Thanks to The Allusive Man for beta reading!

Chapter 10: The Memory of the Smell of Smoke

Kameron snapped his eyes open to the tail end of Merrill's cry. He had been rough in tearing them from the Fade, his mind still fuelled by battle-lust and anger and the taste of blood and power on his tongue. The bowls clattered on the ground as Merrill jumped to her feet and retreated several, instinctive steps. The sound of her panting was heavy in the air and the bowls rolled noisily on the stone floor, scattering blood and lyrium everywhere.

The ceiling above was unsteady, but Kameron paid it no heed — had no time to pay it any heed — and levered himself to his feet and lunged to the side, stumbling over Anders' and Hawke's outstretched forms. He fumbled for the sacrificial dagger Merrill had used earlier and slashed his palm open blindly. Twisting around he fell by Anders' side and pressed his bleeding hand on his forehead just as the other mage began to convulse and blue lights crackled along his entire body like lightning.

The spell leeched the strength from him, dipped the rest of the room in the darkness of impending unconsciousness. He didn't immediately notice the sudden pressure on his throat and not until the lack of air forced his attention.

Hawke's grip on his throat wasn't especially secure, easy to break, if didn't need all his concentration just to keep Anders — and Justice by extension — from waking up. Kameron cast a look to the side, caught Hawke's gaze and found his cousin was barely better off than him. His eyes were unfocused and the blood had drained from his face, leaving him pale and nauseated. Hawke had pulled himself halfway up, leaning awkwardly on one slightly shaking arm. A shiver went through him when Zevran got hold of him and gently placed the edge of a dagger on his throat.

Hawke bared his teeth and his fingers were like steel, digging into skin.

"It's a sleep spell!" Kameron growled through the ache of tension in his jaw. "He'll kill me otherwise. I'm not harming him!"

Doubt flickered in Hawke's gaze and for just a moment they were the eyes of an enemy, from here until the end of the world. A threat and a warning what would follow if this, among all the other things he had claimed, should turn out to be a lie.

They stayed there, locked within threat and double threat, until Anders calmed, the convulsions lessened and eventually stopped. A last flicker of light flared up and then faded. Anders went limp under Kameron's hand and the ferocity of Justice's struggle fell away.

Kameron took his hand back and the others unravelled around him. Zevran stepped away and sheathed the dagger, casually, as if nothing had happened at all, though his face was serious for once.

It seemed to take effort for Hawke to relax his hand and free Kameron from his grip, leaving white marks on his skin behind which would turn red and blue in only a few minutes. Hawke settled back, cross-legged, arms resting limply on his knees. His gaze rested on Kameron for a long moment, then surveyed the rest of the room to the varied shocked expressions of Merrill and Leliana. Fenris had thrown the door open and loomed in the doorway, ready to spring into violence of one kind or another.

"I think we should talk," Hawke eventually said to no one in particular.

A waitress quickly prepared a private room, separated from the taproom by a solid wall and thick door. She laid out a large table with plates of cold cuts and bread, salted butter and mugs of fragrant cider. In the tense silence of the people grouped around the table she worked with calm efficiency in an unspoken understanding that the undertakings of guests, no matter how sinister, were nothing of her business. Once done, she left and pulled the door closed behind her, shutting out any noise from the taproom. Shutting them in.

They had left Anders under Wuffles' watchful eye in Kameron's room. Merrill had wrapped an additional layer of magic around his mind to ensure he didn't wake up too early, but she had been doubtful how long it would last.

Zevran had taken over from Isabela in the taproom, guarding them. Everyone else was here, staring at their empty plates. Isabela had brought her mug of beer with her, but given the cider a curious sip before returning to the beer. She now lounged on one end of the table, one leg hung carelessly over the side of her chair.

"What happened?" she asked, breaking the silence before it crushed the fragile truce. The marks of Hawke's fingers were prominent on Kameron's throat and a thin red line betrayed the place where Zevran's blade had been on Hawke.

"We've been wrong," Hawke said, not looking at any of them. He was playing idly with the folk by his plate, spinning it in the air, tracing a line along his palm with the edge and flexing his fingers as if surprised at the absence of pain.

"We always assumed Anders didn't want this, or at least, he wanted it in the beginning, but then Justice took over and he got corrupted. It doesn't much matter in which order." He paused, took a deep breath which could almost have been a sigh, but wasn't. "We'd assumed he couldn't think clearly anymore."

