Chapter 10

Lair

The air felt different here. Colder. His skin was as gooseflesh and he felt the need to wrap his arms around his torso. He looked up to find a dark mass before him, a looming danger which he could not define and yet was somehow sickeningly familiar. There had been no path to this place and yet his will had brought him here. The surrounding landscape was twisted, broken, as if it had once been something beautiful that was now corrupted.

He approached with the wary sense of a child, yet with a child's curiosity. The mass became more defined as he grew closer; high walls, stark towers against the pale blue nothingness behind, bizarre and yet appropriately organic hellish designs adorned its surface. A spiralling city in the void, sitting alone and unkempt. The gates seemed to creak, as if trying to open. He walked forwards against his own volition and hated every step. When he watched his hand reach out and touch the gnarled surface of the gate, misshapen and dry to the touch, he knew that this was no longer the Fade as he knew it. This was something far more dangerous.

He felt it then, as if a cold spike of ice had been driven up into his spine. He could hear the noise growing louder as the black gate creaked open. That noise like a dying scream and a mournful howl, growing and growing as it spiralled towards him. He was rooted to the spot, unable to back away or to advance. It was with surprise that the light spilled out from between the cracks. He wanted to raise his hand to shield his eyes but was unable to perform even that simple task, in this body that felt as if it were not his own. Instead he was forced to look at what it revealed, stretching in as if forever, vast and bleak and...

...and there, on the floor at his feet, he found a familiar sight. Anders wanted to run but he could not move. He wanted to close his eyes but he could not. He wanted to look away from the sight of Hawke's body, prostrate on the ground, sightless eyes staring upwards as the blood pooled around him and his neck gaped open like an abyssal maw. Yet he was forced to look as the red crept out like fingers from the body there and soaked into the brown dress of the young girl that kneeled above the gory mess.

He looked up and Anders felt as if he too raised his head. The sight was suddenly unclear, superimposed with the very thing he had feared as he saw it before he fell asleep. The Thing smiled and reached out its hand to him.

"You've come home"

It continued to speak but Anders could only watch in fearful anticipation as her lips move and their hands touched.

He awoke with a start. For a moment the cloth above him was jarringly different to what he had expected to see. He would have wanted red material, flickering under firelight, slightly frayed at the edges where Hawke had meant to sew it but never had. Instead of the four poster bed, however, Anders pushed up to look around the tent in which he lay, lit a pale cream by the sun outside. The lingering dream shivered across his skin like a memory. He could feel the panic in his chest and yet his breathing was slow. He closed his eyes and tried to banish the thoughts there. Instead they blazoned themselves onto the backs of his eyelids.

"It's about time you woke up."

He would have been startled by anyone else, yet Hawke had become a reliably unthreatening presence. Anders turned round slowly, wary of his injured body, and looked to the man squatted behind him. Hawke's face was creased into a small smile yet Anders could see that it stopped before it reached his eyes. He could empathise. For only the second time since it had happened, Anders let his eyes slip down to Hawke's neck, the thick, red scar line only visible beneath the wiry black hair for one who knew what to look for.

"No! Don't you let this happen!" he shouted suddenly into the air around him, "You help him! You help him Justice or I swear I'll make sure you never see your work finished!"

He heard Callum backing away from him with a gasp, the hand disappearing from his shoulder as Anders' immersed himself in the familiar stunning blue glow, the markings on his skin flaring and the Fade itself fizzing in the air around him. Anders reached forwards and grabbed Hawke roughly, pulling the heavy weight into his arms, pushing away the sheer torture of holding the dead man against his chest.

"I swear to you, I'll die before I see it done!" he screamed into the cold air, his voice breaking, "I'll die! You bastard, you bastard help me! Help me !"

"Sorry, I must have needed the sleep," Anders said in an overly cheerful voice as he cautiously tried stretching up his arms but stopped when the pain in his abdomen flared up; he let out a soft grunt before lowering his arms slowly down to his sides, "how long has it been since dawn?"

