The carpet was littered with smoking limbs, still twitching, some still burning. They stumbled through the carnage, nearly ran into the wall at the end of the hallway before they all veered left. From behind them, they heard more of the monsters skittering out of their holes, hungry enough to risk the flames for a fresh meal.
Loki tackled one that nearly launched itself at Varric's head, the dog ripping one of it's spindly legs from it's form. Hawke's flames soared over their heads, knocking more of them down around them. Electricity jumped from monster to monster while they ran, courtesy of Sparkler he assumed. Then they were at the door and Maria tried to wrench it open. It didn't budge and she swore, tugging it as hard as she could.
"Please don't tell me it's locked." He begged.
"Fine. I won't tell you." Maria snapped back. One of the creatures leapt from the wall, it's sharp, skinny legs slicing into Maria's arm. She yelped, whipping back and cracking it with the butt of her pistol. She took aim at another preparing to launch itself at them, the sound of her pistol nearly deafening when she shot it down.
Varric dropped to his knees, deft fingers reaching for lockpicks. There wasn't enough light, even with Hawke's fireballs. "Varric!" Hawke cried out, whirling in a circle, the flames surrounding her, the zippo burning…
"Bit of a problem here!" He yelled back.
"Faster would be better!" Hawke advised, her flames spreading along the carpet, but the creatures grew braver. Circled her menacingly. Loki growled at her heels, leaping to snap whenever one grew too close.
"Venhedis! Move!" Dorian shouted. Both he and Maria didn't need to be told twice, both rolling away from the door just in time for a bolt of lightning to strike it. Varric watched the whole door bow inward, nearly off its hinges, but not quite. Something struck Varric's head, but he didn't know what it was. Part of a monster, or could have been the damn doorknob for all he knew.
"Dorian, again!" Maria ordered from the other side of the door.
The light of electricity threw the hallway into sharp relief. Varric could see everything in the brief, eerie light. It was just enough to watch another monster crawl through a crack in the wall, one of the ones Maria could seal if she wasn't currently beating demon spiders off of them with nothing but fiery determination and barely concealed panic. The demon's long claws scraped against the wallpapered walls and it shrieked, the sound echoing across the hallway.
The second bolt of lightning struck the door, sent it flying into the stairwell. Varric very nearly shoved Maria into the opening, spinning back around to find the Seeker and Sparkler and…
Hawke.
She stood alone, a ring of flames surrounding her, zippo held aloft while she directed the flames with her other palm. Loki yelped from the darkness behind her, but Varric couldn't see the familiar. Instead, he saw the Seeker and Dorian sprinting towards the door, past Varric, while Hawke continued to hold off the demons. But there were more creatures pouring from the crack, hundreds, hell, maybe thousands.
They couldn't hold them back. They couldn't outrun them. Their second chance was dead in the water.
"Hawke! Hawke, move your ass!" Varric must have said that a hundred times before, but never with this level of desperation.
The flames around her looked like wings. Not angel wings, he'd never be that daft and the woman who advised the Herald of Andraste to spit in the Maker's face could never be called an angel anyway. They did, however, look like wings that belonged to a predator, a terrifying, beautiful span of flames and smoke that looked like the bird her family took their name from.
The demon sprang from behind her, the sharpened talons cutting through the air. The flames flickered off them, reflected and magnified. Varric raised his shotgun, his finger curling around the trigger, the creature's mouth descending inch by inch towards Hawke's unguarded neck.
The talons pierced her back, emerged from her stomach bloody, dripping, the blood sizzling in the unbearable heat surrounding her, the smoke obscuring the bullet fired from his shotgun, even as he heard it hit the creature's face, saw the black ichor paint the wall behind it.
Hawke staggered, her free palm to the claws that were sliding roughly back out from behind her. Varric could see the blood pouring, too fast, too much, staining her coat dark. He could see it shining, oil slick black, on her hand when she pulled it away from her wound, dismayed. "Hawke!" He yelled, stepping back into the hallway, intent on pulling her from the flames that spread around her, the demons that paced around hungrily, waiting for her to falter, to fail, to…
To break, the way all heroes did in the end.
Hawke's bright blue eyes met his, stunning in their intensity. Then her ragged, chapped lips cracked a bitter smile. She thrust her hand out, shaking, the zippo burning brilliantly. Her voice broke above the scrambling demons and their shrill, horrific cries.
