Chapter 4: The Teeth of the Lion

The streets of Val Royeaux were beginning to fill with people as they made their way to Ophélie's townhouse. Carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables made their way to the squares and halls, so the stalls would be ready when the markets opened. Servants and workers left their homes on the way to their workplaces or sent on errants by their employers. The wanderers of the night had withdrawn into their coats and cowls, hurrying away into the shadows like demons fleeing back into the Fade.

As they passed, Anders caught snippets of conversation. Rumour about some terrible event in the alienage had already overtaken them and although the accounts seemed to be far off the mark, he thought he felt the uncertain tension in the gossip nevertheless. Orlais was still mostly peaceful and the threat of war only a distant shadow, but people knew it couldn't last. How many of them would be caught in the crossfire? Anders wondered. If the war came, crazed mages or fanatic Templars, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Not to the washerwoman with her neat bundles of linen and not to the yelling coachmen or the street musicians making their way home after a long night of earning their keep. So many innocents put in harm's way and only for the promise that at the end of it, a better world would come.

Anders found himself clenching his hands by his side in aimless agitation. What if he was wrong? How could anything good come of it at all?

"You've got to be kidding me."

Anders snapped out of it and shook his head back, pushing his hood far enough down to get a proper look at what was right in front of him. He had seen Ophélie's townhouse only once and briefly, but it was an easy guess to make.

Isabela had come to stand close to him; he couldn't tell if it was because of some protective instinct or because her sense of personal space was somewhat different from that of normal people.

"Tell me about it," Hawke agreed with an engaging smile and took a step forward.

The doorman frowned, eyed Anders and Isabela skeptically past Hawke. "Who are they?"

"Friends," Hawke said and while the smile was still in his voice it was slowly becoming wooden and fake. "Don't worry, they won't cause you any trouble and even if they did, it'd be on my head."

The doorman didn't seem convinced. He chewed on his lower lip for a long minute and it appeared as if he was about to deny them. "Can't well send you away, Seigneur," the doorman concluded. "But go talk to Gervaise, she should be in the kitchen at this hour."

Hawke nodded and waited patiently while the doorman unlocked the cast iron gate and opened the way for them. Isabela and Anders filed past without waiting for an additional invitation, glad to be finally away from the street where every passing guardsman was a potential enemy.

"Thank you," Hawke said and gave the doorman a pat on the shoulder. "You won't regret it."

The doorman muttered something Anders was too far away to understand, but somehow the doorman rather seemed to doubt that.

"What's got to him, anyway?" Isabela asked on the way to the house.

"Fenris barged in last night," Hawke shrugged. "Caused something of a stir."

They walked several more steps before Isabela suddenly gripped Hawke's shoulder and pulled him around. "Wait," she said. "What is with Fenris?"

"He left," Anders said before Hawke had a chance to.

Isabela glanced at him, but kept her gaze fixed on Hawke. "He wouldn't," she announced. "Would he?"

Hawke faced her calmly. Rings were beginning to show under his bright eyes, proof that he hadn't had any sleep that night. "He's free," he said. "That's what…" he stopped, suddenly lost for words. "That's what I could give him. If he wants to walk away from mages and their problems, it's his choice."

Isabela frowned. "And that's what you told him?"

"What else would I have said?"

Isabela rolled her eyes. "You are a foolish little puppy," she said. "Fenris wants you to tell him to stick it out with us. He'll hate being on his own."

Hawke frowned. Anders could tell that Hawke had no answer, because he knew him too well, because he had spent so many years admiring him, from afar and across the table and their own bed. It was a rare sight, Hawke was so rarely lost for an answer and even if he was, he had enough words for a deflection.

"Seigneur Ballagh!" a woman yelled. She had thrown the door open and was hurrying down the garden path. She was a middle-aged woman, small and round. Strands of dark, if greying, hair escaped her white cap. Flour covered her hands and she wiped them on her apron as she walked.

Hawke twisted free of Isabela's grip and faced her. "Gervaise!" he imitated her manner of speaking. "I have terrible manners," he pointed out apologetically, but gave her a quick hug.