"...A few hours," Hawke's hesitation belayed his want to admit that he hadn't slept.

"Then you should get some sleep now," Anders instructed, "I can go and talk to Marethari. There are a few final things I need to ask her anyway."

"You shouldn't be up, not in your condition," Hawke protested, standing up to walk to Anders' side and look down disapprovingly.

"Ah, I'm fine," Anders said with a plastered on smile, "good as new, see?"

Lifting his shirt to show Hawke the newly formed scar was supposed to bring a measure of placation. Instead Hawke simply stared blankly at the discoloured flesh before sitting down on the bedroll beside Anders without another word. He left the tent while Hawke continued to stare sightlessly at his knees. The mage did not want to contemplate what the other man was thinking, lest he lose his nerve.

It was not an encouraging sight that he was presented as he pushed his way under the heavy canvas doorway. The mountain, as it had appeared when they had arrived the evening before, clean of blood and yet somehow doused in fear and anger, sat dormant and yet somehow waiting. Anders looked up at the seemingly inert, jutted rock and refused to buy into its peaceful calm. The sunlight glanced off of the boiler plates of granite, high on the right side. There were eagles circling the peak. The entire mass was dotted with grasses and flowers. Yet Anders didn't buy it. He hadn't since they had first arrived.

"Marethari said you would be coming."

The elf that informed them of their admittance into the camp did not seem particularly impressed with his duties. Anders didn't think he had seen the young man before but no-one seemed in the mood for conversation. He, Hawke and Fenris did not try to engage anyone further than was necessary to gain asylum within the camp. There was no use in making a bad situation worse, after all.

They found Marethari as the evening light grew low. It had taken a surprisingly long amount of time to escape the city. Anders had often wondered why the templars did not patrol the sewers. He had found out, as the three of them had descended into what he had thought would be the safe under-passages of the city, that Meredith had not spared the sewers this time. The route out of Kirkwall had been made considerably more difficult as they avoided templar patrols while slinking through mainly dark and, in some places, destroyed tunnels.

"This is the second time you have come to see me, mæverhim," the Keeper said as they approached, the light of the fire by which she was seated cast her shadow long over the ground.

"She means you," Fenris had said when Anders hesitated; there was no heat to his words but Anders was more than aware that there was no life to them either.

"There's trouble in the city," Anders stated plainly; there was no time to dwell on anything but finding safety, "a Magister arrived. He was causing havoc, many people are dead. We need somewhere to hide while the templars are on high alert."

"...to hide," Marethari took a moment before she spoke, finally raising her eyes to regard them; it was a piercing gaze and Anders knew that there was reproach there, "you reek of it, all three of you."

"Reek of what?" Hawke asked confusedly, "We only want somewhere to stay for the night..."

"Blood magic," the Keeper interrupted.

"Not of our own choosing, believe me," Anders spoke up quickly, noting Fenris clench his hands into fists, "there has been...there is more to it than what I have told you. If you will let us stay I'll explain it all. Please."

There was little chance that she believed him straight away, was what Anders thought. Ever since he had subtly tried to ask Marethari for help in obtaining the ingredients needed for his bomb, the elf had been wary of him. She was too wise for her own good, was what Anders had thought back then. Now he saw her as more too wise for his own good, which made him feel a little like a reprimanded child. Space had been made for them in the camp without much fuss. Hawke had wanted to continue on to the Bone Pit and search for Varric and Sebastian. Anders, through much persuasion and some heated words, had forced the man to stay. He would have brought up how worried he was himself, especially for Callum, but hadn't thought that would go over well. As it was Hawke and Fenris retired to the tent to rest while Anders had remained with Marethari in order to explain.

Which was when he noticed it.

"There's food in the pot," a female elf called out to him as he passed; Anders looked to her in surprise, considering barely anyone had talked to him since they had arrived. She did not show the same derision that the others seemed to at least, he thought as he noted the lack of hostility in her blue eyes, "enough for you and your men."

"Thank you," Anders didn't see the need to correct her, "perhaps we'll get some later..?"

