Previously: The truth of the dream-sea is revealed, and Orsino finally begins to understand the magnitude of what Hawke has brought to his door. Merrill and Hawke talk about — or around — Kirkwall's long and bloody shadows, and Fenris finally meets Hawke's madness face-to-face.
Onward…
Fenris spends most of the walk back to Hawke's mansion in abstracted silence. Hawke doesn't blame him one bit; if their positions had been reversed, she'd probably still be gaping at the dirty water. Silence, for Fenris, is almost as natural as stillness; by now, Hawke knows better than to try pulling him back when he withdraws from her so. There are rooms within himself he is still learning, a vast interior long stolen and obscured, and only recently returned. She has no right to them until he chooses to share them — though she misses him, when he goes.
It makes for a lonely journey home, despite how tightly he clasps her hand. They reach the Hightown markets, bare as a plucked chicken for the night, before he makes a thoughtful sound and rolls his shoulders.
"That was —" he begins. Hawke waits, running her fingertips over the fresh scratches on her arm. There's been no hint of the sea since they left the docks, which she takes to mean it's pleased with her, for once, but better safe than sorry. "I'm not sure what that was, Hawke."
"She's getting better all the time at telling me what she needs me to know." Hawke rubs her eyes. There's no telling what time it is without a crier, but it must be close to dawn. The bakery is aglow with golden light, warm yeasty smells tangled with the toasty scent of the chestnut seller's first batch. "That was clarity itself, by comparison."
Fenris makes his usual indistinct noise. In spite of her weariness, the cold, and her various aches' plaintive chorus, Hawke laughs. There could be a hundred rooms within him, a thousand, and she would still know that noise anywhere in the world.
He squeezes her hand. "I take it your newfound clarity is helping you form a plan?"
"It's not much of one," she says, which she has said countless times in her life and will say countless more. Fenris outright snorts, being almost as familiar with those words as she is, and a warm spot blossoms in her chest, closer to the bakery's warmth than the great certainty she longed for, but far steadier. "I must see Margery. Which means getting past Lady Aix, and —"
She lets the sentence trail away as they pass into the square. The comforting bulk of her estate looms ahead, an Orana-shaped shadow opening the curtains on the second floor. Her heart lightens at the thought of walking through the front door, but an ugly truth lingers at the end of her abandoned sentence. Kirkwall is, almost despite itself, quite beautiful at first glance, or if one doesn't bother to look beyond Hightown and the Chantry's benevolent shadow. But turn it over, like a rock in a garden, and one ends up with a handful of dark, slimy things, writhing in the light.
Even by Hawke's standards — which have lessened or grown a great deal since knowing Varric, depending on one's perspective — that's a horribly overwrought metaphor, and she's trying to banish the mental image when Fenris speaks.
"You should take Nettle with you," he says, his voice a study in neutrality.
Hawke nods. A sour taste fills her throat, one that won't be banished by pain or by words. There are doors in this city that will always be closed, places where he cannot come with her, and nothing she can say will change it, or make it better.
The sight of Fenris fishing out his own key and fitting it into the lock without a bit of hesitation lessens the worst of the roiling in her belly. This is his home as much as hers.
"I'll go first thing," she says. "You'll barely notice we're gone."
Fenris gives her an eloquent look that communicates exasperation and fondness in a single glance, and pushes open the door.
The qunari invasion left more than their old compound empty. Hawke counts five vacant mansions on her walk through Hightown, mouldering in quiet dignity — six, if she were to count Fenris' mansion, where only three of twenty-nine rooms are habitable. With their owners either slaughtered or decamped to cities less inclined toward disaster, and any heirs either lost or unwilling to take their chances in Kirkwall, the estates will continue to moulder, until someone buys them up or Seneschal Bran claims the property for the city and tears it all down.
Or, Hawke thinks, stepping around a stretch of mud as Nettle happily skips through it, until I muck up everything, and the sea comes to claim Kirkwall for itself.
That lovely thought carries her past another two empty mansions before she reaches the edge of Lady Aix's estate. The guards at the gate cross spears at her approach, and she turns her third-brightest smile upon them. She knows mercenaries by sight, having been a rather successful one herself for more than a few years now. Something in the eyes, a never-ending calculation, or perhaps weariness.
A deep singer's breath. Then: "I come to call on Lady Aix. Is she at home?"
One of the few lovely things about being Champion is how ill-defined the actual position is; one can safely assume a Champion protects and defends, regardless of what they're Champion of, but after that things become rather murky. Hawke keeps her smile in place while the mercenaries — no, guards — toss glances back and forth, and gives them nothing.
