Let the blade pass through the flesh,

Let my blood touch the ground,

Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice.

-Andraste 7:12

…

I.

In the year of 9:31 Dragon, The Arishok came to Kirkwall looking for a thief. By 9:34, he was tired of looking. But the Qunari weren't the only ones growing impatient with the state of affairs in the City of Chains. For it seemed that a strange madness had overtaken the citizens of Kirkwall, clouding their reason and inflaming their ire. Hardly a day went by without some new challenge to the tenuous balance of power. The Knight Commander was tightening her hold on the Circle. The mages, in turn, were growing more and more desperate to escape the Gallows. Scavengers, sensing the discord within, became bolder in their encroachments and the streets grew thick with slavers and thieves. Kirkwall stood poised on the cusp of a momentous change.

With wild horned men and abominations lurking outside the city walls, and dangerous political traps set within, perhaps it was only to be expected that Hawke, who never noticed anything until it was right in front of her own nose, should fail to recognize the signs of a more subtle change. She'd had her own personal crises to deal with, after all. No sooner had Fenris left her than her mother went missing, and for awhile all the noise and colors of the world receded into the background, leaving her oblivious to everything but her own grief.

But someone else had noticed.

"D'you think that's a good idea?" Merrill said, her brow furrowing as she watched Hawke lift the flagon up to her mouth.

"Best idea I've had all blighted day," Hawke muttered.

"Really? Is it different for humans, then?" Merrill asked, her green eyes wide and curious.

"What, ale?" Hawke squinted at her, and ran the back of her hand over her mouth. "Your lot seem to fancy it just as much as ours do. Maybe more, if Fenris is any indication."

"Oh, I didn't mean the ale-," Merrill said, but by then Varric and Isabela had joined them and Hawke had stopped listening.

It had taken Hawke another week to put two and two together for herself. Indeed, were it not for a chance encounter on the Wounded Coast she might have carried on in ignorance for a great deal longer.

It happened that some noble had promised to pay them a pretty penny if they could find an old family heirloom she'd lost at the Coast. It was the sort of job Hawke might once have refused as too trivial to bother with, but these days she'd take on anything that kept her away from the house.

As usual, they were ambushed almost immediately. Surprise attacks had become something of a regular occurrence on trips to the Coast. For awhile it had been mostly bandits, then slavers, and then abominations. Late nights at the Hanged Man Hawke and her friends had taken to speculating upon which group would move in next, settling atop the bones of their predecessors. And so when the first Tal Vashoth charged at her, she'd thought 'oh bollocks', not out of any fear for her life, but rather because she now owed Isabela three sovereigns.

Why couldn't it have been giant spiders, she thought with a scowl as she pulled out her staff. Maker knows they're everywhere else.

Experience had taught her that the horned brutes were exasperatingly resistant to fire, and so she'd sunk the bladed end deep into the heel of her palm, had pulled, felt her mana surge in response.

And then suddenly stopped dead, her blood dripping uselessly onto the stones that littered the rocky shore.

For there was far too much of it, too fast, and from a spot beneath her ribcage she'd felt a sudden twitch, a sharp pinch like the pricking of needles under her heart.

She'd stood frozen there like a complete idiot, mouth wide as a toad catching flies, and she might have caught a few arrows if Varric hadn't shoved her down in time. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) by this point her friends had grown quite accustomed to fending off would-be ambushers, and so they made short work of the Vashoth while Hawke crouched down in the lee of a rock, her bleeding hand pressed into her stomach. Varric and Isabela gave her odd looks afterwards (while Fenris, she'd noted, was still avoiding looking at her altogether), but she'd mumbled some excuse about not feeling well, and had practically sprinted back to Kirkwall, her heart in her mouth and her palms sweating.

And the truth was that she hadn't known what she was more afraid of; that there might be something alive inside her, or that she had already destroyed it, the tiny spark snuffed out before it even began.

She'd meant to go to Darktown, to the clinic, but when her feet stopped she was in the Alienage, her hand on Merrill's door.

The elf blinked in the sunlight, her green eyes puzzled. "Hullo Hawke," she said, ducking slightly as she peered out from her half cracked door. "Have I forgotten something?"