"I never did," Fenris interjected. "I don't know why you would."

"But that's obvious, isn't it?" Merrill said. "Hawke loves him."

Hawke looked up from the knife, gaze digging into her's. "No," he said sharply, then softened his voice. "At least not only. I grew up around two mages, I'm not an idiot about those things, you know." He shook his head, distracted as Kameron reached for the butter in front of him.

"Either way," Fenris said. "What's your point?"

"Anders wanted this from the start. It was a decision he made, a willing sacrifice. It makes no difference that he couldn't predict what would happen, but the convictions behind everything he did, those were always his own."

"That's what you think, isn't it?" Kameron asked. "He made his choice and you have to respect it?"

"There is nothing wrong with that."

"Unless," Kameron said, pointing with his fork, "he turns into a full Abomination. How many others have you respected for that choice? He is still doomed to die."

Hawke arched his brows. "Aren't we all?"

"You are missing my point," Kameron said and sank the fork into a piece of meat. "You should have let me kill Justice and Anders would have had a chance to recover. His choice was wrong, willing or not."

Leliana said, "And suddenly you disagree with freeing the mages from the Chantry?"

Unimpressed, Kameron glanced her way. "He wasn't being particularly successful. The deaths in Kirkwall helped no one. The world was pushed to the edge through no actions of his. Anders is dying. His mind will snap or his body will fail under the strain. I'm not talking about a few years; or decades, when the Taint would get him anyway. It's weeks, months at best, and it won't be a pretty death."

He looked away from Leliana to fix on Hawke. "You doomed him. Maybe love excuses you, but the fact stands."

"I don't think we could try again," Merrill said. "Justice was pushing against me almost from the start. If he sees us coming, I don't think it would work."

"It would, probably," Kameron shrugged. "It's just a question of where the power comes from."

Growling, Fenris glared across the table. "If that means what I think it means, I will…"

"You don't have to," Kameron said dismissively. "Hawke won't let me. He has decided to be a fatalist about it."

"Thank you for the revelation," Hawke said acidly ."Maker forbid I'd have to realise that on my own."

The sudden venom lingered around the table. Kameron ate, unconcerned. Isabela buried her face in the mug for a while. Merrill nibbled on a piece of bread with all the enjoyment she expected to derive from a chunk of mouldy rock. Fenris, his arms crossed over his chest, attempted to glare a hole in the table in front of him.

Hawke played with the fork. Abruptly, he looked up at Leliana and the cool clarity in his eyes startled her.

"You remember?" he asked. "What I said when you tracked me down in Jardin des Etang?"

Mutely, she shook her head. It seemed a lifetime ago, just because so many things had changed in the meantime. She remembered it vaguely, her juvenile decision to keep an eye on him, because he seemed interesting and she was curious, because she had managed to convince herself he could not be a threat even if he wanted to. She had learned differently since then. He was a man at the end of his line, but disregarding him would always be a mistake.

"I said you could have me when this is over."

"I don't know," Leliana heard herself say as if from very far off. "Is it over?"

Hawke took his time with answering, perhaps giving one of the others a chance to speak up, or at least make up their minds about anything at all. Leliana recognised the companionship between them. She understood why Fenris had failed to walk away from it, just as she had failed to free herself from Kameron Amell's influence. Sometimes, you spent too much time with someone and suddenly, you realised that their biography was also yours and neither lifeline could ever be disentangled again.

"I came here because Kameron said he could help Anders," Hawke said, giving Kameron a quick look, but keeping his attention fixed on Leliana. "It didn't work and it doesn't matter. But yes, that part is over and gone with the wild horses."

Despite Kameron's words, Hawke didn't seem fatalistic. He was tired, obviously, and beyond that Leliana sensed an exhaustion running far deeper, close enough to eat into bone. Yet, Hawke seemed solid and steady, bending perhaps, but unwilling to break. She didn't think he would give himself up to be burned at the stake, as he had offered — perhaps even only half in jest — in the park.

"You have a plan," Leliana said and she wasn't sure if it was an accusation or not.

"I have an idea," Hawke said and she thought she saw the beginnings of a smirk try to steal onto his face.

"Of course you understand, I can't take you to Gwaren anymore," Kameron cut in. "Any other help I can provide, just ask."

Hawke settled back in his seat and gave Kameron a long look. "You know, I didn't expect you to honour my decision."

