The endless dark corridors of this cursed tower were beginning to depress Fenris—well, those and the sight of Hawke's blue eyes glowing almost as brightly as that sword she'd picked up. Seeing her so clearly under the influence of the strange enchanted artifact had Fenris so on edge his teeth were chattering.

Varric seemed to sense his disquiet, or maybe the dwarf could actually hear his teeth clacking together, because he drifted backward to Fenris's side. "You, too, eh, elf?"

"I am not enjoying this, no," Fenris admitted.

"I'd like to throw that thing into the depths of the abyss."

"We are in agreement on that front." Fenris let his eyes rest on the back of Hawke's head, wishing they could just turn around and go home, curl up together in their own bed and … He sighed. "What do you know about this Corypheus, Varric?"

"Not a thing."

"Aren't you supposed to know something about everything? You always make a show of being so well-informed."

"No spy network in forgotten crumbling darkspawn-infested towers, elf."

"You say that, but I have never seen any sign of such a network. Tell the truth—you don't really have one, do you?"

Varric shrugged, casting a sly grin Fenris's way. "Could be. Could be I have an army of elven urchins at my beck and call."

Fenris raised an eyebrow. "You are a strange, hairy little man."

"Spoken by a man who couldn't grow a fine crop of chest hair if he tried." Varric sighed dramatically. "I wonder how Hawke lives with your shortcomings."

For a moment, Fenris considered objecting to the term "shortcomings," but Bethany's presence behind him dissuaded him. For all that she seemed to accept that he and Hawke were a couple, Bethany still didn't trust him—a feeling that was mutual, after all—and he felt a certain reserve in boasting about his sexual prowess when the object of that prowess's sister was in hearing.

"Oh, here we go," Hawke said ahead of him, pausing in a doorway. He hurried to catch up, resting a hand on her waist, casually. She glanced at him, her blue eyes sharp. That she knew about his worry, and wasn't pleased with it, was clear. Shaking his hand off, Hawke moved toward the center of the room, where a circular dais had been placed. It had four pillars situated around the perimeter, pillars that sent streams of energy across the dais.

Hawke drew the clumsy sword and tried to cut through the energy with it. It bounced right off, and Hawke skirted the edge of the dais, looking calculatedly at the streams of energy. Then she looked at the sword again, and held out her hand, looking at that.

"No!" Fenris shouted. "Hawke, no. This is blood magic. You cannot be considering this."

She didn't even look up, scraping the pad of one finger along the edge of the blade and then holding the bleeding digit over the streams of energy. Blood slowly dripped from her finger, and the streams stopped. Fenris waited, tensely gripping the hilt of his own sword. And, as he had expected, a demon appeared. A giant, horned demon that appeared to be made of solid flame.

"Just had to mess with the seals, didn't you, Hawke?" Varric called out. Bianca grunted in agreement and sent a sharp remark slicing through the demon's arm. It merely howled, flexing the arm, and stomped one large foot, shaking the ground.

"I don't like that," Isabela called out, circling around to the other side of the room. "A few more stomps like that one, the whole tower could fall." She disappeared in a cloud of smoke, reappearing behind the demon and burying her daggers in its flaming flesh.

"Maybe it would take this Corypheus with it," Hawke suggested. She swung the sword at the demon, making contact, but the blade did little damage.

Fenris ran across the room, sweeping his own trusted blade ahead of him and catching the demon firmly across the midsection. Apparently all that did was enrage the creature. It raised its arms and yelled, and a circle of blue light formed around it. Fenris remembered dimly having been in this much pain a few times while in Danarius's clutches, but never since. He couldn't move and jolts of electricity shook his body uncontrollably. Hawke was in the same position. Bethany and Varric had been outside the range of the circle last time he'd looked; he hoped the two of them could end this creature before he and Hawke gave out.

A blizzard, cold and shrieking with wind, centered around their location, and the demon flailed around within it, clearly unable to see its attacker. Fenris could hear Bianca calling out above the winds, see the shining barbs of her song embed themselves in the demon's flesh. And then the winds died down, leaving nothing but a fall of snow in their place, and the demon fell, its circle of power fading. Fenris stumbled and nearly fell, but Hawke was there, catching him with her strong arms. The sword was still firmly in her hand, and Fenris wondered if the sword had helped her withstand the pain of the circle of energy, or if his lyrium had augmented it and made it harder on him. It didn't matter, not with her arms around him.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, her blue eyes soft with concern. Fenris nodded, and she let him go, turning to the pillars around the circular dais. The energy streams were gone now, but something seemed to be bothering her. She fumbled with that damned sword, holding it out toward the pillar. Light arced between sword and pillar, and Hawke bared her teeth, holding her own against it.

"Hawke!" Fenris shouted in alarm, but she waved him back.

And then it was over, and Hawke was staring at the sword strangely.

"What is it?" Varric asked, drawing closer now that the imminent danger had passed.