"Davia," the woman said, recognising the prompt, "I am a hunter. Marethari tells us you are a mage."

"Mmm," Anders hummed in a non-committal way, unsure of how it would be received.

"I do not care," she said, her words not as rude as they should have been, "you have helped us before, I see no threat in your magic. I will keep this hot."

She gestured to the bubbling pot over the fire by which she sat. Anders spared her a smile, a genuine one, before nodding and continuing on. He found that the Dalish camp, while seeming somewhat more cheerful under the bright morning sun, still exuded an air of tense terseness. Eyes scanned him as he walked past, while no words were spoken. Again he flicked his eyes up to the mountain. Sundermount stared down at him passively in return. What is this feeling? He asked himself, even as he tried to ignore the implications of his growing dread.

"You have sought me out once more for a reason," the Keeper spoke in a gentle tone as he walked towards her; it had taken some wandering, and asking someone for help, before he found her standing at the crossroads which led out of the camp to the east, "but I am not yet sure whether it is selfless or not."

"Perhaps it's both," Anders shrugged, having readjusted himself to the Keepers odd forms of discourse, "I...I have certain things that need answers but every time I try and find those answers..."

"More questions appear," Marethari nodded, seeming slightly appeased by his words which put Anders at ease, even if only a little, "it is the way of things, when one seeks the meaning to something greater. A life is not so simple a thing to discard."

"I didn't discard..!" Anders stopped himself, reigning in the anger that had flared at the use of the word, knowing she had not meant it intentionally, "it's, as you say, more complicated than words can sum up. I felt as if I had lost him, Justice that is, but recently I'm not so sure. There's a clinging presence that I feel sometimes and now, when I'm asleep, I'm not even sure if I'm...me at all."

There was a break in the conversation that stretched on just that moment too long. Anders looked to his right to find the Keeper watching him with a small and yet sad smile. He frowned but almost wasn't sure if he wanted to hear what she had to say.

"You keep looking at it," she said, making Anders look away from her with a subtle scowl, "perhaps there is, then, still something left in you. It is not so simple, to remove one thing from another once they have become so tightly entwined. If you crush two pieces of clay together, is it possible to pull them apart without a residue of the other remaining upon both?"

It wasn't something he wanted to think about. They had been either apart or together, Justice and Anders, gestalt. Not now, not as it seemed to have become. More Vengeance and Anders. Or can I even truly call myself that anymore? he worried, Is it fair to rename him and yet presume myself untainted by our union?

What he had presumed would be a short talk had turned into more of a deep conversation. Anders would admit he was in no state of mind for such a taxing discussion but he had not begrudged Marethari her curiosity and her need to know what was happening. She had agreed to harbour them after all. In truth he had been waiting to speak to the Keeper ever since he had returned to Kirkwall but had never managed to find her at the Dalish camp. Her wisdom was something he had hoped to exploit and, in truth, he felt there was no one else he could discuss his misadventures with who would understand them as well as she might be able to.

"Do you know of Merrill's safety?" had been the first thing she had asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't," Anders replied, feeling guilty that he couldn't give her a better answer, "I haven't seen her since this all began. If it's any consolation she's a bright woman and she knows how to avoid trouble."

"I understand that," Marethari said, her brow creased with worry, "but I am also well aware of her propensity to find trouble without even knowing it is there. Still, I have faith in my First. At this moment, that will have to do."

They had continued on to the situation in Kirkwall. Anders didn't think it prudent to hold anything back. He was sure that, if he did, the keeper would either somehow already know or, at least, know that he was lying. Unfortunately, in order to explain what had happened, some old wounds had to be reopened. Marethari sat silently as Anders talked, only once stopping him to ask a single question.

"That name," she said as Anders blinked, broken out of his stride, "say it again."

"Name?" You mean what the Magister told me?" Anders asked, "Denarius called her...I mean it, he called it Razikale. Why? Does that mean something to you?"

