The Demon Born
Prologue
"Look at me you twisted bastard!" cried Hawke, grasping handfuls of Anders's robe and shaking him viciously. He didn't flinch under the assault, his arms remaining dropped uselessly at his sides and shoulders slumped in defeat. "Look at me!"
Slowly his soft brown eyes met hers, their familiar warmth replaced with defiance.
"Did he make you do this?" she asked in a whisper, desperate for another explanation to present itself other than the man before her, her friend, a person she trusted and had thought to love once having committed mass murder.
"You, better than anyone, know that's not the case," he answered, his voice eerily calm.
"Why?" she breathed, barely able to control the tears of anger and remorse welling in her eyes.
Anders sighed, letting his head tip forward.
Feeling no pity for his obvious exhaustion, Hawke yanked him toward her, forcing him to look at her again. "Tell me," she demanded.
"Fear," he responded simply, "An overused excuse to bludgeon us into submission every day of our lives. It's wrong. And they do it with our blessing, Marian. I removed the chance of compromise because there is none, not anymore."
"There's always a compromise you damned fool!" Hawke yelled. "Elthina was an innocent as was every other person in there with her. Don't you understand what you've done? You murdered them all!"
Anders shook his head slightly, in way a parent might humour a stroppy child and Hawke barely resisted the urge to slap the condescending expression off his face. "Elthina would have watched us all burn," he said. "There was no way she would have sided with us."
Words failed Hawke as she pushed him away and lifted her head to the darkening sky above, choking in the acrid stench of magic and smoke, the very notion of 'sided with us' enraging her further – as if I wanted any part of this.
Her hands raked through her hair, gripping at strands as she seethed, "We needed better understanding, collaboration, communication, not—this. How was this ever supposed to help? It's insane!" She gestured furiously at the glowing embers raining from the sky, burning themselves out of existence before ever reaching the floor. "Orsino was right. You've truly doomed us all, and not just here, but everywhere. You've put every mage's head on the block, is that what you wanted? Some freedom."
"I've given us a reason to fight," Anders countered, his eyes following Hawke as she paced up and down in front of him.
She turned, ready to rage at him further but he was there beside her, catching her off guard with an unexpected tender touch of his fingers on her cheek, shocking her into silence as her heart was assaulted by a barrage of conflicting emotions.
"There's nothing you can say that I haven't already said to myself," he assured her. "I am fully aware of what I am, of what I've done, and to say that given the choice I wouldn't do it again would be a lie, and we are beyond that now, you and I."
Hawke's eyes slipped closed as the first tear escaped.
"So I stand ready," Anders continued, "if I die for my belief in mage freedom, then so be it."
In that moment as she looked into his face, Hawke hated him as much as she had ever thought to have loved him.
You self-righteous son of a bitch. How heroic. What about the rest of us who have to 'live' and then die as a consequence of your actions? Yet for all the animosity she felt, the warm affection that had always existed between them sunk under her skin at his touch, reawakening everything she had dreamt to be possible, and before she could fight or pull away, the tears fell in earnest.
"Marian," Anders whispered, leaning closer, his eyes searching hers. "It could never be," he said, as if reading her mind. "Though I wanted it with a passion you were never meant to be mine, and I? I was always going to be the villain of this piece."
"Anders," Hawke breathed, wishing she could tell him he was so much more than what he had become, but the words refused to form as she stared into his drawn, pale face, the years of continuous fighting within and without having left him a shadow of the man she had met years before. She sobbed at the understanding it had all been for nothing. For all her support; for everything she'd done to keep him safe from the world, it had still come to this. She'd failed Anders utterly for never having truly believed it necessary to keep the world safe from him.
"I can only take comfort in the idea that perhaps ten years, a hundred years from now, someone like me will love someone like you, and there will be nothing, no one, no Templars to tear them apart." Anders caught a lock of her hair between his fingers and brushed it back, a familiar gesture from better times that clenched her heart. He closed the gap between them wanting Hawke to meet him half way, whispering her name as he brought his lips perilously close to hers, but emotionally torn as she was kissing him would have been the forgiveness Hawke no longer had in her to give. She couldn't do it.