"Craft my blood into the fire. Weave it well, weave it higher." She began. The hair on Varric's neck stood up as the blood pouring out of her began to hiss, bubble in the heat.
"Hawke, stop!" Varric needed her to fucking stop because if Broody found out about this he'd…
Broody would never find out, though. And maybe that was what gave Hawke the strength to make this wild, desperate choice. Her hair was turning to cinder, he could see it catching fire in the air around her.
"Weave it now of blood and pain." Hawke's voice was still strong even as she fell to her knees into the pyre of her own making. "Nobody will pass this fiery wall, nobody will pass…"
Hawke's lyrium blue eyes bore into him and her smile faltered, the hand no longer holding the lighter reaching out, palm to him. "Nobody at all, Varric."
Her skin was cracking, curling, turning to ash even as he watched her weave this last curse. He swore, diving into the heat, feeling his own hair begin to singe. But Hawke's eyes never left him, and the pulse of energy that burst from her palm sent him reeling back into someone, although he couldn't see who it was. Hawke's eyes slipped past him and settled on the person grabbing him, pulling him back, her lips curling up into one, last satisfied smile.
Then she was nothing but a pillar of flames, bright, burning, brilliant.
Gone.
Varric tumbled back into the stairwell just as a solid wall of flames slammed against the open door. Impenetrable, towering, an inferno unlike anything Hawke had ever summoned. A pyre, he thought mutely while he struggled to sit up, fit to cremate a champion.
It took him a moment to realize the broken, ragged sobs were coming from deep in his chest. Half of a person was behind him, caught between his bulk and the cinderblock wall, but he didn't consider who it was until her fingers curled into his shoulder, both gentle and insistent.
Maria Cadash raced back into Hawke's inferno to pull him out. He could see both Dorian and Cassandra vibrating with indignant rage, imagined they had tried to stop her and failed miserably.
Maria risked her life to pull him out, even though he should have gone out in a blaze with Hawke, forever her trusty sidekick. Instead, she pushed him into Maria's arms. Her last, resounding, declaration that he needed to get his shit together.
"You're bleeding." Maria frowned, her hand reaching to gently cup his jaw, eyes laser focused on whatever injury he'd picked up, not that it mattered. Not that he even noticed. All he noticed, beyond the crackle of flames, the stench of burning flesh, was Maria's soft, warm skin. Her face, streaked with soot, her bleeding arm, and her eyes…
Her fucking eyes. Gentle, soft, filled with tears for him. For Hawke. For Beatrix and everyone else they lost. He turned into her palm, muffling his sobs in her touch like a wounded beast seeking comfort. Through the tears blurring his vision he could make out the line of the tattoo of her wrist, the graceful curve of her initials under the steady throb of her pulse.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm certain any witch worth a gram of lyrium is going to have felt that magic." Dorian's handsome face twisted into a scowl.
"Give him a minute." Maria's voice brooked no argument.
"We do not have a minute." Cassandra crouched into view, her own eyes steely, jaw set in determination. "Varric, we must go. It is what they would have wanted."
An undo button. A reset. Sunshine's smile under a broad brimmed hat on the beach while Hawke sunbathed, Fenris smirking into his wine while Hawke hustled pool.
Maria on the back of a motorcycle, her red hair in the wind, the sun illuminating her smile.
His tears were spilling down Maria's fingers and she brushed them away, her voice harsh and insistent. "Give him a damn minute."
Dorian and Cassandra were right, even if he couldn't make his own mouth form the words. Even if everything inside him had fallen quiet in silent shock that Hawke, irrepressible, impossible, irreverent Hawke had also been silenced forever. They were wasting time, sitting here, valuable time Hawke bought them.
Missing their cue, as Hawke would say.
That thought jolted him into action. His hand dove into his jacket pocket, frantically searching for whatever Hawke had slipped there, although he knew. He fucking knew even as he pulled it out with shaking fingers. A well worn, well loved card. He saw Maria's gray eyes slip to it, the Lovers in between them just as it had always been, from the very second the sky exploded in Haven, he'd been blind not to see it.
Blind or willfully stupid. He didn't know what was worse.
"I'm beginning to feel like that's cursed to follow me around." Maria dropped her hand and glared at the card in his hand. Varric swallowed, hard, and watched as her fingers lightly brushed the tattoo on her wrist.
