Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fenris wakes to a bright winter morning. He squints in the sunlight, trying to squirm deeper into the pile of heavy woolen blankets to hide his face from the cold. Then he realizes he doesn’t see Hawke lying beside him. The fear jolts him well and truly awake—where is he? Captured during the night? Injured somewhere, in need of aid?

Something shifts against Fenris’s chest. Something scratchy. Oh. That would be Hawke’s beard. He lifts the blankets and peers down.

Hawke is wrapped around him, shielded by the blankets from the wintry air. He mutters something, turns his face into Fenris’s chest, kisses him sleepily.

Fenris relaxes. Everything is fine, or as fine as it can be in these circumstances. He pulls the blankets up past his chin. That’s better. (The last slavers’ caravan they attacked was well-supplied—a blessing, considering the harsh winter.) They’re both unclothed, a consequence of the lazy, slow sex that they sort of fell into last night when Fenris was just starting to doze. It’s nice, right now, to lie here warm and nominally safe, hidden from the world by acres of thick pine forest, Hawke’s skin on his.

“Are we waking up?” Hawke mumbles.

Fenris strokes his back. “No, not yet.”

“Mm.” A deep sigh. “I love you.”

“And I you.”

“More than…Aveline loves laws.”

Fenris smiles at the pines towering over them.

“More than…Varric loves dirty stories.”

He shuts his eyes for a moment. He thinks of Kirkwall often, even with over a year gone since they fled. His time there, the—friends he’d made…he took it for granted then, despite himself, but now it has become something unbearably precious, something he can only hope to find again one day.

“More than…Isabela loves taking off her clothes.”

“Are you certain?” Fenris remarks. “Surely that’s not possible.”

“That’s how much I love you.” Hawke squeezes him with one arm.

A breeze shivers the pines and chills the tips of Fenris’s ears. But the rest of him is warm. It’s been months since they made their escape from the island of Emirius, since Fenris last saw the relentless landslide of Hawke’s anger breach its levees and turn Hawke into someone dangerous and unfamiliar. Since then he’s been calmer, steadier, not so weighted down. Back to the old Hawke, or almost, anyway. He still can’t be the champion he was in Kirkwall—in hostile territory, with only one ally, there’s a lot of people he just can’t save. Fenris has watched it wear on him ever since they left.

But he’s adapting. Fenris thinks. Hopes.

One of the horses snorts, off at the edge of the clearing. Perhaps impatient from being tied up so long. Well, it’s going to have to wait. Fenris closes his eyes again.

——

They pull the horses up at the treeline, halting next to a wide field covered in short rows of winter wheat. The land here has been deforested to make way for a number of farms, and a few miles further out there’s a walled town with a broad dirt road winding between the farms and up to its gate.

Hawke nods at the town. “Larannis. That’s where the fortress is.”

Fenris shades his eyes from the midday sun. Since crossing over from the Anderfels, they’ve been tracking a particularly vicious cadre of slavers who patrol the Anderfels-Tevinter border, preying on elves who try to flee the country. Hawke’s subtle inquiries eventually revealed where they’re headquartered, and Fenris is looking forward to painting his blade with the blood of slavers again.

“I’ll go into town and gather information. I’d invite you along, but, well…” Hawke gives him an apologetic grin. “You’re a bit conspicuous.”

He’s not wrong. Fenris has been dying his hair black, but the lyrium lines are harder to hide. Meanwhile, Hawke is just another man, and one particularly adept at disappearing in plain sight. Fenris sighs. “Yes, I know. I’ll take stock of the area.”

“All right. I’ll meet you back here tonight. Hopefully not too late.” Hawke spurs his horse forward.

Fenris watches him ride off down the road toward Larannis.

——

It’s not hard to tell the slavers from the farmers, and Fenris sees both in his investigations. Apparently they leave patrols in the outlying homes for quicker deployment. Fenris, lurking in the trees, watches the tetrad of men stroll from the nearest farmhouse, laughing to each other, buckling their sword belts as they walk. Inconvenient, but Fenris can mitigate that with a good count and an accurate mapping of their paths. He heads along the treeline, aiming for a better vantage point.

There are a few trees that aren’t pines, sturdy maples and oaks stark and empty with the winter, creating gaps in the dense evergreen canopy. He finds one near the edge of the forest, climbs up it and perches there for the afternoon to watch and take mental notes of the important information. A skill he learned from Hawke, in return for lessons in how to speak Tevinter. The waiting he’s not so skilled at. His fingers itch to curl around his sword-hilt, and his body misses the fluid martial forms, the blocks and parries, slashes and thrusts. Instead he must sit here, motionless, and observe. He sighs, his breath puffing out in front of him. How does Hawke do it?

A whisper, behind him.

Fenris turns, staring through the branches into the forest, still well-lit with an orange sunset cast. No one there. Not that he expected it—it sounded more as if the whisper came from somewhere at the base of his skull. Is he hearing things?

Again, the whisper. Fenris whips around. He’s alone.

A third time. He can make out the words now. A woman’s voice. There you are.

Magic.

This is bad. He clambers down from the tree, nearly tearing his hands on the rough bark, and strides into the forest. Anything to conceal himself.

I thought I’d have to visit the Anderfels to hunt you down. But you came to me. How obliging. The voice crawling deeper, infiltrating his head like a worm through soil.

He tries to shut it out, like closing his ears to an unpleasant conversation. It works for about a half-second, the voice fading to a distant garble before slithering to the fore again. Trying to block me? I don’t think so. I have you. I have your blood.

Fenris halts, dead leaves crackling under his feet. What? Who are you?

I hadn’t been to Emirius in a while. The place still reeks of mud and decay. I don’t know how my sister could stand it. But I suppose she doesn’t need to anymore, thanks to that barbarian you’ve been following across half the continent.

Fenris half-smiles and starts walking again. You’re Jenelia’s sister?

A liquid hiss. Yes.

He thinks of the cruel woman who kept him captive on that hateful island, had him tortured—thinks of the last time he saw her, Hawke’s dagger through her eye. I can’t say I’m sorry for your loss. Quite happy about it, to be honest.

I’m going to make you pay. The voice ripples with anger. Rhesius was kind enough to give me his switch when I paid him a visit. Still stained with your blood. Not much, but enough. You can’t get away from me now.

Damn blood mages. Fenris ducks under a low branch, long needles brushing his face. You don’t even know where I am. If you did, you’d be coming after me, not making empty threats.

I don’t need to know where you are, elf.

Fenris freezes. There’s a shade in the woods, not ten yards in front of him, its terrible bright eyes glowing out of the shifting mass of viscous darkness. He draws his blade, scanning wildly. How could he have missed it? And they’re never alone—

It’s gone.

He rotates slowly, still scanning. Where did it go? Where did it come from in the first place? But the woods are empty, save for the shaggy shadows of needle-laden branches, fluttering silently over the forest floor.

Nothing. No one here, no one in his head. Fenris waits, in case the woman speaks to him again, but she appears to be satisfied for the moment. So he sheathes his sword and turns to head back toward Larannis.

He almost runs into Danarius.

Fenris jolts, a half-choked noise clawing out of his throat. The wrench of terror in his gut turns his legs numb and senseless, and he stumbles and falls, scrambling backward over the leaves. It doesn’t make sense. Danarius is dead—and he is dead, standing there, his skin sallow and contracted, pulled taut over jutting bones, the thunderhead bruise of livor mortis creeping around the back of his neck.

He opens his mouth to speak. His rotting teeth are in disarray, gums brown and receded. “You can’t get away from me now,” he croaks, shriveled tongue flicking between white, wrinkled lips. “I’m going to make you pay.”

Fenris stays where he is, hands planted on the carpet of leaves. Danarius stands there, patient and still. A cold wind gusts through the pines, blowing Fenris’s bangs into his eyes. Danarius’s robes, the rich indigo cloth now threadbare and faded, remain unmoved.

At last Fenris climbs to his feet. “You’re not going to make me pay. You’re not even here.”

A smile opens on Danarius’s atrophied face.

Fenris brushes past him. “Hallucinations won’t scare me.”

He makes his way through the trees, trying to ignore the rustling that follows him, the brush of robes dragging across the forest floor.

Chapter Text

As the sunset fades into a cold, clear twilight, Fenris makes his way back to the meeting point, mind whirling. What in the Void is he supposed to do about this? The woman knows they’re here, so they obviously can’t mount an assault. Not against a blood mage with this many soldiers at her disposal. Far too great a risk, with a negligible chance of success. The problem is how to convince Hawke to stand down. Fenris briefly entertains the idea of telling him the truth, but that will no doubt have exactly the opposite of the desired effect. He remembers Hawke crouched over Jenelia’s prone form, his anger so vivid it was like a living being, like a creature dwelling just under his skin, moving his limbs for its own ends. If Hawke found out her sister was here…

Fenris never wants to see that anger again. For both their sakes.

He reaches the field of winter wheat and sits at the base of a tree. What, then? How to dissuade him? Some elaborate lie? The mere notion sends off little sparks of guilt, and Fenris pulls his knees closer to his chest. Perhaps just asking Hawke to trust him? That won’t work either. Hawke harbors far too much enmity for slavers to turn away without a reason. If he still thinks there’s a chance, he’ll take it.

There isn’t a chance. She knows we’re coming. She knows who we are. She has my blood.

“You won’t escape.” Danarius paces, milky eyes trained on Fenris. “You’ll be caught again.”

Fenris bites back a reply. Useless to snap at thin air.

Danarius crouches. “Do you think you’ll like it? To be owned once more? I think you’ll like it.” His skeletal fingers trace down Fenris’s face.

It’s an apparition. Fenris knows that, knows. Yet he feels the soft, wrinkled fingertips brushing his skin. He shudders convulsively, lurches to his feet, stalks away to sit against a different tree. As if that’ll help.