"It's … cold. I think it's been enchanted."

"Ooh, really?" Isabela reached out and touched the thing, drawing her fingers back. "Icy. Nice."

"Defeat the demon, enchant the sword," Varric said. "Not bad."

"Two thousand years the magic holds," came the wrinkled old man's voice from the shadows of a corner. Fenris whirled around, startled. None of them had known the old man was there. He hobbled forward now, his eyes pinned on Hawke. "You are the Hawke, the blood of the Hawke, I see it now. You have come to break the spell, to slay the creature. The Key has taken the magic back into itself."

As if the Key needed more magic, Fenris thought, shifting uneasily in place. He wished he had wrested that damned sword from Hawke's hands at the top of this Blighted tower and thrown it into the abyss. Of course, the way things were going, no doubt she'd have stumbled over it again once they reached the bottom, still in perfect condition. He shivered, hating this place far more than he had the Deep Roads.

Hawke was regarding the old man coolly. "So you know who I am—do you have a name?"

"Name." He ruminated over the concept for a moment. "Name, yes. I was … Larius. And there was a, a title, too, yes. Commander. Commander of the Grey!" He looked up at Hawke, proud to have called those cobwebbed details from the recesses of his brain. "But that was before. I am dead, yes, but I never died."

"Commander of the Grey!" Varric said softly. "Well, if this is how Grey Wardens end up, I think I understand Blondie a lot better now."

Hawke and Bethany shot the dwarf equally quelling looks—neither of them liked to be reminded of Anders. Fenris thought the dwarf had a point—it was a view of the Grey Wardens he had never seen, and for the first time he understood why the mage would have chosen to become an abomination rather than have his life endlessly prolonged as half-man, half-darkspawn.

"The last to hold the Key, the Hawke, I was there when he laid the seals."

"Father did this?" Bethany said, her face white with shock. "Why wouldn't he have told us?"

"Sunshine, look around you. Do you ever want to tell anyone about this place?"

"Good point, Varric," Hawke said. "Father must have worked with the Wardens before he and Mother left Kirkwall."

"Yes, it was before … before this." Larius gestured to himself. He looked at Hawke, squinting to see her more clearly. "You favor him."

"Or this thing could be lying." Hawke's lip curled in a sneer. "I don't favor my father; I look nothing like him. Bethany favors him."

"Looks, looks, what are looks? Your spirit favors his, I can see it glowing."

Fenris liked this all less and less the more Larius spoke.

"That's true, sister," Bethany said softly. "I look like Father, but you act like him."

Hawke glanced at her sister sideways. There was a volume spoken in that glance, of an entire life Fenris did not entirely understand. He wished he remembered his own mother and sister in more than flashes, if only so that he could be more aware of the impact of Hawke's family on her life. Hawke had been the protector, trained to it by her father, and had, he gathered, been very much left to her own devices as her parents worried over the twins. But she rarely wanted to discuss that part of her life, and Fenris often forgot to ask about it, as family was such an absent part of the all-too-clearly-recalled time he had spent with Danarius.

Larius's head snapped to the side as if yanked by invisible strings. "He calls! Corypheus … From the darkness, he calls. What waits there?" With surprising speed for a man of his advanced age and deteriorated condition, he hobbled away, disappearing into the shadows.

"That guy is creepy," Isabela said, staring after him. "Are we following him?"

"Down to go up, he said," Hawke answered. "We'll follow the stairs, let this Larius person catch up to us if he has something important to say." She strode forward toward yet another set of stairs that led down into blackness, that damnable sword stretched in front of her.

"Ten gold pieces for anyone who will rip that thing out of her hand," Isabela muttered.

"Does ten gold pieces pay for a new luxuriant growth of chest hair after she tears mine out? I don't think so." Varric and Bethany took off after Hawke, leaving Fenris and Isabela to bring up the rear.

"Wouldn't it be nicer to be on a big boat out in the middle of the ocean?"

"You think that would be preferable to all other activities."

"Not all." Isabela grinned, her eyes fixed ahead of them.

"Speaking of that …"

"You cheeky bastard! What would Hawke say?" She punched him in the arm.

Fenris cast her a weary glance. "Please. Do not be ridiculous. Especially when you know perfectly well what I mean."

"Being ridiculous gets me out of a lot of serious conversations. It's quite useful. And what business is it of … anyone's, really? She's a big girl."

"She is still Hawke's baby sister."

"The little bird's got to grow some wings eventually, and the big mama has to let her fly." Isabela shrugged. "I'm just having a bit of fun, that's all."

"Is it? Bethany does not seem the sort of person to view 'a bit of fun' the same way you do. Please consider the feelings you are creating. I do not look forward to having to stand between you and Hawke while she attempts to punish you for hurting her sister."

Narrowing her eyes, Isabela frowned. "I see your point," she conceded at last.

"Excellent."