Hawke shuffled her feet, and muttered something unintelligible.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Merrill asked, shading her eyes with one hand.

"Am I pregnant?" Hawke blurted out.

Merrill blinked at her again, and flushed. "Creators, didn't you know? I thought you'd realized ages ago-"

"Oh," Hawke said softly, leaning forward against the doorframe, her hands going to her face. "Shit." Her legs wobbled beneath her, and she sank down.

"Hawke, are you alright?"

"I don't know," she said, closing her eyes. "We were ambushed, I used blood magic, and I think-" She stopped, unable to keep herself from shaking. Merrill's eyes widened.

"Come inside," she said, opening the door all the way.

Not a lick of healing magic between the two of them but quick as a wink Merrill had her wrapped up in blankets on the bed, a hot mug of tea with herbs she'd gathered on the mountains pressed into Hawke's trembling hands while the elf knelt in front of her, her eyes closed, the edges of her fingers pushed into Hawke's lower abdomen.

At last she looked up, her face solemn. "The heartbeat is very weak. If you don't act soon, I think it will slip away." She tilted her head, her face going suddenly unsure. "Unless… that's what you want?"

"I don't-" Hawke said, her voice breaking. She tried again. "I don't know what …"

Merrill took her hand. When she spoke her voice was low and halting.

"It happens that way sometimes, in the clan," she said. "Among Keepers especially. Magic is so often passed down, you see. And it can be very hard to send the little ones away, or worse, to leave them behind." She shivered, her eyes closing. "Poor da'lens," she whispered, "born at the wrong time. It's not right that they should suffer. But too many mages are a danger to the clan." She looked back up, her eyes dimmed with sorrow. "Sometimes it's easier to end a life before it truly begins," she said. "I promise you, they feel no pain."

"No," Hawke said, surprising herself. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and opened them. "That's not what I want."

Merrill nodded. "Then we need to act quickly." She pulled a dagger from her belt. "What was taken must be restored."

And before Hawke had time to do more than blink the elf had slashed a deep cut through her own slender forearm.

Hawke gaped at her. "What are you doing-"

"Shh," Merrill said. "Be still. Listen to the blood." She brought Hawke's injured hand to her arm, forcing Hawke's fingers under the lip of the wound.

Hawke reluctantly closed her eyes. She could feel the elf's pulse beating out in the rich red liquid at her finger tips. Power surged into her like an electric current, and her eyes shot open. Merrill's were shut tight, her vallaslin standing out starkly against her ashen face.

"Merrill-"

"Don't stop," the elf ordered, her hand clenched like a vise around Hawke's.

Hawke winced at her grip, but she let the power come, pulling it into her body. She felt her blood grow warm in her veins, felt the tiny knot under her ribs loosen and swell. The cut in her palm began to close up.

"I didn't know blood magic could do that," she said, amazed.

"This magic is much older than you humans know," Merrill said, her voice coming out weak and strained. "I've heard your chantry say it comes from demons, but they are wrong." She drew in a sharp breath and winced. "It's true power lies in sacrifice," she said. "You must offer it something of your own- ah!" She gasped out, and Hawke felt her pulse stutter under her fingers. "I can feel her, Hawke!" she whispered, "Her little heart-" Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her hand went limp around Hawke's wrist.

Hawke swore as Merrill sank down onto the ground, unconscious. Quickly she pulled her up onto the bed. She cast her eyes around the room for something to use as a tourniquet. In desperation, she ripped green scarf from Merrill's neck and knotted it tightly around her bleeding forearm, applying pressure to the wound. She could feel Merrill's pulse beating sluggishly.

"Come on, Merrill," she whispered. "Please wake up."

After what felt like ages, Merrill started, her lashes fluttering. She looked up with eyes gone dreamy and huge.

"Oh Hawke," she breathed. "Only a wee little wisp of a girl, but isn't she beautiful?"

After this narrowly avoided catastrophe, Hawke deduced that it might be wise to lay low. And so, in the misguided hope that two months of reckless behavior could be undone by a belated commitment to extreme caution, she shut herself up in her home and resolved to live as a recluse until the child was brought to term.