“It’s not worth it.”

Fenris starts and turns. There’s another elf sitting next to him. He has only one eye, the other gone, nothing remaining but a broken socket, crusted with dried flesh and rust-brown remnants of blood. “You might as well give up,” he says. “They might not hurt you so much if you surrender.”

Quenta, from Emirius. The first elf he killed. The first elf they made him kill. Fenris balls his hands into fists, relaxes them. “I’d rather be punished than surrender.” 

Quenta sighs, his thin chest deflating under the chainmail. “Maybe for the first few days. But you won’t be like that forever.”

Danarius is there too, and he leans over. “Did you have to darken your hair? I rather liked it in white.” 

Fenris sits perfectly still, letting Danarius stroke his hair. He’s not here. Fenris reminds himself of that. Yet the sensation is familiar, and it dredges up from the shadowed depths of his past an unmistakable comfort. He regards the feeling with disgust, yet cannot banish it, nor can he banish the apparition. Instead Danarius remains there, still stroking him gently. Quenta sits on the other side, tracing the jagged rim of his ruined socket with absent fingers. 

——

The sight of Hawke leading his horse into the trees is relief beyond measure. Fenris stands, glancing to either side. His constant companions have not disappeared. 

The black look on Hawke’s face tempers his relief somewhat. 

“Dozens of them,” Hawke mutters. “They’ve got dozens of captives. All stowed away on the top floor of that fortress. The slavers keep money flowing in the town, too. I doubt we’ll find any help there.”

Fenris approaches him, hesitating. This might be even more difficult than he’d expected.

“They’ve got mages working for them. Made a big deal about the one at the top. New commander, it seems. From the rumors, she’s a force to be reckoned with.”

That must be Jenelia’s sister. Fenris takes Hawke’s arm. “Let’s find a place to set up camp.”

His own horse is hitched in a small clearing further in, and that’s the spot they choose, Hawke kneeling to start a fire while Fenris stares at the saddlebags and says nothing. Danarius pats the horse’s neck beside him. “An unimpressive specimen. Certainly poorer than any of the breeds I kept.”

Fenris turns away. Quenta stands at the edge of the clearing, the first flickers of flame creating a flurry of shadows in his empty socket. Curse them. Both of them. Why won’t they leave him alone already? “Hawke.”

“Hm?”

“I do not think it is wise to continue this undertaking.”

Hawke stares. “Why?”

How much to say? “That mage you mentioned, the…force to be reckoned with—she spoke to me, earlier. In my head. She knows we’re here.”

Hawke stands, coming around the fire. “What? How?”

Fenris shrugs, pretending ignorance. “She…sensed my lyrium, perhaps? I’m not sure.”

“But why would she do that? Reveal she knows about us?” Hawke runs fingers through his beard. “She must be afraid of what we can do. Tried to scare you off.”

Damn. Fenris grimaces. “I believe she meant to harm me. She…cast some sort of spell on me. It caused me to hallucinate.”

The thoughtfulness on Hawke’s face fractures away, replaced by concern. “She did? Are you all right?”

“I—yes. It didn’t last long.” Fenris curses himself for lying, but he doesn’t want to give Hawke any more reason to go after this woman. “My markings do grant me some resistance to magic—perhaps she wasn’t expecting that.”

“Hm.” Hawke crouches again by the fire. “So basically we’ve lost the element of surprise.”

“Yes.” Fenris waits, prays it’s enough.

But Hawke shakes his head. “We have to go through with it anyway. Do you know the count I heard? Forty-eight. They’ve got forty-eight people there.”

It doesn’t matter. She knows who we are, she’ll never let us get close enough to free them. Fenris swallows the protestations and tries again. “Perhaps we should come back another time? If she leaves Larannis, the fortress will certainly be more vulnerable to—“

Hawke cuts him off. “No. I won’t let those people be sold off just because I might get hurt.”

Danarius chuckles, walking closer. “Forty-eight. All this for forty-eight elves. Does he know how many slaves there are in the Imperium?”

Fenris’s gaze flicks up to him, but he forces his eyes back to Hawke. “If she knows we’re coming—a blood mage, with an entire fortress of soldiers—do you really think we can succeed?”

Hawke frowns and rises. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve never minded a little danger in the past.”

It’s you, Hawke. She wants you. She’ll never let you get to the captives. Fenris struggles to put together a reply. “It’s just…I—“

Danarius has slunk behind Hawke, the fire casting deep shadows across his ridged cheekbones and sunken eyes. His lips peel back from his rotting teeth.

Fenris forces the words out, ejecting them from the part of his mind that’s still focused on the task at hand. “—I don’t want us to get captured or killed on a fool’s mission. There are other cadres, ones without powerful blood mages at the helm. Ones that aren’t warned of our presence.”

Hawke watches him coolly. Fenris catches it—the cast of disappointment. 

There’s no time to let it hurt him because Danarius plunges his hand through Hawke’s back. 

Fenris starts. Blood drips from Danarius’s bony fingers onto Hawke’s armor. Fenris’s breath catches hard, as if Danarius’s arm had gone through his own chest instead. 

“Fenris? What’s wrong?” Hawke strides forward, disimpaling himself, grasps Fenris’s shoulders. “You look terrified.”

“Fine. I’m fine,” Fenris mutters, trying not to notice the profuse cascade of red spilling from Hawke’s chest and splattering on the leaves at their feet.

“No you’re not,” Hawke says. “The hallucinations—they haven’t gone away, have they?”

Damn him. Fenris shakes his head. “Not—entirely.”

“What are you seeing?”

Any mention of Danarius will just set him off even further. So Fenris deflects. “Corpses, mostly. And—Quenta. The first elf they made me kill on Emirius.”

Hawke takes his face in one hand and kisses him gently.

Hawke’s skin is already drying, his calluses contracted against Fenris’s face, the muscle beneath going to rot and shrinking down to bone. His lips have lost the softness they had in life, now wrinkled and waxy against Fenris’s own. 

Fenris has had experience kissing people he didn’t want to. One skill he learned during his time in Minrathous. So he distances himself, casting his mind to someplace far away, surrounded by nothing. Where nothing touches him. He kisses Hawke back.

It’s over soon enough, Hawke breaking away. “Look, why don’t we sleep on it?”

What’s the use? You’re already dead. Fenris nods. “Yes.”

Hawke goes to the fire again and crouches, warming his shrunken hands. Blood drips from his armor onto his bent knees.

“Hm.” Danarius taps his chin, leaving a tiny smear of red in his beard. “Too bad. He was quite handsome.”

Hawke’s skin continues to contract, pulling away from his eyes. Fenris shivers. 

Quenta shakes his head. “You should have given up.” Strokes the floor of his broken socket as if searching for something there. Something he’s lost.

——

Fenris lies with Hawke at his back, as always. That was something he never took for granted. Every night it was a comfort nearly too wonderful to be believed. Every night a new reminder that his life was truly his own. 

Hawke’s beard, brittle in death, scrapes the skin of Fenris’s neck. His arm is wasted away, yet still clutches Fenris close, the rigor mortis having frozen it like an iron band around his chest. Fenris presses a hand to his mouth, although he’s not sure why. To stop himself from crying out? To avoid inhaling the stench of rot? To suffocate himself, so he no longer has to live beside a corpse? His breath condenses on his palm.

Danarius stands in front of him, smiling. “I’m glad I found you again. I missed you, Fenris. Quite a bit.”

Fenris squeezes his eyes shut. You’re not here. And Hawke’s not dead (despite the emaciated arm, the bones showing through—). It’s magic. Blood magic. That woman toying with his head.

He exhales, the puff of breath escaping through his closed fingers. Perhaps sleep will provide him some reprieve.

Quenta lies at the edge of the clearing. His arms are splayed, red roots trailing from them and down into the dirt. His one remaining eye watches the stars.

——

There is no reprieve. In his dreams Danarius has power again—the same kind of power he had when he owned Fenris, where there was no hope of resistance, and no reason to even think of it. He wields his blood magic gleefully, slicing through forty-eight throats, the blood flushing his robes a rich dark red. Hawke’s corpse becomes his puppet, staggering toward Fenris with dogged determination. Fenris tries to run, but something catches him, and he looks down. Quenta is still lying there with arms dissected open, the red roots anchoring him to soil. And his hand locked around Fenris’s ankle.

Hawke’s eyes are clouded over, staring at nothing. But he embraces Fenris, clutching him tightly, crushing his ribs. Fenris struggles to breathe. Without success. He gasps and gasps, face tilted back toward the starless sky. Danarius strokes his hair. “It’s all right,” he says. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

“You hurt me,” Fenris chokes out. “All the time. Even though I never deserved it.”

Danarius’s mouth flattens out to a severe frown. “Nonsense. Why would I hurt you if you didn’t deserve it?”

His skin burns, the lyrium responding to his fear. Of course. How could he be so stupid? Fenris calls on the lyrium, the markings surging. He lets the burn course over him, welcoming it because it means he has power, has the ability to fight back. Then, at last, he slips its leash. 

It explodes out of him, blasting away the iron band constricting his chest, splitting Quenta’s grasping hand, throwing Danarius back. Fenris stumbles forward. Away. He needs to get away. Danarius’s voice fades behind him. “Oh,” it says. “You’ve destroyed my new creation.” 

Fenris trips over something, almost losing his balance. It’s an arm, alone, cast off carelessly from its body.

He keeps going and doesn’t look back.

There are no stars. There is no moon. He pulls light from his tattoos to illuminate his way. He advances without knowing where he’s going, able to see only a few feet ahead, but blundering on because he has to escape, from Danarius, from Quenta, from what’s left of Hawke. Forty-eight dark shapes slip by on either side, silent and monolithic, like gravestones.

