The city was burning.

The blast originating at the chantry had leveled the building entirely, killing all within. The chantry courtyard was a wasteland of ruin of rock and twisted metal and ash thick enough to cloud the sky. Nearby homes had been destroyed, the residents trapped within, or worse. Fires burned, making the air nearly unbreathable — but not silent, far from silent. Painful screams mingled with mournful cries; he heard people calling for each other, trying to locate friends and family amidst the chaos, and he was struck for a moment how many people were not answering those cries.

The battle was over, and all that remained of Meredith was stone. Though by the end, driven by madness and vengeance and a poisoned sword, she had lost the hearts and minds of many of her men, Fenris was left to wonder how many would remain loyal to her, loyal to her ideals. His own opinions upon this point were… significantly muddier now. There had been a time, not so very long ago, he would have joined Meredith's cause without hesitation. Hawke, however, had embraced — had attempted to embrace reason where others had given up, and she had been unable to wholeheartedly support anything the Knight-Commander did.

After nearly seven years, he trusted Hawke. She had proven herself to him time and again, had earned his loyalty a number of times over, and so she had his blade. It was… simple. It was, in fact, one of the few things he could count on to be simple. Certainly much simpler than the mess mages and templars had made of Kirkwall.

It had been an impossible choice, and Fenris had not envied Hawke a whit to have been the one they all looked to for a decision. To side with Meredith meant to invoke the Rite of Annulment. Perhaps Amelle was no Circle mage to be massacred with the rest on Meredith's orders, but Fenris doubted Hawke could stomach taking the risk. And he knew her well enough to know she could not side with those who would perpetrate an act of wholesale slaughter. Fenris knew Anders could have blown up a hundred chantries — a thousand — and still Kiara Hawke would not have allowed any harm to come to her sister.

He wondered for a moment what such a thing felt like. His own sister would have seen him dead — or worse, returned to Danarius as a slave, once again a possession. Hawke, though, had practically walked through the Black City itself to keep her sister safe.

The least he could do was assist her in that endeavor. Even if the sister in question was behaving recklessly beyond all comprehension. Performing magic of any sort — even healing magic — under the present circumstances was dangerous, as he'd reminded Amelle no fewer than three times. But still the younger Hawke knelt upon the stones in this smoky side alley, her face smudged with sweat and grime and blood, pouring wave after wave of blue light into a bloody and burnt woman who would likely never know how she survived, if she survived at all. He hoped, for the sake of the small child crying into his mother's shoulder, she would.

Fenris watched from his post at the mouth of the alley as Amelle worked. His exposure to healing magic had once been limited to Tevinter hunters managing to repair or undo damage he'd caused them, and so he'd had a fairly low opinion of healing magic on the whole. Anders had summarily undone any progress Fenris might otherwise have made regarding mage healers.

This left Amelle. It had been she who had seen to their various wounds and injuries during the battle; she who had sensed their flagging energy and called forth rejuvenation spells that sent fire through their veins and allowed them to forge ahead; she who had flung up glowing barriers and glyphs to protect them all; she who had summoned ice and fire and lightning and until her mana drained to the point her hands shook.

She should have been exhausted. And perhaps she was. But if she was, then fatigue was outweighed only by bald stubbornness as she continued to work upon her patient, coaxing the burnt, bubbling skin to smooth and fade to a less angry color.

All the same, despite her object and despite her intentions, the glow emanating from her hands ran the risk of attracting the wrong sort of attention.

"Amelle," he growled, casting a quick glance beyond the alleyway. No one had noticed them yet, but every minute they remained was another minute they ran the risk of discovery. "You must hurry."

"Shut up, Fenris," she ground out through gritted teeth. He heard a strange note in her voice — an odd timbre that indicated strain and when he looked back he saw how pale she'd grown, her short hair newly damp with perspiration. He felt a flash of irritation that she would endanger herself so, when her sister had just waged war against the templars to keep her safe.

Rather than arguing — or snatching her by the collar of the robes she wore and dragging her bodily to the estate — Fenris chose instead to watch Amelle work. Beneath the blue glow, the woman's burns were indeed healing, and her breathing seemed clearer, more natural. Judging by the way Amelle's jaw was set and the tense line of her shoulders, Fenris had to wonder if she was healing the damage through little more than brute force and raw determination.

Then, suddenly, the woman's body jerked as her eyes flew open, and she sucked in a deep, gasping, desperate breath. She lay there a moment, dazed, heedless even of her own little boy who had flung himself at her the moment she woke. The light faded from Amelle's hands and she sank forward, bracing herself against the stones as she sagged, recovering her breath and, Fenris suspected, her mana. Trembling still, she checked the pouch at her waist, fingers lingering over the stopper of her final bottle of lyrium potion. With visible effort she pulled her hand away and closed the pouch.

The woman she'd healed sat up slowly, wrapping one arm around her clinging child. She blinked hard and stared at Amelle, first narrowing her eyes, then widening them.

"You… you're a mage," she breathed. Amelle looked up, glancing at the woman from behind the sweaty fringe of her bangs.

"I am," she replied evenly, though she was breathless with exertion.

This woman — a woman who had been more than halfway to death when they'd found her, a woman who was alive and whole and even then embracing her child because they'd found her — scrambled to her feet as she pulled her child away, backing against the alley wall. Her eyes were wild, like those of a cornered animal.

"Please, listen," Amelle began, reaching for the woman, who was wobbling unsteadily. "You've been through—"

"I know what I've been through," she spat. "Mages. To the Void with the lot of you. What did you do to me, anyway? Plant a demon in my head? Drain my blood for your magic?"

Amelle didn't move, but Fenris saw all too well the way she flinched, her eyes closing suddenly as if she'd been struck. Anger surged through him and he turned to face the woman — she looked strange indeed, her skin dark with soot and ash, but showing not even a shadow of the burns she'd had when they'd first discovered her; even her hair was singed, burnt away nearly to the scalp in spots. But she was quite well again. Alive.

Alive and ungrateful for her own life.

"She prevented your son from becoming an orphan," he snarled, inclining his head at her, even as he shifted his stance to block her route back to the open corridors of Hightown. "You would do well to show some gratitude."

"Let her go, Fenris. Just… let her go."

In the instant it took for him to look at Amelle, the woman fled the alleyway, dragging her child behind her. Amelle still knelt, her shoulders drooping, and the anger he felt at the ungrateful wretch shifted suddenly to the mage who'd bothered healing her in the first place.

"Why do you do this?" he asked, his tone sharp, the words snapping out like a whip. "You endanger yourself after your sister risked her life — risked all our lives — so you might be safe? What benefit do you get from such fool—"

"Don't you dare call me foolish." Her head was still bowed, her body still trembling, but there was iron in her voice beneath the raggedness of smoke and exhaustion.

"Is it not foolishness? What reason could you have for—"

"Because it needs to be done, Fenris! I didn't save that woman for gratitude or thanks or any of that, just like my sister didn't go toe-to-toe with Meredith only because of me. Meredith was a bully Kiara had to stand up to. I saved that woman because because she was dying and because no child should lose their parent at such an age and because I could. It was the right thing to do, and if… if all she saw was some kind of monster…" Amelle trailed off, shaking her head and slowly getting to her feet. "Does it really matter, in the long run?"

He stared at her, not entirely sure how to answer. In the silence, Amelle wiped her filthy brow with an equally filthy sleeve.

"Shouldn't it matter?" he finally asked.

"Her mind was made up." She gestured angrily at the alley's exit, where things still burned, where the air was still thick with smoke and the sound of Kirkwall in anguish. "A mage did this. And whatever the repercussions are, Fenris, I have to live with them. Getting indignant isn't going to solve anything. Maybe later, after she's calmed down, maybe she'll see. If not…" Her slim shoulders lifted in a tired shrug. "It's out of my hands. She's alive. That's enough."

Fenris found it difficult to argue with her. Oh, he wanted to. But he could tell even now, by the stubborn tilt of her chin and the way her green eyes watched him so unwaveringly, it would be a fruitless endeavor. He did not quite suppress his sigh, exhaling hard through his teeth.

"Very well," he finally said, and the fact that he'd acquiesced seemed to quietly surprise and relieve her. "We ought to return to your home. Doubtless Hawke has been alone quite long enough."

Amelle nodded once. "We'll return for a time. I need a few potions and—"

"Do not tell me you intend to go out into this again."

Amelle shot him a look, her brows rising behind her bangs as she planted a hand on her hip. "All right, then, I won't tell you," she retorted. He blinked his surprise at the pertness of her reply. "Come on. Kiara's probably worrying." With that, she sidled past him, leaving the relative safety of their niche, and they began weaving their way back to the estate.

They'd barely gone twenty yards when Amelle's hand shot out and grabbed his arm. She pulled, hard, rushing forward to a far corner, behind a cluster of pillars, where a body lay in a pool of red — a body wearing armor that had once been white and gold, but was now stained and streaked with blood.

"Maker's blood," she breathed, her grip on his arm growing tighter. "It's Sebastian."