It was too dark to see a damn thing, but Carver kept walking anyway. He wasn't sure where he was going or why it was so important to get there, but something kept urging him forward. Maybe if he kept going, he would remember how he'd gotten here. And figure out where 'here' was.

There was a light ahead that drew closer to him more quickly than he was walking towards it. As it approached, he realized that it wasn't just a light: it was a person, and the light followed her like a long train. Like she was cloaked in sunshine.

There was only one person that could be.

"Bethany?"

When was the last time he'd said her name out loud? The last time he could remember was when he had thrown it at Vivian in a heated argument, turning Bethany's name into a barb designed to wound. He'd been ashamed the moment he'd done it: Bethany deserved better than to be used as a weapon.

Surely that wasn't actually the last time he had said it?

Bethany ran to him like she was going to hug him but stopped just short. Maker, she looked exactly the same. Her eyes were the same warm brown as Vivian's. The sisters had always favored each other more than the twins had, but Bethany's face was rounder and sweeter than Viv's, whose features were as sharp as her tongue.

"But you died."

Her eyes were shining brightly with tears. "Where do you think you are, dummy?"

"Oh. Huh." Carver couldn't remember dying, and that seemed like something that ought to be important enough to remember.

"You aren't supposed to come this way yet. You need to go back."

"What are you, the door guard?"

Bethany laughed through the tears that had started to stream down her cheeks. "Of course I'm not, but it's you. And I'm me." And we're connected, wherever we are. Neither one said it, but they both seemed to hear it.

Carver reached out hesitantly to touch her shoulder, but he couldn't. Bethany didn't move, but somehow their very surroundings seemed to twist and shift just enough to stop them from making contact. He frowned. "See what I mean? You shouldn't be here yet," Bethany said.

"Wherever you are, I should be there too," he said stubbornly. "We were born together. It isn't right. It… it hurts. All the time."

"I know it does," Bethany said softly. "But it isn't forever. Just for now."

Some force was tugging them apart. Carver struggled against it and tried to continue pushing forward, but he couldn't. There was too much to say to her and not enough time. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. The ogre, I mean," he said, raising his voice to be heard as he was pulled away.

"That was never your burden to carry. Leave it behind when you go. Or I'll figure out how to haunt you."

He laughed, but it turned into a sob halfway through.

"When you meet him, give him a hug from me," she called.

"What? Meet who?"

Bethany didn't say anything else as she grew further and further away, taking the sunshine with her. Then Adara's voice echoed in the dark: Come back to me.

Perhaps he couldn't follow his sister, but he could go back to Adara. She only ever had to ask. He realized that there was nothing he would deny her, which was definitely something to mull over once he got out of here. Carver followed the sound of her voice, trusting that it would lead him out of the dark.

.

.

"Hawke!"

Someone was shouting at him, and it was making his head hurt. "Shut up," Carver muttered. He wanted to keep his eyes closed: he had the nagging feeling that he was starting to forget something, like a dream was running from him upon waking. Maybe if he stayed in the dark just a bit longer, he could hang onto it. He'd been dreaming about something important, and it didn't feel right to forget it.

Someone slapped him across the face, and Carver's eyes snapped open. "What the fuck?" he growled.

Nolan was looking down at him. Carver might have expected the rogue to be pleased by getting to smack him after Carver had broken his nose months ago, but Nolan's face was drawn and pale. "You had that coming, mate. You alive?"

"Think so," Carver said. "What happened?"

Nolan opened his mouth and closed it again a few times like a fish, clearly at a loss. "Maker, just… just look around."

The harsh smell of burning wood and blackpowder smoke was accompanied by a lot of screaming and shouting. Slowly, Carver began to put the pieces back together: first, that Stroud was right about the blackpowder, and second, that they had failed to do anything about it in time.

"Adara?" he asked sharply, jerking into a sitting position so quickly that it hurt something in his chest. He tried to shield her once he realized they weren't going to stop the blast, he remembered that now.

"She's alive," Nathaniel said, though he didn't sound particularly relieved. They were both next to Carver: Adara curled up in the rubble, close enough to touch, and Nathaniel kneeling next to her. "I can't find any injuries, but she won't wake up." Alarmingly, Adara flickered. That was the only way Carver could describe it, anyway. It was like a light beneath her skin flashed once and then stopped. "And that's happened a couple of times," Nathaniel added unhappily.

Nathaniel reached out gingerly as if he was going to touch her face and stopped himself. He looked at Adara with an expression that might have made Carver's hackles rise in other circumstances, but it wasn't important now. Carver got to his knees and reached out to gently brush Adara's hair out of her face before touching her cheek. "'Dara?" he asked quietly. She stirred just enough to lean into his touch but that was all.

"After the explosion, I heard her screaming. By the time we got here, she was kneeling over you and glowing like the damn sun. Then this," he said, indicating her unconscious form with a spread hand. "Hawke, what happened?"

"How should I know?" Carver snapped. "I don't remember anything after the blackpowder went up." His chest still ached, and he looked down. His eyebrows shot up when he saw a gaping hole in the center of his chest plate. He could see down to his skin through it, which was whole but looked pinkish and new like a healing wound.

"Are you hurt?" Nathaniel asked.

"I don't think so." Carver poked his chest through the hole. Sodding weird.

"Then we need to get moving. We'll send a runner to the Keep and bring every able-bodied person to start rendering aid." Nathaniel surveyed their surroundings with horror in his eyes. "This is…" he trailed off and shook his head.

Carver really hadn't wanted to look around, but he did so now. An entire city block was more or less destroyed. Some of the buildings flanking the thoroughfare had collapsed, some were actively on fire, and a few were lucky enough to simply have giant craters blown into their walls.

The damage to the city itself wasn't the most pressing issue. After the Blight, Fereldans had to know better than anyone that things could be rebuilt. People, though… The street had been packed with people when the blackpowder ignited. Now it looked like the losing side of a battlefield. The only difference between Amaranthine and Ostagar was the lack of darkspawn tearing at the dead and wounded. And there hadn't been kids at Ostagar.

Nathaniel looked to Nolan. "Take Hawke and the commander to the bann's estate until I can get Oliver there. Then help me round up the rest of the Wardens… Maker, I hope none of them were on this street."

"I've got her. Then I'm coming to help," Carver insisted. "I'm fine." He was. Sore all over from being tossed around and weirdly a little short of breath, but he was definitely in better shape than nearly everyone else around them.

Nathaniel shook his head. "You're probably concussed if nothing else. I can't worry about you keeling over."

"I'm not—"

"Someone needs to stay with Adara," Nathaniel said evenly.

Carver scowled. That was a trump card and Nathaniel knew it.

"If she wakes up before Oliver gets to her, you know she isn't going to stay put," Nathaniel continued. "I don't want her wandering around until Oliver or someone can tell me what the hell is wrong with her." As if to emphasize his point, Adara's skin flickered a few more times in quick succession.

Carver carefully picked her up, and the men parted ways. Once Nolan and Nathaniel were too far away for the shared taint in their blood to be more than a distant call, Adara was the only other tainted soul in his immediately proximity. That led to another startling realization: she felt different. Carver could still sense the taint that othered them from the rest of the world, but the timbre of it had changed.

He had been trying not to worry, he really had, but this new discovery compounded with the weird flickering made it impossible not to start spiraling. Carver held her protectively, clutching her more firmly than was strictly necessary, but he couldn't protect Adara from whatever was happening inside of her.

"Maker, Adara, what did you do?"