Holding off what she knew would have to come next, she allowed herself to become lost in the bittersweet moment of longing and regret that had claimed them. Acutely aware a part of her was going to die here with him.
Resolutely, Hawke's fingers slid about the hilt of her dagger drawing it silently from its fine leather sheath.
An act of mercy, her conscience soothed as the doubts began to creep in with the weight of the slender blade in her hand. The Chantry would not simply be satisfied with his death, missing out on the opportunity to torture him and parade him tranquil through the streets of every city in Thedas, a warning to all other mages. Hawke couldn't let that happen. She wouldn't.
Wanting to cause him as little pain and discomfort as possible she adjusted her skilled grip into a better position and lifted her other hand to caress his cheek, keeping his attention on her face.
"Anders," she whispered, tears falling freely as her free hand slid round to the nape of his neck. His eyes closed infinitesimally at her soothing touch. "I'm so sorry." A gentle wave of numbness washed over him before Hawke thrust her dagger forward, plunging the blade seamlessly through material, flesh and bone to Anders's heart.
His eyes widened, helplessly staring at her, the shock of her actions overpowering his will to summon any means of defending himself. His body began to slump uncontrollably, hands clutching weakly at her arms as she guided him to the floor. "Ma-Marian?"
"Shh," she soothed, resting him back.
"Marian…"
"It's alright," she lied.
"I- I willingly did this," he admitted faintly.
"I know," Hawke murmured, blind from the moisture in her eyes.
Anders breath laboured. "At… least Justice… will be free," he said, warm brown eyes going terrifyingly blank.
To the Black City with Justice, thought Hawke furiously. "At least you'll be free," she spluttered.
As Anders died and the reality of what Hawke had done dawned on her, she crumpled over him, fingers clutching despondently at his robes, sobbing uncontrollably till she could barely breathe.
Desperate to regain some composure, Hawke lifted her head wiping the tears away. In horror she found her right hand still grasping at her dagger embedded in Anders's chest, a dark red stain seeping steadily through his robes about it. She snatched her fingers away as if the hilt had burned her and scrambled to her feet. Heart pounding in her ears she swiftly leant forward to retrieve her blade, trying and failing to ignore the way Anders's body was jolted by the action.
She stumbled back, eyes moving erratically between his body, the blood pooling beneath him, and the red glistening over the blade she held beside her. She wanted to scream when she realised the blood coated her fingers as well, the untapped power within it humming incessantly against her skin.
Consumed with a near overwhelming sense of dread Hawke froze in place. What have I done?
The whispers broke through then, reaching out with long groping fingers, exultantly clawing at the back of her once impenetrable mind; playing on all her guilt and fear, promising salvation from the life she had watched blown apart with the Chantry's destruction. For the first time in Hawke's life she was truly tempted.
The world about her began to visually distort with the frantic urgency of the demons longing to lay claim to her power. Though it was like squinting through a fine mist, distantly she was aware that her eyes were fixed on the dagger in her hand and the blood slowly trickling down her wrist.
One slip, she thought wildly, one little slip. How she wanted to let go, to stop fighting, to give herself over. Secure in the knowledge that Fenris would do away with her in a matter of seconds before she could turn completely. There are no real repercussions to fear.
Fenris!? He was there - not twenty feet away. What must he think of me? Maker, help me. What am I doing stood here feeling actually tempted?
The disgust helped harden her resolve and the temptations quieted some, but their persistence could not be ignored.
The internal struggle built to a tremendous pressure making Hawke's ears ring. Slowly the outline of the dagger in her hand became clearer and just when she thought her head would explode something inside snapped shut again and with a shocking cry she threw the dagger as far from her as she could, hearing it clatter against some distant stone wall.