The day the templars come, panic overtakes Anders, and he doesn't even try to hide it. Rhyanon has been working so hard to make Vigil's Keep more secure over the past months that he had let himself start to believe that the castle walls really could protect him. Now, as the complement of Orlesian templars rides in, he curses himself for his own stupidity. He glances at Rhyanon, who stiffens up noticeably – at least to his eyes – as the armored men and women and their well-trained warhorses clear the gate. She gives him a careful glance, more a warning than any gesture of reassurance. Anders is frozen. He cannot respond. But Rhyanon seems to take his stillness as acquiescence, and she turns back to the approaching retinue.

Any idea that she approves of their presence is banished as soon as she opens her mouth. "What are you doing here?" she asks, all cold hostility.

The leader of the templars removes his helmet and frowns down at her. "We were sent by the Chantry, Warden Commander, to lend assistance in your hour of need." He speaks with a thick Orlesian accent, one Anders struggles to understand.

"This is a Grey Warden installation," Rhyanon reminds them. "The Chantry has no authority here."

"And you are a mage," the templar reminds her. Thank the Maker he doesn't say 'maleficar.' The outright accusation would not go well. But probably he doesn't know. Most people don't.

"The needs of the Grey Wardens supersede all other law," Rhyanon demands. "If you come here to become Grey Wardens, their needs must supersede all other loyalties."

The templar bows his head. "This is so," he agrees.

Rhyanon nods. She looks stricken, but she lets the templars follow her as she guides them through the Keep. She does not invite them to make themselves at home, but neither does she turn them away. Eventually, she lets Varel and Nathaniel Howe step in to take over the hosting duties. She trusts them a lot more than she trusts herself around the Chantry's soldiers.

Later that night, Rhyanon paces in her room, edgy and angry. Anders sits on the edge of the bed, watching her. Even when she wrestled with the decisions she was forced to make, she didn't usually talk about them out loud. Instead, she kept it all inside, endlessly weighing the pros and cons, until it tore her apart. Her pacing takes her to the small, arrow-slit window installed in one wall of her bedroom, and she stops in front of it for a brief moment, staring out at the stars. "I can't turn them away, Anders," she insists.

He blinks, surprised that she's even addressing him. She knows what he'll say, but he forces himself to try to see it from her point of view. "Why not?" he asks simply.

Rhyanon takes a long time to answer. She rests her hand on the stone wall and sucks in a deep breath. "Because," she demands. "If they're here, at least I can keep an eye on them."

It makes a certain kind of sense, in a twisted way. If they are Grey Wardens, then by their own code, these templars will have to obey Rhyanon. Anders can tell how desperately she wants to be able to make it work, to claim a little bit of the power that has never been hers.

"They won't trust you. They won't listen to you, Rhyanon, they're templars!"

She turns around then, to look him in the eye, and he recognizes her familiar stubbornness. Since she was a little kid, Rhyanon has never been able to back down from an argument when she thinks she's right. It's as if she believes that just because she can see clearly how something should be, that everyone else will see it, too. That it will be that way just because she wants it to be.

"If I turn them away, the Chantry will just send more," Rhyanon says. She speaks a little more softly now, and her fears are a little more evident. Anders says nothing. What is he supposed to say?

Rhyanon looks to him for... what? Agreement? Permission? He can't give that to her. "I trust you, Rhyanon," he finally says.

She looks at him, still uncertain. But she nods.

Anders tries to make it work, he really does. He does it for her sake. He stays with her, because a year apart was more than either of them could bear. It changed them both, too much.

But there is no mistaking the way that the templar presence is encroaching on the safety of Vigil's Keep for both him and Rhyanon, in subtle and unsubtle ways.

The easygoing breakfasts which the Wardens had previously shared, as friends, have now become stilted and formal. And combat training is uncomfortable when everyone knows that the templars have only ever learned how to fight mages. And Anders was right. They don't listen to Rhyanon, not really. They never directly disobey her orders, but it is clear that they remain their own faction, separate from the rest of the Wardens no matter how much Rhyanon tries to insist that they all have to work together.

The day it all comes to a head, it starts, unsurprisingly, in the Chantry.

Anders still attends services every morning, a ritual he won't let himself break. But the suspicious – sometimes even outright hostile – glances of the templars are all the more obvious here. He does nothing to provoke them, despite the anger churning inside his entire body. He keeps his mana under careful control. It doesn't matter. One of them, he can't tell who at first, but later he learns that it's their leader, pushes him down with a Holy Smite, not five minutes after the Revered Mother finishes her sermon. Anders falls to the floor, his head ringing. He scrambles backward as the templar looms above him, holding his arm up in a desperate effort to shield himself from whatever blow is coming. His stomach clenches with pain and terror, as he finds himself stripped of power yet again.

"What do you want?" he manages to choke out. Before the templar can speak, another voice intrudes.

"What in the Maker's name is going on here?"

Anders manages to twist his body enough to see Nathaniel Howe standing in the entrance to the chapel. The man doesn't bother hiding his fury, and one hand is on the dagger he carries on his hip for situations when a bow would be inconvenient. Anders has no illusions that the other Warden would actually draw templar blood to protect him, but the fact that he is speaking up at all is surprising enough. While Nate has the templars distracted, Anders manages to haul himself to his feet.

"This man is one of us!"

"He's a mage," the templar spits.

"And you were told when you joined up that that doesn't matter! You'll be lucky if the Warden Commander doesn't have you all flogged for such gross insubordination. I would."

Anders raises an eyebrow. A part of him wishes he could see that, although he knows Rhyanon well enough to know that she'd never go through with such a threat.

Nathaniel calls for Varel and orders the seneschal to escort the templars to their quarters, where they can remain under guard until Rhyanon decides what to do with them.

"Very good, sir," Varel says, completely unruffled.

"Thanks," Anders mutters, to Nate.

"Don't mention it."

Anders crosses his arms over his chest, studying Nate. "Why are you doing this? Helping me?"

Nathaniel shrugs. "It's like I told them, isn't it? You're one of us."

Anders smiles, as a feeling of both gratitude and belonging that he has never experienced before floods his heart. He is surprised to find that Nate is smiling back. "I don't suppose there's any chance of keeping this from Rhyanon."

Nate shakes his head. "We have to tell her."

"Yeah. I figured."

"I bet Varel has already, anyway."

He can see the disappointment in Rhyanon's eyes before either of them says a word. The peace that she had hoped to hold between their disparate factions, mage and templar, has collapsed. But it was the templars who forced the fight. Nathaniel corroborates Anders's story, and Rhyanon thanks him for his testimony before turning back to Anders.

"Are you alright?" she asks him, her worry for him momentarily overtaking all other concerns.

Anders frowns, shifting nervously, caught in her stare. "Yeah, I'm fine," he manages to say. "But Rhyanon, what are you going to do?"

She closes her eyes and brings her fingers to the bridge of her nose as she tries to think the problem through. It is a gesture that reminds Anders, shockingly, of Irving. He has to remind himself that Rhyanon isn't as powerless against the templars as the First Enchanter had been. This isn't the Circle. She's in charge. But one look at her face is all it takes to prove that she is still afraid to provoke the templars. She fears their retaliation, against herself, but against him most of all.

"I'll send them with the next group going into to the Deep Roads," Rhyanon decides.

"You're hoping they'll die down there?" Anders asks carefully, surprised by the coldness of such a verdict, though perhaps he shouldn't be.

Rhyanon shrugs, and shakes her head, and Anders thinks she means "No, but I wouldn't be disappointed if they did." He isn't certain he's not just projecting his feelings onto Rhyanon, though. It gets the templars away from him, at least for a little while, so he's not about to complain.

He watches from a hidden corner while Rhyanon speaks to the leader of the templars. If the Chantry soldier is expecting her to back down, he clearly doesn't know her or her reputation. Eventually, he concedes to her authority, though Anders can tell even from across the room that he isn't happy about it.

"You wanted to be a Grey Warden," Rhyanon says, her voice rising in volume. "This is what Grey Wardens do."

The templars grumbles to themselves in Orlesian, but they cannot disagree. Nathaniel takes over getting the group ready for their darkspawn-hunting expedition, and Rhyanon comes over to Anders. She slips her hand into his and leans against his body. Don't worry, she seems to say. I'll keep you safe.

He runs his thumb and and down her spine and tries to believe her.

Anders has already made up his mind. What he dreads is having to say so. He scrubs his hands over his face, and looks up. "There are templars here, Rhyanon, I can't stay!"

To his everlasting disappointment, the contingent of Orlesian templars had all made it out of the Deep Roads unscathed. Since then, he's spent more and more of his time trying to dodge them – conveniently finding some other place he needs to be whenever they enter a room.

How can she not see it? The way they look at him. They'd kill him if they could. He cannot stay here, not with them. She knows what happened.

"Anders, they won't hurt you."

"You can't know that. Rhyanon, they are not on your side! They're templars!"

"Don't you think I know that?!"

Anders freezes. Here he is, fucking it up again. He'd thought she was angry, and she is, dangerously so. But beneath that anger is the unshakeable fear that unites them.