"You," she began. "After you left last night, I was petrified you and the Madame had a fight and you wouldn't come back!"

"Never fear, I'm a bad penny, always turning up again," Hawke chuckled. "Can we go inside?"

Gervaise ushered them through the door and down a narrow hallway.

Servants were already busy in the kitchen and the air was filled with the scents of fresh bread and ground coffee.

"Do you have a bedroom for my friends?" Hawke asked. "We've had a rough night."

"Of course, Seigneur Ballagh."

Gervaise turned to the nearest servant — a young girl, carrying an empty basket — and gave her a few sharp orders with nothing of the friendliness she had reserved for Hawke. The girl put the basket away and ran off to prepare a room.

"I don't think we should disturb Madame with this," Hawke said. "She's had enough adventure tonight, I think."

Gervaise nodded seriously, looking at Hawke, "You are such a nice young lad, but you do have some strange friends. An elf, no less," she shook her head sadly. "I worry about you sometimes."

It took only a few minutes to prepare a guest-room down the hallway from the kitchen. Never in a thousand years would Gervaise have given this room to noble guests, but while she genuinely doted on Hawke, she had little illusions about the company he kept.

The other servants kept their distance from Hawke and his companions and the kitchen was large enough to give them enough space to do their duties.

Anders found himself a low bench at the side of the oven and leaned into the warm stone, drawing in the scent of the kitchen. He heard clattering as Isabela shoved some bottles around on a shelf, she pulled herself to her tiptoes and reached for something at the back the shelf.

"Gotcha!" she announced and pulled a heavy bottle of black glass to the fore. "I knew I'd spotted this trophy when I came in."

"I thought you drink every swill," Hawke remarked softly.

"Bah," Isabela shrugged. "Just because I'll do anything doesn't mean I don't recognise quality. And this little beauty is coming with me. Don't wake me before noon."

"What about Fenris?" Hawke asked and she barely slowed in her way out of the kitchen. She waved her hand. "Don't worry, I'll fix it."

Anders pulled his gaze away from the doorway through which she had left and focused on Hawke and caught him unawares.

Hawke had planted both hands on the large table in the centre of the room and he leaned heavily on the wood, staring down somewhere in an indeterminable spot in front of him. The dark circles under his eyes were drawn in unhealthy contrast to the way he seemed to have paled under his tanned skin. He must have felt Anders' scrutiny and glanced up at him, past the strands of disheveled hair, looking both dangerously feral and hopelessly cornered.

The moment didn't last. Hawke shook free of the table and plastered some new mask on his face.

"Now, how to get back into Ophélie's good graces…?" he asked airily. "Perhaps breakfast in bed? Gervaise made a batch of her peach and ginger jam only a few days ago and it's honestly to die for."

"Are you sleeping with her?" Anders asked, his tongue overtaking his mind again.

"Gervaise?" Hawke sniggered. "I don't think she does that with anyone."

Anders pulled his brows together. He should take the chance — take the joke — and pull out of this discussion. Whatever would happen at the end of it, he wouldn't like it, none of them would.

But he missed his catchword and his timing was all off. The moment was gone.

Lightly, Hawke said, "Of course I am. We have to keep up appearances, after all. And as long as all of Val Royeaux is talking about Madame Ophélie's affair with her dashing bodyguard, they are much less likely to wonder why said bodyguard shares a startling similarity with the disgraced — although equally dashing — Champion of Kirkwall."

"I thought," Anders began slowly, his voice becoming strained. "I thought we had something."

Hawke dipped down in front of a cabinet and pulled free a tray of polished silver. "I don't know. Did we?"

"I loved you," Anders insisted, baring his teeth. "I still love you."

As if Anders had never spoken at all, Hawke continued. "Because from where I'm standing what we had can barely be called a relationship. You used me, that's all there is to it."

If he had taken his fist to Anders' face, it could hardly have hurt more. Anders sat glued to his spot, watching as Hawke quickly and efficiently assembled plates and cutlery on the tray.

"I never used you," Anders said, affronted by the mere suggestion.

"Is that so?" Hawke stopped in what he was doing, fixed Anders again with those suddenly haunted eyes of his. "Seems to me, everytime you needed something, I was there. You needed someone to help rescue Karl and there I was, happy to trade. You needed someone to take down Ser Alric and there I was, charging in. You needed some safe place to stay and what would have been better than my Hightown mansion? Surely I will happily fund your free clinic, why wouldn't I? Someone had to go crawling around rank sewers and caves for your ingredients and there I was, yet again, jumping as you called."

Anders felt small, helpless, utterly at a loss for words and Hawke didn't relent, didn't release him from his gaze. "Do you want me to go on?"

"No," Anders said, though he wasn't sure it was loud enough to be heard. "That's not what I wanted," he added and couldn't help how utterly inadequate it sounded.

"You did it anyway."

Some life seeped back into the emptiness Hawke had torn in his heart and mind. It was tragic, what he had done to Hawke, whether it had been intentional or not, but never for any narcissistic gain.

"We are living in desperate times," Anders said. "I had to take drastic steps. How else would change ever come?"

"And that's not the worst part, isn't it?" Hawke asked back. His voice was beginning to crack slightly as he continued. "At the end there, you needed an executioner. Someone to bring you to justice. And there I was once more, holding the blade. Tell me, did you really think I would do that?"

Anders' throat had all but closed. He didn't think he could have answered if he had wanted to, if there had been words for him to use. Something, anything, to set things right again. Everything he had done, it had been meant to bring justice into the world, not take it away. In all the weeks leading up to the Chantry explosion, Hawke had been breaking his heart simply by being there, by staying at his side. No matter what Hawke thought — and be justified in thinking — his feelings had always been real. In a way, Anders thought, maybe that made everything worse.

"Seigneur Ballagh," the doorman loomed in the door. "There is a knife-ear outside who says she knows you." He scratched his head. "Got your dog with her."

"The correct term, I believe, would be 'elf'," Hawke pointed out with acid mirth. "Just in case you need to refer to one of them again. And yes, she's a friend. Direct her to the kitchen, if you please. Thank you."

As the doormen left, Hawke looked back at Anders. "Let it go, Anders," he said, surprisingly gently. "Water under the bridge. I'm little better. I'll put you through any blood magic ritual just to keep you alive. I'd draw the line at horrific kitten sacrifices, but short of that, I'm going to force you to live because I couldn't stand losing you, too."

There was silence in the cells of the White Spire, a silence so brittle it shivered uncertainly under the soft soles of Leliana's boots. She was not easily intimidated and while the two Templars accompanying her were large men and heavily armoured, she had used the time to map their weaknesses and strengths. It was pure habit. She could think of scenarios that would force her to fight them, but none of them was particularly likely to occur, even with Kameron there.

She had heard of it purely by chance. She had wanted to follow the Divine's suggestion and catch some sleep, but it had kept eluding her until she had decided to journey to the kitchens and brew herself a cup of tea. The act alone, she had reasoned, would serve to soothe her and convince her subconscious mind that it was time for rest. She had met a couple of Templars who had just ended their shift and they had been all too eager to share their outrage with anyone who happened to be around.

A slaughter had taken place in the alienage, they said. Ten of them had been killed and although the deaths were not by magic, a Grey Warden mage had been arrested in the alienage and brought to the White Spire. The Templars knew no details of what had happened, they had not been to the alienage themselves, only heard it from comrades. Apparently the rumour of blood magic was also already making the rounds.

So, abandoning the idea of tea and sleep, Leliana had dressed quickly and got herself to the White Spire as fast as possible. The Templars there were alert, but deferred to her authority, if with some reluctance.

The silence was strange, almost as if there were no other mages detained in any of the other cells. Leliana was about to ask, but the Templars stopped and one went to unlock the cell. Again, the lack of magic wards surprised her, but it became quickly obvious why such would be unnecessary.

Kameron Amell had been shackled to the wall and his body had an oddly limp tilt to it, half hanging off the chains and half slumped into the wall behind him. He put his head back as Leliana stepped through the door and looked her over from slack-lidded eyes, he frowned in an attempt to focus on her. His mouth was set in a lazy sneer.

