Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The fire crackled. The night had eaten away at it, dimming it to sudden spattering sparks as it slowly died to embers in the middle of their campfire. Across from them, little Orana huddled inside of her blankets. Hawke’s mabari, Aegis, lay with her, snuffling quietly. A sentinel for their most vulnerable member.

By Fenris’ side sat his lover, best friend, and confidante – a mage named Azzan Hawke. The impossible man Fenris had fallen in love with. They both sat up facing the fire despite the late hour, their blankets cool and empty behind their backs. Azzan remained in his armor, as did Fenris; they were on the run, only a week’s travel from Kirkwall, and couldn’t let down their guard even in sleep. Fenris yawned, only for Hawke’s healing aura to whisper against his skin. He looked at Azzan to see those eyes gazing heavily at him.

They had been through much, even discounting the battle against Meredith and her templars just a week before. They’d faced the worst secrets within their relationship, the hatred that had caused Fenris to turn a blind eye to the plight of mages in Kirkwall – the plight Azzan had been trapped within, as well.

Since then, they’d been running. Not to any specific destination. Simply ‘away from Kirkwall.’ At the moment, they were running a path directly away from the mountains, keeping away from where Hawke had told Kirkwall’s apostates to head. They couldn’t risk attempting to cross the Waking Sea; a boat would be too easy to chase and destroy out on the waters. They were left heading West. Closer to Tevinter with every passing day.

He held Azzan’s gaze. Over the past few days, they’d spoken more openly with one another than ever before. Perhaps it was partly because of how close they’d come to losing one another. Fenris believed it was because they’d finally laid themselves bare. Whatever the case, Hawke had admitted his goals for the world, and for the first time, Fenris had stopped denigrating mages and listened. He’d been surprised to learn that Hawke wanted the templars to remain, save more as guards than as jailers. Hawke even wished to perhaps keep the Circles. “We need a place to learn,” Hawke said. “That, at least, is true. We need to know of our powers, and of the Fade. If it weren’t for my father, things would have been very different for myself and my sister.”

Somehow, after hearing Azzan’s goals, it had been as if they could speak about anything. Hawke had never dared tell Fenris his hopes for mages, because, in truth, Fenris would never have entertained them before. He’d closed his mind off, and in doing so, he’d closed his heart. It had been the third night on the run that Fenris had leaned heavily on Azzan’s shoulder and whispered, “I want to change.”

And it had been without hesitation that Hawke had curled an arm around him and said, “no matter what, I’m with you.”

Their fourth night had been the night for a different sort of conversation, likely brought up from their pent-up frustration; they hadn’t enough privacy to spend more intimate time together, and with Orana just on the other side of the fire, they were uneasy with the idea of trying after she fell into sleep. Fenris had grumbled something about taking care of himself beyond the treeline, and Hawke had nearly tripped over himself to help. They’d spent several minutes scratching Hawke’s back against the bark of a tree before flopping back down by the fire and giggling themselves stupid.

“I have never done something that ridiculous in my life,” Fenris had said.

“Really?” The word had been filled with innocent surprise, yet it had made Fenris think.

“Danarius hated getting dirty, and the rest were in return for shelter. No need for an outdoor spectacle.”

Hawke had gone quiet for quite some time. Fenris remembered it, wanted to cradle every single second of that night to his chest. If there was anything he never wanted to forget, it was the way Azzan had looked at him when he’d said, “then that makes me your first.”

It had clearly not been what he’d first wanted to say; his mouth had parted for several seconds before he’d said it. Undoubtedly, he’d wanted to comment on Fenris’ past, to ask questions or, more likely, considering who Hawke was, to apologize on behalf of humanity, or for not meeting Fenris sooner. Instead he’d given Fenris a gift to cherish. For the first time, he’d found a true first in sex with Azzan. Never had he had sex of any kind in the woods, against a tree. That was Azzan’s and Azzan’s alone, and it always would be.

He’d smiled at the idea. It made Azzan’s surprised reaction from before nice when it could have been painful. “I’m not such an expert in sex as you think.”

Azzan’s lips quirked into a half-smile. Back on that fourth night, the light had still been higher. Orana had gone to sleep only about half an hour before they’d rushed for the trees. “You are to me,” Hawke said. Thanks to that bright blaze, he’d been able to see the way Azzan’s eyes sparkled at him. “You’re amazing.”

Fenris flushed. The tone of Hawke’s voice made it clear that the skills he possessed thanks to his past had little to nothing to do with why he was ‘amazing.’ “I am a fool.”

“No, you’re not.” Azzan’s voice had been firm. It always was when he was trying to stop Fenris from insulting himself. Annoying, considering how poorly Hawke often thought of himself.

“I am.” He glared warningly when Hawke made to contradict him again. “All this time, I have tried to give you pleasure, to help you find what you enjoy.” Hawke had blushed beet red and looked away. Fenris felt a similar stain on his own cheeks and cleared his throat. “But I have never…” No, he would not speak of what he’d been taught, of how he’d learned to memorize what Danarius wanted from his movements and sighs and fingers. How he’d learned to never ask, but instead to do, and do correctly the first time, or else. He did not want Hawke to know about that. The man was already an expert at hesitating in bed without imagining even more reasons to do so. “I have tried to lead you into showing me when I could have simply asked.”

Silence, for a few moments. Then a snort. “I could have simply told you, you know.” Hawke fiddled with his armor. Plucked at his pants. “But I was afraid.”

Afraid of making Fenris think of Danarius. Of bringing up bad memories. Of becoming someone Fenris associated with those of his past. Fenris sighed gustily. “We are both fools, then.”

Hawke smiled softly. “I guess so. Fools in love.”

Fenris covered his face and groaned.

Several minutes passed between them. Fenris had started feeling sleepy; with his lust sated and the fire dying down, he was strongly aware of Hawke’s warmth next to him and the darkness of the night surrounding them. The crickets had set up their cacophony long ago, until it had turned into a sort of melody. The night was chilly enough for him to shiver beneath the leather of his armor, but if he leaned against Azzan, then it melded easily into the feel of the man’s aura, and he could relax into it.

“My greatest sin,” Azzan whispered, and the man was so still, so quiet, so careful, that Fenris knew he thought Fenris had fallen asleep, “is wanting to be inside you.”

Fenris had simply lay against Azzan’s shoulder, not certain what to think. He could feel the tension in the shoulder beneath his head. Finally, he spoke. It made Azzan jump. “Why would that be a sin?”

A rumble billowed up through the body beneath his head. Azzan had nearly shouted in surprise. He smirked as he opened his eyes. Azzan looked down at him. “What?” the man asked. Playing dumb. Fenris just raised a brow. Azzan flinched and looked away again. It made Fenris pay enough attention that he sat up.

“Hawke?”

Azzan covered his mouth. “It’s not like… I don’t want…” The man scowled, obviously unhappy with the direction his attempts at explanations would head. Fenris grabbed Hawke’s hand and lowered it. Azzan met his gaze, took a deep breath, and said. “When you’re above me, in me. I feel safer than I’ve ever felt.”

The high praise left Fenris breathless.

“I want to give that to you. I want to shelter you, to – to have you know you’re safe. With me. Always. Your – your body, sure, but also…” Hawke grimaced. “When I’m with you, when we’re together–”

“When we are making love,” Fenris said quietly.

“Yes.” Hawke’s breath gusted out. “When we’re making love, when you’re above me, looking at me – I feel like if the world exploded, I would wake up to find you cradling my heart in your hands. Keeping it safe.” Fenris didn’t know how to respond. “I want that, too. For you. I want you to – but I can’t.” Fenris jerked. Hawke looked down at his lap, breaking eye contact. “That’s not what it would mean for you.” Hawke’s hand in his shook. “I know it. I hate it. I hate that man for it. I want to bring him back just so I can kill him again. I want to claw at him until…”

Azzan closed his eyes, halting the spew of violence. It was more hatred than Fenris had seen in Hawke for anyone. Usually his rage at least calmed once the person was gone. Fenris shouldn’t have been so warmed to know Hawke detested Danarius so much, but he was. The man who Fenris despised, Hawke despised, as well. For his sake.

“I want that, as well.”

Azzan quirked a grin. “You already got to claw his throat out. It’s my turn.”

It surprised a chuckle out of him. “You misunderstand.” When Azzan finally matched his gaze again, he continued. “I want to feel you like that. Inside me. Surrounding me.” Azzan flushed, but those eyes told Fenris the truth. Hunger, and want. “I admit that it will be difficult, but I see no reason why we cannot achieve it.”

Azzan had burst into a wide grin. He’d nearly bounced where he sat. “Really?”

Fenris had rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

Something that private – another first for Fenris, as he’d never spoken in such a way about sex before; every other time in his life, it had been about taking another’s orders on what to do and not how to fulfill one another equally – had opened the floodgates. They’d spent the next night talking about Hawke’s spirit. It had been Fenris who had begun the discussion. He’d stared into the fire, still blazing brightly, an unspoken hint that they both wished to continue the new rituals to their nights, and forced himself to, for the first time (another first!), speak on his own sexual desires. “If we are to acknowledge our desires to one another, I must admit that I… enjoy feeling your magic when you come.”

Azzan, who had been drinking from their canteen, had made one very loud gulping sound, lurched where he’d sat, and hacked. Fenris quickly reached over and patted his back as he coughed. Orana woke up. They’d spent a very long period of time getting Hawke to calm down, letting Orana check to ensure he was all right, and then waiting tensely for the young woman to go back to sleep so they could continue the discussion. Aegis, who had been sleeping soundly just earlier, now watched them with a smug grin. Azzan glared at the hound for several moments before giving up and turning to him. “What?”

“You always cut it off,” Fenris said, as if they hadn’t been interrupted and weren’t being listened to by an intelligent dog, “but I feel it. Your aura. You even actively heal me sometimes, when you aren’t really thinking about it.” Azzan had paled. Paled. Fenris wanted to throw his hands in the air. “Your magic comforts me. I desire the sensation.”

Azzan’s mouth gaped.

“It’s too late, anyway,” Fenris said, and snorted. “Sometimes, as we travel, I feel your aura and get – well. At least my body knows to prioritize properly in battle.”

Azzan choked, this time on air.

“I let it touch you?” Azzan whispered a full minute later. The man covered his mouth again – a habit Fenris was starting to recognize and trying to make him break. With others, he may be allowed to hide, but not with him. Not anymore. “I never mean to. It’s out of my control. I never wanted…”

“Did you not hear me say I desire it?”

Azzan sent him a look. “Even though I’m not controlling my spirit properly?”

Fenris shifted on the dry earth. “It is for that reason that I came to enjoy it.” At the disbelieving look Azzan sent him, he continued. “If it is not under your control, then it is instinct. I have felt the ‘instinct’ of countless mages. Only you instinctively heal, sometimes exhausting your mana in your desire to give. How can I not enjoy that feeling? The knowledge that you put me first without thought.”

He’d been surprised to see, not happiness, but pensiveness that had led Hawke to curling his arms around his knees like a child. The man had rested his head on his knees and stared out into the darkness beyond the fire. “I can’t help but fear it sometimes,” he’d said. The words had made Fenris jerk. Hawke had seen; the smile he’d given had not been happy, either. “I never wanted to tell you, because…”

Because he’d thought it would hasten Fenris’ departure, perhaps even his hatred. Fenris’ fists clenched. Hawke hadn’t been wrong to fear it, which only made Fenris angrier. He should have given proper support. Hawke had never hesitated to do so for him. “Tell me now.”

Azzan had. They’d barely remembered to sleep, they’d gotten so involved in the conversation. He learned about Azzan’s struggles when he’d first decided to make the deal, how he’d put Faith through the wringer because of his concerns about being too gullible, too hopeful, too optimistic. He learned about Hawke keeping Faith at a distance, to the point where Faith couldn’t properly help him, until he’d finally decided to dive into the relationship fully. That had been after the Arishok, Fenris remembered, and the issues that had arisen from that battle. He learned how close it had come, how vulnerable Azzan had been once Faith and him had separated.

Mostly, Azzan told him of a time when Faith had actually chosen to numb his emotions, to separate him from them in order to keep him safe from his own despair. “I made Faith make a pact to never do it again,” Azzan said, still not meeting Fenris’ gaze, instead staring into the glowing remains of the dying fire. Fenris looked to it as well, in time to watch a single spark flicker off into the air. The fire dimmed still more right before his eyes. “It made me wonder if I’d made a horrible mistake in trusting Faith so much. But we’re together now. Like Anders.” Azzan touched his chest. “If I lost Faith now…”

Fenris grimaced. The lives of the two were bound together. If one died, so would the other. “I know I only helped exacerbate your fears. Allow me to alleviate them somewhat.” Azzan quirked a brow at him, but he tilted his head, listening. “You are a healer, Hawke. It has taken me far too long to recognize just how ingrained that is within you. It is your instinct. Though I do not pretend to understand this… spirit… within you, I understand that much.” He’d scooted closer as the very last embers of the fire flickered out. Thrown into full darkness, his limited eyesight scanned the shadowy form beside him and took its hand. “I have known the you that is connected to this spirit, and I trust that you. You chose well.”

His words had been the last that night; Hawke had settled into his arms, and from there they had slept. Now was their sixth night, and again, they were instinctively moving toward yet another conversation. Fenris thrummed with energy despite the week’s hours spent speaking instead of sleeping. They were used to long days of travel; Hawke had always been traipsing up and down Kirkwall’s hillsides. They would not be as weary as Orana. Yet there was something odd in Hawke’s gaze as he looked upon Fenris now. Not trepidation, exactly. But those sad brows, those pressed lips. Even in the darkness, Fenris could place Hawke’s look of regret.

“I don’t want to live like this.”

Fenris was surprised more by his reaction than by anything else. His heart skipped a beat. This night, yet another night before the fire, with his chosen family beside him, he realized how much he had to lose. He’d had this feeling just six days earlier, but in a more physical sense. For the first time, he found himself wondering what it would be like to have Hawke turn away from him and leave. The thought seemed almost absurd; Hawke had never turned his back on him. Perhaps that was why he only thought of it now, hitting him so squarely he felt choked of air. Hawke had become his home. He didn’t like the thought of who he might become if he was left alone again.

“How do you mean?” he asked, and watched Azzan start waving his hands as if to encompass their makeshift camp, little more than the fire and the blankets and their packs, sitting to the side of his and Azzan’s blankets, ready to be grabbed in a moment if they needed to run. So far, they’d had little more than a couple of skirmishes to their names, mostly against bandits, but also against one small contingent of templars. Those sorts of battles, Fenris had thought even then, would define the rest of their lives.

“Running. No home. No safety.” Hawke’s gaze was on Orana, but Fenris thought he was included in Hawke’s concerns, as well. Because he always was. Of course Hawke was not leaving him. Of course. Thank goodness. “No reason to go anywhere or do anything.”

Drifting. Fenris had faced the same dilemma once. Hawke had told him to search for a meaning, whatever that meaning might be. But that advice wouldn’t work here. Hawke had a meaning. The freedom of mages. Now it was happening, and he was being hunted. In order to save the other mages of Kirkwall, Hawke needed to continue moving, to keep the templars’ gazes upon him for as long as possible.

“You will have purpose again,” Fenris assured him. It was the best he could give. “I understand your frustration, but this is temporary.” He hoped. He didn’t think so. “This battle will consume the world. But that does not mean it will last forever.” Again, he hoped. As had become normal, he leaned against Hawke, and Hawke against him. “We will find our home again.”

He knew without looking that Hawke would be smiling at the ‘we.’ “Until then?” Hawke whispered.

Fenris looked to Orana. She’d wanted so badly to not be left behind. She'd been willing to come with them despite refusing to so much as leave the building before. Still, the desire to be with Hawke had left her out in the cold, huddled under blankets beneath the sky. No shelter, no home. It was no way to live. Fenris knew that very well. “We will find a place.”

Hawke was silent. They both knew the chances of that happening.

“What do you want?” Hawke asked.

It was a loaded question. Hawke had a bad habit of putting others’ wants head and shoulders above his own. Fenris answered carefully. “I want a purpose, as well.”

Loving Hawke was something that would happen anywhere, at any time. It was no more a purpose than breathing. He thought about it. Opened his mouth. Closed it. He felt the weight of Hawke’s stare and reminded himself once again that he had sworn to never hide his thoughts. He’d promised himself when he’d run from Danarius. He would no longer act subservient to anyone, for anything. So he spoke. “When your brother had been captured. Do you remember?”

A foolish question, yet Hawke didn’t call him on it. He never did. “Yes.”

“The woman. Grace.” He thought back to her; she’d had the confident grace he knew all too well. It had outshone her physical features, which would have been stunning if it hadn’t been for the righteous indignation she wore like a second skin. “When we fought her, and she used her blood magic on me – there is no need to flinch, Hawke,” he said, trying not to sound aggravated. “I am not going to break at it.”

Hawke’s body was tense against him. “I can be unhappy about it,” Hawke said. Fenris sighed.

“For a moment during the battle, yes. It had felt familiar. But the sensation had left me angry, not afraid.” Hawke seemed to contemplate this. “It had felt right, battling her. I hadn’t faced a blood mage since battling Danarius. It had felt… good.”

More contemplation. He let Hawke ruminate on it. Fenris didn’t know what it meant, either, after all. Just that, when thinking about a purpose, that moment had felt right. In a way he couldn’t describe. Perhaps it was unfair, to mention cutting down mages in the same conversation as the idea of finding his purpose, but there it was.

“Perhaps we’ve been focusing on my own path for too long.”

Fenris snorted. “I never even acknowledged your path, Hawke. I hardly think we have dwelt upon it.”

Azzan chuckled. “That’s rather pathetic, then.” Fenris closed his eyes, refusing to acknowledge the pun. “Guess you’re a bit antipathetic toward my humor, huh?”

“Hawke.”

Azzan chuckled. “Fine, fine.” Fenris got to listen to Hawke take a few easy breaths before saying, “Ever since I came back from the Deep Roads, I’ve focused on helping mages get rights. I’d gained wealth and privilege; it was my duty, I thought, to use it properly.”

Maker. No wonder Fenris loved this idiot.

“But whatever the result of this disaster, the one thing I’m certain of is that I can’t be a part of it.”

That made Fenris lean off of Hawke and look up at him. The man was gorgeous. His hair was still partly pulled back, the locks for once still neatly within their hairtie, since they hadn’t gotten into a fight that day. It left his cheekbones on easy display, the last glows of firelight throwing the man’s eternal stubble into stark contrast with the golden tan of his skin. The metal of his specialized armor glowed orange in the last of the fire’s embers, shining up enough to show the edges of that midnight hair as it swept along the tops of Hawke’s shoulders. Fenris had expected to see tension in them, and in that back. He didn’t. Hawke seemed to have calmed somewhat. He’d reached some decision. “Why not?” Fenris asked.

“I led the start of the rebellion,” he said simply. At Fenris’ frown, he said, “it started horribly, Fenris. Meredith would have massacred them all, yes, but Anders…” Azzan grimaced. It was still painful for him; Anders had been a dear friend, someone Hawke had admired and cared for. The betrayal had been sudden and sharp, and Hawke had yet to recover from it. If he ever would. “So many innocent people died because of him. If I led, it would be considered an act of violence by mages against the world. We would all be hunted down and slaughtered for it. There would be no rebellion, no reform. Only death.”

Fenris thought about it. It was true. As much as neither of them liked it, mages had to look like martyrs now. They were; even Fenris, distrustful of mages as he was, knew they were victims in all this madness. For now. Countless mages would see themselves as righteous martyrs, and they would act with all the violence of those who believed they were right and the world was wrong. Just like Anders. But for now, mages needed the chance to prove themselves the subjected, not the usurpers.

Hawke might choose to involve himself later, but by then, the movement would be too large, and his appearance too late. If he got involved, he would merely make everything a pro-Champion, anti-Champion debate. So no, perhaps not even then. Hawke had begun this, but if he chose to lead? If he became, as Anders proclaimed him, the leader the mages had been waiting for?

Fenris shifted, uneasy. He didn’t like the idea of what it all would become. It sounded too much like an Exalted March.

Thankfully, it appeared Azzan had come to the same conclusion. “So what do you propose?” He wondered if Hawke was about to suggest they search down those mages who would cause harm and didn’t know if he wanted to do so. He didn’t know of any way they could do so, and if there was one, surely it would be one the templars also knew. Wouldn’t they then be in danger of running across the very people they were attempting to avoid?

Hawke wrapped one arm around him. Rubbed his cheek into Fenris’ hair like a cat. “Not me,” Hawke murmured. “You.” Fenris breathed in deeply of Hawke’s scent. The man always seemed to smell of both fall and spring, pumpkin spice and apples. Likely due to his spirit. “What would be the one cause you would wish to fight for?”

Once again, Fenris found himself stunned into surprised silence. Not because of the question – really, he should have known – or even because the very idea of standing for a cause was new to him, though it was. What surprised him was how quickly he thought of something he wished to fight for. It came easily. Because of his association with Hawke, who seemed to take on every single cause in the entirety of Kirkwall? Or because of the story he and Hawke had read together, as he’d learned to understand the squiggles people made on parchment? Or was it perhaps because he truly desired it, in some bottom-most recesses of his heart that he’d barely begun to explore?

Whatever the case, he knew his answer. He looked up, searching for any sign of hesitation, trepidation, fear. Instead Hawke looked as he usually did – ready to give Fenris the world. “I want to be free,” he murmured. Azzan opened his mouth. Fenris reached up one gauntleted hand, careful with the spiked tips, and covered those beautiful lips. “Not just here and now. Everywhere. I want the word slaves to fall into antiquity. I want those like Grace to find no haven on this earth. If anyone is to live their lives hunted and afraid, I want it to be people like her.”

His fingers slid from Azzan’s lips. Hawke reached up and played with Fenris’ bangs, showing, for a short moment, the dots of lyrium embedded in his forehead. Something deep touched those eyes, something unreadable that made those fingers clench around a lock of his hair before gently smoothing it out. “Then we’ll go,” Azzan said, as if it was the easiest decision in the world.

Go. To Tevinter. To fight.

The idea brought with it equal parts elation and terror. But the terror felt good. Like facing Danarius. Like winning. Though he didn’t know if they could. They were talking about starting a war against what was once the most powerful nation in Thedas. Just the two of them. He looked over to the two forms nearly cuddling together on the other side of the dying fire. The two of them, a dog and a young ex-slave whose skills included cooking and playing the lyre. (A lyre which had been left behind.) It was madness.

He looked at Hawke. “It’s suicide.”

“No.” Hawke smiled. “I don’t think so.”

It was. Yet Fenris couldn’t find a single reason to not. Where else had they to go? The world would be on the lookout for Hawke now. Any sign of the Champion, and he would be carted off to who knew where to suffer who knew what. Would he be locked away? Imprisoned? Made tranquil?

And what of the war? It would spread. Like a disease, the events of Kirkwall would filter out into the rest of the world. Even if Hawke was no longer wanted by the templars, he would be sought out by the mages. Either to be killed for his part in the rebellion, or to be recruited to lead them in their efforts, whatever those may be.

There was no such thing as a safe haven for them anymore. No home. No future. No prospects.

Why not find something to make them feel like they were taking control of their own futures? Why not choose a path they could be proud of?

One they would walk together.

Fenris grinned. He knew it was a smile full of teeth, nearly primal. Like a wolf. “I suppose you were right about stranger places.”

Hawke laughed. It woke the mabari before it could do more than begin to drift to sleep. “I told you so.”

Inamorato.

The voice called to him from a haze of green. He turned, only to feel the coarse fiber of the mat beneath his skin. He looked around. He was standing. Standing, yet he distinctly felt the lumpy pillow beneath his head. Just a few hours before, he’d finished handing out orders to his people and had gone to sleep.

Suddenly he knew that was what he was. Asleep.

His fists clenched. Panic seized him. He hadn’t yet known a mage to be able to forcibly pull him into the Fade, but clearly that was what had happened. The green surrounding him was bright and thick, like a sort of fog. He took a single step and found himself, suddenly, in what looked like a very tiny clearing. He looked around again, startled. The place did not have the feel of the area he’d entered when chasing after Feynriel. It felt… soothing. Which made little sense until he saw the creature before him and felt, for the shortest instance, something like a summer breeze.

There was no sound here. No air. The small field ended in nothing but white. When he took another step into the meadow, the edges of it shifted yet again, becoming something more like the open wall of a chantry. Before him stood an enormous statue of Andraste, its hands out in a show of supplication.

The creature before him edged closer. He tensed. It stood at the height of a tall woman, its robes perhaps feminine in form. But its fingers were a smidge too long, its bearing a smidge too otherworldly. And its eyes were green.

Inamorato.

The word sounded familiar. He backed away. The chantry disappeared, though the statue remained. Only the edges of the meadow filled his vision. The creature stopped. For their dreams had been devoured by a demon that prowled the Fade as a wolf hunts a herd of deer. Taking first the weakest and frailest of hopes, and when there was nothing left, destroying the bright and bold by subtlety and ambush and cruel arts.

“Stay back, demon,” he hissed. He prepared to take another step back.

Help Healbird.

His foot touched the ground behind him. His eyes opened.

He woke up.

Back when they’d first arrived on the outskirts of Tevinter’s borders, Azzan had dressed himself up as a rich nobleman, with Fenris and Orana as his two servants. For Orana, the change had been natural. For Fenris, it had itched. As for Azzan – one would have thought someone had shoved glass under his nails. But it had gotten them inside, gotten them to a real bed for the first time in weeks, and had eventually allowed them the opportunity to take Tevinter in.

Those first few days, Fenris had looked over his shoulder at every turn, ready for someone to pop out and exclaim that they had found him, Danarius’ long-lost slave, his markings a glaring beacon for all to see. After a time, he’d learned that people paid little mind to elves, even less so here than in Kirkwall, and had managed to look more the guard and less the hunted.

They’d created a network. Fenris had been shocked to learn that Red Jenny had operatives here, and through Charade, Hawke had managed to meet them. Through them, they’d found runaway slaves, merchants helping to hide the slaves in their homes and in small buildings, secreting them through the night. They’d met a young man, elven, who had told them the secrets of the routes, the nobles who turned a willingly blind eye and those who actively hunted the slaves, bloodlust on their minds.

It had been Azzan who had gathered the information, Azzan who had made friends with all and sundry. And then, once they’d found enough to get started, it had been Azzan who had turned to him, kissed his ear, and whispered, “they’re all yours.”

Since then, he and Hawke had worked overtime to create their own safe havens within the country and its many cities, and to group together trustworthy souls to help those slaves escape. They set up camps in nearly abandoned towns, including this one, only a few hours from Vol Dorma, so deep into enemy territory they would be better off heading to the Nocan Sea and swimming for Par Vollen than trying to escape through the countryside. Not that they would. They were too deep into Fenris’ cause now. Four years too deep.

Now was the first time, however, that the days within the country’s borders seemed to stretch into something ready to snap. Several weeks before, Azzan had left him. They’d both noticed a sudden absence of Grey Wardens. Letters upon letters came flooding in from their communications officers informing them of the sudden absence, the abandoned posts and forts and garrisons. Too many feared the Grey Wardens teaming up with the Imperial Archon, or perhaps hunting down the slaves as they made their way to their town, grabbing them up and forcing them into service. “Ridiculous,” Azzan had said. “They have the Right of Conscription.”

Still, their sudden absence was worrying. Was it a Blight? A call to arms? A change in leadership? “Or,” Azzan postulated, his lips in a thin, grim line, “does it have to do with that hole in the sky and the new Inquisition?”

All questions neither of them could answer. Whatever the case, the magisters in Tevinter were on the move, as well, and suddenly it had become imperative that they learn what was going on. Fenris had asked if they should send someone to the Inquisition, but Hawke had shook his head. “Varric is already there,” he’d said, not for the first time. Varric, the one out of all of Hawke’s friends who had remained steadfast through everything, who had kept in touch with him, helped Hawke learn about spy networks, and even lent his own men to their fledgling cause, had been taken in by the Inquisition’s leaders and questioned. The last thing either Fenris or Azzan wanted was Azzan’s head on a pike, and considering the small, cryptic messages Varric sent through his spy network, that was what they could expect.

“I’ll go search for Stroud,” Hawke had said those many nights ago as they lay in one of their many safehouses. Stroud, the Warden who had saved Carver, who likely traveled with Hawke’s brother still. The Warden Hawke had contacted years ago, when they’d first run, to see if the man knew anything about red lyrium. This particular night of this particular conversation had been just outside of Solas, the major city furthest south. They had slowly made their way there, trailing after a few bands of slaves making their ways to the border. They’d waylaid over a dozen slaver troops trying to catch the groups.

Fenris turned to Azzan, sliding their bodies together with the ease of years of practice. “I can’t leave at the moment,” Fenris said, again not for the first time. Only this time, he paused. His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you will go?”

Azzan smiled the smile that said he knew they would fight, and he knew he would win. “You’re right. You can’t leave now. You have a new group to train, several slaves to help get across the border, and Magister Tentum’s caravan to hit. You know it has to be me.”

Alone. They’d never been alone in this, not for a minute. Even when they’d had to part, for information gathering or to lure enemies away or even to act as if Azzan was buying the slaves or being escorted or whatever – they had never left one another alone on a mission. “Hawke, no.”

Azzan had so many habits with Fenris, and almost all of them involved touching. This was one Fenris had learned through years of both of them heading into battles they may not return from. Azzan leaned his head on Fenris’ shoulder and kissed his pulse point. Years ago, that very position had kept them both alive when it had seemed they would both fall. “Hawke yes.”

He had wanted to scream, to snarl. He had wanted to argue. For the first time since he’d chosen to take this path, he wanted to rage at his responsibilities. Instead he held the back of Hawke’s head, felt those silken strands beneath the smooth length of his fingers, and shivered. “You will come back to me.”

Victory assured, Hawke rolled onto him, until he was half covering Fenris, and started mouthing more strongly at Fenris’ neck. As always, he felt Hawke’s mana react to the lyrium within him, feeding the man power. Fenris leaned his neck back, offering more. Hawke would be gone for who knew how long. His fingers clenched into the skin of Hawke’s scalp at the thought of it. If Hawke was going to leave, he would be doing so with as much strength as Fenris could give him.

“Always,” Hawke had promised.

The word rang in his mind as he stood amongst his commanders, each working through their own jobs in what had become his ragtag group of warriors. They stood within the preparation room, many walking back and forth between tables and maps and papers filled with information – those who could read – and back. Most were men and women he and Hawke had freed themselves. Many traveled with them, hurrying back and forth along Tevinter’s regions. Orana stood beside him, able to read the words on the letter he’d just received as easily now as he.

“Sir?”

The woman before him was shorter by far than the average female elf, a few inches below five feet tall. Her clothing was that of a slave still; all the better for her to go unnoticed in the city. It had been there that she had found one of Varric’s men scouting around, trying to ask after the rebel army without making it clear he searched for them.

He stared at the paper in his hand and wished Cailyn had never found the man.

“Sir?” Cailyn asked again. She craned her neck to try to see his face.

“Leave me be,” he said, his voice raw, and left them all.

His feet marked the path out through the building and across the cobblestones, back to their home in this tiny town. His. His home now. The door barely got the chance to close behind him before he crashed to his knees. Aegis walked up to him, the mabari’s happy panting slowly growing quiet.

Elf, the letter began, proof that Varric may have been a good writer but still hadn’t mastered the art of a nickname, I’m sure ̶M̶a̶r̶s̶h̶m̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ Hawke told you that he’d met with the Inquisition after it started a search for Stroud.

Yes, Hawke had informed him when the Inquisition had started sniffing around Stroud themselves. He’d decided to meet with them, on Varric’s suggestion.

The paper crumpled in his fist. It had been a mistake to trust such an organization for even a second.

We found the Grey Wardens. You and Hawke were right to be worried. They went full bonkers. Meredith-level bonkers. Started recruiting themselves for demons at the behest of a magister.

Just another group of idiots catering to the powerful, trying to find an easy way out. Just another magister trying… trying to take everything from him.

We went to stop them. Things got crazy. They always did. Hawke didn’t make it.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry, Elf.

His nails scratched against the hard stone floor as he curled in on himself. Hawke’s favor flashed, bright red, against his open skin. He stared at it until it took over his vision. Until all he saw was red, and then a blur, and then nothing but tears.

He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find the breath. The world had no air left in it.

The fall into that yawning black pit inside his rib cage felt like choking lead even before he remembered the dream. Inamorato, he’d been called. He remembered now, finally, where he’d heard it before. Over and over again, from deep within his mind, whenever he’d slept within Hawke’s arms and found himself dreaming of Danarius, or of the fog warriors, or of his endless nights on the run. Whenever he’d faced a nightmare, a soft voice had called out to him. Every time, he would wake from the dream before it went too far. That far away voice had called him inamorato. Just as Azzan’s voice had just once before, in a battle where he’d called upon his spirit to save the lives of Fenris and Aegis. A word derived from the Tevinter tongue. A person’s male lover.

‘Help Healbird,’ that voice had begged. And he’d run from it.

Faith had tried to warn him.

He didn’t sleep that day, or the next. Orana, of all people, started taking care of things for him, leading the commanders away as they came to him, making sure he ate, even if it was by rote. He could see the way her own fingers shook, the way her shoulders quaked as she walked. “I hope,” Fenris said once, and found his voice scratchy and broken by tears that had run out long ago, “you know that you are my family, as well.”

Orana had merely bent down and kissed his cheek, more easily affectionate with another elf than with a human. “I know,” she’d whispered, and continued on. It was a strength he didn’t know how to possess.

He drifted. He went to the preparation room only once, his gaze failing to take in the words on the pages before him, blurring out the map until it looked like nothing more than squiggles and lines. For an instant, it reminded him harshly of the time before Hawke had begun to teach him. It had sent him into a panic. He didn’t want to return to such a time. He didn’t want his life with Hawke to disappear so easily. He would rather the pain in his chest never leave than lose his memories of Hawke, even one.

It was on the third night that he fell into an exhausted sleep, not on his bed – he couldn’t stand the sight of it – but in his chair, staring like a child at the food Orana had made him but unable to will himself to eat.

The green returned. Almost, he was thankful for it. He didn’t want to think he was the type to fall into the clutches of some demon the instant things got hard, but he knew better. If a demon promised him the chance to see Azzan again, he would take it. Even if Azzan would roll in his grave in concern for him.

Azzan’s grave. It was a new, terrifying, mind-bending thought. Where was it?

Inamorato.

He startled. Once again, he could feel the chair beneath and behind him, the hard wood pressing into his spine. He could still smell the food, the potatoes and small meats, even as they grew cold on his plate. Before him, the world turned bright, brighter. Slowly, the green shaped itself into a tiny meadow. Unlike before, this time he stumbled forward, barely believing what he was seeing.

The strange chantry opened up to him again, the statue’s hands out, palms up, as if seeking alms. He didn’t know why he thought it looked to be begging. Perhaps because he was. “Tell me you’re alive. That he’s alive. Please. I’ll do anything.”

The creature stood before him, just as it had before. Its unnaturally long fingers reached out to him. This time, he hurried forward. For their dreams had been devoured by a demon that prowled the Fade as a wolf hunts a herd of deer. Taking first the weakest and frailest of hopes, and when there was nothing left, destroying the bright and bold by subtlety and ambush and cruel arts.

“I don’t understand,” he said, scowling. When Hawke’s spirit of faith had taken over his body, Hawke had spoken in such riddles. Hawke had told him that the spirit kept itself to the holy texts. Fenris hadn’t been prepared to try to decipher the spirit’s meanings. He’d never thought he would need to. Now he cursed himself. He should have tried harder. Been more prepared. “Where is he? What is happening? If – if you are real, and not merely a trick of the Fade, then you must have a way of proving it to me.”

The spirit tilted its head, its arm still outstretched. Beckoning him closer. Warning bells rang out in his mind. This would not be wise.

He stepped forward.

“If you would live, and live without fear, you must fight.”

The words shocked him. They’d resonated with him the very first time he’d read them, back when he’d lived in the old mansion and Hawke had come to him, teaching him to read. He remembered the nearly giddy feeling in his chest as he read. Even now, as he stood against Tevinter with the people he freed, he looked to that book over and over again, taking strength from the memory of Shartan the way Hawke took strength from his memory of Andraste.

During that fight, the one where Hawke had given the spirit command of his body, it had spoken those very words to Hawke’s hound.

“Are you really Faith? Hawke’s Faith?”

He stopped just before the creature, uncertain whether it had been wise to go to it. Even less certain when it reached out for him. He tensed, yet did not fight, did not back away. Those long, long fingers touched briefly upon his skin. Upon his lyrium.

…?

The summer breeze rose around them, natural as the morning. He felt that same strange feeling of being fed on, as his lyrium rose and activated, flooding his body with its power. The creature, instead of continuing to feast, pulled away. The sudden loss of Hawke’s familiar aura made him shiver, that hungry maw inside him opening wide again.

“Let us take up the blades of our enemies and carve a place for ourselves in this world!”

He shook his head. Frowned. Hawke and Faith were one. If Hawke died, then Faith died, and vice versa. That aura – Fenris doubted any demon could ever replicate it. There was something too pure about it. For an instant, he could have sworn he had felt Hawke’s presence beside him, reaching out.

Or perhaps he was too filled with hope. Either way. He didn’t care.

“You want me to fight,” he said. “Fight someone. To keep Hawke alive.” His hands shook. If there was even the slightest chance that Hawke yet lived, he had to take it. “How? Hawke was with the Inquisition. There are far more of them than there are of me. Even if I brought my whole army south…”

“I will go alone and see what army comes.”

“You want me to face an army alone?” Fenris asked. Those alarm bells were sounding more and more insistent by the second.

“If you hate the legion, then I am your friend.”

He opened his mouth to demand a better answer when finally, he recalled that point in Shartan’s story. He’d gone to meet with Andraste’s army. Fenris looked at the spirit before him like it was mad. “You want me to meet the Inquisition?!”

Help Healbird.

The words muted him. In the end, that was what mattered. Hawke was alive, wherever he was. He needed rescuing. Nothing would stop him.

“I will find him,” Fenris swore. He grabbed the creature’s hand. The aura returned almost immediately, along with the feel of Hawke’s presence. The heavy, aching maw in the middle of his chest filled so suddenly it locked up his throat. He felt the burn of tears at the back of his eyes. “I swear to you, I will find you both. So keep him alive until then.”

The creature blinked at him from beneath its robe. Its eyes were as bright a green as the Fade itself. His Light shall be our banner, and we shall bear it through the gates of that city and deliver it to our brothers and sisters awaiting their freedom within those walls.

“Just keep him alive,” Fenris said, not bothering to try to understand. The most important message had been sent and received.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Cailyn said, even as she double-checked his armor for him. It had been a while since he’d worn it; he’d become known for his markings, something he’d borne with more and more pride as the bounty for him grew higher and higher. He’d been surprised, back then, at how good it had felt. Hawke had only smiled at his revelations; unlike Fenris, Hawke hadn’t seemed surprised at all. Of the two of them, Hawke had known how it felt to fight for something he believed in. It had become something Fenris understood, as well, but only over time.

Now, years later, he was covering himself in full armor for the first time. Covering the lines of lyrium that branded him, not as a pet of Danarius’, but as the leader of the slave rebellion. He looked at his hand, at the lyrium lining the palm up through the fingers. He clenched it into a fist. “Better alone than to take all of you with me, leaving those in need here defenseless.” He looked to her. “Caellum will be left in charge, but it will be on you and the others to support him.”

Her check complete, she backed away, meeting his gaze. “What about…?” She looked over. He was certain she was staring at Orana. He could feel the young woman’s gaze on his back.

“I have already spoken with her,” he said. He didn’t look back. All of this would be hard enough without thinking of how he was leaving the young woman he now thought of as a sister behind. “She understands. She and Hawke’s mabari will remain here. Take leave wherever you must. Hawke and I will catch up with you.”

Because he would not be returning without Hawke.

Cailyn nodded. As far as she knew, Hawke was merely in trouble and needed to be saved. Only Orana knew the truth – that, according to Varric, Hawke was supposed to be dead. It was better that way. Less people Fenris would have to argue with, and less of a chance Fenris would have to hear the words.

He moved ahead of the company. Many people stood before him, waiting for him. One brought him a horse. A rare steal, and a dear gift. He thanked them, then turned. “Do not think this is some sign of the end,” he said, and saw many people flinch guiltily. He chose not to look at them. “Our battle here is about more than me. I may be leaving for a while, but my cause is here. As is yours.” He grabbed the saddle and heaved himself up. “I leave because none of mine get left behind. I will return for the same.”

He looked out, his gaze far beyond the walls of their meager village, past even Vol Dorma. All along, his eyes had been on the prize: Minrathous. It was there his gaze settled, though he could not see it from where he stood. In his mind, he remembered every street he’d ever walked. Up there, magisters and archons sat on their thrones, drinking their ale, whipping their slaves and sucking on their blood like vampires. Up there, those people cursed his name, his face, his markings. He had become well known enough to have slavers hunt through every city and port for him, each trying to take his head. Soon enough, he would have their faces twisted, not in anger, but in fear.

He looked back. No one asked him why Hawke was worth it. No one had to. When Hawke wasn’t on his own mission to rescue slaves or battle slavers, he was by Fenris’ side. They were nearly a single entity within these peoples’ minds.

Fenris set off. Many rallied behind him as he went, calling his name and begging him to return soon. It was more than he ever would have dreamed four years ago. More than he’d ever thought he’d needed. Back then, there had only been the four of them – him, Hawke, Orana, and the mabari. Now, there were more than he could count.

But there was only one he needed. One who meant more than a promise or a cause. One whom he didn’t ever want to face living without.

He wouldn’t. He would drag Hawke back. Without him, anywhere in the world would simply be a town, a city, a bed. He didn’t need any of those. He’d had those, and he’d left them all behind. All he needed was his home.