"It's not cursed." Cole's words in Varric's mouth as he slipped the card, not in his pocket, but back in Maria's. It had brought her to them, brought her back to him. Now she had to take it back to where it belonged, to a world where Bea Cadash still danced, where Hawke didn't burn in front of his eyes.
A world for lovers. A world for them. "It's just a promise, Princess."
One he hadn't made, and desperately, desperately wished he had.
They trudged up the stairs until they could go no further, the number twelve in peeling, black letters above the last door. Through it, they could see figures standing in a small knot near one of the doors. They had hoods pulled over their heads.
A scream pierced the air, tapering off into a breathless, mocking laugh. It made Varric's stomach drop and he looked up at the Seeker. "I think we found Nightingale."
"I cannot believe she is still alive in this cursed place." Cassandra readied her gun, frowning in concentration. "They are witches, we must…"
"Witches bleed like everyone else." Maria was loading bullets in her gun, fingers sure and deft. "That's what Bull always said, anyway."
Another scream pierced the air and Maria's shoulders hitched up in preparation, eyes flashing. "Let's go."
Cassandra was the first through the door, slamming it open loudly and stunning the assembled group. It was enough for her to put a bullet through two heads. The third witch summoned a shield and a ball of fire, but Cassandra's smite sent the fire sputtering and the shield collapsing. Maria's bullet finished that job. A bolt of lighting sent the last one flying. Their group paused in the carnage before Maria slipped cautiously forward, examining the door the group stood in front of critically.
"Hell of a door." She muttered. Varric conceded she had a point. It was black as obsidian, bits of it studded with what he suspected, but sincerely hoped wasn't, red lyrium.
"Doesn't match the rest of the decor." The humor came out weak, dry. He half expected to hear Hawke chime in with a critique of the wallpaper, but of course she didn't.
"Ah, good." Dorian peered at it and wrinkled his nose. "Perhaps this leads to our mysterious thirteenth floor?"
Another short, pained scream floated from behind the door. Maria reached for the handle automatically, her reflex to come to the aid of another overriding common sense and caution. The door didn't budge.
"It's magic." Dorian reached into his coat pocket and pulled out, a rather frightened and rumpled looking ball of feathers. "Nyx, have a look at…"
"I am not asking your bird for advice!" Maria seethed as another scream sliced through the air. "Damnit, I want this door open!"
She slammed her palm down on the black obsidian and Varric felt the ensuing vibration in his own teeth, a gust of power whipping through Cassandra's hair, Varric's jacket. The bird in Dorian's fist chirped irritably, but the door swung open as Maria commanded. Her hand was still, almost comically, hanging in the air where the door had been.
"Well." Dorian struggled to regain his composure, shoving the squawking familiar back in his pocket. "If you wish to show off, have it your way."
A trickle of blood ran from Maria's nose to her lip, her fingers reaching to catch it immediately. She blinked, stunned, staring at the jet black steps leading up into darkness above them. Varric reached out to catch her elbow, afraid he'd watch her collapse as she sometimes did when she sealed the cracks.
Instead, another scream pierced the air, and Maria dove into the darkness, slipping out of his fingers.
xx
The screams were almost animalistic, inhuman. She'd never heard anyone scream like that, couldn't imagine the pain, the suffering, inflicted to cause it. So when the door was open, when nothing stood between her and it except the stairs leading into the red studded darkness above and the beginning of a horrible headache… Maria didn't think. She moved.
It was all she could keep doing. Moving. If she stopped for a moment, if she paused to think… all she would see was Bea's fingers curling around the trigger of a gun, Hawke's skin flaking off in pieces of ash, demons with thousands of teeth and dismembered body parts. All she would smell was smoke, blood, death.
This couldn't be real. This had to be a nightmare, because if it were real, if any of this was real…
The steps opened onto a cavernous room that would have been lovely, if not for the haunting spikes of red lyrium or suspicious stains on the white tile. The ceiling above them almost looked like the night sky, complete with tiny pinpricks to mimic stars.
But her eyes were drawn to the man standing over the convulsing woman on the floor. Her red hair was the only thing Maria recognized, the rest of her was a mass of wounds, of scars.
"You will break." The Magister, the same fucking Magister who sent her here, had electricity sparking among his fingers. "Tell me, how did Cadash know to be at the Conclave? Who sent her?"