She hadn't answered. Anders had even asked her again but with no luck. He would have been angry if he could have found the energy. Instead she looked up towards the mountain and sighed. He followed her gaze to the darkening outline of Sundermount against the deep blue sky. Night was drawing in and the stars were visible in the cloudless expanse. Anders shivered yet, when he rubbed at his arms, he found he was not cold.

"You do not have the same presence," Marethari looked at him with an oddly mothering gaze, "something has changed in you, am I right?"

"I..." he wasn't sure what to tell her; the truth seemed like an oddly appropriate response, considering how fearful he was of it, "the spirit within me, Justice, he has gone."

"Gone?" the elf frowned, her look darkening, "I have never heard of such a thing. Once a human and a Fade spirit are joined then they are inseparable."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you how it happened," Anders said succinctly, "there was an incident and I, well, let's just say that he's gone. I don't know where. Perhaps the Fade. I think, I mean I like to think he managed to go home. I don't think I will ever see him again."

"That is...unsettling," Marethari said with a frown, "I did not know such a thing was possible. Tell me, have the dwellers of the Fade changed their attitude to you in any way?"

"Now that you mention it," Anders said, looking to her with a soft frown, "the shades that Denarius sent at me didn't seem to be able to approach me at all. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say they were terrified."

"I see," Marethari said sadly, "then there is something somewhere that is wrong, something that has been unbalanced."

"Unbalanced, what do you mean?" Anders asked worriedly.

She did not answer. Anders shivered and curled in on himself a little further to try and stave off the phantom feeling of a chill on the air.

"It is said that the Ancient Tevinters used this place," Marethari spoke up suddenly, watching him out of the corner of her eye, "as a site of human sacrifice."

"What?" Anders couldn't think of a better question than that, looking to the keeper with a start, "You mean the mountain?"

"Yes," she nodded, "they would lead them here, hands bound, legs chained together. They would lead them to the peak and there they made them build a chamber. Once the chamber was built, the slaves were sacrificed within its walls and their blood was poured onto the alter."

"An alter? How do you know all this?" Anders asked, wondering where this sudden diversion was even going.

"Because it is carved into the walls of the chamber itself," Marethari said, turning to finally look at him face on, "every detail."

"And why were you even up there?" Anders asked suspiciously, "Even from down here I can feel its presence. Ever since...ever since I've had my run-ins with blood mages," Anders decided to stay intentionally vague on that subject, "I have become more keen to sensing it. Yet you seem as if you would pick up on something like that, so..."

"It was where I found Merrill," Marethari answered tiredly, "after she had made her pact."

"...I see," Anders said, feeling a little sick at the thought, "then the shrine; you mean there's a demons lair up in the mountain?"

"Yes, the one I told you of before," she agreed, "a demon of pride, I do not know its name, even now. Yet what I do know is that this is not the only one in Kirkwall."

"What do you mean by that?" Anders asked, his voice hushed.

"I mean to say that the demon's lair in Sundermount is not the only such room I have heard of adorning the city and its surroundings," the Keeper said, sending a thrill of both fear and excitement through Anders' system, "you have heard tell, I am sure, of the countless number of slaves used to carve this city out of the cliff side, used in the quarries to dig the stone which built Kirkwall's towers and its walls?"

"I have," Anders nodded, thinking to the strange letters Callum had delivered to him on Alesis' orders, "I've even read some first-hand accounts of the strange places which dwell beneath the city streets."

"Then you already understand," she said softly, as if speaking more to herself than Anders; the mage looked to her quizzically as she gazed up at the mountain, "and perhaps that is not a good thing."

"I don't know what you mean," Anders frowned, "and, to tell you the truth, I don't understand much right now. It's just adding..."

"More questions," Marethari finished for him. He frowned in annoyance, yet it was replaced by anxiety when she looked to him with what appeared to be a pitying gaze, "but you seek the answers still. That is enough."