And he was getting it back.

Chapter Text

Fenris spread his legs. Azzan leaned above him, dick in hand, ready to enter. Fenris clenched his eyes shut. “Too much. It’s too much. Hawke–”

Azzan was already moving, rolling off from on top of him and turning to his side. Fenris gulped in air as Azzan shuddered at his side.

He stared at the ceiling. Wooden, the material so aged it looked more gray than brown. It was a hovel compared to where Azzan had lived for the past six years of his life. But it had two rooms, which gave the two of them the first modicum of privacy since they’d been on the run. And even though it had only been a week since they’d crossed the border into Tevinter, it had also been several weeks more that they’d gone without sex. Fenris had been the one to suggest the activity, then, despite Azzan’s reluctance, the position.

He’d had… flashbacks, one might call them, during sex with Azzan before. Times when he’d thought of Danarius, or compared Azzan to him. But he had also never reached this point, where all he could see was Danarius grinning up above him, demanding Fenris spread his legs wider and hold them open–

He gasped. Shivered. He turned to Hawke, seeking what he always found – differences – only for Hawke to roll himself into a sitting position and stand. Fenris gulped in a few breaths. Right. Hawke was not him; no amount of horror on Fenris’ part could counteract the full erection Hawke had shown just moments before. Bodies did not work like that. Hawke would want to hide such a thing, pretend it wasn’t there. He would go to the front room, give Fenris some privacy, and jerk off where Fenris would not see.

If Fenris hadn’t gotten himself under control by then, Hawke would blame himself. Fenris would not let him.

He heard a rustle of clothing, and then Azzan turned to him. “Here,” Hawke murmured. Without touching Fenris, he placed Fenris’ armor on the bed.

Fenris stared at it for a moment. Yes. More than anything, he wanted to be dressed.

He snatched the clothes up, already shaking out the pants to put them on. Hawke turned away, just enough of an angle to hide his erection from Fenris’ sight, and bent down again, sitting on the floor. He reached up one long hand to the table by their bed and took the rag from the bowl of cool water. Fenris shimmied on his pants and watched Azzan hold the wet rag between his hands.

He didn’t know what to do. This had never happened between them before. The worst had been the first time, when Fenris had first encountered Hawke’s reaction to completion and had found his mind momentarily unlocked from whatever Danarius’ procedure had done to him. He had stared at the ceiling then, too, until Hawke had fallen into sleep. Then he had gotten up and tried to grasp those fading memories as the night’s darkness swallowed the fire to black.

Since then, their sexual relationship had been completely different, as Fenris realized his sexual knowledge not merely vastly outstripped Hawke’s, but found that Hawke was a giver even in bed. He’d also learned that Hawke had very little control over his magic during sex, something that should have concerned him, and likely would have, if it hadn’t meant Hawke always used his healing aura, a sensation that had come to soothe him.

Just as he thought it, Hawke sent out that same aura, the summer breeze that felt like sunlight and a cool wind. The scent of ripe apples bloomed around the room. “Hawke.”

“I’m sorry,” Azzan said, and turned slowly back to Fenris. He made no effort to dress himself – leaving himself vulnerable as Fenris snapped on his gauntlets. “Here.” He reached up, holding out one hand toward Fenris’ own. Fenris had no idea what he wanted; the rag remained in Hawke’s other hand, but since he was now dressed, there was very little Hawke could do to clean him. Still. He let Hawke take his hand.

Azzan touched the tips of Fenris’ fingers, clasping loosely around the metal of Fenris’ gauntlet. Azzan shuffled on his butt close enough to lean up a bit and kiss the metal on the back of his fingers. Then Hawke raised the rag and slowly began cleaning the skin beneath.

The rag was damp enough to leave a distinct feeling of wet – of clean – on Fenris’ skin. Azzan bent himself to the task, running the rag over every spare inch of skin, from one finger to the next. Silence filled the room, poignant in its patience. Fenris’ heart rate, still spiked far above normal, finally began to calm. He shivered again, more from the withdrawal of the fight-or-flight instinct than from disgust. Still, it was enough to make Hawke pause. Slowly, not hearing a protest, he continued.

“How are you?” Fenris asked.

“I’m fine, Fenris. Don’t worry about me.”

Fenris watched. A part of him wanted to insist on the truth. Azzan was more emotionally vulnerable than Fenris was able to account for most days. Of course, he could already guess. Azzan likely felt shame, same as him. Fenris felt shame over his failure. Azzan likely felt shame in Fenris’ remembering, as if he was guilty for something. “You did not do anything wrong,” Fenris said. This time, Azzan did not pause. “The fault is mine.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s his.” Azzan did not use his name – he never used Danarius’ name in relation to sex. He also did not look at Fenris. “I’m all right, Fenris. Focus only on whatever will help you.”

Fenris reached out and touched the rag, stopping Azzan’s ministrations. Belatedly, he realized there had been no shock of cold when the rag had touched him. Azzan had warmed it with his own body heat. “You help me,” Fenris said. And it was true. The thing that had always pulled him back from those memories had been Hawke. Always, he was so very different from those who had come before. Danarius, and all those who had demanded something for a place to sleep or a bite to eat.

Azzan finally looked up at him. There was a small pinch around his eyes, just enough to tell Fenris there was something hidden back there. Still, Azzan said nothing. Fenris stroked the man’s cheek, felt the hard, rough stubble on his thumb. He looked into Azzan’s eyes, the open, waiting slant to them, the way they dipped down at the far corners, the long lashes that curled up toward those eyebrows. The skin beneath his palm was warm and tight, not yet wrinkled by age. The hair was dark, the ends of it nearly lost in the night’s shadows. Azzan demanded nothing. Said nothing. His aura swept over them both, the feel of it singing lightly beneath his skin.

It took several minutes. Several minutes during which Azzan steadfastly met his gaze, his body slowly relaxing as his erection faded. Eventually, Azzan put down the rag and touched Fenris’ wrists, wrapping his hands around the metal gauntlets, lightly sliding his hands up and down. Not once did Hawke complain about not wearing clothes or the discomfort of being naked and sitting on the floor. He let Fenris lean over him, take a dominant position, and create his own pace.

Danarius had never done any such thing.

Finally, the worst passed. Fenris leaned down a bit more, and pulled up on Hawke’s cheeks. Hawke obligingly lifted onto his knees. Fenris kissed him, softly at first, testing the waters. Hawke’s lips were cracked and dry from the road, feeling so unlike what Fenris was used to that it gave him chills. Azzan’s aura wafted around him, returning that scent of apples. Reminding him that it truly was Azzan beneath him. He shifted from the bed, nearly sat upon Azzan as he straddled him, and deepened the kiss. Azzan lifted his lips, still silently obliging. Fenris’ fingers scratched back from those coarse cheeks to the soft hair sitting loose around Azzan’s ears. He could feel Azzan stirring beneath him and trying to hide it. He leaned back. “I know you are not him,” he said. “I do not confuse the two of you. That is not what happens.”

Conversation. Open affection. Azzan dared reach back and touch Fenris’ hair, likely just a fraction of how much Hawke wished to comfort him with touch. They both knew it would not, at this time, be a comfort. “I… think I know. Or, I try to understand.” Hawke hesitated for several moments. Trying to find the right thing to say. Fenris narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want to ask about it,” Hawke said quickly, reading Fenris’ expression. “I don’t want to – but I do.”

Fenris rolled his eyes. “I will not break, Hawke.” He did, however, break contact with the man and sit back on the bed. He looked Hawke over for a moment. The man was still undressed. He scooted to the side of the bed and reached down for Hawke’s clothes. The armor had a couple of layers. Fenris found himself hesitating to give Hawke both, but he did, anyway. Hawke just settled the clothes in his lap.

“It’s not about you breaking, Fenris.”

Fenris’ brows rose. He’d been expecting a horrible pun. He looked back over to Hawke, only to find the man staring at his clothes. “That was – I’d never wanted…” The man took a deep breath. “Is there anything I can do so that never happens again?”

Fenris’ lips parted. He’d scared Hawke. There must have been something in his face, or in his voice… he sighed. “It has been years. He is dead. I shouldn’t even be reacting like this at all.”

“Pain and fear don’t go away with logic, Fenris.” Hawke didn’t reach up to touch him. Fenris had severed that link when he’d scooted away, and Hawke would not breach distances Fenris had created. Sometimes, Fenris wished he would. “I want to be with you, but never like that.” Hawke shuddered. Yes, there had been something in Fenris’ reaction that Fenris hadn’t noticed. “Never, ever like that.”

“I know that, Hawke.”

Hawke’s lips thinned, just a bit. Enough for Fenris to notice that, even though they were alone, even though they were in an intimate setting, Fenris was not calling Hawke by his first name. Not even in his own mind. “We don’t need this,” Hawke said. Fenris raised a brow. “What we have is more than I’d ever hoped for. We don’t ever need to do this.”

Fenris ran a hand over his face, nearly catching himself on the clawed ends of his gauntlet. “Did you never think that this may be for the both of us?”

Hawke flinched. Fenris sighed.

“I want to know how you feel when you lay beneath me. I want to get to that point where it feels the same for me.”

Hawke was silent for several moments. “I want that for you, too.”

“Then we will continue to try.” Hawke looked up. “Nights like this will not stop us.”

Hawke’s lips trembled up into a smile. “You know I’m happy with us just as we are, right?”

Fenris smiled, too. He reached down and lifted Hawke up. Hawke held his clothes in a bundle in his arms. Fenris used that bundle to tug Hawke close, until Hawke was sitting on his lap. “Then we should endeavor to make each other even happier.”

Hawke’s mouth opened, and this time Fenris was certain he was about to be subjected to one of Hawke’s puns. He kissed the man before it was too late.

In the morning, he thought, he would show Hawke exactly how happy the man could be.

Kios led the other three in his group through the main gates of Skyhold. After all this time, the wrought iron gates opening sounded familiar, almost homey. He’d gotten used to the cold, a far cry from his aravel, now situated safely within the city of Wycome. Sera and Varric were still talking about the bet they’d made, arguing over the ability of one over the other to both hold their drink and shoot straight. They were now negotiating the parameters of the take when one defeated the other. They’d been going on like so for at least an hour.

He managed to get about five steps in before being immediately beset by several messengers. A few merely handed over information – more people had made the pilgrimage to Skyhold, and a few more seemed to be on the way – but one took over his time rather completely, to the point where his fellow companions were getting markedly more bored.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll speak with Josephine,” he said, finally waving off the last messenger. Most messages seemed to be in relation to the Inquisition’s trip to the deepest Arbor Wilds and the temple they’d found within. Beyond even the revelations that had been offered to them – to him as a Dalish perhaps most of all – was the feeling that everything was coming to an end, whether the Inquisition was ready for it or not. The feeling must have permeated throughout the whole of the Inquisition, because everyone seemed to be trying to fulfill some last duty or complete a last-minute preparation. For Kios, all that was left was sorting through the mess that was his brain after accepting the burden of the vir’abelasan. Once sorted, he would hopefully find something that would assist the Inquisition in defeating Corypheus for good. Corypheus, meanwhile, would be looking for a way to get revenge against Kios for securing the vir’abelasan from beneath the corrupted human’s nose.

Kios said goodbye to his companions and headed up the stairs leading to the main hall. He waved off Varric and Sera, who were apparently going to settle their bet immediately, and Blackwall – Rainier, he knew now, and still felt annoyed even after choosing the man’s fate – who headed back to the stable, where he was likely going to woodwork his problems away.

Almost, Kios wished he, too, could find something to occupy his thoughts. As it was, he could feel the urge to look in on Solas as he approached the room the elf worked within. Just four days ago, Solas had taken him out to Crestwood and ended their relationship. To think Kios had gone into it hopeful. Hopeful that this time, finally, Solas was going to trust him with his secrets. With the reason why Solas had known about Corypheus’ “artifact” far before they’d ever seen it. With the reason why Solas called the mark on his hand “the anchor.” With the reason why he’d worked with Corypheus, clearly worked with Corypheus, only to turn around and work to instead stop the man at every turn. Kios had thought that, after he’d been ridiculously magnanimous with “Blackwall,” Solas might finally see him as someone to confide in. Because, foolishly, he’d wanted Solas to trust him enough to confide in him.

Solas had started strong – testing the waters, Kios had thought, by telling Kios something devastating about Arlathan and the past he and the other Dalish had sought these past centuries. He’d wanted to prove, as Keeper Hawen had, that he could accept such news. He’d tried to show that he believed Solas – as he would, and did, because he also suspected Solas’ “village to the North” was in fact not unlike Abelas’, save for those of more mortal blood. He thought Solas had been tasked with preserving the old knowledge and lore, and had perhaps even headed out on his own in order to do so. So he’d accepted Solas’ word about the vallaslin without asking the myriad of questions that had flooded his tongue at the news. It had been, Kios had thought, a test.

Somehow, however, he had failed it. Failed so spectacularly, in fact, that Solas had seen it necessary to end their relationship entirely.

Even though Solas had demanded they simply let it lie without further conversation, Kios couldn’t help but wonder why. What he he done wrong? Should he have kept the vallaslin, remained steadfast in his peoples’ traditions and misguided rituals despite being told of the vallaslin’s true origins? Should he have asked those questions, after all, and shown himself able to critique wisely? Should he have demanded proof? Or had it not been about that, after all? Did Solas know that he was aware of Solas’ past, at least partly? Had Solas wanted, even expected, Kios to bring it up first?

But no, that made little sense; there had been no expectant pause, no chance even to speak. Solas had told Kios of the vallaslin, had offered and acquiesced to its removal, and then had ended their relationship. No sooner had Kios managed to blink away the brightness of Solas’ dark cyan magic than the elf had pulled away from him.

He walked past Solas’ workroom without looking inside. He would not be one of those people who pined for someone who did not want him back. He wouldn’t. No matter how much his gut twisted and his throat closed up and his fists clenched, he would not.

He found himself up in his room before his brain caught up with his actions. With a huff, he took off his cloak and armor and placed his daggers on the top of his wardrobe. They were already clean, but he would sharpen them once he returned. The action of getting dressed in his more leisurely attire at least gave him the chance to calm himself. By the time he replaced his cloak and headed back down the stairs, he’d gotten himself back under control.

Josephine’s office was quiet, for once; her room was empty of messengers and nobility alike. He walked up to her, unsurprised to see her preparing to add yet another letter to the growing stack on the edge of her desk. Several curls of her hair had begun falling from her bun. He cleared his throat, only for the poor woman to jump. She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh, Inquisitor! Do forgive me; I was just clearing up a matter with one of the nobles whose lands we had to cross to reach the Arbor Wilds.”

Kios held up one hand, waylaying any apologies Josephine may have been working herself up to for merely focusing on her job. “It’s fine, Josephine. I know you’re working hard. A messenger told me you wished to contact my keeper about questions you have concerning the temple and Mythal. You have my blessing. I can send a foreword for you so they know your questions go through me.”

Josephine’s tired face lit up in a smile. “That’s wonderful news! I must admit to confusion on the subject. This ‘Well of Sorrows’ business, and this ‘geis’ thing. It’s all so very strange to me.”

He refrained from pointing out his own similar feelings when being labeled as the humans’ deity’s chosen. Instead, he admitted to something far more bitter. “My people know little about it, as well.” One person might, but he would be damned to Dirthamen’s vagrant ravens before he went begging to Solas for anything.

“Truly?” Josephine frowned. “Then are you not worried about the warnings of those who guarded the well?”

He was in fact very, very worried. “It needed to be done. Morrigan was too busy informing me of my own gods to take Abelas’ concerns to heart.”

Her frown deepened. “She seems knowledgeable. Was she not helpful? I’d heard she’d taken off on her own during everything, but I hadn’t heard she’d treated you particularly poorly.”

He opened his mouth, about to explain how a human explaining the elven faith to a Dalish First was at least on par with calling him ‘knife ear,’ when a commotion banged to life out in the main hall. They both turned to the sound. “Stay here,” he told her, and headed into the hall.

He raced out of Josephine’s room, mentally cursing himself for becoming complacent. After Haven, they should have known better than to believe themselves completely safe. He wasn’t in his armor. His weapons were back in his room. He’d stupidly gotten changed the instant he’d returned. Had Haven taught him nothing?

The sight that greeted him, however, wasn’t one of chaos. No one ran for the garden or the Undercroft, no crowd surged like wild animals toward the entrance to the main hall. Instead, he saw everyone clustering around the entrance, converging on where Varric could usually be found. Had the dwarf won his bet and offered the crowd something? Drinks, perhaps? He was about to return to Josephine and report the misunderstanding when something metallic slammed against hard wood. “Do not try to delay me!”

The onlookers chittered, mouths already spreading gossip. This time it was Varric’s voice that rose above the murmurings of the crowd. “Calm down, Elf.”

“I will not!” Again, that loud, deep voice. Kios had never heard it before. He touched a noble’s shoulder. The noble turned, ready to talk down to him, only to stop, his gaze on the Inquisition crest displayed front and center on Kios’ cloak. The noble skittered out of his way. The next sucked in a breath and did the same. And the next. And the next.

It took some time to push his way through the gathering. All the while, Varric continued speaking, lowering his voice the longer he wasn’t interrupted. “You didn’t need to come down here. There’s nothing you can do. I was there, Elf. It was bad.”

“Enough. I am not here to listen to further excuses. Where is your vaunted Inquisitor?”

Kios nearly shoved the last human out of his way. Before Solas’ workroom, right where Varric presumably did his own work, stood Varric and an unknown elf. Varric stood a bit closer to the entrance, as if he’d chased the elf into the hall. The elf stood beside Varric, teeth bared, body fully armored, if dusted from travel. His hair, stunningly white, fell slightly from its slicked-back style as the elf waved away Varric’s words. The elf scoured the faces of those in the crowd, undoubtedly searching for the Inquisitor – for Kios – himself. It was as those deep green eyes skimmed over him that Kios noticed three small dots, white-blue against that otherwise dark-tinted skin, resting in the middle of the elf’s forehead. Kios’ eyes widened. He looked at the man’s arms. One area of the elf’s arms, around his biceps, had been left bare by the armor. Bare enough to expose more of those luminescent lines. He looked back at the elf’s face, now cataloging the lines of stress around the eyes and the stiffness of those shoulders.

Finally, the one he’d expected to come had arrived. Fenris was here.

He stepped forward, out of the line of onlookers and gossip-mongers. All in all, Varric had done an excellent job describing Fenris in his book. He should have realized who the elf was the instant he’d seen the hair. He’d thought he’d read utter nonsense when he’d first read the Tale of the Champion on his way to the Conclave, long before he’d ever dreamed of becoming part of some human Inquisition. It had seemed required reading, considering the Champion’s involvement in the start of the mage-templar war. After meeting the Champion, he’d come to believe large portions of the extravagant tale. If his first impressions of Fenris were any indication, even greater portions were accurate.

“I’m here,” he said, announcing himself to the elf. That gaze landed on him once again. All the rage that had been previously pointed toward Varric now aimed directly at him. “Do you want to discuss whatever you came for in front of everyone here, or somewhere more private?”

In other words, if he had come to fight, then Kios would accept the challenge.

“I came to reclaim Hawke. As you’re the one who left him for dead, you are going to assist me.”

Varric’s face crumpled. “Elf…”

Kios steeled his heart, just as he had inside the Fade. Just as Hawke and Stroud had said as they’d tried to escape Nightmare’s domain, if there was to be any chance of reformation for the Grey Wardens, then it would have to come from one of their respected elders. That was Stroud, not Hawke. No matter that Hawke had someone waiting for him and Stroud didn’t. No matter that he’d known that he would have to carry the death of a good man on his shoulders forever. He’d made several difficult choices even before becoming Inquisitor. That had simply been one more.

He’d known there would be a chance Hawke’s lover would come seeking retribution. He’d also known that, if such a day came, he could accept it. “Hawke’s body is irretrievable.”

Fenris stepped forward. There was great purpose in his stride. Varric had failed to mention that in his book. “There is no body to retrieve, Inquisitor. Something you did not bother to confirm.”

Kios’ brows scrunched, giving away his reaction before he could stop it. “What?”

He saw movement from Solas’ workroom. Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out a fuzzy picture of peach and cream – Solas, entering the main hall, likely just as attracted to the commotion as everyone else. Kios did not look at him. Fenris, instead, demanded even more attention, as he stormed up to get into Kios’ face. “You left him somewhere and merely assumed his death. You will set it right.”

Kios inhaled through his teeth. “And how do you propose I do that? How do you even know he’s alive?”

“I know. And you are going to help me get him back.”

As much as Fenris had wanted everything to move so he could get to Azzan faster, still he was left swept up in a whirlwind he only recognized because he’d done the same to those in the position he now stood. Guards pushed past the throng of onlookers, led by, of all people, Cullen, who was seconded by an angry human woman with a scar on her face. The Inquisitor – an elf, just as rumors had said – moved him, the guards, and Varric through the crowd to a separate room back behind a woman’s workplace. Unlike the rooms Fenris’ people had, which were small and dirty and cramped, this woman had a place his group would have usually reserved for the rescued slaves to sleep in, with a fireplace and a desk sitting in the corner of a wide, open space. Whoever the woman was, she was ushered forward by the Inquisitor. That woman’s room was actually passed, leading them into a run-down hallway that led to yet another room.

This one, Fenris understood. While the Inquisitor turned to Varric and asked him to bring in someone named Solas, Fenris stared at the table in the center of the room, upon which sat a map, not of Tevinter, as his tactical room held, but of the entirety of Thedas. On it were several pins and notes. The walls were just as austere, with more notes and letters and a few posters acting as the only decoration in the room. The Inquisitor, meanwhile, kept slipping glances toward him. He was used to looks. His tattoos had always been rather eye-catching, even before he’d run from Danarius. And since he’d become the leader of the rebellion in Tevinter, everywhere he went, people recognized him for who he was.

But it was more than that. Fenris could tell. The Inquisitor seemed to be looking for something in him. Or on him. His gaze was short, but steady, his teeth as clenched as they’d been since he’d told Varric to play fetch. It wasn’t the same look Cullen was giving him – the look of misgiving; after all, the last time they’d seen each other, they’d been uneasy allies against Meredith, but they’d still stood on opposite sides. The angry woman looked like she was ready for him to fly into a murderous rage at any second. Not completely incorrect; if he hadn’t known Azzan yet lived, the Inquisitor’s days might well have been numbered.

No. The Inquisitor’s gaze was something different. It was something Fenris would not have begun to understand if it weren’t for the years he’d spent with Azzan. Seeing Azzan look at him, but never touch. Seeing Azzan hesitate every time he wanted to be even the slightest bit selfish. Azzan’s family may have loved and cherished him, but they had also done something to him, to make him think taking for himself to be inexcusable. Azzan had admitted, once, that his father had warned him, over and over again, that if he failed to hide his magic, he could put his whole family in danger. And Fenris had been partially privy to how Hawke’s mother had treated him, as if it was Azzan’s job to protect the family from any and all threats. To put himself last and his family first. It had changed Azzan, and Fenris had still been working on helping Hawke acknowledge small acts of selfishness as acceptable.

This one was looking at him with the eye of someone searching for something, but not willing to take. His lips thinned when he caught Fenris staring back. There was the main difference. Azzan would look away and pretend he hadn’t been looking to begin with. This one narrowed his eyes and tilted his head slightly – challenging Fenris to answer in kind.

“What is this about?” the woman they’d recruited from her room asked. She pushed stray strands of hair back into her bun. She’d taken an instinctive place on the opposite side of the table, as had Cullen. He stood in the middle while the woman stood to his left. After only a few moments, the door opened again, letting in yet another human female. She took the empty space to Cullen’s right. The angry swordswoman actually made way for her, moving closer to the Inquisitor for a moment before taking her place once more to the Inquisitor’s left – leaving Fenris to take the space on the Inquisitor’s right.

That was, until the door opened yet again, letting in Varric and a bald elf in simple, thin fabric. Varric took a solid place beside Fenris, silently taking Fenris’ side. Refusing to leave, or be told to leave. The flicker in the Inquisitor’s eyes said he caught the meaning. He didn’t call Varric on it.

The other did not take so solid a stance. He hesitated just inside the room, his gaze, for one long moment, locked on the Inquisitor’s back. Then he took a deep breath and stepped inside. “Inquisitor.”

Because Fenris was watching, he caught the way the Inquisitor’s back stiffened and the small hiss of breath as the Inquisitor inhaled. By the look on his face, this Solas person caught it, as well. “Fenris here says the Champion could still be alive in the Fade. Is that true?”

This time, it was Fenris who sucked in a sharp breath. The Fade. The last time he’d stepped foot in there, he’d turned on Hawke. But that was fine. He wasn’t the same as he’d been then. He’d already proven himself capable. Against Danarius. Against Tevinter. He didn’t need their power. He just needed Hawke.

The Inquisitor raised a brow at him. “Did you not know where he was? Then how do you know he’s alive?”

“I know,” he said again. He glared at Varric. “You failed to mention Hawke was trapped in his dreams. That would have made all of this much simpler. Where is he?”

Had he eaten? Drunk anything? It had been weeks since Fenris had learned Hawke still lived.

“He’s not sleeping, Elf, and it isn’t simple.” Varric looked up at him with the same sad, mopey face he’d greeted Fenris with on his arrival through Skyhold’s main gates.

“The Champion was left behind in the Fade,” the Inquisitor said. “I am not speaking of dreams. I am speaking literally.”

Fenris turned wide eyes on the man.

“See, the Inquisitor here has a funny ability,” Varric said, for some reason waggling his left hand like he held a tambourine. “So, long story short, we actually physically entered the Fade. Like. Physically. Yeah,” Varric said when Fenris looked at him like he was spitting up demons. “I know.”

“If I may ask,” the bald one – Solas – said, stopping Fenris before he threw his fist into something, “why would the knowledge of the Champion’s last whereabouts have made this simpler?”

They all turned to him. Once again, that stiffness in the Inquisitor’s shoulders increased. “Because I spoke with his spirit,” Fenris answered.

“Wait, you what? What? You?” Varric chuckled. Looked around. Chuckled again. “You?”

Fenris glared at him. “Yes. It has been a while since we last spoke, dwarf, but in case you may have forgotten, Hawke and I have been together for years. I know his spirit and its aura. And if his spirit is alive–”

“Then he is,” the angry woman said. She looked to Cullen. “The Champion was a spirit healer. The pacts they make with their spirits leave their lives intertwined. If one dies, the other dies, as well.”

“Is it possible?” the Inquisitor asked. Beneath the odd hood, Fenris caught a glimpse of an unnatural, pink gaze as the Inquisitor turned to Solas.

“It is, of course,” Solas said. His voice was hesitant. “The question then becomes, ‘why would Nightmare wish to keep the Champion alive?’”

“Nightmare?” Fenris repeated.

“A super big and scary demon,” Varric said. “Huge. Monstrous. Hawke stayed behind so we could get away.”

Fenris paled.

“Wait a minute,” Cullen said, pulling their focus back to the group. Cullen held out one hand to all of them. His gaze, however, locked on to Fenris. “How can we even know what he says has merit? There’s no evidence other than his so-called ‘knowledge’ of the Champion’s spirit. What if he’s being tricked by some demon?”

Fenris snarled. “As if I wouldn’t know a demon from Hawke’s other half.”

“Would you?”

Fenris’ lip curled.

“Enough. Both of you.” The Inquisitor placed one hand on the table, covering the Korcari Wilds on the map. “If you’re uncertain, then we need only ask for clarification.” Those odd pink eyes turned back to Fenris. “Tell us what you saw.”

“What I see,” Fenris corrected. “Every night.” Solas tilted his head. “A small clearing that becomes a small chantry when you step closer. A giant statue of Andraste, hands out as if begging. A spirit who keeps saying ‘for their dreams have been devoured by a demon that prowled the Fade as a wolf hunts a herd of deer.’” He put air quotes around the words he’d come to memorize.

“That’s the Canticle of Exaltations,” the angry woman said, her eyebrows raising.

“More importantly,” Solas said, “it is a message warning us that someone is at the mercy of a demon.”

“Hawke,” Cullen said, his voice grim. “If the story is to be believed.”

“Believe it or don’t,” Fenris said. “I only came to you because Faith asked it of me.”

“Could you tell us what the spirit said?” Solas asked.

Taking him to be the least aggravating person in the room, Fenris turned fully to the elf, leaving his back to Cullen and the rest of his team. “‘I will go and see what army comes, singing, to the land of Tevinter.’ It comes from the Book of Shartan, when Shartan went to check on the army approaching the elf rebellion.”

“Something that would resonate with you, from what I’ve heard,” the hooded woman said. “And likely something a demon would know to exploit.”

Fenris bared his teeth, but otherwise ignored her. “How much do you know about spirits and magic?”

For a moment, Solas seemed to nearly chuckle. The corner of his eyes crinkled. His hands around his staff clenched. His shoulders momentarily shook. “I am known to partake in the study of them from time to time.”

Varric snorted.

That’s what he thought. Why else would the Inquisitor ask him to join them in this room? Unlike Fenris, the Inquisitor had known where Hawke was and had planned for such a discussion. Varric’s reaction merely confirmed his suspicions. “What, then, would convince you I speak the truth?”

Instead of answering, the elf nodded to his arms. “Where did you receive that?”

Varric’s laughter stopped. He cleared his throat. “Not a wise line of questioning, Chuckles.”

The elf’s gaze did not falter. Fenris got the feeling the man already knew. If not how Fenris might respond, then something of what the making of such markings had entailed. On his face was no widening of the eyes or furrowing of the brows, but instead the tightening of lips and a hooded gaze. He was not the only one to notice – the Inquisitor’s eyes narrowed as he, too, watched Solas. Unless Fenris was mistaken, Solas was working especially hard to seem oblivious to the Inquisitor’s stares.

Fenris lifted his chin. “Danarius carved them into my flesh. And unless this has to do with rescuing Hawke, you will end your questions there.”

Solas tilted his head, acknowledging Fenris’ warning. Then the man ignored it. “The Champion was not responsible for them, then.”

“He would never,” Fenris snapped.

“Who in Andraste’s name do you think Hawke is?” Varric asked, speaking at the same time as Fenris. “Hawke loved this idiot. He’d have rather ripped out his own heart than hurt him.”

Solas held up one hand. “I meant no offense. There would have been an easy way to check if he had been. It is still possible, however. The spirit. You say you know its aura? Did it use it at any point during your dreams?”

“Every night,” Fenris said. He kept out the part about how it seemed to feed on the lyrium embedded within him. That was personal and not for them to know.

“Wait. How would that in any way prove the veracity of his claim?”

“Very easily, commander,” Solas said. “This man says he would recognize Hawke’s aura, and considering his close relationship with him, I believe him. Demons are phenomenal at faking many things and have long mastered the art of deception. Mimicking the aura of a spirit healer, however, is not a power that falls within their purview.”

The Inquisitor’s gaze did not falter from Solas’ profile. Those already narrow eyes narrowed further, turning nearly to slits. Something Solas had said or done seemed to have rankled the elf. He opened his mouth to ask, only for the Inquisitor to interrupt. “In other words, since you said you felt its aura, whatever you saw was real. So Hawke truly is alive.”

Solas looked at the Inquisitor, but the elf had already turned back to the table, showing Solas his back once more. The corners of Solas’ eyes pinched. “Yes.”

“Then the question becomes how to get to him,” the Inquisitor said.

“It becomes whether we should.” Cullen ignored the black looks Varric and Fenris sent him. “Look. I hate to be the one to say it, but we’re facing Corypheus and his horde. The chances of him not gathering up his army for a new assault is slim to none. We’re nearly at the point when we can strike, as well. Is this really the time to be rushing off on what may be a fool’s errand, in a place where you were lucky to escape once before?”

Everyone went silent then. Fenris stepped up to the Inquisitor. “If you will not help, then show me where he is. I will get him myself.”

“If the Inquisitor does not accompany you, then there will be no way back out of the Fade,” Solas said, his voice quiet. “For you or for the Champion.”

Fenris gritted his teeth. Was that the reason why Faith had insisted he see this army for himself? Because there was no other way to get Hawke back?

“Cullen.” The Inquisitor lifted his chin, spearing the man opposite him with those strange eyes. “For now, I have yet to find something in the knowledge of the vir’abelasan that we can use against Corypheus. That argument has no bearing yet. More importantly,” he said when Cullen made to interject, “Hawke’s fate is my responsibility. I left him behind once, because it was convenient for me. Because it was, perhaps, necessary at the time.

“But now, we must face Corypheus and the power he wields. We may have stopped his plans with the Wardens, but he is still allied with the demon. I have no doubt that, if Hawke is still alive, that demon will use him to make itself, and thus Corypheus, stronger. We cannot afford to allow him to have Hawke.”

A short silence, in which Fenris feared even to breathe. The idea of Hawke being at the mercy of a demon, of him being forced in some way to power or Maker forbid heal someone as evil as the magister they’d faced so many years ago – he didn’t want to imagine it. He didn’t want to imagine what the demon might be doing to try to force Hawke to submit.

“He is being held captive by a demon,” the angry woman said. Her gaze was strong on Cullen. Significant. The man’s lips twisted. He looked away.

The polite woman spoke. “What do you propose, Inquisitor?”

“We go in.”

“Inquisitor.” Cullen’s voice was hoarse, but still he spoke. “The fact remains that the last time you entered the Fade, you nearly died.”

“You misunderstand. I’m saying an invading force enters. They can distract Nightmare while we extract Hawke and rendezvous with the army.”

“You mean do what we did in the Arbor Wilds,” the hooded woman said. “There’s a high risk. Even if you don’t die, you or the army – or both – may get stranded on the other side. Let alone the problem you say you faced before, where you needed to find a rift, of all things, to escape.”

“How would you even find a way in?” the angry woman asked. She waved a hand over the map on the table. “The Fade is a maze. You have no guarantee that any attempt to enter the Fade, whether through a Rift or through pure luck, like before, could even get you to reach the Champion.”

“If I may?” Solas stepped forward. He was close enough now that he could likely feel the heat of the Inquisitor’s skin. If the stiffness in the Inquisitor’s shoulders and back was any indication, he could feel it, as well. “There may be a solution to that.” He gestured to Fenris. “You were in a relationship with the Champion, were you not?”

“That is an understatement,” Fenris said, nearly bristling.

“And you enjoyed intercourse, am I correct?”

“There had better be a point to this.”

Solas gave him a short look before continuing. “The Champion’s magic would have reacted to the lyrium in your system, especially during intercourse.”

It was true. He nearly snarled. It was true, and also none of this elf’s business. Except, in order to find Azzan, perhaps it was. Fenedhis.

“To put it bluntly,” Solas continued, “bodily fluids would have transferred a small amount of your lyrium to him, and the lyrium in turn would have called the Champion’s magic to you. If this was done enough, a sort of conduit would have been formed, giving you both a sense of the other’s whereabouts.”

Fenris blanched.

“Wait,” Varric said, his voice choked. “Are you telling me that they – that Marshmallow and the elf – have actually been having magically enhanced sex that created a magical tracker out of the both of them?”

Solas’ voice held the same note as Varric’s. “In essence.”

Varric cracked up laughing.

“Does such a thing work if intercourse only went one way?” Fenris asked. “With one penetrating and the other not?”

“Only for the one who took the dominant role,” Solas said. “If it was you, then you would have given your partner the lyrium, but will likely have not had that lyrium-fed magic fed back to you. If it was them, then it would only work if they’d fed on your lyrium in a more direct way. Something Hawke would likely not have done, if he was as you say.” Fenris swayed where he stood. Varric’s laughter cut off at the quick. The chuckle caught in Solas’ throat disappeared, as well. “Is that what you had with the champion? A more dominant and submissive role for each of you?”

“No.” No, thank the Maker, it wasn’t. But it was what he’d had with Danarius. Danarius, who had always seemed to know exactly where Fenris had run. He frowned. “Wait. What do you mean, he’d need to feed on my markings in a ‘more direct way?’”

Solas looked to those watching them. “The matter is of no immediate concern. What is important is that you can find him. Lyrium has been used to assist humans in opening passageways through the Veil before, though with much more disastrous results than the Inquisitor’s.”

“You mean the magisters,” the angry woman said. She looked even angrier than usual now.

“Yes. Through the usage of lyrium and blood magic, they were able to enhance their magic and conduct a more accurate foray into the Fade to reach what you call the Golden City. Though the technique has also been used in smaller scales before, through dreams, often to reach the domain of a demon, as we would be attempting.”

“Is it possible?” the Inquisitor asked. Finally, he turned to face Solas. There was an edge to the meeting of those gazes. Fenris could not read it, but the tension was easily interpreted. Solas gave ground to it.

“It is, though not without risk.”

Risk to Fenris personally, most likely, as it was the lyrium within him they were talking about. “I accept it,” he said.

“Are you sure, Elf?” Varric shifted a bit on his feet. “You don’t know what it’ll do. Hawke would never forgive me if I let you get yourself killed over this.”

“Hawke is in enough trouble already,” Fenris said. “He will not have the opportunity to worry about you.”

Varric chuckled a bit uneasily. “Better him than me.”

Solas turned to the Inquisitor. “Then we have our path forward.”

The Inquisitor didn’t look back at him; that hood instead turned to his three advisors. “We’ll get everything set up. Tomorrow, we head out.” The Inquisitor turned his head until those strange eyes bored into Fenris. “Get what rest you can. You’ll need it. We’re going to have to make this run in as short a period of time as possible. You’re going to be the key to that.”

Fenris stiffened. Wait yet another day? Yet he was tired from the hard journey to Ferelden’s mountains. He knew he had to rest. The fact that the Inquisitor had only said to rest for the rest of this one day meant the Inquisitor was not ignoring the importance of this quest. He just needed to get everything ready. Organizing an army in a day was going to be a feat. And that was just the start. “Whenever you have the chance, send someone to inform me of what I must do.” His gaze turned to the one named Solas. The elf was staring at them all in turn, and certainly let his gaze linger of Fenris for longer periods of time. But over and over again, it stopped on the Inquisitor. Something was going on between the two. If it weren’t for the fact that it could interfere with retrieving Azzan, he wouldn’t have cared. But it could. So he did.

“Here,” the lady with the bun said, placing down her clipboard. “Let me show you to your rooms.”

He knew very well they hadn’t had any prior notice to create a room specifically for him. The words were practiced so much they became rote. Still. He allowed her the falsity and merely followed. He would learn where his room was, then he would take a look at this Inquisition and see for himself what kind of place it was – and what kind of leader it had.

Kios busied himself with sending Cullen and Cassandra out to prepare the troops, then with speaking in low tones with Leliana about possible plans and exit points. He even had a strange vision from the vir’abelasan that told him to keep to the rocky plains of Nightmare’s lair and make use of the false-veridium growing along its walls.

Varric said a short farewell and hurried off, likely to meet again with Fenris. Josephine returned after a short time, reporting on Fenris’ placement in the rooms on the far end of the castle, and started preparing for how to best break the news of Kios’ plans to the Inquisition. She and Leliana planned that out for a bit, as well, testing how to go about getting volunteers for what could easily become a one-way trip. They brought up names of who would go with him personally, and Kios quickly acceded to Varric’s wishes and named him. The next obvious choice was Cassandra, considering her strength against demonic forces.

All the while, Kios could feel the silent stare pressing against his back. Really, everything they were doing, everything they knew and everything they didn’t, relied solely on Solas. He would come. He would have to. It would be suicide to leave him behind.

Kios took several deep, shallow breaths, trying to hide the way his chest tightened and twisted until he felt he could hardly breathe through the pain. “Solas.”

“Yes, Inquisitor.”

The answer was short, perfunctory. It didn’t come too soon or too late. As usual, Solas showed perfect poise and decorum. Kios’ nails scraped at the wood of the table before him. There was no way, he snarled, that a man from ‘some village to the North’ could know anything about such things if he just wandered around the countryside sleeping with spiders! “We’ll convene with you and the others later tonight to plan our route. We’ll need your expertise then.”

It was a dismissal. Solas was smart enough to realize it immediately; he gave Kios a short bow. “As you wish,” he said, and left the room.

“Shouldn’t he be here now?” Josephine asked as the door closed behind him. “We need to know how he intends to get you to the Fade, and how he plans on getting you back.”

“We need to focus for the moment,” Leliana said. “And I don’t think that will be quite possible with him hovering.”

Not quite saying why, but hinting at it. He allowed himself a single moment, his head bowed down beneath his hood, before he lifted it again. “We’ll figure out what we’re doing only after choosing what the army will do,” he said, acting as if he was simply breaking down responsibilities instead of giving himself the chance to breathe.

Solas.

He poured himself into the preparations, especially when Cullen returned, wanting to drown out his own thoughts. He knew everything in the world was limited, but bonds between people were the most fleeting. He’d known that. And he’d known he was throwing himself into a doomed relationship. He’d known from the start. So why had he bothered having expectations? Why had he bothered hoping for anything?

Finally they finished their preparations. Everyone took a break, ready to get something to eat before getting ready to speak with Solas. Kios acted as if to leave, himself, only to lock himself in the War Room alone.

He leaned his head onto the door and closed his weary eyes. The headache was back, pounding lowly at the back of his skull, as always. He pulled the hood down lower and turned to lean his back against the door frame.

Solas.

Ugh. He was pining.

He covered his face in his hands. No. This would not be how he acted. Solas had made his choice. His choice to… to what? He may have been from some village to the North, but he was anything but a simple villager. No. Even though Kios was a Dalish mage, it was Solas and Solas alone who ‘felt’ the ‘presence’ of an elven artifact nearby. Even though Kios’ aravel had searched high and low for any news about Arlathan or their lost history, it was Solas who knew about the vallaslin, Solas who recognized the name of ‘the anchor,’ Solas who somehow knew what it was like to prance around in a court and deal with its intrigue.

