II
"Anders!"
It's been a year since they dragged him back and he's played the good mage until then. His first plan, he'd decided, wasn't good enough. So he waited and planned for the second, all the while trying to fool the Templars into thinking that was the only time.
They'd given him a name, since he'd refuse to give his own. Anders, for the Anderfels where his father had been from. It stuck. He didn't mind. It's what they were shouting, hot on his heels as he tugs the boat away from the shoreline.
"Anders you get back here right now! Mage!"
The actual a teenager now (twelve didn't count. There wasn't a /teen/ at the end!) didn't stop. He shoved away from the shore, hard. Water splashed around the rim of the boat, frigid, like a breath of ice on his skin as it easily soaked through the robes they were issued. Well out of the reach of the warriors. He didn't take into account the archers. A volley of arrows flew at the small barge and he ducked down to avoid being skewered by one of them. A number of them lodged into the wood of the boat.
The closer to the dock he was, the closer to freedom. Save for the fact that there was someone stationed there as well. Whether veering off course or not, he'd been spotted and they tracked him all along the coast of the small lake.
So he didn't come to shore. It was three days before they could get another small boat to retrieve the exhausted, starving mage from the water. Anders is already out like a light when they're there, and there's no struggle to get him back.
It's a day of confinement when the mage is hauled back. As a punishment and hopefully a deterrent to doing it again. Food only comes after solitary. He eats every bite, starved, Magebane and all to keep him from running again any time soon. He gets a lecture from the Templars. Then the mages.
"Anders, it's for the best that you stay here." "Anders, the Circle exists for a reason." "It's dangerous if you leave, Anders."
"Anders, be good."