"Never." Leliana laughed at his feet, breathless and mocking. "I would never tell you anything."
"Shall I cut it out of your face then and remind you who you belong to now?" The Magister asked, icy and cold, a knife flashing in his other hand. Maria's zeroed in on the watch on his wrist, even as her mind conjured up that last night in Dwyka's apartment, his hand in her hair, his growl in her ear.
I own you, Cadash.
That was why she was at the Conclave. That's why she fell into this hellscape. There was no Maker, no divine plan. Only Dwkya's greed, only his grubby fingers that clutched onto her until she couldn't breathe, until she couldn't speak.
If she made it out, she swore she'd kill him herself for this. Even if Leliana had him murdered, she'd dig him out of the ground to do it again.
The knife began to move and Leliana lay, motionless, on the tiles. Leliana, the only person who offered aid without strings, without judgement. That thought made her hand steady when she aimed at the back of the Magister's head. The trigger clicked, the gun cracked.
But the witch was fast, for an old man. He whirled, a gesture sending her bullet sharply to the left. Still, when he locked eyes with her, all she saw was hollow, empty defeat. His hand dropped, weary, to his side. "It's you. I… I always knew you would return."
"You're… you're alive." Leliana's harsh, cracked whisper drifted from the floor. Her eyes, disbelief at war with hope, traced Maria's face.
Maria couldn't take her eyes off the witch in front of her to check on Leliana, she could only mutter her response. "So I am."
"Alexius!" Dorian's voice came from above her shoulder, outraged and shaking with suppressed fury. "Alexius, look at this. This is madness, what have you done? Why?"
"Dorian." Alexius's shoulders dropped. "You would not… you could not understand. It's too late, regardless. The end is nigh. Everything I have done has been for naught."
Alexius looked down at her with a cold sneer. "Kill me, then."
He didn't have to ask Maria twice. She never lowered her weapon anyway and, really, her only regret was that this was too easy, too clean. He deserved to burn like Bea, like Hawke, like the world.
"No, wait." Dorian pushed past her, arms outstretched, and Maria stilled her fingers. While she glared at Dorian, while Alexius stared at him, Leliana took the opportunity. Behind Alexius's back, she pulled herself up, stumbling back to a huddled shape near an ornate altar at the end of the room. Maria watched her warily, gun poised to shoot at the slightest movement, while Dorian reached out to Alexius.
"We can fix it." Dorian pleaded, offering his palm like an olive branch. "Give me the watch, let us go back. It doesn't have to be this way."
"You ruined it." Alexius hissed, eyes swinging from Dorian to Maria below him. "You, a common thug, worthy of nothing. If you had not..."
"Where is Felix?" Dorian interrupted the beginning of what Maria felt sure would be a crazy rant, one she didn't really want to listen to. "Maybe he can talk some sense into your demented head."
"Felix…" Alexius swung his head back behind him, catching sight of Leliana just as she dragged the shape off the floor. Maria hadn't realized it belonged to a person, or what was left of one. The thing Leliana grabbed looked more skeleton than human, a creature of withered flesh and bone.
"Andraste have mercy…" Dorian croaked, stepping forward. "Felix… Alexius what have you done…?"
"Don't!" Alexius cried, hands reaching out desperately. "He is all I have left…"
"This is no way to live." Leliana snarled, wrapping her own withered arms around the neck of the creature that used to be Felix. He didn't even try to fight or struggle, his eyes staring uselessly off into the distance.
The snap of bone breaking sounded louder in the empty room than it should, followed by the sound of Felix's body hitting the tile with a hollow thump. Alexius froze in horror, then let out a primal scream, a scream Maria recognized in spite of herself. She screamed the same way when Fynn hit the ground in their tidy kitchen in Hercinia. She screamed like that when Bea shot the cans, although she hadn't been able to hear it muffled by Varric's hand and the explosion. It was an agonized, horrible wail.
Alexius raised his hand, magic sparking at his fingertips. He'd forgotten, in his rage and grief, who stood at his back.
It was the last mistake he'd make.
When Alexius moved to strike Leliana down, Maria pulled the trigger. She watched with cold detachment as her bullet opened a hole in his skull, saw the blood spatter over Dorian, felt it hit her own face. Alexius stopped, frozen, for one last moment before he too pitched forward, joining his son.
Too clean. Too efficient. It left her feeling hollow, empty. He didn't feel fire on his skin, didn't burn alive.
"Oh Alexius…" Dorian sighed, crouching above his body. "He lost Felix long ago and he never even realized."
Maria didn't care to listen. She stepped past the body towards Leliana's figure, lowering her weapon. "Are you alright?"
"Nevermind that." Leliana stepped forward briskly, holding her hand over ribs that were surely broken, but narrowing her eyes. "I hope, if you have returned from the dead, you have a plan to fix this."
"Yes. Standard time travel from here on, really." Maria looked over her shoulder just in time to watch Dorian pull the watch from Alexius's wrist. "I need a few hours, but…"
"Hours?" Leliana's voice went shrill. "We cannot give you hours. You have to go now."
"Nightingale…" Varric stepped forward, tense and wary. "We've got one shot at this, we can't rush it."
"The Elder One is coming. This monster is on the way now, Varric." Leliana snapped, throwing her fiery gaze to Cassandra. "Do you have weapons?"
"Yes." The Seeker's face settled into a grim line of determination as she pulled a spare piece from her waistband. "We will need to…"
Outside, Maria heard a sound that chilled her to her very bones. A sound like the screech of nails on chalkboard crossed with the roar of a caged, pained animal. It silenced all of them for a second.
"What was that?" Maria whispered through her teeth, trying to ignore the way the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Nobody answered, they all shared a silent, knowing look instead.
"Trouble." Varric broke the silence, swinging his shotgun into his hands. "Ladies, if you don't mind, I'd like to hold point here."
Hold point, because they were under attack. Again. And whatever it was sounded worse than spiders, than demons, than witches and fire and...
"Yes." Cassandra laid a hand on Varric's shoulder. It was a sympathetic gesture that didn't quite jive with what Maria knew of the two of them. Maria also caught the significant, poignant look the Seeker threw her way before she continued. "They are in no better hands."
"Careful, Seeker." Varric joked weakly. "People may think I grew on you."
"You have as much time as we have bullets, witch." Leliana declared, taking the gun from Cassandra. "Make it count."
"Wait…" Maria wanted to protest, but Cassandra interrupted first.
"Herald. In case… in case I never get a chance to say it again..." Cassandra swallowed, hard, and shook her head in irritation before huffing out the rest of her sentence. "You were… you are…"
Cassandra struggled while Maria stared at her blankly, waiting for whatever came next. A failure, her mind supplied helpfully for the Seeker. A mistake, a thug, a…
"I did not know what we had lost in you, until you were gone." Cassandra finally stated, inclining her head, briefly, before rotating robotically on her heel. Leliana fell into step beside her.
"Wait!" Maria stepped after them, but neither woman listened. They stiffened, marching off together, their weapons drawn. Dorian knelt down, chalk in hand, drawing sigils on the tiles as he looked frantically back and forth between it and the watch.
"Princess, listen…" Varric had his voice pitched low again, whiskey smooth and warm. It was the same voice, even if the man himself looked like he'd been through hell, the same voice that teased and soothed her in the back of the SUV for weeks. "The most important thing we can do right now is get you home."
She couldn't go home. She could never go home again because her father was dead, her grandmother was dead, Fynn was dead, and how many times had she nearly gotten Bea killed? Sooner or later, there'd be nobody to go home too. As if reading her thoughts, Varric smiled sadly. He raised his hand like he'd touch her, but stop just short of running his fingers down her cheek like she thought he would. He looked torn, hand hanging in the air, before he dropped it with an air of resignation and sighed wearily. "It's just a bad dream, Maria. This is all just a nightmare."
Maria heard the sound of an explosion. She looked frantically down the steps. She hadn't even realized she'd made a noise, some primal sound of dismay, until Varric shushed her. "It's alright. I wouldn't go against those two for a million sovereigns."
They lapsed into silence, Maria straining to hear from beyond the heavy doors. She thought she heard gunshots, but she couldn't be sure. The only thing she knew she could hear was her own rapid heart beat, Dorian's frantic muttering behind them.
She didn't realize Varric was staring at her until she heard another explosion and looked to him, for either an explanation or to share her rising panic, but there wasn't any fear written on his face. Instead, just something too tender to name, something soft and sweet in that sad smile. "It was worth it, you know."