She might be right. The templars will probably leave her alone. But not him. And as long as he is here with her, he is putting her in danger.

Rhyanon takes his wrist, trying to turn him around so that he'll look at her. "Anders, I promise. I will not let them hurt you."

He just shakes his head. "I can't let you do that. I can't let you put yourself between me and them. Not ever again."

"You're not asking me to, you idiot. I'm volunteering."

"Okay," Anders says, because it's easier than fighting.

The Rhyanon he knew before, the Rhyanon who knows him, wouldn't let it go that easily. He wouldn't be able to fool her. But she is tired too, and maybe that's why she doesn't question this. It's easier than fighting, after all.

"Anders, please," Rhyanon begs, and he can hear all of things she is not saying, Don't leave me is loudest of all. He hugs her close, resting his hand at the small of her back as she lays her head on his shoulder.

He wants to tell her that he'll stay. He wants to tell her that he'll try. But he is trying, and if the templars have already decided his death sentence, he's backed into a corner. The all-consuming dread he feels is utterly familiar: he swears he can feel the icy shackles tight against his wrists. He won't go back. He won't. He'd told her that.

He shifts a little, and Rhyanon can see the hardness in his eyes, the heaviness of the determination that has settled there. She gives him a slight nod and disentangles herself from him.

Anders feels the fluttering in his stomach, the familiar need to run, and he wonders if she's giving him permission.

"Let me go," Anders demands. He keeps his voice quiet, but steady. He won't let the templars see him scared. Even if they do outnumber him.

"Do you really think we'll just let you leave? You killed our brothers-in-arms, mage. That makes you an apostate in the eyes of Chantry law, if your actions hadn't declared you so already."

Apostate. His life forfeit before the eyes of the Maker. Anders licks his lips. "So that's why you're here?" he asks. He barely keeps his voice from shaking. "To kill me?"

"We are here to gain justice for the Chantry."

"But I'm a Grey Warden!"

"Not if you leave."

It's then that Anders begins to realize his mistake and his decision. It settles on him with heavy clarity. Until now, he had still allowed a part of himself to believe there could be safety here. But he cannot keep running anymore. And this is his last escape.

He takes a deep, steadying breath. "I know you don't believe me, but I didn't want to kill them." What is he doing? Does he really still believe that he can talk his way out of this?

The leader of the templars stares at him with open disbelief. "Do you think that matters?"

Anders shakes his head. No. He really doesn't.

But he will not just let them kill him. He never fought the templars when they caught him. Not until Rylock forced him to.

Why haven't they taken away his mana yet? He doesn't take too long to second-guess it. He calls fire to his hand, launching it at the templars in a wave of searing flames. Only a few flickering heartbeats after the spell is cast, the Smite he'd been expecting washes over him. He manages to stay standing, barely, but he is no longer able to tap his power. And he is still outnumbered. And they are falling down upon him with righteous fury, pure rage that he has never felt before, even from them.

But unlike every other fight he's ever had against the templars, this time, Anders actually knows how to fight. He stands a chance. He holds his own against them, using every bit of Grey Warden training that his body and mind remember, and in his head he screams his thanks to Rhyanon for forcing him to learn how to do this, for sparring with him until it hurt and he had no choice but to fight back with everything he had.

Anders falls atop the nearest templar and attacks him with fists and elbows, drawing blood from the man's unprotected nose. He goes for the eyes next, digging his knuckles into the soft tissue, blinding the templar and buying himself some time.

Time doesn't bring back his mana, but it allows him to draw the weapon he's smart enough now to carry. One of the other templars – this one wearing a helmet – laughs aloud at the sight of Anders holding a sword. Anders isn't entirely confident in his ability to wield it against a trained swordsman, but he feels a lot better than he would without one. He slashes the weapon through the air in a low, tight arc. The templar blocks the blow easily with his own sword, but at least he's not carrying a shield. Anders knows enough to know that he needs to stay close to the other man, as dangerous as that seems. If he lets the templar gain reach on him, he's doomed. He waits for the templar to attempt a blow of his own, and rather then try to parry it, Anders moves forward with a stabbing motion, aiming for the chink between the front and back plates of the man's armor. Astoundingly, his blade gets through, drawing a howl of agony from the man's lips. In his moment of distraction, Anders stabs again, and slices upward, this time.

A blow to the head knocks Anders to the ground – the other templars. He rolls onto his back and wonders if he can get to his feet before they land a killing blow. The two of them circle him, wary of any tricks he might pull, but he can't cast and they must know that. Anders manages at least to get to his knees. He won't be helpless. He won't give up without a fight. A sword point lands against his throat, drawing blood. But the templar does not kill him. Why not? What's their game?