Solas was anything but a simple villager, and certainly even more than a man who delved into the secrets of the Fade for fun.

He crossed his arms. He’d expected it. From the start – from the very first moment when Solas had mentioned an artifact, he’d known to keep his eye out. He’d been slightly suspicious the instant he’d seen an elven apostate willingly helping a group of human zealots. No one with a brain went out of their way to assist such people, no matter the state of the world at the time. Yet, if it hadn’t been for that ‘artifact’ comment, he might have been willing to overlook that, seeing as Solas had been the one to point it out himself.

In reality, he thought, watching the sun finally dip down toward the edge of the sky, he might have been willing to overlook a lot. Because he’d ended up enraptured by Solas’s will.

He’d known better than to get wrapped around Solas. So what if he stood fast in his beliefs, even if the world belittled them? So what if he spoke his opinions without fear of retribution? So what if he showed wisdom as well as knowledge? He’d known from the start.

Solas was Corypheus’, far more than he would ever be Kios’. And now he had to face the consequences of letting his emotions run wild.

What would he do when Corypheus attacked and Solas took his place at the magister’s side? Could he kill him? Could he find it in himself to kill the man he loved?

He turned his head, listening in vain for sounds beyond the room. Everyone else had moved into the dining hall. No one would enter Josephine’s room without her there, save for Sera. Since he didn’t hear anything, the trickster must have chosen not to defile Josephine’s door again.

This trip could be devastating in more than one way. They could fail to find Hawke, or fail to rescue him, and have to fight against a magister who had a demon able to heal him. They might have to face hordes of demons, or perhaps try to take down Nightmare itself, with little hope of success. They might be trapped. They might get lost in the Fade. They might be running on a fool’s errand, with Fenris being wrong about Hawke’s survival.

They might also find themselves in a position where Solas could betray them and leave them for Nightmare.

If that happened, he asked himself again, could he kill Solas?

A ruckus rose outside the room. He listened, only to hear laughter and shouts. A bet? A joke? One of Varric’s or Sera’s antics? The laughter rose up again, then finally died down. He sighed.

Love. His lip curled. What he knew of love could fill books. How it ebbed and waned with every passing day, how it twisted into hate and disgust and disappointment, both sides unable to even remember what they originally liked about the other. How, even when you try one last time, you’re left alone.

Could he kill Solas?

He gritted his teeth and banged his head against the door. He wrenched the door open, forcing himself to stand tall.

It wasn’t a matter of whether he could or not. If he didn’t, Corypheus could win.

He stepped out of the war room. The sunset streamed through the cracks in the hall, but otherwise, darkness had finally returned. The headache still pounded, but after a couple of hours, it will have finally calmed. He’d gotten used to that pain. It didn’t deter him from living his life anymore.

So if he had to kill Solas – if he had to, then he would just get used to that pain. This pit burning in the center of his chest would just be an ache he’d grow accustomed to.

He’d had practice.

Chapter Text

Azzan kissed Fenris’ skin, licking at the salt of his sweat as Fenris struggled to calm his breathing. Azzan’s healing aura encircled them both, pulsing so strongly the itchy pain from his lyrium was numbed. Fenris lifted his chin, trying to grab air. Azzan paused at his stomach. “I’m fine,” Fenris said, and slowly, Azzan continued.

They’d been trying for months now. Azzan had gotten skittish about it, to the point where they would have to wait a week or more before trying again because Azzan would just freeze like a startled deer above him. Even now, Fenris could feel the strain on the body above him, fairly trembling with the effort to be gentle, to hold back. Azzan’s tension only served to ratchet up his own. He needed to break it before it ruined their chance yet again.

“How are the elves we found?” he asked.

Azzan looked up. His mouth opened. It clicked shut. “Um. Right. They’re with Orana and that young family, the Warwicks, at the moment.” Hawke’s tongue nearly tripped over itself as he tried to accommodate Fenris’ needs. He sat up, leaving off the kisses, but Fenris scowled and he obligingly leaned back down. “Little Nina is healed, but she needs to rest. Her parents are staying with her in the back room of the cellar. Aegis will come warn us the instant something seems off.”

The cellar of the Warwicks’ home had been partly renovated to help hide slaves searching for freedom. Thanks to Azzan’s silver tongue, they had met a young slave who had been willing to tell them of the Warwicks’ efforts – though Azzan had begged her afterwards to not breathe a word, and had warned the Warwicks of the high likelihood of being caught. They would be taking the slaves come morning, all the better to help the Warwicks lay low and avoid getting caught. The cellar had only one small, private room squirreled away at the back of the wine cabinets; Azzan had apparently put the little girl he’d healed back there. They had only this last night in the small hotel they’d bought with the few coins remaining to them, and would have one last, private rest before journeying back to the border with these elves in tow.

In other words, if they failed to do this tonight, they wouldn’t have another chance for at least two weeks. And Fenris was tired of trying and failing.

Azzan’s hands rubbed his sides, trying to soothe the muscles that jumped there, even as Azzan’s own arms bunched and flexed with tremors. “I can check on them, if you’d like,” he said, as if they weren’t naked and in the middle of sex. As if he wasn’t battling his own hard-on.

“You are ridiculous.” Fenris reached up and pulled Azzan down, using pure strength to move Azzan into position for his kiss. This was something they knew how to do, in any position; Azzan always opened his mouth for Fenris to enter, always let Fenris take that first step and decide how they would meet. From there, however, Azzan had finally begun to come into his own; he would meet Fenris the instant he began to spar, would delve inside the moment Fenris pulled his tongue back. Azzan picked up on Fenris’ moves quickly, using them back on him with hesitation, then with bold strikes that left Fenris breathless. Fenris licked at Azzan’s tongue, only to retreat; Azzan, recognizing the move, followed after him.

Fenris allowed himself to relax beneath the slight weight above him; Azzan held himself up with his elbows, but their groins matched, and as Azzan scoured Fenris’ mouth with his tongue, he shifted slightly on top of Fenris until their erections rubbed together. Azzan hissed in a sharp breath and pulled back, shuddering. “Too much?” he asked.

Fenris felt the fire in his blood, the desire to reach up and pull Azzan into his very skin. “Not enough,” he murmured, and wrapped his legs around Azzan, forcing that long erection to rub against his sac, then the skin leading to his hole. Azzan froze, then groaned. His hips jerked. He grimaced. “I want more,” Fenris said.

“You want more than a little?” Azzan gasped. “Haven’t you heard more haste, less speed?”

“Azzan. Shut up.”

“So mean! I shudder to think how else you’ll treat me.”

Fenris closed his eyes. If the aura hadn’t been enough to remind him he wasn’t with Danarius, the awful puns would certainly have done the job. “Are you going to prepare me or not?”

“I should shutter my emo…” Azzan stopped in the middle of his rejoinder. Fenris peeked an eye open, only to see Azzan swallowing heavily. Fenris raised a brow. “Sorry,” Azzan rasped. “That was… a look. On your face.”

His voice was suddenly serious. Fenris crooked a warm smirk. “Like what you see?” he asked.

Azzan swallowed. “Always.” He bent down and kissed Fenris’ chest. No longer did he studiously avoid Fenris’ lyrium, but instead kissed it gently. Fenris felt the soft sucking feeling of a mage feeding off of it. Something about this moment, however, made it impossible to think of anyone but Azzan. “Always. I love every part of you.”

“Even my bad breath?” he asked, his smirk slipping into a soft smile. What a romantic.

“As long as you breathe, I’m happy.” Azzan lifted himself back up, smiling when he caught the lost look on Fenris’ face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Fenris groaned. Of course he would ruin it.

Azzan prepared him slowly, taking care to lean down at the bottom of the bed so he didn’t smother Fenris. He played along the rim of Fenris’ hole, only slipping within when Fenris started jerking his hips at every touch. Azzan was a master of patience. When Fenris hissed at him to hurry, Azzan just made another pun and rubbed Fenris’ thighs until he’d calmed. Orgasm denial was nothing new to him, but the way Azzan kissed the inside of his thigh, the way his aura swept around them, cocooning them, made it completely different.

He shuddered. Every time they got to this point, Fenris thought he would succeed this time. This time, he would not feel Azzan above him and fear his touch. This time, he would look into Azzan’s eyes and see him. Only him.

The oil was there, along his entrance and smeared over Azzan’s erection/ They were ready, yet those long fingers continued pressing slowly in and out, barely breaching before retreating. Azzan turned his body into something like an instrument, plucking at the very lines of his nerves until they nearly sang with the need to be played. By the time Azzan had put his full finger inside him, Fenris was squirming on the small cot, fingers clutching the thin coverlets beneath him, breath hissing through his teeth as he struggled for control.

Like this, a simple touch might be enough to make him come. Azzan was forced to neglect him for the sake of getting them to the end. Fenris grunted when Azzan crooked that finger within him. His cock wept with need. He forced himself to keep his hands from it, only to remember fuller sheets and softer mattresses. Purple and gold draperies above his head, and a cold voice ordering him to keep his hands at his sides or else lose the privilege of free movement.

“I love you,” Azzan said. The words broke through the darkening shadows of memory. Fenris jolted. “I love you,” he said again. “Did you know, when we were in Kirkwall, I would watch you fight and find my brain unable to formulate a single coherent thought? There’s such a controlled rage in you when you battle. It shouldn’t be so beautiful, but it is.”

The words took a few moments to make sense. When they did, he snorted. “I’m killing people at the time, Hawke.”

Azzan sucked in a breath at the use of his last name, but Fenris spread his legs a bit further, and Azzan continued. It still felt good. The return from the edge also felt very, very good. Azzan was getting better at catching the moments when he began to slip away. “You’re very sexy when you’re killing people,” Azzan said.

Fenris grimaced. Azzan couldn’t know that Danarius found it sexy, as well – sexy that he was powerful, and sexy that he was under Danarius’ control. “What could possibly be sexy about it?” he asked, hoping the question hid his reaction. Because Azzan wasn’t Danarius.

“You look like you’re carving your path out before you. Like nothing in the world will be allowed to get in your way.” Azzan nibbled at the slice of skin between Fenris’ erection and the place those fingers kept slicking up. “You’re freest when you stand out there, demanding the world yield.”

Fenris groaned, arcing his back slightly. Azzan took the chance to start worming a second finger to meet the first. He breathed out. “That’s sexy?” he asked.

“It’s beautiful.”

Maker. He scraped his heels through the sheets. Azzan returned to readying him, murmuring soft, cooing sounds that would have been annoying if they didn’t pull him from those shadows two more times. At this rate, they would fail again, and Azzan would end up sleeping on the floor to keep from waking Fenris in a cold sweat, the memory of another body wrapped over his too strong in his mind.

By the time Azzan had put a third finger in and was searching for that place inside him again, he was hard as a rock and sweating, eyes wide, wondering if he was going to see Danarius’ ghost again. Afraid of being reminded even more than the reminder itself.

“Fenris?”

Hawke. He reached out. In an instant, Hawke shifted, those fingers tilting inside of him, hitting that spot on accident as Azzan leaned up and curled his fingers within Fenris’. Not holding his hand so much as linking them. Giving him even more than he needed, without words. Fenris arced his back again as pleasure jolted through him. “I have an idea,” he said, and grinned. It was all teeth.

He had Azzan set himself up between his legs, but sitting up while Fenris laid down. “This is awkward,” Azzan pointed out, looking between the two of them as if he forgot how things worked. Fenris grinned.

“My problem is always at this moment,” he said. Hawke nodded. He also had to know by now. Fenris detested the moment of penetration. He expected pain, or laughter, or a possessive touch or voice. He found any skin contact to be abhorrent. That wasn’t Azzan’s fault. He couldn’t be any gentler without failing to touch Fenris whatsoever. It had to do with memories. And Fenris knew now how to defeat those, too.

Fenris had Azzan raise his legs to his shoulders, then wait as Fenris focused on him. “Say something stupid,” he said when his breath quickened despite himself.

“I’m stupidly in love with you,” Azzan said immediately.

Fenris laughed. He hadn’t quite expected Azzan to rise so eagerly to the challenge. Once again, Danarius slithered away, back into the depths of the past where he belonged. With their hands still joined, Fenris gave Azzan the go-ahead. He prepared himself for the breach, the heat and the stretch and the slight pain, no matter how much oil Azzan had slicked onto him. Instead he felt the butterfly press of lips on his inner knee. He watched Azzan dip his head against the vulnerable stretch of skin behind his knee, felt the scratch of stubble against the tender flesh. Azzan’s aura rose higher, filling Fenris to his bones. Only then did Azzan position himself, careful to sit straight and not lean over Fenris in any way.

At first, as the heat of Azzan’s own erection pressed against him, he thought the reason he didn’t see Danarius above him was because he’d been right; certainly it had been wise to remove the thing that instigated those memories. So maybe it was partly responsible.

In the end, however, it was that ridiculous proclamation of love that had done him in. With Hawke carefully entering him, that aura positively thrumming with mana, those stupid lips murmuring worse and worse puns about love, all Fenris could think was that this absolute moron had been willing to say something so absurd, without hesitation, just because Fenris had asked him to.

Azzan groaned. “Oh, Maker,” he breathed. Fenris caught sight of his wide eyes, his red cheeks, the sweat on his brow. Azzan bent his head down and gritted his teeth, breathing heavily as he slowly entered, millimeter by millimeter, only to stop and pull out again. “Maker, Fenris, I…”

They had never gotten this far. And he was Hawke’s one and only. Azzan’s fingers shook between his. “You’re doing perfect,” Fenris said. “It feels amazing.”

His words only made Azzan hitch out another moan. Fenris could feel the tension grow in the shoulders beneath his legs and the thighs between his own. The muscles of Azzan’s abdomen jumped. He looked like a cord ready to snap. “It’s tight,” Azzan whispered.

Fenris grimaced for a moment, remembering other times when he’d been called that. But this was Azzan, and they were in brand new, yet familiar territory. If Fenris had thought that Azzan’s ridiculous love confession had helped him, he hadn’t been ready for how the urge to protect Hawke’s sexual experiences would motivate him still further. “You know how it feels, though, right? For me, it’s just a stretch. You prepared me perfectly. It feel like heat and velvet.”

Hawke’s cheeks burned redder. For all his puns, for all that he’d acted like he was fine as they spoke over the flames of their campfires, Azzan could not handle frank discussions about sexual pleasure. “It feels like you’re everywhere. I…” He stopped, groaning again as he slid another scant half-inch inside him. “I’m going to…”

Lose control. Go too fast. Hurt you. Come. “You’re all right. Remember what you want. To make both of us feel good.”

Azzan closed his eyes. His first breath was a stuttering mess, his second not much better. But he kept trying, until he was able to take one long, deep inhale. Then he opened his eyes again. “I love you,” he said. Words that, by now, Fenris was in danger of taking for granted. The fervor in them was what reminded him of their importance. To Azzan, they were a vow. The fingers within his tightened. “More than anything, I want you to know that. I want the day to come when I can be inside you,” he said, slowly sliding deeper, “and all you can think is that I’m with you, that I love you, that I would shield you and protect you with my dying breath. I want you to know safety when you’re here with me like this. And no demon or apparition, no memory of human trash could ever touch you again.” Azzan bowed his head, slowly retreating again, giving Fenris time to adjust before another slow, inexorable thrust. “If I can be greedy, then this is what I want.”

Greedy. The very idea of it sounded preposterous. In all of that, Azzan had failed to mention anything that he might receive from this. It was all about giving to Fenris. Yet that, to him, was greed. “If I can be greedy,” Fenris said, hearing his voice turn guttural and feeling the reaction to it in Azzan’s shudder, “then I want to be your first, and your last, in everything in your life. I want to stand as your sword and your shield, to lay upon you and know you are safe with me. I want, at my greediest, to watch your hair gray and feel it in my fingers.”

Azzan’s breath shuddered out. He pushed suddenly in, fast enough that it should have hurt. With all that healing around them, however, it merely stretched, and filled, until he was burning in the spaces where they touched, and soothed by it, all at once. Now that he was filled to the brim, he realized how empty he’d felt before. He gasped.

“Oh, Maker, Fenris, I’m sorry.” Azzan made to pull out. Fenris wrapped his legs around Azzan’s neck.

“Get down here,” he rasped. “Let me feel you.”

Azzan was slow to comply, his free hand reaching out to touch Fenris’ side, his chest, and finally rested beneath his arm, on his elbow, his hand touching the muscles on Fenris’ arm. Fenris used his leverage to move, undulating his hips to press Azzan against the walls of his chamber. Azzan gasped in a choked breath. That cock within him jumped. Azzan bent his head. Fenris could feel him, his skin, his heat, his aura, all around him. He’d pulled Azzan down until Azzan’s stomach rested on his. Azzan’s gaze would have matched his if Azzan hadn’t lowered his head to the crook of Fenris’ shoulder. Azzan trembled above him, clearly trying to hold back from moving, from potentially going too fast. Even though his aura would heal any wound he made immediately, he didn’t want to hurt Fenris to begin with.

“Are you all right?” Azzan asked, his lips moving against Fenris’ skin. He shivered. With the lyrium embedded all over, there was little space that wasn’t covered by it in some way; his shoulder had long lines from near his neck down his deltoid to his tricep, with more lines connecting perpendicularly.

There was little chance Azzan could avoid them, especially with his face buried in Fenris’ skin as it was. Hawke couldn’t avoid touching them, mouthing at them as he had when they’d been in battle in Hawke’s home, overrun by demons and out of options. Certainly Hawke hadn’t meant to remind him of that, of those moments when he’d seen Hawke collapse, unable to go on, his mana depleted and his spirit wrung nearly dry, the both of them dying in their efforts to defend Fenris and Aegis. Azzan wouldn’t want Fenris to think on the time when he’d almost lost him. But he did, and Fenris couldn’t help the surge of protectiveness that welled within him. He wrapped his free arm around Hawke’s back, holding him close. Like this, it was hard to think of anything but Azzan. Impossible to think of those who had hurt him. Hawke was struggling. That was what mattered.

“I’ll be even better when you start moving,” he whispered in Azzan’s ear. Azzan shuddered. Gasped. When Fenris moved his hips again, Azzan acted on instinct, pushing down to meet Fenris’ rise. Fenris felt Azzan pull his lips back and bare his teeth. A keening cry rose up in him.

Suddenly, he didn’t know what he’d been afraid of. Azzan’s reactions were nothing like Danarius’. Danarius, who had already known full well the feel of being inside someone, who had used countless others before so much as looking upon Fenris. Azzan, on the other hand, was brand new. And all this time, he’d been holding back, pulling away, for fear of what he might do to his lover.

The feeling was like a rush. So much relief, so heady a victory, that he almost felt lightheaded. Azzan pistoned his hips just a bit, hardly pulling out before burying himself back in, his entire body shuddering at the feel. He wrapped his arm beneath Fenris, his hand sliding along one shoulder blade and coming to rest at the middle of his spine. His other hand, still linked with Fenris’, pushed the back of Fenris’ hand onto the bedding, just beside his head. Slowly, Azzan pulled out again. It felt vaguely familiar, even though it had been over a decade since he’d last felt this sudden, startling emptiness within him. When Azzan returned, Fenris hugged him in place, wanting to feel him better.

Azzan’s fingers gripped his tight enough to break. His skin was slick from sweat as he forced control over himself. But better than all of that was the realization that this was Azzan inside of him, Azzan’s thickness that stretched him wide. It was Azzan’s blood he felt beating thickly against the walls of his chamber, Azzan’s length that twitched and shifted within him. He shivered, too, surprised at the action. Azzan bent his head and kissed his shoulder, his neck, his pulse. “All right?”

Azzan’s body lay directly atop his. Even though he was still holding Azzan close, Azzan was doing the same for him. Even though he could still feel Azzan’s muscles jumping, could hear his breaths come short and erratic, still Azzan held him close.

Fenris smiled. Wasn’t this just like his lover, though? Putting another first, even when he was hurting or afraid. This was what being protected by Azzan felt like. Just like when he stood on the front lines, Azzan safely behind him. Even when Fenris was trying to protect him, Azzan’s goal was always Fenris’ safety. Perhaps this wasn’t what Azzan had meant when he’d said he wanted Fenris to feel as protected as Fenris always made him feel, but this was the feeling that always brought him comfort.

He breathed in, kissed Azzan’s cheek, and reveled in the scents of apple and pumpkin spice. “I feel good, Azzan. And I really, really want you to move.”

Azzan opened his mouth, clearly prepared to launch yet another pun. Fenris ground up, hard. Azzan’s pun turned into a deep-throated groan. “Maker, Fenris, I can’t…” Azzan gritted his teeth and pushed. His hips jerked, one quick pump, and Azzan sobbed. “Tell me to stop now, or…”

“Don’t stop,” Fenris cooed, his head falling back as Azzan gave up and started moving for real. At first, it was clumsy; Azzan had no rhythm, merely moving as need dictated, his hips snapping so fast Fenris was certain he should have felt a bit of pain. He was also certain Azzan wouldn’t last very long. “Here,” he said, and moved his free hand to guide Azzan’s hips. Azzan was a quick learner. He grasped the movements and timing Fenris laid out for him quickly, then set to finding that spot inside Fenris once he gave him the go-ahead.

Still, throughout it all, not once did Fenris return to those memories that had plagued him for weeks. Azzan was so careful, so unsure. Like no one he’d ever been with before. The next time Azzan asked if he was still all right, Fenris beamed him a smile and said, “never better.”

Azzan’s response had been that boyish grin and a horrible, “I bet I could do you one better.”

“Maker’s breath, Hawke,” he said, and yanked Azzan down for a kiss. It messed up Azzan’s rhythm. Fenris pistoned his tongue, deliberately keeping Azzan distracted and off-track, and actually enjoyed the feel of Azzan fumbling his way back into proper motion. He grinned into Azzan’s mouth. His lover was ridiculous, and patient, and generous, and willing to put everything off for him. This bumbling attempt was Azzan at his most exposed. Because that was what Azzan’s protection looked like; he would lay himself bare if it meant taking on Fenris’ burdens. “I love you,” Fenris murmured, voice deep and deliberately sultry, knowing what it would do.

Azzan cracked. His rhythm, nearly back where it had started, broke again. His crooked grin widened. Those beautiful ocean eyes sparkled, the first formation of tiny lines crinkling at their corners. “I love you, too.”

Fenris knew. There was no way Fenris couldn’t know.

Azzan quickened his pace then, nearly reverting back into senselessness before Fenris guided him with his own thrusts. Azzan hugged Fenris tight, his hair tickling Fenris’ collarbone as he clutched at Fenris’ fingers. Azzan broke off that connection to wrap both hands behind Fenris’ back, hugging him beneath his arms and chanting out something like a prayer. That golden skin quivered over his. Even trapped within him, Azzan’s cock jerked and spasmed. Azzan was nearing his release.

He was about to grab his own cock when Azzan shifted his hips and hit that spot. He opened his mouth on a wide ‘oh,’ his body arcing and shuddering and, suddenly, he found himself near the edge. “Azzan. Azzan, my…”

He didn’t even finish speaking before Azzan pulled himself up enough to run one hand down his stomach to his cock and wrap itself around his length. Fenris hissed. “I love you,” Azzan said again. His voice was hoarse with need, but he spoke, anyway. “I’m yours. I’ll always be yours, Fenris.”

Fenris groaned. A last reminder – as if Fenris could possibly think of anyone else when he was like this. His hips bucked. With both hands free, he was able to wrap them around Azzan and pull him close and score his nails into Azzan’s back, until Azzan’s hold on him became so awkward he could no longer move his wrist. That was fine. Fenris knew what to do.

He pumped up.

It had the simultaneous effects of forcing his cock through Azzan’s fist and getting Azzan to hit that spot again. He gave a short, triumphant cry, his body shaking as it, too, approached the end. Azzan barked out a shout, too, his thighs quivering as he pistoned inside Fenris once, twice more, then in a flurry of rapid pulses as Azzan came, shooting his load inside of Fenris’ walls. Fenris squeezed down on Azzan’s cock, making him gasp and keen and buck madly. As Azzan fell apart, Fenris came, as well.

Azzan’s aura washed out around them, once again whirling through him. It felt different this time; when usually Azzan’s magic was like a cool breeze on his skin, now it felt like it entered him from the inside. Like a stream. It poured into the lines of his lyrium until they lit up, bathing the room in bright blue. For the first time, the feel of his lyrium reacting almost felt good. No pain, no itch, no tightening of the skin around it as if stretching to the point of snapping.

Azzan’s healing felt like it had reached something deeper than before. When it was all over and Azzan collapsed, Fenris felt calmer, lighter, stronger than ever before. Which was good, because Azzan was not light. “Every muscle in my body is whining,” Azzan mumbled into his chest. “How do you do it?”

Fenris laughed. He pet Azzan’s hair, trying ineffectually to fix the locks into less clumped strands. “I usually don’t wait a short eternity to get started, to be fair.”

Azzan groused something that was probably an insult. Fenris chuckled again. “Bad?” Azzan asked. Despite being exhausted, he apparently had the energy to tense up.

“Wonderful,” he said. He felt Azzan grin against his chest. He rolled his eyes. “It will hurt if you wait too long to get out.” Azzan quickly lifted himself and pulled free from within Fenris. He winced audibly. “It will hurt you, you idiot!”

Azzan gave him a sheepish grin. “Oops?”

Fenris rolled his eyes again and hitched a leg up. It was enough to give him an edge up in balance, and he shifted his weight until Azzan was beneath him. He grinned down at his lover. “How about I return the favor?”

Azzan’s pupils blew wide. “You can’t be ready that quickly,” he gasped.

“Quickly?” Fenris ran his fingers up the sides of Azzan’s stomach to his chest. He could feel Azzan’s heart racing, either from exertion or stimulation or, more likely, both. “We have all night.”

Azzan moaned. “Good night,” he said, just before Fenris managed to shut him up.

The Inquisition had set itself up in a true fortress; while Fenris had found a few crumbled walls and a couple of unplugged nooks and crannies, on the whole, the place was highly defensible, in a core strategic position, and strong enough simply numerically to stand proudly without fear of invasion or ambush. It made the Inquisition feel completely different to his own rebel group, despite them essentially standing for the same ideals of rebellion and reform.

He’d spoken with a few people, deliberately searching out the elven servants and those in less ostentatious clothes, trying to find more accurate analyses of the Inquisition than from the zealous chantry sisters and the pandered nobility, from whom he had received predominantly positive responses. Those who had joined were mostly zealots themselves, spouting off about Andraste and the Maker in ways that would make Azzan wince. Fenris would be shocked if Sebastian hadn’t backed the Inquisition, listening to some of the rhetoric people spewed.

The servants were the ones who gave him the most accurate information on the leaders, of course. They were the ones who warned him that the spymaster was likely already very aware of him asking questions – something for him to watch out for, as the spymaster might put people in position to feed him false information – and told him who was really in charge. The Inquisitor had several friends, but only a few really seemed to have his ear. The one they whispered of the most was, oddly enough, the mage he’d seen earlier. Solas.

Cullen was the war general, which fit him to a T. If it could be smacked into shape, then Cullen would make it happen. Like Fenris himself, he supposed with a wry grin. Josephine was their advisor and counselor, so she basically served the roll Azzan had held for him. The grin faded quickly at that.

Leliana was their spymaster, and those words reminded him of something – Azzan meeting with someone from the chantry late at night, hoping to calm the nerves of the chantry’s higher ups. Refusing to take Fenris with him because… well, at the time, Azzan had said he needed Aveline, as a guardswoman, and those closest to the Order. But looking back at it, of course Azzan had needed Fenris to stay behind. The rumors leading the chantry to a fervor were about mages, and Fenris’ hatred would have only fueled the fire.

Fenris didn’t want to think about that, or about anything.

It took until the latest hours of the evening, when the sky had turned dark in every space but the large green scar spinning far in the distance, that one of the spymaster’s people came up to him and asked him to join a meeting with the Inquisitor.

The request made several peoples’ heads turn; he’d wandered back into the main building at some point, and all of the nobility had crawled out of the woodwork. He could already tell those who recognized him from that morning and those who didn’t; they were all busy leaning into each others’ spaces, quickly passing along what gossip hadn’t yet been shared. He rolled his eyes. That was a trade-off he was happy to accept; if his rebel army had to stay in the shadows in order to avoid pandering to the wealthier, more vainglorious members of society, then Fenris would call that a good deal.

The spymaster led him toward the war room from before. Instead of heading back through the long hallway, however, he was led into the councilwoman’s room and no further. Several other people already waited within, including the councilwoman herself and the angry woman from before. Both turned to him as he entered. “Ah, Master Fenris,” the councilwoman said. “Welcome to my humble office.” She swept her hand out. “Would you like to sit?”

The woman was good. She and Azzan had likely gotten along well. “No.” He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and considered. “Thank you.”

She beamed him a smile. “It is no trouble at all. The offer still stands, if ever you would wish it.”

Though the angry woman had clearly been having a conversation with the councilwoman – Josephine, he recalled – she dropped it and stepped away from the woman. “We are likely going to begin our search for Hawke tomorrow.” She waved one hand through the air. “Though Maker knows how we intend to get there and back. If Solas is wrong…”

“Master Solas is an expert in the Fade,” Josephine said, pulling the angry woman’s attention from Fenris and saving him from having to reply. She was very, very good. “And is well aware of his own limitations, as well as being very loyal to the Inquisition. I do not believe he would ever willingly place the Inquisitor in jeopardy.”

Fenris listened, carefully schooling the worst of his features, but that last comment made his brow raise despite himself. There had definitely been a strange vibe between the two, but he wouldn’t have dared state that Solas was loyal enough to never want to harm the Inquisitor. In fact, the feeling he’d gotten had been that, if he’d placed a metal rod between the two of them, he would have gotten shocked to death.

Then again, perhaps that had been what he’d been reading, after all. He didn’t know how he and Azzan seemed from the outside, but considering how Varric had reacted to them getting together, it must have at least been obvious. That had to include the tension between them, too. Perhaps the reason Solas was ‘loyal’ to the Inquisitor was because the tension between them was sexual.

So long as it didn’t get in the way of rescuing Azzan, he didn’t really care.

Another person rolled in after a short moment of silence; Fenris straightened from the wall immediately, his eyes narrowing. More than the swagger on this man or his hairstyle or his mustache was the clothing. It was very fashionable – in Tevinter. His fists curled. He had killed many, many men these past few months in very similar styles of dress.

“Well, now.” The man stopped a few feet from Fenris – easily within striking distance. “I’d heard the rumors, of course, but I hadn’t really thought it could be true. The Inquisitor certainly does rally in all sorts of people, doesn’t he?”

The man smirked at him. Fenris snarled. “The Inquisitor colludes with Tevinter now?”

“Just the loveliest ones,” the man said. “Like me.” Fenris wanted to punch the man’s shit-eating grin down his throat.

“Altus Dorian has made great strides for the Inquisition,” the councilwoman said, once again bravely stepping into the fire. “He has openly disavowed the actions of the Venatori and other members of the magisterium.”

Fenris sneered. Anyone with a brain could say such things and not mean them. And just because he hated the men openly attacking the Inquisition and backing one of the magisters who broke into the Fade didn’t mean he didn’t stand with his country and its practices. “Yes, and I’m sure he also hates slavery.”

The man opened his mouth and sealed his fate. “Afraid I don’t, though I can see why you might dislike it.”

“Dislike it?”

“Heart pounding so thick he feels it in his throat. ‘Can’t say that, it’s different for him; no north and south here.’ Directionless, mouth moving, muttering, meandering. Masking. Mistake. Should have kept quiet. Should had said smarter.”

Fenris jumped. He hadn’t heard the door open or close, but suddenly a young human in a huge hat stood beside him. “Who…?”

“He didn’t mean to hurt you. Words are weapons, wounding, warping. Fogged up sounds that cover the face. He wasn’t trying to wound, but to keep from being wounded. It wasn’t meant to become what it became.”

Fenris blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Cole. Thank you for coming.”

Cole, as the young human was named, tilted his head. “I keep hearing him,” he said. “His pain is sharp, shooting, stabbing at the ears. He keeps thinking about him, about the message he’s been sent. ‘Help Healbird,’ he hears, every minute. He should have listened. He should have known.” ‘Cole’ looked at him. “You couldn’t have guessed. Faith had never come to you before.”

He froze. Everyone else in the room did, too. His mouth moved. “What are you?” he asked.

The boy’s lips moved. “I’m a spirit. Well. Like a spirit. I don’t really know.”

Like a spirit. What in Maferath’s name did that mean? “An abomination.”

“He’s not in a body, actually. Moving around all on his own, this one,” the Tevinter mage said.

A spirit roaming around outside of a human body? He’d never heard of such a thing. Only demons did that.

“I’m not a demon.”

He jerked. That thing could hear his thoughts?! He looked to the two women. What the hell kind of ‘friends’ did this Inquisitor have? Who the hell else was there?

He turned at the sound of the door opening, ready for a monster, or some hunched old man with glowing eyes, or perhaps a full contingent of Qunari to just come rampaging through the door. Instead Varric swung through, talking at length with an elven girl with a bow on her back. Both of them seemed to be comparing two peoples’ choices of sock and finding both wanting. The girl looked up and waved at him as they came in. “You must be the new big name, huh? Everyone’s talking about you. Gave Lord Inky a good blabbering to, I heard, got all pissy in front of the nobles. Good on ya.”

Fenris cocked his head. And suddenly here was someone more in line with what he was used to. Her vernacular, while less erudite than others’, was full of strength and intent. He actually relaxed a bit at it. “I take it that’s not done enough.”

“Nah. Give Inky a few more months and his breeches won’t fit. Still good for now, though. Keeps his head on right, I might not have to do anything.”

The girl shared a grin with the Tevinter altus, of all people. Perhaps it was their similarly playful exterior that assisted the camaraderie. Fenris bristled when the altus came nearer, but the man only made a motion to Cole. “Come on, you. Give the man some space to breathe.”

Fenris watched the man lead the ‘something like a spirit’ away from him. Varric took Cole’s place by his side. “They’re both good kids,” Varric said. “Don’t judge them on their appearances.”

He didn’t need Varric to say anything. He could almost hear Azzan in his ear, reminding him that there were those in Tevinter willing to secret the elves down from Tevinter into freedom. And of course, if Cole was ‘like’ a spirit, then Faith was definitely a spirit. If Fenris judged this Cole for his oddities, then he would have to also consider doing the same for Faith. And he was past that.

It had been years since he and Varric had spoken. He was no longer so constantly tense, so constantly furious with those who had hurt and wronged him, that he would turn his hatred on those who did not deserve it. He could never forget what such actions could cost, the hunched, defeated look as Azzan cried, shouting that he was sorry, that he could never not be a mage.

Yes. He had grown up since then.

Still. He eyed the Tevinter man as he conversed with the elven girl. The two were not quiet; he was starting to believe neither were capable of such a thing. Though Cole remained beside them, his gaze never faltered from Fenris. He felt a bit antsy about it; the unending stare was certainly not like that of a normal person. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

The next few to enter were quiet; a human male with a carefully trimmed beard, Cullen, a woman in clothing as ostentatious as Dorian’s, though not Tevene in origin, and finally the elven mage named Solas. Fenris watched him the closest; he stayed to the edge of the group, just inside the door to the right. His gaze swept out among everyone until finally landing on Fenris. “Have you received rest from your travels?” Solas asked.

Though his question was simple and his presence unobtrusive, still the conversations in the room dwindled to focus on them. Whoever this Solas was, he was given a lot of authority, despite not being one of the three big-name advisors. “I’m fine,” he said. While he had no problem with attention, he didn’t want his pain on display.

“The means by which we will reach the Fade will be extremely taxing upon you. It would best if you rested.”

Solas leaned against his staff, looking for all the world as if he was resting against it as he peered over at Fenris. He looked relaxed, unimportant, garbed in those plain pants and simple shirt. For all the world like a lost hermit. That gaze, however, carried something heavier. Fenris was being dissected. So he just lifted his chin and grunted. “I’ll survive.”

Varric sent him a frown.

“This is ridiculous.” The voice was from the fancily-dressed female. She stood in an expensive garment with a high collar, a large, ornamental helmet somehow eclipsing even the golden ring of cloth around her neck. “Hawke is an unfortunate casualty of war. Going after him isn’t just a waste of time, it’s a waste of life, as well.” She leaned against the councilwoman’s desk, essentially taking over her position. “The man is only important because he helped the rebel mages in Kirkwall. Without him, we could even argue that the world is safer.”

“Feel free to stay behind,” Fenris growled. “In fact, for your safety, I insist upon it.”

She sniffed. “Typical. Devolving into violence the instant you hear something you don’t like.”

Varric grabbed Fenris’ arm. “Don’t,” he said. Fenris glared at him, not understanding why Varric had reacted so strongly until he saw the blue pattern glowing on Varric’s skin. He looked down. His lyrium was alight. He… might have been more emotionally on-edge than he’d believed. “We’re going after Hawke.”

He breathed deep. Right. He would get Hawke back if it killed him. This flashy noblewoman had no say in… he stopped. Looked again. “You’re a mage,” he said, dumbfounded.

“I am not a mage, my dear. I am Madame de Fer, Enchanter to the Imperial Court and the First Enchanter of Montsimmard.”

He snorted. “Anyone so busy touting themselves isn’t half what they believe themselves to be.” Then, with a frown, “there are no more first enchanters. There are no more circles.”

The woman scowled at him. The elven girl laughed hysterically. “Not now,” the woman said. “But I and the other loyal mages of Orlais will return them.”

“And you’ll be in charge, I presume. Typical.” He crossed his arms. “My reaction earlier was instinct. I’ve killed more mages like you than you can count.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll remember that,” she said.

Good.

“Well, this is going swimmingly so far,” Varric muttered. Fenris took a glance around. Besides the woman whose self-made title he’d already chosen to forget, Solas, and Varric, there were eight more. How many more people were going to join this party? The Inquisitor still had yet to show, along with his spymaster. Eleven? Eleven people were necessary for this meeting?

The door banged open. His brows both rose; neither the Inquisitor nor the spymaster had seemed likely to act in such a way. But it wasn’t them. Yet another odd addition to the group, a full-grown male Qunari, stepped in, shouting out a quick, “sorry I’m late, guys; Krem and the others just returned, so I wanted a quick report.” The big guy looked at Fenris. “So you’re the hotshot elf laying into those Vints. Boys back home will be pissed they couldn’t get info on you from me.” He grinned. “Name’s The Iron Bull. Fenris, right?”

Fenris took it all in slowly. Eyepatch, horns, shirtless, wide grin. This guy was unlike most Qunari he knew. Then again, those he knew were mostly still under the Qun, and this one likely wasn’t. Tal’Vashoth, then. Possibly? With a Tevinter altus and a ‘something like a spirit’ in his immediate circle of friends, this friendly Qunari could be an actual member of the Qun.

Then the little elven woman launched herself onto the Qunari’s back and climbed him like a tree, making immediate sexual references that made Fenris wish he could close his ears. So… maybe not.

The last to arrive were the ones he would have expected to be first – the Inquisitor and the spymaster walked in together, both clearly still in the middle of a conversation. “…concern must be you. We can stand to lose men, but without you, all is lost. Especially with the Well of Sorrows now in your head.”

The Inquisitor didn’t seem pleased with what his spymaster was saying. His gaze raked over the room as he made his way inside. Leliana closed the door behind them. “Everyone’s already here.” His gaze, with those unnerving pink irises, settled momentarily on him. “By now, likely all of you know what we’re here for.”

No one contradicted him. The ornamental woman, however, was more than willing to speak first on the subject. “Tell me you do not intend to actually indulge this elf’s foolishness.”

That unnerving gaze snapped over to her. For a moment, those pink eyes narrowed. Then, like a whisper, the look was gone. “Of all the mages here, the one perhaps least knowledgeable on the Fade is you, Vivienne.” The woman scowled. “For this mission, Solas’ knowledge is most integral.”

Solas stepped forward from the wall. The Inquisitor stiffened, but said nothing. Everyone gathered around in a circle. It seemed almost intuitive; no one looked around or deliberately moved forward, yet somehow everyone shifted toward the Inquisitor, allowing him center stage.

The Inquisitor lowered his hood. To everyone else, it must have been a normal sight, after being a part of his group for so long. For Fenris, however, this was his first chance to actually see what the Inquisitor looked like.

He was ashamed to realize he hadn’t taken much in save those odd eyes. Now that the Inquisitor no longer had the hood to hide within, he was startled by the man’s appearance. More clearly elven than ever before, the Inquisitor’s long, thin face stood starkly pronounced, not just with those pink eyes but with a long scar on the left side of his lip, tapering off before returning on his cheek and sliding up, up around the edge of his eye into his hairline.

His hair, too, was just as striking and odd as the rest of him, with that skinny nose and its up-raised tip and the wide length of his upper lip. On one side, his hair was buzzed nearly to its roots, all the way from his hairline to the back of his head. On the other side was hair that fell longer than Azzan’s, long enough to rest in a clump on his shoulder. He speared everyone with a single, pink-stained look. An odd one, now that Fenris could see every nuance of the man’s face; his eyes flickered in their sockets a bit, nearly seeming to trip back and forth. “The question of whether or not we’re going has already been answered. The question of how will be explained by Solas.”

Solas looked at the Inquisitor for a short moment, and once again that weird, tense feeling picked up between them. Fenris could cut it with his sword. Finally Solas looked away and stepped up, until he stood right next to the Inquisitor’s side. The tension grew, if that was even possible. “Thanks to a bit of an unusual circumstance, we have a way of finding Hawke’s whereabouts within the Fade.”

“That’s impossible.” The uppity woman waved her hand. “He’s in the Fade. It’s a myriad of twists and turns. No one can find their way through, not even you.”