Leliana looked over her shoulder at the nearest Templar. "Can you leave us for a moment?"

The Templar waited just long enough to make her consider repeating her request, only then did he nod and draw back, his comrade following him.

"I don't have to be involved?" she said in ironic echo.

Kameron chuckled. "Well," he said in a slow, thick-tongued drawl. "You don't have to be. Turn around, walk out, be my guest. Won't change a thing."

"Did they drug you?"

Kameron pulled his head to the side, let it rest on his shoulder. "Yes, some variety of magebane I don't recognise. Tastes like bramble, actually."

Leliana sighed. "You know as well as I do that I can't just leave you like that."

Kameron chuckled again. "So there is the joke," he observed. "I can't concentrate properly. Hard to focus, couldn't get a spell right if my life depended on it. Which it might, come to think of it."

"I don't think that's funny."

"Yah," the sneer suddenly hardened. "The joke is, blood has nothing to do with the mind. It's just… there. Passion. Heat. I don't need to think at all. I'd just have to bite my tongue. That's the joke. All these campy little Templars, so very scared of me and all they can think of to do is give me a poison that can't protect them."

Leliana hesitated, debating with herself for a long moment and trying to gauge how far out of earshot the Templars had gone. "They don't know that. You are a Warden mage and free of the Circle, if they think you are a maleficar, they will kill you."

"And the joke would be on them," Kameron asserted.

"What happened?" Leliana asked. "You didn't take long to go from overconfident to chained."

"Bad luck, that's all," Kameron gave a toothy grin. "Happens to the best of us."

This caused her to frown, thinking hard on all the possible repercussions this might have. Kameron was a man who valued his control, it allowed him to play his dangerous games, at the same time, it meant he was always on a tightrope and threatened by a fall. Even a small mistake would topple him, reveal him to the world as what he was; and not just the carefully fostered rumours he liked to spread.

"They sent for the Wardens," Leliana said. "So someone can confirm your identity, but it could be as long as two weeks until they get back."

He nodded slowly. "I hope they don't keep me chained to the wall this long, at some point I'll have to relieve myself and I'd rather keep it clean. Probably more fun for everyone involved."

"I could try to get you a better cell," Leliana offered, though she wasn't sure how she would accomplish that, short of going to the Divine herself. The Templars hated any interference when they dealt with mages and would fight her every step of the way. And asking Justinia was… not an option she liked to contemplate. His words still wouldn't leave her, the choice she might have to make between them. She wanted to keep these two lives of hers as separate as possible, even if that seemed become increasingly unlikely.

"Or leave the door unlocked as you leave," he offered. "That'd work, too."

"If you were thinking straight, you'd know how stupid that sounds," Leliana countered with a grimace. Kameron's drugged smugness was beginning to wear away her patience. Why should she try to save him if he couldn't be bothered to do his part?

"Figuratively," he added as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I know those Templars are watching you like hawks." He paused. "Speaking of which, I still need to help my cousin and his better half. Or worse half. Or is it just a quarter?"

"From what I understand, Hawke can take care of himself."

Even as she spoke, a thought occurred to her and it left a bad taste on the back of her tongue. "Did he…" she began. "Did he kill the Templars in the alienage?"

"I'd guess," Kameron nodded amiably. "Or maybe it was a mass suicide. You never know with these Templars."

There must be enough sense left in him to recognise her shocked expression. He waved with one his hands, making the chains rattle. "Oh come on, we've all got our body counts."

Looking for support, Leliana pressed her shoulder into the wall. "I suppose that is true," she said.

"Good, at least you still have some sense," he stated with some finality in the startling echo of her own thoughts.

She shook her head and decided to press through on reason alone. "If you can sit still for…"

"I don't care who she is! I won't have any idiots meddling with blood mages!"

The voices beat down the hallway ahead of the rattling of Templar armour and heavy footsteps. Leliana stepped back outside, glad to have Kameron and his unpredictable state of mind momentarily out of sight, if not out of hearing.

