Anders,
The beginning of the letter had been as damning as the rest of it. Anders knew that Varric wanted nothing to do with him anymore, that he had written him off as an abomination. Still, when the letter had arrived—delivered by a dwarf who looked like a smuggler for the coterie, Anders had gotten paranoid. Only Hawke and whoever Hawke trusted with the information were supposed to know where Anders was staying. He moved from abandoned desolate cabin, to abandoned desolate cabin. Before this mess with the Grey Wardens, she had been with him. With her gone…
She wrote to him, regularly. He hadn't gotten a letter this past week and paranoia had been gnawing away at him. He couldn't go to her, though. Couldn't follow her to Orlais. He remembered the feel of Corypheus' control, forcing him to attack Hawke. Taking away what little of his mind was truly his. He couldn't go there, couldn't risk turning against her again.
Stroud will keep her safe. Stroud will keep her safe. That was the thought that he tried to focus on, when focus became difficult.
Now there was this letter. It wasn't addressed to 'Blondie', but it was from Varric. Varric—who wanted nothing to do with Anders any longer. Anders' hands had begun to scorch the parchment before he had gotten past that first word. Anders. He dropped the letter, to avoid burning it to a crisp and rendering it unreadable.
When he picked it up, he held it carefully, delicately, the way he sometimes held Hawke.
The words blurred together. Grey Wardens. Stroud. Blood magic. Demons. Nightmare.
Hawke. Left behind. Gone. Dead.
The letter burned to ashes in his hands, as everything around him took on a blue tint.
"GREY WARDENS! STROUD! THE INQUISITON! THEY WILL ALL PAY! THEY WILL ALL BURN!"
It must have been several days that passed, although he wasn't the best at tracking the time lost to his blackouts. When he came back to himself, the cabin he had been staying in was wrecked. The walls were coated with blood, the body of the dwarf who had delivered the letter lay, broken, in a corner. Others were with him. Anders did not recognize them. He did not know if they had been with the dwarf, or merely had the misfortune of being in the area at the wrong time.
He crumpled to the bloody floor, and sobs wracked his body. Hawke was dead. He was a monster. She was no longer here to stop him. To save people like this. To protect the world from him.
He placed his hands on the floor of the cabin, and summoned the fire. He could have stopped quickly, but he wanted to exhaust all of his strength. So he continued to pour his energy into the blaze until the fire was all he could see through his tears. Eventually, Anders collapsed, exhausted, devastated and broken, as the fire wrapped around him in a welcome end.