And then he’s free of them. The space opens around him, as if he’s emerged from belowground to the world outside. Surer now, he goes forward, no longer stumbling. A shadow flickers in the night, far off, like some kind of cursed flame that throws off darkness rather than light. He veers away from it, afraid, still afraid. 

A searing pain shoots up the back of his shoulder. 

He yells out and falls to the ground, waking up at last. The grass does little to cushion his fall. The pain doesn’t abate, only worsens, spreading over him, following the lines of his tattoos. He tries to reach around his back to see what’s causing it. There’s something stuck there—but the mere touch of it burns his fingers, and he jerks away. Tries to stand, but his muscles seem reluctant, spasming under shocks radiating from his lyrium lines; he rises on shaky legs only to fall a second later. So instead he crawls. Something hurt him. Something must be coming for him. The rustle of grass. The thud of bootsteps, drawing nearer. Muttered voices.

“Can’t believe that actually worked.” A woman.

A man, responding. “Huh. Looks like Cornelia knows what she’s doing.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s wrap him up and go get our bonus.”

Fenris tries to turn, but too late. A heavy strike to his temple. He slips out of consciousness again, this time with no corpses embracing him, no sneering master to send him off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Fenris opens his eyes and sees bars.

A cell? Is he dreaming about Emirius again? But no, this place is different. The floor isn’t natural stone, but blocks instead, sealed with mortar.

As soon as he tries to rise he nearly throws up.

His retching appears to alert the guards, who exchange a few words before one of them strides off. A thought struggles through the cloud of misery (the bilious taste at the back of his mouth is very unpleasant) that now might be an opportune time to mount an escape. It spins away quickly, overwhelmed by the heaving of his chest, the hundred knots pulling tight in his gut.

Fenris manages not to throw up. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. He wipes his mouth and discovers his hands are manacled together. Why do they bother? But perhaps he’ll wait to escape them until later, when he’s not feeling quite so…wrong.

That’s all the sense he can make of it. It’s as if his body is trying to vibrate out of his very skin. The lyrium—an integral part of him, more and more so over the years, the invocation growing more responsive and facile, even the burn dulling out over time—has suddenly become intrusive. The lines feel thick, restless, lain-on rather than inscribed. Worse even than the first day he had them. And they’re not being kind to him at the moment. He shivers, feeling as if his skin is being scraped from the inside.

His memory strives to supply him with answers, but it can’t give him much. He remembers his capture, the—whatever it was lodging in his back and setting his markings into this frenzy. (At least they’re not shocking him anymore. Although he’s starting to envisage them as some feral beast that’s been yoked to him against either of their wills, the two of them settled into a volatile truce that the creature is waiting, with baited breath, to break.)

His recollection rolls back further, to that awful dream he had—he tries to push some parts of it from his mind, but the later half, when he was stumbling among those dark shapes…he must have been sleepwalking. Through the trees, out of the forest and into the fields surrounding the road to Larannis. That’s why he woke up in the grass and not next to Hawke. Who’s dead and rotted, his corpse—

Fenris shakes his head vigorously—a poor decision, as his vision starts spinning and he has to swallow another surge of bile. Hawke isn’t dead, or wasn’t the last time Fenris saw him, anyway. He casts a wary eye about his cell. Danarius and Quenta have vanished, Quenta perhaps back to that damned marsh, and Danarius, hopefully, to an afterlife of eternal torment. There’s one blessing. He sits against the wall, letting the coolness of the stone soak into his skin. Shifting, he discovers that the strange object is still stuck in his back. With the nettled sparking of the lyrium, he hadn’t even noticed the pain. Doing his utmost to emulate Hawke’s trademark subtlety, Fenris scrapes his back down the wall, attempting to dislodge the object without alerting the guard. It’s no use anyway—whatever it is, it’s embedded deep in his flesh. With his hands bound, he can’t reach it either.

“Had any pleasant dreams lately?”

Fenris exhales, making a great effort to control his flaring anger. It won’t help him here. This woman is after Hawke, and Fenris is the only one who knows that. So he needs to be smart. Smart like Hawke.

He can see the resemblance—the woman standing beyond the bars shares Jenelia’s beady black eyes, the sliver-thin lips, and most of all that insufferable smugness. Unlike her sister, she wears robes of inky blue. Fenris stretches his legs out, extending his toes. “So, you’ve caught me. Very inventive, with the sleepwalking. Allow me to offer my congratulations.”

“Oh, you’re not the prize, elf. You’re the bait.”

He smiles, the anger controlled now, fading to an unsettled buzz at the back of his head. “I must be some kind of prize. Else I’d be dead already.”

Her lips thin even further in displeasure. “I will admit you are…valuable. I am unfamiliar with the process that laid these markings into your skin, and I hesitate to—damage you until I have more information.”

Fenris snorts. “Unfortunately for you, the man who did this is dead, and was far too greedy to share his secrets with anyone. But worry not—a mere decade or two of research and experimentation should provide you with the information you seek.”

She waves a dismissive hand. “I have you. That’s good enough.”

Fenris watches her for a moment. “Cornelia, is it?” The name he heard as he lay in the frosted grass, his lyrium ripping the strength from his muscles.

The woman hesitates. “Yes.”

“Your sister thought she’d make a slave of me again.” He inspects his manacles idly. “I warned her it wouldn’t take. As it happens, we never got a chance to find out who was right.”

Cornelia bristles at the threat, but calms, smoothing her robes. “My sister was…not prepared. I am. I’ve put significant resources toward learning about you and that scheming lover of yours. He will come for you, and when he does, he will be made to pay for his transgressions.”

Fenris maintains his detached expression, but this whole situation has him worried. Hawke depends heavily on the element of surprise, on keeping his opponents off-balance. But it sounds like Cornelia has built herself a strong foundation to stand on.

So it’s up to him.

He rises to his feet with care. “Jenelia thought she had him, you know. Thought she had everything under control. The dagger in her eye proved differently. I do hope you’re the clever one, because otherwise you don’t stand the ghost of a chance.”

Cornelia’s wrinkles deepen, her face pursed with hate. “How dare you speak about her like that?”

Fenris ambles closer. “The events speak for themselves, don’t you think? So overconfident in her power that she let herself be blindsided by—oh, forgive me, a poor choice of words on my part—“

Cornelia steps up to the bars, seething. “You forget I have your blood, you wretched creature, and I will see you hurt—“

The distance between them cut down enough so she won’t have time to react. Foolish of her to get this close. She’s about to pay for it. Fenris calls on his markings, shifting aside the unfamiliarity and dragging them under his will again, forcing the magic to permeate his flesh—

He cries out more in surprise than pain, although it does hurt, the shocks radiating out from his lyrium lines and making him collapse to the stone. It’s worst at his wrists, where the metal manacles pick up the electricity, his skin searing beneath. It doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds, but it leaves him curled up, panting, and—again—sick to his stomach.

He grimaces at that savage beast he’s yoked to, regarding him now with a feral grin.

Cornelia laughs lightly above him.

What he wouldn’t give to put a knife through her eye, too. Maybe both her eyes.

“I know what you can do, elf. There were plenty of witnesses on Emirius. I took precautions.”

Fenris considers sitting up to save his dignity and decides it’s not worth the effort. “Pre—precautions?” he gasps.

“A very special—and expensive—arrowhead. Currently tucked safely in your back, I believe,” she says. “It transforms energy. In this case, from magical to electrical.”

So his lines of lyrium are now rather lines of electricity. Dormant, they’re not so bad—he can handle the discomfort and nausea—but any time he tries to use them, he’ll just end up shocking himself. That’s…somewhat humiliating. He does sit up now, pushing off the floor. “Clever.”

“Thank you. I was quite pleased with the idea myself.”

Fenris is forced to accept the fact that he won’t be getting out of here anytime soon. Two guards aren’t so bad, and, unlike the mountain on Emirius, this fortress is small enough so that he could likely find an exit in reasonable time. But with the loss of his power, the ability to turn himself into something unhindered by mere flesh or metal—he’s trapped.

Hawke could get out. Hawke can pick locks and trick prison guards and stir up as much chaos as he needs to cover his escape. Fenris sits back against the wall, disgruntled. Perhaps it’s time for him to expand his skill set beyond ripping hearts out and cutting people in half. He supposes he does speak three languages, and parts of several more. Yes. His secret weapon. He’ll be out of here in no time.

“I’ll just leave you with your thoughts.” Cornelia turns to go. “Perhaps you can all make friends. Although they’re being transported tonight, so I’m afraid you won’t have long to get to know each other.”

Friends? What is she talking about? Fenris watches her retreat down the hallway, then starts to scan the other cells. He doesn’t need to look very far. All the cells are empty except the one across from him.

He’d thought it, too, was empty, but a closer look reveals he was wrong. There are several occupants, huddled in the back, hidden so deep in the shadows he hadn’t seen them at first.

Bright eyes stare out at him, reflecting the flicker of torchlight. Children. Six elven children, waiting to be sold.

——

Despite Cornelia’s comments, the guards shut down any attempt at conversation. Charitable of them. Fenris tries to keep talking, but they threaten to go in and hurt the children if he does that, so he shuts up.

There’s nothing he can do for them. There’s nothing he can do for himself, either. He does experiment a little with the lyrium, his only real rewards being more shocks, and decides he’s not learning enough to justify torturing himself like that. They give him water at one point. That’s the highlight of his day. Is it day? He hasn’t the faintest idea. There are no windows down here.

If there were only one guard, he might have a chance. But there are two guards. Fenris knocks his head back against the wall. Cornelia knows Hawke is coming to get him. What can he do about it? How can he help?