Kameron chuckled a little. "It is what I told you: I came to help family."

"But you still had an agenda."

"Perhaps, but making an enemy in you certainly wasn't on it."

But if anything, Kameron was an agent of anarchy, Leliana thought. The nature of the chaos he left in his wake mattered little to him. There was no cause for rancour here, not between these two men, similar and different and extraordinary in the world. Another woman, one more sensible than Leliana, with a clearer and more rational head, one who didn't thrive in the thrill of a fight, would shudder at the thought. All she had, however, was the weak, ultimately meaningless sliver of guilt at the excitement spreading in her belly.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

The streets around the harbour were thick with Templars. Cassandra must have surmised this was the area most likely to host refugees, where an easy escape was at least theoretically possible and where the sheer number of people with shady business would help keep them hidden. Ophélie didn't know enough to betray Hawke and no amount of threat or torture would change it, so Cassandra had been forced to cast her net wider.

The Templars were not the problem. They were formidable warriors, even on their own and they would constitute a nigh invincible army under good leadership, but they were not subtle. Anyone with eyes would spot them in any crowd, because they were too proud and too honest to discard their armour and the signs it bore. And beyond even their mere clothing, there was something in the way they walked and held themselves, the absolute certainty of the Maker standing by their side.

Avoiding Templars was relatively easy, but Leliana worried about the Seekers. Less numerous, but also clever and sophisticated, they knew how to cover their tracks, how to think in tangles and intrigues and schemes. Not even a bard could be entirely certain she could spot a Seeker who did not want to be seen and there was no reason to believe Cassandra had not called on her own in such a situation.

In truth, Leliana had hoped Cassandra could be held up longer, using the sacrifice of Ophélie to buy them time, long enough to finish the ritual and leave the city.

They had send word to Cross-Eyed Aed, it was time to depart and make his way to the bay along the coast. Aed might also be delayed, but there was no good reason for the Templars to keep him here.

"Aed knows how to handle himself, if you know what I mean," Isabela had said, winking. "He also knows how to deal with tricky situations."

Leliana stood in the courtyard of L'Auberge de Coraline and pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. The night had gone frosty since they emerged from the cellar, with no clouds left in the sky to reveal the most gorgeous sight of stars and a thin crescent moon hanging low above the rooftops.

Zevran had taken Isabela and Fenris to fetch horses from a nearby stable while the others packed and Kameron settled his account with the landlord.

Merrill was still busy in the cellar, making sure no trace of the ritual remained. So, for the moment Leliana was almost alone in the night.

Almost. If not for the genteel presence of Hawke off in the shadows of the buildings, just close enough to comfortably speak without being overheard by some unseen stableboy or maid.

"I heard you were crazy," she said, not without admiration. "But this…"

She heard him a laugh, quietly and self-depreciating. It occurred to her how she could have stayed in Kirkwall when the Divine had sent her there. If she had stayed and made Hawke an ally — perhaps even a friend — they could have found a different solution for Meredith and the Circle. There was no reason why Kameron couldn't have come to Kirkwall instead and much earlier, when Anders perhaps could still have been saved.

"What of it?" he asked too lightly. "Can you make it work?"

"I have no idea," she said honestly. "Or at least no better than you. You've been in Orlais long enough to know how it works, public favour is fickle, but while it carries you, it does carry you."

"You think — what was it? My legs, right? — my legs are good enough?"

Leliana chuckled. "Your face, too, but you'll have to work on that terrible accent of yours. It's endearing, but it doesn't command a lot of respect."

"In other words," Hawke concluded gently. "You can make it work."

"What I can give you is a chance to make your case, what happens after, I cannot say."

She paused for a moment. "You are still crazy, though."

Behind them, a door opened and spilled golden light into the yard. It was easy to imagine warmth in that light, too. A sense of companionship and security, a place away from the night and the cold. A fragile promise, no doubt, but inviting nonetheless, if only as a fantasy.

Turning, Kameron and Merrill stepped out, left the shape of the landlord outlined in the door. They were too far away to hear what was being said, some meaningless farewell, perhaps, a casual remark to help with the deception Leliana had devised from scratch in only a handful of minutes.