"What?" She asked, torn between confusion and general, overwhelming numbness. Those were definitely gunshots, she could clearly hear them and they were close, just outside the door.
"Everything." Varric admitted, carefully taking the hand that wasn't wrapped around her own gun. She watched, carefully detached, as he twisted his rough fingers with hers. Then he stepped into her space, an overwhelming presence that smelled of smoke and blood, but underneath it something unique, something identifiably Varric, something she'd know anywhere. His head tipped to the side, his lips close enough to her skin to touch as he whispered into her ear, causing her to shiver in spite of herself.
"Do you think you can do me a favor, beautiful?"
Her heart skipped a beat and she couldn't tell if it was caused by Varric's honey voice so close to her skin, the magic crackling behind her as Dorian worked furiously, or the sudden silence outside the doors. A silence that echoed louder than the gunfire. Still, she nodded.
"Forget all of this. Forget all of it except..." Varric's voice grew hoarse with emotion and he squeezed her fingers tight. "I want you to remember that it was enough for me to know you. It was enough to live in a world where you existed. It was enough, you were enough."
And just like that, every fear, every thought, her very heartbeat stopped. For a fleeting second, it was just her, her and Varric, and she shouldn't have let him walk out of her bedroom that night in Haven, she should have asked him to stay, poured her broken heart out to him.
She should have kissed him, but he was too good, he was handsome and loyal, famous and rich, and there was the shadow of a girlfriend he maybe had and Dwyka's stench lingering on her, and she was too fucking scared to risk it, to let him in and see one more person hurt because of her.
No matter what he said, he was too much. Too much for her to ask for. Too much for her to hold.
She meant to say all of that and more, but the only thing that came out was his name, strangled and choked with all the things she couldn't make her mouth say, all the words that stuck in her throat. Varric's lips pressed gently against her cheek and he pulled away, still wearing that tragic smile, his fingers untangling from hers.
"In another world, Princess." He said quietly, turning from her. She could do nothing but stare after him, sick and breathless all at once. She stepped forward, to chase him, to thank him, kiss him, she didn't even know…
"Fasta vass, you stay put, Cadash." Dorian snapped, dark eyes pinning her in place. "There is a time and a place to chase that man down, and now is not it."
If not now, when? Still, fear and uncertainty froze her in place. She heard another crash against the door, then the sound of it blowing open. She saw the gust of energy tug Varric's hair partially free of the tie, obscuring part of his face from her gaze. Maria lifted her gun, poised between Varric and Dorian, waiting.
She didn't have to wait long. Varric saw whatever came up first, she heard his shotgun fire, saw the flash from the muzzle. She heard something drop, but even as he took aim at another, a third demon emerged from the staircase, dripping red fangs with Cassandra's body clasped in bloody talons. Maria aimed her pistol, but her fingers shook and the shot went wide, too wide.
"Cadash!" Dorian yelled. Maria barely registered. She watched Varric drop another demon with a close range shot, but he couldn't avoid the one that dropped the Seeker's lifeless body, the one Maria missed. It screeched as it slashed forward, quicker than Maria's eyes could register.
It's claws sank into Varric's side, Maria watched the blood bloom bright and crimson, the slashes gauging Varric's skin open. He grunted, but he didn't scream.
Her next shot didn't go wide, it dropped the demon effortlessly, but it was too late. The wound caused Varric to slow and the last demon grabbed him, his legs dangling in the air, kicking helplessly as it threw him back to the ground. He looked small, suddenly, as small as she felt.
She'd never thought of him as small. Always thought of him as solid, like the muscles of his arm wrapping neatly around her waist, her form melting into his that night in the snow. Her caged against the piano in Val Royeaux by his bulk before he took a step back, clearing enough of a path for her to flee.
He always gave her enough room to run from him.
His shotgun went flying, skittering across the tile, Varric's blood painting it crimson. Maria nearly dropped her own gun in her haste to move, to rush to him, to pull him back and…
"No!" Dorian screamed, and his long, lanky human arm caught the back of her ruined jacket, hauled her towards him. She felt the magic crackling around them, the lights swirling, but it didn't obscure Varric from her.
He looked up from the ground, blood covered face, arm reaching as if to grab her one last time. His eyes locked on her, his mouth forming one last desperate plea for her to go.