Ideas. Hawke is the one with ideas. Fenris tries to think. Good at killing, good with languages, and, if Hawke is to be believed, good in bed. Does he have any other skills? With the lyrium taken away from him, he feels powerless. Strange. He used to regard it as a curse, but after Danarius’s death, he began to embrace it, feeling as if he was spiting his old master every time he used it to protect people, or to kill those who would try to control others.

His back throbs around the arrowhead, the sensation having settled out from the background thrum of discomfort saturating his entire body. At least he’s stopped retching every hour.

Then, after some time—he’s not sure how long—there’s a sudden chorus of shouting somewhere above them.

Fenris presses a hand to his mouth. Hawke.

The guards tense. The noise dies down, and silence reigns over the fortress again. For a moment no one moves. Then one guard hisses to the other, “Stay here. I’ll find out what’s going on.” He heads down the corridor. Leaving…

Only one guard.

Perfect.

The man stands half-turned, staring down the hall at his retreating friend. Fenris sidles out of his field of vision. There won’t be a second chance. He crouches, tipping his weight onto the balls of his feet—and charges.

Perhaps he’s too loud, or perhaps the man turned at just the right moment. Either way, he notices the attack and springs back, smacking into the opposite cell. A faintly hysterical smile of triumph blossoms on his face. “You thought you could get me? I don’t think so, elf!”

Fenris walks up to the bars, forcing himself to keep his eyes trained on the guard. He has to maintain this a moment longer. He releases the anger he’s been keeping muzzled so long, lets it run at last. “Do you know how many slavers I’ve killed in my lifetime? Do you know how easy it was? How much I enjoyed it? You’re going to die, little man, at my hands—“

That’s enough blustering for two of the girls in the other cell to coordinate themselves, charge at the guard, and shove him toward Fenris. The man teeters, arms windmilling. Fenris seizes the opportunity, shoving his manacled hands through the bars and grabbing the man tight.

And calling on the lyrium.

The shock is awful, as expected. At least the guard screams the louder of the two of them. Fenris finds himself on the ground (again) and immediately pulls himself forward, reaches through the bars, drags the guard closer. The man is moaning, trying to roll over. Fenris finds what he’s looking for and draws the shortsword from its sheath. Relief floods through him, compounded by a deep satisfaction as he jams the blade into the man’s neck.

Blood flowing through cracks in the stone. He doesn’t have time for this.

It’s difficult to search the corpse like this, having to stick both his arms through such a narrow space, but he does it anyway, does it again. Slumps, finally, pressing his forehead to one of the bars, and laughs. Great heaving guffaws that he stifles with effort. It’s not an appropriate time to be laughing.

“What’s wrong?” one of the children asks. One of the girls who shoved the guard.

Fenris gives her a half-delirious grin. “He doesn’t have the keys. I can’t get you out of there. I’m sorry.” They must have been on the other guard. Or maybe not even there. Either way, this was all for nothing. They’re still trapped.

The girl sticks her arm out of the cell, folds it back and grasps one of the bars. Wedges her body into the space between and starts pulling.

Fenris watches, eyes wide. She’s young—twelve at most—and half-starved, as are they all. The spaces are narrow but she’s narrower, barely, when she pushes out all her breath, squeezes her eyes shut, her teeth bared in a grimace. 

She pops through, gasping.

The other children have already started to come through. For some it’s easy—the younger ones, six, seven, or eight years old, Fenris isn’t sure—and for others it’s harder. But they all squirm out, breathing hard, clutching their bruised chests and hips.

Fenris stares. Free. They’re free.

The first girl is already inspecting the lock to Fenris’s cell. She shakes her head, tangled brown hair drifting around her face. “I—I don’t know how to pick locks, but I can try—“

“No, you can’t. You have to go. The other one could be back anytime.” Fenris crouches before her. “Go quietly and carefully. If there are too many soldiers, find a good hiding place and wait it out. Even if—“ even if Cornelia kills Hawke— “we don’t succeed, you may be able to escape in the aftermath.”

She nods. “Can I ask—what’s your name?”

He blinks. “Er—Fenris.”

“I’m Una.” She backs away, then turns and runs down the corridor. “I hope you make it out, Fenris!”

The other children follow her, the older ones pulling along the ones with the shorter legs. Are their chances any better out there than in here? He thinks of Hawke, who rides chaos like a seabird rides the waves. Perhaps if they’re clever enough, they’ll be able to take advantage and make their escape. As for him…Fenris curls his hands around the bars. He’s slim, but not that slim.

“Holy shit.”

Ah. The second guard is back.

Fenris moves to the rear of the cell when he hears the clatter of bootsteps. There’s a few of them out there. Too many to take on as he is now. The guard stares down at his deceased friend, then faces Fenris, jabbing a finger at him. “You did this! You’ll pay for that, elf. I’ll take every inch out of your pretty little—“

Then there’s a pained gurgle from somewhere off to the left where Fenris can’t see. The man whips around, only to topple over a second later, an arrow protruding from his throat. He clutches at it, coughing, blood burbling from the wound and spilling down his neck to join the pool on the floor. One of the other soldiers draws her bow, but she’s too late, and she’s the next to fall. There’s a couple more noises of dying, the metallic clang of a brief engagement further down the corridor, then silence.

Cautiously Fenris edges up to the front of the cell.

Hawke appears, startling Fenris, who lurches back a step or two, then slumps in relief. “There you are.”

“We don’t have much time.” Hawke slings his bow over his back and draws a dagger, jamming it into the lock. He wiggles it a little, and then gives it a savage twist. The lock pops. Just like that. Fenris exhales, thinking again about skill sets.

Hawke steps inside and indicates the manacles. “Can’t you get out of those?”

“No, actually.” He turns, flexing his shoulder. “Not with this thing in my back.” Hawke doesn’t spare a moment for tenderness, just sticks his fingers into the wound and rips out the arrowhead.

Fenris collapses to his knees. Hawke’s there a second later, alarmed, grasping his shoulders. “Fenris? Are you all right?”

“I—yes.” He nods, blinking, his eyes blurring over. The buzz of pain is gone (at last), the nausea resolving. But he’s weak as a kitten, his skin numb to any feeling except the pins and needles jabbing into him, following the lyrium lines. His vision revolves slowly. “Just. Aftermath.”

Then he realizes Hawke’s gone. Hears more shouting, clanging, grunts from the corridor. He staggers to his feet and immediately falls, his balance deserting him. Best to just stay here. He’d only get in the way.

Hawke returns. Limping this time. He kneels, and Fenris grasps at his arm. “You—you’re injured.”

“I’ve had worse.” He starts in on the manacles. They take a few seconds longer than the cell door (he thinks—everything seems to be condensing down to a malleable ball of sights, sounds, and sensation), but eventually Fenris is freed. Hawke’s face creases with concern, and he takes Fenris’s wrists gently. “Maker’s breath, what did they do to you?”

Fenris gazes at his wrists with bleary eyes. The skin is raw and red, swollen with irregular yellow blisters. “Hm,” he says. “I never noticed.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have given himself so many shocks in the name of experimentation. Although they did prepare him for taking down that guard.

Hawke kisses him once, twice. That sensation he understands. “You’re in no shape to fight, are you?”

Fenris shakes his head. Damn blood mages and their magical devices. He prays it won’t take long for the lyrium to integrate itself into his flesh again. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.” He helps Fenris stand. “Let’s get you out of here. Maybe you were right and this is too much for us to—“

A series of rumbling explosions roll out from far above them. Fenris freezes. Hawke’s down here, so who’s attacking—

Then he hears the screams.

Of a type he’s heard before. In Kirkwall, the mage would often rain down fire on their enemies. It was magical flame, and would set flesh ablaze with little more than a touch. Fenris can almost seen the flashes of fire around him as he listens to that sound.

It’s the sound of people burning alive.

“No,” Hawke whispers.

The screams rise and intertwine. There’s a lot of them. Fenris doesn’t have to count to know how many.

Forty-eight. Forty-eight dying elves.

Chapter Text

Instinctually Fenris reaches out and grabs Hawke’s arm, his grip much stronger now than it was a moment ago. Feels the yank as Hawke is pulled back from making a wild dash down the corridor. “It’s too late,” Fenris tells him. “They’re dead already. You can’t save them.”

Hawke stands, paralyzed, eyes sheened with desperation.

“You can’t just charge up there. That’s exactly what she’s expecting you to do.” Fenris relaxes his grip, now just resting his hand on Hawke’s arm. A measure of comfort, for all the damned good it’ll do.

“She killed all of them.” The words float out of him, distant, any emotion crushed away by the weight of knowledge. Of forty-eight deaths. “Why would she…”

“Her name is Cornelia. Jenelia was her sister.” Fenris releases him, sits down against the wall. The screams are gone. “She knows who we are. Knows you killed Jenelia. It’s you she wants, Hawke, you she’s trying to hurt. I should have told you before. I was afraid you’d go after her and get yourself killed.”

“She murdered all those people…” Hawke stands like a ghost, blank and still. “…to goad me?”

“And, I suspect, to lure you to her in a blind frenzy,” Fenris adds. “Yes.” Remembers what Cornelia said earlier. He will be made to pay for his transgressions. Not simply by dying. First he must bear on his shoulders the burned-out husks of forty-eight innocent victims. Fenris can imagine Cornelia’s taunts. They died because of you. He doesn’t want Hawke to hear that. It’s not true, but Hawke won’t care.

I’ve put significant resources toward learning about you and that scheming lover of yours. Resources well spent. Fenris can’t think of a better way to hurt Hawke than this. He gazes up at Hawke, waiting. No longer afraid he’ll dash off in an incautious fury. The flash of anger, the reflexive response, that’s not what worries him.

Fenris, despairing, watches it emerge. That black rage, ready to crush every slaver in the fortress, steady and inexorable, an earthquake to split open the stone beneath their feet, or a mudslide to drown them. It’s too late. Fenris takes a deep breath, his chest shaking with the effort. He didn’t want this. Never wanted to see this again. Reaching up, he grasps Hawke’s hand. “Please, don’t go after her. It’s too dangerous. There’s no one left to save.”