The man who marched toward her wore the sigils of a Knight-Captain of the Templars; no longer young, he carried himself with a confident, energetic step. Bushy brows were drawn together above sharp eyes and a thin mouth set in perfect displeasure. He gave the two Templars a withering look, but fixed on Leliana immediately.

"How do I know you are not a blood thrall?" he demanded.

Leliana pulled herself to her full height. Men like this, they would not budge to anything but strength. They had no respect for diplomacy or good manners and she knew she didn't look like anything that would impress him.

"Sister Nightingale," she said with just a hint of acid. It brought him up short, if only for a brief moment.

"And if you were the Divine herself!" he bellowed, louder than necessary, needing to convince himself and his men. "No one goes anywhere near any suspected blood mages! Not on my watch!"

Leliana held her ground and watched him with studied arrogance, kept her posture and silence for so long it began to unsettle him, evidenced by the beads of sweat glittering on his forehead. "Why are you here anyway?" he finally asked with forced courtesy.

Leliana kept looking at him for longer than was comfortable. And well he should, such open disrespect towards the Divine was no fitting behaviour for a Templar, no matter the circumstances. Eventually she glanced back towards the cell, drawing his attention with her.

"Surely you know who this is?" she asked.

"A mage," the Knight-Captain answered immediately. "Arrested while hiding in the alienage."

"A Grey Warden mage," she corrected tartly. "And not just any Warden, either."

The Knight-Captain's frown deepened. "No Wardens in the city at the moment. It'll be weeks before we hear from them."

"You don't need them, I know him," Leliana said. "I was his companion during the Fifth Blight. He is a Warden. Let him go."

It took him some time to process this revelation, she saw it slowly ticking away behind his eyes. He was obviously not a man used to encountering a world that didn't conform to his expectation and being told otherwise wasn't something he would accept easily.

One of the other Templar's suddenly slumped into the wall with a loud clatter of steel on stone. The Knight-Captain blocked Leliana's view, she saw nothing of what might have caused it and even if she had, there was nothing she could have done to stop what followed. Time stretched, a short minute turning into a long series of eternities so Leliana could be condemned forever as a helpless audience. Past the Knight-Captain's shoulder she saw the second Templar briefly twitch, then take one quick step forward, put his hand on the Knight-Captain's head and pull it back.

Leliana was about to leap in, but wasn't fast enough and the Templar drew his knife across the Knight-Captain's throat. It was a deep cut and made with a sharp knife, severing arteries easily and causing blood to gush forward with strength.

A look of puzzled stupefaction froze on the Knight-Captain's face. He raised his hands halfway to his throat, but never quite got to finish the move. The Templar let him go and the Knight-Captain collapsed, making tiny, gargling sounds and his body continued to shake, spreading his blood around the floor.

Leliana saw the look of utter horror on the Templar's face, blood running from his nose and the corner of his mouth. His hand trembled and his movement jerked clumsily, but it was enough to walked to his other comrade and slid his throat, too. She didn't wait to stay and watch as he took the knife to himself.

Leliana returned to the cell, fast steps without hesitation, but with cold dread climbing her spine of what she would find. The Templars had forbidden to bring a weapon, but she still had a dagger stashed in her boot and a small knife hidden away behind her belt. She pulled both of them free as she went.

A thin rivulet of blood had run down the side of Kameron's face and dripped from his chin to his shirt. His head had fallen to the side and his eyes were glazed, unfocused. He hung heavily in the chains.

"Maker," Leliana muttered under her breath. "You fool. I had it."

There was no reaction, only laboured breathing and the drip of blood.

"Kameron?" Leliana asked, taking another step. She wasn't entirely sure if the chains would be able to hold him if he had truly been possessed. She called his name again and this time his eyelids flickered, his mouth tightened.

He groaned, blinked. He tried to looked at her but his head seemed too heavy, falling to rest between the wall and his arm. Gradually, he seemed to be finding back to himself, the limpness bleeding from his body. Eventually he trained dilated eyes on Leliana and said, "Wow."

"No," Leliana stated. She sheathed one of the daggers and relaxed her stance somewhat. "No, it wasn't. It never…" And even the poet in her was lost for words.

"I…" Kameron began and a smile exposed bloodied teeth, making his expression leery and ugly, but it was Kameron looking back at her, not some demon from behind his eyes, the pride and desire were all his alone. "You have no idea how this feels," Kameron sighed.

Warring instincts kept her frozen in her place. Part of her wanted to kill him, then, slit his throat as he had forced on the Templars. No mortal being should be able to that to another, no one man should wield such power. And she knew what he was capable of, she had seen it often enough, as loathsome as it was useful.

He must have seen her thoughts, or perhaps he was reading them from her mind rather than her face.

With preternatural calm, he said, "I think you have a choice to make now."

For some reason, it occurred to her that the sounds of the dying Templars had stopped. There was no sound coming from the hallway any longer, only oppressive silence. In a way, she had known it would come to this. Not the dead Templars or the blood magic, but she had always known that at some point she would be called on to make a stand, to decide once and for all, who she was to be in this life. She had thought that this moment had come and gone with Marjolaine's death, but it had stopped being true in the face of this.

She was aware of the Templar's blood soiling the front of her own shirt and the weight of her dagger in her hand and behind her, stretching back all those years since her youth, a long line of dead bodies.

"I had it!" she snapped. "This wasn't necessary!"

Kameron gave her a slow look. His face had gone oddly pale, deathly white, fine veins visible just underneath his skin. "It came," he said, as if that explained anything. He gave a shake of his head, but it only made his gaze less focused. He added, "Kill me, leave me, or free me."

Time was ticking away while she stood there, unable to move, each choice as terrible as the other. For an instant, she wanted nothing more than to walk away from it all, from him and her life, even from the Divine and the work she had her do. Run away and hide and pray that the world would be a different place when she returned.

Instead, she sheathed her second dagger and returned to the dead Templars. A string of curses trailed from her lips when as she searched the Templars for a key to Kameron's shackles. It helped so she didn't have to hear herself think beyond the immediate concerns.

There were no keys, but she still had her emergency lockpick. All she had to do was hope it would be enough.

Fiddling with the shackles brought her closer to Kameron than she had been before, closer than she had been in years. She had been attracted to him, once, but she had put it down to hero worship, the confidence and charisma he needed to end a Blight. She had never acted on it and she didn't know if he was aware of it at all; he had been closer to Morrigan and much closer to Zevran almost from the start.

She forced her teeth into her lip as she worked, listening — sensing — the metal in her hand and minuscule movements in the lock. Her mind was jumbled enough as it was, even without remembering such feelings and wondering how they played into what she was doing.

He had turned his head to watch her and she felt his gaze resting on her face, making her feel exposed. There was no telling how clearly he was still able to think or how well he would be able to reason. It made her blood crawl, making her flesh itch just underneath the skin.

A tiny click echoed in the cell and the lock sprung open. Limply, Kameron extracted his arm and Leliana went to unlock the other shackle.

"You didn't need to do this," she said as the second lock was opened, but it jammed and Leliana tucked the lockpick away to grip the shackle with both hands and force it open wide enough for Kameron's hand to slip through.

"He was letting you go," she said again, just to make a point. She stepped back.

Kameron looked at her as if he had trouble comprehending what she was saying.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. "Come on, we still have a way to go."

Kameron began to follow, but he staggered after a few steps and caught himself only with some difficulty.

"… Maker's malice," he muttered. "Last time I was this shaky was the morning after my wedding."

Leliana stood outside in the hallway, looking down on the dead Templars and made no move to help him as he came up behind her, pressing his hand into the doorway to steady himself. He stood swaying slightly and Leliana looked him over for a moment.

"Neither of us is going to just walk out of here," she said. "Not the way we look."

Kameron put his head to the wall and leaned in heavily. "Disguise?"

"Not from them," Leliana said, indicating the three dead Templars laying in a large, messy puddle of blood. Even if they could wipe the armour pieces clean, the cloth and leather was all soaked. She gave Kameron a long look. "If we have to fight…?"

The bloody-toothed smile was back. "It'll come," he assured her, although the statement did nothing to comfort her. He must have caught onto her hesitation and made a valiant attempt to straighten away from the wall and school his features. "The only way out is through," he added in the face of her doubt.

"I know," she said. "I'll go ahead. Try to keep up."

It was a long trek through the winding hallways of the prison. Leliana, who had only a vague sense of the layout, led them by instinct and cunning past guardposts and into a storeroom. The armour pieces did not fit and were too mismatched to help in a disguise, but the clothes they found at least were free of blood. There were weapons, too. Still unsteady on his feet, Kameron claimed the longsword for himself as well as the back scabbard that went with it.

"You didn't carry Vigilance," Leliana noted.

"People recognise the sword better than the man," he replied. He had one arm folded over he top of a chest, resting his head against the edge and massage his forehead with the other. The bleary-eyed look had began to fade. Unfortunately his balance and strength didn't return in the same way. Despite his reassurance she wasn't keen on getting into a fight, for many reasons. He would kill and gruesomely so and she wasn't sure if that was worse or better than being captured again.

"Did you kill the Templars because I was telling them who you are?" she asked, even though she didn't really want to know. It was done, nothing would change that.

"You did? No, I didn't hear it," He pressed he palm of his hand into his temple and hissed in pain. "Damn," he murmured.

Leliana stuffed their bloodied clothes into a crate and pushed it into a dark, dusty corner, where it would be out of easy sight. Straightening away, she looked Kameron over again.

"Ready?"

"No," he groaned. "But that's not the point, is it?"

Time was working against them. Every minute they wasted the chances increased that the corpses were found by the cells and what had caused their deaths would blatantly obvious to anyone, Templar or not. A blood mage loose in the heart of the White Spire, no one would be able to stop the flood then, not even the Divine, provided she wanted to at all and why would she?

Trusting to what she knew of the place, Leliana found a narrow stairway at the end of an equally narrow hallway. It had an unused, abandoned look to it. So much so, in fact, her first thought was that the wood would break under their combined weight. It did nothing of the sort, but it groaned and shivered under every step in an oddly mesmerising rhythm. It took effort to pace herself, so she did not stumble and fall into the abyss created by the spiralling stairs.

They passed locked doors on every floor, some of them even nailed shut, others merely covered in spiderwebs.

"I didn't think these things had back-exits," Kameron observed. His breathing was laboured and every step seemed to cost him.

Leliana glanced back and pushed the one thought as far from her mind as she could: what if he fails? What if he becomes an abomination? She had never seen him this weak before. Wounded, yes, of course and exhausted after fights, but never like this, never this worn empty look. If he became paler than he was, he would be translucent.

"They all do," Leliana said. "Large and ancient buildings, they are not static. Rooms are abandoned and others are opened up, depending on what people need at the time. I know what to look for to find these secret places."

She stopped and turned to face him. "You are not making it."

He stood swaying a little. "I'm not making it by talking about not making it," he corrected.

"Kameron," she began. "If we go to the Divine, if we explain it all, she'll see reason. No one else has to die."

"You said it yourself. Warden mage is all fine and good, but a maleficar? Do you really think you can protect me?"

She didn't think the emotion crossing her face was visible to him, the split second of doubt amidst all her faith, but Kameron was fast, had always been too perceptive even for her. "Provided you even want to," he added.

"I am helping you," she pointed out with the quick flare of anger. "Aren't I? And you look like death."

"I'm not dying here."

"You think you are not dying anywhere."

"That too, yes."

It was a nightmare journey, far worse than any open battle could have been. Leliana had to feel along in the dark, find a path by instinct and guesses, bringing them their the heart of the Templar order, alerted at some point, when the corpses were found and the White Spire was locked down. No secret passage would lead them out, no back-exit, no other path.

Kameron was both weak and devastating and it meant he was an unknown factor. Every step she thought he might turn into an abomination, his mind too weak, his soul too desperate, rend apart by the fatal interplay of magebane and blood magic. Of course he was right, however, the Divine would never back him now. Even if she wanted to, political and social pressure would force her to take a stance and blood magic was far beyond acceptable.

Yet, here she was, Leliana herself, left hand of the Divine, scurrying through the White Spire to save him, just this one, singular blood mage. She didn't know if that was the right thing, if he deserved to be an exception at all.