"Get up," the man snarls in a raspy voice. Anders scrambles to his feet. What are they doing? Are they trying to arrest him? Take him back for trial? He won't let them. He is never going back.

And this is a decision, too: he would rather die.

Anders takes a step backward, away from the point of the sword, and shockingly, the templar lets him do so. That is the man's fatal mistake. Because Anders can feel his mana, coming back. It is a trickle, not a surge. But it is enough. He lets it all go in an almighty blast of kinetic force, tossing the templars backwards away from him. They land like broken dolls.

And Anders runs.

He flees without a destination or a plan. He just needs to get away, away from the consequences of his actions and the source of his fear. He heads for Amaranthine, his fingers curled tight around a letter from Karl that had arrived for him before his final flight from the Circle Tower. The fragments of a path forward begin to form themselves in his mind as he reaches the city of Amaranthine. He stands at the edge of the docks, watching the billowing white sails of the ships cutting through the rough waters as they come in from the ocean. Any of those ships could take him away from here.

Guilt begins to thrum inside his body with the beating of his heart. But there is no going back for him, not now. He can't stay in Ferelden. There is nowhere that he will not be hunted.

He shoves his way through the crowd of laborers and pirates, and picks a boat at random. "I need passage to Kirkwall," he says desperately. "I can pay."

The rough waves on the Sea of Amaranthine pound the small ship, and the flames inside the lanterns flicker so fiercely that Anders is sure they'll go out. They somehow stay burning though, providing the cramped hold with an unsteady glow. Anders sits there, tucked in among the crates and boxes, huddled into a tight ball. He looks down at his hands, expecting to see bloodstained red there, but there's nothing. His breath catches in his chest. He forces the air in and out through his nostrils. Breathe. Just breathe. He can do this.

Above him, a lock rattles and catches, and a deep rumbling voice curses loudly and prolifically. The rattling stops. There is the creaking of footsteps on narrow stairs. Anders looks up.

"Brought you some food, boy," a bear of a man growls. The captain of this illustrious vessel. The man holds out a tin plate on which some spoonfuls of potatoes and meat have been slopped down. Anders reaches for the plate, and takes it carefully. There are no utensils, so he figures he'll just have to lick at the food. His stomach grumbles as the scent of it wafts up into his nose. His stomach hurts, but he knows better than to turn down a meal.

"Thank you," he mumbles, and the captain grunts an acknowledgment.

"I've run my fair share of refugees across these waters, you know. And I've not seen many who're traveling all alone the way you are."

Anders shrugs. He doesn't feel like talking about himself. He doesn't feel like talking about what brought him here. But the captain is searching his face, searching for honesty, and it doesn't look like he'll leave without an answer. So what Anders says is "I'm used to being alone." That answer is more true than anyone knows, but even though the captain seems prepared to believe it, he does not look pleased.

"Young man like you?" he asks. "Really?"

"I've paid you my fare," Anders insists. "Please just..."

"Alright, alright. It's no business of mine. But I've had a dozen lonely years here on this boat. I recognize a kindred spirit. You eat up now, you hear?"

Anders nods. He watches the captain disappear back up the staircase, and then he licks his plate clean, slowly. He leans his head back against the wall and holds the empty plate in his lap, and only when he feels the heat stinging his closed eyes does he realize that he is crying. Shame washes through him, and guilt knots up his stomach even more tightly.

"There was someone," he announces to the empty air. There was someone. He can still imagine his fingers twining through Rhyanon's long blonde hair, he can feel the warmth of her in his arms, the heat of her breath on his neck. He isn't sure if what he and Rhyanon had could be called love, but it was something. And he had thrown it all away. For what?

He'd thought for surethat his freedom depended on killing those templars, but now he knows that he will only be hunted down with the full might of the Chantry, no matter where he tries to run. Templars are everywhere. He's known the truth of that since he was eleven years old. And where is going? Kirkwall. He knows little about that Marcher city, hadn't paid much attention to the gossip among the Harrowed mages, even after he'd become one. He didn't belong with them. But 'not much attention' didn't mean 'none at all,' and he had heard dark rumors of Kirkwall. He believed them, if only because Greagoir had sent Karl there, and that sending away had surely been meant as a punishment.

Anders pulls Karl's letters out from where he's been keeping them hidden, and he unfolds them carefully. He traces his fingers over the older mage's tightly looped handwriting, squinting in the dim light to make out what words he can. He has most of the contents of these letters memorized anyway. He folds them carefully away again and finds himself whispering the words of a prayer: "And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

He can't lose Karl. His heart thunders heavily in his chest and he leans his head back against the crate behind him, feeling the rough-splintered wood cradling his back and shoulders. Karl's words burrow into Anders's chest, and he rubs his rough shirt sleeve across his face, wiping away the cold tears he can't stop from falling.