Hawke’s silent for a moment, his anger unwavering, face set like stone, broadcasting a terrible calm. “I’m going to kill her. And everyone else in this building.”

Fenris curls his fingers, twining them with Hawke’s. “She’s too powerful. And she knows you’re coming.”

“I’ll do it my way. Take my time.” Hawke’s hand hangs limp. “I’ve killed plenty of them already. They were well-armed. Which means I’m well-armed. I can do it.”

Can he? Maybe. Fenris knows Hawke’s way—distract them, scare them, harry them, cripple them, and never once let them see him. With enough time and resources, yes, there’s a chance. Or Cornelia could catch him in a great fiery explosion, and kill him too.

Fenris gazes up at the stone set of Hawke’s face and tries to make a decision.

How much can he do? How much can he keep Hawke from changing, or reverse the damage already done? Is it even his place to try? Fenris thinks of Hawke back in Kirkwall, a smile never far from his face, his rare anger canting more toward grief than fury. He did his best to absorb the harm that would fall on others, and that would mollify him.

But it’s not enough anymore. Alone, on the run, he can’t protect people like he used to. Couldn’t protect Fenris on Emirius. Couldn’t protect the captives upstairs. So he changes to adapt. His anger shudders and breaks, swallowing up everyone in his way, covering them over with a relentless dark. Retribution after the fact. The only option left to him.

Fenris thinks again of Kirkwall. That Hawke would never do this. Would never seek revenge.

He wonders, in the indistinct haze of the lyrium laying its roots again, if the old Hawke and this one are the same person at all. If, in fact, he’s fooling himself to believe that there is some vital essence, some immutable substance at the center of Hawke’s being—of anyone’s being. If it is naïve to have thought that the Hawke he met would exist forever, as if the things that changed were just scars on the exterior, rather than fundamental shifts running down to his core, breaking off pieces that spin away like driftwood from a wrecked ship. If he should not be surprised that their life after Kirkwall has rushed in through the gaps, ferrying the splintered remains to a place where Fenris can’t go to find them again. Can only stand at the broken structure with the water rising around him and try, with what poor tools he has, to repair it.

He clasps Hawke’s hand with a fragile grip. “Please be careful. I need you. I need you with me.”

Hawke makes no response. Then he kneels and, with infinite tenderness, takes Fenris in his arms. “I love you more than anything. I won’t ever leave you.”

He holds Fenris for a moment, kisses his hair. Fenris savors the stillness, wishes it would stay like this. Just the two of them, left alone here.

Then Hawke stands. “I’m sure most of them will be waiting for me upstairs. There may be some guarding the exits, but the door to the stables isn’t too far, that way.” He nods down the hall “Can you get out of here on your own?“

“Yes. My strength is returning.” By degrees, anyway. He’s still only fractionally functional.

“Good. I’ll see you again soon.”

Then he’s off, striding down the corridor, his limp buried under the deadly purpose that carries him forward.

Fenris sits there for a few more seconds, then liberates a shortsword and a buckler from the pile of corpses Hawke’s made and shuffles away.

He finds a staircase and climbs it. Still no windows, but, assuming they put him in the dungeons, this is most likely the ground floor. Then he points himself in the direction Hawke indicated and starts walking, with as much alertness as he can muster. He took the buckler and shortsword because he doubts he’s strong enough to lift anything heavier, and while he’s proficient with them, he’d prefer to avoid fighting. He goes straight ahead for a while, the flicker of torchlight illuminating his way, but then comes to a broad T, his chosen direction blocked off by an impassive stone wall. Excellent. What to do now?

Clanking from his left. He darts back into the hallway he’s just come out of.

“Oi, ‘d you just see something there?”

More clanking. Louder. Damn. Fenris runs back the way he came, tacking left down a narrower passageway. He passes a door, briefly considers hiding inside, and goes on. The corridor jogs left, and he glances behind him. No one yet. Then his path meets up with the broader hallway he’d found earlier. And across from him, a corridor that will take him in the correct direction. He follows it without pausing. Hears behind him the crack of a door being busted open. It’s far away, but the sudden noise still startles him, and the shortsword slips out of his nerveless hand, making a tremendous clatter on the stone floor.

From behind him, an urgent exchange of words. Fenris curses himself, first in Tevinter, then adding a few Marches oaths on top when there are more shouts from ahead. Close, too close. And he’s afraid if he runs too much more he’ll get turned around. There’s no telling how big this place is. He snatches up the sword, darts to the nearest door and tries the knob. Locked. Slipping down another narrow corridor, he tries more knobs. Locked, locked…open. Finally. He slips inside, shuts the door, and flattens himself against the wall beside it. It’s pitch-black in here. Cautiously he reaches for the lyrium, coaxing it to give off a faint glow. It feels…good. Warm, enough to burn away the coolness of the air.

He hears them coming, the crack of splintered wood and broken latches as they advance down the hall. Oddly enough, he grows calmer at their approach. Fighting, he knows. Even though…he squeezes the hilt of his sword. His grip is still weak. If they block his blow well enough, the jar may rip the blade right out of his hand. At least the buckler’s strap will keep it secured.

Footsteps. Fenris takes a slow, even breath. It’s time.

The door breaks open and Fenris is ready, whipping around with his blade at head height. The first man is taller than Fenris had expected, and the blade deflects off his chin, jabbing through his throat instead.

Good enough. Fenris clears it and readies himself.

Only three more of them. He stands firm just inside the threshold. If they can’t get past him, they can’t bracket him, and he has much better chances of living through this.

The first one stands over her fallen companion (a foolish decision) and attacks. Fenris hides behind his buckler, grimacing—his forearm will bear some bruises after this. He doesn’t give her much time, wary that her comrades might figure out that all they need to do is shove him back into the room and they’ll be able to surround him. So instead he angles his sword down and stabs at her thigh. She tries to get out of the way, but her heel catches on the corpse at her feet, and Fenris’s weapon drives home, his narrow blade piercing her chainmail. She shouts, teetering; he finishes her off with a quick jab to the neck.

The next one rushes him.

Damn. Fenris keeps his feet under him, barely, but he’s forced back, deeper into the room, residual torchlight from the hallway illuminating the edges of cots, chests, tables against the walls. Both the remaining guards follow him in and split around him. Damn. Damn. He’s not good enough with a shortsword to be confident of success here. Only one thing to do, and he does it as they close, praying it works—

The lyrium charges to his defense, his markings blazing with light, force exploding from him in a flash of blue-white. Fenris finds himself laughing as his attackers reel, and he pursues the nearer one, kills the man before he can recover. He is powerful again. He turns on the last one, who’s on her knees, still shaking her head. Fenris raises his blade, his instinct taking over, and he wields it like a greatsword, making a devastating overhead slash. The woman raises her shield.

It’s a heavier thing than his buckler, solid steel rather than treated wood. His blade bounces off, and the force of the blocked blow shoots right back down his arm, all the way up to the shoulder.

His hand springs open.

The woman hears the clatter of his weapon falling to the ground, and she takes advantage, striking out shield-first. Fenris backs away with haste, but she keeps pushing, inserting herself between him and his blade. Again, the string of curses running through his head as he blocks and dodges, pushed ever further from his fallen sword. It’s only a matter of time—

The twang of a bowstring, and the woman screams, an arrow protruding from her cheek.

Fenris bashes her nose in with his buckler, rips her sword out of her hand, and uses it to kill her. Without bothering to clear the blade, he whirls, squinting in the dark, trying to figure out where in the Void that arrow came from—

The torchlight through the door flickers over Una’s face, a shortbow hanging from her hand. She starts as he turns on her. “It’s just me!”

Fenris can hardly believe it. She’s alive, and still free. “You—you were hiding here as well?”

“It was the only open door I could find. And, like I said, I don’t know how to pick locks.”

He indicates the bow. “But you do know how to shoot.”

“Oh. Yes.” A slightly terrified grin flashes across her face. “Hunting.”

Fenris goes to the doorway, drags the two bodies there inside so they won’t be seen from the corridor. “Well, that’s four fewer to worry about.” By the time he turns around, the other children are emerging, crawling out from under cots or behind trunks. He makes a count. Six. They’re all here. All alive. All free.

“There were too many guards. And, well, too many of us,” Una says. “So we were going to hide here, and then we found a couple of bows in some of these trunks. Meridan told me how to get to the stables, and I was going to escort them one at a time. I’m…the only one who can use a weapon.”

Fenris stares. This… “How old are you?”

“Um—twelve.”

This twelve-year-old child was going to take on a fortress of slavers with a bow she’s likely never used to hurt anything besides unwary wild animals. Fenris almost catches himself thinking how brave that is before he levels an admonishing gaze at her. “You would have gotten yourself killed.”

She shrinks back. “I–I just—“

“How far are the stables?” he interjects.

One of the other children pipes up, a boy, perhaps nine or ten. “Not far! I know the way!”

“Then direct me.” He jerks his head. “I’m getting you all out of here.”

His third victim wielded a greatsword. Or would have, if he’d ever gotten the chance to swing it. Fenris takes it up, feeling its heft. His strength’s not back, but it’s coming back. And he never kills better than when he’s wielding four and a half feet of deadly steel.

The young boy points the way with an unsettling lack of certainty. Fenris goes ahead, hunting the guards now. He needs to clear a path, and to give these children time. As they go, distant shouts drift down from the upper floors. Hawke. Fenris pushes the thought from his head. Needs to focus on the task at hand. He meets one more patrol and then the contingent of four guarding the exit, making a total of six casualties. Ten on the night—eleven, counting the one in the dungeons. Not bad, but it’s early yet. Clutching his sliced-open hip—not quite fast enough to dodge that strike—he pushes the door open.