Both mages carried bundles of their possessions over one shoulder and for the first time, Leliana spotted the distinct shape of Vigilance on Kameron's back. He couldn't take his sea-trunk with him on a horse so he would leave it behind. Most of its contents had been flasks of lyrium and the other materials of the ritual, most of it had been used up and the bowls would have fit easily into the pack. Leaving Vigilance behind was, of course, not an option, no matter how conspicuous it was.

Kameron and Merrill crossed the yard to stand by Leliana's side and Hawke peeled himself from the shadows in an odd concession to civility.

"Anders will wake up in a few hours," Merrill told him. "He should take it slow and you can give him one of the lyrium potions, he'll feel drained."

"Thank you," Hawke said, clasped her around her narrow shoulders and pulled her into a quick hug.

"I can't believe you are staying," she said.

Hawke pointed with his thumb at Kameron. "You heard what he said. It's better this way, anyway. My fate, as they say, isn't yours."

"It will be strange, when you aren't there anymore. I can barely remember a time when I wasn't following you."

"Yeah, think of all the fun we had!" Hawke laughed. "Like that time I got lost on the Wounded Coast and you were following me as I walked in circles until sunset?"

Merrill giggled. "You looked very confident!"

"From behind maybe. You should have seen my face."

A night watchman passed the outer gate of the yard, but spared them barely a glance. Small clusters of drunks or thieves and whores populated the streets at this hour. People who wouldn't care for another group of questionable travellers and who would, hopefully, attract more attention by being noisy or brash, yelling insults at passersby.

Leliana's plan wasn't very complicated. Although most city gates were closed during the night, a handful of smaller gates remained open at all hours in times of peace. A city the size of Val Royeaux had too many people coming and going at all times. It would not be unusual, Leliana had argued, for a wealthy merchant couple to be leaving on urgent business even in the middle of the night. Attended by their elven servants, of course.

Cassandra would hear of them, eventually, and put the pieces together, but by then they would be long gone. Only Leliana would be left to pick up the pieces. Or, as the case might be, deal with Hawke and Anders in the Divine's own city. She could only hope she wouldn't burn her fingers on them.

"I'll stake out the route," Leliana told Kameron. "Just ride as if nothing is amiss, I'll signal when you need to be careful."

Kameron nodded, but Leliana hesitated, rooted to the spot in indecision, even after everything that had happened. "Hawke?" she asked finally. "Help me?"

She could not read his face and whether he recognised it as a show of trust on her part, but Hawke gave Merrill another squeeze, then let go of her to join Leliana and follow her out into the night.

They were gone only a few minutes when the quiet clatter of hooves on cobbles could be heard for quite a long while before the group entered the yard with a group of saddled horses.

Kameron pulled a folded cloak from his pack and tossed it at Isabela. "Put that on," he said. "You don't look like anyone's wife, let alone someone wealthy."

Isabela shook out the cloak and even in the distant light from the street-lamps and the Coraline's lit windows, the cloak shimmered in dark brocade.

"Was that an insult?" she asked.

"It was a compliment," Kameron said, the grin apparent in his voice, though his face was hidden when he turned to the horse Zevran had led to him. "Who would dare possess you in such a way?"

Isabela chuckled and put on the cloak, tossing her long hair over her shoulder and letting it spill down her back. She swung a leg over the neck of the horse and managed to create a good imitation of sitting side-saddle. The cloak covered most of the bulk of the horse and in the darkness, it would easily pass. It wasn't comfortable, or a particularly secure seat, but it only had to last a short distance.

"Good enough?" she inquired, faking a high-born accent surprisingly well.

Without looking at her, Kameron muttered an affirmative. He was occupied with glaring at the horse.

"It's the meekest," Zevran offered without trying to hide his amusement, still holding the reins.

"Tell it I can also let it bleed out and make it an undead thrall," Kameron growled. For all that, he managed to mount without the occurrence of anything particularly comical and settled stiffly in the saddle, yanking the reins from Zevran's hands with more force than necessary.

The horse put its ears back and shook its head, made a few nervous steps backward before it stilled under Kameron's unrelenting hand.

Fenris sat on his own horse without any sign of discomfort, looking tall and regal, though glowering a little at the Warden. "Where is Hawke?" he asked. "And the redhead?"

"Scouting ahead," Kameron said. "We can't go skulking around corners without blowing our cover, but I'd still rather know about a Templar roadblock before we ride into it."

Fenris nodded, turned his horse in a tight circle. "We are ready?"

"Yes," Isabela said impatiently. "Let's go. My right buttock is already getting numb and I think I got a dent in my thigh."