“True,” Solas said, not sounding the least bit perturbed by the woman’s interruption. “However, if one has gotten to know the denizen of a spirit, one can easily find it when one sleeps. The connection Fenris has to the Champion is something similar in effect, if not in nature.”

“What in Thedas’ great sky does that mean?” Dorian said. He, like most others in the room, had turned their attention to Fenris.

“As we’ve seen recently when we went to the Deep Roads, lyrium is far more than originally believed.” Solas’ gaze moved to Fenris, as well. He stiffened. “The lyrium in Fenris has adapted to his body structure while allowing him continued autonomy. It’s a difficult feat of experimentation.”

Fenris gritted his teeth. “Keep talking about it like that, and you’ll become the next feat of experimentation.”

The threat only made Solas smile. “Of course. My apologies. It must have been excruciating to survive through the act.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t the only one, he saw. Though the Inquisitor did not turn his head to face Solas, his eyes pinched as he listened. They both noticed the oddly precise knowledge this elf held on a procedure that even to Danarius had been largely trial and error. “Get to the point,” Fenris snarled.

“My point is that your lyrium, as you have likely noticed on your own, reacts to and exacerbates the power of a mage’s magic. It is the main and most important ingredient of potions to restore or boost a mage’s mana, after all.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dorian asked. “So, what? He can boost our magic? Can he boost the Inquisitor’s mark?”

“Ew, that’s freaky.” Sera shivered and crossed her arms. “Creepy magic is creepy. I don’t want anything to do with this.” The Inquisitor looked at her, but said nothing. After a short moment, she looked away. “Well, it is.” More silence. Josephine covered her mouth, trying to cover her smile. The elven woman threw her hands up in the air. “Fine! Magic is freaky, okay? It’s not like I’m saying I won’t help out.”

Solas’ lips twitched.

The Inquisitor ducked his head, his lips pressed so tightly together it made his scar show up in even starker contrast. “Go ahead,” the elf said, motioning for Solas to continue.

They worked well together. Fenris saw it in the way Solas continued only then, having waited for the Inquisitor to get his apology from the female elf before he spoke again. There was a connection between the two of them, a sort of unspoken understanding of the other. Fenris’ heart skipped. The sight of it made his chest ache, a sudden, sharp agony that pierced him. He and Azzan had had the same thing. Azzan had known what he’d needed as if on instinct, and had always silently given it to him without question or demand.

This was why Solas was said to have the ear of the Inquisitor. Others had seen this same thing between them. Whether it was as Fenris predicted or not, it was clear: they knew each other very well.

“There are ways in which the lyrium in Fenris’ body can attune itself to certain magical energies.” Both Fenris and the Inquisitor went straight back to that suspicious stare. As far as Fenris knew, Danarius had found an ancient treatise on the subject of lyrium. In it had been a short piece on embedding it within a person’s body, and from that, Danarius’ experimentation had begun. So how did this lone elf know about it? How did he know at least as much as Danarius? He sported no lyrium within himself, and Fenris did not recognize him from his time in Tevinter, either as Danarius’ slave or as the rebel leader of Tevinter’s free elves.

Varric looked at him, his brows creased. “You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t care, so long as I get Hawke back.” It was true. But it was also true that he would keep an eye on this mage.

“Specifically,” Solas continued, “the lyrium can attune itself to those it has taken and been taken from.” An interesting turn of phrase, hiding the sexual nature Solas had asked of before. “Fenris has already noted that this has taken place.”

“Uh, how does that work, exactly?” Dorian asked, raising his hand to interrupt. “Lyrium can take magic?”

“If offered, yes,” Solas said. That got the rest of them silent, but it just made Fenris’ mind whirl. If offered? Since he knew Solas had intimated a sexual position as a necessity, he could recognize that Solas meant offered as in penetrated. But what if it wasn’t? Perhaps this mage only knew it as sexual, but there could have been other instances of Azzan’s magic being offered to him. Azzan had used his aura on several people. It had been a staple to his very being. Every time they went anywhere, be it through the streets of Kirkwall or the edge of the Wounded Coast or up toward the Dalish camp in Sundermount, Hawke’s aura was constantly surrounding them, shielding them from any sudden assault.

If it had to be ‘offered,’ then there had never been a time when it hadn’t been.

As for Danarius – he had been all about taking. Fenris looked to Solas. Perhaps a sexual give and take wasn’t necessary. Danarius had used Fenris’ lyrium for himself, taking his blood and his strength without thought. But Azzan, when he had needed Fenris’ lyrium, had shuddered as he’d fed on the power in Fenris’ body. He’d taken, but only after begging permission first, and only at a time when they had nearly been killed.

Dorian put his finger to his chin, rubbing his little goatee. “So if what you’re saying is true, the lyrium can act as a sort of string to lead us toward the Champion.” He shrugged. “But that doesn’t solve the riddle of how you expect it to get us close to him when we enter the Fade.”

“We link them together, obviously.” Vivienne waved one perfectly manicured hand as if shooing away a fly. “If the elf uses that lyrium while connected to the Champion’s magic, then simply offering a gateway will make the energies snap together.” She snapped those slender fingers. “Like a band pulled taut for too long.”

Dorian made a noise of understanding. “Right. Of course.”

Right, Fenris thought, scowling. Of course.

“Hence our entrance,” The Inquisitor said, finally interrupting the conversation. “We’ll be taking a small contingent of soldiers through the Rift I create and leaving more to guard it. We will have to exit the same way we enter, so it’s imperative it remains under our control.”

“The freaky demon blighter’s gunna attack it,” the elven girl said. “No way he’s gunna leave it be.”

“That’s our goal,” the Inquisitor said, his face set.

“A distraction?” The gruff, silent bear of a human spoke for the first time. “Risky. The number of demons you say he has at his disposal will easily overwhelm any you take inside with you. The smaller Rift might make it easier on those outside the Fade, but enough time, and the swarm will take out even an army.”

“Yes.” The inquisitor’s lips thinned, once again showing off that bright, broken line of flesh along the top lip. “If necessary, I will consign several men to their deaths.” Those words turned the room silent. “It is imperative that we keep Hawke’s abilities out of the hands of Nightmare and Corypheus. It’s my fault that he’s the one still in there. I will take responsibility for getting him back out.”

It was reluctantly that Fenris found himself respecting this man. He hadn’t any close ties with Hawke; it would have been nothing more than a strategic decision to leave Azzan behind. For all that it seemed cruel to the loved ones of those lost, it had been nothing personal to him. Fenris had needed to make those same choices – had demanded he do so, as battling Tevinter was his burden to bear. It had been through those heavy decisions that he’d learned the true sacrifices Hawke had made through their time together in Kirkwall.

“Simply because he can heal?” Vivienne asked. “If his spirit is turned – which it must be, if he is to fall – then he will lose such an ability.”

Fenris snarled. The woman looked at him like he was a bug that had flown into the room.

“There are many ways to trick a person,” the Inquisitor said. “A spirit would not be turned by their human getting tricked or manipulated. Or, say, tortured into obeisance.”

Fenris’ snarl cut off. He paled. Tortured. Yes. There was no doubt that Azzan was being tortured as they spoke.

“Not to mention the danger he would be even as just an abomination.” The Inquisitor turned to him. “Cullen and I will get the army prepared tonight; come sunrise, we’ll be marching away from Skyhold and setting up to assault the Fade come midday. Solas will tell you what you need to do.” The Inquisitor turned to the group. “The same rules apply as usual. If you choose to come with me, I can’t guarantee we’ll all make it back.”

“I’m coming,” Varric said, lifting his wide chin. “Nothing’s keeping me from getting to Hawke. Not even you.”

The Inquisitor nodded. He didn’t look surprised. “Anyone else?”

“Obviously, I must go.” The angry woman stepped forward, one hand on the sword on her belt. “I can’t have you getting into more trouble.” She smirked. For all that she sounded furious, the look she gave the elf was similar to Aveline’s. Like Aveline and Hawke, they shared some strange moment of understanding before the Inquisitor turned away.

“That leaves one more.”

“I will go.”

The voice was quiet, but firm. Fenris watched the Inquisitor’s back stiffen. He turned to the one who’d spoken – Solas. “We’ll need you to help Fenris open the way forward,” the Inquisitor said. It sounded reasonable, yet also like an excuse.

“And I will need to be there if things go wrong,” Solas said. “I am, as you say, the Inquisition’s foremost expert on the Fade.”

The Inquisitor grimaced.

They’d had a falling out. The knowledge hit him like a blow. He remembered the awkward way he and Azzan had danced around each other after their one-night stand. If Azzan hadn’t been willing to break that awful stalemate, would it have continued like this? The two of them barely able to stand one another’s company?

“I’ll go.” The ‘sort of like a spirit’ stepped forward. His hands twisted together.

“Cole, we already have our line-up,” the Inquisitor said, but here, suddenly, his voice was soft. Solas may have had the Inquisitor’s ear, but this Cole had the Inquisitor’s protection. “You needn’t return.”

Cole’s fingers twisted again, but that huge hat moved from side to side – the spirit was shaking its head. “I can hear him. He’s loud, lamenting. I have to help.” A single beat passed. “If I go, I could hear his other half.”

The Inquisitor sighed. “All right, Cole. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to get you – to get all of us – back out.”

Cole nodded. For a moment, Fenris felt the spirit’s gaze on him. He stiffened, even as he told himself to hold out for evidence of the creature’s affinity. The being was offering help in finding Hawke. That meant more than most else.

“Solas will explain what to expect,” the Inquisitor said, clearly nodding Fenris over to Solas – and getting rid of Solas in the process. Fenris obligingly moved toward the elf as the Inquisitor started telling the others to prepare.

“Let me guess,” Fenris murmured lowly. “You will demand access to the lyrium within me, I will feel excruciating pain, and I will likely retain that agony through the process of us heading through the Fade.”

The elf’s lips twitched. His gaze flitted behind Fenris for a second, alighting on the Inquisitor for only a moment before motioning Fenris closer to the door. “Nearly accurate,” the elf said, sounding nearly like he was praising Fenris. “The pain will continue until I stop the spell, but will then cease. You will likely still be sensitive from it, but you will otherwise heal.”

He didn’t care.

“What you will have to be aware of is the visions.” Solas said. He tilted his staff to point vaguely toward Fenris’ head. “You will link with the Champion as closely as two can. It is very likely that you will connect so absolutely to the Champion’s spirit that you may very well see as it sees.”

He jerked. The spirit was bond to Azzan; it existed within him far more than even within the Fade. He knew enough to know that, when his lyrium was used by this spell of Solas’, it would be linking not to Azzan, per se, but to the magic of the spirit, and through its location would he be brought near its side. But even then, that meant he was to be brought to Azzan’s side, because they were one.

Which meant, if he saw as the spirit saw, then he would see as Azzan saw. He might learn what was happening to him.

Adrenaline thrummed through his veins. He leaned slightly onto his toes, then back down, over and over again as he struggled to maintain his composure. He wanted to demand they start immediately and to hell with anything else. His hands curled into fists.

“Get whatever rest you can,” Solas advised. Once again, his gaze drifted over toward the Inquisitor. Fenris knew that gaze. He’s worn it himself too often in the past to not recognize it on another.

His lips thinned. It wasn’t his business. He couldn’t let things get in the way of him finding Azzan. He kept telling himself that even as he opened his mouth. “Whatever you’re fighting about, it’s not worth having as your last conversation.”

Solas’ neck nearly snapped as he focused completely on Fenris. It was a focus he hadn’t yet seen. Here was the dangerous man Solas pretended not to be. “We are not fighting. Any relationship we once had has returned to being no more than leader and retainer.”

“Then fix that mistake,” Fenris advised. Solas’ lips thinned.

“The mistake was getting involved in the first place. This matter is personal and has reached its conclusion.”

If Fenris hadn’t shifted to cross his arms and lean against the wall at that very moment, he would have missed the way the Inquisitor’s shoulders flinch. Fenris chanted at himself to stop, even as he continued. “So long as you both wish there was something more, the problem is not resolved.” Solas was openly glaring at him now. He shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s ongoing or not. What matters is how you want it to end.” He shifted up. “Is there anything else I need to know besides the pain and the visions?”

Solas scowled for a moment more, even as his gaze turned inward. The scowl slipped away, quickly replaced with something that looked almost like a grimace – a shift in those brows, tipping momentarily downwards, spoke of nothing but pain. “No. I will handle the rest myself.”

He nodded. “Then I’m going to rest while I can. I’ll be at the front gate come dawn.”

Solas nodded, his gaze glazed for a half second more before they sharpened, understanding what Fenris had just done – given Solas a chance to speak with the Inquisitor by having him relay such information. Fenris left before the elf could speak again. Outside the room, he headed straight for his own bed, only to find the strange ‘something like a spirit’ beside him. “We’ll find him,” the sort-of-spirit, Cole, said. “You can find rest tonight. Only one more day left.”

The way the not-spirit said it made it sound far more manageable than what he’d been thinking – ‘only one more day’ instead of ‘yet another day.’ He blinked. Had that been the creature’s intention? He nodded and hurried away. When he reached the bed, however, he felt his eyes drift shut. He tossed and turned for no more than an hour before the words returned – only one more day. One more day, and Hawke would be free.

On a shudder, he finally drifted into sleep.

Chapter Text

People often forgot that, since he had such poor eyesight, he had learned from a young age how to sharpen his hearing.

Often it was useful; he heard information he might otherwise have missed, or heard rumors people would otherwise try to hide. More often than not, the truths he learned, he learned from people who thought their words safe from his ears. If he’d thought the ability useful in the forests, where he could hear the approach of enemies or encroaching humans, if he’d thought the ability handy when in the small towns his aravel had traded with, it was an essential skill that had saved his life countless times since coming to live among the humans as their supposed chosen.

Thanks to that integral skill, he had once again been made privy to information he’d needed. Not that he hadn’t already known the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ excuse Solas liked to pull; that had been more of the same. It was the ‘the mistake was in letting it happen to begin with.’ That inferred an intent to act – the intent to act against Kios. Which meant he was, indeed, still working for Corypheus.

That was why he’d blown Kios off. That was why he’d chosen to end things.

His lips thinned. Taking Solas with him into the Fade would be unwise now. But refusing at this point – especially considering Solas’ knowledge of the Fade – would put Solas’ guard up. Solas wasn’t stupid. He would be suspicious. He would assume Kios had found him out.

Fine. They could go into the Fade. All of them, together. But sooner or later, Kios might have to… no. He would definitely have to. Whether it was while he was alone in the Fade, away from anyone who might see or suspect, in a position where Kios’ death could be ruled an accident or an unfortunate effect of the journey – or whether it was later, alone by a campfire, while he slept in his room. When he went to face Corypheus in a final battle. There was no question. Solas would attack him. If he did, Kios would have to defend himself. He would have to stop Solas. He wanted to puke at the very thought.

“Is that enough, Inquisitor?”

Kios looked up. Cullen was staring at him, eyebrows scrunched. The others had left, though Dorian had stayed long enough to demand Kios be careful.

He would have be careful. He would have to act at a moment’s notice, within enemy territory, against a powerful mage – against the man with whom he’d foolishly fallen in love.

“Yes, it’s fine,” he said absently. “We don’t have a lot of templars, so that number will have to do. We’ll back them up with more archers than mages; we don’t need the templars battling both fronts.”

No. He would be the only one having to do that tomorrow.

“Very good,” Cullen said. Cullen’s shoulders tightened. “I again request to head in myself.”

“And I again tell you to shut up.” Cullen, trapped around demons? Perhaps feeling that he is lacking, that he must do something rash and drastic? He gave Cullen a grim smile; it was the best he could do at the moment. “Lead the men from this side. This side is our last stand against the demons who will rush toward the rift. Make sure we have a path back. That is your duty.”

Cullen’s head lifted. “I will see it done.”

The garden, as Fenris now termed it, seemed almost nostalgic now. Nothing gave him greater relief than this place – evidence that Azzan yet lived. “We’re coming,” he said the instant he took in the sight of Andraste and the bench that would, he knew, turn into a pew if he stepped any closer.

Inamorato.

The voice was quiet; Fenris’ heart pounded in his chest. He raced to the bench. Only when the scenery changed, taking on the appearance of a chantry, did he see Faith. She knelt before the statue of Andraste, her robed figure shivering madly. The tiniest of a breeze touched his skin, barely enough for him to feel it. Barely even there. “Faith!” Without thought, he grabbed the spirit’s shoulder. He didn’t know what he’d been about to do – hold the spirit up? Scream at it? Beg for something? Shake it? Comfort it? It didn’t matter; the instant he touched her shoulder, his marks lit up like moonlight. He could suddenly feel the lyrium’s power as it was sucked out of him. His knees buckled.

The spirit turned to him, its eyes greener than he’d ever seen them, piercing through the darkness beneath the hood. Wounded I fell then, by grief arrow-studded, never to heal, death for me come.

Fenris paled. His body, numb, fell until his knees caught him. He wrenched his hand back, uncaring suddenly of the spirit’s sudden lack of balance. Uncaring of anything. “Azzan?” he breathed.

The spirit clutched at the base of the statue with long, unnatural fingers. Eyes sorrow-blinded, the spirit said, then, a beat later, ‘Heart that is broken, beats still unceasing, an ocean of sorrow does nobody drown.’

Beats still unceasing. For long, interminable moments, that was all he could hear. He bent down, put one hand over his heart, and just breathed. It took several moments for him to realize he’d stopped helping the spirit. He reached out and grabbed its wrist through the robe. It was thin. “What happened? How hurt is he?”

Then he took in the rest of the creature’s words. He scowled. His grip tightened until a normal person would have winced. “You mean he’s just mourning? What did he lose? You? Are you no longer connected?” His heart started racing all over again. If they were no longer connected, then his last hope of finding his way to Azzan would be lost.

...As he looked upon the field of the dead... Faith said, and then, another long moment later, Inamorato.

He shook his head. Hawke was mourning the dead? But no one else was trapped – no one save demons and, perhaps, a few spirits foolish enough to try to exist within Nightmare’s territory. Unless others had also been left behind?

No, he realized. “Visions,” he said, and watched Faith nod. The spirit started feeding on his lyrium again. Azzan was being shown visions, false ones that showed people dying. Likely showed Fenris dying. “I’m alive. Have you told him I’m alive?”

Those who bear false witness and work to deceive others, know this: there is but one Truth.

The words were spoken to the statue, not to him, and he hoped they were what Faith had spoken to Azzan when he’d seen… seen whatever Nightmare had shown him. Azzan just needed to be strong for a little longer. Just a little longer. He gripped Faith’s wrist still tighter, until the creature turned its gaze on him.

“We’re coming,” he told it. “We’ll be there tomorrow. Myself, the Inquisitor, and part of his entourage. We’re all coming.”

Faith’s body slackened somewhat at that. It pressed its other hand on top of his. The righteous stood before the armies as a boulder stands before a tide: unshaken, rooted there by the Maker’s Hand.

‘The armies.’ A warning, whether Faith had meant for it to be or not. The spirit was certain they would meet heavy resistance. That was fine. He didn’t care how many demons he had to kill. He would carve mountains from their corpses if it meant reaching Hawke’s side. “That’s right,” he said, though he wasn’t certain there had been a question there. “We’ll get you both out of there soon.”

The lines of lyrium in his skin faded back to their dim scars. The feel of something being sucked from him ebbed. Suddenly he was exhausted. He slumped where he knelt beside the spirit, barely able to keep his eyes open.

Make me to rest in the warmest places. The spirit twisted its wrist until it held Fenris’ hand, then pulled the other to rest in her other palm. The soft summer wind he always associated with Azzan rose up around him, as strong now as it had been the first time he’d felt it in Kirkwall. He smiled softly. Faith had taken the strength from his lyrium to recover. He hoped it wouldn’t interfere with their plans for the next day, but, well, if it did, he would just have to suffer through it. There was no point in making it into the Fade if Hawke wasn’t alive for Fenris to rescue him.

The thought made him shudder. He wasn’t sure how bad things were; Faith had clearly become weak due to whatever Nightmare had done to Hawke. In just one day, to be so weary… he feared what it meant for the next day. His tired hands trembled.

Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will is written.

Faith’s fingers skittered momentarily over the lines of lyrium flowing down the back of the palm. He saw them begin to light, but before they could, the spirit pulled away. It seemed to be waiting for something. For him? For his understanding? But he didn’t comprehend its message. How in Thedas could Hawke understand anything this creature said?

Whatever. It didn’t matter. The spirit seemed less at death’s door than before. It was able to stand, and it waved him over to the pew. When he moved to sit in it, the scenery changed to that garden from before, the statue now standing surrounded by tiny, hazy images of flowers. The spirit bent its head, once again beginning some sort of prayer or benediction. Fenris, thinking of Azzan, did the same. But his prayer was not one from the chant. It was his own, one that had become a mantra. Let Hawke be all right. Just let Hawke be all right.

His fingers clenched like claws into the leather of his pants. When he finally faded from Faith’s domain, it was with a chest tight with the weight of that prayer.

“Inquisitor.” Kios straightened. His talks with Cullen had ended, and he had fully expected Solas to use the opportunity granted to him by Fenris to speak with him. He let himself stay in front of the War Table, to which he and Cullen had migrated over an hour before, for a few more moments. His hands scraped over the old wood. Everything, he reminded himself, was coming to an end. Not just this.

He turned. “Solas.”

He said no more. He couldn’t; Solas was no stunning beauty, but there was so much hidden within him that spoke of wisdom and strength and perseverance. He hated how enamored he was of that, of how magnetically Solas’ presence pulled at him. He breathed deep. This was the face of an enemy. He had to remember that. He had done everything right, he reminded himself as Solas stepped closer, until only a single step stood between them. The reason everything he’d tried had failed was because Solas had always intended betrayal.

Solas’ last-minute conscience had actually helped him realize the man’s true intentions. Was that irony, or just proof that he had willingly blinded himself?

Solas stopped and waited for Kios to say something. What could he say? What words would be normal after he’d learned the man he loved intended to kill him and destroy the world? He opened his mouth, ready to tell Solas he needn’t pass on Fenris’ words, that he had heard. But if he said that, then he would be admitting to having heard the rest, and he didn’t want to tip his hand. He didn’t want Solas to have any chance of figuring out what he had learned. “You should rest,” he said finally, leaning back on the table slightly to hide his hesitation and the stiffness he could feel in his shoulders. “You’re going to be the one doing the heavy lifting once we get to the site tomorrow.”

Solas’ gaze was studiously blank, so careful he must have seen everything Kios was trying to hide. Kios could only hope Solas considered it a reaction to the break-up and nothing more. “Fenris will await us at Skyhold’s gate in the morning.”

The information he needed to give, granted immediately? Was it to gain access to Kios’ time, or to try to set him at ease? Either way, it was being used as a peace offering. He would do well to pretend to accept it. “Thank you.” Did he dare try for more information? Try to carry a conversation? Yes. He needed information. And he needed to seem normal.

Normal. As if he didn’t know the man he loved was going to try to kill him.

“Was there something you needed?” he asked. His fingers wanted to curl around the edge of the table. He forced them to remain loose.

Solas stood there, so completely still he thought he might have given himself away. Should he grab his daggers, call upon his magic? Should he create a quick illusion and hope that Solas didn’t immediately see through it?

“You were right,” Solas said. “We need to talk.”

His jaw dropped.

What? This? Now? He looked around him, almost expecting Sera to pop out and make a bad innuendo. Only, Sera and Solas would never actually work together like that. All that was left was to face Solas again. “What’s left to discuss?”

Solas dropped his gaze. It was true that Kios had once demanded they speak more on the subject. Solas had oh so helpfully refused. His exact words had been that Kios needed to focus on the threat of Corypheus. How Solas must have laughed behind his hand at that one. “I… should not have left things as they were. I should have apologized better.”

Kios couldn’t help it; he snorted. “An apology? No. You know very well why you refused to speak, Solas. It’s because you owed me an explanation, and you refused to grant me such a courtesy.”

But he knew why. Oh, how he knew.

“You’re right,” Solas said. He took a deep breath. “And I told myself I would rather you hate me. That your hate would make what I had done to you easier. But in truth, I wanted only an escape for myself.”

Yes. Coward. His teeth nearly vibrated with the words, but he swallowed them back. To show a hint of his rage would be to lose control, and he couldn’t afford to do that. Not even with a friend, but certainly not with an enemy.

Why? The question rose like acid in the back of his throat. Why hadn’t Kios been enough?

He lowered his head, nearly overwhelmed by the sudden flare of agony in his chest. Not yet. Not yet. By the gods, don’t let him lose himself yet. He looked back up, baring his teeth in his effort to push back the pain. “Why are you saying this now?”

Solas frowned. “I still do not have an acceptable answer to that.”

To bring it up again. To string him along. To keep him emotionally vulnerable, just before he intended to end Kios’ life.

The agony pierced him again and again and again. He fought not to show it. Still, his body hunched over, showing all the signs he wished he could wipe away. “Your decision won’t change,” he said, knowing his attempt at apathy would not fool Solas. He would hear the misery Kios tried to tamp down. “So why bother talking about it?”

“I am sorry,” Solas said, the three most useless words in the Trade Tongue.

He crossed his arms. Solas, taking the silent queue, took a step back. “What magic will you perform?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “Will you need assistance?”

His magic was nothing like Solas’; Kios’ was all about misdirection and illusion and close combat. He also didn’t use the power of the Fade, which was Solas’ specialty. He wasn’t surprised when Solas shook his head. “No.” He leaned on his staff, wrapping his hands around it as if in a hug. His ‘at ease’ stance, which in fact left him a strong hold on his weapon. “The magic is old, and it needs great precision. A single caster, however, should be enough. So long as I recall the spell properly. I will have to speak with a few friends to ensure I am ready.”

It was a chance for Solas to escape. A chance for him to no longer bumble through an apology that did nothing but hurt Kios. Which must have been his intention. “Then rest.” He turned away and placed his hands on the table. “I’ll be doing the same shortly.”

For several pounding heartbeats, he heard nothing from Solas. Then, finally, a single step. Backwards. Then the door opened and shut. He held his breath, counted the seconds, and listened to Solas’ quiet footsteps as he moved down the hallway. He looked over his shoulder. Alone. Finally.

He closed his eyes and hung his head.

What if he didn’t have the strength for this? His fingers curled, crumbling the map beneath them. He sucked in a breath, horrified to hear it hitch. No. He covered his face. When the time came, he wouldn’t hesitate. He wasn’t going to be bogged down by emotion. He wouldn’t be weak in the face of hurt and betrayal.

He had known from the start, hadn’t he? From the moment Solas had grabbed his wrist and ordered him to act, only to pretend he’d taken some sort of educated guess with the rifts. Kios had known he was staring into the face of a man who was far more than he pretended to be. He’d known Solas could be an enemy. He’d let himself fall for the man’s tricks and lies; he’d let himself believe that Solas had changed.

He’d trained himself since childhood to be perceptive and suspicious, to pay close attention to everything around him. What he hadn’t trained was his heart.

His weak, fragile, pathetic heart.

With one hand, he reached up and traced the line a stone had carved across his cheek and up to his eye, nearly stealing his eyesight completely. That same aim had landed on his lip just heartbeats before that scar had been made. Both had been the only lesson he’d needed, that he was too much a freak to ever be loved.

He closed his eyes. No. He’d found love. In an aravel he’d joined after that incident – an aravel he’d chosen to turn away from the moment he’d allowed Solas to take his vallaslin. And had that been a lie, too? Had Kios given up the only family he’d ever found for nothing more than yet another lie?

When he grimaced, a sound escaped his lips. It sounded like he’d been punched in the chest. As if in reaction to such, he fell to his knees, hands scrabbling over the table. What was he doing? If it weren’t for the agony turning his legs to jelly, he would have scoffed at his own dramatics. Instead he just curled his knees to his chest and hissed breath after breath, desperately trying to draw in air without releasing the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Istamaethoriel had once called tears catharsis. They didn’t feel like catharsis. They felt like fire.

The fire grew hotter and hotter, turning his nose red and staining his cheeks. He felt it in his chest, his hands, his head, clogging up everything that he was supposed to put first.

He should have known from the start, he thought suddenly. Everyone wanted sex. Everyone. Part of his abnormality. Just as his skin and hair and eyes, his cursed eyes, were signs of his aberration, so was his disinterest in sex. The very fact that he’d never desired another was proof that his body was broken. Yet he’d let himself believe that Solas was like him, that Solas was, as the elf had said, uninterested in a sexual relationship.

He should have known right then. He’d let himself feel relief, as if he wasn’t a freak. Gods, he’d been so stupid.

“Elgar’nan,” he whispered, looking up to the ceiling. He gritted his teeth as the tears fell down his bare cheeks. “Please. Help me do what must be done.”

Love was a mistake. Allowing himself to believe, even for an instant, that something so beautiful could exist for something like him had been a mistake.

“Help me. I’ll do this right this time.”

He wiped his face and stood. No more love. No more mercy. No more hope.

It was time to leave such childish ideals behind.

Chapter Text

The morning sun broke the sky into dark gray, seeping into the small room Fenris had been assigned over an hour after he had woken to prepare for the day. His gut twisted and clenched with every heartbeat, knowing that, for every minute he and the Inquisition spent in preparation, Azzan was facing more of the demon’s trials. He cleaned himself with a small basin of water, raked his fingers through his hair until it sat once more back from his forehead, and clothed himself back in the more heavy vestments of his armor. He refused to think of Azzan’s hands on the clasps and strings.

He had enough time left to polish his sword and dagger, and he took himself through the largely empty fields of Skyhold to the blacksmith’s home, where he spent the rest of the morning cleaning. A servant came to him just after the rise of the sun, breakfast in her hands. He accepted it. The spymaster had apparently chosen an early rise, as well.

When he was finished, he stretched and made his way to the front gate. The bustle of the fortress had increased since he’d first made his trek across the ice-tipped grass. Instead of merely servants running around, several soldiers and messengers had also woken from their slumbers and begun their day. It would be the nobles who woke up last; they lived their mornings in slumber while those around them toiled.

He was the first at the gate. That was no surprise. Likely the others had prepared for the dawn, as well, only to be bogged down by more work. Despite his antsiness, however, he was relieved to find a large contingent of soldiers beginning to mill around the entrance mere moments after the sun crested the top of the fortress’ walls. With them stood Cullen and the angry woman – Cassandra – both, pointing to weapons and horses and barking orders. Cullen caught sight of his gaze and stopped what he was doing to march to Fenris’ side. “How was your rest?” Cullen asked. He shifted from foot to foot.

“It was enough.” His stomach cramped again, looking on the man Hawke had once called friend. He looked different from before. His hair was more immaculate, his gaze less sharp. Despite the insane amount of fur around his face, he looked less a lion than he’d been in Kirkwall. “Being here has settled you,” he noted, and saw the human jump.

“Ah – yes.” Cullen scratched the back of his head. “Well.” He cleared his throat. How strange to watch this man be awkward. Azzan, Fenris thought before he could help it, would approve. He ground his teeth. “Being here has been an experience, that’s for sure.” He looked out. Fenris followed his gaze, only to see the Inquisitor moving toward them, once again making conversation with the altus. The altus who had apparently chosen to be up this early despite not being a part of the Inquisitor’s main attack force.

Fenris looked again. He thought at first that Cullen was looking at the Inquisitor, but as he watched, that gaze swept up and down, not the Inquisitor, but the altus. Fenris quirked a brow. “I’ll bet,” he said dryly. Cullen jumped again. And flushed.

“Yes, well.” Cullen cleared his throat a second time before turning back to Fenris. The human straightened his shoulders. “Be safe out there,” he said, nearly mumbling, and turned to leave.

“I’ll tell Hawke you were worried,” Fenris called out and watched Cullen nearly trip. He smirked. Interesting.

Tell Hawke, huh. His smile dimmed. He wanted to have such lighthearted conversations again. The question remained, however, if he would.

Cole, the spirit, was the first to stand next to him. It seemed even antsier than Cullen, its gaze flickering from him to something else, something Fenris couldn’t see or sense. He left for a moment, disappearing so suddenly it set all of Fenris’ warning instincts off. That was when Solas arrived, small bags under his eyes speaking of ill rest. “Cole is eccentric to most,” Solas said as he came abreast of Fenris. “He is less of a spirit now than before, but he still answers the call of others’ hearts. He cannot ignore a cry for help.”

Fenris shifted slightly away from the elf. He knew far too much about the Fade and its denizens. Fenris narrowed his eyes. “And you? You haven’t gotten enough rest. Will you be able to do this?”

Solas grimaced. His gaze swept out beyond the walls of Skyhold, outside the gate and toward the snowy mountain caps. His hands gripped his staff tight enough his knuckles turned white. “I will be fine.”

He shouldn’t have gotten involved. He wasn’t Azzan. He couldn’t help people with their emotions or their communication struggles. It had taken Azzan years to get through his thick skull; what hope did he have of breaking through others’? He crossed his arms and leaned against the cold stone. This time, he chose silence.

It was as they stewed in that that Cole returned, his gaze slipping between the two of them. “Regretting, repressing, resisting. Right and wrong, wringing and wrought out. What future hurts less?”

Fenris’ brows lowered. The first part sounded right, but not the rest. Taking a guess, he looked at Solas. The man looked like he’d been punched in the chest. “Cole,” Solas said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You can’t heal this hurt. Please.”

Cole shifted back and forth. It fingers twisted and climbed around each other. For a moment, Fenris thought they looked very long – almost as long as Faith’s. “He wants to believe, but he’s given hope to the past. Soon, it will be too late. You have to tell him.”

Cole’s words were insistent, yet they did nothing but make Solas turn his head in shame. So. Solas and the Inquisitor were on the outs because Solas had a secret. Fenris grimaced. He and Hawke had suffered from something like that, as well. Hawke had hidden the pain of Fenris’ anti-mage sentiments for so long, it had nearly broken him. When it had come out, they’d nearly lost one another. Only the situation, the fact that Hawke could have died that same day, had forced Fenris to face it all.

These two were in the middle of a war, however, and still Solas chose silence. Fenris shook his head. This was what happened when people didn’t think things through enough.

Whatever. These two might destroy their own chances, but Fenris and Azzan had chosen wiser.

The Inquisitor finally walked over, his altus friend in tow. They continued speaking; the altus was insisting that something about ‘time matrices’ had given them advanced warning of what would happen should the Inquisitor never return, and the Inquisitor was informing him that he was the one least in danger, since his ‘mark’ would, so long as he was with Solas, enable him an escape route. “It’s everyone else you should worry about,” the Inquisitor said as he walked up to them. His gaze caught on Solas and skittered quickly away, his shoulders stiffening. Those eyes, once again hooded, turned to Fenris. “The others will either arrive in a few minutes or get something thrown at them to hurry them up.” Fenris snorted. Dorian outright chuckled. “The soldiers are more or less ready; Cullen’s in charge of them, and he doesn’t play.”

Fenris was well aware.

“Anything else we need?” the Inquisitor asked, his gaze just barely off from Solas. Solas shook his head.

“No. We are ready.”

“Once inside, we need to make our way to the Champion, then return to the rift.” The Inquisitor sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. “Our army will make a ruckus, hopefully taking some of Nightmare’s attention. If not, we’re going to be crushed. Either way, expect heavy resistance.”

“Hawke and I have been in the Fade before,” Fenris said. He shifted. Best not to mention how he’d fallen immediately to a demon’s wiles while there. “I’ve fought several demons outside of it, as well. There was no shortage of them in Kirkwall.”

The Inquisitor nodded. Wagons bustled over toward the entrance; the Inquisitor had them all move so they could pass through. Cullen walked over, saw Dorian beside the Inquisitor, and nearly tripped over his own feet. “Oh! Uh – hi, Mr. Pavus. Uh…”

Dorian grinned so wide it should have cracked his jaw. He very deliberately shifted onto one hip, showing off his torso to magnificent effect, and said, “Why, good morning, commander.”

Cullen spluttered.

“Those were the wagons with the volunteers, I take it?” the Inquisitor said, sparing Cullen from internal combustion. Cullen snapped back to the more commandeering presence Fenris was used to and began to list out the numbers of allies and equipment the wagons carried. Fenris listened with one ear as he scanned the fortress.

For all its impressive might, the fortress was manned and upheld by people. The servants, likely at least slightly overworked, though their conditions were better than Fenris had at first imagined. The soldiers, who had assigned tasks and duties that would make the entire fortress crumble if they shirked them. Mages, though they did little but read and study and, sometimes, help garden or defend the fortress. Nobles, who brought with their pomposity trade and donations and other necessary goods.

The ones at the top were equally fallible, equally tipped on a scale where, if they failed, the entire place would fall apart. From hearing the stories of ‘the Champion and his companions,’ along with tales of his own exploits against Tevinter, he knew well the power of a tale. Peoples’ humanity was lost in the telling and retelling of it, until real people sounded like little more than fiction.

“Imagine Andraste’s surprise upon hearing her story told by another for the first time.”

Fenris shook his head, pushing the memories away. Hawke’s chuckle still echoed between his ears, haunting the halls of his memory, far past when Varric jogged up, his breath a bit ragged. “Everyone’s demanding they come help the soldiers,” Varric said the instant he was caught up with them all. “They’re all coming. Every last one.”

The Inquisitor sighed. “Are they coming quickly?”

“Don’t know about the rest, but I certainly did.” The gruff male human from earlier raised his hand. He carried his shield with him today, when yesterday he had not. He stood beside the Inquisitor. “I would rather go in with you, but if that is not where my service is needed, then the rift will do.”

The Inquisitor actually relaxed around the man, yet something in his gaze darkened. Once again, Fenris wasn’t the only one to see it. Solas’ gaze, ever caught on the hooded elf, sharpened at the sight. The Inquisitor looked for all the world as if some weight had been added to his shoulders, not taken off.

“Your efforts will save many lives here,” Solas said. Though his words were aimed at the human, his gaze did not leave that hood. “With your skills, I am certain you and the soldiers will be safe.”

Blackwall’s brows furrowed. “Um. Thanks. I think.”

The Inquisitor shored himself back up. “Right.” The Inquisitor waved everyone forward. “Let’s head out. Anyone else who wants to come will have to catch up.”

“Glad I’m already here, then,” Dorian said. “Want to help me climb aboard my horse, commander?” Cullen, leading the last wagon through the gate, slammed his knee into the side of the wagon and started cursing up a storm. Dorian’s grin took over half his face.

“Dorian, stop maiming my commander and get moving.” The Inquisitor pointed behind them. Fenris had seen the contingent of horses and had erroneously believed them to be for the soldiers. Apparently, they were all going to be riding out in style.

They all moved to the horses, and it became a flurry of controlled chaos. Fenris was handed a lead to a brown and white spotted steed. It easily took his weight, clearly used to carrying people with armor. He made a soft noise to it and patted its neck. It nickered softly, but otherwise didn’t move. Well-trained, then. He wasn’t surprised.

He looked up only after adjusting the reins in his hand. When he did, his jaw dropped.

Most others had been given, like him, a horse to ride. The Inquisitor, however, rode on a slightly taller, thicker mount. With long, thick antlers.

“It’s a hart.” He controlled his jump into little more than a straightened spine, then turned. The angry woman was, for once, not glaring daggers at him or stomping around. Instead she rode a dark brown mount with a thin muzzle, its head swishing back and forth as if trying to shake off excess energy. The woman gripped the reins loosely, apparently used to the mount’s shenanigans. “He rides them exclusively. Apparently it’s a hallmark of status among the Dalish.”

Fenris frowned. He watched as the Inquisitor led the mount forward. The others followed with practiced ease, slipping into positions Fenris did not know. He blindly followed at the rear. “But he is not Dalish.”

“He is,” Cassandra contradicted. She urged her mount forward, and it quickly hopped ahead. She need only pull on its reins a moment, however, to calm it to an easy canter. “He and Solas had a talk only a few short weeks ago. When they returned, the Inquisitor came back with his face bare.”

Fenris reeled back a bit. He returned bare-faced? “His clan would no longer accept him.”

The words made the human woman’s brows rise. “But he is their Second.”

Fenris shook his head. “I knew a Dalish elf, once. The marks were a sign of adulthood, of being recognized as such. Without them, he would be considered a child and an outsider.”

The words made the woman’s face scrunch. She looked toward the Inquisitor, easily identifiable even through the long group of people and the swirling ice of the mountain’s snow as the wind kicked it back up off the ground. “I wonder why he did it, then?”

Fenris could imagine. It likely had something to do with the man he’d gone to speak with. And it could very well have something to do with what had led them to the tension that ate up the space between them.

It wasn’t his business, he told himself. Then, again. And again. “Are they both idiots?” he asked. It got the woman laughing. She had a deep, booming laugh, one unafraid to push the boundaries of the open space of the mountains. It echoed through the winds. He smiled.

“I do believe that has something to do with it, yes.”

In pieces, the rest of the Inquisitor’s tagalong arrived, each complaining about having been left behind – though none complained quite as loudly or as creatively as the elven woman. The loudest after her were the Qunari and his own contingent he called his ‘Chargers’; he blamed them for the delay, which started up an argument that drowned out any further chance of conversation between himself and the human woman. It wasn’t long after that that she hurried her horse forward to take her own unspoken position behind the Inquisitor.

That was fine. Fenris would make for bad company on the journey, anyway. That fact, however, didn’t stop Varric from eventually dropping back to travel silently alongside him. It was true what the said. Misery loved company.

It took until nearly noon just to get everyone situated along the top of the far mountain ridge. They’d crossed this mountain before, under much worse circumstances, even, but their travel was slower this time. It was likely thanks to the multiple men and munitions they’d brought with them. Tents and supplies were set up as Kios and Cullen worked their way through one last planning session, this time incorporating all of Kios’ companions.