Doubtless the lion's share of their confusion comes from her dress; she left the Champion's armor at home on its stand, and chose a cobalt wool dress instead. Black leather boots and gloves, a red-black cloak, all her paints and colors in place, no staff or armor in sight. Only the red-painted mabari nosing at some weeds is a reminder of who she is, but no one would risk the Champion's anger by refusing her entry.
Just in case, Hawke turns her third-best smile into her second, and watches the guards recoil. Ah, excellent. She's fought someone they know. That makes things easier.
"Lady Aix is home," says the younger guard, warily but politely. Her partner keeps cutting her glances under his visor, and shuffling his feet. Skittish. Liable to make mistakes. Hawke ignores him and keeps smiling at the first guard. "But she is indisposed, Champion. I'd be happy to send a message —"
"No need, serah." Hawke steps forward, tilts up her chin. The first guard jumps to push the gate open for her. Nettle trots through first, head high. "I'll be quick."
They whisper, the guards, as they close the gate behind her. The news will be all around the city by noontime: the Champion walking the streets alone, bold as you please, with her mabari by her side. By nightfall, even the Gallows will have heard, and Meredith —
Focus, Hawke tells herself, before the memory of her nightmare can take hold. This is no time to be distracted.
But the nightmare is persistent, and when she next inhales she smells salt, and the milky sunlight about her seems to dim. She still has half the garden to walk before she reaches the estate doors, and no doubt the guards are watching her instead of the street. If her careful bearing slips, if even a scrap of madness shows, that too will be around the city by noon.
Hawke closes her eyes, then draws her nails, sharp and quick, over the barely-scabbed gouges circling her wrist. The pain runs through her like lightning, and when she opens her eyes once more, the light is calm and white, and the air about her smells of fresh-tilled earth. Nettle looks back, ears flat, and whines once.
Trust the pain, Beyân told her, not five hours ago. And so Hawke does — and not just trusts it, but relishes it, fiercely delighted by how it asserts itself over the dank, shadowed world of the sea.
I'd cut off a finger if it meant this would last, she thinks, as she passes into the inner courtyard.
The gardens, though still bare from their recent liberation from winter, thrum with latent growth. It gave the impression, however faintly, if Hawke turned her head fast enough, she would see the first bud unfolding. By contrast, the courtyard is static as one of the Chantry frescoes. No one guards the entryway here, and Hawke doesn't fault the breach in security; she wouldn't want to face this, or worse, keep it at her back. Two torches burn at the far end of the courtyard, on either side of the estate doors, though many more stand unlit and cold.
Why take care of the garden so meticulously, but leave this in cold darkness? The simplest answer, and the most likely, is one Hawke's quite familiar with: camouflage. The guards at the gate, turning back all visitors — or gawkers, she thinks, a little acidly — with a well-cared-for garden behind them. It projects control, a fortress assailed but unbroken. Hardship, but not grief. The inner courtyard tells the truth.
Over Hawke's head, a vast silvery net supports a mass of vines, and long tendrils spiral down, almost close enough to touch. Little light passes through the dense green carpet, but she hears the rustle of small creatures passing unseen through the leaves, and when her eyes adjust to the gloom, she sees tiny black blossoms at the tip of every vine.
She stands on tiptoes to test a blossom's scent, and a heavy musk greets her nose. The courtyard air is thick as wool, and damp, and in the lack of light every movement seems half-dreamed. Hawke's hands, when she tugs off her gloves, are tinted mottled green. Nettle's markings are black as soot.
Like a dream, or like drowning.
Hawke pulls back her hand as the front door opens, and Lady Aix herself steps out, alone. The skin of her face has gone loose along the jaw and under the chin. Her hair is scraped back in an indifferent knot, and she hasn't changed her dress since Hawke saw her at the Chantry.
"They started growing the day Margery didn't wake up." All the bell-like clarity has gone out of the woman's voice. "Black fucking flowers. I didn't notice them at first, I was too busy keeping watching — but they're the only things blooming." She turns a dim gaze on Hawke's face. "You ever heard of such a thing, Champion?"
There's a sneer buried under the word Hawke chooses to ignore, since it's the only sign of real life the woman's shown since she appeared. "Not once," she says, taking a few more steps, ready to spring for the door if Lady Aix decides to slam it in her face. "But I make no pretenses I'm a particularly knowledgable woman."
Lady Aix's top lip curls. "So I've heard." She turns her head. The movement loosens a few lank strands of greying hair, and sends them tumbling past her shoulders. Hawke has a vivid mental image of all the mad wives in her mother's favorite novels, and holds her breath against the inevitable pang in her chest. "Mya — Lady Ghent said you wouldn't come," she goes on, reaching for one of the black flowers herself. "Said you were too busy licking your wounds, or getting them licked, to care what went on in the city. I told her you'd come. Sooner or later. Didn't think it'd be this damn later, Champion."
