KIRKWALL: 9:34 DRAGON

The house in Lothering was never quiet. It was always full of movement and noise and lifeMother, humming as she baked bread; Papa's deep voice always seeming to carry, regardless of how softly he spoke; Carver's heavy footsteps — You sound like a herd of bronto banging about, cub, Papa used to say with laughter in his eyes; Amelle and Kiara whispering to each other in the dark of their shared room as beams of moonlight poured through the window, elongating the shadows cast by their cozy, narrow beds.

Whenever Mother hummed, it was always the same tune: a lilting, sweet melody that made Amelle want to sway and twirl, bouncing up on the balls of her feet and down again. Papa would sweep into the kitchen and catch Mother up in his arms — she always tilted her head back and laughed and said, "Malcolm, really," as he pulled her into a waltz around their tiny kitchen.

First, there was no more dancing, no more deep, rich laughter reaching all the way to the rafters. Then there were no more heavy, booted footsteps or the clank of Carver's greatsword in its scabbard. Now there would be no more music. No one would hum Mother's tune again, Amelle knew. One by one, the Hawke family's voices had been silenced. Where there had been five there were now two, and the house wasn't full of noise or life. It was full to overflowing with sorrow, loss, and so much grief.

Amelle moved silently about the kitchen, trying hard not to think of that tune, trying not to hear Mother humming it — for she still did, even after Papa's death, though a sad, melancholy note wove through the melody then. A song sung for a dance without a partner. Mama never danced again.

The delicate bone china tea set clinked softly as Amelle measured out the tea with shaking hands, and though she didn't want it there, she found Mother's tune lodged too firmly in her head. Amelle didn't hum, and she didn't sway, but it was impossible not to move to the melody haunting her. As she emptied the final spoonful of tea leaves into the pot, she tapped the spoon against the side in an inadvertent rhythm.

When Amelle realized what she was doing, the spoon dropped with a clatter — too loud, too jarring in the silent house — and the noise was enough to make her flinch. She gripped the countertop tightly and closed her eyes, every muscle in her body going rigid as she waited for the memory to pass. Amelle didn't keep her eyes closed for long, though — she couldn't anymore; she saw far too much when she closed her eyes, and there were moments—like this one—she was certain she'd never sleep again. Her mind's eye was too full of desire demons and Quentin's madness and Mother's pale skin, once flawless as porcelain, stitched hideously together, jagged lines marring her slender neck, the clumsily-stitched black thread like a terrible, sawtoothed smile below the face Papa had loved so dearly.

The memory of Papa guiding Mother effortlessly around the kitchen was superimposed with the jerky, uncontrolled movements of the patchwork monstrosity that had worn their mother's face, and Amelle's eyes flew open as her stomach clenched and threatened to revolt. Not that it much mattered — she'd already lost the contents of her stomach several times over tonight.

Why, Mama?

But no answer came. The house was silent.

Amelle's heart pounded harder and tears stung again at her eyes — they were already reddened and swollen and burning, and Amelle clenched them tightly shut, feeling the drops slide down either cheek. She breathed — it was important to breathe, the better to control the rogue power bubbling to the surface and swirling hot beneath her skin. So she counted each breath in and out until her mana settled.

There. No burning the house down tonight.

She filled the kettle and flicked her fingers at it, giving that extra power a direction, and within moments steam billowed from the spout and the kettle began whistling merrily. Too merrily. Amelle poured the water into the teapot, more to stop that whistling than anything else.

Why weren't you here, Papa? Why didn't you save her?

He'd have sensed the magic in Quentin right off, Amelle was certain, and he'd have steered Mother safely to Gamlen's.

If Papa had been alive, Quentin wouldn't have looked twice at her.

His victims are attractive, healthy women with few social ties…

The china clinked softly as Amelle set the lid on the teapot and paced the length of the kitchen, arms wrapped around her as if warding off a bone-deep chill. She was shivering, but it wasn't the slightest bit cold in the kitchen — the fire in the hearth crackled and blazed, orange flames licking upward as they danced upon the logs. She stepped closer to that heat, still hugging herself, trying to will away the icy chill that lodged itself in her very core.

A log snapped and sent a spiral of sparks upward.

The house was so bloody quiet.