“Blackwall on the front lines,” Cullen said, repeating Kios’ orders, “and the Iron Bull and his Chargers behind him.”

“Vivienne needs to stick with them,” Kios said. “For all that she’s a frontline fighter, she can’t handle large amounts of enemies well. Iron Bull is there for that.”

“Dorian in the back with the other mages,” Cullen said, and Kios ignored the way Cullen’s voice shifted back and forth between relief and worry when he said that. “Sera near the Chargers, but at the edge of the templars’ flank.”

“She can back them up in several different ways without losing her abilities. The templars are going to need to be able to use their own, as well, which cuts their ability to work with the mages.” Kios nodded. “That’s as good as it’s going to get, Cullen. The elven artifact is ready, as well, so as soon as we’re back, we’ll be able to strengthen the Veil again as much as possible. Which means we’re as ready as we can be.” Cullen stood. “Set them up. I’ll get my group ready.”

“Be careful, Inquisitor.”

The words were the softest spoken in a long while. Kios gave Cullen a thin-lipped smile. “I’ll do all I can.”

It was the best promise he could give. Especially considering what he knew himself to be walking into. His gaze slid once more, unerringly finding Solas at the edge of the crowd. The man was leaning once more against his staff, eyeing the progress of the army as they prepared to huddle down for what would hopefully be less than twelve hours, but could end up being far, far more.

His chest clenched. Yet again, Kios faced not having the strength to do this. Every time he imagined lifting his dagger to cut through Solas’ magic, he found himself hesitating. He hoped, for the world’s sake, that he would not falter when it mattered.

He squinted his way through the white snow until he reached the safe harbor of the tents and relatively dark forms of people moving back and forth, completing last-minute tasks. Slowly, he moved through the crowd of people ready and willing to die simply on his say. He spoke with a few he recognized, watched the others he did not. It still disturbed him that few even recognized him to be the leader they had all chosen to follow. Few even gave him a second glance. Four times, he was asked to perform a menial task, even though such servants had not been brought here. Seven times, he was asked what he was doing there, since said servants were not supposed to be here. And at least twelve times, people caught sight of his eyes and gawked, gasped, or skittered away.

Passing the tents returned his vision to nothing but snow and sunlight, and he winced as the bright light stabbed into his retinas. His hood flapped momentarily away from his face; he ducked his head on instinct, closing his eyes as the noonday sun burned into them.

He felt a tension on the hood flapping against the back of his neck. The cloth was raised by someone until it safely covered his eyes again. He opened them, unsurprised to find Solas standing beside him. The elf said nothing at the water forming in Kios’ eyes, a protective instinct that never failed to make him feel more miserable than safe. Up here in the mountains, it also had the double pleasure of making his eyes burn. He rubbed at them.

“Inquisitor.”

He hated hearing that word from Solas. When they’d been alone, it had always been his name, and it had always sounded sweet. Everything Solas had said had sounded sweet. Even the most bitter parts. More lies, he told himself. Solas had never meant any of it. “I’m fine, thank you.” He looked ahead; the mountain they’d chosen ended on a largely flat plain; the rumor among the soldiers was that it had once been the nest of a high dragon. “Let’s get started.”

It took another hour after everything was set up to get the soldiers stationed behind the Inquisition and his allies. Fenris was little more than a bundle of nerves by that point; he was actually looking forward to the exertion and pain of whatever spell this Solas had planned. Anything to make him feel like he was doing something.

“Master Fenris.” The crunch of snow preceded Solas’ arrival at Fenris’ side. He’d stayed back, allowing the elf room to work, creating a long path in the snow where his feet had tread and tread again. “It is time.”

Finally. He hurried forward, setting his own pace. Solas did not complain.

The Inquisitor stood nearby, hunkered into his hood like an old man. His gaze followed Solas, those odd eyes squinted into slits. Perhaps it was a sign of the Inquisitor’s position, but no one mocked him for huddling into his clothing like that. Beyond him stood his friends, including Cullen, who was still sending a few people out among the line of templars and soldiers to hand out last-minute orders. Cullen leaned down and whispered something to the Inquisitor, moving slightly past the spirit boy and angry woman. Solas motioned to the empty space he’d made on the snow-capped plateau. “The Inquisitor will create the rift here,” he said, “after I form enough of a weakness to create a ripple in the Veil. This place is not, however, linked in any way to the Fade or to the realm of the demon Nightmare, who has the Champion in custody. For that, we need you.”

Fenris lifted his chin. He already knew the logistics of why. What he cared about now was how, and perhaps how long. Fenris looked at the mage’s staff. The foci on the top glowed. “I take it your magic has done something.”

Solas nodded. “I have an affinity with the Fade due to my studies; through that, I have managed to somewhat obscure the line between this side and the Fade. A necessity, if we want the rift to stay open so that we may return.” Fenris’ brow rose. He wasn’t certain what that meant, but it sounded not only dangerous for them, but also as if the man before him had more expertise than simply that which one might learn from one’s ‘studies.’ Perhaps he would have been more willing to overlook it if he hadn’t caught the way the Inquisitor regarded such information – like a lie.

“‘Obscure the line?’ What does that mean?

“It means I have, in a sense, marked off this part of the Veil. While it has not been weakened, it has been altered. It will attract more attention from the Fade, but it will also leave a sustainable route. At least until the magic I have used wears off.” Solas’ lips trembled a bit as he spoke, belying the pale tint to them. The elf’s ears were tinged red from the cold wind. His fingers were equally red at their knuckles. He was not unaffected by having stood alone in the cold for so long. “Any weakness in the Veil caused by our actions should hopefully be mitigated by the artifact in our possession. The rest – how to get to where we must go – will be up to you.”

Fenris squared his shoulders. “Manifest the lyrium, try to connect with Faith,” he murmured. “Anything else?”

“Your connection with the Champion’s spirit may grow stronger through personal memories,” Solas said, his voice softening. “I do not necessarily mean physically intimate moments, despite the fact that this particular bond was formed physically.”

If it even was. Fenris had doubts that this connection was purely physical. “I will have no problem thinking of him,” he said. Solas nodded.

He turned to the Inquisitor. “Is everything ready?”

The Inquisitor stepped forward, his eyes so slitted Fenris was surprised he didn’t trip and land on his face in the snow. “It is.” The Inquisitor looked behind him and lifted his voice. “Your only job is to keep the demons contained,” he said. “No heroics, no showmanship. This will be a battle of attrition.” Despite the howling of the wind, the people in the front of the long line of soldiers stood straighter, their ears perked. Cullen nodded his head, his back straight. Varric, Cole, and Cassandra all stepped forward. “Keep each other safe and work in patches. The moment your team is injured, back out and have another take the rotation. Does everyone understand which teams they’re in?” he asked Cullen. Cullen nodded.

“By now, they’d better.”

The Inquisitor accepted that. “Keep yourselves safe.” His gaze traveled over his other companions, from the giant Qunari to the tiny slip of an elf. He moved to Solas, his back stiffening with every step he took. “Tell me when,” he murmured. His hood flapped in a sudden breeze; Solas reached up and snatched it just as it began slipping off the Inquisitor’s head. Both stood for a second too long, staring at each other. Without a word, Solas lowered the hood back onto the Inquisitor’s head before stepping aside.

“I will inform you when to enact the anchor.”

The Inquisitor nodded. His teeth were too clenched to respond in words.

“Raise your arms before you,” Solas said, showing Fenris a position where he held his hands out, curled into one another, palms up. With his arms outstretched, it looked almost like he was begging for alms, or perhaps cupping a bit of water for someone else to drink. His lips grimaced as he questioned the possibility that he was doing exactly that. “Activate your lyrium. Search for the spirit.”

“How can I find her?” he asked, suddenly unsure. “She always finds me, and only when I sleep.”

“Faith should be able to find you now, even in your waking hours.” Solas nodded to the Inquisitor. “Since this time, the spirit will no longer be inhibited by the times when you access the Fade.”

Because he was accessing the Fade now. He watched the Inquisitor raise his hand. Green lightning sparked from his palm. Fenris’ eyes widened. Then the electricity sparked into a bright, building light, and he was forced to squint and turned his gaze away. The Inquisitor, he saw, closed his eyes and winced.

Immediately, the instant that green light pulsed against the air before them, Fenris’ lyrium burned. He yelped at the feeling of fire along every single line, burning at his skin like blue flames. He gritted his teeth. He’d been warned about the pain. Even if it meant his skin melting off, he would maintain this position. Anything, he vowed as his body trembled, lightning coursing up his arms and down his spine. Anything.

Solas had said he should think about Azzan. That his thoughts would link him to Hawke faster, or perhaps that Faith would be able to hear him. Who knew? Who cared?

He closed his eyes and thought of the man he loved.

Hawke. His long black hair, just long enough to brush against his shoulders. His eyes, so stupidly blue they made Fenris soft just looking at them. His stupid, crooked grin. The dimple on his right cheek that flashed when he laughed. The way his hands reached out for Fenris without hesitation, on pure instinct, whenever he thought Fenris needed him.

The way he’d snapped at the slavers that Fenris was not a slave. The way he smiled, so gently, as he offered Orana a home. The face he’d made as he worried over which colors of make-up Orana would like more. The wracking sobs as he sat on the side of his bed, mourning the fact that he’d never even thought to use blood magic to save his mother.

As soon as the slavers had attacked him, Hawke had dropped everything, including the troubles arising from some thefts at his mine, just to hunt down the woman who had tried to once again make Fenris’ life hell. He thought of how, though he hadn’t noticed any of this at the time, Hawke hadn’t let Fenris move further than a few feet away from him at all times. How Hawke had always urged Fenris to speak, first to Orana, and then to Hadriana. How Hawke had stood right beside him, silently accepting everything Fenris chose. How Hawke had weathered Fenris’ storms, one right after the other, as Fenris accused him of taking Orana as a slave, then as he flung out accusations against magic.

He remembered Hawke, standing out in the rain, his face miserable as he begged for their friendship to not end just because they’d ended their one-night stand poorly. His one-night stand. He hadn’t even known what he’d been doing, but Hawke had. Hawke had led Fenris into his bed with the hope of it meaning more, and the expectation that it would not. Fenris had gone without any expectations at all, save to perhaps forget for a few hours.

The joke had been on him, of course; in those couple of hours, he had nearly remembered. Everything.

The fire raged so high in his veins Fenris felt sweat beading on the back of his neck and upper lip. Each intake of breath felt like he was breathing through the mouth of a volcano – lava pooled along his neck, over his chest, down his thighs to his very toes. He wondered how any snow could remain at all. Within the pain, he felt bathed in light – first the bright white-blue of his lyrium, and then the sickly green of the Fade. He tried to reach out for Hawke, to call his name. His heart pressed against his rib cage. He felt sick.

There was far more to Hawke than his looks or his magic. If Hawke had only been that, then Fenris would never have cared for him. What he cared about was how Hawke had stood silently, letting Fenris yell at him. How, when Fenris had come to apologize, Hawke had merely stated his concern that Fenris might have been in danger while they’d been separated. How, even though Fenris had been the one to turn away from him, Azzan had been the one to come begging Fenris for another chance. How, that day when Anders had chosen to blow up the chantry, Hawke had finally turned, his last limit stretched as Fenris spoke poorly about mages yet again, and cried tears that he’d battled against since he’d seen the betrayal Anders had inflicted on him, and told Fenris that he was sorry. “I’m sorry!” Azzan had said. “I can only ever be a mage.”

The man he searched for now – the man he loved – would give anything, everything, to Fenris. Until he had nothing left. The man he loved had handed his entire life over to Fenris’ cause. Literally, literally to Fenris’ endless cause to free people from the magisters’ lust for the power blood magic granted them. The man who had sworn to always come back to him.

“Come back to me, Hawke,” he whispered, and felt the fire in his lyrium twist.

His head spasmed back. He blinked.

The creature before him wasn’t human.

He nearly reeled back, nearly reached back and pulled his sword out. Yet, at the same time, he realized his arms were trapped on either side of his head. His head hung. He was tired. The thing in front of him reached out and touched his face. His skin burned. His flesh crawled. “You think this stalemate will last?” The creature laughed. It sounded like swarms of insects chittering. Its face morphed over and over again – a spider’s face, fangs moving to rest on his cheeks, multitudinous eyes blinking in uneven succession – an older man’s face, grin split wide, and it took Fenris far too long to realize he’d seen that face before, the night Hawke had found his mother – Fenris’ own face, eyes as empty as Leandra’s had been that night, neck sewn up. Each flashing image brought a tired reaction – fear, belatedly, and remembered pain. The sight of the second image had brought pain before Fenris had even recognized it. It was that, more than anything else, that told him that he was no longer seeing through his own eyes.

Hawke.

“How much energy is it taking to heal you?” the creature before him asked. Its fingers changed from claws to pincers to the wrinkled fingers of, of all people, Danarius. At that, Hawke finally responded; he wrenched his head to the side. The creature grabbed him tight, its body changing to Danarius’ and staying there. Fenris shuddered. When it spoke, it used Danarius’ voice. “How much do you think your little benefactor has to give?”

Fenris felt his stomach swoop low. Without widening his own eyes, his view altered. Hawke’s eyes had widened. His fingers clenched into fists. But he didn’t speak. Still, Danarius sneered a familiar smile. “Your friend will wear himself into the ground, won’t he?” Danarius slid his fingers along Azzan’s grizzled cheek, back to his hair. “And then what? Either you become mine today or tomorrow, or…” Danarius leaned in and whispered into Azzan’s ear. “Or I have you in a few days, and your lover won’t get in the way of anyone anymore.”

Azzan flinched. He hung his head.

“Hawke!” Fenris reached forward, past the burning and the pain and the flare of green far, far behind his eyelids. “I’m here! Don’t listen to him!”

The words seemed to echo. They bounced off the empty space in which he watched Hawke. Hawke froze.

Inamorato.

A storm of emotions hit him. Behind it all, he thought he could feel the spirit latch onto him. Fenris felt Hawke’s attention turn inward. Toward him. Fenris?

The closest thing he could compare the sudden feeling to was that of a buckle clicking into place, or a fishing line suddenly going taut. Fenris grunted, nearly slamming into the ground as something wrenched at him. He felt it: the sudden feeling of a cool spring wind. Standing out in the middle of a mountain ripped with snow, the feel of that wind was almost warm, the touch of it more like sunlight than just its breeze. He gasped. Faith? He could feel it. The spirit almost seemed to grab onto him; it yanked on his lyrium until he found his breath leaving him; his knees buckled as the spirit’s aura burst like a sudden gale. He winced.

Danarius scowled. “Again?!” The face contorted; the spider face returned, then a small plethora – an ogre, the Arishok – Fenris’ dead face again. His pale lips curled. Fenris’ hand wrapped around Azzan’s throat. “Not this time. Come here, little worm.”

Fenris felt an oily, slick feeling. Faith shuddered in the bond he shared with it, finally pulling away as the slimy sensation oozed over the link. Fenris lifted his chin, even as the sensation made his guts churn. It was as if a half-decayed hand had reached across the gap between them and clutched his chest. He grunted. Nearly, he broke how he stood and reached for his chest. Only the stiffness in his joints reminded him of the position he’d been told to take. He clenched his teeth, planted his feet – and felt himself be tugged forward, anyway. The tug turned suddenly into a snap that wrenched him off his feet. His carefully position hands snapped out of their position on instinct as he flailed, his arms pinwheeling to try to catch his balance. Before he could, he found himself falling. Flying.

Something grabbed him. For a moment, his forward momentum was stymied. Then both he and whoever had grabbed him fell forward and did not stop falling.

“Shit!” Varric exclaimed. The moment the Inquisitor got the rift opened up, everything fell to shit.

Fenris fell forward. Well. Varric called it falling, but he had no idea how the hell the elf managed it. He fell sideways. Straight towards the rift. The one who reacted fastest was Cole; just as Varric realized Fenris was falling, that he was continuing to fall, Cole ran past him and grabbed Fenris’ leg. The little spirit held on tight and braced himself, but just as Varric got his own butt moving, Cole and Fenris both fell in, as if pulled by some invisible weight.

Varric barely had time to feel his heart race in his chest before Solas suddenly shouted, “Inquisitor!” He turned in time to see Kios get jerked forward as Fenris and Cole slid through; while his one hand remained out, tethered to the rift he’d produced at Solas’ command, his other clutched his stomach. He hunched down. His hood flew off, showing the deep grimace on his lips, before he seemed to lose his strength against something and slid toward the rift, as well.

Varric turned to grab him, only to watch as Solas ran past, once again acting faster than him. Solas grabbed the Inquisitor up and held him tight as they slid, together, into the open rift. “Elf!” he screamed. “Lucky! Chuckles!” In a flash, the stability of the rift dissolved, and it started flashing wide open, then immediately began dwindling in size.

He cursed.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra raced forward, one hand on her hip. Varric cursed again and followed after, already well aware of what stupid thing he was going to do that day. “Cullen, prepare the men!” Varric watched her jump heedlessly into the rift. It worked. Whatever the hell they were doing, they were going to succeed at it.

Behind him, he could hear people shouting, a cry that rose like a wave through the templars and soldiers stationed before the rift. He heard Cullen shout for order. He thought he even heard Dorian and Blackwall and Sera all start screaming for the Inquisitor, and he wondered if they were all going to run like lemmings into this damn death portal.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he muttered, and jumped in, as well.

It was very, very green. It also felt like he was being torn apart and sewn back together. Maker, if he managed to survive this, he was going to get rich off the story.

Well. Richer.

Chapter Text

Hindsight, as always, revealed so much more than one could see at the time. Moments that had seemed surprising, or even confusing, before, moments that he’d ignored or set aside or waved off, suddenly seemed so important.

Like the time Hawke had returned from distracting slavers from finding Fenris’ small band of escaped slaves, leaving Fenris time to protect them with a tight smile and a, “I’ll make it back to you, I promise,” only to actually find him that evening, even though they’d made it out of the city and deep into the forest. “I just felt like you would have been around here,” Azzan had answered when Fenris had asked, shrugging his shoulders as Fenris forced him to lay down on their side of the small camp he’d set up, his fingers running over the tears in the cloth that showed where Azzan had once been injured. “You wouldn’t stay in the city with those men around, and the forest gives you the best chance to hide them. And… I don’t know. I just knew you were here.”

Fenris had pushed the questions aside, simply relieved that Azzan had made it back to him alive. How and why had been relatively insignificant.

Or that time when Azzan had gone to check on a rumor about a sick slave who was about to be killed by his master, and when Fenris had overheard someone on the street murmuring about the rumor as a trap, Fenris had been able to find the house, even as his heart raced and his mind fogged. He’d found Azzan surrounded, his teeth bared and staff held before him. In his relief, Fenris had cared for little more than killing those who had threatened Hawke’s life.

The countless times he’d told Hawke to meet him in a town or city and Hawke had easily done so. The times he had slept and known, even before he was awake, that Hawke had left the bed. The times they’d worked a crowd and Fenris had intrinsically known where Azzan was.

Azzan was his first and only love. He’d thought those moments when he could easily pick Azzan out of a crowd had been proof of all of those romantic stories he’d heard people tell. Certainly, their lives together were like those sorts of stories. Even when they fought, even when they argued enough for Fenris’ lyrium to light and Azzan’s magic to whip around him, there had been a stability in them that Fenris had never felt before. Because he’d always trusted Azzan to not leave him.

So if all those stories of deep feelings and trust and faith had been real, then why not the more outrageous ideas of feeling the other’s presence?

Because even now, he could. No. Now more than ever. He could feel Azzan like a thrumming in his chest, a line tugging him forward–

Fenris’ eyes snapped open. He blinked rapidly, his mind spinning. His vision spun, blurred – no. No. He was moving.

Just as he realized that, he realized he was moving through the air. He threw his arms in a cross before him, ready to take the brunt of the landing on his arms instead of his head and neck. Several moments of whistling wind later, he realized he was not falling.

He looked around.

Everything was green. That was the very first thing he noticed. He should have felt unease, seeing that bright green ground and bright green sky and the rocks floating beside him as he fell forward. Instead he felt so light-hearted he almost laughed. The Fade. He had made it into the Fade. And if he was insinuating the demon’s words correctly, it was pulling him straight toward Hawke.

Then he saw several creatures look up.

Something tugged on his leg. Shivers wrapped up his spine. He kicked, trying to get the thing off. The thing… shouted. He looked back.

The spirit boy clung tight to his leg.

Without thinking, he reached out to grab the kid, nearly catching a handful of his ridiculous hat before he grabbed the boy’s shoulder. He clung tight, tight enough that the spirit flinched.

Then they started falling.

He wrapped his arms around the kid. It was instinctive. He didn’t think about it, how he twisted his body so that he was underneath him. The kid grappled up to Fenris’ chest and reached around to his back as the rocks beside them began to loom above, then swallow the bright green of the sky. The ground looked far more brown now as it zoomed closer.

He felt the kid’s hands close around his sword and tensed. Past the screaming wind and the deep bass drum of his own heartbeat, he thought he heard the kid muttering. He gripped the little twerp tighter, braced himself for the hit. Wondered what the hell he thought he was doing, likely giving his life to save this kid instead of finding Hawke.

How would Hawke feel, knowing that he’d felt Fenris getting yanked into the Fade with him, only to never hear from Fenris again?

The kid started tugging on the sword. “Fall first, free falling, fast and furious and fearful and feeling, feeling, feeling, look at the flight, fancy and fun and wanting – I need the sword!”

His grip tightened on the kid, crushing the bony arm within his grip, before he reached back and yanked the sword from its sheath in one smooth motion. His elbow nearly hit the top of a spike of land. More spikes rose up all around them. He clenched his teeth.

The little spirit shoved Fenris’ wrist to the left.

It hurt. His sword was too heavy for such sudden changes in positions; his wrist burned so badly he nearly dropped his weapon. Instead he instinctively clamped tighter, forcing himself to lift his sword up and over, until it lifted up behind him and to his right.

And slammed straight into the arm and chest of a reaching pride demon.

The sudden inertia jolted him as he stopped, slamming into every single joint and muscle as he and the boy continued moving, with such force that the sword nearly slipped straight back out of the demon. It teetered on the rock it had perched upon to reach them. Then it, too, fell. Fenris roared, flaring his lyrium up and ripping the sword from the demon’s corpse. He gouged it into the side of the rock as they began slipping down to the ground. With a tooth-jarring crunch, it jammed into the rock and stayed.

For several seconds, he clung, the only sound in his ears his own gasps and the ferocious pounding of his heart. The spirit clung to him still, its face ducked into his chest. It, too, seemed to be struggling to find breath.

Around them was a landscape he’d never seen before. The rock they clung to was more like a giant stalagmite that anything resembling land. The very ground itself seemed to resonate a strange, green aura. At least two meters below him, the stalagmite ended and firm ground could be seen – between the craggy edges of several other stalagmites, each reaching as if pulling toward the sky. One towered above them; if they’d flown a few feet further to the left, they would have splattered against it.

He looked back down to the shivering form in his arm. Just looking nearly got him smacked in the face by that hat. “You all right?” he asked, his voice gruff. The kid stilled for a moment.

“Uncertain, unsure, unusual. Everything’s green and loud. I don’t like it here.”

A spirit that didn’t like the Fade? Well, it was said that demons preferred the world of man.

Just as he thought that, the boy exclaimed, “I am not a demon! I’m not.”

Fenris wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t argue the point. Remember Azzan, he thought. Remember how he’d responded to Faith, and how hurt Azzan had been. Faith was keeping Azzan alive right now. He wouldn’t begrudge this creature the chance to prove itself something more. He searched for a way down that didn’t involve letting go of his sword or risking a long tumble.

“Thank you,” the boy said. After a moment, he wriggled a bit and reached out to Fenris’ outstretched arm. “Sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else in time.”

It took him a moment to realize the boy was responding to the physical pain lancing his arm. “We’re alive,” Fenris said. “That’s enough.” Then, after a beat, “do you see a way down?”

He didn’t think the boy would be able to see anything beyond the brim of that thing, but after a moment, he said, “we could slide onto the body,” he said. Fenris felt the boy move, then shift his weight. The boy lifted one hand from his back. He imagined the kid pointing at something. Something he couldn’t see, because hat. “Over there.” Yup. Pointing.

Based on which arm the kid raised, Fenris tried turning enough to perhaps see the body out of the corner of the range of his vision. He thought he might see its leg? Or just a smaller stalagmite.

Still, the act of yanking the sword out of the rock would involve nearly launching oneself off the edge of the rock. Fenris took a deep breath. “Hold on tight to me.” Once the boy did, he let go of the kid and carefully reached up to grab the sword handle with his other hand. “Hold on. I’m going to maneuver you over the body. Jump down when I’m done.”

He twisted around as best he could, able to do little more than turn around so they roughly faced the corpse. He let his right arm rest and held on by only his left. Only when he let go did his muscles make their unhappiness known. He winced as blood circulated through his arm, making it pound. His elbow and bicep hurt.

The kid shuffled around, moved a bit, and finally dropped. He grunted at the change of weight on his arm, then looked to where the kid had landed. Without that hat in the way, it was easy to see the corpse; the arm dangled by the bone beside the demon’s head, its body nearly split in half, odd-colored viscera sliming into a puddle on its side. It descent was clearly demarcated by the stuff. The boy hopped off of the mess, shaking his hands wildly. He’d apparently sacrificed them to ensure he didn’t land entirely within the puddle.

Landing on it would be disgusting. Not landing on it would put undue pressure on his knees.

Whatever. He could smell like a trash bag if he had to. He would not jeopardize his chances to reach Hawke.

With that, he reached back up and grabbed his sword, curled up until his feet planted squarely on the rock – and he felt something odd, something like a frisson of energy between himself and the rock – and pushed against the rock, pulling on his sword at the same time. It came free with a grinding sound. He was almost surprised when he managed to use the excess momentum to whirl around and, ducking slightly, nearly glide down the steep side of the stalagmite. He aimed for the corpse and jumped off as his acceleration grew too fast to control. He had to drop his sword to roll properly, but he managed to do so accurately; he landed on the dead demon’s legs. It was an awkward jumble for a moment before the boy’s hand lowered before him. It was clean enough; he must have wiped it on something. Fenris took it.

He wiped his hand on his pants and went over to his sword. One check showed him it was still fine. Good. He returned it to his sheath and looked around again.

From down on the ground, the stalagmites loomed far higher. They obscured most of the area around them. If more pride demons lurked nearby, they wouldn’t know until the demons attacked.

Fenris Looked around. They’d been flung in a certain direction. If they followed that, they would find Hawke. He made to move out, only to stop. The kid was shivering. “Hey.” Cole flinched. He wrapped his hands around himself. Looked around. Fenris’ brows furrowed. “You hear something?”

“Voices. Everywhere, voices. Calling out to me. I don’t belong here. I’m not right here.” Cole rubbed his arms. “I don’t like it.”

Fenris snorted. “Well, you’re not the only one. Come on.” He started walking. “The sooner we find Hawke, the sooner we can be gone from this place.”

Cole seemed to consider that for a moment. “I would like that.”

So would he.

Fenris watched as Cole jogged up to his side, the boy’s hands still clutched around his waist. “I take it there was a trap awaiting us.”

That giant hat dipped. “He wanted you. Get you, get the bird. Two birds, one hand.” Cole made a small sound. “Oh! It’s a saying. A strange one. You’re a wolf, not a bird.”

Fenris’ face twisted. Did Cole read that information from his thoughts?

“Yes. Sorry. That, too. You’re very loud. And very worried.”

Hawke had been exhausted. Tired. Scared. For an instant, Fenris had felt all of it. He’d felt the shivering in Hawke’s arms, the low, empty feeling that came from no food for a long period of time. If the dryness of Hawke’s mouth was any indication, he had gotten either no water or very little. Not enough. It had been nearly a week since Fenris had heard Faith’s cry for help. Hawke was on his last leg physically. Emotionally, he was at the end of his rope. Fenris had felt Hawke’s heart, already broken and beaten down, waver in those last moments. He had felt Hawke start to give in.

He had to hurry. Every moment was precious.

They passed the stalagmites, keeping roughly to the same direction they’d flown. Cole kept tilting his head back and forth and muttering things Fenris didn’t understand. Did Faith do this with Hawke? How on earth could he concentrate on anything?

“Oh.” Cole looked behind them. “They’re here, too.”

Fenris swiveled, hand gripping this handle of his sword. He saw no one. “How far?”

“Solas and his white wolf are back and behind. They got pulled, pushed, plucked by the pulse of the demon’s grip. Cassandra and the stone came, too. They’re worried.”

Fenris rubbed one temple. He wasn’t entirely certain what the creature was saying, but if the names were any indication, he was listing allies, not enemies. “Any demons?”

“Oh, yes. Several.”

“Where?”

The spirit shrugged. “Where not?”

Great. “Just. Let me know if there are any nearby.”

“All right.” A pause. “There are a lot nearby.”

Great.

He led them past a large outcropping of stalagmites, all of them so close together that the passage between was too thin to walk through. If they’d flown just this much farther, they would have simply crashed. It would have been corpses that would have been splayed at Hawke’s feet – and, perhaps, that would have been the demon’s plan all along.

Stalagmites pressed against one another so closely that a few of them were joined down at the bottom. He looked up, finally finding some source for these massive stones – up above them, floating in the sky, were several large outcroppings. The one above these stalagmites had a waterfall cascading from its side. He tilted his head. Even though the rocks floated, they could still affect the area around them in a way that mirrored the natural world?

The space certainly felt natural. The rocks were worn smooth by the water, yet were pockmarked by the same. They rose high enough to cause shadows from the false light above – though, Fenris noted, he could see no sign of a light source.

Though Fenris moved to what appeared to be the fastest route, more stalagmites blocked his path. Around every turn, he expected an assault, but nothing. At least the spirit was no longer panicking. He just clung very close to Fenris’ side.

The enormous stalagmite conglomerate finally gave way to an open area; Fenris hurried them through, one hand on his sword in case they met resistance on the other side. He managed to get there before stopping dead still. The ground grew into a wide expanse, a rocky, green desert plain where, instead of shrubbery, crystals dotted the landscape, glowing bright green and frissoning with an unnatural energy. Only a handful of stalagmites punctured the even surface of the ground before them, and each grew not even to half the size of the ones they’d passed. Finally, the wide expanse of the endless green miles of the Fade opened up before them.

And on the ground, his robes torn and bloodied, was Azzan. His eyes were open, but unfocused. Empty. Blood pooled around a small concavity in his temple. It dripped down his face into his eye, down a long, thin line over his nose to drip into the puddle beneath his head.

He did not move.

Kios clenched his eyes shut on a short cry; the rift, which he’d carefully turned his gaze from, had loomed in his vision, so suddenly and so completely that he’d done little more than clench his eyes shut as hard as he could and ducked his head away as a pounding beat broke across the back of his head. He found his footing lost before he could even think about what it might mean. He’d fallen, not onto his face, but forward. Through the rift. Just like last time, the light from the rift as he passed through made him want to scream.

Just as he fell through, someone grabbed him. He didn’t need Solas shouting his title into his ear to know who those long, thin fingers belonged to. Those hands clung to him and held him close. He found himself pulled into a familiar chest. Then he felt the aura of Solas’ magic as it encased him in its barrier. His own hands, slow to react, finally found themselves worrying about the continued flight and clung to Solas’ shirt. He felt the line of Solas’ necklace under his thumb and let go, afraid of tearing it off in his fear.

Then came the fall. A tangled moment, as he felt the world spin and turn – felt himself spin and turn, around and around, losing himself for a moment, not knowing any direction but directly in front of him, as Solas held him crushingly close.

The world crashed back around him as they brushed up against something. It sent them spinning in a new way, flipping over back to front and back again. He kept his eyes clenched shut, furious with the tears of pain that slipped down his cheeks. Furious with the way his stomach rolled and bile rose in his throat. Even as he struggled, Solas cradled the back of his head and curled himself over Kios as they hit something with the back of the barrier, right behind Kios’ shoulder blades, then spun until the barrier beside his legs banged against the ground. They bounced ass over end for several heart-pounding seconds, the barrier taking hit after hit, before they finally skidded to a halt.

The barrier broke around them. Kios gasped in the sudden silence. He could still feel Solas’ hands clutching at his back and head, keeping him carefully ensconced in his arms. His heart pounded in his throat.

What… had happened? Clearly, things had not gone as intended. He thought he’d seen Fenris fall inside the rift as if being pulled. He’d certainly felt the shockwave of it. Falling forward was certainly the sensation he himself had gotten after feeling the rift tug and split beyond his control. He’d barely had the chance to dig in his heels before he’d found himself tumbling over his own feet.

He squirmed a bit where he lay. He could feel every inch of Solas, from his chest as he sucked in a steadying breath of his own down, all the way down to his legs, tangled as they were around Kios’. Kios inhaled and smelled the sweet scents of old wood and honey that seemed to sit perpetually on Solas’ skin. Unless Solas had just returned from a deep dream in the Fade. Then he would have smelled – a bit like this place, actually. Like an old rock that had been singed by a lightning strike.

Gods, what was he doing?! He was just laying in the middle of the Fade smelling Solas. He couldn’t do this to himself. Solas was done. Hell. He was a danger. A threat. An enemy.

Get off of him, you fool.

He moved to scoot back, only to freeze. One hand still cupped the back of his head, keeping him pressed against Solas’ collarbone, his forehead and nose scraping against the rough cloth of Solas’ shirt. Solas’ other hand held him right in the middle of his back, just low enough to push Kios’ chest and stomach into Solas’. He was as close to Solas as he’d ever been, trapped by the tight, implacable grasp of those hands. Slowly, even as Kios lay still, Solas’ thumbs started rubbing circles into the light armor on his back and the space on the back of his head where his long hair met the cropped side. Kios hated how soothing the feeling was against the migraine that had snapped into place the instant the light had stabbed too deeply. “Solas.”

He felt Solas’ thumbs suddenly stop. Solas stiffened against him. He hastily pulled his hands away and scooted back. “Apologies,” he muttered. Kios tamped down on the clench in his gut. Solas had asked for this. Solas had chosen Corypheus instead of Kios. He was an idiot to be upset at the loss of Solas’ warmth.

He picked himself up off the ground, ignoring the way Solas leaned down as if ready to help him up. He squinted open his eyes, trying to hide as he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.

Wherever they were, it was clearly somewhere in the Fade. They’d landed in an area with craggy rocks and long, twisting paths. Crystals glowed along the edges, bright enough that he winced looking at them, even from this distance. They were brighter than the surrounding landscape; a good thing, since there was so much green his shifting eyesight failed to make out the horizon point properly. With so much green and so many long, craggy shadows, he couldn’t be sure what was rock and what was a demon.

He didn’t know if other parts of the Fade looked different. All he really knew was that this particular spot looked the same as the last time they’d been here. And that he’d forgotten how much he’d disliked this place. “Well,” he said, “so much for our carefully laid plans.”

Solas looked around, as well, his fingers wrapped tight around his staff as if to erase the touch of Kios. His knuckles were white. “It seems the demon took exception to our interference.” His lips thinned. “This has just become far more dangerous.” He looked at Kios. “It would be best to leave.”

“We came here for a reason,” Kios said. “That doesn’t change just because our plans went south. And I have no intention of giving him more ammunition.” Fenris had those strange markings. Who knew how Nightmare might try to put them to use? And Cole – well. He was not abandoning Cole. Especially not here, where he knew the spirit feared to be.

Not to mention, he thought as he scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to rid himself of any tear tracks that might have lingered, who knew what was happening on the other side. Had the rift blown wide open, to the point of creating another small breach? Were Cullen and the others battling against a horde of Nightmare’s demons? Or had it closed entirely, leaving them completely stranded? He pulled his hands back and looked at his left palm. Whatever had happened had been so sudden. He looked around. He saw no sign of the rift he’d created. Whether it had closed or not, they were nowhere near it anymore. So how were they supposed to get back?

He took a deep breath. He would take care of what he could as he could. One step at a time. Just like always. “Is there any way to tell where Fenris was taken?” he asked, scanning the area ahead. He couldn’t tell much, with his poor vision, but he didn’t see any movement. For the moment, they were safe.

Silence. Solas had yet to answer. Well, well. Finally, something about the Fade Solas didn’t know. Was it irony? Considering most of the information Solas had shared with them had not actually come from the Fade.

Well, that was unfair. Solas certainly knew quite a lot about the Fade, just as he knew quite a lot about the ancient elves. Kios grimaced. What had he and his people done so wrong that someone like Solas, who came from an unnamed ‘village to the north’ – one that had knowledge of the ancient elves – would turn so completely against them as to help Corypheus destroy this world?

By the gods, he was being a fool. His feelings couldn’t matter, and certainly not here. It was just – being close to him again, feeling him hold Kios tight. If he allowed himself, he could consider it a sign of true concern, of true protectiveness. He could let himself think Solas cared.

But if he did, he would destroy himself. He would be weak. Vulnerable. And here, that would mean demons would attack. He needed to focus on something else. Something like the Fade, and Fenris, and Hawke, and how they were going to escape Nightmare without sacrificing someone again.

If he had to guess, he would think they had been pulled in the direction that would have led them to either Hawke or the demon. Or, if they were in the same place, he thought with a scowl, both. “Do you know which direction we’d been heading in?” He turned to look over his shoulder. “I lost tr–”

He jumped to the side, nearly tripping over his own feet. A stream of ice magic splashed past his shin and scattered along the edges of the craggy path before him. He gathered himself and grabbed his daggers.

For an insane instant, he swiveled his head back and forth, searching for the thing Solas may have been aiming for. In the next, he laughed. It rumbled from deep within him, shaking his shoulders and burning his throat. What the hell was he thinking? Solas wasn’t an idiot. Kios knew exactly what he’d been aiming for.

Solas stood across from him, staff out behind him, knees bent. His battle stance. Kios’ chest squeezed until it was hard to breathe. “I should have known.” His eyes had adjusted to the brightness, yet tears collected at the corners yet again. He called upon the foci in the pommels of his daggers.

Fine. If this was what Solas wanted, then fine.

Kios had already known this was how they were going to end, anyway.

Chapter Text

Green. Green, green – darker green. Lime green. Breach green, rift green, apple green, slime green.

“I already hate this decision,” Varric said, looking around.

The place was a study in monochrome. If a first-rate painter had stepped up to a canvas and said, “Make it green!” he might have stepped away from a canvas that looked roughly like this. Varric wrinkled his nose. This place smelled wrong, too. It even felt wrong. The stone beneath his feet felt empty. Hollow. Gross. Some of them even floated in the sky, apparently so hollow they were lighter than air. Until they fell, at which point they would probably squish him even shorter.

He looked up at Cassandra. The woman had been here before. The colors – or lack thereof – didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. No surprise there. Nothing fazed the Seeker.

“You know what? I’m actually surprised I can even get in here.” That got her attention. She quirked a long, aristocratic eyebrow down at him. “A dwarf in the Fade? Come on. You’re not even a little impressed.”

She snorted, dismissing both the conversation and probably also him with that single sound. “The Fade is apparently a physical place. Which means even you can walk within it.”

“Even people like me, huh? Talking down about dwarves, huh?” He grinned at the startled look she sent him, the way her mouth actually opened to apologize. She caught his grin and scowled. “What? Don’t blame me for the pun. Blame…” His words stopped short. Right. He caught himself making puns because his best friend happened to have a horrible sense of humor. His best friend who was in a very, very bad place right now. (Not to mention how drowned in green his vision had to be after so much time in this shithole.)

Cassandra seemed to understand where his mind had gone, because she lifted her chin. “Come on,” she said. They’d made it through the rift just a few seconds after Lucky and Chuckles had flown the coop, but the rift had dwindled to nothing within that short period of time, nearly chopping Bianca in two. He looked back at the space they’d come through. Nothing but more Fade. No rift. Great. So much for Inquisition back-up. “We should get a lay of the land, at the very least.”

“Sure.” He pointed to their right. “Green rocks.” Left. “Green rocks with water falling from literally nowhere.” Straight ahead. “Green rocks. More water.”

She shot him a look. “If all you’re going to do is complain, Varric, then you could have stayed behind.”

“And refuse you the pleasure of my company?” He shook his head. “I would never.” She made a disgusted noise. He pointed just over her shoulder. “Hey, look.”

“Yes, Varric. It’s green. It’s the Fade. It tends to be green.”

“Even its demons, huh?”

Cassandra’s eyes widened. She turned. Before them approached a small army of what looked like spiders, all of them tall enough to bring imminent danger to his private bits. He readied Bianca as they crawled closer, tagged in by floating demons with enough legs to be a spider-person. That one, he recognized. He’d fought a couple of them when closing rifts with the Inquisitor. He smirked up at Cassandra as she drew out her sword and shield. “Bet you’re glad I’m here now.”

“Ugh. Shut up, Varric.”

“No promises.”

“Hawke!”

Fenris lurched forward. Cole grabbed his arm, skidding on the heels of his feet for nearly a foot before he managed to halt Fenris’ progress. Fenris turned on him with a roar. “Let go of me!”

For once, Cole’s hat did not get in the way of Fenris’ gaze. He caught the light blue of the boy’s eyes as they widened. “Teasing, taunting, torturing. Faking, feinting – a fib to fool and frighten. Feel the fear and you feed them.”

“Let go of me, spirit!” He yanked on the hands holding him. Hawke lay still. The puddle slowly trickled wider. It had just happened. If he went to Hawke’s body, he was certain it would still be warm.

The spirit boy grunted; as much as he tried, he was not strong enough to hold Fenris back. Fenris scraped them both forward. “Masks. They’re masks. It’s…” The boy thought for a moment. Fenris tugged closer. The way Hawke stared out into nothing told him he was already too late. Yet the need to be next to him, to try… “It a lie!” Cole said, his voice jubilant for a moment, as if he’d discovered a secret, before returning to the quiet, urgent tone from before. “It’s fake. It’s not real. You can feel it, can’t you?”

Feel it? He could feel all right. Pain. Anguish. Horror. Fenris turned on the spirit again, ready to rip it off of him if that was what it took.

Then he stopped. Because he could. He could feel something.

He looked away from Hawke, away from his lifeless body, and toward the feeling resonating within him. He didn’t have a word for it – just that it reminded him of when Faith had fed off of him moments ago, or when Hawke had desperately sipped from his power when they’d nearly died as they’d tried to escape Kirkwall all those years ago. Yet his lyrium wasn’t even activated? It wasn’t–

The connection. He’d been told to forge one, that it might lead them to Hawke. Was the magic still in effect? Could he use it to find his way to Hawke’s side?

He looked back. The image before him had no changed. Yet now, he could finally notice more than just Hawke’s blank, empty face. For all that Hawke looked like Hawke, he also looked… younger. His hair was slightly shorter, his face less wrinkled. And he was wearing, not his armor which had become his namesake, but his old robe. The dark navy, patterned with gold thread, wound its way down, covering Hawke’s legs in a way he hadn’t seen in years.

He stopped pulling against the spirit’s hold and stared.

A… a trick. He gasped in a breath, hardly able to believe it. He’d just fallen for a demon’s trick. Just because he hadn’t used his eyes.

He scuttled back as the earth twisted before him. Azzan’s body flickered; his arms stretched out, his skin withered and melted into green. His head twisted and turned, meshing into something grotesquely inhuman. The demon rose to its feet, its head tilted back and arms out as if inhaling some enticing scent.

Fenris snarled. This creature. This thing. Had dared show him one of his greatest fears. Just to prey upon him. To feast upon him. “That is going to be your last meal,” he said, his voice rumbling with his fury. The creature lowered its head. It had no mouth, only a strange, thick fold of skin covering its false face. Eyes peered from within two holes. He pulled out his sword.

“Good,” Cole said. He moved beside Fenris, no longer trying to hold him. The spirit held two daggers. “It shouldn’t be allowed to hurt anyone.” He disappeared from sight.

Fenris grunted. Well. If the spirit thought that, then it certainly wasn’t all bad.

The demon slipped into the ground, its body hunching as it disappeared in a ring of green. Without having to look, Fenris knew exactly where it was going to pop up. He waited a beat, then stabbed into the rock beneath his feet. On a scream, the demon stilled. Its body formed beneath him. He stepped on its chest and removed his sword.

“Any other to show me such things will receive the same reward,” he said. Cole reappeared, the spirit’s pale eyes blinking up at him.

“You’re scary.”

Fenris grinned. “Good.”

“I should have known.”

Solas cocked his head. Kios had turned at Solas’ explanation of how they’d arrived here, only to leap away as if seeing something. Now his gaze bore into Solas’, his lips pulled into a snarl. I should have known, he’d said, just before he’d grabbed the hilts of his daggers and unsheathed them, brandishing them and the foci within their pommels – toward him.

I should have known, he’d said. Solas’ brows lowered. He raised his hands. “Whatever you believe you are seeing,” he said slowly, “it is an illusion.”

He looked around. The path was filled with jagged rocks and twisting routes, each embedded with the remnants of what had been lost – stone staircases and shining statues. They led through the dips and curves of the Fade’s desolate surface, allowing for many places large enough for a demon to hide. The ground was pockmarked with rocks, as well, forming walls or blockades between one path and another. More than one demon could hide behind those.

“An illusion?” Kios’ voice dripped with disdain. The odd emotionality called Solas’ attention back to him. “Perhaps. But I don’t think so.” That upper lip, larger than the lower and scarred at its left corner, curled. Solas had never seen such an expression on Kios’ usually reserved face. Perhaps he was the one seeing the illusion. Kios began slowly circling him. Solas had to abandon his search for the demon in order to keep himself carefully stationed across from Kios. Slowly, he pulled out his staff and held it before him. “I knew you would attack me, after all.”

Solas’ mind stilled. His eyes widened. In that split second, he stumbled. “What?”

Kios attacked.

Kios was speed and maneuverability when he fought; he moved in close, just like lightning, moving in a jagged rhythm and closing the distance between them in a split second. Solas pulled his staff up to block an attack and found himself facing rock as Kios slid to his side. He was forced to use the powers of the Fade to grab Kios and throw him back. Kios tumbled as Solas’ magic let go of him, rolling through the dirt of the Fade. Solas moved to help him back up, only to watch Kios catch his feet, even as he skidded still. He balanced himself, slowly using the momentum of Solas’ throw to pull himself back into a standing position. The moment the momentum began to wear off, Kios bent his knees and charged back.

“You’re wrong,” Solas tried. He held up his staff. He could frozen Kios in place. He hesitated. I knew you would attack me. “I would never attack you, vhenan–”

“Don’t you dare!” Kios dodged back and forth once again, making up for his inability to focus his gaze by seeing where Solas stood in relation to everything else. Solas knew, after so many battles together, exactly how Kios moved. He knew every muscle, every micro-expression on that face. He knew, before he even realized he knew, that the way Kios ducked and tilted his shoulder that he was aiming for his neck. A quick, clean kill. Kios was serious. Solas’ eyes narrowed. He focused on his own foci, gathering the power of the winter’s chill to his staff. If this was how Kios was going to react, then he would stop his movement. They could speak while Kios was held up.

He threw his magic toward Kios just as he got near, just around the area Kios’ vision had the hardest trouble, nearly able to focus but not yet close enough to do so. Yet just as he did, Kios ducked low, rolled, and kicked out. One foot landed squarely on Solas’ knee. He fell with a gasp to the ground. Kios kneed him in the stomach and put one dagger against Solas’ throat. He stilled. “I knew,” Kios gasped, “because I know everything. Everything you’ve been trying to hide." Solas reeled back, bumping his head against the rocky ground. He sucked in a breath. His reaction had Kios laughing. It was a dry, empty sound. As empty as those rare eyes as they stared down at him. “I knew it. You’ve fooled no one but yourself.”

Solas’ eyes widened.

“Just run, idiot!”

Varric scowled. “If you hadn’t noticed, Seeker, my legs are a tiny bit shorter than yours!”

Somehow, even as they ran for their lives from a horde of Nightmare’s most persistent demons, Cassandra still had the breath left to make a disgusted noise at him. Good on her. Congrats on having so much stamina. Lucky, long-legged human.

The worst part about the Fade was how much everything looked the same. They’d started running the instant they realized that no amount of amazing crossbow and sword-swinging action was going to make those numbers disappear. According to Cassandra – right before she’d booked it for the dubious safety of more craggy ground – they’d likely been called over by the formation of the rift and had found themselves in the delicious presence of two people who may or may not be able to be possessed. He was a dwarf, so he held on to the flimsy hope that he couldn’t be taken over. (He also had no desire to test it.) The Seeker had gone through her weird ritual where she’d been saved from self-inflicted Tranquility by a spirit, so what could happen to her was also up in the air. But sticking around to learn had seemed unwise.

“There,” Cassandra said as a Fear demon nearly helped Varric to fly, “those sharp rocks. We’ll lead them in there. The open ground should get a little thinner in there.”

Great for her; she still had the breath to talk. Varric pushed himself a little faster, his legs pumping at twice the speed of Cassandra’s just to keep up. Heading to those giant spires certainly sounded like a good plan – for her, specifically. Bianca worked best out in the open. And the fear demons certainly knew how to pop in and out everywhere. But they were large and gangly, and if they all mindlessly tried to jump on Cassandra and Varric while inside that confined space, they would be easy pickings. So sure, he would go with it.

Anything to end the running.

The spires were encircled on their sides by water; the Fade still had those creepy rocks floating in the sky, looking a bit too much like the mystical ‘stone’ those Orzammar dwarves went on and on about. Water spilled from several of them, coming from who knew where and landing in giant lakes on either side of the rocks. If they entered, there would be no leaving save back where they came and straight ahead.

Well, if they ever found Hawke in this disaster of a place, the road back to here would be easy to follow, at least.

The thought of Hawke was what got him that last bit of energy to stumble up to the entrance to that rock-infested labyrinth. He managed to run around the first tinier spikes – still large enough to sail over his head, of course – before having to run a near quarter-circle around the first large one. The moment they entered the place, everything got darker. Whatever created a source of light in this hellscape, access to it was cut off in here.

“Perfect,” the Seeker said, and on a dime, she turned, sword and shield out before her. Varric managed two more steps, carefully situating himself behind her and her shield, before pulling Bianca off his back once more.

“I think I’m seeing spots,” he said.

“Come now, Varric. A little run and you’re already done in?”

He glared at her human legs. Little run indeed.

He hefted Bianca up and shot blindly out toward the demons. With how many there had been, the entrance to this place would already be crammed full. Sure enough, he heard the wailing of some angry creature. “This city dwarf is out of his natural habitat,” he said, and shot again, using the wailing to guide him. It stopped. “And quite frankly, the sooner I can return to my natural habitat, the better.”

The demons crawled through. As Varric had hoped, the frontliners were the fear demons, all of them jostling to get in first. He watched their long limbs tangle up together in glee. “For once, Varric,” Cassandra said, “you and I are in agreement.”

Well. That was one miracle. He guessed it was a good sign; they just needed a couple more to get Marshmallow and Lucky out alive.

Lucky had managed miracles before. Surely he could manage this one, too.

Kios pressed the dagger closer, close enough to nick Solas’ skin. Kios saw his fingers tremble, saw the dagger shiver in reaction. He couldn’t make himself push down that last inch. He couldn’t even face Solas’ gaze; his own slipped somewhere slightly above Solas’ head, to the uneven surface of the green-tinged rock beneath them. He couldn’t find enough air to breathe. He gritted his teeth. He could do this. He could. He’d just faced Solas’ betrayal. It was happening. Why couldn’t he fight back?

Kill him. Kill him. Stop hesitating!

Solas grinned. Kios froze. Froze. So many battles leading up to this point, and he froze.

A large fist formed by Solas’ side and punched Kios in the gut. Solas’ staff shoved Kios’ dagger away even as he flew back. He hit the ground shoulder blades first, flipping over his head and neck before landing on his chest on the ground. Pain soared up his neck and down his shoulders up into his head. He winced.

Fight back!

He forced himself to look up, only to freeze. A rock. The memory of the last time he’d had elves throwing rocks sprung to the forefront of his mind. The threw up his hands like the child he’d been then. With a snarl, he created a barrier. The rocks crashed against the lines of his magic, beat a pounding rhythm against the wall he’d barely erected in time. He cursed. In long range, Solas held all the advantages. He needed to get in close again.

Solas. Kios couldn’t see him well from this distance; he was an indistinct figure, blurred into a near double image of skin and cloth by the incessant movement of his eyes. But he knew that stance. Solas was preparing another attack. He readied himself, focused on his hearing and sense of touch, and moved.

He felt the change in the wind more than he was able to see anything; the sound of something whistling warned him that Solas’ weapons had gotten smaller, hoping to bypass his sight entirely. He saw the things as they approached; smaller rocks, even the glowing crystals, had been sacrificed to the assault. He barely managed to figure out which blurry figure was the correct one by paying attention to the wind.

Each step was slow, his movements spent mostly in bends and twists, his knees taking on the strain of quick, jerky steps and deep bends as he ducked and sometimes rolled, forced to cede ground as he came too close to getting boxed in by the rock walls surrounding them. He nearly bumped into one and had to launch himself away from it with a kick. He heard several of Solas’ projectiles crash against the surface of the rock and spill to the ground. Thankfully, his kick got him a few feet closer, and when he managed to get his feet back under him, he found himself close enough to make out Solas’ face despite his poor vision.

Solas hadn’t said anything since he’d last dared try to use that term of endearment on Kios. Kios hadn’t thought anything of it, save to accept that Solas was serious. That Kios would have to be, too. He hadn’t expected Solas to be grinning like that still. Even in the middle of the fight, Kios nearly started screaming. Started crying. He found himself faltering all over again, wanting to ask why. Wanting an answer, for once.

Unlike him, however, Solas did not hesitate. Solas slammed his staff in the ground, ready to attack Kios again – but now, finally, Kios’ own magic trumped Solas’. Solas’ staff fell into a hole Kios had covered up back when he’d first attacked Solas. The sudden dip left Solas stumbling, and instead of using his magic, Solas spent those scant seconds adjusting his stance and pulling up his staff. Kios raced forward.

He put fire to his daggers, let the foci generate the heat and curled the magic over the blades. His initial strike nearly landed, only for Solas’ barrier to form just in the nick of time. He tsked and went low, sweeping his leg out. Solas stumbled, not quite fast enough to avoid his strike. Instead of going for Solas’ skin again, he flashed the fire out beneath Solas’ feet. It roared out and exploded as Kios rolled away. He sent a second fireball to meet the first, then dodged in close again as the flames soared.

The flames were hot, hot enough to scorch his skin, bright enough to make his eyes tear up. He squinted the tears back. He wouldn’t show weakness. Even if the tears were from the light, he still wouldn’t give Solas the satisfaction. He moved in close, choosing speed over acrobatics – and found himself pulled back. He gritted his teeth, his heart slamming up to his throat. So even on this side, Solas could open up small rifts and pull his enemies toward it.

Without his speed, without his mobility, Solas could – and he did, moving away, taking away Kios’ advantage of close quarters fighting and forcing Kios’ poor vision to contend once more with distance. Solas raised his staff. Dragged back, there was nothing more Kios could do. Solas’ foci sparkled white-blue. Kios felt the cold before the ice even formed. He no longer moved toward Solas’ rift. He no longer moved at all. His entire body stood trapped in ice.

Slowly, without a word, Solas stepped closer. This, too, brought back memories – of them being in Kios’ room in Skyhold, Solas standing over him as he knelt, body nearly trembling in suppressed rage and anxiety, not yet understanding what it needed. He remembered Solas teaching him. Quietly, kindly guiding, when Kios had desperately needed to allow himself to be led. When Kios had needed to let himself trust and hand himself over to another.

Step by step, Solas came close enough for Kios to see him without impediment despite his wiggling eyes. On Solas’ face, he saw… nothing. No love. No regret. No shame. Nothing. That was how much Kios mattered – not even a spark of emotion. Pure apathy at the thought of his death. He’d been such a fool. He should have known. Gods, he should have known. It had been such a mistake to trust. He had known better.

Solas raised his staff. On the bottom was a blade – a blade Kios himself had commissioned to have put on there, all to help Solas focus his attacks better. From the beginning to the end, he had helped Solas kill him. He laughed. “Finish it,” he said. His voice scratched, wrung raw by the memories. “Do it. Finish what you started.”

He gripped his daggers tight. The foci on them were smaller than the one on Solas’ staff, but they still did their jobs. He often used them and manipulated light and air. His greatest defense against those who weren’t used to their senses of sight betraying them.

He did the same as he spoke, forming his magic into an image of himself, trapped in Solas’ ice. But this time, he also used them to heat the ice. His fire rose around it, magic fighting magic. It was slow; Solas’ magic was always of a precision that made Kios envious. It took him several seconds to get even his arms moving; thankfully, his words gave him the time he needed to break his arms free; he swung out just as Solas moved to strike. Solas jumped back.

Kios’ brows scrunched. Solas should not have been able to see his strike. What…

For an insane instant, he thought it might have been a demon. Perhaps he was merely sleeping, and all of this was a nightmare. Then Solas smiled. “As if I don’t know you,” he said, with the same voice Kios had heard whisper soft praise into his ear. His heart stuttered. And as he watched, Solas raised his hands to the green sky. Two of the giant rocks above them shattered into pieces. Solas’ magic ignited, so strongly Kios felt it raise goosebumps on his skin. The green sky lit with Solas’ flames. Kios felt the ice finally weaken around him. Just in time for the sky to rain down upon him.

“Fenedhis,” he breathed, and ran.

The sky tore apart before him; all he saw in his poor vision was fire; it burned so bright the headache just behind his eyes warped into a beast that clawed at every part of his skull. He dodged away from the first slam of rock upon the ground. The heat singed the hairs on his arms. The flames crackled like thunder. Rock after rock chased him across the jagged field, crashing so heavily to the ground that he nearly lost his balance over and over again. He skittered against a wall, pushed into it by the shaking ground. He threw out another barrier and covered his face. A boulder slammed against the barrier, and just like that, the magic could not sustain itself. Fire licked at his arms and legs. He cursed.

Solas was truly trying to kill him.

The ground shook. He bent low, his knees and thighs beginning to burn under the strain, matching the heat licking against his skin and heating his leather armor. He had to turn his face away from the craggy field around him, the fire too bright for him to handle. The pain in his skull reached a fever pitch. He forced himself to keep moving, to slide away from the rocky wall and move to more open territory. His steps were slower than before, sluggish from pain and vertigo. He prepared himself for the worst just as the rocks finally stopped pummeling the earth. He took in a shaky breath, listened to the Beyond slowly settle once more, and looked around.

If he’d thought the ground jagged before, it was nothing compared to now. Rubble and debris cast the ground into hazardous terrain. Since Solas needn’t move too much, it would only prove an impediment to him. He stumbled out toward the flattest terrain, only to stop. He looked around again.

He couldn’t see Solas.

There were countless places for him to hide. Countless ways in which he could use the distance he’d almost certainly gained during his assault to hurt Kios. Kios would have to give up on getting close and try his best at ranged attacks.

Who was he kidding? He couldn’t see distance properly. He would never win.

He took a defensive position against one long rock, just up a flight of shining gold steps and beside what it had crushed – an old statue of what looked to be a griffon. He tensed, tilting his head slightly. Nothing. His hands gripped the hilts of his daggers hard enough to hurt his palms. “Where are you?!” he shouted. His chest heaved as he struggled to calm himself long enough to listen. His hands shook. Countless seconds passed. “Just fight me!” he tried again, but of course, nothing he said could sway Solas from his logic. He would attack when it suited him. When he had the distinct advantage. Until then, it only benefited him to toy with Kios.

He spent several seconds forcing himself to calm. He tip-toed around the edge of his rock, checking more to see if Solas would strike than anything else; any attack would at least show him which direction Solas had chosen to hide himself in. Of course, nothing came.

Was this fun for Solas? The two of them here, where Solas was strongest, completely alone? Kios, without his allies, without his garrison and fortress, trapped helpessly waiting for Solas’ next choice – trapped, he realized, like he’d been when they’d been together in his bedroom, Solas giving him orders and Kios obeying. That same feeling came over him here – helpless, lost. Only now, Solas did not catch him. Solas did not shore him up and show him what to do. Instead the one Kios had let control him was hurting him. His lips quivered. “Ir enfenim,” he whispered, speaking the words he’d chosen when Solas had asked him to choose something to say to make him stop. His hand twitched at the sound of his own voice; the blade of his dagger scraped against the rock, making him jump.

This was what Solas wanted. He wanted Kios paranoid, or tired, or unprepared. He wanted Kios to become his own enemy. To do the work for him.

Solas did not stop. He did not call out his usual answer. The fear did not cease. Kios bit his lip until he tasted the metallic tang of blood. This was reality. Everything they’d been had come down to this.

He had to do this. This was the end.

This was their fall.

Chapter Text

Solas watched Kios move in response to an illusion Solas could not see. He tried calling out Kios’ name, only to receive no response. He had been completely cut off from Kios’ world. His last attempt to touch Kios had been met with Kios nearly cutting his arm in half. Whatever he had viewed Solas as, it had not been himself. Or, considering what he had said, it was himself. Just far crueler than he would ever be.

He searched the area piece by piece, casually walking along the edges of their periphery, his gaze inevitably caught up in Kios’ movements again and again. He watched as that small furrow dug itself between Kios’ brows, intimating at the headache that seemed to be growing. He needn’t walk too far; the instant he got too close, the demon would want to distract him. It would use Kios to do so. Yet, as he started up the steps to the path elevated only a few feet above where they’d landed, Kios whooshed past him, clamoring up them before Solas could do more than turn his wide gaze to Kios’ face. Solas froze. Kios hunkered down against a large rock within the middle of the path, his legs shaking slightly as he did. His hands trembled, as well. Solas couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or emotion moving them.

“Where are you?!” Kios shouted. Solas jumped. Yet even as he watched, he saw Kios’ gaze still and watched the man tilt his head slightly. Listening. Even though Solas was right in front of him, Kios could no longer see him at all. Solas’ lips thinned. Had the demon decided to hide Solas’ figure entirely? Was it now finding it difficult to maintain the false form of Solas without a body? Good. Solas had stopped playing the demon’s game, and it could no longer use his form as the base of its illusions. The demon would have to show itself to give Kios a form to attack. And it seemed to hold little interest in being the object of Kios’ wrath. A wise choice. “Just fight me!” Kios snapped, calling Solas’ attention over to him once more.

Kios’ voice wobbled for a short second, though he did not seem to notice. For all that Kios was attempting to maintain control, he was failing. And why wouldn’t he be? He believed Solas to be trying to kill him. “I’m here,” he murmured, unsurprised to see Kios fail to respond. The demon had cut him out of Kios’ world. They had to be in the demon’s small circle of power here in Nightmare’s realm. Kios’ gaze swept right over him, his brows scrunched low as he tried to hear some sign of Solas’ movements. He stepped slightly away, unwilling to let the demon use him. After a moment, Kios began inching around the rock. Solas found himself doing the same, unwilling to play the demon’s game but even more unwilling to have it jump out and attack Kios without him there to prevent it.

Kios had moved into a position where, save for the path as it flowed up the steps and another further along the craggy plateau as it dropped back down to some level below, was blocked off by large walls, as if the ground itself had split and burst into separate levels. It was strategically sound, especially against a long-distance enemy. Yet Solas was privy to the way Kios’ breaths trembled, the nearly silent gasps as he heaved in enough air. The frantic dodging from before had rendered Kios weak.

Solas’ teeth clacked together. He would kill this demon for this trespass.

Kios sucked in one last, shaky breath. “Ir enfenim,” he whispered. Solas flinched. No. Please.

Solas stepped closer, moving to Kios despite himself. Unable to not answer the desperation in Kios’ voice. “Tel’enfenim,” he said, the words quick, pulled from him on instinct. Kios had only spoken those words once, and never like this. The words that had been his safewords. A gauntlet he had thrown, a false bravado that had shown Solas just how many cracks had lay within the man he’d fallen in love with. I am afraid. And Solas’ response. Do not fear. A promise to safeguard Kios against the vulnerability he presented in their scenes together.

Right now, Kios was feeling so vulnerable, so unprotected, that he had spoken his safewords. And for all he knew, Solas did not stop. Solas touched Kios’ shoulder. Nothing. He squeezed tight. Still nothing. It was as if he didn’t exist at all.

He jerked away, his own anger blooming into deep lines on his face. Unacceptable. Kios thought Solas was betraying him – that was cruel enough. But to have Kios think that Solas would not respect the rules of their scenes together? That he would ignore those most important laws of such intimate engagement? He would rip this demon limb from limb.

This was the work of a desire demon, and a powerful one, at that. But why would a desire demon show this? Why would it show this to Kios, who clearly didn’t want to see what this demon was showing him?

He scanned the plateau they stood upon. If the demon were up here, it would have offered some sort of diversion by now, considering how his fury must have been a beacon to any demon of such an emotion toward this place. Which meant it was somewhere safely ensconced below. He made to check when Kios spoke again. “Why?” The word was nearly as soft as the safewords he’d spoken. If it hadn’t been for how close Solas still was to him, he wouldn’t have heard it at all. Solas clenched his teeth. “Why would I be surprised? You’re a shit liar, Solas, despite your best efforts. I knew.” Kios closed his eyes and breathed, even as Solas found himself staring at Kios with wide eyes once more. Kios raised his voice, likely trying to elicit a response from him again. “I knew from the start that you had aided Corypheus in destroying the Conclave.”

This time, Solas’ flinch sent him back a step. “What?” But Kios did not react. He just kept his eyes closed. Listening still. Listening, and perhaps purging himself. Solas reached up to touch the wolf’s jawbone around his neck. Kios… had known? All this time?

Then what had they been doing? What had their relationship been? Why had Kios gotten to this point? Had Kios… used him?

What was happening here?

“Keep lining ‘em up, Seeker!” Varric shouted. She was right in front of him, deflecting the terror demons as they continuously tried to pop up beneath their feet, but with the endless cacophony of screams and shrieks from the demons, they might as well have been shouting across the Hinterlands.

The Seeker was at least a nice target for the things. She kept robbing them of their abilities and slamming their faces in with her shield, so every single one of them wanted her dead. Varric shot another fear demon in the face as it raked its claws against her shield. Cassandra grunted, forced to merely hold her shield before her as more and more beat against the metal and shrieked in fury. Varric loaded arrows as quickly as he could and sent a hailstorm of them into the sky. It didn’t matter where the things landed; there were so many demons before them, so many fearlings skittering beneath their feet and wraiths taking pot shots at them from afar. He could have closed his eyes and spun around three times before shooting, and every single arrow would have still hit something.

Only a couple of the demons seemed smart enough to try to get away when Varric’s arrows started raining down from on high. They were stuck in the throng, though, and Varric simply focused them before the others. Cassandra, ever quick on the uptake, noticed the same thing and shoved demons away until she could stab her sword through a desire demon that looked suddenly interested in being somewhere else.

The sudden loss of their more powerful leaders made the demons hesitate before them. Cassandra slashed them down one by one, slowly clearing up their path. Varric huffed in a breath as he reloaded again, mentally noting that his quiver wasn’t half what it used to be. They hadn’t gotten anywhere, had lost all their allies, and he was already sailing through his arrow supply like a drunk pirate through a customs check. “Come on, already!” he shouted as yet another fear demon sent its little spider minions after them. Cassandra stomped on one with her boot.

“He’s the last holdout,” she said, and charged. Varric waited and just… watched. Sometimes the Seeker was a beautiful woman. In a very scary, mostly aggressive way. Like a warrior about to stomp on a man’s balls kind of beautiful. Likable at a safe distance and usually through the security of a book page. He had to admit, though, as she smacked the fear demon in the face with her pommel and thrust the blade through its chest a second later, she certainly knew how to get things done.

Varric shot the fearlings and hurried forward, desperate enough to pull a few arrows from the bodies of the downed carcasses. “We’d better get going,” he said as he came up on Cassandra once more. “We’ve lost a lot of time.”

Cassandra cleaned her sword as best she could on the demon’s carcass. “I know. Stick with me. We’re heading through this place and finding the Inquisitor.”

The way she said it made it sound inevitable. Even though everything had gone to shit from the start, even though they’d just danced with far too many demons, and even though the woman was intimidating on a level that surpassed even Aveline, Varric couldn’t help but feel a bit better at the words. Cassandra made things happen whether they wanted to happen or not. He was glad she was the one he was stuck here with.

They headed through the stalagmites. It was a bit of a weave for a while; several rocks loomed so high it blotted out the bright green skyline. They heard some rumbling, met a single terror demon that showed Cassandra something that pissed her off, and walked far too much. Varric was just about to complain when the stalagmites took on a decidedly flatter tone; the rocks above got smaller and further apart before breaking off altogether. The ground became a bit rocky, a bit jagged, and suddenly they found themselves facing an actual wall of rock. Varric stared up at it, contemplating either turning around and starting over or smashing his head upon the stone. “I hate this place.”

Cassandra snorted. “Come on.” She waved one hand – the hand still holding her sword, as she had not yet sheathed it – and led Varric around the sheer cliff wall they found, then around a stalagmite to the other side. Varric eyed her weapon as he put Bianca away. “I think we’ll hear them coming, Seeker.”

She looked at him, her eyebrows nearly to her chopped hairline. “You mean you didn’t notice?”

Varric’s heart sank. “Uh. Notice what?”

Cassandra sighed. Her gaze scanned the area around them as if she was waiting for another attack. “You don’t think it odd? Those creatures wanted to get to us, but none of them actually attempted to attack us from behind.”

Now that she mentioned it… “Uh, you don’t think that has anything to do with why they haven’t followed us in here, do you?”

“Did you think they ran away from us because we scared them?”

The way she said that, saying ‘yes’ would probably not go well for his pride. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“We have likely entered the domain of a highly advanced demon.”

Wonderful.

They checked over half the circumference of the stalagmite before they finally found a staircase half encased by the stalagmite. The oddly golden steps started at about knee height for him – so high ankles for Cassandra, probably – and continued in a wide curve up to the rock face. Varric frowned. “So we know we’ve entered a scary demon’s lair, but we’re going to go further in, anyway.”

“The demon knows we’re here, Varric. It’s known from the start. The fact that it has yet to attack us means it has something more interesting to focus on.”

Varric was about to demand why they weren’t then using said distraction to get their butts out of the line of fire when it hit him. “You mean it’s more interested in someone else.”

“Precisely.”

“Nightmare?”

“If things went according to plan, we’ve been in Nightmare’s realm from the start. No. This is one of his underlings.”

So one of their friends was here. Or this demon might even be watching over Marshmallow. Or it had found Elf and the kid, or perhaps even Lucky and Chuckles.

In any case, going in this direction could lead them to the others. All right, then. Varric judged the distance from the ground and jumped, barely scraping the bottom of his foot against the stairs before catching himself on, of all things, the stupid stalagmite. He stumbled forward for a second before righting himself. Cassandra jumped up, as well, but with far more aplomb. He glared at her long legs. “Let’s find those idiots, grab Marshmallow, and get out of here.”

Cassandra grinned over her shoulder at him. “For once, Varric, we are in total agreement.”

Solas was close enough to see the exact instant when Kios’ gaze suddenly focused on him. Those bright, pink eyes widened so much he was able to see the slight blue around the pupil – the tiny sign of the thin iris that covered the blood that ran through Kios’ eyes. Kios raised his daggers in front of his face and chest. Shielding himself.

Kios could see him again. Which meant the demon had decided Solas’ own heart had floundered enough to be expected to falter, as well. Taking a chance, he opened his mouth. “What are you talking about?”

Kios jerked back so hard he banged his head against the rock. Solas gripped his staff tight to keep from reaching to check the injury. He’d given up that right long before this demon had attacked Kios. The man wouldn’t have approved even before they’d arrived here.

After a moment of silence, Kios jerked away. Solas’ lips thinned as Kios dipped to the left, then ran right. The demon was once again using Solas’ form to act out its illusions. He could try to lead the battle in a certain direction, however. If he did so and brought it close to the demon, he would have a chance to strike. And he couldn’t deny his curiosity. Kios had admitted to knowing that Solas had assisted Corypheus. He’d admitted to ‘knowing’ that Solas would betray and attack him. Solas was curious as to how, and why Kios would allow Solas so close. Had Solas been the only one to fall in love? Had Kios spied on him, even better than Solas had attempted to spy on the Inquisition?

Kios swiped out, lightning crackling along the edge of his blade. Solas jumped back, knowing better than to try to block that one. Kios’ irises vibrated, back and forth, as Solas moved further away. Struggling to focus. Failing. “What am I talking about?” Kios repeated Solas’ question, practically spitting it out. “I’m talking about you bringing up an artifact before anyone even knew there was one.”

Kios slashed again, and Solas chose to slink off to the side, trying to avoid whatever illusion Kios had set up to trick him. Even as he did, his mind reeled at what Kios was saying. They’d spoken about the artifact when Corypheus had attacked. All the way back – no, even before. Because Kios said no one had yet known about the artifact. He blanched. Had he truly made such a mistake?

“I’m talking about you knowing what the artifact looked like even though you hadn’t seen it and I hadn’t described it to anyone.” Kios pushed again, ducking low, his knee nearly giving out even as he slashed up toward Solas’ staff. Trying to instigate a response from Solas. He backed away again. Despite not trying to attack, Kios dodged away, clearly avoiding something that was at least real to him. Solas blanched again, realizing he had spoken of the artifact’s elven heritage without having heard the artifact’s description.

“I’m talking about you being able to ‘sense another elven artifact nearby’ even though I’m also an elven mage!” Kios hopped behind him and threw one of his daggers. Solas barely thought to dodge in time, not knowing how to explain that last accusation without – without admitting to something far bigger than his having worked with Corypheus. It barely registered that Kios had sacrificed one of his foci weapons in order to get close. When it did, he stumbled back. His foot kicked against a rock. A rock he hadn’t seen. He took too long adjusting to it. Kios came in hard and fast, his last blade pointed at Solas’ throat.

“I’m talking about you calling this thing an anchor when everyone else calls it a mark!”

Kios knocked Solas’ staff to the side and grabbed his shirt, slamming him to the ground. Solas’ head ricocheted against the rocky ground. Kios raised his blade. “I’m talking about every single lie, every single secret, as you spied on us and used me!”

Solas stopped reaching for his staff, his eyes caught on the tears pooling in Kios’ eyes. One fell onto Solas’ chest. Kios’ hand, raised to strike, trembled. Ah. His heart twisted. Kios’ feelings were real. Far too real.

“At least now,” Kios said, his teeth gritted, “I have the truth. Finally. Finally,” he murmured, his voice going quiet. Another tear fell. Kios seemed oblivious to them; his voice was choked, yet it held such heat. Such fury. “You’ve finally decided to give me at least this much.”

His eyes widened. Truth. This was what the desire demon was after. It preyed upon Kios’ need for what appeared to be real. For what he believed to be real.

This was Solas’ fault.

His fingers finally grazed the edge of his staff. Slowly, he curled his hand back around it. Fine. He would make it right.

He threw a barrier around himself. Kios jerked from above him. Solas gritted his teeth. Just as he thought. If he made a move that looked aggressive, the demon would allow Kios to see it. Fine. He would play the demon’s game. For now.

Kios moved the position of his dagger, no longer aiming for Solas’ neck. This wasn’t the first time Solas had watched Kios hesitate when he could have killed him. It made Solas’ heart twist off course, until the pain caused a different storm. He let the fury show on his face, let the demon show it to Kios. Let the demon think it was getting what it wanted. He called forth a large specter of his own hand and curled it around Kios, throwing him back until he slammed against the rock he’d tried to hide behind. Kios grunted.

Kios was all about close combat, illusion, and elements. Together, they were a formidable team – Kios as the more aggressive, close combat specialist, and Solas as crowd control. Solas stopped those too far away for Kios to get to before they managed an attack of their own. He kept crowds from taking advantage of their numbers against Kios. And, most importantly, he rounded up the enemies for Kios, leaving them in a cluster too large for Kios to miss, especially from his usual short distance.

But as enemies, Solas had the distinct advantage. For all of Kios’ magic, with his eyes, Kios was forced to get in close or risk wasting his mana on an attack that would miss. Solas also knew every one of Kios’ weaknesses – his weakness to light, his need to use illusions to balance the battlefield, his struggle with seeing things mid-range. All Solas needed to do was pull veilfire into the foci of his staff, and Kios was shouting and turning his face away. Solas’ lips thinned. With the headache Kios was already enduring, that light would be akin to daggers stabbing at his eyes. Ir abelas, vhenan. He would do everything he could to make up for this later.

Kios’ knee wobbled again. Solas struck at it, only half surprised when Kios chose to drop like a ragdoll to the ground and roll to the side to dodge Solas’ strike. Kios was breathing heavily, a sign of how long and hard he had already been fighting the illusion of Solas. Solas, in not having fought at all, felt perfectly fine. He ground his teeth together and tried again. Again, Kios dodged, his eyes practically closed as he moved. Sound, Solas remembered. Sound and touch. That was how Kios made up for the times when it was too bright, the enemies too distant, for him to be able to rely on his feeble eyesight.

Solas scowled and quickly blocked his mind off from the demon lest it read his true plans. Then he forced himself to call up a rift above Kios’ head.

Sound, sight, touch – it didn’t matter if Kios couldn’t move.

Kios sent a quick, slitted glare toward him. Then he called a barrier around his body and put his remaining dagger once more before him in a defensive stance.

Perfect.

Solas called cold to his foci, the power of winter and its chill. His foci gave him away; even with the distance between them, Kios clearly saw the color his foci changed to; his own burned orange as fire lit around his dagger. Solas encased Kios in ice just as he let his fire loose – not beneath Solas’ feet, but beneath his own.

The fireball burst around Kios, encasing him within its flames. Solas instinctively stepped forward, his heart rising to his throat. Kios often used the power of his own barrier to power that spell. If he had, then the fire he spawned would have destroyed that barrier immediately. Not to mention how, whether it burned him or not, his eyes were already in enough pain.

As he watched, Kios shot through the flames and ran toward him, his hand still glowing – he’d used it to close the rift Solas had opened. Kios was fast, even with his tired knee; Solas had to beat a hasty retreat, calling forth one of the rocks nearby to trip Kios up. Kios jumped over it, landed – and fell to one knee. Finally, his knee had given out. Kios slammed his hand into the ground to catch himself and tensed for Solas’ attack. Solas raised his staff and stepped forward. “I have lied to you, it is true.” Kios flinched. Those blood-filled eyes glared death at him. The fire had burned the tears to nothing more than tracks, but that didn’t mean they were gone from those eyes. “But I am not with Corypheus, and I would not try to kill you.” Solas heard an angry shriek. Finally. The demon had shown itself. “I would never try to kill you.”

Solas felt the demonic energy coalesce behind him, no longer properly hidden now that he’d fought against the demon’s preferred reality. If he listened close, he could even hear the demon moving. But Kios did not react to it. The demon still had him in its thrall.

Sure enough, Kios bared his teeth at Solas’ words. “How dare you.” Kios called upon his lightning again. The image of Kios before him shook slightly, for only an instant. The only hint Solas had that Kios had thrown up an illusion of himself. “After all this, you dare lie to me again.”

Two steps closer, and Solas could see the slight burn marks on Kios’ cheek and arm. The man truly had injured himself in his efforts to get away from Solas’ hold. Yet despite his clear efforts to maintain a tactical position, Kios had yet to do any serious harm to him. Solas pulled the rocks from beneath their feet, called them up around Kios, and wrapped them around Kios’ legs. Kios startled at the move; it wasn’t one Solas had ever used before. Outside of the Fade, the effort would have still been beyond him.

Kios looked down at the stone as it wrapped around his legs, carefully holding his injured leg in place – before he could injure it even more. His gaze snapped back up to Solas. “Stop toying with me and fight!”

“No.” Kios stiffened. Solas marched forward and grabbed Kios’ arm before the demon could hide Solas from him once again. “I will not harm you, vhenan. What you saw was an illusion.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kios hissed. Kios wrenched his arm free, nearly cutting Solas in the process. He was forced to retreat once more or risk a blow. “Your love is as fake as everything else.”

Solas winced. After so many lies, it made sense that Kios would doubt Solas’ feelings for him. He opened his mouth, ready to argue again, only to hesitate. Kios had listed lies that didn’t match with Solas simply working with Corypheus. They had included Solas’ detailed knowledge of the artifact and of ancient elven magic. Kios had even pointed out that Solas could feel the presence of his artifacts while Kios could not. In order to explain that which Kios had caught him lying about, he would have to also tell the truth about his origins. About who he was.

He slowly lowered his staff to the ground. Would it not be better to allow Kios this belief? To let Kios think Solas hated him, that Solas had betrayed, or would betray him? Rather than telling Kios what Solas had planned, or what he had done, or who he was. His fingers clenched white-knuckled around his staff. Or would it be crueler to hide the truth at this point? Certainly he couldn’t allow this demon its meal, but after that…

The demon.

He stiffened. He had felt its presence down below, around the area they’d first landed, back around the edge of the sheer rock walls that separated the ground into segments. Yet now, he could not feel it at all. Which meant it was once again feeding, happy with the circumstances. Using Kios. He swung around, his gaze roaming over the space behind them, heart hammering in his chest. What could possibly make the demon so sure of itself now?

Kios gasped.

No!

Solas felt the demon’s presence only as it neared. The demon curled around him, chuckling slightly as it passed. Solas saw Kios’ eyes focus, no longer on him, but on the demon. Solas curled his fingers into a fist, white-knuckled around his staff. He swung his staff out, shooting the demon in the side as it moved past him. The demon didn’t even bother turning. It flicked a finger. Spears of ice spiked toward him, forcing him to duck or get impaled. As he ducked, he saw the ground beneath his feet glow pink-red. He sucked in a breath just as the glyph fully formed. He slammed his staff into the ground, but the repulsion magic still shoved him back. The force wrenched against his chest, pushing him like a punch. His back hit the rocky ground with a thud, the force scraping him across the hard surface despite him trying to use his staff as an anchor.

Even as his body settled, he struggled to right himself, to bring his staff forward. His gaze focused immediately on the demon, on Kios, still locked in place due to Solas’ own magic. Immediately, he released it, but the demon already had its hand wrapped in Kios’ hair, pulling his neck back and to the side, taking away his center of balance. Its other hand rose up, its fingers stretched out. Its claws extended.

“No!” Solas scrambled up enough to swing his staff, sending his own attack of ice forward. The shards pattered off the demon’s back – a shield against magic. He roared.

Kios slashed out just as the demon speared toward his neck, aiming to cut off its arm. The demon simply switched its target from Kios’ neck to his heart. The hand pierced straight through.

Kios’ dagger slipped from his hand and clanged onto the rock at the demon’s feet.

“No!”

Chapter Text

His father brusquely rubbed the blood from his brow. “Get him patched up,” he ordered his mother. She moved quickly to him, her dark hand gentle where his father’s had been rough.

“Ack, da’len,” she whispered, pulling out her handkerchief and dabbing at his forehead. The cloth came away absolutely soaked. “Wait one moment, ma lath.”

His father stomped away, past their caravan and away. He lowered his head. His mother stepped away, rummaging in their small belongings for their first aid. When she came back, he looked up at her with the only eye not covered by blood. “I tried to fight back,” he told her.

She clucked her tongue, once again pulling out her handkerchief. “That would get you nowhere. You know that.”

He shook his head. His mother sounded like she wasn’t pleased to hear he’d fought, but his father – his father had to think of this as another weakness of his. As if he did not have enough. He scrubbed at his eye, only to hiss as his efforts got the blood under his eyelid. His mother tutted and cleaned it up for him, rubbing a bit harder to get the blood out. He sniffed. His head hurt, and all this moving around and looking at things was making it hurt worse. But he didn’t want to say that. He wanted to be strong.

His mother’s skin looked so dark beside his as she cleaned him up and put some medicine over his wound. She tsked again. “Your hair, ma elgara. I will need to cut it. Just around the wound, but the cut comes so close to your head – it seems it has already done damage to your beautiful hair.”

His mother was the only one to think it beautiful. While the entire aravel had hair as dark as the night’s shadows, his was as bright as the day. ‘Ma elgara,’ his mother called him – her sun. To the rest of the aravel, he was just a freak. “Cut it all off,” he said, his voice empty. His mother’s hands stilled.

She put her fingers on his cheeks, placing the tiniest bit of pressure to let him know she wanted him to lift his head. He did. Her dark brows were pulled low over her equally dark eyes. “You lost no battle,” she told him. He wanted to lower his head, but she no longer let him. “Standing strong against their hatred. That was a victory. To let them make you hide, however – that would be your moment of defeat.”

He scowled and wrenched his head away. It made his head throb, a pain so deep it felt like it passed through the bone. “Why? I’m ugly! I can’t hide my skin or my eyes or my hair, even if I rip it all out!” He fought against the tears. He hadn’t spilled them when he’d been hurt. He wouldn’t spill them now. “I don’t want this body anymore!”

“Then you allow them victory, and put shame to me.”

He jerked back, his breath hitching in his chest.

“Worse,” she said, her voice gentling, “you do dishonor to yourself.”

He turned to face her. She pushed his hair back – hair that even he could see was now uneven, an entire patch of his shoulder-length hair suddenly no longer than the length of his brow and cheek. His unnatural eyes shivered for a moment, but finally, they calmed enough for him to take in the small smile on her face as she gazed into his demonic irises. “You,” she said, “are the only you there could ever be. If you did not have this appearance, then who is to say what else of you may have been lost? Perhaps even that strong back of yours that did not falter at those children’s hate. You are strong, ma elgara. You were blessed with your father’s magic, and you are loved by me.”

He blinked. The idea that his skin was part of everything of him – part of his magic and his emotions – had never occurred to him before.

“Some day,” his mother said, “you will be a powerful leader of your aravel.” Not this one, however; his father was already Second. He would be gone in a couple of years’ time. “You will see yourself as more than this,” she told him, holding his hand in hers. Showing off the contrast in their skin. “And you will understand what it is you truly are.” At his questioning glance, she said, “Dalish,” the word so strong it seemed to explode in his chest. “And beloved. My beautiful, strong son.”

He stared up into the green sky of the Fade, the world above blurred by his unnatural vision. Solas bent over him, smirk slipping onto his face as he looked down upon Kios. His side hurt. The pain was worse than what he’d endured that day, so long ago now, when the other children had chosen to attack him for his differences. But the message was the same, even after all this time.

He smiled up at Solas’ face as Solas looked over his shoulder and stepped away. Kios hadn’t even left a scar on the bastard. He’d been a fool. To ever think… to the very end, he thought. To the very end, he had allowed himself to remain a fool.

“Even if you find him, he is broken. I have taken the last of his hope, and all you will find is the shell of who he’d once been.”

Fenris snarled as he wrenched his sword out of the latest fear demon’s neck. The carcasses of its friends littered the ground around him, yet he and the spirit were once again forced to cede ground as even more showed up to step over the corpses of their brethren. Worse, that deep, booming voice kept mocking him every time he sampled even the smallest victory.

Fenris stepped in front of the spirit named Cole when it started gasping, readying his sword before him like a shield. “So many voices,” it said, not for the first time. “One’s loss is another’s gain. They want us tired. Tired means they can take.”

“Yes,” Fenris said, slowly backing away, “it’s very clear they’re trying to tire us out.” And it was working. He could feel the heaviness of his sword in his hands, the way his muscles bunched and quivered in their efforts to hold up such a weight. That voice infuriated him and scared him in turns, leaving him weakened even further. At this rate, he wouldn’t make it to Hawke’s side, let alone manage to get him back home.

How many times were they going to be overrun? How could they get away without getting so lost they had no chance of finding Hawke in the maze? Or worse, what if he did find Hawke, only to bring this swarm with him? What if the swarm overtook them before he could even lay eyes on Hawke again?

He gritted his teeth. That wasn’t going to happen. Demons would not best him.

“Over here,” the spirit murmured, and grabbed his arm. He shuddered. The creature let go of him immediately and hurried backward. Fenris followed its movements toward what looked to be a graveyard. It sat against a beach, with green waves that splashed against a silted shore. For whatever reason, no demons stood before those tombstones. If there were any within, they were hiding.

He hurried after the creature.

The shore had a few shades loitering on it. The spirit flew ahead of Fenris, taking the lead, its body flitting in and out of eyesight. It flashed behind a shade, stabbed it in the back, then slashed across another’s throat before disappearing and reappearing in front of the third to stab into the thing’s chest with both daggers. Cole turned back to him. “Hurry!” it called, and raced toward the graveyard again.

Fenris looked behind him. A fear demon – the fourth one he’d faced so far – scattered its miniature followers before it, yet, as Fenris backed away, it stopped following. His eyes narrowed. Why?

He finally caught up with the spirit, still surprised to see the fear demon not chasing after them. It waited, just beyond the graveyard, its glowing eyes steady on him.

He walked through the gates of the false graveyard to find the spirit sitting on the ground, for all intents and purposes relaxing. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“They won’t come here. These are Nightmare’s. Fears are trophies.”

Trophies? He looked around. The graves weren’t just empty slabs of rock. There were words on them. Names. Fenris’ brows rose. They varied in size and shape – one was enormous, right in the middle, so large its shadow fell on the graves behind it, obscuring them. He put away his sword and walked up to it, his heart in his chest. But Hawke’s name was not on that giant edifice – instead it was a name he did not recognize. ‘Kios Lavellan.’ Beneath the name, in all capital letters, were the words ‘being right.’ His brows furrowed. He read it again, for a moment thinking his ability to read, a gift granted to him through Hawke’s kindness and his own hard work, had somehow failed him. But no. ‘Being right.’ Slowly, he reached out and touched it. Nothing happened. “What is this?”

“His fear,” Cole said, his voice dropping. Fenris stared at it for a moment longer, then went to stand beside the spirit. It stared up at the green sky and shivered. “I don’t like it here,” it murmured.

Fenris’ nose wrinkled. “This is your home.”

Cole shook his head. “No. This is… wrong. Not for me. I don’t fit.”

He had no idea what it was trying to say. He sat down beside it, his gaze immediately catching on the fear demon. It still waited for them. They could get a short reprieve here, but they would have to leave again shortly, and when they did, they would be heading straight back into battle. “Humans and elves and dwarves don’t fit, spirit. You do.”

It shook its head. “Not here.” Its face changed for a second; beneath that wide-brimmed hat, he saw the creature frown. “Elves fit. But not here. No one fits here.”

Now that, he thought he understood. “This is a demon’s lair,” he said. “You’re saying only demons belong here.”

Wait. Elves ‘fit’ here? As in, in the Fade?

He scowled. If Hawke was here, he could demand a better translation. He could even pick a fight and live it vicariously through Hawke. He could snarl that elves didn’t belong here and he didn’t want to belong here even if he could. Hawke could agree with him, try to placate him, tell him how he was misunderstanding the creature…

Fenris sighed. He wanted to fight with Hawke. Ridiculous.

Silence fell between him and the spirit then; they both took their own time to recover from the endless battles so far. Fenris could feel the omnipresent tug of that strange tether singing between himself and Hawke. It kept pointing him forward, past the graveyard and whatever demons wanted to get in their way. Even this short rest, though necessary, was more time for Azzan to suffer under Nightmare’s thumb.

That knowledge got Fenris moving again, pacing the graves as he waited for his muscles to finally calm and his lyrium to feel less like hollowed out veins. He stopped when he saw the spirit’s name on one of the smaller graves. His fear said only ‘despair.’ He took mental note of it and was about to ignore the graves again when he saw it. Finally.

Hawke’s grave.

It wasn’t as large as the ‘Lavellan’ one, but it had an ornate trim and stood taller than the spirit’s. He couldn’t help but look at Azzan’s fear. ‘Being too weak.’ Fenris covered his mouth. Yes, he could see that one. Being too emotionally weak to handle certain events, certain emotions. Being too weak to save someone, or defeat another. Too weak to protect. Too weak to overcome. Too weak to ignore his feelings, to ignore how hurt he was by Fenris’ hatred of mages. Too weak to, perhaps, stay strong against Nightmare’s torture.

He sucked in a deep breath and turned away. The waves of the Fade’s water lapped at the sand beside him, beyond the graveyard gate. The water looked sickly, a gleaming green, nearly indistinguishable from the sky above. The only differences were the rocks floating far above, spitting water onto the ocean below, and the sparkle on the water – a sparkle that came from no discernible source. If there was a sun here, he had yet to see it.

For curiosity’s sake, he searched the graves, idly noting the ‘dying alone’ on Solas’ grave and the ‘become his parents’ on Varric’s, which brought to Fenris’ attention for the first time that he’d never heard Varric so much as mention his parents. Were they worse than Bartrand?

Then, finally, oddly far from Hawke’s grave, he found his own. It was not as large as Hawke’s, but Fenris was learning that the size was due to how much the demon wanted someone and not much to do with how strong their fear was. He looked at his own, his teeth clicking together so quickly he nearly bit his tongue. Subjection.

He turned on his heel and moved to the spirit’s side. “We’re leaving.”

The spirit shot up. “It knows we’re here,” he whispered, immediately sounding as ominous and creepy as possible. Fenris unsheathed his sword again and prepared to fight the fear demon, only to find it missing. He turned back to the spirit. It, however, was looking toward where Fenris could feel the tug in his chest. “Huge, hulking, hovering. Hoping. Happy. It wants us to come. It’s big. Bigger than us.”

Fenris had fought enemies larger than him before. But would he be able to do so and still get Hawke out of there? Azzan might not be in any state to be able to help him, and with just the spirit with him, they could quickly become overrun. For Azzan to have believed it necessary to be left behind before, the enemy must have been more powerful than Fenris could imagine. The danger that not all of them would return must have been very real. Not that he cared; nothing was more important than getting Azzan back.

Everyone, including the demon, would expect him to make a run for Azzan. He expected it of himself. So what if he didn’t?

He reached out a hand and yanked the spirit to its feet. “Let’s go,” he said, and looked toward where he could feel Azzan’s presence. It was straight ahead, just past these odd shores they’d found themselves on. Any attempt to reach Azzan would be met with even more resistance, likely by the lead demon itself.

The spirit shook its hand when Fenris released it, acting as if Fenris had stabbed at it. It stared at its own fingers for a second. “Smart,” it said. He shivered.

“Can it hear me like that?” he asked.

The spirit shook its head. “Your fears, yes. Scared, superstitious, suspecting. Yes. Your hurt. It once took it, tried to treat. Now it takes to taste, to touch, to torment. It’s fun, to it.” The spirit wrinkled its nose. “Determination is not dread. Audacity is not anger. It senses hurt, not hope.”

“Can it find us?”

The spirit shook its head. “Can an elf find a single ant?”

Great. In other words, they were so small and immaterial to the demon, they were able to hide from its detection.

If nothing else, the words made it even more clear what he had to do. If they were that outmatched, then it was imperative that they get Azzan out of this place without attempting to take on Nightmare. Fenris had fought against enemies and governments, however, battling against something so much larger than he could ever hope to defeat on his own. He knew exactly what to do to grasp victory from the more powerful.

He had to piss the demon off.

Pissing it off meant leading it somewhere. Somewhere specific. Which would then force it to move away from their true goal.

He looked down at the graves and smiled grimly. The other demons wouldn’t dare enter this place. Even tired, he could manipulate his lyrium enough to attack an unmoving, indefensible opponent. He called upon his lyrium until his body softly glowed. “Let’s get started.”

Varric huddled down a bit between the enormous stalagmites, especially as they clustered closer and closer together. His faithful Bianca was looking more useless as time passed. “I could spit on a demon in here and not even know it.”

Cassandra snorted. “Its ankles, maybe.”

He glared at her. “Oh, har, har.” He sent another glance around. “How do we even know we’re heading in the right direction?” The stalagmites speared straight into the sky. As if the sky enough wasn’t enough to mess with his sense of direction, those things made it nearly impossible to be able to see any of the few landmarks – or were they skymarks, since they floated in the sky? – that could have helped. As for actual landmarks – those were impossible to find, too. Unless, of course, he was looking for even more stalagmites. “Maker, I hate this place.”

The air was eerily still and oddly damp. He shivered a bit and stared at his chest. Was there some sort of Fade morning dew thing going on? No. But give it time. He was sure something awful like that was going to happen. “Hey, Seeker. How do you even know we’re still heading in the right direction?”

She sent him an odd look. “You don’t feel that?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Feel what?”

“There’s a charge in the air. Magic, and a lot of it.”

“Seeker, we’re in the Fade. There’s magic everywhere.”  Which made him very uncomfortable, by the way.

“Not like this,” she said. Varric watched something streak past in front of them. He was gratified to see Cassandra hold out her shield and step in front of him. He wasn’t the only one apparently terrified of a flying rock. They both turned to where the rock came from, then to where it was heading. Nothing and nothing. “Though I will agree with you about one thing,” Cassandra said finally, lowering her shield and continuing up a flight of stairs that turned into a bridge partway through. “This place is very unnerving.”

Varric looked on either side of the bridge. There were no railings, and the ground cut off down below, far enough away that Varric could stand on top of Cassandra’s shoulders and still be too short to reach. That kind of fall would hurt. A lot.

It was as Cassandra was already halfway across and Varric was just stepping his first toe onto the Death Bridge that something shrieked. The sound echoed all around them, above, beneath, to either side. It raised the goosebumps on his arms and electrified his chest hair. He nearly lost his balance. The Seeker, in keeping with her long human legs and ridiculous battle skills, merely looked up and tilted her head. “I was right,” she said. She glared back at him. “Hurry up, Varric! We don’t know whether the others need our help!”

“Them needing our help!” Varric sputtered. He inched his way across, though. Damn his writer’s curiosity for needling him into looking down. “We just killed a small army,” he said, lowering his voice to a mutter. “They should be helping us.”

“That’s not how this works, Varric.”

Of course it wasn’t. He mouthed a few choice responses – mostly curses – as he hobbled around behind her. She’d already gotten off the other side of the bridge and followed some weird staircase back down another stalagmite. Varric saw parts of the land start to level off around the giant things and hurried a bit, wanting to get away from this particular scenery.

So of course, the moment he finally made it to the other side of the Bridge of Doom, he spied a long, winding trail between more copious yet slightly shorter stalagmites. Between them, he saw fire. It stormed down from the sky like rain. He cursed. “I hate this place.”

“No! Vhenan!”

Solas’ magic roared within him, primal in its maelstrom as it sucked on Solas’ fury like a sponge. Here in the Fade, standing physically within the realm he’d once slipped through in his dreams, his power pulsed like it hadn’t since he’d entered Uthenera. He called upon fire, so easily manipulated as his rage grew to new heights.

The demon turned to him with wide eyes, its delight dusting like smoke in the face of Solas’ power. It backed away, leaving Kios’ body. For the first time, Solas saw the wound it had left. Instead of puncturing Kios’ heart, the wound had pierced through his gut. Kios’ illusion magic, he thought, remembering the shimmer that had covered Kios’ body for one short instant while Solas had spoken with him. Kios had stopped the creature from going for his neck, forcing it to aim too low for a killing strike.

Kios had not been able to go for the killing blow, but he had prepared for Solas to not reciprocate the same.

Still. Kios’ blood splashed against the green stone, spread beneath his still frame. He did not move. Solas yanked on the rocks above them, calling fire to the stone as it fell. He ran to Kios’ side and placed a barrier around them both as the sky screamed down.

The demon screeched as the first rock pelted the ground, cracking into pieces and sending a wave of fire in every direction. The demon skittered away, giving up its place near Kios’ side for the dubious safety of the rock wall. It quickly learned that the fiery meteors he’d sent down could crash into the wall as well as the ground.

Its body was wiry, but the shape belied its power. It curled and curved around the rocks, taking a few beatings onto his shield before the thing finally fell away. Solas stood, his gaze calculating as the demon moved. All demons had a way of moving that gave away its patterns. After all, demons were merely mirrors of what they saw. This one relied on abnormal dodging patterns, movements that had the legs and upper torso moving at separate rhythms. He had seen something similar from other demons before. In the middle of its dodge, he wrapped a Fade hand around the boulder Kios had used as a shield just minutes before and ripped it from the ground. It hit the demon in its side. If it had been a human, its ribs would have caved into its body, piercing its organs. As it was, it fell to the ground. The rock slammed onto its legs, keeping it still. Preventing it from hiding again.

The fires from above slowly stilled, Solas’ magic curling like vipers around him, trembling as he tried to contain the worst of his rage, cognizant of where they were. He would not lead demons here. Just in case.

He walked up to the demon as it struggled to move the rock crushing its legs. It looked up at him. For a single instant, Solas saw those black sclerae frame those purple irises. Then, in the next instant, the sclerae were white, and the irises were such a pale blue that, aside from the small area right against the pupil, they looked pink. The color of the blood pumping behind the iris. Kios’ eyes.

He threw shards of ice into them. The demon screamed.

Solas stalked around the rock and stabbed his staff into the demon’s injured side. It screamed again. “How dare you show those eyes to me,” he said, his mind whirring at the thought that this demon’s false gaze might be the last time he saw Kios’ eyes. The idea of his last image being of this thing and not his love made his fury burn hot once more. “They are not yours to own.”

“I,” the demon gasped, “can give you what you want.”

“Yes, you can.” His magic pooled around the foci on his staff. The demon hitched in a breath. “Tell me what I most desire right now, demon.”

Its eyes, back to normal now, widened again. It did not speak.

He snarled. Of course the demon hesitated. It didn’t wish to speak of what was written in his heart. No creature wanted to admit to its own impending demise. Solas called his magic forth, pulling as much as he could, furious enough to wish to call upon his old persona. The demon’s mouth fell open as his magic formed around him, granting him an echo of his old mask. “Wolf,” it said, and extended its claws again. Instead of turning the claws on him, it turned them on itself – on its own legs. Trying to rip them off to attempt to get free.

Solas never gave it the chance.

He stabbed the creature as it had stabbed Kios, puncturing its heart with a stone blade conjured from the Fade around him. His magic shuddered, the holes of his power gaping wider as he used it in ways he’d been unable to just hours before. Still, the only thing he took notice of was the demon’s body slumping, and even then, his rage would not be assuaged until he crushed its head within the rocks of the Fade. Then, breathing heavily, he ran back to Kios’ side.

Solas skidded the last couple of inches on his knees, scraping holes into his pants. Heedless of the pain, he touched Kios’ forehead, cupped the buzzed side of his head to push his face up so Solas could see it. His other hand went straight to Kios’ wound. The blood still pulsed, warm against his fingers. He searched Kios’ face. “Please, vhenan. Please.”

He felt it before he saw it. The slight rise of Kios’ chest as he breathed, barely pressing harder against Solas’ hand. The way the blood spurted out faster. Then, the slight bob of Kios’ Adam’s apple. “Thank you,” Solas said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Over and over again, as he moved both hands over Kios’ stomach and shoved. Kios jerked beneath him, reacting even in unconsciousness. Solas’ hands immediately turned red with Kios’ blood. It streamed between his fingers, pooled over his palm and between his knuckles. Solas gritted his teeth, his eyes squinting. Too much. It was too much blood.

Even back when he’d been powerful, back when he’d gone by his own title, he had been weak in the gift of restoration. But even so, even with his weakness in healing magic, he could have done it. He could have saved Kios. But here, now, still affected by his sleep, he could do nothing to push and watch. Watch as his love bled out.

His arms shook as he pressed down. Kios no longer responded to the pressure. If he kept losing blood like this, then… Solas’ breath came in sudden gasps. Was he truly going to simply watch? Was there truly nothing he could do?

If he’d just told Kios the truth. If, when he’d taken Kios to Crestwood, he’d just chosen to tell Kios who he was and what he’d done, would this have happened? Could he have prevented Kios’ death?

He heard movement. Solas glared over his shoulder, unsurprised to see the first few demons sidling cautiously up from the area below. They watched him as they took slow steps forward, likely wary of the power he’d shown just moments before. The wariness wouldn’t last long.

He looked down at Kios. Without acknowledging the demons any further, he picked up Kios’ dagger from where it had fallen beside him and cut off Kios’ sleeves, then the end of his tunic. Both sleeves were used as gauze, the end of the tunic like a bandage; his hands alone weren’t enough. The strip of tunic, once cinched, helped him push the gauze on tight. Even as Solas watched, the sleeves became red with Kios’ blood. Nothing was stopping it. The pool of blood beneath Kios just kept getting thicker.

Solas sifted a hand through Kios’ locks, pushing them away from his face. “Please.”

The demons moved. He grabbed his staff and turned to face them. His mana was feeling the strain as he called his magic forward to create a wall of ice beneath the feet of the front row of demons. The closest terror demon got impaled. The others froze.

He looked back to Kios. Still bleeding. Still dying. But if those demons got any closer – if those terror demons took the chance to dive across the Fade and erupt beneath Kios? He would die. The sudden movement, the claws – he would die.

Solas placed a barrier around them.

Just in time. Shards of ice pounded against his back, and a fear demon stepped between the two despair demons to unleash its fearlings. Solas turned more fully, moving until his body blocked the creatures from Kios. These things were the first to arrive – the first to respond to his or perhaps even Kios’ emotions. The demons saw that Solas did not come after them and charged.

He sent a hailstorm on the lot of them and curled around Kios, pressing hard on the wound and watching the makeshift bandages go wet, then start beading up with too much blood for the cloth to soak up. His eyes stung. Despite having no skill in the area, he desperately tried a healing spell. It did little more than heal the bruise on Kios’ cheek. Solas rubbed his thumb over the scar that brushed the edge of that buzzed hairline. “Come on, come on,” he urged himself, and tried again. Nothing. He cursed. Damn his fractured magic.

The demons broke through the wall and raced out of the range of the hailstorm. Solas caught one in ice, punched another with a fist of stone. He managed to recreate his shields around himself and Kios just as the demons overwhelmed him.

It was instinct to curl over Kios’ body as the demons bombarded them. Instinct to try to do this one, last thing for Kios, even though there were too many for him to defeat. Not with the amount of mana he had left. Not with the miniscule amount of power he could call upon these days.

He and Kios were both going to die here.

If Kios was still all right – if he was still uninjured, would they have been able to fight? No; the question itself was foolish. If Kios was awake, they could run.

If only he had told the truth. If only Kios hadn’t stepped into the Fade carrying a belief in Solas’ betrayal.

Solas managed to find the mana to take down a demon, but it was replaced immediately. The barriers dwindled in seconds. Solas curled tighter over Kios, his only thought to keep Kios alive another second, millisecond, longer. He flung a demon away just as the last of the barrier crashed into pieces.

If Kios had known he was Fen’Harel, would their last moments have been in anger, as Kios turned from him in Crestwood? Or would they have something more? Would they have still been here, together? Would it have been better?

Wondering 'what if' was useless, but as Solas wrapped his arms around Kios’ head and shielded Kios’ bleeding body with his own, he couldn’t help but wonder if Kios would be alive, even happy, if Solas had left him in peace.

He braced himself for the demons' attacks, but the impacts never came. He looked up, ready to see the demons fighting among themselves, perhaps – only to come face to face with a fear demon, its eyes wide and unfocused. It had an arrow in its neck.

It fell beside him, nearly flattening him. Beside it, a shade and a despair demon broke apart, turning to look behind them just as a sword sliced through them both. When they fell, a familiar human stood behind them, shield gleaming. She glared down at him from below dark bangs. “Are you hurt? Can you fight?”

“Seeker,” he breathed. He sat up, one hand still on Kios, as if to let go was to lose him. The demons around them screeched, clawing at Cassandra’s shield. Another fell to an arrow. “I have never been more happy to see you. Please.” He looked to Kios. His lips were turning blue. His skin was so pale it looked white. "Please. Help me.”

Chapter Text

Tickle Varric surprised when, as he and Cassandra moved through the comparatively open area they’d found themselves in, they nearly got bowled over by demons, all of which seemed to have zero compunction about entering the area anymore. “They’ve killed the demon,” Cassandra said, naming the phenomenon as if Varric was incapable of understanding what the change meant.

Varric had wrinkled his nose. “Doesn’t that mean…?”

Neither of them had bothered talking after that. They simply ran.

If the demon who’d been keeping this place demon-free was suddenly erased from the equation, then all of the demons in the vicinity were going to be jumping all over that real estate. And whoever had killed the demon would be right in the middle of that little economic opportunity.

The line had ended at the most open area they’d found since entering this stalagmite nightmare; the things turned into walls that blocked off the path forward, turning it more into something akin to what they’d traveled when they’d entered the Fade before. It was all still a bunch of rock, but at least here it had leveled out into two flat surfaces, and there was no climbing necessary; a small set of stairs led up to the higher platform. It was up there that all the demons seemed to have congregated, to the point where Varric couldn’t hope to see who it was that they’d chosen to focus on. Cassandra shouted something inarticulate, something that got a few of the demons in the back to turn to them. Varric hoisted Bianca with a growl. “Give a guy some warning!” he shouted as the woman ran forward. He cursed and fitted an arrow into the notch.

The first arrow tagged a terror demon. And thank goodness, because the thing had been making moves to snatch the Seeker’s legs or something. He managed to stop a fear demon in place long enough for Cassandra to reach it, and then the woman was deliberately clearing a path through the demons to reach whoever was within the circle. Varric helped; he took out the long-range despair demons and a couple of fearlings that kept trying to get underfoot. Cassandra shoved a group of demons with her shield, all of them so clustered together that they started a weird domino effect, pulling a bunch of their allies down with them. Varric saw a fear demon that wasn’t paying the Seeker a second of attention and aimed.

The arrow hit dead center, straight through the neck. He’d be proud of the shot if the demon didn’t fall to reveal Chuckles prone on the ground. He let out some inarticulate sound, his feet already moving forward, before he realized Chuckles was on top of someone else.

Lucky.

He sucked in a breath. No way. All this time, Lucky had managed to get out of every single possible scrape, every single no-win scenario, only to suddenly lose the instant they went back for Hawke? His mind flashed on Cullen, on Vivienne and Leliana and every single damn person who pointed out that it would be suicide to go after Hawke. He looked back on that moment when he’d decided a suicide mission was okay and wanted to slap himself. For his best friend, he’d been willing to give up the Inquisitor? The world? Because he held no doubt in his mind – without Lucky, the world would crumble. Corypheus would get everything he’d ever wanted.

But even as he stumbled, Bianca half-lowered in his haste, Solas sat up. Varric could see the elf’s eyes widen as he took in Cassandra, tearing into the demons that hadn’t fallen over themselves. Still clearing a path. Without a word, Varric went back to doing the same.

“Seeker.” Solas’ voice was a bit breathless and very, very shaken. The way he’d used himself as a shield over Lucky – things must have been desperate. Had he been out of mana? Overrun?

The reason dawned on him only as Solas noted how happy he was to see her. Even as Solas turned slightly and Varric caught his first glimpse of the absolute ocean of blood forming beneath Lucky’s unmoving body. “Please,” Solas said, begging for the first time Varric had ever known him. Begging with a voice so desperate Varric flinched. “Help me.”

“Lucky,” Varric breathed. All that blood. Help him? How in Andraste’s name could they help him? Wait. Did that mean – with all that blood lost, he was somehow still alive?

Maker. If he was, it was only by the skin of his teeth.

They were in the Fade. There was no way out. Not without Lucky. Varric’s mind whirred, catching on the only possible solution. “Hawke.” Solas looked at him as if cataloging his presence for the first time. “Hawke,” he said again, his voice stronger. He shot arrow after arrow into that writhing mess of demons slowly disentangling themselves. Cassandra stood between Solas and the worst of the rest of them. “He’s Lucky’s best chance. He can heal him. Hawke can heal anything, so long as it still lives.”

The words seemed to revitalize Solas. He rose to one knee and called forth his magic. He punched a couple of demons away with that creepy giant hand he could form, giving Cassandra the space she needed to focus on the demons trying to get around and attack their flank. Varric stuck both of the knocked back demons to the ground, buying the Seeker more time. With a few quick swipes and a quick introduction between her shield and a demon’s face, she opened up a path behind Solas. “Varric! Get over here!”

He was already moving, dodging the two demons still wrestling his arrow and heading to Solas’ side. Solas, cottoning on to Cassandra’s idea, swept out a wall of ice just as Varric caught up to them. The wall wasn’t as high and thick as Varric was used to seeing, but it would do.

“Come on,” Cassandra said, already turning from the enemies scratching at the wall. She checked Kios’ injury, found it either not horrible or too horrible to matter, and lifted him into a fireman’s carry. Kios didn’t wake to make a protest. “We must find Hawke. Now.”

Varric eyed Kios and the stain of red on his back that matched the front. The Seeker was right. They were on borrowed time.

“Anger. Annoyance. Aggravation.” Cole kept up a steady stream of information on what Nightmare was feeling. It was a far sight better than the previous ‘amusement’ and ‘humor’ the thing had been reciting before Fenris had started swinging at the rocks. He hadn’t done any real damage to them – and had started doing plenty to his sword – until Cole blipped away for a moment, returning quickly with a pickaxe. “Long lost, longing, lost and lonely, advised but too adamant, too eager. He wandered too far for the giant’s blood and found only them,” he’d said as explanation, and Fenris had decided he hadn’t cared. So long as the thing worked.

And it did.

The spirit had needed to sit out for a while; it had apparently been chased back and forth, and it had clearly gotten into a scrape. Fenris had frowned at the sight, but hadn’t said anything. The spirit had needed to go alone to get this; any attempt of Fenris’ to follow wouldn’t have ended well. Besides, he told himself. It was a spirit. No matter how much it acted human.

Once he’d set aside his reactions to the spirit, he’d focused on damage. The reaction had been instantaneous; the moment he knocked a hole into one of the graves, the demons watching them backed up. A roar not unlike an earthquake echoed in the air around them, trembled in the rock below their feet. Cole started up his litany then, giving a blow by blow account of just how pissed off Nightmare was getting.

“He’s coming.”

Fenris could have guessed that. He’d gone for the biggest grave first – the one most likely to piss off the demon. The Inquisitor’s. For all that things in this world were governed by will, they were also physical so long as Fenris and the others were able to stand within it. Which meant they were breakable.

The very nightmares that Nightmare most wanted to feast upon. The ones he’d created graves for, the ones he’d made a special place in his realm for. The ones he most enjoyed tormenting, or the thought of tormenting. Fenris couldn’t say why. He didn’t know what about the Inquisitor might have turned this demon’s attention to it. Maybe nothing. Fenris had done nothing but enter the Fade, and a pride demon had taken one look at him and pulled out his most secret desires. It had gotten him to turn on Hawke by doing nothing more than offering him something he’d wanted. His own weakness, the demon’s opportunity. That had been all that had been necessary.

Nightmare, for all that he was said to be extremely powerful, was nothing but a demon at heart. It wanted to play with the Inquisitor. With Hawke, considering the size of the grave – and the moment he’d hacked the top off the Inquisitor’s grave, he started in on Hawke’s – and with anyone associated with either of them. It didn’t want anyone messing with its toys.

He grabbed Cole’s arm as the ground shook harder. “We only have so much time,” he said, btu the spirit was already moving. Its skin felt almost brittle. It wasn’t until Cole started running that he realized that the spirit was trembling.

Fenris hurried after him, running alongside the water so they left prints in the sand. The spirit was fast, though it made sure not to outrun Fenris – staying with him, just in case he encountered a battle. Fenris kept an errant eye on the kid. He didn’t know why he didn’t hate the kid as much as he should. He hated demons. He hated most magic. He didn’t trust spirits.

Well, except for one. It had earned his respect with its absolute dedication to Azzan’s safety and wellbeing. Though he’d learned over the years how narrow its understanding sometimes was in accordance to humans or what they needed, it had never wavered in its protective nature. More than once, Azzan’s life had been held by a thread, and it had been that very spirit that had saved him. Fenris had learned a grudging respect for the thing as years passed, and then, finally, an acceptance. It had been hard won, and so far, he had found no other creature like it to give such respect to. Even now, he didn’t think he had. This creature was not something he trusted.

But it was helping him get Azzan back. Respect? Acceptance? Or just tolerance? He didn’t care. Any and all opinions could wait until Hawke was safely back home.

Cole led him around, taking him from the edge of the water up near the stalagmites, then curling back around. Fenris followed, trusting it before he understood that was even what he was doing. The spirit pushed him past a group of demons, leading him around them before they could do more than sense his presence and turn in his direction. Finally, the spirit stopped running back and forth and started leading them straight ahead. He hurried, as well. They’d only bought minutes at best – minutes that would have done nothing more than lead the demon away. Minutes that had already passed during their run.

Minutes. He hoped it was long enough to get to Hawke, to get them all out. If not… if not, he might have to do for Hawke what Hawke had done for him.

“No,” the spirit said, even as it led him up and down nearly flat terrain as if it already knew where it was going. “He wants to hurt us. He wants to hurt where he can see.”

Fenris’ hands clenched into fists. The very thought that he would be kept alive by the demon just so that it could drag them in front of Azzan and hurt them while Azzan had to watch. He wanted this demon dead, in a way he hadn’t felt since he’d left Kirkwall.

He used the hatred as fuel. The feel of it was familiar. Like his old armor.

Solas led the way. His mana was low, but even so, he had the best chance of shoving enemies out of the way or readying them with barriers. Behind him, the Seeker carried Kios, his body limp, the only sound from him being the drips as his blood continued to gush from his body, so copious it soaked the cloth and still fell. Every drip matched the racing of Varric’s heart as he hurried them forward, unsure of where to go but knowing they could not remain. Knowing they had no time.

Varric took point in the back, sniping off any demons that dared get too close as they ran for… they didn’t know. They didn’t have the one person who could lead them to Marshmallow, and unless they were incredibly lucky – which they had not been in the slightest so far – then they would find Nightmare with Hawke, just waiting to devour the lot of them.

They ended up going in a direction that set Varric’s hair on point. He looked around, noticing an increase in creepy green fog. “What in the name of Maferath’s hairy ball sack…”

Even with the thick fog, the outlines of the stalagmites could be seen. They’d joined together, creating countless jagged walls that breached the skyline. The floating rocks, if they still remained, weren’t visible through the thick soup of the fog. The fog was made worse by the creepy glowing crystals; they were just bright enough to lend a backdrop to the fog, granting it even creepier glowing green fog vibes. Varric eyed it all with a heart ready to jackhammer its way out of his chest and find its own way home. Solas, however, hardly seemed conscious of it; he barely noted the fog at all before continuing forward, staff at the ready.

Varric couldn’t even blame him. He and the Inquisitor had gotten into some sort of lover’s spat. They’d been tip-toeing around the inevitably turbulent fallout, both of them keeping to their self-imposed calm, not letting themselves air their grievances and just get on with the make-up sex. Varric didn’t envy anyone the feeling of losing the person they loved while they’d been in the middle of that kind of storm. To have Kios die thinking Solas was angry with him, thinking Solas perhaps never wanted to make things up between them… not to mention the whole ‘trapped in the Fade until their inevitable demise’ bit.

He hadn’t sen this place the last time he’d been here. He couldn’t tell if they were moving at any sort of incline or not; the further they went, the deeper into the fog they got. The walls on either side of them grew. He could hardly see the sky anymore. The crystals became more numerous. He kept looking at them, half expecting one of them to end up being wraiths or wisps. Maybe a couple of them were; he could have sworn he saw one of the lights flicker and move. But it didn’t attack them, didn’t so much as seek to show themselves. He looked up toward the front just in time to see Solas’ eyes glow – and another of those flickering lights darted away, apparently choosing a continued existence instead of facing Solas’ wrath.

Wow. All right. So Solas reacted to anguish with fury. Good to know.

The fog swirled around their ankles, creating spasms of light across the space – shadows that appeared and disappeared as the party moved. Varric could feel the ground beneath his feet, but for some reason, the fog barely felt like anything but heavy air. It’s wasn’t cold. It wasn’t warm. He wasn’t even sure it was real.

Cassandra grunted. His gaze locked on her in an instant, searching for an attacker. But all she was doing was rearranging the Inquisitor on her shoulder. The blood was still dripping, but much, much slower. Unable to help himself, he moved forward and reached up his hand to grab the elf’s neck. It was cold and clammy to the touch. He rested his thumb over the pulse point, his own heart pounding so hard and fast he feared getting a bad read. It was there, but slow. So slow. “Shit,” he said.

“This place has no demons,” Solas said, hurrying forward. He didn’t look back, but anyone could tell what Varric’s curse meant. Cassandra shifted Kios again and trudged after him, leaving Varric at the back to hobble up again. He looked around. The mage was probably right. Though the lights of the crystals kept shooting weird shapes of light through the fog, he didn’t think he saw any of them moving anymore.

Varric looked behind them, unsurprised to see a few of the lights blocking their path back. As if watching them. “Uh, I think we’re popular,” he said, pointing back before hoisting Bianca back up. Even his lovely lady couldn’t keep away the shudder that traced down his spine. “Where are we going?”

“There are only a few places left empty of demons,” Solas said. “Most are owned by the stronger denizens of this world.” If only he could have said demons, which sounded scary but not as scary as ‘denizens of this world.’ “Those that are not are Nightmare’s private domain. Since I have seen wisps leading to this place, it is likely that this is one of Nightmare’s private areas. The number of wisps and wraiths means these remnants have not yet sidled away from here. Which means this area was cleared out recently. Nightmare fed on anyone who entered this area until the other demons learned to stay away. This fog is likely the last pieces of the bodies Nightmare pulled apart.”

Varric blanched. “Oh, ugh!”

Varric danced back, only to watch the fog swirl around him harder at the movement. He felt bile rise in his throat. They were walking through spirit entrails. Oh, Maker. Gross.

Cassandra barely did more than frown, of course. She just kept on walking through it like it was no big deal. Varric shuddered. Was this what could happen to the kid? Could he end up like this if Nightmare caught up to him and Fenris – Fenris who, even though he should have a straight line of access to Hawke, had not yet arrived here – and the demon decided to eat the little guy?

Neither Solas nor Cassandra seemed particularly concerned. And, okay, yeah, there were far more important things to worry about. Like the person they already knew was dying. So Varric girded himself and pressed onward, shivering with every step, imagining walking through something a bit heavier, a bit thicker, and a lot goopier. He wrinkled his nose.

The cliffs around them kept them moving back and forth, left and right, following a path that led to so many dead ends Varric was ready to try climbing the walls. An actual, physical labyrinth. This place sucked.

He was about to ask Solas if he couldn’t just punch the walls open with magic when suddenly Solas stopped. Cassandra reacted quickly enough, the hand on Kios tightening as she halted mid-step. Varric, however, banged into her leg. “Solas?” Cassandra asked.

Solas lowered his staff, seeming almost to sag upon it. “We’re here.”

Varric raced ahead, heedless of the thin path or the strategic line-up. He squirmed past Solas as he stared down – because yes, they were on an incline, which explained the pain in his calves – into a carved-out bowl of a space that looked literally carved into the walls, leaving them curved at an edge for that perfectly circular feel. Demons and their circles.

Right in the middle, suspended on the only rock in the middle of the emptied area, was Hawke.

The rock walls turned into an outright cliff, leaving Fenris and Cole nothing more than a slim path of rock. Ahead, the path turned into a sharp incline, rising up into the green sky. Cole stilled.

Fenris tilted his head. He couldn’t hear anything. The demon had to be aware that their goal was Hawke; it was able to hear their fears, after all, so it had to know that Fenris feared not reaching Hawke in time, or finding him, only to learn that Hawke had been too badly changed by his time in the Fade. Knowing those fears, along with the knowledge of the link between Fenris and Hawke, meant it would head straight back to Hawke the instant it found no one in the graveyard. “How much time?” he asked the spirit.

It shook its head. “He’s going back. The others took too long.”

The spirit shifted from foot to foot, its shoulders hunched. Fenris frowned. Cole’s actions held all the hallmarks of someone with something even more concerning on their minds. “If we could rely on them to keep the demon busy, we’d just go get Hawke ourselves. Perhaps I should…”

Cole shook his head. “Hurting, hunted, haunted. They have to reach the healbird or else the hurt will heal too late.”

Fenris jerked as if shot. The name Cole used for Hawke. It was the same one Faith used. He’d thought that was just Faith’s name for him. Did every spirit call Hawke ‘Healbird?’ Was that their name for him? Did they not use the names people actually owned?

Cole looked back at him, frowning. “You can feel him, too,” he said. “I hear the hurt. It’s… screaming. He’s screaming. His friend is screaming, too. I can hear Faith calling his name.”

Fenris flinched. “Hawke?” His voice was barely a whisper. He had to clear it to make it louder. “Hawke is screaming?” He listened. Obviously, he couldn’t hear anything. The thrum of the makeshift bond was pulling him to the left – beyond the cliff walls to somewhere else entirely. He couldn’t help but look toward it, even though all he could see was rock.

“I can hear it,” Cole said, the words seeming like they were pulled from somewhere beyond his throat. “You feel. I hear.”

Fenris gave up on understanding. All that mattered was that the spirit was saying Hawke was in pain. “And the others? Where are they? Why haven’t they found Hawke yet?” How many places were there to search?