Zevran took the lead with Kameron and Isabela side by side behind him. Fenris and Merrill followed last, suitable for servants, though the jutting length of Fenris's sword over his shoulder — in echo of Vigilance — would cause more of a stir. He could still be a bodyguard of some kind, even if armed elves of any profession were rare.

The streets around the Coraline were wide enough to allow two carts to pass each other without much trouble and the short of procession of horses had no trouble finding its way. Only a handful of other riders and the odd carriage joined them on the street. For long minutes, the greatest peril they faced was the risk of a drunk stumbling into their path and spooking the horses.

Night watchmen followed them with their gazes for longer than was entirely comfortable, but they knew better than to hinder a group such as this. Cassandra wouldn't have enlisted their help if she had a choice. Hunting mages of any kind was the prerogative of the Templars, involving outsiders would only serve to blur the borders that kept society organised.

"How long for Captain Aed to pick us up?" Kameron asked quietly.

"It depends," Isabela said. "Covering the distance in this weather will take maybe twelve to eighteen hours, plus whatever negotiations he'll go through with the port authorities, maybe let his ship be searched, wait for that one officer who'll always get robbed by a whore in an alley and is slow in hauling his ass back to the ship. I'd say a day give or take a couple of hours, all in all."

She looked up along the tall, elegant buildings flanking them and smiled a little. "That's Hawke up there," she said, returning her attention to the street ahead of her.

Kameron glanced up, scanning the skyline, where the rooftops touched the velvet-dark sky and its smattering of frozen lights.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, rather than admit he hadn't seen his cousin.

"No, he's just shadowing us. Makes sense, too, because Leliana knows the city better than he does."

Kameron's horse decided to swerve off to the side before he forced it back to Isabela's side.

"Don't laugh," Kameron grumbled. "You try growing up in a tower in a country without horses and then we'll see how well you do."

Isabela laughed anyway, though not mockingly. "Be gentler," she advised, then laughed again. "Not that you'll ever hear me say that in any other situation."

"I know that line. Both of them."

The Coraline was close to the harbour and because of that, it was a fair distance to the gate, leading them through several different quarters of the city. Gradually, the tall mansions of wealthy merchants made way for artisan shops and their own houses, wood and thatch replaced stone and tile. The street-lamps were further in between and more of them had been allowed to go out or had never been lit tonight at all.

A fault line ran through the night, a puckered scar dividing the darkness not into good and bad — harmless drunks and potential rioters, dishonest businessmen and honourable criminals — but shades of grey.

Hawke had had some trouble keeping ahead of the riders in the richer quarters. Houses were set further apart, with walled gardens and small parks spreading between them. Their facades were difficult to scale and he had to remember to avoid the house guards and others who would notice a trespasser and alert the entire neighbourhood to his presence.

Here, on the edge of Val Royeaux, where the wall blocked the view and the journey to the palaces of the movers and shakers was too far, the houses were smaller and huddled closer together. Their inhabitants didn't bother with guards, relying instead on their dogs or some muscled apprentice with the clunky sword under their beds. At worst, he would scare a pair of young lovers as they were trying to find some secluded place to be alone.

From the edge of a flat roof, he already saw the gate they were aiming for. A small one, barely broad enough to allow for the passage of a single cart with two watchmen to guard it, both of them only half awake, leaning on their halberds as they waited out the night. Hawke stopped to watch them for a little while to make sure it was not a ruse, but nothing revealed itself. So, either the Templars were doing a good job of hiding themselves or they had not bothered to alert the watchmen.

Chances were the Templars were focused on the harbour, but to the neglect of everything else?

He spotted Leliana on another rooftop not far from him. He waved until she noticed him, then made a quick gesture with one arm and she dashed off, tracking the street in one direction from the gate while Hawke took the other. He found nothing, but when he turned back, toward the city centre and where his friends would be coming from, he spotted them.

Cleverly positioned at the side of a crossroads two streets away from the gate, two Templars stood just within the cone of light of a street-lamp, resplendent in their armour and looking imposing and powerful. Another man held himself close by their side, but unlike them, he stood just outside the light, nothing but a silhouette of dark against a darker black.