He had tried to ask her what she meant, something, anything, to replace the building worry that coiled around in his gut. Yet she would not speak, only frown when he asked her about the demon or, only once more, mention the name Razikale. Eventually Anders gave up, instead changing the topic. He asked her if she could lend him two of her hunters to accompany him to the Bone Pit to search for his friends. She had refused on the grounds that it was growing too dark and that, what with the turmoil in Kirkwall, she refused to put her people into any danger. It appeared that Anders was not the only one who wanted to avoid Meredith's wrath; Marethari also sought to spare her people that indignity. Instead she had instructed him to sleep and she would think about perhaps sending someone with them the next morning. It had been all he could get and he took it for what it was worth.

Then the dreams had come. Then his true worries once more rose to the fore as he watched what played out behind his closed eyelids.

"Do you think it safe to travel?" Fenris had asked when Anders suggested they head out.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," he had shrugged in reply, "it's not going to be safe for us in many places."

"Especially you," Hawke had said without reproach; it hadn't stopped Anders glaring at him, "I mean it Anders, you're going to be the one Meredith's after if she found out about what happened in Hightown. It's safer if you stay here, keep out of sight until this dies down."

"Dies down?" Anders scoffed, "Really Hawke? Denarius blew up Lowtown. There were demons in the streets and goodness knows how many citizens were killed. I killed ten templars and injured goodness knows how many more. Problem is I didn't kill them all so they probably know who I am and have reported it by now."

"For Maker's sake," Hawke said tightly, crossing his arms angrily, "that's what I'm talking about! Stop being so bloody reckless and face reality for one second, will you..."

"I know perfectly well what the reality of my situation is," Anders replied tersely, "I don't need you to ram it down my throat."

"Well you obviously need some sort of wake up call," Hawke continued, "considering you seem to think it's a good idea to go gallivanting about while you're the most wanted person in Kirkwall!"

"Will you shut your bloody mouth for just one minute!" Anders shouted.

He heard Fenris leave the tent rather than seeing it. Anders could hardly blame him. It was awkward enough when he and Hawke fought without bringing the elf into the mix. Hawke was staring at him in angry surprise. Thankfully it gave Anders enough time to continue before the other man regained his speech.

"I've had it up to here with your over protective nonsense," Anders spat out, gesturing at the top of his head, "if it were up to you I think you'd happily lock me away in a tower somewhere just to keep me safe. Well you can't, and I refuse to volunteer for anything so demeaning. I won't be cooped up for my own safety, there are people out there who need my help, who are relying on me! So you're either going to accept that or piss off out of my face until you do, understand?"

It was the second time that morning that Hawke had been silenced by him. Only this time the silence was far more telling. Hawke's lack of will to argue with him was odd and somehow only made Anders angrier through its absence. What the do you want from me? he wanted to roar at the man as Hawke shuffled his feet and looked about him in a seemingly impotent rage. After all I have given for you and all you can do is act as if none of this ever happened? Instead Anders swallowed down his outburst and left the tent, his shoulders tense and his movements sharp.

The sunlight did little lighten his mood this time. The mountain watched them all silently as they packed up the few meagre belongings they had obtained from Aveline and left the camp, heading towards the Bone Pit in silence. It was an unwanted silence, the sort that allows time to brood, to think. Too much time to dwell on things which would rather be avoided. Anders desperately wanted someone to distract him with anything, anything at all, yet the only sounds were that of the wind over the barren rock, dirt and grass as they walked.

"My blood, my kin"

He shook his head and blinked, willing the voice from his mind. Memories of his recent encounter with the thing he could not name, and his almost incomprehensible time in the place he knew not what it was while his body had lain dead in Weisshaupt, were becoming rather mixed and confused. He remembered little of what had happened during his time in the space beyond reality, where he thought he could recall the boiling of a soup pot, the smell of herbs and a man who had familiar eyes and a stern countenance. Yet he remembered the thing, as it stood there in the doorway with its dark eyes watching them and its mouth open in a terrible, preternatural scream. Razikale, he thought to himself involuntarily, Razikale. What does it mean? Why is that name familiar to me?