And then they ran afoul of a group of guards. They were patrolling the quarters of the Tranquil on the ground floor, close enough to freedom that Leliana thought she could already taste it. But among the Tranquil, no disguise was going to hold. They were evidently no Templars and neither of them would pass for Tranquil, even if they could have faked the mark.

Leliana had a moment of sheer horror, imagining what Kameron's foul magic would do to them now, but he did no such thing. He drew the longsword instead and though she saw the effort it took, his skill was just as obvious. Some ancient elven magic bestowed on him and honed under Zevran's tutelage.

She had no time to appreciate the gesture he was making, instead she ducked past the Templars as quickly as she could and cut off their retreat in the hallway. The other rooms were dormitories, at least that's what a quick look had revealed. The Tranquil would not interfere unless prompted and even then, they were easy to outmanoeuvre.

She almost collided with one of the Templars who had attempted a quick retreat to alert the others while his comrades spread out, the harsh snap of holy smites going down around both Kameron and Leliana. While she felt the tingle, Kameron buckled under the impact, but managed to catch himself on one knee. He used his downed position to draw the longsword and lunge upward with it. He brought his other hand up with him, caught a Templar's wrist and turned a downward stroke aside. He used the Templar to lever himself back to his feet, well inside the man's defence with just enough room for him to plunge the sword into the Templar's side.

Leliana dodged and came up behind the Templar, pushing him into her wall with a hard bump of her shoulder. She winced as she collided with the metal of the man's armour, but while heavy armour had advantages, they were neither speed nor agility them. It protected, but once your enemy tripped you, you were little better than a bug on it's back. Leliana swiped the Templar's feet away from under him, made sure his head hit the wall as he went down. She would have fallen with a killing stroke of her dagger, but saw the two remaining Templars closing in on Kameron.

She spun around and threw the smaller of her weapons in a straight line. It hit its mark perfectly, the narrow seam between helmet and collar where only a layer of chainmail protected him. The knife cut clean through and the man stumbled sideways.

Kameron seemed half-caught under the weight of the first man he'd killed, clearly attempting to shove his dead-weight into his attacker but not quite managing it. Leliana rushed forward, hacked her dagger down into the Templar's neck and pulled him back, turned him around on the hook and hurled him away with as much force as she could muster.

Kameron ceased his struggle against the dead Templar and instead allowed himself to sit down, the corpse hanging on him. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face and he passively watched as Leliana hauled the Templar off him.

Before she had the chance to say anything, something shattered behind and because she was still looking at Kameron, she saw the red glow flood his eyes, bright and dark at the same time and a nauseating wet splatter followed from behind her.

Kameron closed his eyes, but that only made it worse, because the glow penetrated his eyelids.

Slowly, Leliana turned. The first Templar, the one who had been trying to run, lay in the doorway. His face was covered in blood, scraps of skin hanging lose where the veins had torn. As she watched, blood was beginning to leak from the seams of his armour.

Kameron pulled himself to his feet and stood by her side, following her gaze, but she didn't have to look at him to know that his expression would be wildly different from her's, perhaps content or even serene, sickly satisfied by what he had done.

She pushed the image from her mind, tried not to think of the tiny shudders that still wreaked the Templar as they passed him by. Later, she decided. She would order her thoughts later. And pray for forgiveness and weep for the innocence she kept losing.

References:

"Thady Boy Ballagh" — a character in Dorothy Dunnet's Queen's Play

"If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling at you." — Al-Mutanabbi (10th Century poet)

Author's Note: Thedas is refreshingly free of homophobia. I don't know if there is such a thing as marriage for homosexual couples and even then, Kameron would never want the Chantry's blessing on anything he does. It's more of a symbolic thing.

Two things I've noticed writing this chapter:

#1 I'm having far too much fun coming up with horrible ways to kill with blood magic. Bio already took my Arcane Warrior from me, I hope they leave me the blood mage.

#2 I'm also having too much fun writing Hawke. I mean, Kameron I can do in my sleep, he's my type of character, but Hawke's laidback-but-suffering attitude is new and interesting.