra broke off their engagement, turning to cut the interlopers into pieces. By now Athadra's sword glowed a deep teal, heated by Meredith's parries and its own magic. Each thunderclap came more quickly than the last, the air filling with a dazzling show of red and blue light, swirling and streaming. Anders was inured to the stench of burning blood, but he had no doubt it might have choked a few of the surviving templars. Strike for strike, the two women danced, the force of their blows shaking into the onlookers' bones. After a particularly brutal exchange, the combatants were thrown a few paces apart; a brilliant flash filled the atrium when they came together after having leapt to close the distance, and as the light dimmed Anders saw that their feet did not return to the ground as they ought to have done.

Instead, the screaming warriors took their battle to the skies. The aura of their blades spread, enveloping them in their distinctive glows...a sinister crimson for the knight-commander, a bright blue for the Commander of the Grey. Those two balls of light danced frantically, crashing together and flying apart, bouncing off of the Gallows' ancient columns and great bronze statues. The spectacle drew gasps and curses from the templars and the renegades alike; it should not have been possible to sustain such intense flight, even for demons or abominations. The display was awful and awesome, humbling to behold, terrifying to contemplate...that so much power could be concentrated into two living beings without shaking the whole of the world to its very foundations defied all understanding.

From the edge of his awareness, Anders sensed the rest of the Grey Wardens drawing nearer, likely investigating the sights and sounds of the duel. There were three who still considered themselves under Athadra's command; Nathaniel Howe, whom Anders had met in Amaranthine so long ago, and two Wardens recruited more-or-less from within Kirkwall. One was a mundane elf named Faenathiel, whose skill and quickness as a pickpocket had earned her a lifetime in the Deep Roads. The last was a Qunari-Kossith, Anders corrected himself-a saarebas called Suredat-an, who stood head and shoulders above anyone else in the Gallows; her lips bore the telltale marks of having been sewn shut, and Anders had only recently regrown her tongue, so that she might speak. It was from her tongue that he learnt the Qunari formula for gaatlok, and how to lace it with enough magic to get the job done. There was also the elf, Zevran, who wasn't a Warden himself...but he was never far from the Commander of the Grey, just the same.

Anders' attention was drawn forcibly back to the atrium when Athadra's glowing orb plummeted from a height, flickering on the way down, until a heart-rending crash announced her arrival on the flagstones. Not seven paces away Starfang buried half of its length into the solid stone floor, the steel white hot. Anders sucked in a gasp as he watched the blue-green lyrium bleed out of the blade, and before he knew what he was doing, he was already halfway across the floor to the Commander's supine form. The off-blue that had surrounded her was gone, but a more familiar glow began at the edges of the apostate's vision, and a moment later his world turned to darkness.