She stood at the hearth, trying not to see the night's horrors, trying not to hear Mother's last words, her voice too raw, too soft, too paper-thin and broken to be hers.

Carver and Papa, waiting for her on the other side of the Veil.

Maker, I hope so.

"Take care of her, Papa," Amelle whispered thickly to the roaring fire. She knew what her father would have said in response, and when she closed her eyes, she nearly heard his deep voice in the crackle of the flames upon the logs. You girls only have each other now. Take care of kit, rabbit. Let her take care of you.

"I'm working on it," she breathed, turning and picking up the tea-tray on her way upstairs. Kiara had gone into her room after Gamlen left and hadn't come out again. A bad sign. It was too quiet there, too.

Kiara had always been the one who took care of people. She'd taken charge after their father died — and, oh, Amelle could still remember how that had made Carver chafe. Kiara was confident, capable, responsible. Kiara commanded loyalty and respect. Over the years, Amelle had healed all manner of wounds and injuries in her sister, but this was something she could not heal — it was something she had no idea how to heal. Amelle wasn't even sure it was an ache that could be healed.

But tea seemed a good a start as any.

The clock ticked as Amelle climbed the stairway, her slippered feet silent upon the carpeted stairs, hitting each step on either a tick or a tock. Her footfalls made no noise—

You sound like a herd of bronto banging about, cub.

—but she felt the force of each step shudder up her legs as she climbed to the second floor, to Kiara's room.

It wasn't much of a surprise to find the door wide open — Kiara was beyond caring about privacy, and Amelle was almost certain it simply hadn't occurred to her sister to close the door.

Hovering in the doorway a moment, suddenly unsure, Amelle watched her sister. Kiara — usually too full of energy to stand still — did not move, and seemed barely to breathe. Still dressed in sweaty, blood-streaked leathers, she sat slouched in a chair by the fire, staring into the flames but not seeing them; her face was still, stone-like, revealing no emotion but naked misery that sent a bolt of pain lancing through Amelle's breast. Kiara's hair hung limp, sweat and grime making it darker, the brick-red locks clashing starkly against cheeks too pale beneath smears of blood. Not hers. Even Kiara's hands still bore the grisly reminders of that night; her bow, dropped carelessly by her bed, bore dark red handprints where she had gripped the weapon with bloody hands.

Kiara was filthy, ground down, and clearly exhausted, but her eyes, unlike Amelle's, were utterly and eerily dry. That bothered Amelle most of all. Her sister had not cried. Why wouldn't she cry?

Amelle coughed softly and waited for her sister to look up before crossing the threshold into the room. Kiara moved her head just a fraction, just enough to acknowledge she'd heard Amelle approach. Kiara looked again when Amelle entered, carrying the tray — looked properly, this time — and in the firelight dry eyes met Amelle's damp ones for an instant before turning to once again blankly regard the too-hot fire.

For too long after their father's death, Amelle had found it impossible to look Kiara in the eye. Her sister's eyes — which could change from stormy to silver and back again in less time than it took her to draw a bow — were identical to their father's. Whether it had truly been there or not, Amelle had seen judgment in those eyes — condemnation for not reaching Papa soon enough, not being a powerful enough spirit healer to sense whether his spirit was still tethered to this side of the Veil, for not being fast enough, clever enough, or simply good enough to save him.

Neither of them looked much like their mother. They both had the Amell nose, and Mother's hair had once been as red as Kiara's, but the resemblance ended there. Amelle couldn't help but feel this was something of a blessing, for she remembered all too keenly how it hurt to see Father's eyes for so long… after.

Moving quietly about the room, Amelle set down the tea tray and poured her sister a steaming-hot cup of the dark liquid, the scent of it laced with lavender. She poured a splash of milk and a drop of honey in the cup and then pressed it into her sister's too-cold hands. Cold despite the fire. Cold despite the sheen of sweat covering Kiara's face, dampening her hair, and darkening her leathers.

"You should try and drink this."

Kiara looked dully down at the cup. "I don't want to."

"Try, Kiri. Please."

Kiara brought the china teacup to her lips as if it weighed more than she could possibly hope to lift, and she drank, closing her eyes. Her expression twisted into something like pain; too hot, perhaps. The water too hot. Unsurprising, really, given how much mana she'd sent its way. Still, after a moment, Kiara took another drink, and though the look of pain did not quite vanish, it lessened.