Always. He always let her go. His last, desperate act, was to let her flee.
The demon reared up behind him, claws glistening with dark blood as it screeched again. She watched its talons descend, a blur of crimson and dark bone. It's screech still rang in her ears and she tried to pull free of Dorian, her coat holding her back even as she surged desperately forward.
"VARRIC!" Maria screamed. "VARRIC!"
He never looked away. His eyes locked on hers even when the claws pierced the skin of his neck, even when she heard the bone crack, even when the blood spurted all over the horrifying creature. Even when his eyes went dark, his hand still stretched for her, his eyes never looked away.
The magic around them boiled, heat against her skin, the smell of smoke. Of blood and death.
Varric vanished. The demons vanished. She could see nothing but darkness, not even her own hands. Nothing existed except Maria, nothing tethered her to reality except Dorian's hand fisted in the back of her coat. She coughed on the smoke, felt like she was breathing in the inferno that burned Hawke alive, that tore her sister from her. She too was ignited, and she too would die.
Good. She thought wildly. If any of them deserved it...
Except she didn't. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the smoke began to clear. She pitched forward, Dorian's grip faltering, her pistol thudding to the floor, the magic dissipating even as Maria hit her hip hard enough to bruise on the table beside her. A normal, everyday table. Gleaming wooden mahogany, too big, too pretentious. The walls were white, the sun through the windows illuminated the room, and Maria was staring into the face of the man she'd just shot in the back of the head.
If she'd had her gun, if she wouldn't have lost it under the table, if she didn't feel like jello in a blender, she'd have fucking shot him again, this time in the face. Instead, she lashed out the way she knew best, lashed out like a cornered, wounded animal. Her fist connected with his face, his jaw, sent him careening back into the chair he'd stood from.
He raised his arm to his face and she saw the gold watch, that fucking watch, the only thing that made sense, the only thing she could focus on. They were dead, they were all dead and it was her fault and this fucking watch…
She grabbed for the old man's arm, her nails leaving bloody gauges on his skin.
Like the demon she missed flaying Varric's skin open.
She ripped it off with all her strength. He barely resisted, cradling his jaw with his other hand.
There was just enough of her mind left to notice it was a Rolex. A big, fancy, expensive watch exactly like Fynn's father wore.
His cologne in her nose, cloying, pushing her into the bookshelf, whiskey soaked breath telling her he could give her what Fynn couldn't, her fingers clawing at the watch on his wrist to try and get his hands off of her.
And then Maria turned to the edge of the table, slammed the face of the watch as hard as she could into the polished, gleaming surface. She heard a sharp snap, felt a clean, sobering pain. A surge of energy made the lights flicker.
Dwyka still didn't let go, even as it throbbed, his grip tightening and forcing a whimper from her throat while he asked why she couldn't just do what he asked for once.
Her wrist. Her fucking wrist again, but it dashed the fog surrounding her, brought everything into focus. The watch was in pieces, her hands covered in blood and gore over top of it, and everything was silent, the only sound Maria's ragged breathing, her hammering heart.
"Shit."
She closed her eyes, the voice piercing her eardrums, honey and velvet and whiskey and he was whispering in her ear and he was dying, she watched him die, she watched them die, she watched...
"That's one word for it." Dorian replied without any venom at all, sounding ancient beyond his years.
She opened her eyes, looked up across the table, and met the shocked, dismayed gazes of Bull, of Cassandra (alive, alive and not dead for her) and…
Varric. Varric. His warm eyes, his face, his broad shoulders and half-unbuttoned shirt and his lips curling into a relieved smile even as his eyes lingered in shadowed concern.
His name was still stuck in her throat, a scream she hadn't finished, and she could still taste his blood lingering in the air. She couldn't look at him without seeing him dangling from a demon's claws, without seeing them plunge into his neck, the one she'd playfully imagined kissing the last time they'd been in this fucking room.
Varric Tethras died to save her. Varric Tethras died just like Fynn Dunhark died. For a woman who wasn't worth their sacrifice. Bea died, Hawke died, Casandra died, Leliana died, Varric died and it would have been better, it would have been cleaner, if it had been Maria.
If it had just been Maria dead in Hercinia a decade prior instead of Fynn.
She couldn't look at them any more. She couldn't look at him anymore.
So she did the only thing that made sense. She turned, and she fled.