Five days later she had to admit that this was perhaps a mite unrealistic.

For one thing, she'd forgotten how vacant the house felt since Mother's death. It had been ages since she'd spent any real time there. Being home meant resigning herself to empty hallways, quiet dinners, meant walking past a door she could not bring herself to open.

The other thing was that she had not reckoned on how dreadfully boring it would be.

She did try to keep herself occupied. But all her attempts at making her own fun were thwarted by a pair of stubbornly uncooperative dwarves.

"Forgive me, Messere, but I cannot," Bohdan insisted.

"Oh come on Bohdan," she wheedled. "Just one more round?"

"You've already taken the whole of my savings," Bohdan said, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. "What have I left to wager?"

"I'll lend it back to you!" Hawke said brightly. Bohdan stared at her with reproachful eyes, and she sighed. She pushed the pile back to him. "Maker's breath, don't give me that face. I was only joking anyhow." She scowled as she cast her gaze around the room, looking for some new source of amusement. Her eyes lit on Sandal.

"What about you Sandal? Care to try your luck?"

"Messere," Bohdan said, aghast. "You wouldn't!"

"Enchantment!" Sandal said happily.

Luckily for all involved parties, her self imposed solitude lasted little more than a week. Eventually Varric had turned up at her door, curious and concerned at her absence. And of course it just so happened that there was a job he'd been tipped off to, something going down in Lowtown, and would she mind helping him out? She hemmed and hawed but by then she was half mad from boredom and itching for the chance to set something on fire (Bohdan had gotten quite stern with her about experimenting in the house), and it hadn't taken much persuasion to get her back into her leather plate and out the door.

Fights were more challenging without blood magic, that was certain. She felt herself pushed close to her limits again for the first time in years, to the point where she actually borrowed a book from Anders. Something about arcane magicks, which she had never bothered with before (shields and barriers were so terribly dull) but now she supposed she ought to at least attempt to learn. And the book had proved useful enough once she'd shook all the extra pamphlets and scribblings out of it. The shields, while admittedly handy, were about as tedious as she'd expected. But to her surprise there had been something else in it, something very interesting indeed that she had taken to playing around with in her spare time.

When she had any spare time. She'd never noticed before how many people seemed to need her help. It was becoming a bit alarming. And she knew that it was dangerous and that she had to be very careful, but the letters were piling up, and she told herself, well really, Marian, how long can you ignore the Viscount?

She still hadn't told anyone besides Merrill. She wanted to tell Carver, but he wasn't speaking to her. Mother was gone. And Gamlen wasn't the sort of uncle who inspired confidences.

She might have told Isabela, but the pirate disappeared before she got the chance. At first she was inclined to worry. The city was riddled with tunnels and passageways that seemed to open up on their own to lure in the unwary. But Varric assured her that Rivaini had simply returned to the sea with whatever item it was she'd been looking for. And so, though it grieved her, Hawke let it go.

There was someone she should have told right from the start. But he'd left her, and the stubborn part of her decided that meant he'd forfeited the right to know. They kept up a charade of friendship, but anything more than a few pleasantries and the conversation slipped into something uncomfortable and fraught. Hawke often thought about what she should say, how best to broach the subject. But try as she might she couldn't bring herself to form the right words. Instead it was the wrong ones that always came so easily to her.

He had made it clear he didn't want her, for all that he still wore her favor. She tried to convince herself she didn't owe him anything. But that didn't keep her from tormenting herself with the idea that he might still come back one day, that he'd realize the mistake he'd made, come to accept that magic could be used for good. Perhaps after the baby was born, she thought wistfully. She often fantasized about how it would be to introduce them, pictured his eyes going wide and soft as he looked at his daughter. Sometimes she imagined telling him the name she'd chosen. 'Leandra', Fenris. For the grandmother she'll never get to meet. Truly, she had always meant to tell him someday.

And perhaps that day would have come. She'll never know. For the Qunari came first.