Hawke skirted them carefully and made to race back to the others, already knowing he had probably taken too long and his friends would be already too close to easily avoid them. And yes, he already heard the horses as they entered the crossroads and the Templars came alive, stepped away from the lamp to block their way while the third man — the Seeker, no doubt — walked around Zevran and stood a good distance away from Kameron as he spoke with him. Out of easy reach for an attack.

Their body language was difficult to read, alert, but no more suspicious as they would be of any travellers that crossed their path at this odd hour.

Kameron's horse pranced nervously, badly held in check by Kameron's hard pull of the reins. It caused the Seeker to take another cautious step back, eyeing the horse rather than the rider.

Up on the rooftop, Hawke had a better vantage point to see the moments as they flowed into each other. Earlier, when he had proposed his idea to Leliana, he had considered promising her the lives of all Templars and Seekers they encountered tonight. No more deaths, he had thought to offer, because he was already asking too much of her. It would have been a grandiose gesture, if nothing else, one she would possibly have understood as barely more than lip service. She would have known to appreciate it, though.

He had held his silence, however, because although he had no magic and he didn't believe in prophecy, he knew their departure from Val Royeaux would not be peaceful.

The subtle shift of the riders would be indiscernible for the Templars on the street and the distracted Seeker, but it was obvious to Hawke that Zevran had brought himself and his horse square between the Templars and the others, blocking their view, if not the threat of their swords or the reach of the Templars powers. Fenris and Merrill had drifted further apart, giving Fenris the space to draw his own sword quickly and Isabela, so precariously pretending to be in side-saddle, would take barely a moment to slip to the ground.

It was the Templars' fault, of course. No promise of Hawke's, given or denied, would save these men. They should have sent more than three.

Kameron said something, leaning forward in the saddle over the arch of the horse's neck, looking smug and infuriating.

Zevran kicked his horse forward, got himself out of the way for Isabela to leap forward, abandoning the heavy cloak. She crossed the space to the nearest Templar in less than a heartbeat, ran him down with the full weight of her body and let his armour do the rest. His comrade buckled on his own, the blood running from his mouth was black in the darkness.

The Seeker had managed to roll away before Zevran rode him down. The Seeker regained his feet smoothly and stood up to a low crouch, drawing a dagger as he did. He took a moment to survey the scene, perhaps realising his mistake as he saw the two felled Templars.

Hawke wouldn't have liked to be in his place. He stood against too many to fight and hope to survive and running was likewise no true option. A man might outrun a horse for a short while, but in the long run — literally — he had no chance.

The Seeker saw it, too, and chose to use both the chances he lacked. He threw the dagger with surprising accuracy and it embedded itself in the chest of Kameron's horse. It reared in shock, making the kind of noise no living thing should ever make. It thrashed in panic and Kameron had the sense to get his feet free of the stirrups and let himself fall, roll away to save himself from the flying hooves.

The wounded horse made the others panic, too and they milled in fear and confusion.

The moment he had let go of the dagger, the Seeker had thrown himself around and made a dash for the deepest shadows. A side alley without any lamplight, which would doubtlessly wind and turn and narrow as it went, taking him away from when the riders could muster a pursuit.

In only a minute or so, the screaming horse would have woken half the neighbourhood. Windows would be thrown open and the bravest of each family would venture outside to see what the racket was about. Night watchmen would be drawn from all direction and all the other Templars and Seekers would know something was happening in this very place.

Hawke left them to it. With any luck, the noise would draw Leliana, too, and she would know better where to go from here than he did. Instead, he climbed down from his roof — a rickety balcony if ever he had seen one — and dropped to the cobbles softly. He had paid the streets below only passing attention earlier, but he recalled they were comparatively empty, few pieces of thrashed furniture or broken crates, no litter to speak of which could snag at his feet in the dark and make him stumble.

Two turns through other side streets brought him into the alley the Seeker had taken. Hawke put his head back, listening until the sound of the dying horse faded into the background and the low pants and quiet, hurried steps became clear, coming directly toward him.

Even though his eyes had adapted to the dark by then, the Seeker was only a slim shadow. You could bemoan that this was not the Fade, not susceptible to your own idea of reality. If it were, Hawke could have willed his hands to find purchase on the Seeker's leather armour, jerk him from his feet and push him into the wall. Elegantly. Without fuss.

As it were, the Seeker realised he was under attack and managed to pull Hawke into a confusing scuffle. Landed a good punch on Hawke's jaw, too, but couldn't stop himself from ending with his face in the wall, anyway.

