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The sickly green glow of the Fade, pulsing and churning, feels like it’s been pulled directly from the pit of Adaar’s stomach. It’s impossible to ignore the Nightmare—its grotesque legs and too many bulging eyes and massive pincers—but even that horror can’t root as deeply as Alistair’s stern determination or Hawke’s fierce demand.
Adaar’s jaw clenches; she makes the only choice she can. “Hawke…”
Hawke nods, decisive, then leans in abruptly. So close that all Adaar can see is the mottled scar stretching crimson across the bridge of her nose, the flash of eyes as blue as the memory of sky.
“He’s waiting for me in Lothering,” she mutters, more a movement of lips than any discernible sound. The heartbreak in Hawke’s eyes says more than any name possibly could. “Find him.”
“I will.”
Hawke’s grip tightens around the hilt of her massive greatsword as she raises it above her head and hurtles toward the Nightmare. Adaar is already turning away, shoving Alistair toward the tear in the Fade where Dorian and Blackwall and Varric have already escaped, when she hears a regretful echo of a life cut short:
I’m sorry, Anders.
— — —
Adaar endures.
Her voice is sure as she absolves the Wardens. Her shoulders are squared as Blackwall stands drawn and distant, as Dorian waves away the Iron Bull’s fussing with a shaking hand, as Varric disappears under a heavy cloud of heartbreak. Her expression is careful as all around her soldiers assess their injuries, look for their missing and fallen comrades, prepare to break camp and leave this accursed place.
But as soon as she picks her way through piles of rubble to an out-of-the-way shadowy corner, she slumps against the wall and buries her face in her hands.
It’s not long before she hears the clank of well-worn armor, smells elderflower and oakmoss beneath smoke and grime. She doesn’t wait for Cullen to speak before she turns, burrowing into his arms and drawing a shaky breath.
“Herah,” he whispers. He presses a gloved hand to the back of her head and cradles her close, wrapping his other arm tightly around her waist. His embrace is steady, unyielding. “Thank the Maker.”
She claims this moment, for once; damn duty and the makeshift War Table in Cullen’s tent and the next impending disaster. She claims it like she claims Cullen’s mouth: with desperation and fervor, seeking peace in the parting of his wind-chapped lips beneath hers, seeking stillness in the arms keeping her from cracking at the seams.
That they’re together, unharmed, is a grace too powerful to name—
Except it does have a name. More than one.
I’m sorry, Anders.
Adaar reluctantly breaks the kiss, shaking her head firmly and forcing herself to stand upright. Cullen lets her go without protest, but keeps a hand on her lower back as they follow the next wave of soldiers through the splintered gates of Adamant.
“Thank Hawke,” she says, finally. “We owe her everything, Cullen. That’s why I can’t return to Skyhold, not yet.”
He halts and stares up at her, incredulous. “What could be more important than making sure you’re safe?”
“My word. I… promised Hawke I would find Anders.”
“That is the opposite of safe,” Cullen argues immediately, eyes darkening with remembered pain. “What do you expect to accomplish, Inquisitor? You have no idea what that—” His mouth snaps shut, a gathering storm on his brow as he chooses his words with obvious difficulty. “You have no idea what that man is capable of.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be?” she snaps. Any other time she would be ashamed at how quickly her own frustration rises and settles hot under her skin, but right now she is worn and drained and tired. “All right, Commander. When should the almighty Inquisition deign to bestow mercy? Less than a hundred deaths? A thousand? Should I turn myself in for judgment, then, seeing that I have more blood on my hands than most people can even imagine—”
“Kirkwall has taken enough from me! I will not lose you, too!”
His cheeks are flush with mingled anger and shame and—now that she knows to look for it—a fear so deep it tears at her heart.
“Cullen…”
“I am unworthy,” he rasps, turning away, his hand falling to his side. “I told you that I am unworthy of this.”
“You’re not the Inquisitor,” she reminds him, voice low and commanding, clasping armor-clad shoulders beneath furry pauldrons. “I am. I say whether or not you’re worthy.”
He shudders. Swallows heavily. Murmurs, so that only she can hear, “Yes, Herah.”
It’s only after he sways a little against her, a softening of tension beneath her hands, that she adds gently, “I will be coming back, and I won’t be going alone. I’ll have to impose on Dorian a little longer, and you know Bull and Sera will insist on accompanying us.”
Cullen sighs; it seems pulled from the depths of his very being. He rubs the back of his neck, but offers no further resistance.
“Thank you for trusting me,” she murmurs finally. “Can I trust you to see to his protection, in turn? I won’t bring him to Skyhold only to have him mistreated.”
“I can protect him, and I will,” he vows, so solemn and sure that she unreservedly believes him. “No matter his crimes… you’re right. I owe Hawke a thousand times over, and…” He falters for only a moment before meeting her eyes. “I know you have a plan. You always do.”