Amelle poured herself a cup and knelt upon the floor, slowly, gradually inching closer until she rested her head on her sister's knee. The combination of sweat and leather, smoke and blood—blood magic and necromancy, stinking of rot and foulness and bitter-smelling herbs—coming off Kiara made Amelle's throat tighten as too many memories still tethered too tightly, too closely to those scents, filled her head. She blinked back the sudden, renewed deluge of tears

Soon, Kiara's hand came to rest gently against Amelle's hair, as if her sister needed reassurance that she was still there, that she wasn't alone in that empty, silent house. Amelle, too, needed reassurance, though Kiara didn't know it. Reassurance that they'd survive this, reassurance that nothing, whether it be time, circumstance, or blighted bad luck would claim another Hawke anytime soon.

Father. Carver. Mother. Three Hawkes, gone, two remaining.

They two had to remain safe, for they were all that remained.

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Cullen found the violets in the garden of Templar Hall, struggling to survive in the shadow of something much larger. He smiled when he saw them, not only because they'd had somehow managed to survive against all odds, but because he knew he could offer them a better home elsewhere. He knew just the windowbox, with just the gardener.

Very carefully, he uprooted a small cluster of the delicate plants, trying not to jostle the dark purple flowers or cut the roots, wrapping it all carefully in a small swath of linen bandage he kept in a pouch on his belt. Amelle would be pleased. Violets had always been plentiful in Ferelden, and she'd been lamenting the lack of Fereldan foliage more and more lately, beginning with, though by no means ending at the hunt for Andraste's Grace. Even as he handled the plant, its faint scent brought to mind the way healers at Kinloch Hold had made use of violets for a number of poultices and draughts—he had no doubt Amelle would be able to put them to good use as well.

For a city that had undergone as much madness as Kirkwall had in the past months, it was pulling itself back together admirably. Or perhaps the attempts to return to normality were indicative of nothing more than stubborn will—it was hard to say. Templar Hall no longer bustled with rumors and questions and speculation; even Ser Hugh had ceased dropping hints about the Champion's sister, though Cullen did not think for a second that Hugh had truly forgotten the matter. It was only temporarily shelved until such time came that the matter could—and likely would—be broached again. Cullen hoped the younger man hadn't seen fit to write the letters he himself had invited him to write; for all that Kirkwall was healed, too much was still unsettled and strange, and Cullen was not overly enthused about facing down yet more conflict anytime soon. Mainly because his priorities and loyalties were in the midst of an uncomfortable shift, and he was stuck trying to maneuver his way around them, like navigating a dark room in which all the furniture had been rearranged.

The conflict of interest, of course, was Amelle Hawke. Cullen was intimately acquainted with the perils of befriending a mage, and yet, there Amelle was, growing more and more disconcertingly friend-like. He'd told himself, during her recovery, he was only stopping by to see her to make certain such a vast outpouring of magic hadn't left her altered. And then, once the clinic was open again, he stopped by because it was his duty as a templar to do so. And now… well. Now he was bringing her a medicinal plant. Offhand, Cullen could think of no official reason for such a visit, which likely meant he was better off not thinking too hard about it.

And yet, it was impossible for him to simply overlook what the three of them had endured, Fenris, Amelle, and himself. Though it wasn't anything like friendship between Cullen and the elf, Fenris was significantly less hostile now than before. They'd appeared to reach some sort of tacit agreement, the two of them, and though Cullen wasn't entirely sure the details of such an agreement, mutual respect now existed where none had been before. Perhaps, someday, there might even be camaraderie.

The whole thing was enough to make Cullen feel almost optimistic, until he remembered concepts like friendship and camaraderie with apostates and those who harbored and protected them wasn't the done thing when one was a templar. Less so when one was the acting Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.

This increasingly unpleasant train of thought was, thankfully, brought to an end when Cullen reached the Hawke estate. It took longer than usual for Orana to open the door when he knocked, and when she did so, she looked as near to frazzled as he'd ever seen her. Panic welled instantly in his gut, but Orana's discomfiture faded as she took in his face, replaced by relief. "S-ser," she stammered, "perhaps you can… she's so upset, ser."

His little errand and pleasant thoughts forgotten, Cullen settled the plant in Orana's hands and entered the house at once. He heard Amelle before he saw her, though her voice was drifting down from the upper levels of the house. "Orana! Where did you—Maker's Breath, where did you go? Where's my other staff? I can't—Orana!"

The mabari whined when Cullen approached, pushing his head under Cullen's hand. Cullen dragged the tips of his fingers through the short fur absentmindedly, but it was enough for the dog, who barked and took a few steps toward the stairs. Then he stopped, gazed at Cullen, and barked again, louder.

Cullen followed, Orana quavering at his heels.

"Orana!" Amelle cried—and Cullen found himself taking the stairs two at a time, grateful he'd not worn his full plate, because he'd never heard Amelle's voice so raw with pain and panic, and he'd certainly had more than one occasion to see her distressed since Hawke left Kirkwall.

He found her in her bedchamber, a staff in each hand and an open pack on her bed. Healing supplies and clothing and no fewer than half a dozen other staffs were scattered on every available surface. She turned when she heard him, and he went cold at the sight of her. She'd been crying—was still crying; her face damp—but if her pallor and the blotches of patchy color on her cheeks were any indication, she'd been weeping a long time. Her eyes were swollen, the green too-bright against the red rims of her eyelids, and her hair stood up, as though she'd pushed her hands through it too many times without brushing it down again.

"Cullen. Thank the Maker," she said, dropping both weapons with a clatter and crossing the room at a run to throw her arms around him. Without the barrier his armor would have provided, he could feel the tremors wracking her slender frame. He rubbed soothing circles between her shoulder blades, but she stepped backward almost at once, her eyes wild. He recognized the crackle around her, the scent of smoking fabric, and he saw the hems of her sleeves were singed. He'd seen enough mages on the brink to know Amelle was standing on it. He could only imagine what news could so affect her.

"I have to—" Amelle began, but she stopped when Cullen reached out and took her hand, guiding her to the bed. Her knees buckled and she sat heavily, disrupting a pile of bandages. One white roll fell to the ground, unfurling against the rug.

"You have to take a deep breath and explain what's going on," he finished, perching on the edge of the bed beside her.

Her fingers tightened spasmodically around his, and he felt their supernatural warmth. His own skin tingled with her barely restrained magic. With a sigh, he focused his own will and threads of white light twined around the hand he held, until her skin was the temperature of normal skin and the threat of self-immolation had faded.

Amelle did not pull her hand away. If anything, she held tighter to him, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed. "Thank you," she said, her voice hardly louder than a breath. "I'm sorry."

"Amelle," he pleaded. "Tell me."

"I-I got another letter. From Starkhaven."

When she said no more, he asked, "From your sister?" even though he feared he already knew what her answer would be.

"No," she said. "From my sister's healer." Her breath caught on the inhale, and before she could rise again, he squeezed her hand. Her exhale was shaky, but she remained at his side. He wasn't certain if it was the lingering affects of his cleanse, or if she'd managed to regain control of herself, but no twinge of magic sparked now. "Apparently… apparently Kiara was… injured. Was poisoned. She was given an antidote, but still…" Again she took in a deep breath and released it slowly, and when she continued, her voice was a little stronger, a little less hysterical. "The healer is concerned Kiara may have… spent too much time in the Fade." Finally she looked up at him again, and he would have given anything to banish the torment from her eyes. "She said—the words she said—she thinks maybe Kiara came back… wrong. That's what she said. Wrong. Tell me…" Amelle swallowed hard in an obvious attempt to compose herself, but when she spoke again, her voice remained tremulous and frayed with worry. "Tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means, Cullen."

He wanted to reassure her, but a shudder of memory tore through him, visions of abominations he recognized by their robes and not their faces—begone, demon. He asked, "The healer. Is she a mage?"

Amelle shook her head. "From what I gather, mages have been hard to come by in Starkhaven since its Circle fell."

He paused, thoughtful. "So she may not be as certain as a mage would be. Perhaps your sister was only disoriented."

"Why hasn't she written, then? It's not like Kiara to… Cullen, it's been so long since I heard from her. Only one letter when she first arrived? That's—even if we argued before she left, even if—that's still not like her."

He grimaced. Hawke was perhaps not the best or most frequent correspondent, true, but she wouldn't let Amelle worry. Reluctantly he said, "Starkhaven's Chantry still has templars assigned to it. You should—"

"I know," she interrupted, her free hand twitching as if to dismiss his words the way she'd dismiss an irritating insect. "I wrote at once, and sent my reply with the courier who brought it. I told the healer to keep Kiara under templar watch, but…"

"It is… highly unlikely your sister could be influenced in that way, Amelle."

Again she shook her head. "You mean, you don't think my sister is an abomination waiting to emerge at the slightest provocation?"

"Amelle…"

Her voice grew higher, more strangled. "An abomination who would have to be put down like a rabid dog?"

"Amelle."

"She said wrong, Cullen. Wrong! So… so I have to go. I have to… I know there's nothing to be done, if she truly… but I have to go. You know I do."

"Of… course," he said slowly. "Is that where Fenris is? Booking passage on a ship?"

Amelle's expression froze and she went suddenly pale, leaving only two high points of color on her cheeks. "Fenris," she echoed, breathing a short bark of a laugh—if it even could have been called a laugh—and shook her head, her expression going from sorrowful to stern as she straightened her shoulders. "No, Fenris is not booking passage on a ship. I am going overland; it is faster. And I'm going alone."

"No," he replied instantly—less as a command and more as an exclamation of absolute incredulity. Amelle glared at him, but the effect was ruined by the mess the tears had made of her face; she looked too tragic for anger. She also looked determined, and again Cullen felt the coldness of dread wash over him.

"You will have to smite me from here to the Void to stop me, Knight-Commander, and I still won't go easily."

"That's not what I—Amelle, please. I understand your needing to go, but you mustn't go alone."

"Fenris isn't coming," she said tiredly, tugging her hand from his at last, and rising to begin stuffing her belongings into her pack.

Cullen frowned, confused. "He's not concerned about Hawke? That doesn't sound like him. Even apart from—"

Amelle grimaced, but ignored him, interrupting with, "Fenris doesn't know, and I'm not going to tell him. Aveline has a city to keep safe. And you… I know my sister asked you to watch me, but leaving Kirkwall puts me rather far from your jurisdiction. Consider yourself relieved of duty. I will answer for it, if she's…"

"No," he repeated, and this time it was not only distress that bade him speak. "Think, Amelle. No one doubts your love for your sister or your formidability, but you are not indestructible. What if you meet a templar on the road? Do you think he will pause and let you explain you had no hand in the destruction of Kirkwall's chantry? You cannot go alone."

"What," she scoffed. "Should I take Merrill? Orana?"

"I will accompany you." Maker preserve me.

For several moments she simply stared at him, mouth agape and expression dumbfounded. "You will—you can't, Cullen. You're the Knight-Commander of Kirkwall! A day trip to the Wounded Coast is one thing, but this… this is a month or more."

Even as he spoke, he knew he was setting a logistical nightmare into motion. She was not wrong, of course, but… Kirkwall had many templars, and even a few he trusted, Maker be praised. Amelle had only him if, for some inexplicable reason, she refused to involve Fenris. "Acting," he reminded her. "It is only a matter of making someone else acting Knight-Commander. No one has been named to the post yet, not officially."

If she'd had color in her face to lose, he felt certain she'd have lost it. As it was, her paleness took on a greyish tinge and she shook her head slowly. "This… this goes above and beyond the call of—"

"Please don't say duty. I consider you… you are a friend." Not until he'd said the words did he realize the truth of them. "What… what friend would do less?"

Tears welled in her eyes the moment before she raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Cullen, I…"

"Have packing to do, it would seem. As do I. I know time is of the essence." He gave her a strained, calculating look. "You'll wait? Or do I need to smite you from here to the Void?"

She didn't quite smile. "You have an hour. I need to hunt down horses, yet."

He saluted and turned for the door, but before he could leave her, she reached out and grabbed his hand. When he stopped, expecting to face her indecision or outright dismissal, she instead embraced him tightly. She still trembled, though not quite so powerfully, and the crackle of rogue power had not returned. With her face pressed against him, her voice was muffled. "Thank you," she said. "After—I just—thank you."

He squeezed her back, though without the same bone-crushing fervor. "You know your sister," he said gently. "She would tell you not to give up on her quite yet. She would probably say it with a smirk, or just before asking an impossible favor, but she'd say it. In this case, I advise you listen. Her reasoning is usually sound."

Amelle snorted against him.

"If you ever tell her I said so, I will deny it entirely," he added with more lightness than he felt. Already he was trying to shift rosters and plan promotions. "And I will smite you for good measure. When she's not looking."

She didn't laugh, but the ghost of a smile was enough.

#

It had been easy—perhaps alarmingly so—for Fenris to remain in the mansion for days on end. Though he had not spent an abundance of time there as of late, whenever he did, Orana never let him leave the Hawke estate without a basket or bundle of something edible. Generally he'd tried to refuse, but the maid always insisted she'd made too much and it would go uneaten otherwise. As such, he had food in what passed for a kitchen, he had water and, of course, he had wine—he needed little else—and so Fenris elected to remain among the shadows of Danarius' mansion, and the shadows of his own memories.

The shock had worn off, leaving him with no choice but to face his memories, to close his eyes and relive the many lost moments. At times they were so great in number they crowded in his mind, overwhelming him, too many to count. Occasionally, Fenris felt certain some ought to have belonged to someone else. But he knew—he knew beyond a shadow of all doubt they were his own, every last one of them.

Fenris did not have a poor memory. He recalled the night he first met Hawke in exquisite detail: the scent of woodsmoke lingering on the chilled night air and the rustle of the wind moving the limbs and leaves of the great tree in the alienage. The taste of anger upon his palate, bitter and hot, descending on him the moment he'd discovered one of her companions—her sister—was a mage. Months stretching into years of vigilance as he waited for the mages in Hawke's company to ruin them all. He'd watched Amelle Hawke closest of all, for of all Hawke's companions, Fenris was certain it would be her sister she was blind to. And in his vigilance he watched her fight enemies and heal allies, sometimes doing one within a scant breath of the other. He knew the first moment he'd caught himself admiring her control—a night when, surrounded by Qunari intent on Kirkwall's destruction, Amelle had summoned twin storms of fire and lightning, felling enemies and scorching stones, but leaving the rest of them virtually untouched. It hadn't seemed possible at the time—both her control and the fact he'd been admiring it.

That memory and other, more distant ones—distant and old, and yet new and vivid—battled in his head for dominance. He remembered clearly, painfully, the love he'd felt for Liaria. Fenris had loved her dearly and openly and without fear; he'd intended to spend the rest of his days by her side—and in the end she had betrayed him, and he her. As testament to that betrayal, he could still hear the crack of her spine echoing through his skull, could very nearly feel the pommel of his greatsword in his hands as she flung herself unwittingly against his blade. Sense-memory mocked him with the remembered sensation of her body pushing against the blade, followed by resistance, his own muscles tensing, a snap traveling up his arms and through his heart, echoing through his head forever, and then the smooth ease of a blade moving through a body with nothing left to stop it.

He remembered Danarius' mocking laughter, his unmitigated glee at the drama unfolding before his eyes.

Such recollections were painfully fresh—the last night he'd spent in Liaria's arms rose traitorously in his mind, mocking him, haunting him as thoroughly as any shade. But then, almost before he fully realized it, other memories surfaced, rising like the dawn and filling every corner of his mind, casting every shadow into light: the memory of a sudden impassioned embrace against a bedchamber door; of a touch so gentle it hurt in a way Fenris was unused to hurting; of the fear he'd felt, carrying a limp, magic-spent form through dank tunnels up to the light of day; of the hours spent afterward by a bedside, certain his misguided attempt to help had instead rendered that pale, still form Tranquil, that her smiles were forever lost to him; of the blinding relief that had flooded him when he discovered she was as whole as she'd ever been. These memories dimmed those of Liaria's caresses, her lips against his throat, her false whispers pouring like poison into his ear.

As much as the memory stung, the worst ache came when he closed his eyes and saw Amelle's face, her shock when he pushed her away, her pain when he staggered back, away from her, wanting nothing more than to put miles, cities, worlds between them. He could not bear her touch; he could not stand to let those memories mix with others, could not let the phantom of Liaria's face contaminate the memory of Amelle's gentle touch, of the smell of her, the taste of her, the very thought of her.

So he ran. Ran like he'd grown so used to doing. He ran from Amelle—and now he had the memory of that, too. And, oh, how it stung.

His disgust with himself boundless, Fenris tried to lose himself in the oblivion of drink, but alcohol only numbed things temporarily, and the ache was worse—far worse—when intoxication faded into sobriety and, inevitably, regret. Disgust and regret conspired to weigh him down even now as he rolled over in his rumpled bed with its sweat-sour linens, pressing his face into his pillow and wishing desperately for just one more bottle of something to dim his thoughts and dull his pain. But it was not to be — Fenris had consumed or shattered every last bottle of wine at his disposal. He was left with nothing but sunlight filtering in through tattered drapes, and a pounding headache. And his memories.

Strangely, despite the headache—or because of it—Fenris remembered his sister now, clearer than ever. The echoes of their mingling cries of happiness and laughter as they'd played in the courtyard while their mother worked, the way he'd chased her, pulling at the long red braids she'd favored at the time—loving her as only an elder brother could love a younger sister. Affection tempered with exasperation. He remembered that, too. He'd seen it between Hawke and Amelle often enough, without realizing their relationship reminded him of the one he'd long since lost.

Fenris also remembered the day Varania's magic first showed itself—she barely seven, and he only a few years older. He'd been in awe at the ice shards she'd showed him, of the frost she'd conjured on an oppressively hot day. Soon enough his awe had been replaced by the knowledge that he had to be something unique, too, or else be lost in a sea of mediocrity. He had to work to make himself special. It was such a strange collection of different reflections—his decision to fight in the arena exhibitions, how badly he wanted to be as special as his sister, how strongly he'd wanted to prove that to his his parents—who'd never needed any convincing—and to himself, who would never believe it anyway. Of course he'd been far too young to see his parents had not cared which of their children had magic and which did not. And then it had been too late—his father dead and Fenris—no, Leto—the man of the family before he'd been a man at all.

He'd failed them. He'd failed them all, betrayed them all in one way or another. His pride had hidden nothing but hypocrisy. His own father a mage, and Fenris—Leto—yearning to be as exceptional as his sister, without realizing none of it had been necessary. He'd failed or betrayed any who had showed him kindness throughout his life: his mother, Liaria, the Fog Warriors—even Hawke he'd unwittingly betrayed to a demon of the Fade. Amelle was just another in an already too-long line of betrayals.

Fenris' thoughts returned to Amelle. He would have to face her at some point. He knew it. The realization brought an entirely new wave of contempt, one that taunted and mocked the way he'd run from her, the way he'd hidden himself away to lick his wounds—to brood, Varric would have said—and it was enough to pull him out of bed and unsteadily to his feet. His head pounded and his stomach roiled, but he was upright. And in dire need of a bath.

Several hours later, mostly spent with sword in hand, training as he stretched his muscles and fought invisible foes, Fenris had scrubbed the sweat and stink from his body and eaten a stale bun and a bit of fruit. He hardly felt fortified, for his mind still swum with images and memories all trying to find their place and establish priority amongst themselves. But he was well enough to speak with Amelle and excuse himself from her company for the… foreseeable future, bracing himself for the scorn he knew he deserved.

But upon opening his front door, a folded and sealed piece of parchment fluttered and fell to his feet. Someone had lodged it in between the door and the jamb, and as Fenris crouched to retrieve it, he saw what he recognized as his name scrawled on the front. He frowned at the writing—the first letter was legible enough, but the rest was scrawled in such tiny, cramped writing reading was nigh impossible. Turning it over in his hands, a circle of wax revealed the templar seal, and without hesitation, Fenris pulled open the note to find yet more illegible words. Swearing under his breath, Fenris frowned, but even mustering all his concentration, he found himself able to identify only four words in the short missive: Amelle, gone, Starkhaven and at the bottom of it all, the Knight-Commander's signature.

Cursing again and slamming the door behind him, he turned rapid steps toward Lowtown and the alienage.

Fenris had very little use for Merrill under ordinary circumstances, but perhaps this would be one instance when the Dalish mage might manage to prove herself useful. He dearly hoped so.