The Seeker hissed in anger and wouldn't stop struggling right until Hawke cut his throat, made deeper by the Seeker himself as he convulsed, pushing the edge of the shiv almost all the way to his spine.

Hawke dropped the man and stood clear of the spray of blood. In the meantime, the horse had been silenced and in its place, alarm bells were making their call through the city.

Leliana stood alone in the shadow of the gate and waited for the others. She had reacted the moment the noise started, wasting no time in wondering what had caused it, or what part of their plan had crumpled to pieces. She wouldn't be able to save them if a battle had ensued, but she could make sure the way was still open by the end of it.

So, instead of rushing elsewhere, she had rushed the gate and knocked out both guards. She had spent several more, feverish minutes searching the small guardhouse — barely more than a shack leaning to the wall — but there were no other guards. Up on the walls, perhaps, but none seemed to be close enough to spot her and they wouldn't be able to see the guards even if they were still in position. The gate itself was a somewhat oversized double-door made of eroding metal bars. If an enemy ever came to this gate, he would find it hard to resist, Leliana thought and wondered briefly if it was good or bad, this unawareness of the coming wars.

She went back into the guardhouse to check on the guards. Both were alive, although they would have a bad, pounding headache for the next few days and a somewhat bruised ego as well. They were beginning to stir and Leliana left. There was no need for either of them to see her face.

Alarm bells were filling the night-air with their warning, rousing not only the guards and the searching Templars, but also all the good people of Val Royeaux. One by one, lights were lit behind windows and doors pushed open to peek out, but the attention wasn't on the gate, drawn elsewhere, where the noise had started.

She saw her friends ride down the street in full gallop, Kameron behind Zevran and at least that explained what the noise had been.

Leliana bit her lip when they stopped, trying not to ask what had happened, because there was no time and because she could already guess.

Instead, she looked them over and said, "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Kameron announced. "We had a run in with Templars and what I presume was a Seeker."

Leliana kept watching him, feeling as the seconds trickled away, raindrops down the back of her neck, setting her nerves on edge. It happened too fast and too sudden. The street was beginning to fill with people but no one seemed to pay them any attention. Not yet. They could not stay.

"Can you make it like this?" she asked. "It's hard riding like this."

"I think it could be worse," Zevran declared and gave a quick grin. "Besides, the horses are fresh, they'll not break down under us."

A different sort of movement caught Leliana's attention, somewhere to the side, in the shadow lingering in the open gap of an alley, but before she could give warning, she recognised Hawke, sprinting toward them, smoothly avoiding the small thongs of people going the other way.

"You caught the Seeker?" Isabela asked.

"It wasn't his lucky day," Hawke said with a slight shrug. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it? If it's ours, I mean."

"I take it you still want to stay?" Fenris asked.

Hawke caught Leliana's gaze and held it before he looked at Fenris. "It's strange, isn't it? First you come back and then I send you away."

"It has a certain… redundancy to it," Fenris admitted. He put his head to the side ever so slightly and something which might almost have been a smile flickered over his face. "Regardless, nothing has changed. I owe you and you are… family. Call on me when you need me."

"You will regret this one day," Hawke said, but smiled.

"I'm sure of it, but there is a chance it will be worth it," Fenris shrugged. "Good enough for an escaped slave, if you ask me."

Merrill brought her horse close to Hawke side. She said nothing as she leaned down and wrapped her arms around Hawke's neck, held him tight for a moment. "It's not goodbye," she said, reluctantly letting him go.

There was something in Hawke's face, something raw and honest, with nothing of the artifice he tended to affect. It was just a moment and barely that. It was when he considered not lying to her about where this was headed.

In the end, Hawke said nothing at all.

"What she said," Isabela said quietly. She had abandoned the side-saddle pretence and the brocade cloak hung loosely from her shoulders, a little battered in the flight. "And what he said," she added. "In all honesty, I never had more fun than with you. So, you want to go again, I'm all for it."

It was the same lie in Hawke's face, but Isabela had never quite had Merrill's heart of gold and recognised the look for what it was.

Leliana's attention was dragged from Hawke because she was standing right beside Kameron and Zevran and she remembered their last parting, all those years ago and the world had been a happier place then, despite the carnage of a Blight still strewn across the land.

"Will you still write to me?" Kameron asked.

Much to her surprise, she had no trouble meeting his gaze, seeing the man for who he was and who he must have been even in the beginning. "It looks to me," she said slowly. "That there is an awful lot more I'm willing to do for you."