They had reached the bottom of the stairs now, and were standing in yet another ruined chamber of crumbling stone. A barred cell held a desire demon in what appeared to be an extremely painful stasis. Hawke bared her teeth, rushing toward the cell with the sword lifted, pulsing visibly in her hands. The air rippled in front of her as she approached, the demon gasping as life and strength returned to her, but she was beheaded by Hawke's blade almost before she could move. The shades that rose from the dark corners were dispatched as quickly by the rest of the crew.

As the inky pools of dead shades dried on the floor, a voice resounded in the chamber, floating across the room as if an invisible speaker walked. "My magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base."

Evelyn and Bethany's heads snapped around, their eyes glued to the empty air the voice emanated from. "Father," Bethany whispered. "That's what he always said."

"That's his voice," Evelyn said tremulously. Her eyes glittered, and she clutched the sword reflexively tighter. She spoke little of her father, although Fenris knew they had been close. "Bethany, could his spirit be trapped here? Could that be why our blood is so important?"

"I don't know." The mage looked troubled. "He died naturally, Evelyn. I don't see how—or why—his spirit could have been caught here. I think this is … something else."

"We do no good standing here and wondering," Fenris said. He took Evelyn gently by the elbow, leading her forward. "Perhaps answers lie ahead."

"They'd better. This Corypheus is going to owe me a few answers by the time I get to him."

Isabela walked next to Bethany. "How are you holding up, sweet thing?"

Blushing bright red, Bethany whispered, "Don't call me that! She'll hear you."

"So … do you not want me to call you that because your sister might hear me, or because you don't like it?" Isabela glanced at Bethany with curiosity, and smiled at the mage's obvious confusion. "Someday there has to be a difference between what you want and what your sister wants."

"There always has been. She's never approved of the men I—"

"No, she hasn't, has she? Maybe you should try a woman."

Bethany had no answer to that, ducking her head and looking away.

Behind them, Varric patted Bianca's behind. "Any other dwarf might get lonely, watching all this coupling, but not this one, eh, sweetheart?"

Another stone chamber, another cell with a magic barrier holding back a demon. Before Fenris could react, Hawke was screaming, the sword raised above her head, and running for the barrier, which fell before her. She cleaved through the demon's head in one mighty stroke. Fenris whirled to slash open the pudding-like belly of a shade. Bethany froze two more; Varric shattered one with a well-placed bolt and Isabela took care of the other with her daggers.

Into the post-battle silence of the room, the now-familiar voice resounded. "I have bought our freedom, Leandra. Now we can go home and await the baby's birth together." The unseen voice sighed. "I hope it takes after you, love. I would not wish this magic on anyone."

Bethany's face whitened, as Evelyn swallowed against her emotions. "He didn't mean it," she said, turning to her sister. "Look at what he'd just been through. We both know how proud he was of you."

"He was talking about you," Bethany said. "You were the baby they were expecting. Do you think that's why he did all of this, trapped all these demons, to get money to run away?"

"It was for us. Everything he did here, he did for his family. That's what matters." Hawke lifted the sword, looking at it again, her hand tightening on the hilt.

The next room was fairly clean; Varric had spread out a cloth and laid out a meal. The jug of dwarven ale had reappeared, as well. Evelyn shook her head on sight of it.

"No more of that for me. Last night was quite enough."

"Was it?" Fenris asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, you need to get me drunk now to impress me?" Hawke's smile warmed him all through, cutting through some of his concern about the sword's effect on her.

He was about to respond with promises of what was in store for her when he got her alone when he noticed Bethany's face over Evelyn's shoulder. The mage's lips were trembling, her eyes bright with tears. She turned away, ducking into one of the empty cells. Muffled sobs issued forth from it within moments. But before Fenris could send Hawke in that direction, Isabela went around the corner of the cell, the sobs ceasing within a few moments afterward.

"Fenris?" Hawke asked.

He decided to let Isabela handle things with Bethany—at the moment, the pirate was likely to be just as effective as Evelyn, if not more so. "Come," he said, taking Evelyn's arm. "Shall we have something to eat and then continue our previous discussion?"

"Oh, no," Varric said, overhearing the comment. "You two are on watch tonight; I'm getting some sleep."

"If you must." Hawke grinned at her friend. "If you ask me, sleep is overrated anyway."

"That all depends on who you have to not sleep with," Varric grumbled. He found a pile of straw in the back of one of the cells, and shortly was snoring softly, a faint whistle in the air for which Fenris was grateful, as it distracted from sounds emanating from the other cell that were emphatically not snores.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Evelyn asked, gesturing toward the cell her sister was in.

Fenris took her hand, stroking her fingers. "Do you think this is a good idea?"

She smiled at him. "You know I do."

"Your sister, may I remind you, does not. And that has never prevented you from doing as you please."

Evelyn looked at him squarely for a moment. "Hmph."

"Indeed."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and she, too, was asleep in a very short period of time, while Fenris held her, content to be exactly where he was.