Several mages escape from the Gallows, confirmed maleficarum that take out several templars in cold blood as they flee. Thrask is one of their victims.
The criminals are quickly recaptured and executed, without fanfare or ceremony. It seems that Meredith has little desire to let the common people know just how easy it was for such a mass breakout to occur. Anders seethes because it only seems to confirm what he's known for too long: the only chance at success comes when desperate mages resort to wielding death as a weapon, proving the Knight Commander's paranoid measures right.
The Ferelden Circle rebelled, but it did so at a terrible cost. He has every reason to hate that prison he'd once called home, but still, something had died in him at the realization of what happened there. The place where children had once been allowed to play grew haunted by death and darkness, fear and anger. It had never been a happy place, but in Uldred's wake, Kinloch Hold becomes ever more like the Gallows. They experimented with leniency (he hates to admit it, but he's proof. They threw him in a dungeon cell when they should've killed him). Their experiment failed. The Circle spins.
The Underground, barely holding together already, now seems to crumble before his eyes.
The apostates of the former Starkhaven Circle that had given him such hope have been scattered now, nearly all recaptured and most of those executed. Any that remain free do not make contact with the struggling secret revolution.
Carver does not show up in the Chantry, for days that turn into a week, then two. His smuggled messages stop.
The Champion is still given freedom to roam in the city, can approach the Gallows to speak to the templars at will. When she does so, it is Cullen who tells her, in strangled whispers that sound like code, that her brother is being investigated. Not officially, and he tells her not to worry. He is confined to his quarters, not a cell. No one will touch him.
But they all know the game that is being played here. Meredith is holding Carver ransom. One move, one word, and the last remaining children of the Hawke both can be killed, captured or tortured or... whatever she wants. She holds them in her hand.
Anders rarely leaves the shelter of his clinic anymore. He certainly doesn't come to the Gallows, and Hawke knows he'd pitch a fit if he knew she was here. She won't drag him here, into danger, but she feels unbearably alone in the shadows of the twisted statues a high stone walls, and iron bars. She misses him. She feels safer when he's close, at her back. A long time ago she thought she'd never need anyone else to protect her.
She takes in a deep breath and steels her nerves and marches into the heart of darkness. This city thinks she's a hero? She can handle one conversation with the Knight Commander, surely.
Meredith studies her with ice cold eyes, and Hawke barely manages to hold her gaze. She feels weaker here, for one thing. There are too many walls and wards, all around, breaking the natural flow of mana. And the Knight Commander wields power as her weapon, the entire city is terrified of her. The woman never lets go of her sword, and Hawke knows that she could throw out a Holy Smite almost as easily as breathing. This is her ground, and she knows it.
"What brings you here, Champion?" the woman asks, with a false cordiality that makes Hawke nervous. To her, it sounds like a threat.
Five minutes in this prison and she already knows she'd commit suicide rather than stay here. Except that somewhere in these cavernous halls are children, who have known no other home but this one. And Carver's here.
"The Knight Captain told me you've got my brother locked up," she says, forcing her voice to be steady and calm.
Meredith heaves a dramatic sigh. "The Knight Captain ought to know when to keep his mouth shut. He's got a soft spot for you, Champion. Your brother as well. It seems some trace of the mage sympathizer from Ferelden remains after all." She smiles, that same cruel imitation of a grin that shows no softness. Hawke wonders if Meredith is ever actually happy. Maybe when she's torturing mages.
Hawke knows how to keep secrets. She's been doing it for her entire life, after all. Meredith must not know for sure what Carver and Cullen have gotten up to. If she had proof, they'd be dead.
The Knight Commander is waiting for her to slip, to give her just enough evidence against Carver that she can make up the rest.
Hawke gives her nothing.
The woman thanks her for cooperating with the lawful authority of Kirkwall, for assistance to the Chantry, for her help in maintaining control in the city, and she feels sick inside, but she agrees to help track down the last of the renegade escapees, a young man of dubious intelligence and little skill who had nevertheless been smart enough to recognize an opportunity when he saw one.
She has to, because to do anything other than obey gives Meredith all the ammunition she needs.
She walks out of the Gallows, the only mage in the city who can, but the shadows of those bars follow her.
She tracks down the runaway, making himself way too obvious in the Hanged Man, even with Varric and Isabela doing what they could to deflect attention from him. Apparently the pirate even threw him a pity fuck.
He's spent his entire life, decades, in the Gallows but somehow retained the obnoxious accent of his Orlesian noble family. And he's pathetic and disgusting and the type of guy she'd normally be the first in line to punch, or stab a little. But if his pick-up lines are awful, he does an even worse job of hiding his terror when she tells him she's one of Meredith's hunters. They both know what awaits him if he's sent back. The kid wouldn't last half a day in a dungeon cell. The templars won't care.
Hawke tells him to get lost, that this is his one chance, she'll pretend she never saw him. But she doesn't feel any better after she sends him on his way. He doesn't stand a chance. Everybody gets caught. Even her. She does what the templars tell her to do because she's afraid of the punishment if she doesn't. No wonder the boy squandered his freedom getting drunk, she thinks, as she downs another glass of ale. She does the same damned thing, because if they can still hope for anything it's that enough alcohol might kill the fear enough to feel something. Or it'll kill feeling altogether. That works too.
That night, she crawls into the clinic cot Anders is dozing on. She hasn't been here in days. The moonlight casts weird shadows, the place feels different, wrong. She realizes that there are no candles lit, and wonders why. This place shouldn't be dark. There has to be one place in the city that isn't dark.
Her movement wakes him, of course it does, and she feels guilty but she's glad. There's no way she could make a space for herself on that small makeshift bed without disturbing him, but she can't sleep alone in her huge empty house, not tonight.
"Anders," she whispers, half-crying. "I need your help."
They're both awake now, they won't be sleeping any more tonight, but he holds her and listens to her spill everything she's been doing without telling him because she didn't want him to worry, or be mad at her. Her fear doesn't go away but it feels a little better, safer with his arms around her, his soothing whispers as he wipes away her tears.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this," she admits.
Because what can he do that she can't? Their war is already lost, he's said it too.
He tells her he'll find a way. He's come too far to give up on freedom, or on her.
He asks her if she trusts him.
Of course she does.