Nettle growls, a thin line of fur standing up along her spine. Hawke quiets her with a hand upon the mabari's blocky head. She's heard a thousand times worse. Besides — it isn't as if Lady Aix is wrong, is it?
"Well." Lady Aix plucks the flower loose, and crushes in in her hand. A thick, spicy smell rises from the broken petals, and Hawke's mouth abruptly waters. "Better late than never. Come on." She drops the petals on the steps, and turns back into the dark interior of the estate.
Hawke follows with Nettle at her heels. When something shrieks in the canopy overhead, she turns back to see a gentle rain of black petals falling to the courtyard stones.
Hawke expected — foolishly, like most of her expectations — to find Margery Aix in gentle, doll-like repose. She'd only seen Margery twice before, and came away each time nearly overwhelmed by the unadulterated sweetness the little girl gave off. No more pinks cheeks, no more shining curls; at first glance, Hawke sees an old woman in the bed, hollowed out by age and hunger. If she hadn't stared without blinking, she wouldn't have believed Margery's narrow chest rose and fell at all.
But the girl breathes, and her eyes move ceaselessly under her lids. Not simply asleep, but dreaming. There's a pink silk coverlet pulled up to her armpits, pink ribbons in Margery's hair, and a well-worn chair pulled right up against the bed. Hawke's heart aches, in spite of the little barbs Lady Aix has thrown in her direction. If it would save Margery a moment's pain, Lady Aix would pour out her heart's blood on the spot.
Lady Aix sinks into the chair, and immediately wraps her hand around Margery's. "I begged the templars for one of the Circle healers to come see her," she says, not looking once in Hawke's direction. "Damn lot of good that Regeane was. Wouldn't speak unless one of the templars gave her leave, and then she just told me it wasn't sickness — she could pause it, for a time, but not cure it." She draws her free hand over her face, then clenches her fingers into a fist and presses them against her mouth. "Anyone could see it's not a fever or something she ate. Magic did this. Magic," she spits. "Fucking mages. They're a poison."
Hawke says nothing until Lady Aix's venom runs dry, at least temporarily, then takes a tentative step toward Margery's bed. Nettle presses close, practically vibrating with tension. She pats Nettle absently, then murmurs sit without tearing her eyes from Margery's face.
"I'm sure you've been asked this a thousand times," she says, already considering how to convince Lady Aix to let Anders or Merrill take a look. "But who —"
"I told you, it was a bloody mage who did this." Lady Aix's head droops, more unwashed hair sliding loose. All the heat has gone out of her voice, and now she is only a frail woman clinging to her child's hand, old before her time. "Maker knows there's enough of them in this world who would hurt a child, if they had the chance."
Ah, the selective memory of Kirkwall's nobles; they have enough trouble countenancing a Fereldan in their midst, and so they forget she's a mage besides, in spite of all the evidence before them.
"Was there anything in the days leading up to…" Hawke gropes for the right word, and settles for waving her hand in the air when none appear. "An argument, something Margery told you about? Did she come home hurt one day, or upset?"
Lady Aix inhales deeply. "Margery's a sensitive child." Her voice warms with each word, a little of the old resonance flooding back to fill the room. "She cries at every little thing, even the songbirds down in the market. Too soft a heart for Kirkwall." A thin, miserable smile cuts across her face. "She didn't get that from me, Champion, I'll tell you that."
That would sound much like a threat in any other context. "Are you sure there was nothing? No one who upset her?"
"The riots bothered her." Lady Aix runs her thumb over Margery's tiny knuckles, her eyes watching her daughter's face with such desperate hope Hawke turns her gaze away. "More than most things. She…she obsessed about them. Every day, she'd say, Mama, are we safe? Will they come for us? Who's doing this? And every day, I'd tell her the same thing."
Hawke presses her tongue to a sore spot on her jaw while she waits.
"I'd tell her bad people were at fault, but the templars and guards would protect us, and she didn't have to worry." Lady Aix smooths the coverlet's folded edge. "And I told her I wouldn't let anything happen to her. She would be safe in my house, no matter what happened outside it." A single tear, slow as molten lead, tracks down her worn cheek. She makes no move to wipe it away. "I'd rather die," she says, her voice going crooked at the edges. "Do you hear me? I would rather die, than this. My life's not worth piss without Margery. She is my life. I pray, I practice charity, and all I've ever wanted is to keep her safe. If the Maker asked it, I'd cut my own fucking throat, just so long as Margery —"
Her voice breaks. Hawke hovers awkwardly on the other side of the bed, wanting to reach out and give what comfort she can, knowing any kindness will be rejected. Lady Aix hasn't forgotten that much of what she is.
