Kiara had to hand it to Varric, the dwarf knew information. Where to ask, whom to threaten, when to offer money; Varric knew all the tricks. And then some. The city grew no less hostile, and they were still forced to sleep in shifts whenever an abandoned warehouse or empty shop was available, but they knew more. It was something.

Rumors, Varric informed her, were running rampant. Some were almost truth. Most were not. One insinuated the Champion of Kirkwall and the pirate Castillon intended to rob the royal treasury in full sight of the guards. Her least favorite said the Champion intended to take the city for herself, at the head of an army of mages. She'd even overheard an amusing one herself, wherein it was suggested she'd arrived to seek the new Prince's hand in marriage. She could have produced a reasonable facsimile of a marriage certificate to back that one up. She didn't think Sebastian would appreciate that much, though.

For every rumor about her, there were ten about Sebastian. Through rumors, she realized the city of Starkhaven had thought Sebastian dead in the destruction of Kirkwall's chantry. Most believed the Sebastian Vael currently in Starkhaven a ghost, a restless spirit risen from his premature grave. Many believed he had come to free them from the tyranny of mages. Some wondered if he was still unsettled by the old murders. Living or dead, he was a Vael, and Starkhaven held the Vaels in high regard. People spoke of him in strained voices, equal parts hope and fear and reverence.

No rumors spoke of her with reverence.

Mages. Always mages. Starkhaven's Circle might have burned ages ago, but the city seethed with fresh hate, fresh fear, constantly threatening to boil over into violence. Even the elderly and infirm, Varric said, feared to use canes or crutches for fear they'd be thought staffs. The new Prince remained silent, and if the palace had opinions about the burnings in the city, they were not spoken. Much of the blame fell to Kirkwall. An equal amount, Kiara was stunned to learn, was heaped at the feet of Starkhaven's Chantry. Varric believed it was because the templars had stepped in to stop the first burnings, and the Revered Mother had spoken sincerely and in opposition to the savagery of the murders being done. The people saw this as a threat, and proof the Chantry of Starkhaven had allied itself with—perhaps even hidden—the Circle mages who had disappeared when the old Circle Tower burned.

Listening intently to these reports from Varric, Sebastian's expression darkened by degrees, his shoulders stiffened, and he did not smile. She had not seen him smile once since he'd lifted his bow and put one of his white-fletched arrows through that suffering victim's throat.

If Sebastian was formulating plans, he did not share them with her. He accompanied her in silence whenever Varric managed to warn them trouble was about to spill into murder. He incapacitated when he could, and killed when it was unavoidable. She tried to follow his example, but anyone holding torches was fair game.

Afterward, when Varric and Isabela worked their network of contacts to get the rescued not-mage (and they were never actual mages, never) out of the city, Kiara paced. Sebastian prayed. She suspected neither of them found much in the way of peace.

In the week since that first burning Kiara and Sebastian had stumbled upon, they'd managed to stop three mobs before their victims were committed to the flames. They'd been too late for two others.

So, when Varric threw the door open with a look on his face—the look she recognized as meaning trouble, now—she and Sebastian instantly had bows in hand, and were jogging to keep pace before the door even had a chance to close.

A week of walking at Sebastian's side from one edge of the city to the other, in every direction, had done a little to orient her. Less than five minutes into their journey, she suspected they were headed for the chantry. Five minutes after that, she heard the cries of the crowd urging them onward, urging them to run faster.

Kiara found it distressing that she knew by the sound of the crowd no murder had yet been committed. The cries were hungry, angry, not yet satisfied. Varric held out a hand to stop her.

"Isabela's already here," he said. "She'll have worked her way into the crowd so she can get close to the victim. I'll meet her around the back of the … platform. You two go up. There's a balcony. Give us cover. Pick them off if they get too close."

"So, the same as the second time."

Varric nodded. No one mentioned that the second time had been one of their failures.

Without another word, she glanced where Varric was pointing, noticed the accessibility of the trellis and vines and balcony, and flipped her bow out of her hands and over her back. Sebastian waited at the bottom while she climbed, guarding her. She would do the same from above, for him. Just like they'd done the second time. Before it had become a failure.

Her fingers sought cracks and ledges even as her feet scrambled on the vine. Thorns put up a feeble attack, but spurred onward by the sound of the cries—growing in anticipation, not a good sign—Kiara ignored the slight pain in favor of speed. With a last great pull, she heaved herself over the balcony's ledge and immediately trained her bow so Sebastian could begin climbing. The trellis creaked under his weight, but held, and soon they stood side by side, looking out over the massing mob.

It was… disturbingly large. She should have guessed it would be, from the sound, but vision made all too clear what a daunting task lay before them. A stake stood on a platform, already surrounded by great piles of wood and kindling. Kiara scanned the crowd, looking for the seething center, the eye of the storm that would be the victim. She found Isabela first. The pirate was dressed in clothes chosen to help her blend in, but her hair was still covered in the blue kerchief. Kiara couldn't read the woman's expression at such a distance, but Isabela's posture was all readiness.

She didn't bother looking for Varric. Unlike Isabela, the dwarf needed no help blending in, and he never required a reminder to do so.

Beside her, Sebastian voiced the concern she felt steadily rising. "I don't see a… prisoner."

"Nor do I."

Kiara scanned the crowd once again. It was growing, still. Townsfolk fanned out around the platform, even to the point of standing on the chantry steps. One nimble child had scaled the Chanter's Board; she could see him cheering.

But for what? Who?

Biting her bottom lip in concentration, she looked from the boy to the platform to Isabela to the storm with no eye.

The platform.

"There's something wrong." She was unable to keep the urgency from her tone. Sebastian glanced at her sharply.

She explained, "The platform. It's… it's too well-made. The other ones have all been scrap wood and garbage, pulled together in the heat of an angry moment. A carpenter made this one. It's—"

"It's a trap."

Kiara turned, leaning toward him a little, and heard the whistle of the arrow a second before she felt it graze her cheek. If she hadn't turned…

Sebastian dove at her. She hit the balcony hard enough to lose all the air in her lungs. Sebastian lay mostly atop her, the weight of him pressing her even more uncomfortably into the stones, and making it harder to draw the breath she needed.

"A little… warning… would…"

He clapped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes widened. Lowering his lips until they brushed her ear, he whispered, "Quiet."

As if to punctuate his request, half a dozen arrows arced over the railing of the balcony and skittered to the stone behind them. She nodded, and he removed his hand, only to press his fingers to her cheekbone.

It hurt. She felt… odd. It wasn't just lying flat on her back on a balcony while a crowd screamed below, either. She swallowed, but her throat was dry and the action brought no relief.

Beyond Sebastian's head, the sky was very blue.

"Same color as your eyes," she said.

Sebastian opened his lips to admonish her—she could see admonishment written all over his features, swimming in his pretty blue eyes—and stopped. He glanced at his fingertips and she saw they were red with blood.

"Did they get you?" she gasped. "Sebastian?"

He shook his head. "Look at me, Hawke. Does it hurt?"

She snorted. She tried to snort, anyway. Instead of the derision she was aiming for, it mostly sounded like a sigh. She wanted to say something cutting about not being undone by measly scratches, but the words darted away from her like fish in a pond. A blue pond. Filled with fishes. Like the one her father had sometimes taken her to. The one where she and Amelle and Carver had gone swimming so often. A cool, blue pond. Her gaze drifted past him, toward the sky again. Blue as a pond. Filled with fishes made of clouds.

She thought she remembered hearing people screaming, but it was quieter now. Pleasantly quiet. Peacefully quiet.

Sebastian took her chin between his fingers and jerked her face to meet his. She'd have cringed, if she could. She'd never seen him look so angry. Not even when she'd refused to kill Anders, and he'd threatened… not even…

She blinked, and realized his lips were moving. They were forming a familiar word Kiara, Kiara, Kiara. His eyes were so blue. Amelle once had a doll with a dress the color of Sebastian's eyes, and Kiara had always wanted it. It seemed a stupid thing now, to have been so jealous over a doll. Amelle would laugh at her. Oh, Amelle. She missed her sister so much. She wished she was here, Amelle with her doll in the pretty blue dress. Amelle would probably have just given her the doll, if she'd asked. The dress had been so pretty, the blue so soothing. Like watching the sky. Like swimming in the pond.

The blue of Sebastian's eyes wasn't soothing. It was terrified. And terrifying.

The pain came then.

And the darkness.

#

Starkhaven's Royal Archers called it Maker's Light, because anyone struck by an arrow tipped in the poison was about to meet the Maker and walk in His Light eternally. A tiny vial cost more than most people dreamed of in a lifetime. The antidote cost more. Starkhaven had little cause to employ assassins, but when extreme measures were called for, Sebastian knew it was always to the Light the palace turned.

Sebastian knew the symptoms and the progression of ills. He had been taught them as part of his training. The archery master believed his archers should know the reality of the death they loosed. Loss of focus came first, followed by unconsciousness. Soon she would be wracked with chills so violent her bones would creak. Paralysis of the limbs. Then her heart would slow and she would struggle to breathe.

For the victim, it was a gentle way to go. Sebastian was told they walked in sweet memories, unaware of their own suffering. For those at the bedside, holding the death vigil, it was interminable. The antidote had to be administered within an hour, or death was certain—and the death was a long one. Days of listening for the next breath. Days of holding your own breath, feeling each inhale was sure to be the last. Days of waiting, hopeless.

The archery master had witnessed death by Maker's Light only once, but his words had left an indelible impression. Sebastian had never forgotten. He wished he did not remember the man's words quite so clearly now.

It was such a little thing, really. A flash of red against her pale cheek, almost indistinguishable from a single strand of her own hair, fine as spider silk. The thorns from the trellis had torn deeper gashes along the backs of her hands. It seemed… wrong to see her felled by such an outwardly insignificant thing. He'd seen her jump up and keep fighting after taking a knife to the gut or an arrow to the shoulder or, once, a vicious blow to the head. Maker, he'd been there for her battle with the Arishok, and those wounds ought to have killed her, but still she'd fought.

Amelle had been there, then. Amelle with her ice-fire healing hands and her concerned expressions and her unwillingness to let death win. Amelle, putting people back together piece by piece, when necessary.

If not for the crowd still amassed below, screaming for the deaths of all mages, Sebastian would have given anything to see one of Amelle's disapproving looks now.

No more than five minutes had passed since the arrow had grazed Hawke's cheekbone. Sebastian closed his eyes. It didn't matter. The barely-there wound taunted him. Five minutes gone meant fifty-five minutes to get her an antidote. He knew that, too.

Careful not to raise his head above the level of the balcony railing, he slipped Hawke's bow over his back. It was her favorite, and she would not thank him for losing it.

If she—

No. Nothing good could come of walking that path.

He could hear the armed, armored men coming up the stairs, coming to collect their body, their prize. Kneeling over Hawke, he could feel the faint tremble beginning in her limbs. Ten minutes, then. He'd miscalculated. Ten minutes gone.

The door was not a wide one. Holding his bow horizontally, he set three arrows upon it. It wouldn't be his prettiest shot, but it was one he could make. Three arrows would hit three men.

"Maker," he whispered, but he was afraid to speak a prayer. He was afraid if he started chanting Maker, don't take her don't take her he would never stop. He took a deep breath, focused. The doorknob was turning now. The doorknob became his entire world. "Maker," he added. Don't take her. "Let it be someone who knows me."

He did not recognize the first man through the door, and his heart sank even as he drew the bowstring back. Three arrows. Three men.

The second was a grizzled veteran, someone certainly old enough to have been in the guard before Sebastian was ever sent to Kirkwall. Sebastian's eyes sought the man's face instantly, and was gratified when a name swam into his head. "Elias," Sebastian said, striving to maintain the approximation of calm. "I see you are Captain Elias now. Captain, ask your men to stand down. I do not want to kill any of them."

Except the one who loosed the arrow tipped in Maker's Light, whispered a voice in his head. It sounded eerily, unpleasantly like Anders. A touch bitter, a touch mocking. Except the one who has her death on his hands. Him you'd kill gladly. Him you'd kill with your bare hands. You'd tear his heart out with your teeth.

The captain startled when Sebastian spoke, and then took a step closer, raising his hand to indicate his men should stay back. Sebastian eased the tension on his bowstring, never taking his gaze from Elias'.

"Do you know me, Captain?"

"You look like a man made of a boy I knew once. But Sebastian Vael is dead, his life stolen by the bastard maleficarum of Kirkwall. Everyone knows it."

"I assure you I am most alive. No thanks to your men. Who bade you anoint your arrows with Maker's Light?"

Captain Elias frowned, shaking his head. "You sound like the boy. You know about the Light. That's an archer secret."

Too much time was passing. Hawke was shaking now, her chills akin to seizures. Her head kept hitting the stone. He wanted to hold her, to keep her from hurting herself, but he knew they were both as good as dead the second he lowered his bow. Instead, Sebastian drew the arrows back again, and said, "I am Sebastian Vael, rightful Prince of Starkhaven. Answer my question. Who supplied the Light? Which of you carries the antidote?"

Elias was clearly discomposed now. He looked toward his men, but none of them seemed willing to meet his searching gaze. "We were… following orders, serah."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow.

The captain's swallow was audible. "Your Highness."

"Whose orders?"

"The Prince's. Your brother's."

"My brothers are dead, Captain Elias."

Elias shook his head again, and glanced at the stones of the balcony. "No, Your Highness."

"That remains to be seen. Which of you carries the antidote? Give it to her at once!"

Captain Elias said nothing.

Maker. "Your orders were to shoot arrows tipped in lethal poison into a crowd of innocents? And no one carries the antidote?"

Elias blinked. "No… Your Highness. We were to target the Champion of Kirkwall only. We had no idea you would—Everyone knows she's made deals with demons. She consorts with mages. She would see us all slaves to their dark powers. She has been the source of unrest in the—"

"Silence." His fingers itched to release the bowstring, to let the arrows fly where they would and consequences be damned. Instead, he slid two of the arrows from the string and back into his quiver. The third he kept nocked, but he allowed the bowstring to go slack. A glance at Hawke told him what he needed to know: the chills were progressing now. Her jaw was clenched so tightly all the tendons in her neck were visible. The fine mark across her white skin no longer bled, but it was angry and red.

It was such a little thing. And Sebastian knew without a doubt it was enough to kill her.

"Take me to him." Sebastian rose, lifting his chin and daring the guards to argue with him. No one looked inclined to do so. Unbidden, his mother's voice came to him, Oh, you do cut a dashing figure, sweetling. It's rather a pity you've only talent for archery. No one will ever see you there. Needs must, I suppose. He shook his head once, firmly. "Bring her. Gently."

It took a moment, but eventually a stocky knight sheathed his blade and stepped forward. From beneath his helm, Sebastian caught a glimpse of dark eyes. He thought they looked concerned, but it still took every ounce of Sebastian's willpower not to lunge forward when the man knelt at Hawke's head. "Come on, Maisie," the knight urged, speaking over his shoulder. "Give us a hand."

A woman in plate reluctantly stepped away from the regiment. When her eyes met Sebastian's it was fear he saw, not concern. She moved to Hawke's feet.

Hawke looked so very small, held as she was by the knights in their heavy armor.

Sebastian was only glad neither was an archer. Elias is. You could take him in a heartbeat. Sebastian inhaled past the sudden, blinding burst of rage. "Carry her as you'd carry your own day-old babe. And with every step you take, you'd best pray to the Maker she survives," he cautioned. The dark-eyed knight nodded. The other bowed her head.

Captain Elias pressed his fist to his heart in a halfhearted salute, but his eyes remained troubled and his brow resistant. "We were… we were following orders. You cannot fault us for—"

Sebastian tilted his bow until the tip pointed directly at the captain. A lunge would put the point through the man's eye, and they both knew it. The arrow was his. Her blood is on his hands. If she—"I think it best, Captain, you not assume too much about what I can and cannot, will or will not do. Can I fault a man for listening to rumors and prejudice? Can I fault him for following orders blindly? You have forty minutes, Captain."

Or what? whispered the voice like Anders' in the back of his skull. You'll kill them all? You'll burn the palace down? You'll level the city? What will you do? What would be enough? When would you know to stop? When would you be satisfied justice was done?

Aloud, he quoted, "Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just."

Captain Elias offered a more genuine salute this time. Sebastian did not acknowledge it. Instead, he watched as the two knights knelt and lifted the Champion of Kirkwall between them. The chills were subsiding into the next phase, the stiffened limbs and iron spine, the grim mockery of death. When he was convinced they would carry her gently and not slip a knife between her ribs—no reason, with the Light in her—he straightened his shoulders—chin up, sweetling, stand tall. Princes don't slouch. You're a Vael, darling. Make sure they know it—and gestured for the captain to lead the way.

Andraste, guard her. Maker… "For You are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only Yours to give."

Don't take her, don't take her, don't take her.