Thank you for reading!
As Meredith disappeared, Orsino shook his head sorrowfully. "So. It's come to this." He glanced at Hawke. "I don't know if we can win this war, Champion, but … thank you." Turning to Bethany, he said with urgency, "We have to get to the Gallows at once. Before it's too late!"
Hawke looked quickly around her. The Templars had their weapons ready and were advancing. She drew her sword. "Go!" she said to her sister. "Hurry. We'll cover you."
She hadn't even needed to tell the others to be prepared; they were already standing at her sides, ready to face the oncoming foe. Even Anders.
"Not you, abomination," Fenris growled. "Stand down or I will kill you myself."
"But—"
"Blondie, haven't you done enough?" Varric's voice was quiet and weary. Shocked by the censure from the place he had most expected to find support, Anders subsided and sat down on a crate, outside the fray.
Hawke found it both odd and frustrating that the Templars were interested in attacking her and her people, and were letting Anders, who had confessed to the crime at hand, strictly alone. Then again, so much about Kirkwall had never made sense to her.
"Hawke. Are you sure about this?" Isabela asked softly.
"No. I wish I didn't have to. But I do."
And that was enough. They fought together as smoothly as they had for years, and within the hour, all the Templars were either dead or fleeing through the streets of the city.
Anders was still sitting on his crate, unmoved, as if the carnage had nothing to do with him.
"What in the Void am I going to do with you?" she asked him.
He shrugged.
"Don't you have anything to say?"
"I'm sure you do. You always have plenty of pronouncements to make. Well, go ahead and make them," he told her. "There's nothing you can say that I haven't already said to myself."
"I highly doubt that."
Anders went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I took a spirit into my soul and changed myself forever to achieve this. This is the justice all mages have awaited."
"It is not!" Merrill snapped. "This is murder, senseless and useless." Then she seemed to think of Marethari and of her clan, and she shrunk down again, leaning against a wall looking pale and sad.
"Did the spirit tell you to do this?" Varric asked, eagerly, as if he was hoping for a way not to see his friend as a monster. Hawke's heart ached for him. He had tried so hard to see the best in the mage.
"No," Anders said, but gently. His affection for Varric might be the only thing keeping him human. "When we merged, he ceased to be. I know that now. We are one, he and I. And I can no more ignore the injustices of the Circle than he could."
"So it's up to you to decide how things should be. How convenient," Hawke snapped.
"Should I have left it up to you, Champion?" He spat the title. "I haven't seen you improving the lot of mages recently."
"I never wanted it to be up to me," Hawke said wearily. "I wanted to be left alone, with my family. Then the Templars took my sister and a mage took my mother … and now another mage has taken my city. This … this can never be my home again. Not after today."
"Meredith did that."
"Only because you forced her hand!"
"It was obvious what needed to be done. And I was the only mage with the courage, and the freedom, to do it." He stood now, looking at Hawke with blazing eyes. "The people fear what we can do, but to use that fear to bludgeon us into submission is wrong. And they do it with our own blessing! Our strongest and brightest knuckle under to them with hardly a murmur."
Hawke didn't miss the slight on her sister.
Anders continued, "I saw a need for change, and a way to make sure that change must happen … and if I pay for that with my life, so be it. Then I pay. Perhaps then at least Justice would be free."
"Sebastian was there in that Chantry, Hawke," Fenris said hoarsely. "Our friend and companion. Why are you hesitating? You know what must be done. He wants to die? Well and good. Kill him and be done with it."
Isabela frowned. "It was a bold plan. You can see what he meant to do." She glanced at Fenris, her eyes soft. "But it misfired."
"Misfired," he repeated in disgust. "An inadequate word."
"It is," she agreed.
Merrill pushed herself off the wall. "He should come with us, do what he can to make things right."
"How could we trust him to do that, Merrill? Would you want him at your back, seeing what he did to any number of innocent people today?" Hawke looked down at Varric. "What do you think I should do?"
"I think …" He swallowed hard, the words coming thickly. "I think I'm sick of mages and Templars."
He turned away, and Anders' shoulders sagged. "Varric."
"No."
Nodding, Anders turned back to Hawke. "Whatever you're going to do, just do it."
"There is little time, Hawke," Fenris added urgently. Indeed, they could all hear cries and the clash of arms. The entire city was in an uproar.
Bethany had been right. To kill him was to make him a martyr. But leaving him alive left open the possibility of so many other things he might do. This current self-sacrificing mood would last only so long, and then what would happen? No. She couldn't risk it.
"You have to pay for what you've done," she told him.
"I understand. The sooner I die, the sooner my name lives on to inspire generations to come."
Hawke wanted to vomit at the sheer arrogant audacity of it. "If I have my way, the world will never know your name." Even as she spoke, she was drawing the dagger at her side. On the last word, she gave a vicious shove, stabbing him through the heart, and caught him as he fell against her.
"What are you going to do with him?" Varric asked hoarsely, his back still turned.
"Leave him here. We have no time for anything else. If you—if you want to come back later, then …" Her voice trailed off. Who knew if there would even be a later.
"Come on," Varric said, as if she hadn't spoken. "We'd all best get to the Gallows. I'm sure it's going to be quite a show." He was making an effort to sound like himself, but Hawke worried.
Isabela slung an arm over his shoulders as they started toward the Gallows. "Do you think the mages will reward us with magical jewelry? That's a thing, right?"
"Always the pirate, Rivaini."
"Well … naturally. You have to stick to your strengths."
Varric gave a faint chuckle, and Hawke blessed Isabela for always being the breath of fresh air they needed.