"Did Margery ever speak of anyone?" she asks, while dust motes wheel through the air and Margery's eyes rove beneath her lids. "Perhaps, a woman with —"
The lifeless cast in Lady Aix's eyes falls away, and she rises blazing, before Hawke can draw another breath. Her hand grips Margery's white-knuckle-tight but the child doesn't stir. "Who?" Lady Aix cries, in fury and hope. From outside the bedroom comes a nervous murmur from the servants. "What do you know, Hawke? Who is she? Did she —"
"A possible lead, nothing more," says Hawke, her own voice low and smooth. "I hear rumors, sometimes in the strangest places —"
Her wrists throb.
"— and I've learned to look into everything, even coincidence." For there are no coincidences in Kirkwall, she thinks, going cold all over. Nettle leans against her thigh, and Hawke folds one of her ears into her palm. Lady Aix sits down, still trembling. "I won't give you false hope. It may be nothing — but tell me, please. Did Margery mention a woman like that?"
Beware the golden woman, Hawke.
Lady Aix shakes her head, her face contorting, like the gesture pains her. "No," she says, all the fury in her voice tamped down to ash. "She went to the markets with her nurses, and she bought new ribbons." She lets go of Margery's hand, and strokes the pink strips of silk glowing in her daughter's hair. "And she brought me candy," Lady Aix adds, more tears following the slow progress of the first. "She was fine, until she didn't wake up. Oh, Maker."
Margery's bare arms are littered with the healed scratches typical of an active, curious little girl. Hawke's had looked much the same at that age, and so had Bethany's. Even the bruised elbows are familiar.
One long beaded scab is fresher than the others. Lady Aix's eyes are closed, so Hawke risks a careful touch of the girl's arm. Heat throbs against her fingers, coiling thick and inviting past her knuckles, and it takes all her self-control not to yank her arm away.
Compared to the sinuous malice she felt standing before the graffiti, this spell is a gossamer veil — but they were born from the same mage, the same magic: blood spilled across hot sand, the bite of iron in flesh.
What had she thought, with the first glow of certainty upon her? As easy as bumping against someone in the marketplace — and who would remark this scratch, among several, when a dreaming child wouldn't wake up?
The healer should have, she thinks, frowning to herself as she strokes Nettle's ear. She would have noticed. I think I'll need to speak with this Regeane, and ask her about this little omission. And why this poor child, and no others.
"She is my life," says Lady Aix, pulling Hawke from her thoughts. "If I lose her, I have nothing. Do you understand?"
Of course Hawke understands. The best of Leandra died in Ferelden long before she died in Darktown.
No etiquette is half so opaque as Orlais' — though Hawke supposes Nevarra might give it serious competition — but it can't be said Kirkwall doesn't make a fair effort. In spite of her years away, Hawke's mother picked up the little rituals and flourishes with the ease of spindleweed sprouting along a riverbank. Of course, Hawke listened with only half an ear when her mother tried to pass that knowledge along, happy to rely on her own numerous personal charms instead of some baroque code of conduct —
Ah, loss. It's like a well, dark and narrow, and when you drop a stone and listen for the splash, there's nothing but silence.
Hawke wishes she'd listened. Then she might know how to graciously take her leave of Lady Aix and Margery, but she didn't listen, and doesn't know, so she hovers beside the bed long after it becomes clear Lady Aix has forgotten her completely.
Lady Aix's face grows more gaunt as the outside light shifts, passing from merely haggard to ancient and ravaged, but Margery's face is as unchanging as Andraste's in the Chantry. Frozen in time by a healer's art, and still enough to pass for peaceful, if one doesn't look too closely.
The healer bought Margery time, nothing more. Hawke doesn't need Anders' skill to see that time is already running low. Another week, or ten days, and Margery will slip away.
No, she won't.
Another voice breaks into her thoughts, crackling with scorn: Champion, what family have you ever truly saved?
Hawke shuts her eyes. A familiar blow, but a blow nonetheless. She keeps her eyes closed until she hears footsteps stirring outside the sickroom, and a tentative knock upon the door.
Nettle springs up, barking an alert. Lady Aix starts, her hand slipping away from Margery's for an instant, then looks wild-eyed about the room. Hawke turns away, and watches the door open to admit a slender elven woman, with long white-blonde hair hanging in a braid over her shoulder and the velvet dress of a lady's maid. She cringes from Nettle, though the mabari has gone from battle-ready to bouncing in less than a heartbeat, and stays close to the door.
"Forgive my interruption, my lady, serah," she says, bowing deep to Lady Aix and bobbing in Hawke's general direction. "But there's a guard here, asking for Serah Hawke."
A rescue, Hawke thinks, relieved, and then immediately ashamed of herself. She stands, knees creaking, and looks back at Lady Aix. "Did they say what they needed?" she asks.
"No, serah," says the lady's maid, bobbing in apology. "She simply said it was urgent."
Hawke entertains the thought of Aveline coming to fetch her for some errand, but Aveline's own concrete rank guarantees her entry as much as the title of Champion guarantees Hawke's. If Aveline needed Hawke, she would fetch her directly.
"Please tell the guard I'll be right there," she says, and with a final bow, the lady's maid melts into the dark corridor.
Lady Aix gives Hawke a long, quiet look when she turns around to make her leave. "How did your mother bear it?" she asks. Something has faded from her gaze, and will never come back. Some ground, once ruined, can never grow again.
She didn't. She blamed me, so the weight would be mine. "You won't have to know," Hawke says, and bites her tongue.
"Hawke." Not quite a question, but clearly a plea.
If her mother looked like this with Bethany in her arms, a bloody wreck of a best-loved child, Hawke never knew. She couldn't look at her mother then, and she can barely looked at Lady Aix now. There are some griefs too terrible to be witnessed.
"I'll do everything I can," says Hawke, as gently as she can, as she always does.
Lady Aix nods, like a badly-made puppet, and says nothing more. Hawke lingers, praying for the right words, and slips out, silent and shamed, when none arrive.
The lady's maid waits in the corridor to escort Hawke back to the main floor. Though she glances up at Hawke with wretched hope written on her face, she says nothing, but delivers Hawke into the care of the guard with a low bow before disappearing up the stairs once more.
"Serah Hawke," stage-whispers the guard, as soon as the lady's maid is gone. "Thank you, for coming, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm —"
"It's quite all right." Hawke offers a wan smile as the guard flushes to the roots of her hair. It's the pink-cheeked recruit from Aveline's office, a whole lifetime ago, just as awkward and bright-eyed as before, if more rain-spattered. "Now, Guardswoman —?"
"Lindie, serah, Guardswoman Lindie." She pulls open the front door, and stands aside to let Hawke step through first.
"Guardswoman Lindie," Hawke begins, then hesitates on the doorstep. The return of the rain has left the inner courtyard slick-stoned, with the green of the vines turned black to match their blooms. Rain patters on the dense canopy, then drips down the vines in fat drops that fall, thick with dark pollen, to the stones. She hadn't thought it was possible to make the courtyard more unappealing, but it seems the weather is determined to prove her wrong.
Hawke tosses her head and strides into the courtyard. There's been enough jumping at every shadow to last her several lifetimes. A forlorn courtyard won't get the better of her.
"Tell me," she says, as Lindie shuts the door and hurries to catch up, "what does the guard-captain need of me?"
"Well," says Lindie, then stops. Hawke pauses mid-step, listening to a few stray drops of rain striking her armor, and waits for the guardswoman to go on. "The guard-captain is at the Gallows, serah," Lindie says, eventually. "With the knight-commander."
"Hell and shit," Hawke says without thinking, as her stomach plummets. Has her nightmare followed her into waking life? "That's —" Awful. Unacceptable. "Unexpected," she finishes. "Why is my presence required?"
Of all the times for Meredith to want to speak to Hawke, it had to be now, as she left a noble's home in her Hightown best. If Anders' paranoia was unfounded before, it won't be by the time the news reaches the Gallows. She should have thought — but she hadn't. As always.
What if this is how Meredith finally gets you? cries the frightened mouse in her mind. There's a cell with your name on it, and a lock on only one side. All the gold in the Deep Roads, and you won't be able to buy your way out.
"They didn't say, serah." Lindie gives an apologetic shrug, then bats the closest vine. "Only that I was to fetch you straightaway, and bring you to the Gallows."
Bring you to the Gallows. The taste of salt fills Hawke's mouth. A flurry of images — Meredith's implacable face, Fenris' blank eyes, a gauntlet flashing light as it swings toward her face — crowds her mind, and to buy herself a little time, Hawke reaches up and plucks a handful of the blooms. Their spicy smell drives back the salt, though the thick, leathery texture of the petals disgusts her almost as much. She tosses them away, and dusts the black pollen from her palm.
"Let's not keep them waiting," she says, brightly as an apostate can.
Thank you, as always, for reading!