She looked around them, at the reality of the dark city street and the way it was still filling with people and the alarm bells still ringing.

"You should leave while there is still time."

Kameron followed her gaze, "In Tevinter, they say forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit."

And with his deep voice that seemed to carry the meaning on its own, Fenris said, "Perhaps, one day, remembering even these things will bring pleasure."

They stood and watched them ride into the night and it seemed to take forever until the clatter of hooves on the paved road began to fade and the imagined, thin thread still binding them together unravelled in the distance.

The end of something was an odd feeling, leaving an emptiness behind it. This moment in time, which would never come again, and no king or emperor and no god could command it otherwise. Leliana didn't agree with the Tevinters on most things, but perhaps they could still sometimes be right.

She suspected Hawke felt much the same, but for all her suffering, his was the greater burden. He had lost the last friends and allies he still had. No doubt they would rally to his side should he call, but right now, he had nothing at all, no cards to play, save for the one he had thrown her in the Coraline tonight and she wasn't sure if it was a whole card, much less a trump.

Leliana thought she felt the shift in the air, colder suddenly, as if the noise quieted and the people drew back. She felt it in the sudden tension running through Hawke and she saw it in the look he gave her, brilliant in the dark, and he turned and stopped.

Cassandra stood on the street behind them, calm and curiously relaxed. There was no sign of other Templars or Seekers, but Leliana spotted a few watchmen among the people, for whatever difference that would make.

"You are Hawke of Kirkwall?" Cassandra asked, taking slow measured steps toward them.

"Hawke," Leliana said quietly. "She is the best warrior the Seekers have ever had."

Hawke merely shrugged. "Can't be worse than fighting the Arishok."

Leliana was silent, in the face of the history behind the casual remark, of where Hawke had truly come from long before the world had cast him out.

But he seemed to take pity on her, giving her a quick look and he added, "Don't worry."

Hawke strode from the shadow of the gate toward Cassandra, keeping pace with her as if this was not the overture to battle but a choreographed dance at some royal court, so the pampered nobles could feel the thrill of danger without having to face the reality of it. There were no rules here, nothing left for Leliana to plead. Cassandra would not listen to her any longer, she had been played too well before and she was too clever not to see it.

"You came to kill me?" Hawke asked and they stopped, both, facing each other across an expanse of powerless distance, in some silent accord of how close each would allow the other for a moment of precarious truce in the dead of night.

"If I must," Cassandra said.

Hawke watched her in the posture of the raptor his name implied, motionless but with not even an instant between the stillness and a deadly attack. He said, "I would surrender to you."

But it didn't sound like a surrender at all. Not quite a threat and just shy of a promise.

Cassandra noticed the tripwire in the words, the rejection even as he made the crooked offer. She waited and Hawke turned his head to the side, just far enough so Leliana was at the edge of his vision and it jostled her forward a step, out from under the shadow of the gate. Cassandra wouldn't have been able to recognise her before, but the Seeker showed no surprise. But then, perhaps this was not a revelation to Cassandra at all, only the affirmation of what she had already guessed.

Hawke turned his attention back to Cassandra and they might as easily be the two only people in the world, everything falling away from them and the exchange of a silent challenge, an assessment of a foe or even a worthy rival.

Hawke lifted his hands and closed them around the hilts of his shivs, a motion so slow in execution it allowed to see the precision in it, the whisper of how much faster he could be if he so wished.

Cassandra drew back but a fraction, going for her sword but she only drew it to a sliver of silver, bright in the shine of a distant lamp.

"But you see," Hawke continued, easily, conversationally in surreal contrast to the circumstances and the words. "I'm already someone's prisoner."

Leliana had never seen this script Hawke was enacting, but some subconscious fragment of her mind understood the part she had to play in it. She stepped forward as if drawn on strings, coming to stand by Hawke's side.

He dropped the shivs at her feet and they clattered and danced as they hit the hard cobbles, coming to rest there, the perfect edge of their blades and the wear on their handles. They could be lying there for an eternity, the discarded treasure in a long forgotten ruin. The history of the world might yet put them there, in the end.

"But you can accompany us to the Spire," Leliana said and her voice was steady.

References:

"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit." — Virgil, The Aeneid (several different translations exist, I picked the one best suited to the story)

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered." — Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead