He hadn't stopped running since he'd been dragged off the field at Ostagar. The battle was lost and nothing would change that, his captain told him. "If you want a chance at saving something, get your family far away from here. Ferelden is lost," he had said.

So Carver ran. They wasted precious time convincing Mother to leave Lothering behind. "Your father's ashes are here, and I'm not leaving him," she said. It wasn't until Carver threatened to throw her over his shoulder and haul her across the kingdom like a sack of flour that she finally realized she had no real choice in the matter.

They ran with the darkspawn on their heels, chased by the smell of the first farmhouses beginning to burn as the horde descended on Lothering. Carver tried not to look back: there was no point.

The darkspawn caught up to them anyway.

The charging ogre scattered them, and he couldn't get to Bethany in time. He was supposed to be beside her, and he wasn't. The ogre smashed her into the ground before tossing her aside as easily as a children's toy. It was almost exactly like the time Carver had destroyed Bethany's favorite doll in the middle of some argument or another.

He was able to fix the doll, though. He couldn't fix Bethany.

He stared at Bethany in horror while Mother wept and pleaded. For once in her life, even Vivian was lost for words. Carver remained silent: in life, Bethany always seemed to know what he was thinking without him needing to say it. In death she couldn't hear him whether he said it or not, so there was really no point in it now. You can't die, he thought. You're half of me, what am I supposed to do now?

The weight of failure settled heavily on his shoulders. Ostagar. Bethany. Some protector I turned out to be, he thought bitterly. No wonder Vivian and Bethany were the favored children and he was the afterthought.

Please wake up, he thought. I'm not supposed to be here without you.

.

.

The words Carver had thought but never said echoed in his mind. Memories of the day he lost his twin ran in panicked circles around his head, as he knew he would have to endure a life-rending loss all over again when Adara drew her last breath. Maybe it was selfish to think about, but there were so few people in the world that saw him as worth anything. Adara very well might be the only one, and she was about to leave him too.

Jowan struggled to heal her while Carver tried not to think about how this might be the last time he could hold her in his arms. Jowan's face was twisted into a mask of pure panic, eyes wide as he clearly struggled with whatever magic he was trying to do. Carver wanted to scream at him to hurry up but managed to hold his tongue. After a long moment of agonizing stillness, Adara drew in a pained breath, and Carver let out the one he had been holding. Whatever Jowan was doing was working, at least for now.

Jowan scurried out of the way when Oliver arrived and took control of the scene like a proper healer. "Lay her down, I need room to work," Oliver said to Carver. He obeyed, but he didn't leave her side.

The mage got that distant look on his face that the mage healers got sometimes as they worked, as if something otherworldly and beyond sight was capturing his attention. "Lung is collapsed," he murmured. He wrinkled his nose: "Magebane in the wound. It must have been on the knife."

"I suppose Lily didn't want to rely entirely on surprise," Nathaniel said as he picked up the discarded knife and inspected it.

Jowan frowned, and Carver gave him a dark look. If Jowan said anything to defend his crazy girlfriend, Carver would throw him out the window without hesitation. Jowan wasn't looking at Nathaniel, though. He was looking at a deep cut on Adara's hand, presumably from where she must have tried to grapple the knife away from Lily, but he said nothing.

Minutes seemed to dilate into years while Oliver worked in silence. Carver knew he worked with spirits to augment his abilities, which made him somewhat wary of Oliver most of the time. If Adara survived, he would never question him again. Well. Not out loud, anyway. Probably.

"I've repaired most of the damage," Oliver said eventually. "She'll live."

Carver reached up to rub his hand down his face, wanting to hide whatever emotions must be showing there. It's not like the last time, she isn't going to be taken like Bethany. I'm not losing anyone else. Not today. Relief washed over him, his body trembling as he was finally able to relax somewhat and let go of the fear that gripped him. It felt like weakness but no one was paying attention to him anyway.

Oliver looked like shit when he finally sat back, drained from expending so much mana. His tan skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor, and his hand visibly shook as he brushed his wild curls out of his eyes. "She needs time to rest. She lost a lot of blood. I'll make up some potions that will help," he said.

Adara startled everyone by coughing suddenly, tensing up as if the motion still hurt. Her eyes fluttered open. She still looked awful, but Carver couldn't help but grin with relief. "Hey," he said. "Thought you were gone for a minute there."

Breathing was clearly still something of a painful endeavor for her. "…Lily?" she whispered.

"Locked in the chapel, waiting for you to decide what to do with her," Nathaniel spoke up. "I'm interested to hear her explanation for all of this."

Adara nodded and started struggling to sit up. "Absolutely not," Oliver said, gently pushing her back down. Adara may have been his commander, but as long as she was Oliver's patient, he was in charge. "You were a hairsbreadth from dying, and I'm pretty sure we're sitting in a puddle of half the blood in your body. You aren't going to do a damn thing besides lie in bed."

Adara looked like she wanted to argue with him but didn't have the strength or the breath for it. She turned her head to look at Nathaniel: "Talk to her," she directed him.

"Carver?" she said quietly, looking up at him with those large dark eyes in an unnaturally ashen face.

That was all she needed to say. "I've got you," he said.

He picked her up as gently as he could. Maker, she felt even smaller than usual. Adara curled into him and closed her eyes, and Carver felt a little surge of proud satisfaction to know that she trusted him enough to relax despite everything she had endured that day.

Oliver wasn't done fussing and made to follow them. Fine. Carver paused in the doorway and looked back at Nathaniel. "Once she's settled, I'm coming with you to talk to Lily." It wasn't a request, even though Nathaniel was in charge as long as Adara was out of commission. Nathaniel only nodded.

Now that the worst was over, Carver was getting really pissed off that it had happened at all. Jowan gave him a nervous look, and Carver rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to kill your girlfriend." Beating up a crazed Chantry sister wouldn't be very sporting or satisfying. If Lily was part of the Faithful's greater plot, though, maybe she could point them in the direction of someone Carver could beat the shit out of.

He was finished waiting around for trouble to find them. It was time to make some instead.