You have more than that to worry about right now, he scolded himself as he looked up, making sure Hawke and Fenris were still there. He had fallen behind slightly, walking without truly thinking about where he was putting his feet other than one in front of the other. Simply looking down as he watched them move and let his mind wander. Now he could see the top of the hillocks they were passing over as they skirted the terminal moraine of Sundermount. He would have had no idea how long they had even been walking for if it hadn't been for the sun's position in the crystalline sky, creeping slowly as it was towards its zenith.

"What do we do if they aren't there?" Anders tuned in to the sound of Fenris's voice, realising he and Hawke had stopped a short ways ahead and were talking as he approached them.

"Then we...well I will return to Kirkwall," Hawke said tiredly, "see what is happening, try and assess how much information is known to the guard and the templars. See if they know how deeply we are all involved in this. As far as we know they haven't even discovered Denarius' body yet."

"We can figure that out when we don't find them," Anders said resolutely, continuing to walk until he had passed the motionless pair, "until then we keep walking. We don't have time to stand around."

No time. No time left. Understanding what had happened to them was a mystery Anders knew he did not want to look at too closely. Everything in this world had its consequences, an equivalent exchange of one thing for another. Long ago, when he had believed his classes to be nothing more than time usurped, there was one thing his teacher Wynne had said which grabbed his attention. There was no gain without loss, as there was no loss without gain. No energy was ever destroyed. As they practiced the delicate art of creation magic things were simply changed from one thing into another; the lyrium in his blood and the energy in his body in exchange for the stitching of sinews, the healing of bones and the replacement of skin. That was why there was no bringing someone back from the dead, Anders thought hollowly as he looked over his shoulder at Hawke and felt a chill creep up on him, the price to pay was too high for most to give. Anders turned away and looked down to his own hands. It was something he had never wanted to think of again since the moment he had begged Justice to bring Hawke back to him, something he had hoped had not even happened at all.

"I...I brought him back," Anders would never be sure exactly why he told Marethari what he did. Perhaps it was the fact that it was something he was desperate to forget, something he was desperate to believe had not happened at all, "he was dead and I..."

"You are sure?" the Keeper asked sternly.

Anders nodded. He felt a little distanced from the conversation, as if it were someone else having it. There are so many things I have done against the laws of this world, against the rules my teacher taught me as a young man. The balance of the arcane and the physical, the Fade and the Real, and the consequences when that balance is disturbed. Yet Justice and I were one, and Hawke did not die that day and I...I was allowed to come home. I wanted to believe there would be no consequence to any of it but now I am not so sure.

"And you did not question it?" Merthari asked him, a hint of anger in her tone.

"At the time," Anders thought back to the relief he had felt when Hawke took a long, deep breath and opened his eyes once more, "there was truly nothing to question."

The inaccuracy of his dreams, of the fear the Fade dwellers had of him, it all pointed to something that he could not yet comprehend.

"All those who have tried such a thing have been driven mad," Marethari's voice was strangely blank as she spoke of those who had attempted human resurrection, "or died in the attempt. That neither has happened to you is perhaps not as much of a blessing as you would wish it."

Anders looked up to the sky and closed his eyes against the sunshine. For the first time since he had dared to beg Justice for the ability to do the unthinkable, he lingered on the thought and allowed himself to realise the folly of his rash actions.

The sight of Hawke within the black gate danced behind his eyelids, red with the sun's light.

What have I done?

"They left?" he asked angrily, "What do you mean they left?"

He had hoped that what Fenris had posited could not possibly be a reality. Yet, as they had walked down into the Bone Pit, to the miners there who ran to Hawke in a cluster of worried voices, there was no sign of Callum, Varric. The one person who had remained was, unfortunately for Anders, the one he cared the least about.

"Serrah Hawke!" Sebastian Vael's distinctive accent rang out over the small quarry as the man ran towards the, "Thank the Maker you're alright! What is going on?"

"Sebastian, where are the others?" Hawke asked quickly, taking the man by the arm while Fenris and Anders fought their way through the worried crowd of men.

