Anders knows two things.
The first thing he knows is that he is good at keeping secrets. Most people are really bad at keeping secrets. When they make plans, their demeanor changes. They get excited, or unusually thoughtful, they forget to do the things they normally do. People notice, and that's about the time that most people can't keep a lid on whatever it is they're trying to hide. Anders is really, really good at making plans and keeping them hidden, so nobody ever notices.
All Hawke has noticed is that he seems tired, and that he spends most of his time down at the clinic these days, instead of with her.
He doesn't feel bad about keeping secrets from her, because he needs her to be safe, and the second thing he knows is that he gets hurt, and people who try to get close to him get hurt because of him. He told her that in the very beginning, but she didn't believe him.
He watches her, lingering a few steps behind as they wander the meandering streets up to Hightown in this earliest of morning hours. It's just the two of them, and he can almost pretend that if they don't really look, she won't see the crushing devastation of Kirkwall. She doesn't deserve that. She deserves sunrise, not the war that is coming.
It's not the first time she's been asked to a meeting at the Chantry, nor even the first time she's served as a mediator (though ultimately a powerless one) between the Knight Commander and the First Enchanter. He's stood by her side as she begged the Grand Cleric to help before the city collapsed in the wake of their paralyzed inaction, and all she got in reply was a trite and meaningless suggestion to pray and trust in the Maker's will.
Anders realizes it's been a long time since he's prayed for anything. The Tevinter amulet Hawke gave him still rests against his chest, warm from the layers of clothing hiding it there. It's the closest thing to a religious icon he has these days, but he doesn't believe in it. Echoes of the Chant he'd memorized alone in a cell spill into his mind without effort or desire.
It's not too late, the voice in his head whispers. He's no stranger to hearing voices either. He's fought off temptation and doubt and fear, and made a decision. This one is his last one. There's no coming back from this.
It's not too late.
But if he does nothing now, then nothing will be done. Nothing will ever change.
Hawke squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back.
She's on her guard, nervous. She knows, somehow, that something bad is coming. They all do. At the Hanged Man, Isabela has been unusually quiet while Varric researches how good stories end. They end with the hero dying, of course, and somehow, Anders accepts that. He thinks dying might be okay, a kind of relief. Because he asked Hawke to trust him even as he knows he'll break her heart. She'll blame him for not telling her, she'll blame him for making things worse. But that's okay. He'd rather hurt her feelings than watch the templars hurt her.
She asked for help, and the only thing he's capable of doing is breaking all the rules.
He'll fight back with all the anger he's kept bottled up inside for decades, because he made a promise.
One day... ten years from now, a hundred... someone like him can love someone like her, and there will be no templars to tear them apart.
He never planned to start a revolution, but he knows what it feels like to be helpless. He's watched too many people get hurt because of him.
Jowan never got in trouble in the Circle until he came along and dragged him behind through stupid pranks, never thinking about the consequences. He didn't care about the punishments, he never had, but it didn't make the beatings hurt any less and Jowan did care.
Melly made her own choices, but when it mattered she made the choice to try to protect him, and it hurt her, more than he wants to think about.
Karl was the only one in the mage quarters who gave a damn about him after he was Harrowed and no longer welcome among the apprentices. While the others ignored him, Karl taught him what it meant to be an adult, comforted him when he woke from the constant nightmares, listened to him. Karl showed him that not every touch in the darkness brought pain, that sex didn't have to be only a game or a meaningless distraction. Karl took care of him in a way that no one else ever had. Karl meant that he wasn't alone. He didn't have to kill his feelings because he was afraid of them, the way he did with Melly. It still wasn't love, but it made him happy, for a while. And then Karl was sent away, he thought he'd never see him again and he knows now that it would have been better if he hadn't.
Anders remembers all these people, all these moments, with a sharp clarity that still hurts.
He remembers almost nothing about his home and family, but he remembers the little sister who tried to fight off the templars for him. They hurt her too. They dragged him away as she lay bleeding, disturbingly still. And they hurt him when he protested, fighting against them, trying to get back to her. A punch to the stomach when he tried to wriggle out of their grasp, a slap across the face if he made too much noise. Before he ever got to Kinloch Hold, he learned to stay quiet.
Oh, he spit and cursed in their faces often enough, teased and joked and put on a good show in front of the other apprentices. But those outbursts weren't free. They brought pain too. Even when he got away without punishment, his constant antagonizing of the templars meant plenty were willing to look the other way once he inevitably wound up in the dungeons. They all got their petty revenge, sooner or later.
And he sees it happening again, to the children of the Gallows. There are some he was able to help, like Kaden, but there are so many more that he can't get to.
He knows what fear looks like, and he sees it in Hawke, worse every day. She's a runner, like he is, but she can feel the walls closing in just as well as he can. They all feel it. It's more than mages and templars now, this war that he's been fighting since the first time they tried to lock him up is escalating, bleeding out into the darkness of the Kirkwall streets like a poison. The children of refugees huddle in his clinic and they all hear the screams in the night, when the templar patrols sweep through.
On those nights, he pulls Hawke close and won't let go of her. He won't let them hurt her.
He made a promise.
Nobody else gets hurt.
He's so sick of the lies, the walls and the darkness that hide unspeakable terrors.
On the shiny smooth stones of a Hightown courtyard, the Knight Commander bullies the First Enchanter, and Orsino cowers and gives in with talk of compromise.
Compromise means children are torn from their homes and locked in a prison, while their parents are crushed by the Chantry's insistence that they've given birth to abominations.
Compromise brought him years of torture instead of execution, so that the Chantry's lapdogs could celebrate their own holiness, insisting that they're not above showing mercy.
If they were smart, if they had their way, they'd just kill every mage they discover, instead of this slow genocide they preside over. But they're scared, they know that there is a huge difference between telling a mother that her son or daughter is dead to them, and slaughtering the crying toddler in her arms. They need people to believe the lie, to ignore the pain and the fear bleeding out from behind the walls.
"There is no compromise," Anders insists.
Behind them, the Chantry looms, the morning light throwing its long shadow over all of them. But it's just a building, fragile stone, built by human hands.
One simple push is all it takes, and the symbol of the Maker's power, built to last forever, explodes in the radiant light of pure destructive energy.
He watches it burn, and lets the shockwave and the sound wash over him. Angry shouts and violent threats and accusations are meaningless to him now, something else he's too familiar with.
He isn't afraid of anything anymore.