My city is on fire, she thought, looking out over the docks. The air stank of ash and panic, and the streets were full of shouting, and for one confused second she'd thought it was Lothering again. But she saw the glitter of flames reflected in the sea, the slick sheen of blood on marble. It was Kirkwall, Kirkwall was on fire. And this time, she told herself, she didn't have to run.

So she, Fenris, Varric and Aveline had fought their way across the embattled city, all the way to the Viscount's Keep. Only to find that it wasn't, not anymore. Poor old Marlowe Dumar. He'd been a tired, harried man who ruled only by the grace of the Templars, but he'd done what he could to keep the tensions of the city in check. His once bright blue eyes stared sightlessly up at her from where his head had come to a stop on the floor. There would be no more letters to put off, no more bad news to deliver.

And above them, on the steps, the Arishok waited.

"Tell me Hawke," he'd said, his face implacable. "You know I cannot withdraw. How would you resolve this conflict?"

She opened her mouth to speak.

But Fenris spoke first.

(It wasn't his fault, she told herself afterward. He hadn't known, had he? She'd never told him.)

"You have granted this woman basalit-an. By this admission, she now has the right to challenge you," he said, stepping up to stand beside her.

Stunned into silence, Hawke turned to stare at him.

"If you truly knew the Qun, Elf, you would not suggest I battle a female," the Arishok said.

"She is no female."

Maybe he meant it as a token of respect, but she flinched all the same.

"Fenris," she'd whispered, desperately trying to catch his eye. "I can't-"

The Arishok turned his black eyes on her. "What say you Hawke? Do you agree to a duel?"

For a moment, Hawke thought about walking away. Of turning her back on Kirkwall, her friends, the people. Of running as fast as her feet could take her to the docks, stealing a boat, setting sail and never looking back. The way her father had trained them to drop everything and run.

If it had just been the two of them there, she might have done it.

But Varric was looking at her, and Aveline, and even Fenris. Fenris, with his eyes fierce and proud, staring at her like she was some divine being to whom he would like to swear fealty, a look she would have given anything to see in any circumstances but these. And the cold hand of dread had closed around her heart, for suddenly she'd understood two things; that he believed in her utterly and completely, and that to walk away now would crush that belief, possibly forever. She tore her gaze away, looking wildly around the room, at the people huddled in the alcoves of the great Hall, all of them staring at her with hope naked on their faces. And reflected back in their eyes she saw not a woman, but a shining construct of fire and blood, a champion.

She'd accepted the challenge.

She'd known from the start it was going to be difficult. Her chief strength lay in fire magicks, but the Qunari didn't burn. And she didn't dare use blood, not with the little heart beating steadily beneath her own.

But she'd lived through Lothering, through the Deep Roads, through the Fade. She had faced down demons, dragons, and darkspawn, slain the living and the dead in equal numbers. She was Marian Hawke, and she was nothing if not a survivor. She would survive this, too.

So she cast what protections she could around herself, felt them hum to life in a shimmering net over her skin. And raising her staff, she stepped forward to face the Arishok.

She had no real hope of blocking his attacks. The force with which he swung his axe would crush her even if he only managed an indirect hit. So she led him in a terrible dance, lobbing fire at his eyes to distract him while she slashed and jabbed with the sharp blade of her staff. She knew that to fight him without magic was to pit her weakness against his strength, but her options were limited. Simply sustaining the shield was sapping a significant portion of her mana. To cast a proper spell she'd need time to stop and concentrate.

She dodged left as his blade swung past her. Bringing her hand to her head she focused, sending out a flash of magic in a radius around her. She saw him stagger back, and took advantage of the resulting opening to throw a solid punch, her fist burning bright and hot. She got him in the eye, felt her knuckles grate against the brow bone. It should have forced him back, but with a roar he surged forward, and she had to leap backwards to avoid his axe. It caught her staff instead.

Despite knowing she shouldn't look, her eyes followed it as it clattered across the floor. Quickly she turned her gaze back, only to see him come charging at her with both weapons raised. In a burst of adrenaline she twisted right, and channeled every scrap of mana she had into a barrier as his sword came down.