— — —
It’s a tiring trek from Orlais to Ferelden, and then to the hollowed-out husk of a Lothering still rebuilding from the Blight. While Adaar and Bull and Dorian stay hidden in a little copse of trees outside the village—no need to cause alarm with a sighting of two Qunari and a Tevinter mage—Sera slips in amongst the townsfolk. She returns in a few short hours with word of a medical clinic lit by a lantern that rarely goes out, and a haunted healer that appears to be as Fade-touched as he is generous, as gifted as he is troubled.
The lantern isn’t extinguished until mere hours before dawn. Adaar keeps time in her head—a minute, three minutes, five—before she motions to her companions and leads them through the shadows to the back door hiding in an empty alley. She’s prepared to reach for the lockpicking tools at her belt but the door swings open at her touch.
They only manage a few creaking steps into the building before a figure whirls on them: a gaunt face crackling blue, a raised staff, slender shoulders drawn and prepared to fight. “This is a place of safety,” a voice booms. “Threaten it at your peril.”
“We mean you no harm,” Adaar announces hastily, slipping into the moonlight filtering through the window. She pulls off her left glove, and raises her hands in appeasement. “We’re here at Hawke’s behest.”
Glowing eyes study her thoroughly, from the tips of her horns to the green light flaring from her palm, and then gradually fade. “Inquisitor,” Anders—for it must be him, and the spirit of Justice Hawke took great pains to conceal—says, confused and a little stunned. “But—how—”
“Hawke told me where to find you.”
“She would never,” Anders hisses, his hand tightening around the staff.
Adaar doesn’t drop her gaze, though her tone gentles. “Hawke led us to the Wardens. To Alistair Theirin, and then to Adamant Fortress. We fell into the Fade, where there was a demon—”
“No,” he protests; his hands start to shake.
“—and she engaged it, so we could escape—”
“Maker, no.”
Anders falls to his knees and retches, though nothing spills from his trembling, twisted lips. His staff tumbles through his hands and clatters to the floor as he wraps his arms around his waist, body wracked with uncontrollable tremors and flickering blue. “It was supposed to be me,” he rasps.
Adaar reaches for him and manages only a hand on his shoulder before he jerks away. “Release me.”
“All right,” she soothes. Out of the corner of her eye she sees several things at once: fire swirling around a focusing crystal on Dorian’s staff pointed at Anders’ throat, Sera’s nimble hands plucking at the bowstring and nocking an arrow, Bull shifting in place with axe and teeth bared. Adaar gestures once, a quick stand down.
And then she kneels down, directly in Anders’ line of sight.
Bull’s voice is tight. “Boss.”
She doesn’t acknowledge him. Says simply, softly, “Her last words were for you. She said, ‘l”m sorry, Anders.’”
Anders’ head snaps up and he—the spirit?—stares at her, through her, with unblinking eyes. “Hawke would not leave us in such a manner. Speak the truth, mortal.”
“She asked me,” Adaar confesses under a jagged weight of grief. “She demanded to stay, and I granted her wish.”
The smell of lyrium pervades the air, Anders’ pale face becoming gouged with lightning.
“One move and I kill you where you stand,” Dorian warns.
Anders’ mouth splits into a terrifying grin, his voice human-brittle. “Such threats have never stopped me before.”
Magic flares in his hands and Adaar moves; before her companions can converge she throws herself on the ground, rolls, until she’s got an immobilizing arm locked around his chest and a dagger pressed against his back.
“Do it,” he growls, leaning into her. “Killing seems to be your expertise, after all.”
Adaar lets the words slide away, into a distant place to examine later. Not now, not with her friends restless with defensive rage, not with the splintered pieces of a broken man in her arms. “We won’t be a tool to end your suffering, Anders. I’m sorry. I owe Hawke a debt, and I intend to see it repaid. You’re coming with us.”
“Blood begets blood,” he snarls. Over his shoulder, she sees his lip slick with red and bitten through. “How do you know I won’t blow your precious Inquisition to rubble as soon as I have the chance?”
“You won’t,” she says immediately. “I could tell you that we’re saving people, not destroying them. That mages are our allies, not our subjects. But Hawke trusted us—trusted me— which means you will, too.”
Anders laughs— though it’s less a laugh and more a hysterical, frantic choke. “For all the good it did her.”
Adaar doesn’t say a word as she lets him go. Weapons rise around her and she sheathes her dagger, getting to her feet and circling his crumpled form.
The haunting twist of Anders’ mouth slowly dims as he presses a glowing hand to his forehead, sitting still and quiet as if listening to voices just out of reach. When he finally looks up, it’s with amber eyes that are already dead. “I suppose I don’t have a choice,” he says dully. “Do what you will.”