Karl knew better than to use the word 'love.' They had never said it, never written it, never acknowledged it in any way. But Anders can feel the phantom shadows of Karl's hands on him in the dark. Karl might be his only chance to get back even a fraction of everything he's lost. After a year alone in a solitary cell, Anders has to go home. Not back to the Circle, but to the man he'd run away to try to get back to, in his own illogical desperate need, after Greagoir and Irving had sent Karl to Kirkwall. He needs Karl.

And, if these letters are true, then Karl needs him, too.

Anders has always been known as impulsive, yet he is capable of more patience and planning than anyone gives him credit for. Rhyanon had seen that side of him, enough to be impressed and more than a little intimidated. Every single one of his escapes from the Circle had meant watching and waiting, and smiling as the templars made their threats, feigning obedience even as his need to run pumped through his blood with every beat of his heart.

The ship crashes through dark water, and even sitting in the cargo hold, Anders imagines he can feel the cold spray of the sea on his face.

"I'm not running away," he says, first with the silent motion of his lips and tongue, and then aloud, so that the words echo back into his ears. He's not running away. He's running to.

He calls a spell wisp into his hand and watches it light up the darkness. It's the first time he's allowed himself to cast a spell since he fled from the templars who'd died at his hand. The memory assaults him, tearing apart his concentration and snapping the spell wisp out of his control. It zips across the cargo hold and batters itself against the crates for a few moments, like a trapped insect, before dimming and dying.

Anders's breathing comes in rough gasps, and he's on his knees vomiting up his just-eaten supper by the time his brain catches up with his body.

"I'm sorry," he whines, though who the hell is he apologizing to? The Maker?

He's a murderer now. He can't pretend he isn't. He's on the run from the law, as well. If the ship's captain knew that, would he be so eager to help?

Anders tries to mop up the stains of his own sickness from where it had splashed up onto his clothes, but he only succeeds in making more of a mess of himself. He leans his head back and tries to take calming breaths. His stomach twinges with every shift the ship makes in the churning waters.

He closes his eyes, and he remembers:

Karl's hands on him in the dark, the heat of his lips on his neck, bruising kisses under his ear, whispered words of the language Anders had nearly forgotten, heard only from Karl's lips and no one else's: their secret. The weight of Karl's body pressed against his own, the desperation with which he grabbed at Karl's clothing and pulled it away so that he could feel the warmth of the older man's skin.

The memories leaves Anders shaken, empty and aching. He wishes he could just talk to the man. Karl would know what to do. Karl at least would hold him close and stroke his hair and do everything he could to quell the guilt and fear that relentlessly assault Anders's every thought and breath. The familiar weight of isolation is heavy on Anders's chest, squeezing tight, making it a struggle to catch enough air. He isn't sure if he misses Karl specifically or if he's just terrified of being alone.

The ship cuts through the dark water. Tomorrow it will be pulled into Kirkwall's tides.

Anders snatches restless sleep, haunted by the memory of blood on his hands as much as by the demons of the Fade. Murderer. Criminal. Apostate. The accusations thrum in his blood. He holds his hand in a tightly clenched fist and feels his sharp fingernails pressing into the sensitive flesh of his palm.

"I didn't mean it," he whispers to nothing and no one, but that too is a lie. He didn't have to kill those templars. There had to have been other choices, though even now he could not say what they might have been.
He feels the rocking of the boat on the waves and lets out another shaky breath.

Freedom was never supposed to feel like this.

He slowly gets to his feet and makes his way toward the ladder the captain had used just a little while ago. Hand over hand, he pulls himself up. He hadn't ever promised that he would stay in the cargo hold, and the captain had never explicitly forbidden him from walking around on the ship. He crosses the deck and leans against the railing, feeling the wind on his face and watching the nearly full moon shine its bright light over the waves. He reaches out with one hand, though from where he is he can touch neither the moon nor the sea. He can feel the mana stirring inside of him, always stronger outside, connected with the rhythms of the natural world.

He looks up, at the stars littering the black expanse of sky. He does not know their names and stories the way that others do, but he takes comfort in their patterns just the same. He counts them, calming himself with the repetition of numbers the way he has since he was young.

"What's waiting for you in Kirkwall, boy?" the captain asks, coming up to stand behind him what feels like hours later.

Anders takes a slow, deep breath, and tells what he hopes is the truth: "A friend."

What he doesn't ask, though, is: Who are you leaving behind?