It held, but the blow knocked the air from her body, and she ducked down, rolling out of his path as she gasped for breath. Raising her hands she summoned a hail of fire that rained down explosions, obscuring the air between them. She knew better than to hope it would cause damage, but it might provide a distraction. She desperately needed to get some distance, her barrier was fading fast, and her shield would be no use against a direct hit.

She danced backwards through the flames, keeping his dark bulk in front of her, trying to judge where her staff had fallen. For one crucial second she took her eyes off him. When she turned back, it was too late.

The blade of his sword hit her in the ribcage, sliding though the gap between the bones, neatly severing sinew and tissue, the slippery-soft membrane of her lungs, and exited out through her back.

She knew instantly that it was not the sort of wound one could recover from.

With a grunt he raised his sword arm. She slid forward on the blade, her body convulsing at the agony of metal scraping against bone, her legs writhing uselessly above the ground. She let out a wet gasp, felt her own blood fill her throat. Her head lolled backwards, and as the flames died down she saw the shocked looks of the people around her, her friends gone white faced. I've lost, she'd realized, with surprise, and had laughed, the action turning into a choked cough that left her lips flecked with red. The Arishok lowered the blade, yanked it back, and she slid off into a heap, one hand over the hole, trying fruitlessly to hold it in, even as she felt the rush of wetness pooling down her back. The tiny life inside her kicked out in distress. She twitched, curling in protectively.

I'm sorry, little heart, she thought, as her vision blurred. I'm afraid I've got us into real trouble this time. She closed her eyes, strained to draw breath. The blood was an unstoppable tide rising in her throat. It would drown them both. She clenched a red fist against her wound.

So this is what it feels like to die.

But the blood, set free at last, sang to her of other possibilities. It wove a loose tapestry of power through the network of blue veins under her skin. See, it said, seeping through her fingers, burning a rich crimson in her dimming vision. See what can be done. Her eyes widened, and she drew in one ragged breath.

For there was a way to save them all, her white-faced friends, the cowering nobles, the guards, the thieves, the drunks, the whores, the templars, the mages, the chantry sisters, the sick, the wretched, the despised. All of Kirkwall could be saved, and herself with it.

All it would cost was one tiny life.

She wanted to laugh again, to scream and scream until blood rose up into her throat and choked out the sound. But there wasn't time. The Arishok was watching her, waiting to see if she would get back up.

So she made herself go still, let her consciousness drift down below the wound, past her ovaries, their dark follicles staring like empty sockets, until she could feel the little light pulsing warm and bright inside her. She cupped her hands around it in a spectral caress. She whispered a silent apology, and a brief prayer to the Maker.

Send her somewhere better next time, she thought, her eyes brimming over. Send her somewhere safe.

And she pulled.

For a second the light flickered uncertainly. It dimmed, slowly, until it was the barest gleam beneath her finger tips.

Then it went out.

Power flooded through her body in burning waves. It dripped from her skin, warm, viscous and unmistakably alive. She could taste it on her tongue, salt-rich and metallic. She brought a hand to her lips, licked the tip of one finger, drew back to admire it. With exquisite care, she traced the old battle line across her face. And suddenly her eyes cleared, and her body felt light again, and strong, and so very full of rage that she thought she might set the entire world aflame-

Everything snapped back into focus. She lifted her head. The crowd murmured, and she saw the Arishok nod, bringing up his sword. She rose in one lithe movement, a corona of white flames flickering around her head, and the blood still trickling down from her nose and mouth. She nodded back at him.

And so they began the dance anew.

This time her feet were light as air, her movements effortless as they paced around the hall. Within and without her, the blood sang, exultant. There was so much of it now, more than enough for what she had to do. She traced a glyph on her arm, not bothering to look at him as she sidestepped his charges, and curled her hand into a fist. At her command, gaping wounds opened up in his arms, legs, and torso. She saw him stiffen as her blood sang corruption into his. Smiling, she siphoned his life away from him in bits and pieces, until his steps came clumsy and slow.

She watched him stagger, leaning heavily on one knee, and knew: it could happen like this, a prolonged bloodletting, no sorrow but the slow resignation of impending death. An honorable end for an honorable man.

I promise you, they feel no pain.

It was not enough.