"I thought they would be with you," Sebastian looked around concernedly, "I stayed here with the injured guard, Donnic is his name, yes? Serrah Callum healed him as best he could but he still hasn't woken up yet."

"Donnic, he's alive?" Hawke said with relief, which dissolved into a frown, "Wait, why is he still here? Take me to him."

They were led into the mouth of the mine, the darkness swallowing them, replacing the bright sun's light with the flickering of torches. Anders looked about him warily, all the while itching to have someone tell him where his friends had gone. That fool Crummock, Anders thought , what has he gone and done now? They walked down a set of curved wooden stairs and came to a well lit room which was supported with thick wooden beams and contained a few rough tables and chairs and, in the corner, a bed. On the bed lay Donnic and, in the chair beside it, sat Aveline.

"Hawke!" she exclaimed when she saw him, standing from her bedside vigil and walking to them swiftly; she took hold of his shoulder and gave him a hearty shake, smiling all the while, "I knew you wouldn't be put down that easily. Anders, Fenris, I'm glad you're all alright."

"Same here," Anders said with a smile, "but why are you both still here? And have you seen Varric or Callum? They should have waited for us here."

"Your friend, Callum, he is the reason we are still here," Aveline said with a sigh, looking back to the bed where Donnic lay, unmoving, "when I arrived they were still here, Callum and Varric. He told me what he had done for Donnic. I wanted to take him back to the city but he said it wasn't wise to move him, not until his wounds were less fragile. I was...worried that if we moved him that they would re-open. So I stayed here while they went to look for you."

The last words he had wanted to hear. Anders shook his head and felt his hands tighten into fists.

"When was that?" Anders asked urgently, "When did they leave?"

"Last night, around dusk I think," Aveline said, "it's difficult to keep track of time down here."

"Last night?" Fenris repeated to himself, "Then they'll have been back at the city hours ago."

"Shit," Anders said under his breath, "they won't have known what they were walking into. Hawke, we have to go!"

"I already told you, Anders, I am the one who will go back to Kirkwall," Hawke said, his face blank but his voice determined, "I will go alone. There is only one horse outside anyway. Aveline, you don't mind if I borrow him, do you?"

"Of course not," the guard Captain said, "I'm staying here."

"You shouldn't go alone," Fenris said stoutly, "let me go with you."

"It's too dangerous, after everything you went through I'm surprised you're standing at all," Hawke declined, "and anyway, if anyone saw you near Denarius then you'll be a suspect in all of this."

"Hawke..." Anders tried to argue, reaching out to place his hand on the man's chest as he tried to walk by.

"Please, don't fight me on this," Hawke said, taking Anders by surprise as he reached up and carefully wrapped his hand around Anders own hand; the mage could feel Hawke's fingers there, where the tranquil symbol was blazoned onto his flesh. His smile was soft but somehow hollow as he looked into Anders' eyes, "I can't worry about us both, not now. I need you safe while I work this out. Please, let me do this my way."

There was a moment, where they stared at each other as if searching for some sort of answer. Eventually Anders backed down, taking his hand away and folding his arms. He looked away from Hawke and tried not to think about what the man meant to him. It was difficult to define, after everything they had been through together.

"Alright," he said, "but just this once. And Hawke..?"

The rogue stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

"Be careful," Anders said sincerely, "don't do anything reckless."

"I'd never hear the end of it if I did, would I?" Hawke said with a hint of humour in his smile, before he turned and walked out of the room; Anders head his boots upon the wooden staircase and tried to calm himself.

Everything would work itself out, wouldn't it? Anders felt like a fool for thinking of something so naively optimistic. As he knelt down beside the bed and looked over Donnic, while Aveline told him everything Callum had done to treat the man, he began to wonder if he had ever been able to believe such a statement, not matter how many times he had been told it or said it to himself.

The words that It had spoken in his dream came back to him as if said from a distance. Was it even real, any of it? Anders thought hopefully.

As It's lips moved and their hands touched.

"One life for the promise that is owed"