He was used to the coolness inside the fortress, but the night air is frigid, the wind biting through his clothes. He gestures behind him, and the children tiptoe forward, Una in the lead. “Take their cloaks,” he says, indicating the fallen guards. “It’s cold out there. Er—try to ignore the bloodstains.”

They wrap themselves up. The two smallest share a cloak. Una goes without. She shivers when they step outside, her teeth chattering.

Fenris takes the lead, passing a row of wagons, gliding through the animal enclosure, past horses and ponies with their heads bowed, heavy blankets thrown over their backs. But there’s no one out here. Because everyone is upstairs, trying to kill Hawke.

He shakes his head. Focus. “Do any of you know how to hitch a cart?”

Two little hands, rising out of the shared cloak. Fenris nods. “Good. Do it. If anyone comes, hide. Don’t try to fight them. Gather what supplies you can if you’ve got the time. Go!”

Most of them scurry off, but Una stays in the stable. “What about you?” she asks, hugging herself. “W-where are you going?”

“Someone very close to me is still inside.” Fenris makes a fist, then relaxes it. Damn. When will his strength return? “I’m going to retrieve him. If we’re not back by the time you’re finished hitching up one of these wagons and finding supplies, leave without us. I expect the gate out of Larannis is guarded as well?”

Una nods. “I remember. When they brought me in.”

“Hmm. If you can disguise yourself in one of these uniforms, you may be able to bluff your way past. You were all supposed to be transported tonight anyway, correct?”

“Right.” A violent shiver runs through her.

Fenris goes to one of the animals and pulls the blanket off its back, handing it to her. “Here. You’ll smell like a horse, but at least you’ll be warm.”

She smiles and wraps it around herself. Fenris is about to go when she speaks again. “Did you—“

He turns.

Una gazes at him through the darkness. “Did you hear the…explosions?”

He hesitates. Hadn’t made the connection before. “Yes.”

“Does that mean…” She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “…they’re all dead?”

This time he doesn’t hesitate. She deserves to know the truth. “Yes. I believe so.”

“Okay. You can—you can go. I just wanted to know.” She spins abruptly, stalking over to where the other children are crawling into the wagons, investigating.

Fenris heads for the fortress again. It seems she now, too, is alone. He wants to tell her, it doesn’t have to be like that forever. You might meet someone, or more than one someone. They could give you more than you’d ever imagined, more than you ever knew was possible. It might take you time to recognize it. But you don’t have to be alone.

He hefts his greatsword (arm shaking, strength already leached away from a mere three engagements) and shoves the door open. It’s time for him to go save Hawke.

Chapter Text

The fortress is silent.

Fenris catalogues his injuries as he walks. His burned wrists. The slice that woman took out of his hip a few minutes ago. A bloodied nose—he wipes his mouth, the back of his hand coming away red. The bruised forearm. A long, shallow cut across his ribs. That one could have easily gutted him if his attackers were better-trained.

But they weren’t. Slavers, used to taking on unarmed elves who are more likely to surrender or run away than fight back. Fenris allows himself a smile. He’s glad he was the one who had the privilege of killing them.

He remembers passing another staircase on the way out, and that’s where he goes. If the prisoners were on the highest floor, that’s where Cornelia will have been. And Hawke. As Fenris climbs he starts seeing corpses. A few of them have burns on their faces or clothes. Powder grenades. He remembers Hawke’s words. They were well-armed, which means I’m well-armed.

Maybe he is still alive. Fenris climbs faster, grimacing in irritation at the seizing in his legs. This hardly counts as exertion.

He emerges on the roof of the citadel—not quite the roof; an open-air platform, scattered with the corpses of archers. At the other edge the stone wall rises to encircle the true top floor. Fenris shivers as the wind gusts over the wooden planks. But he stills himself and listens, once more, when the wind dies and silence again saturates the night.

No yelling. No sounds of battle.

Someone’s won. Time to go find out whom.

He limps across the platform, his hip twingeing. The door is angled slightly off its hinges, perhaps another victim of a grenade blast. He readies his blade—his arm shakes. Invoking yet more silent oaths, he switches his grip so his left hand is dominant and kicks the door open.

The first thing he notices is the smell. Charred flesh. He’s used to it, but it still wrinkles his nose. There’s only one guard there, blank expression giving way to shock so quickly it would almost be comical if there weren’t so much at stake. Fenris kills the man before he can make a sound, but his hopes are already falling. Clearly the guard wasn’t on alarm. Which can only mean Hawke isn’t a threat anymore.

Fenris takes a deep breath in a failed attempt to calm himself and starts down the hall. Can’t think about Hawke being dead. To never again lie beside the man he loves, to never again feel the warmth of his skin, nor to see that inconceivable depth of tenderness. Fenris’s hands tremble, and not, this time, from the weakness.

More fallen bodies, uniforms bloodied. He doesn’t have far to go before he hears snatches of conversation. Lurching to a stop, he adjusts his pace, creeping forward, looking around the corner. Pinpoints the source of the sound. A wide-open set of double doors. The words float through more clearly now. “…bloody mess. I’m not gonna be the one to clean this up.” “Someone’s got to. It’s gonna start reeking in here. Even worse than it does already.”

Fenris inches along the wall, peering through the threshold. Some kind of large hall, several tilted, guttering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The floor is covered in bodies. All burned, some limbs still raised, shrunken and black. This must be where she killed them. In the center of the room there are five—six slavers. “Worth it, though, eh?” one of them says.

Another replies, “I don’t know, who’s gonna pay us now?” Nudges a lump on the floor with her boot. “Our boss is croaked.”

“Yeah, but we got a real prize here. Someone’s got to give us big money for this bloke. I hear he’s wanted.” The slaver delivers a hard kick to another lump on the floor. This one grunts and tries to crawl away, earning himself a second kick. He falls still.

Fenris’s anger blazes from a smoking ember to a firestorm in a split-second. He comes around the threshold, blade readied. “You will not touch him again!”

They whirl in surprise, then draw their weapons. All six of them. In an open space, without the element of surprise, his arms shaking, trying to manage uneven terrain with a limp, Fenris knows his chances are poor at best. So he charges them.

He hadn’t called on the lyrium, yet as he moves the glow overtakes him anyway, the warmth spreading from his markings to shimmer over his entire body. It’s too intense, as always, but the burning in his skin is familiar and welcome. He has power. They have nothing. He passes over the blackened corpses without stumbling, ghosting through as if they weren’t even there. The slavers step back, uncertain.

And then he is upon them.

He lashes out with an explosive strike. If he can cut their number down early, he won’t have so much of a problem when the rest regain their footing. The steel sings through the air. One of them stumbles over a corpse and pays with her life. Another tries to block with his shortsword—a mistake. The momentum of Fenris’s heavy blade breaks the block and bears the edge deep into the man’s shoulder. He screams, a spray of blood painting Fenris’s face and chest. Fenris whirls reflexively, parrying a strike from behind him, forcing the attacker back before returning to his original target. The man’s dropped his blade, but he’s still standing, which won’t do. Fenris sweeps the greatsword low, taking him out at the knees. Good enough.

He forces his fatigued muscles into an offensive stance and takes stock of the situation.

The remaining four have surrounded him. Fenris supposes that’s better than six. The smell of char rises from the disturbed corpses, and he grimaces as the acrid scent reaches his nose.

Sound of motion behind him. He spins to engage, waiting for the other woman to come at his turned back. Hears her move as he blocks, twists around, levering his attacker’s weapon away. His injured hip gives suddenly, and he must adjust his strike, leading with the pommel instead of the edge. He slips around the outside of her stab, gets her in the cheek. A cut opens across her cheekbone, and her head whips to the side. A good time to finish her off if her partner were not recovered, and he’s forced to shift his attention to defending himself once more.

Now that they’re coordinated, Fenris finds he’s losing ground. He never has the chance to throw them back with his lyrium, must instead use it to deflect blows or to aid his footwork when he’s pushed back, his feet or legs turning spectral so he doesn’t trip over bodies. Rarely has the chance to make an attack, either. They know that all they have to do is wear him down. He’s lucky once, when a guard gets tangled up with his comrade. Then there are three, and Fenris is tiring.

They press and press. He’s excruciatingly aware that he’s being backed into a corner of the room. His bad leg falters. His sword is too heavy, and his parries grow weak, the slavers’ weapons cutting ever closer. His chest heaves, and his breaths come harsh and gasping. Is this to be it, then? Dying in a failed rescue attempt? He supposes there are worse ways to go. But no. This way ends in Hawke’s capture or death. Not acceptable.

An overhead strike from the woman in the middle. Fenris sees it coming, assembles a block. She hits with the strong of her blade. It’s a good blow, and Fenris staggers. She follows up before he has time to recover, with the same maneuver.

The block holds long enough to arrest her swing, but then Fenris’s sword drops, the hilt slipping out of his grip. He manages, just, to hold onto it with his off hand. He’s simply too weak. His muscles won’t do as he asks. The woman thrusts, and Fenris makes a sloppy dodge, putting him directly in front of the man to his left.

That’s it, then. He’ll never bring his sword to bear in time. Feebly he grasps the hilt again, for all the good it’ll do, sees the man’s blade coming—

Suddenly his hands close around his sword-hilt like twin vises, and his body twists with more agility than he knew he had left. The momentum lends such power to his swing that it knocks his opponent’s blade far out from his body, and Fenris has only to reverse the motion to bury his steel deep in the man’s side.

What’s happening to him? It feels as if—he whirls again, blade clanging off the woman’s shield, and the jar is painful, shaking him down to the bone, yet his hands stay clamped shut. His arms whip back so fast he’s afraid something will snap in his joints. He sees her broadcasting a thrust, but he’s in no position to defend. His only chance to survive this is if his attack lands—

The greatsword pierces through her middle.