He would feel pain. He would be made to suffer like the beasts he despised. She would rip his honor from him, let him watch her crush it beneath her heel.

She took the bits of life she had stolen and began to weave. She wove in fire, and she wove in blood. She twisted the three magicks into the shape of an old spell she'd found in the back of a borrowed book. And when she was finished she raised her arms high, let the crown of flames spread from her temples down to her arms, her hands. She closed her eyes.

It was a very simple spell, really. Almost exactly like casting a shield. It was meant to be defensive, to trap your enemies and hold them in place. But if one were to modify it, to twist it ever so slightly, then it became something quite different. In truth Hawke had an only a vague idea of what might be possible, for until now she had not met anyone she hated enough to test it upon.

When she opened her eyes she saw the Arishok stood frozen, caught in a shining pillar of light. She laughed in triumph, reaching eagerly through the Veil to catch him in her wet red hands. And when she had each arm in her grasp she wrenched them apart and pulled again, filled with a strength born of rage and grief, until she could see the skin glowing taught and translucent from strain, the muscles beneath twitching like frenzied snakes, feel the sinews start to stretch and pop from tension-

The Arishok was strong, but he was only flesh and bone. She was fire and blood.

He raised his great horned head and bellowed like an ox brought to slaughter. With a sickening ripping noise the flesh split, and he dropped, a puppet cut from invisible strings. She released her grip, let his limbs fall over the remains of his ruined torso. Walking forward with sure steps she picked up her fallen staff. She moved closer until she stood staring down at him.

He was a trembling mass of red, his body broken beyond all hope of repair. In the dulling black of his eyes she caught a glimpse of her own reflection. Abruptly, her rage dissipated. The flames surrounding her winked out, leaving her hollow and cold. Gritting her teeth, she raised her staff high, brought the bladed end down hard into his throat with a wet crunch. He went still.

She sagged down slowly, not hearing the crowds that chanted her name, not feeling the arms that propped her up. "Somebody get Anders," she heard a rough voice snap out next to her, and she shook her head. "No," she said, her voice hoarse. Her throat constricted when she tried to speak again. "Please," she rasped, her hands shaking uncontrollably, "just take me home. I need to go home-" She lost her breath, and everything went black.

When she woke up every part of her ached, and worse, there was an emptiness, a terrible silence in the spot below her heart and she moaned, curling inward. They told her afterwards that while she'd been unconscious she'd called out her mother's name. But of course, they hadn't understood.

…

II.

"How," Fenris said, only it took a moment for Hawke to realize that he was speaking, for something had gone terribly wrong with his voice.

"How could you keep this from me," he said, staring at her with eyes gone wide and haunted. "You walked into that fight knowing-" he broke off. He brought a shaking fist up to his mouth, bit down, and with a fascinated, frozen horror she saw his eyes were wet.

He would not forgive her for this, she realized with terror and relief.

She made herself shrug, forced herself to look away. "It is done, Fenris."

"You should have told me!" he shouted, slamming his fist against the railing.

She bowed her head, and bit into her lip until she could taste blood in her mouth. "Yes," she said. "I should have."

When he spoke again his voice was as dry as dead leaves. "If you had truly loved her, you could not have used her in such a way." She winced. His voice grew accusatory and ugly, with a timber of hate she had only ever heard him direct at slavers. "You did not want her-"

"No," she said. She was prepared to accept every criticism except this. This one point she would not yield. "Say what you like, but not that. She was wanted." She struggled to keep the ache out of her voice. "Unplanned, unexpected maybe, but not unwanted."

"Then why," he asked with such sorrow that it made her breath catch in her throat.

"I wanted to live," she whispered hopelessly, looking up at him.

She had never feared him, though she'd been told often enough that he was dangerous, wild, full of hatred and violence. But suddenly she was more afraid than she had ever been in her life of what she would see when she looked into his face.

He was looking back at her, and immediately she found she had to close her eyes, because otherwise the image would burn away every other memory that she had of him, all the good that had ever happened between them lost forever, and all she would ever see was his face now, staring down at her in revulsion and horror.

"Go where you like," she heard him say. "I will not follow you."

When she opened her eyes, he was gone.