The large steel door that led into the room swung open much less enthusiastically as it did the last time, a Templar I had not seen before being the one who'd opened it. In his arms were two metal dishes with a few pieces of bread soaked in water, of which most splashed out as it was roughly slipped into the cells with us. The Templar turned and left, a look upon his face that told me that he was just following orders, his gaze never drifting down to my face.

I pushed away from the bars, my limbs heavy and numb, and took a seat next to the soggy bread dish. As I reached down to the pathetic dinner, I came to see that flakes of metal coated my hands and I wiped them on my pants. A black laugh came from between my lips when, to my astute observations, I realized that my hands were coated in blood and dirt as well, something a wipe on old robes wasn't going to fix.

"Are you alright?" the deep hum of the elf's voice came from beside me.

I couldn't help myself but grin, holding my hands up like a small child to show him. "I've been living in Hightown too long. I was actually worried about—"

My voice caught in my throat. Sweet, cold reality flooded me and I quickly scrambled to my feet, ignoring the stabbing ache throughout my body. I grabbed the bar that I had been holding, looking it up and down and reveling in its wetness.

"Rust," I announced, fervor burning in my voice even in its subtlety. "Rust, Fenris, rust." My body fell to its knees, fingers hovering over the weakened bar. One inch of rusted metal stood between me and the outside world. No more pain, no slavery to Danarius. I was so close….

I was close. Fenris was not.

Reality crushed my heart between her fingers. It was only my cell that was weakened, not Fenris'. Even if I found a way to break though the iron, I would be the only one out, abandoning the elf to his fate of slavery or death. I saw it in my head perfectly clear – his hair falling over glassy eyes as he stood at Danarius' shoulder, memory wiped and fresh whip marks across the exposed skin of his shoulder. A lump rose in my throat.

A metal hand shot out between the bars, closing around my wrist gently but urgently. My eyes climbed up to the angular face of the Tevinter, his lips pressed tightly together and his brows pulled together. He had seen the cold wave wash the hope from my face, too.

"Fenris, I –"

"You will escape here," he cut me off, his voice low and raspy. "With or without me."

"I ca—"

"Promise me," he demanded, his voice growing louder and harsher.

I ripped my hand away from his grasp, the sharp points of his gauntlets tearing lines in my flesh that rapidly filled with blood. I ignored it, frowning instead at the man standing a few feet from me. Fury boiled in my stomach and heated my skin as I pushed myself to my feet, the pain associated with the movement buried under layers of conflicting emotion. Who did he think I was? I wasn't going to abandon him to his fate, even if that meant that I died at Meredith's blade or was made into a slave to some magister in the Tevinter Imperium.

"No." I said firmly, no hint of anything that he could argue against. "I'm getting you out of here, too, before Danarius comes. You can run to him if you want once I've got the door to your cell open, but until then, we're sticking together."

Metal crashed against metal as he threw his fists at the bars separating us, bluish-white light bathing me in its glow. "Fasta vass!" he growled. "Hawke! Listen to –"
I pulled my body against the wall of iron separating us. "No, Fenris, no. I am not about to lose you, not to Meredith, not to Danarius and sure as hell not to my selfishness." My voice was menacingly low and dark, even for me. "I lost you to your past once already and I'm not about to give in that easily. And Maker so help me if I'm going to walk away from you now."

That one stung. I could see his anger falter on his face before being replaced with some mixture of helplessness and frustration. Before he could come up with a rebuttal to that one, I started on my work.

I bent to retrieve my metal dish, taking a few bites of the soggy bread before dumping to contents out onto the floor and beginning to take the edge of the plate to the bar, scraping with the edge against the rotted metal as hard as I could without making too much noise. The task consumed me – up, down, push deeper, up, down, push deeper. The world outside of that little metal dish on the iron bar melted away as it did when I was concentrating on healing someone.

I didn't know how long it had been before I heard metal footsteps outside the door that lurched my heart into my throat. I wasn't done yet! In whatever time I'd been allowed, I'd only been able to eat through about a quarter of the metal bar, not nearly enough for me to break through. I panicked and pushed the plate towards the door and moved myself away from the damaged rod, keeping from drawing attention to my newest masterpiece.

A Templar man came through the entrance, the door crashing into the stone wall with a deafening bang that reverberated through the metal. A piece of rope was looped through the bright red Templar's sash at his waist and in his hand he held a ring of keys and a metal syringe, coming closer with every step to my cell.

The lock clicked open as he roughly shoved on of the keys into it, my door coming into my cage. He kicked the metal dish out of the cell and reached down for my hands with the rope, at which point I lunged at him, my fist aiming for his throat. The large Templar moved quickly, parrying my attack and sending the metal needle into the flesh of my thigh, depressing the plunger and pushing white fire into my muscle. My body contracted and I let out a scream as I fell to the ground, putting up little fight as my hands were roughly bound together in front of me. My eyes were clenched shut, so I had no time to try to block the thrust of a metal boot into my already-broken ribs. My cry in pain nearly covered a man's snarl in anger, which had overpowered a cruel laugh as a rustling came from the Templar's belt. I opened my eyes just in time to see another needle, this one glowing faintly of cerulean, before that, too, was forced into the large muscle of my leg. Lyrium. A wicked chuckle came between his lips as my cage door clicked shut and the large metal entrance was sealed off again.

My breath tore from me, ripping pain up my ribs and acid seeping my energy from where the needles had plunged into my thigh, thoughts becoming blurred mixtures of emotions. My eyes opened to the silver pan that was just outside my grasp and then over to the metal pole that wasn't nearly completed in its severing. I had a week. One more week to endure the pain and get through the iron before Danarius came.

One week. Seven nights.

I didn't know if I could last that long.

"Hawke?" Fenris' deep thrum was hoarse, shaken with the fury that lit the walls.

"Ouch," I quipped, forcing a dry laugh as I pressed the palms of my hands into the stone floor. Fire burst through the floor and up my arms before I yanked them away in painful disbelief. "Ouch!"

My body responded accordingly to the shot of lyrium, thrumming with energy and pulsing through my flesh. Usually the power was welcome, increasing my spell output and bringing a high with it – the feeling that nothing could touch you. But this time was different. The pulse of energy couldn't find a way out of my body, the warmth it brought turning into an uncomfortable burn.

"Hot," I announced, my fingertips reddening with artificial light.

The lyrium only grew warmer from there, from a mild discomfort to an intense burn that engulfed my insides, running through my veins and scorching my skin. The fire grew and grew, my body trying to escape a pain that was inside of it. Animalistic panic threw my hand out in front of me, channeling the mana down into the palm in a desperate attempt to rid myself of the agony. The energy rushed to the part, casting dark shadows on the back of my hand in the shape of the bones inside before rushing back into my torso. I gripped an arm around my stomach as the small mouthfuls of bread I'd previously eaten made a reappearance in a violent heave against the clenching of my muscles. I was burning and freezing all at the same time, sweat dewing on my forehead in the short seconds after I'd been injected.

"Hawke!" A bang against the iron and more words of desperation.

I shuddered, my limbs seizing before crashing into the ground, everything I once commanded taut and braced against the hurt that it could not run from. My body was not my own anymore, convulsing against the poison by no command of my own. Rust coated my tongue as fingernails tore at the flesh of my forearms, searching for purchase to claw away from the contagion.

The cell flashed white and crashed into silence. Only the lyrium and I existed in this world of hurt.