—before hers does.

She slumps. He clears the blade with a savage jerk and swears he feels muscles breaking in his arm. How is he doing this? It’s as if—turning, charging the last man, who lifts his shield, terrified—the lyrium lines are moving him, digging into his skin and picking up his limbs. Like a second skeleton.

The last one dies so quick Fenris isn’t sure how he did it. At once the lyrium fades, and he collapses to the corpse-strewn floor, shivering, gritting his teeth against a moan. His markings burn. His muscles throb. He feels everything too strongly—the silence packs into his ears, the stone floor chafes his skin, the stench of blackened flesh makes him cough. With effort he pushes himself to hands and knees. His fatigued right arm won’t hold him, so he uses his left. Half-stumbles, half-crawls across the floor, back to the center of the room.

Hawke.

First Fenris ensures that Cornelia is well and truly dead. Her chest and stomach are full of stab wounds—a messy kill, very un-Hawke, but it’s gotten the job done. And then…

There’s so much soot and burned skin that at first Fenris isn’t sure if Hawke’s still alive, but he sees the rapid breathing, the match of his own. A quick inspection reveals no gushing of blood, but Hawke’s back is ripped up, armor scorched away, flesh seared, peppered with charcoal splinters. Fenris flinches, the sight tearing the heart out of him—don’t leave me, don’t leave me—just for a moment, before he forces himself to be objective about this. There’s no time. “Hawke. Hawke?” Fenris touches his face, the half that isn’t burned. “Can you hear me?”

A feeble nod.

“Can you—“ Fenris scans him and discovers one of Hawke’s legs is bent out in a way it rather shouldn’t be. So he can’t walk. “I’m going to get you out of here. Do you hear me? We’re going to survive this.”

No telling how many slavers are left in the other wings of the fortress, or when they’ll be up here to check on what’s happening. Fenris hauls Hawke up to a sitting position, then freezes, abashed, when he hears out a low, stuttering groan. “I—I’m sorry—“

Hawke pants for breath, tears of pain streaming down his cheeks. Fenris pulls one of Hawke’s arms around his shoulders—watches Hawke’s eyes roll in agony and freezes again. But only for a second. They need to leave. So he tries to stand.

A tortured noise that chokes out halfway through when Hawke falls limp. Fenris teeters, goes to his knees again. Damn. Hawke’s out, completely.

Fenris kneels there for a moment, contemplating his options. Option, really. They need to leave. As soon as possible.

First he appropriates a sword-belt. He can’t imagine he’ll be in any shape to fight if it becomes necessary, but it’s better to be prepared, and he can’t carry a greatsword and Hawke at the same time. It takes some arranging, but he gets Hawke’s body draped over his shoulders, an arm and a leg hanging over his chest. He tries again to stand and, as expected, fails. Whatever strength he’s recovered was spent in the fighting. Why does the man have to be so damn heavy?

So Fenris shuts his eyes and calls on the lyrium, one more time.

It’s there, as always, guttering to life, although—Fenris grimaces—it’s plainly not happy with being invoked so soon after that great surge a moment ago, and he feels the reproach in the burning of his skin. But it follows his command, exerting the same power it did during the battle, the lines of pressure slithering around his limbs and pulling tight.

He stands, Hawke balanced across his shoulders.

Walking is deeply unsettling, and painful. As if his body is wrapped in white-hot cables, strung up to the crossbar of some marionettist far above who jerks his legs forward with little attention to gentleness. His arms, too, feel bound into place, strapped down around Hawke’s unconscious form. The lines running up his neck force his chin up, reminding him vaguely of what it’s like to have a knife pressed to the point of his jaw. But he’s moving, and that’s all that matters. The burn sears into him, seeping inward from the markings. He coughs, half-expecting to see smoke drifting out from between his lips.

The winter wind across the platform is a blessed relief. He inhales deeply, the dry air chafing his throat, but it’s cold and that’s all that matters. It’s tempting to wait here for just a few seconds and slough off some of the lyrium burn, but they can’t afford to take the chance of stopping.

He’s almost at the stairs when the trapdoor flips open and a lone soldier scrambles up onto the platform. On seeing Fenris, he startles and rips his blade out of its sheath.

Fenris tries to still the trembling of his muscles, depending on the markings to keep him upright and steady. He needs to head this off before it comes to a fight. Doesn’t know how far the lyrium will carry him as is, much less if he has to use it to kill this man first. “Your commander is dead. Your friends are dead. If you wish to join them, by all means, come at me. But if you’d prefer to survive beyond the next ten seconds, I suggest you let me pass.”

The man struggles for a moment in indecision. But then he begins to back away. Fenris suspects it was the the unlikelihood of reward—or, indeed, any pay at all—that did the trick. If Tevinters can be counted on for one thing, it’s greed.

He descends the stairs, pausing now and then to listen. No movement, or at least not close enough for him to hear it. The markings constrict tighter and tighter, and he’d think they were cutting into him if they weren’t a part of him already. But they hold, and he’s almost to the stables. Can’t imagine the children are still there—he told them to go as soon as they’d hitched the cart. But he thinks a sturdy horse will be able to take the two of them—Hawke is a bear of a man but Fenris is just the opposite.

He turns a corner and sees the pile of four bodies he’d left there. Good. Only a few more yards. He’s exhausted by now, sagging into the frame of the lyrium skeleton. Hopes he’ll have the strength to stay on the horse. One of his arms unlocks from where it’s been latched over Hawke’s leg, and he reaches down, pushes the door open, and steps outside into the cold.

Nearly trips over a corpse lying at his feet.

Chapter Text

Fenris stares at the soldier’s body, stripped of its uniform, an arrow protruding from its neck. Not one of the ones he put down. Which must mean—

“Over here!”

The lyrium has started to flicker out, but it grinds to life again when he starts walking. “I told you not to fight! And I told you to leave!”

Una adjusts her helm. The uniform is big on her, but from afar…well, maybe she’ll pass. “I didn’t want to.” She glances behind her. “And neither did anyone else.”

Four small faces poke out from the open doors of the wooden wagon. A couple of them nod vigorously.

Fenris hovers for a moment, struck, despite himself, by abashment. He’s still not used to people actually liking him (largely his own fault—he does not have the sunniest of temperaments and has made no effort to change that). “I—thank you. I suppose.” He limps to the wagon and heaves Hawke down onto the wooden floor.

“This one was already packed for the journey.” Una hops into the driver’s seat, then opens a small window in the front side of the cart so she can point inside. “There’s plenty of food and water back there.”

Fenris climbs up and sees she’s right. In the light of an oil lamp, he sees two barrels sitting against the front wall, and two crates half-covered by thick wool blankets. The four smallest children line one side, staring with wide eyes at his glowing tattoos. But they’re starting to fade, so Fenris unbuckles the sword-belt and sits on the empty wall, dragging Hawke onto his lap and wrapping him in one of the thick blankets.

The boy nearest to the doors hauls them shut. The lyrium glow sputters out just as the cart begins to rumble forward, leaving the oil lamp as the only remaining source of illumination.

Immediately Fenris’s muscles start shuddering with fatigue. He relaxes as best he can, hoping he won’t be required to move anytime in the next twenty-four hours. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this exhausted, this absolutely drained. The smallest child points at Hawke. “Who’s he?” she asks.

How to describe it? “A very good friend.”

“Is he dead?”

“No!” He checks, just to make sure, finds Hawke’s chest is still rising and falling. “But he is injured.”

“Is he going to die?”

Why is this child so obsessed with death? “No! He will live.” The broad blast wound on his back wasn’t bleeding too badly, and his skin is no paler than normal, so Fenris doesn’t think he’s bleeding from the inside. His broken leg will require setting, and Fenris has no doubt there are other, less obvious injuries that will need attention.

Hawke looks peaceful, unconscious like this. That won’t last. Fenris strokes his hair, reminding himself, again and again, that at this moment there’s nothing more he can do except remain by Hawke’s side.

The cart jolts and rolls over the cobblestones of the main boulevard. Not out yet. The sword lies sheathed next to him, for all the good it’ll do. Una and her bow have a far better chance of killing anyone than he does right now.

If any passers-by find remarkable the diminutive size of the slavers in the driver’s seat, they don’t comment on it, not that Fenris can hear through the small window. Perhaps there are simply no people about. The hour is late. At last he hears a shout, coming from above. “Hail!”

They must be at the gate. Una stops the cart.

“That bloke ever show up, finally?”

Damn. Fenris extricates himself from Hawke and scrambles forward to the window, putting on his best lowborn Tevinter. “That he did. But we got him. Back to business as usual.”

He winces. Hawke’s a much better actor. But his efforts are enough. “Good!” comes the reply. “Must’ve snuck past us. But no worries, long as you all got to him. All right, go on through.”

The sound of chains clinking, the scrape of wood on stone. Over the shoulders of Una and her partner, he sees the heavy gate rise. Una flicks the reins, and the horses plod forward.

Fenris waits. Waits for the hail of arrows, the clatter of armored feet on the cobbles, the screaming of the children as slavers wrench open the doors of the cart and drag them out onto the street.

Instead he hears the thudding of hoofsteps on dirt. The rumble of wooden axles turning. Winter wind blowing through the woods and across the plain. His four small companions breathing in the closed space.

No one stops them.

No one attacks them.

Slowly he inches back across the floor of the cart, pulls Hawke onto his lap again, still disbelieving. Surely something will go wrong. But it hasn’t. He starts when he catches sight of a fifth passenger against the opposite wall. Another elf, an adult this time. Quenta. His face is whole now, and he offers Fenris a grateful smile.

Fenris tips his head back against the wood and shuts his eyes.

——

They haven’t been traveling long before Hawke wakes.

Fenris feels it first, the tensing of muscle against his legs. Then Hawke’s eyes flare wide, and he gasps, trying to sit up.

“Hawke!” Fenris presses him firmly back down. “It’s all right, we’re safe! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

Hawke struggles, then lets himself be pushed down, eyes shining. “I couldn’t—they were all dead. They were all dead. I couldn’t save even—“

“Hawke—” Fenris nods across the wagon. “Look.”

His head turns, jaw set in pain.

The children are still alarmed from his sudden revival, but they recover quickly. The smallest one waves. “I thought you were going to die,” she says. “You looked like you were going to die.”

Hawke’s lips part in surprise. For a moment he simply stares.

Then, in a convulsive motion, he twists, burying his face in Fenris’s stomach, wrapping one arm around him. Fenris, startled, freezes; then he begins stroking Hawke’s hair again, staying away from his shaking back, knowing the damage that lies hidden beneath the blanket. Fenris has never seen Hawke cry, didn’t think it was possible. Even after Leandra’s death, Hawke simply stared at nothing, his face so blank Fenris nearly thought he was some kind of ghost or illusion, something not quite there. Yet Fenris can hear the sobs, half-suppressed, muffled by his own stomach.

After a little while the sobbing dulls out, overtaken by the sound of the cart rolling over the dirt road. The Anderfels border isn’t far, and they should be through the woods and into the foothills sometime in the morning. Once they’re across and relatively safe from any slavers with a grudge, Fenris, finally, will be able to tend to Hawke.

——

The day is warmer than Fenris had been expecting, the sun turning it into something close to brisk, a sign of the fast-approaching spring. The road is paralleled by a wide, clear stream, sparkling in the sunlight. They stop at a place where it’s been dammed into a small pond, maintained by a pair of industrious beavers who startle and slip into the water at their approach.

One of Hawke’s legs is broken, as well as an arm and several ribs. Getting him from one place to another is no easy task. But he bears it, panting with pain, half-leaning, half-hopping along. They pause by the bank, overgrown with reeds, so Fenris can peel Hawke’s armor and clothing from his ruined skin. The children, cooped up too long, have exited the carriage and are gamboling about, some straying down to the beaver dam, others simply pelting or rolling through the grass. Just as well. Fenris doesn’t want them to see this.

He goes steadily and without stopping, disregarding Hawke’s half-choked sounds or twitches of pain. If he stops for every one they’ll be here all day. A number of blackened threads are stuck in Hawke’s back, the preliminary healing having wrapped them up in its indiscriminate efforts. So he has to pull those away, one by one. By the time the shirt’s off and the armor discarded, Hawke is hyperventilating, his good hand pressed futilely over his mouth. Fenris comes around, kisses him, holds him until the heaving of his chest slows to a rhythm more normal.

Then strips off the rest of Hawke’s clothes, doing the same himself, tossing them down beside the blankets he’s brought. The water will already be cold—wet clothes will only make them more miserable. He guides Hawke through the reeds, into the pond.

The water is freezing. Fenris hisses as it seeps over his toes, rises up his legs. To his surprise, Hawke coughs out a laugh. “This is actually better than how I was feeling a moment ago.”

Fenris grits his teeth. “At least one of us is enjoying it.”

They wade out waist-deep. Hawke takes in a deep, wincing breath, lets it out. Then removes his arm from around Fenris’s neck and kneels all at once in the frigid pond.

At first he barks out a shout and tries to rise. Fenris lays a hand on his shoulder, and Hawke recognizes it and remains there, eyes wild, breath caught, the gentle flow parting around him. Then he erupts out of the water, coughing heavily, teetering on his one good leg. Fenris catches him, holds him up, and guides him out onto the bank, sitting him down on a blanket. He shakes against Fenris’s steadying hands.

A quick inspection reveals that the water lifted away a good portion of the black soot, but there’s still debris in the wound, little particles and splinters of burnt wood or metal or stone. Fenris just stares at it for a moment. The wound, bloodied, wet, and shiny, takes up half Hawke’s back, the other half reddened but the skin unbroken. How is he supposed to clean out all of it?

By starting somewhere. So he does, separating broken remnants of skin with one hand, extracting with the other blackened splinters or specks of detritus. Hawke’s back shudders, and he again presses a hand to his mouth, muffling the stuttered noises of agony.

Yet as they sit there, the sun drying their skin, Fenris working his steady way down the fire-lashed wound—Hawke begins to relax. Perhaps he’s acclimating to the pain. Just as well. Despite his display of stoicism, Fenris wasn’t sure how much more he could listen to. Hawke in pain hurts him more than any weapon, any lyrium burn.

“I underestimated her.”

Fenris pauses, then keeps going.

“Thought I could ride the edge of one of her explosions. Roll with the force, let my armor soak up the flames. I was wrong. The blast knocked me straight into a wall. Did this to my back.”

You would do well to be more careful. Fenris doesn’t say anything. Doubts Hawke’s landslide rage allows for much caution.

“She had me. I should be dead. Only reason I’m not is because she wanted to put a knife through my eye same way Jenelia died. By the time she got close I had my head back together, halfway, anyway. Stuck her in the calf with that arrowhead I took out of your back.”

Fenris lifts an eyebrow. A clever tactic, even though he never told Hawke exactly what it did.

“So she fell to one knee and I rolled over and took her knife and did what I could to kill her. It was…messy.”

The dozen stab wounds in Cornelia’s stomach and chest. Messy indeed.

“And then I lay there for a minute because I couldn’t really do much else. And then the reinforcements showed up and I wasn’t even close to a match for them.”

The wound looks about as clean as it’s going to get. Hawke will still need a healer—even a non-magical one would suffice—but Fenris is done for now. He kisses Hawke’s shoulder.

“I should have guessed she was planning to—“

He breaks off. Fenris comes around and kisses him again, this time on the mouth. “It’s not your fault, Hawke. You couldn’t have known.”

“Fenris…” He won’t meet Fenris’s eye. “What are we doing?”

For a moment Fenris isn’t sure how to respond. He knows, of course—running from the forces of the Divine, solving whatever troubles they encounter along the way. But he suspects that’s not what Hawke is asking. So he ponders for a minute, and settles on an answer. “We do what we can. There’s no sense asking any more of yourself.”

“But—forty-eight people. Forty-eight. Dead because of me.”

Fenris interjects. “Because of Cornelia, not you. She’s the one who killed them.”

Hawke looks up with a desperation he struggles to hide. “How am I supposed to live with that? To know that something I did, something I thought was good, had such—horrible repercussions?”

Fenris sighs. Always the hard questions. Then he thinks of Quenta, sitting in the wagon, smiling in gratitude, and knows what to say. “You can’t save everyone, Hawke. This world is cruel. But I suspect those who’ve fallen wouldn’t want you to stop, to stand still. They would want you to carry on.”

They stay there for a moment longer, Hawke’s forehead pressed to Fenris’s chest, the sun warming them both. The far-off sound of children laughing drifts through the windless air.

Finally Hawke heaves a wincing sigh. “Let’s get our clothes on, shall we?”

“If you insist.” Fenris kisses him one more time.

They leave Hawke’s ruined shirt and armor. Fenris hauls him back upright. Perhaps he can disassemble one of the food crates and use the pieces to splint Hawke’s broken arm and leg. They head across the grass, out from behind the curtain of reeds.

The smallest girl (Temna, Fenris remembers) catches sight of them, runs up to them at once. She’s coated in muck to her knees and elbows, and her face has also fallen victim. Her hands are clutched together, and she sticks them up, proffering. “Look! I found a frog!”

Fenris regards it with mild confusion. It’s a sizable specimen, green as the grass but somewhat slimier. Its weepy brown eyes blink at him, and it struggles suddenly. Temna’s grip holds it tight, and it falls still after a few seconds.

Fenris discovers he has no idea what to do here. He’s never interacted much with children. Hawke’s the people person, but Hawke is too drained, too hurt to do this. So Fenris gives it an experimental stab. “Excellent. I was wondering what we were going to have for breakfast.”

The girl’s expression transforms into one of utter terror, and she shrieks. “NO! You can’t eat her! She’s my friend!” Then she turns tail and races away across the grass, protecting her slimy charge.

Hawke’s laughing, the guffaws broken now and then by a remorseful “ow” but rolling out all the same. “You truly are sensational with children, Fenris.”

Fenris narrow his eyes, jerks Hawke forward with perhaps more force than was necessary. “I resent your mocking. Children are…difficult. Hard to predict.”

“Mm. Very.” Hawke leans up, kisses his cheek. “No worries. I’ll do the talking next time.”

Fenris sits him down on the edge of the cart, dumps out one of the crates, and starts attacking it. Their traveling companions are still frolicking about, so he’ll doubtless have sufficient time to put together a splint.

“I know I promised you I’d be better. That I wouldn’t seek revenge. And I did anyway. I’m sorry, Fenris.”

Fenris leans back against the wall, pausing for a moment in his labors. “You promised you’d try. I can’t expect anything more of you.”

“I know.” Hawke stares at his knees. “I want to be better. I really do.”

Does it matter that you want to? Is it enough? Fenris thinks of driftwood, spinning away on a fast-moving current. Then he reaches out and takes Hawke’s hand. “Whatever happens, know that I will remain by your side.”

Hawke squeezes his hand, their fingers crushed together. “Thank you. I think…I might really need that.”

Then Temna, soaking wet but clean of muck, scrabbles into the wagon. “I let the frog go. I didn’t think she’d like being kept.” She shoots a poisonous look at Fenris. “Or eaten.”

Hawke smiles at her, at the others who are piling in now. Drags himself over to sit with Fenris, folds up against him, head resting on his shoulder. Fenris kisses Hawke’s damp hair as the wheels start to move beneath them.

They go forward.