Cole shifted back and forth. “They have. He’s coming.”

The demon was returning to where Hawke was. That was what Cole had said. Damn it. “All right.” He stepped forward, taking his place in front of the spirit. The thin path opened up as he continued up the incline. The place it opened into was huge, easily the biggest area he’d seen so far. He looked around as the spirit ran out in front of him all over again. “Hey.”

“Hurry,” was all the thing said. It ran to the other side of the large, open, unprotected area. Fenris muttered under his breath as he hurried after the kid. He expected resistance, or at least evidence that he would meet it. But nothing. He looked around again as he made it to the kid’s side. “What are we doing here?”

The kid just pointed at the ground. Fenris looked, then raised a single brow. A couple of those strange, glowing crystals sat there, but unlike the others, they were tiny. He raised his sword. “Do you want me to destroy them or something?”

“He likes them,” was its explanation. “They replaced the bright light of the anchor when it left.” Whatever that meant. If these stupid crystals mattered to the demon, then that alone was a good enough reason for him. He jammed his sword between two of the crystal protrusions and watched them crack apart.

This time when the ground shook, he was ready for it. He turned to the spirit. “How long?”

It shrugged. “Fury, frustration, fetters unfurling. He’s angry.” The spirit looked to the left – the same direction Hawke was in. Perhaps this entire time, Cole was leading them, not around the smaller demons, but around Nightmare itself. “He’s mad, and mad that we’re making him mad.”

“Then we need to get to Hawke,” Fenris decided, his heart tripping in his chest. A distraction or two could work for a time, but the diversion only lasted as long as the rage. Once reason settled back in, the enemy would go back to their main target. He needed to get Hawke somewhere else. They couldn’t waste any more time hoping the others might be able to reach Hawke. Hoping their separated team would work as a cohesive unit.

He started running. Cole quickly came up beside him, yanking or shoving at his arm when the spirit wanted him moving one way or another. Other than heeding those wordless orders, Fenris ignored everything around him.

In Tevinter, the people he and Hawke had recruited or helped had become a single unit, even when apart. Certainly, he could say part of it might have been due to that strange bond thing Solas had mentioned, but he was certain it also had to do with the complete trust they had in each other, the understanding of their unified goal, and the foreknowledge to have planned for when things went horribly wrong.

They absolutely should have planned for things to go horribly wrong.

The thought nearly made him trip as he hurried toward the other end of the string tugging at his chest. The walls of rock grew higher as they traveled, pulling the paths into one narrow line, twining around and around as if seeking out some space between the rocks. As if he was walking into an emerging canyon. The ground became cloudy in his sight. He looked down to see a sort of mist around his ankles. It was flushed as green as everything else in this damnable place.

A rough arm reached out across his chest and slammed him into the rock wall to his right. His head banged off the rough surface. He raised his sword and activated his lyrium.

“Shh!” Cole said, nearly in his ear. The boy’s hat brushed against his hair. He froze. “He’s here. Don’t think about him. He’ll hear you.”

The words made Fenris look around. Nothing but rock. His gaze moved almost of its own volition above the rock wall, toward the pale green sky above.

His eyes widened.

When he’d thought of the demon Nightmare, he’d thought of a giant pride demon, or fear demon. He’d thought of the creature Varric had said he’d seen – a giant spider. He’d thought many things, most of them grisly or slobbering – a thousand-foot tall tarantula, or perhaps a smaller, more poisonous member of the arachnid family.

He had never imagined seeing the flying form of Danarius.

His breath froze in his chest. Every muscle stilled, trying its damnedest to not be noticed, to not have Danarius turn and see. He closed his eyes. The demon – the spirit, Cole – had warned him not to think about it lest it learn he could see it. If it heard him, if it knew…

Azzan. Think of Azzan.

He scrunched his eyes closed and thought of Azzan. With thoughts of Danarius right there, of course the first thing that popped into his head was that day. The day when Fenris had arranged to meet his sister in The Hanged Man and had just finished speaking with Aveline, who had told him everything was clear. He remembered Azzan walking in, his brows scrunched, having clearly heard the tail end of his argument with the woman. Fenris had dumped everything on him – because Fenris had always done so, and Azzan had always helped him carry it. Without question.

This time, just like every other time, Azzan had shored him up. Without needing to know if Fenris’ fears were unfounded or not, he agreed to go with him to the tavern. The feel of Hawke by his side had settled something inside him, something deeper than worry or fear. Hawke hadn’t hesitated. They’d gone straight to the tavern, their only stop Hawke’s place so he could grab a few potions, since he hadn’t expected to head into a potential fight when coming to visit Fenris that day.

His mind jumped ahead, to the moment when Hawke had grabbed his shoulder and told him they needed to get out of there. He hadn’t understood. He hadn’t seen it. He’d been nervous, excited, surprised, rolling in the idea of having actually met family, of finding images and knowledge pressing into the blank, black spots in his brain, filling the lost abyss of his past. Hawke had been the one to catch the signs. He’d spoken to Azzan over and over again about that moment, about the fear he’d heard in Hawke’s voice. Azzan had admitted to thinking of nothing at the moment save sparing Fenris. His fear had been for Fenris. He hadn’t thought of anything else.

Hawke’s fear had affected his own. And then he’d shown himself. He’d been stuck in place, just like now. Frozen in terror. He’d snarled at his sister, barked at Danarius like lost dog. The more Danarius spoke, the more Fenris felt trapped. Cornered. My pet, Danarius had called him, and he’d been struck speechless by those words alone. And then when the man had turned to Hawke, called the mage his new master… The more Danarius taunted him, mocked him, spoken with such calm confidence and aplomb – as if just by finding Fenris he had reclaimed him. Maker, he’d been so angry. And so afraid.

In the middle of all of that, as Fenris’ world crashed down around him, Azzan had stepped forward, lifted his chin, and told Danarius straight to his face that no one owned Fenris. Azzan told Fenris’ old master that Fenris was not a slave.

That was right. When Fenris had needed him, Hawke had been there. Without question. Every time. And because of that, Danarius was dead, Fenris was free, and he was leading a rebel army through Tevinter, freeing others the way Hawke had helped him free himself.

Hawke.

Maker.

Hawke.

Nightmare took on the form of Danarius to Fenris’ eyes. Azzan had been trapped here for nearly a week. What had he been forced to see? Whose face? What taunts? Fenris came up with too many ideas, each worse than the last. Nightmare hadn’t just shown Azzan vision – he himself was one, an endless attack on the psyche. And that vision of Danarius – it had been heading left. His eyes opened, widening in horror. The skyline before him was clear. The place was so silent, Fenris could hear the soft shush of the wind as it hushed around the edges of the rock face.

Nightmare was heading back toward Hawke.

Chapter Text

Cole covered his ears just as Fenris stepped forward. “Danarius!”

Fenris let his rage and fury burst free in his mind. He let his fear of Danarius stiffen his muscles and accelerate his heartbeat. He thought of that one moment when Danarius stepped down into the main tavern room and ran that second over and over and over again in his mind. Cole whimpered.

Fenris couldn’t feel anything. But he knew, without a doubt, that Nightmare could hear him.

“He’s coming,” Cole whispered, as if keeping his voice down still had any chance whatsoever of saving them.

“Good,” Fenris said. He gazed at the sky, held out his sword, and prepared to fight.

“No, no, no, no.” Cole grabbed his arm and yanked on it, trying to dislodge him from his spot. Fenris glared at the spirit. “Dead. You’ll die. You can’t. It’s the healbird’s fear. It’s what he wants. Your body, limp, lacking, lifeless, to drop on the ground at the healbird’s feet. To give him reality worse than dreams.”

Fenris gritted his teeth. He rounded on the diminutive creature. “Then what am I supposed to do?!”

“Run,” the spirit said, as if it was obvious.

“It will know I’m wasting its time!” he hissed. “I will not lose this chance.”

Cole shifted from foot to foot. He looked to the sky, then further into the mist. Finally, he looked back to Fenris. “Anger lures, but not long. Come.” Cole moved toward the fog. Toward where Fenris could feel Hawke’s presence. Fenris did not move. “It’s angry. Amused. Anticipating. It knows. It must doubt.”

Fenris bristled at the words. He didn’t understand them for a long time, only knew that the spirit was trying to lead him from the cause of protecting Hawke and the others. Then its words registered, and he bristled all over again. “You want me to lead the demon in there to make it think we’re on our way to save Hawke?” He shook his head. “It knows we are! It will just go back to guarding him!”

Cole grabbed his arm and yanked. Fenris had to allow the tug or else cleave the idiot creature in two. He seriously considered it. “Run toward, as if to meet, then away, as if to escape.”

This time, Fenris caught on faster. He moved a couple of quick steps forward, then let Cole yank him back. Then again, and then finally, he cursed out loud and started running. Away from the fog. Away from Hawke. Away from Nightmare and the form he had taken to taunt Fenris. “This isn’t going to work,” he muttered. He couldn’t help turning toward the fog. Azzan.

“Around, around, around,” the little spirit muttered, its crooked teeth the only facial feature Fenris could make out beneath the hat. He looked over his shoulder and saw Danarius. Cole gasped. “Run, run, run,” he said, and yanked so hard Fenris nearly lost his balance. They moved around a stalagmite and started booking it. Fenris heard a whooshing sound, felt the wind shift. Something to his right exploded. Cole ran faster.

At first, they dodged back and forth among the stalagmites, each smaller and thinner than the last. Cole hopped over a ruined statue, ignoring the bridge that rose to their left to stare off to their right, where the stalagmites tapered off into a thin area enclosed in oddly blackened rock. “That’s exposed, too,” Fenris said, his own gaze spanning out before them. The stalagmites turned to boulders, then to mere rubble. They were heading back toward the water, where cliff’s edges forced them into a nearly linear path. Also exposed.

There was nowhere left to run.

“Move with me,” Cole said, and yanked Fenris forward. Toward the bare stretch of land that led to the strange black rocks.

“What are you doing?!” Fenris asked. He watched as Cole weaved to the left, then to the right. Fenris barely followed after him before two explosions rocked the earth where they would have stood. His eyes widened. The spirit was predicting where the demon was going to attack.

He focused solely on moving with Cole as closely as possible. He heard his name shouted – the unmistakable, snarling bark Danarius pulled only when Fenris was about to be punished – and felt a shiver race up his spine. It was instinctive. He hated it. Hated how it was being used here. Cole’s fingers gripped his own more tightly. “This way,” the spirit panted. Fenris glanced forward just long enough to see Cole moving them into a sliver of a hole within the dark wall before them.

“Why here?” he asked. They’d been beside this beach before. He didn’t remember going toward these rocks. He didn’t even remember seeing them.

“Distraction,” was all the spirit said. All it had time for, as Cole rolled suddenly forward, their hands forced to part as Fenris followed the spirit’s movement. Instead of reaching for him again, the spirit darted forward, into the cavity of the wall. Fenris was forced to rush in, as well, or risk losing step with the spirit. The area was tight, so enclosed Fenris felt his shoulders scrape the sides as he rushed to breach the small gap. Cole did not slow down once inside, and Fenris was forced to race forward a few steps when his attempt to catch his breath was cut off. His sword scraped loudly against the rock wall.

Behind him, he heard a thunderous crack. The rock on either side of him shook. Dust spilled into his hair. “Faster, faster, faster, faster,” Cole mumbled, pumping his legs as hard as he could. Fenris followed as best as he was able; his shoulders burned to bleeding within a few steps, the rough bedrock shaving off his skin and setting his markings aflame. His sword banged and scraped with every step, so loudly his ears rang.

He didn’t have time to look back, but from the fact that his sword banged louder and rocked back and forth on his back more with each step, until his shoulders no longer scraped against the sides and the dust had turned into a near avalanche of pebbles and stones that threatened to scratch open his scalp, Nightmare was not done pursuing them. He ran as fast as he could, somehow never catching up with the spirit in front of him. The spirit whose hat stayed implausibly on his head, its edges flapped up against the sides of the rock and scraping in time with Fenris’ sword.

The world had turned dark the instant they’d entered the crevice, but just beyond Cole, he could see a bright ray of light. Cole was obviously aiming for that, trying to get them there before the rock around them was torn apart entirely.

“Fenris!”

He snarled. Danarius’ voice reverberated across the chamber. Without looking, Cole reached back and whacked Fenris’ hip. He didn’t need the reminder. Danarius was dead.

Then Cole whacked him again, and he understood what the spirit was trying to tell him. They breached the edge of the rock just as something whistled in the wind behind him. He dodged to the side Cole had smacked him in, tucking himself in and adjusting for the wide, flat surface of his blade. Something slammed into the ground behind him, causing the ground to shake as much as the rock they’d just run through. He pushed himself back to his feet.

On the other side of the rock, a giant fear demon stood up on the arachnid legs on its back, far longer than those of any fear demon he’d seen thus far. One of those legs had stabbed right where they’d come out.

Behind them, Danarius roared.

“Run, run, run,” Cole said, already moving further away, back along the edge of the rock wall on this side. Fenris barely got to look around within the suddenly wide expanse before he had to follow Cole. The fear demon slashed at them again before sending its spider children after them.

Fenris pulled out his sword, only to look around again and see the light around them was nothing more than torchlight. Above them, in a giant dome, was more of that black rock. “What is this place?” he gasped. A spider scuttled beneath his legs. He swiped his sword along the ground, stopping it from tripping him up. It split into two.

“Right,” Cole said and jumped to the right. Fenris mirrored his movement.

A slice of blue-green magic cut through the ground beneath their feet, inches to Fenris’ left. The heat singed the hairs on his arm, nearly caught his hair on fire. He sucked in a breath hotter than the summer sun and turned. Danarius entered, floating – no. He entered on the backs of corpses he’d risen, corpses that looked like Qunari. Qunari with distinctive markings. Fog warriors. He stiffened.

Nightmare had created a nightmare from his fears worse than anything he’d ever cooked up on his own.

“Hug the wall!” Cole said. Fenris practically choked as a hand reached out and snatched the back of his vest, yanking him up against the side of the wall. His back bounced on the rock just beside Cole, who hugged it to his chest. Fenris leaned up against the cool, dark rock, flattening his fingers against its rough surface.

“You will pay, pet!” Danarius shouted, and another long line of blue-green shot out from his fingers. The fearlings burned to a crisp in its wake.

The words were so familiar, Fenris thought they were meant for him. As he watched Danarius, however, he saw the giant, carcass-riding form turn to the fear demon. It looked back, its chin high. “My domain,” it hissed. Its voice bounced in a million different directions, reverberating on multiple tones simultaneously. Like the buzzing of an insect’s wings. “Tiny, hidden. They come in, enter my web. My prey.”

“Not these,” Danarius said, his voice smooth and silky, as it always was before he stood before an altar and played. Fenris’ breath stilled in his chest, his mind tracing back over the years and years of moments he’d spent watching Danarius toy with his sacrifices.

“Move,” Cole whispered, his breath tickling the hair at Fenris’ ear. Cole nudged his side. He swallowed back a grunt.

The dome only had one entrance, and at the moment, it was guarded rather effectively by Danarius. His heart pounded a sharp beat straight up into his throat.

“No fear. It feeds on fear. Dread means death.”

He closed his eyes and forced himself to think about Danarius’ throat beneath his fingers. His claws digging in. The crunch of Danarius’ hyoid, the squish of muscles as they snapped beneath his fingers. The squelch of blood. The look on Azzan’s face when Fenris charged away from the tavern, the tension in his shoulders when he went to see Fenris and waited for Fenris to say he was going to leave.

He opened his eyes. Danarius could no longer harm him. Even if he could, there was something more important at stake.

He hurried then, only pausing when Cole hissed – the fear demon slammed a glyph on the ground an inch from Fenris’ foot that made them lose time for frozen, horrible seconds, in which Cole started mumbling under his breath and bouncing up and down on his legs. Fenris calmed the spirit with a hand over its chest. Once they could move again, they once more headed around the dome.

Fenris couldn’t say what the point of this venture was. They still needed to return the way they’d come, and Nightmare had yet to move from its bloated position between the rock walls. Worse, whenever Fenris tried to look at the demon, his vision shifted into a haze of nonsense – Danarius upon the corpses of those Fenris had murdered turned into the broken corpse of Azzan, his eyes not unlike Leandra’s had been, then into nothing more than a giant spider. It flickered into a dozen more things – the corpses of his rebel forces, a giant fear demon, and then, once more, back into Danarius. He gritted his teeth and ignored it as much as possible.

The fear demon screeched in a tone so high it made Fenris’ skin vibrate. “Use it, use it, use it,” Cole stated to chant, once more bobbing up and down like a buoy. Fenris dared watch the battle before them. The fear demon fell back, once more using its spider legs to maneuver around, dodging another streak of blue-green – no, just green, he saw as it changed its form from Danarius to that giant spider again – and pockmarked the rock five paces behind Cole. Cracks chipped along the black surface.

“Is that what we need?” he whispered. Cole shook his head.

“I will kill you,” Nightmare said suddenly, and it snapped back into the form of Danarius. “All of you, save the elf. Him, I will carry back to his lover and drop his bloody form at the healer’s feet. I will let him choose whether or not to save you. Which do you think he will choose? You, or the world?”

Fenris’ palms broke out into a sweat. He could not let that happen. Hawke would never forgive himself for either choice. Let Fenris die? Or let the world die? He could picture it perfectly. Hawke staring down at him, body rigid. Fenris, broken, ordering him not to heal him. Hawke, head bowed. Defeated. Because it wouldn’t matter. Whether Hawke healed him or not, the result would be the same. Either Hawke healed Fenris and left himself and his spirit vulnerable to Nightmare’s predation, or he let Fenris die and had his spirit broken, leaving him easy prey.

He couldn’t let it happen. He didn’t know what Cole had been hoping for, but if it didn’t happen–

“Yes,” Cole hissed quietly, just as the fear demon disappeared from in front of him.

Danarius roared. It was a sound Fenris had never heard from that voice before. The magister – the demon – looked around, up to the ceiling, then behind. Cole nudged him moving again. “Dare you to hide from me? To think you can avoid my wrath?! You are in my domain! You remain only so long as I allow it! And you leave only as I allow it!”

Fenris’ eyes widened. The battle had only lasted for a short while, but the fear demon had apparently decided to cut its losses. Which was exactly what Cole had been hoping for?

Yes. Because Danarius was turning to look behind himself, then slowly scanning the area they’d run into, his gaze roaming toward the other side. They could slip right past him.

The pile of corpses at Danarius’ feet was solid, however. Fenris stopped before the demon, unsure, only for Cole to slip around him and… disappear. He reappeared on Nightmare’s other side, only the brim of his hat and his arm visible around the pile of bodies composing Nightmare’s illusory flesh. He held up one dagger and scratched the wall by his left. Something hissed.

Danarius turned to it, and Cole returned to his side. He grabbed Fenris’ wrist and tugged. As he did, the corpses moved just enough to allow them to squeeze past. Fenris held his breath as they did, then rucked his sword back into place on his back. He held it tight as he ran, letting his elbow scrape against the wall to avoid the sword giving them away.

Then they ran.

“You thought to run?” Fenris stiffened, but Cole didn’t so much as twitch. Still, he couldn’t help but look back.

Danarius lifted the fear demon with a single hand, his fingers curling so deep into the thing’s throat that it couldn’t make a sound. Fenris’ mind flashed on that moment when he’d held Danarius’ own throat in his fingers. Seeing it like this, he felt nothing but a sick churning in his gut.

“I gave you a domain. I let you lick the entrails of those I feasted upon. You have forgotten who your master is.”

Fenris turned away. He didn’t need to see more.

He didn’t think he breathed until they were clear of the rock entirely. The sounds that came from behind him made bile rise in the back of his throat. He swallowed it gustily and ignored the burn on his esophagus. “Now what?” he rasped.

“We go back,” Cole said. The spirit’s voice was a bit breathless, more tense than Fenris had heard before, even as they’d been chased by Nightmare. “He is suspended without you. Trapped. Helpless.”

“What?” Fenris pushed his legs to move faster. Behind them, he could hear Danarius roar once more. The demon must have realized he stood alone. “Why? What’s happening?”

“The world is an illusion,” Cole said, suddenly going philosophical instead of explaining. “It’s a mask. Even he is. Nothing is real.”

Fenris didn’t understand, but he didn’t have to. All he had to do was run faster.

So he did.

The Champion’s arms were twisted into the rock, sunken in as if the rock was nothing more than clay. They held his hands together above his head and kept his body high enough that his ankles could also sink into the stone and hold him above the ground.

What was more important to Solas was the magic that sparked around Hawke, shielding him from any outside influence. The barrier the demon had created would not be easily breached.

Perhaps most importantly, Hawke’s head hung low, his greasy hair falling on either side of his cheeks, no longer held back from his face with the hairtie he’d usually worn. Other than the slow rise and fall of his chest, the Champion did not move. He was unconscious.

Solas’ gaze slid over to Cassandra. The Seeker slipped carefully down the curved edges of the stone pit Nightmare had carved for its prisoner. Solas watched as Kios’ hair dangled over the Seeker’s back. Blood dripped sluggishly from Kios’ wound. Slowing down, not because the wound was closing, but because he was running out of blood to lose. His skin, always pale, always tinted slightly gray, looked now like that of a corpse. Solas wouldn’t be surprised if he placed his hand against that skin and found it cold.

He barely paid attention to the surrounding area as he slipped down the edge and came around Cassandra’s side, his gaze locked on Kios as if eye contact alone could keep his soul inside his body. He looked back up at Hawke. Hawke was their only chance. A spirit healer would be able to save Kios. But he was unconscious, his state unknown. Could they even wake him up and explain the situation in time? Could Hawke reliably use his and his spirit’s mana in time to effectively treat Kios?

Solas’ fingers shook around his staff. If he couldn’t, then Kios would be lost to him. Lost to the world. Let alone how devastating it would be to lose the Inquisitor, the one man who could battle against the rifts and Corypheus both. Solas would lose the man he’d fallen in love with. The mortal who had reawakened the life inside of him.

If Kios died here, like this, Solas realized, his last thought would be that Solas had betrayed and killed him. His last sight would be of Solas killing him.

All because he had hesitated to tell Kios the truth.

The mist swirled idly above them, sinking around the edges of the makeshift cliff and pooling, softer and thinner, at their feet. He stared mindlessly at the expanse around him, the green-tinted sky and the hard, rocky, barren earth beneath their feet, his heart twisting and flipping in his chest.

He had let this happen. With his fear, with his desire for secrets. Not only had he allowed Kios to believe he was in league with Corypheus all this time, he had chosen once again to hold to his mysteries instead of putting Kios first.

It was what he’d chosen to do in Crestwood, as well. To place the security of the elves’ restoration above anything or anyone he personally cared about. But this? This wasn’t what he’d intended. As always, his best efforts always ended in catastrophe for others. His people. The world. His love. How many times was he going to get it wrong?

If Kios died like this…

He could still remember the look on Kios’ face when he’d believed Solas had turned on him. The way the man had smiled. The complete lack of surprise. The pinched brows and downward tilt of his head, so reminiscent of those first few times they had scened together. The moments that said Kios did not believe in himself. That said Kios believed himself too strange, too creepy, too freakish, to ever be able to be loved.

Kios believing Solas to be cruel and heartless and manipulative was painful, but something he might have been able to endure. Certainly, allowing Kios to believe such things about him had placed Kios in danger, and that would have needed to somehow be rectified. But he could have survived it.

This, however. Solas watched as Cassandra carefully placed Kios down upon the foggy terrain, watched how Kios’ brows pulled low in pain, and he gripped his staff tight enough to make the wood creak. This was untenable. Even if he could somehow ensure Kios’ safety in the future – something that was not certain, considering Kios’ new penchant for jumping into the Fade – he still faced Kios returning to the way he’d been before. Believing himself broken and unlovable.

Solas would accept every sin Kios cast upon him, but he would not accept Kios returning to condemning himself.

When he’d wondered, earlier, if it would have been kinder to let Kios continue to believe the lie, it had been his own cowardice speaking. None of this was a kindness.

He could make excuses, tell himself that he needed to ensure he was able to return to Skyhold and face Corypheus, that he needed to retrieve his orb from the bastard. He could pretend it was all for his own goals.

But Kios was pale, and his breaths were weak, and all of it would be a lie.

Ir enfenim, Kios has said. It had been his plea. Solas had sworn to always answer it. Tel’enfenim. Do not fear. Solas would protect him when he was vulnerable. That was his job, his duty, as Kios’ dom. And it was his pleasure, as well.

He loved Kios too much to let this continue. In the end, Solas simply did not want Kios to believe that Solas would ever, ever want to cause him harm.

He tested the barrier. Like several others, it used elemental magic to keep others away. Unlike most barriers made on their side of the Veil, however, it was spiritual magic that kept Hawke walled within Nightmare’s grasp. It was largely what he himself used. He could attempt entropy magic, but he worried about his depleted mana source. He opened his mouth to call for the Seeker, but she came to his side without prompting. She, too, raised her hand to the barrier. “I can take care of this,” she said. “Stay with the Inquisitor.”

He needed no second prompting.

Varric nearly fell down the edge as Solas knelt beside Kios, his hands shaking once again as he placed his hands back on Kios’ body. He was not completely cold to the touch, but he was distressingly cool. When he put pressure against Kios’ wound, blood no longer pooled against his hands, and Kios did not wince in pain. He had to move one hand up Kios’ chest to his throat, barely relieved to feel a heartbeat beneath his fingers. It was sluggish and threadbare. Solas could already tell he would soon feel it cease. Despite his exhaustion and lack of skill, he pooled all of his mana left to him to try to save him.

“Marshmallow!”

Solas turned to see Cassandra move bodily to block Varric from the barrier. Varric just scooted around her, though he did not reach for the barrier again. “Marshmallow!” he said again, calling up into that slackened face. “It’s me! The Inquisitor let the Elf’s madness infect him, and he brought us all here to this pit to come get you. It’s really us, and we really, really need you to open your eyes. Come on, now.”

The Champion did not respond.

Solas looked back up at the human, really taking in the man above him. Beyond the greasy hair clumping together as it fell over his cheeks, dark circles bracketed his eyes, and his skin, usually tan, looked to be becoming sallow. If he’d been laying on a bed, Solas would still have recognized him as unwell. Suddenly he wondered if he could awaken.

Cassandra held up her hand. It sparkled slightly, as if the fog had left dew upon the tiny pieces of armor curled over her fingers and palm. Templars, including Seekers, had no magic, but their skills sometimes looked similar. Not surprising, since said skills came from either lyrium or a spirit. The power of the spirit within Cassandra reached out, feeling for the warding around the Champion. The moment the two magics touched, the Fade trembled and hissed. The air sparked as if the magics had nearly started a flame. The fog pushed away as if startled.

Cassandra gritted her teeth. “Nightmare will know what we are doing. We must prepare.”

Solas didn’t move from Kios’ side. Varric merely squished closer to the Seeker, his gaze trapped on the Champion’s face. “Marshmallow! Come on, we’re in a bit of a bind, here!”

The warding warped beneath Cassandra’s palm. Like a ripple, the warping branched out from this center. When it reached the edge, the magic holding it in place seemed to crack. The warbling increased until, like a bubble popping, it snapped and crashed into nothing.

Cassandra stumbled back, letting out a loose breath. Perspiration beaded her brow.

Varric, on the other hand, raced forward that further step, reaching his hands up to the Champion as if he could pull the man down. Those fingers dug into the stone around Hawke’s ankles. Finding the surface to be just as ungiving as stone on their side of the Veil, Varric’s fingers scraped until his nail broke. “Come on, Hawke! We need you!”

Cassandra put her hand on Varric’s shoulder, her lips twisting, her brows pulled low. Her throat worked, trying to find the words to say Hawke likely could not hear him. Varric shrugged her hand off. “Hawke!”

Against that rough rock wall, the Champion’s body moved.

Solas raised his head, his breath catching in his chest. The Champion was waking. Then maybe Kios could be…

The Champion’s muscles bunched, his arms clearly trying to move from their imprisonment before the human found them trapped. His eyes fluttered open, the shadows of his eyelashes as long as tear tracks on his cheeks. Even opened, they remained heavy-lidded, his body seeming to sag even further as he looked out upon them. Chapped lips cracked open.

“Suck on Maferath’s arse,” Azzan Hawke said, his voice little more than a broken whisper. “You will not have me, demon.”

Chapter Text

Once, in that lifetime before he learned there were words for those like him, words like ‘sex-averse’ and ‘submissive,’ he had been at ease with his brokenness. He had led his people with confidence. When they’d needed to move elsewhere, his had been the finger that pointed them to their new destination. When orders had traveled through the aravel, his tongue had been the one to first speak the words. His people respected him. No one insulted him for his hair or his skin. In fact, in this aravel, other than his eyes, his body had been almost normal.

He had found his place. Certainly, there had been things missing, specifically a desire to be in a relationship that also had nowhere to go. And there had always been this confusion over what he was, what was wrong with him. But he had been able to push all of that back, until it didn’t matter anymore.

He had been content. It had been enough.

Now, in pain, the world nothing but black and red, swirls of color and patches of darkness that seemed to drag him into some deep, endless pit, he could only think that he had been dead, and it had been good.

Compared to who he was now, he knew now why Keeper Istamaethoriel had always looked so concerned as she’d watched him lead the people in evening lore or given directions to their scouts or checked over their crop yield. He had lived every day only to finish his tasks and return to sleep. His idea of contentment had been real, but the ideas of joy and fury and despair had been beyond him. In refusing to reach out, he had refused to allow others to reach.

Then Solas, in the middle of the chaos that had become his life, had remarked on his “indomitable focus,” and Kios, despite himself, had been proud that someone had seen his hard work in mastering his magic despite his physical limitations. He would never forget the way his body had quaked as Solas spoke on how him being dominated would be a fascinating sight. Nor how, after his body flushed with heat and his body stirred for perhaps the first time in his life, Solas’ gaze had sharpened upon him.

Since then, he had been woken from his sleep, and his life had been torn apart piece by structured piece.

Now, as pain suffused him so greatly his every attempt to surface above its crest drowned him once more, he felt too much. Beyond even the agony of his body, the shock and horror of loving someone who had not hesitated to stab him through made him want to vomit. Yet the pain in his chest remained twofold, even as he told himself it was beyond time to let go.

These wounds would never have existed if he’d remained in his coffin.

Now, his body felt red. His chest felt red. The world, reduced to little more than a dot, spun on its axis, tilting him into the dirt. Heartache was fire, so hot it burned his chest into ash, ate through the very bones of his ribcage until every breath felt like inhaling the burning smoke. It was pain like he’d never felt before. He had no reason to accept these flames. No reason to reach for them.

Yet he wanted to see it. The look upon Solas’ face as he watched him die. He needed that last answer. As he’d hesitated to kill Solas, still hoping foolishly that Solas would see reason, would hesitate. That something in the man would see Kios and find something he could not allow himself to lose. And then pain, and darkness, and the knowledge that he was going to die, and that he had let it happen. He needed to know.

He opened his eyes.

This time when they came upon the thick white fog and the maze of rocky corridors, Cole hurried them both inside.

Fenris barely penetrated the edges of the fog before he came upon wall after wall of earth and rock and the odd metal that often formed sculptures of birds or other animals, as if someone had deigned to live in this hellhole at some point. Cole grabbed his wrist and yanked, hard, stirring up the fog beneath their feet until it swam up between them, impeding his vision. Just behind him, something crashed. Fenris held Cole’s hand tight and kept running. “Behind us?” he gasped, demanding his feet move faster and wishing they had the stamina left to do so.

“Yes.”

The spirit didn’t bother with anything else. Fenris couldn’t hear approaching footsteps – the destruction had likely been due to the demon’s attack – but he knew the demon was after him. He was the key to destroying Hawke. Nightmare had already proven itself to be more powerful than he; the fear demon had been powerful enough that Fenris had resigned himself to a difficult battle, perhaps an impossible one. Nightmare had killed it in seconds.

They continued winding through the paths, Cole taking each turn even before Fenris found himself leaning in that direction. He hardly recognized the feeling anymore; these past hours with his heart tethered to Hawke – to Faith, technically – had already been enough time to acclimatize him to the feeling of something tugging at him. It wasn’t until the feeling grew that he realized Cole was unerringly leading him to Hawke, not simply running through the rocky maze wildly. Cole was listening to Fenris’ mind, hearing the desperate feeling inside Fenris’ heart, and responding.

Fenris had been right to allow himself to trust this creature. As much as he still felt goosebumps travel up his flesh whenever he thought about mages meeting with these things every night when they slept, he had to admit that, watching this small creature risking its life to reach Hawke, he could understand why Hawke and other mages might speak well of them sometimes.

“Thank you,” the little spirit known as Cole said, responding to his thoughts. The goosebumps returned.

Sculpture after sculpture lay in pieces along their path. What remained of their bases held cuts and claw marks that nearly tore the things from their stands deep inside the green-tinged earth. He kept staring at them as they passed, trying to parse out the story of these catacombs. What demons had fought for supremacy here?

“Nightmare.”

Fenris jerked. He reached for his sword before he realized the spirit wasn’t warning him of the approaching demon. “What?”

“Prize, possession, property. No one can touch but him. Keep sequestered, silent, suppressed. Demons demand, destroy, desire. If he’s loose, lifted, looted, he will escape. Kill himself, or be killed. Can’t let them near. Cadavers are caution.”

He shook his head. Once again, he was certain this was about Hawke, but he didn’t know exactly how. All his mind could hear was, kill himself. Hawke had considered killing himself? Fenris had to stop running, just for a second, the idea of such a thing so… so obvious, now, that he couldn’t believe how much the concept floored him. Of course, if Hawke believed there was no way out, he would consider it better to die than to empower his enemy. The enemy of the Inquisitor, the world – and of Fenris himself.

“He loves you. He called for you. You are the one who can call back to him.” Cole tugged on his hand. It wasn’t demanding, yet he could feel an urgency behind it, anyway. “The Inquisitor is dying. You need to wake Hawke up.”

Fenris scrubbed his face again. That was right. If Hawke thought there was no other escape save death, then Fenris would simply have to show him another path.

Hawke needed him. It was enough to make Fenris start moving again. A single step, however, and he had to stop again. Before Cole, taking up the thin space leading them further into the maze, were several demonic wisps. This time, he went so far as to unsheathe his sword before he realized these things hardly looked like the wisps he had battled against before time and again when fighting magisters and their demons. These things looked almost like they were melting.

“No time, no time,” Cole murmured. “Couldn’t hear, not enough left. No time…”

Nightmare behind them, wisps in front of them. “Cadavers as caution,” he said. “You were taking the fastest route, right?” The spirit nodded. “These things are corpses of their former selves, aren’t they?” Cole nodded again. Fenris grinned and shifted his stance. “Good. Then follow along behind me.”

If these things were corpses, then they were mindless. They stood in the way not because they meant to cause trouble, but because they had simply ended up there. The wisps barely managed to do anything; he watched them shuffle and writhe as if in agony, but they did not attack. Instead they merely stood in the way. It would be a struggle to get past them due to the number of them, but considering their small size, it was not too difficult.

For Nightmare, however, the number of these wisps would be an outright impediment. They would tangle his feet like webs.

Fenris cut a small line through the creatures and raced past, this time grabbing Cole’s hand when the spirit initially failed to run quickly enough at his back. Once the spirit caught up, Fenris let go and swung again.

Cutting a line through these things was a simple matter; though they had loose, wriggling appendages that had likely been the facsimile of arms, now they were little more than wet noodles flopping by the creatures’ sides. Instead of a clearly formed face, there was little more than a blob-like stump in the middle of the top of the things. Several slipped onto the ground or into the fog before he could do more than glance at them; more than once, he even thought he saw one break apart as if turning into steam. Around those creatures, the fog would seem to momentarily thicken.

After the first creature bumped into his side and nearly made him stumble into the swathes of remains he’d just carved a path through, Cole started stabbing any that came too close to him. It meant they lost a few more bodies to guard their backs, but they made slightly better time. With the spirit correcting him any time he almost turned down the wrong path, he could feel the connection with Hawke getting stronger and stronger. He was finally getting close.

Just a little longer, he wanted to shout. Wait for me. I’m coming.

I’m coming.

Varric’s brows rose so high they nearly flew off his forehead. “Did you just curse?”

“That’s not the important part of what he just said, Varric,” Cassandra said. Her voice rose and fell, rose and fell, as she struggled to decide whether to sound angry or consoling. Solas, however, could only think of Kios and what Hawke’s answer meant for him.

“He thinks we are hallucinations. A false image created by Nightmare to torment him.”

Varric’s nails scraped the rock so loudly Solas and Cassandra winced. “But we’re real. How do we prove that we’re real?”

The Champion of Kirkwall watched them all speak with an empty expression. Certainly he had heard variations of this conversation before. If Nightmare sought a breaking of this man’s mind and spirit, then he would have been thorough. A mere week into his stay here, Hawke still would have likely seen something like this happen over and over again – his friends and allies coming to save him, only to be killed, broken, or to simply disappear when he refused to give in. Nothing they said would work.

Solas gripped Kios tight and looked down, only to jump again. A high-pitched moan slipped past his lips before he could stop it. The sound silenced Varric.

Beneath his hands, though he had not moved an inch, Kios lay with his eyes open, staring up at the sky. His pupils did not dilate. His eyes did not move.

“No,” Solas whispered. He leaned down, touching Kios’ cheek. It was so cold. “No, no, no. Tel’ghilas, ma vhenan, sathan.”

Kios did not respond. Solas’ breath left him, leaving him weak and trembling above his lover’s limp body.

Cassandra crashed down beside him, the noise from her armor clanking so loudly it made him flinch. The world sounded like it was breaking down. Beside him, one of her arms snaked out, so sudden and fast he nearly attacked it, thinking only to keep everything from Kios. But she merely grabbed up one limp wrist and placed her fingers against the pulse point there. Solas leaned over Kios’ body as if he could protect him. As if anything could protect him now.

“He’s still alive,” she told him. For several moments, the words meant nothing to him, unable to bypass the cotton in his ears. When finally he understood, he sucked in a breath. His vision blurred with tears. He looked wide-eyed at the Seeker. She stared back, her face as hard and strong and determined as ever. “He’s still alive,” she said again.

“Come on, big guy,” Varric said. He reached back, grabbed an arrow, and started digging into the rock around the Champion’s feet. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to convince him. Should we just leave?” And then, an instant later, before Solas or Cassandra could do more than open their mouths, “Andraste’s tits. We can’t leave without Lucky. Shit.”

They all went silent then. Cassandra put Kios’ hand back down. For one short moment, she placed her hand on Solas' shoulder, much like she had for Varric. Solas closed his eyes, unwilling to acknowledge what that meant. Cassandra got up and moved to Varric’s side. “We need magic to release him from this.” Another beat of silence. “Solas…”

He looked over. Manipulating the ground in the Fade was child’s play, yet he was low on mana now that he had spent so much desperately trying to keep Kios alive. He took a deep breath and raised one hand. Visualizing the rock was simple, yet the moment he started twisting its shape, he felt something resist him. He gritted his teeth. Nightmare could influence his realm much more easily than any outsider. The demon, even from far away, was trying to inhibit his actions. He snarled. With a shove of his mana, he got the rock to spit out Hawke’s legs until he dangled painfully by his arms, then, several seconds later, had the arms released, as well. He collapsed over Kios’ body just as the Champion collapsed into Cassandra’s arms.

Cassandra laid Hawke next to Kios, Varric already moving to his side and calling his name. Hawke just stared at the sky, not unlike Kios, and said nothing. Unlike Kios, the Champion merely closed his eyes when Varric spoke to him, begging him to save Kios.

He would not. Every illusion Nightmare would have created this past week would have shown variations of this same theme, as well. Someone he loved or cared about broken, not just emotionally, but physically. Desperately needing Hawke’s healing magic.

In order for Hawke to keep Nightmare from taking control of him and Faith, he would have needed to become accustomed to watching those he loved die while he did nothing.

Varric shook Hawke, but his friend did nothing but stare up at the sky, his eyes squinted as if a sun’s rays glared down at him. Or as if he was in some measure of pain. Cassandra finally stopped the dwarf with another hand on his shoulder. Her voice, however, when she spoke, was hard. “We may need to force him, Varric.”

Varric rounded on her. “How? By doing what, Seeker? Torturing him? You think you can be more creative than a demon of nightmares?”

They fell silent then. Cassandra looked at Hawke’s listless form and sucked in a breath. Her gaze did not turn to Kios. “If we do nothing, the Inquisitor will die. I’m sorry, Varric, but your friend is not as important as the world.”

“He knows that!” Varric snapped. “That’s why he’s here like this in the first place!”

Solas tuned them out. There was no point to their bickering now. Kios had made this journey, not on the hope that he spoke of, of stopping the demon from gaining Hawke’s power, but for his own selfish reasons. Kios Lavellan had wanted to save Hawke and make up for what he considered to have been a mistake. He’d wanted punishment for having left Varric’s friend behind. Solas had watch Kios so carefully during that scene, the one Kios had demanded as soon as they'd returned from the fortress, to ensure Kios didn’t demand more of a punishment than he could handle. And now here he was, receiving another punishment for it. Hurting himself for hurting another, all on the hopes that it would be enough to satisfy this uncaring world.

Faith could not touch Nightmare without being twisted by the demon’s desires. The spirit also couldn’t be forced into doing anything without being twisted. If they tried to torture or force Hawke to heal Kios, Faith would turn into a demon and lose its ability to heal, anyway, rendering the entire exercise moot.

He covered Kios’ eyes with his hand, hoping only to ease some small part of Kios’ passing. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

There was nothing more they could do.

“Here! Here!”

Footsteps thundered up above them. Solas ignored it until the sound suddenly stopped. Something slid a bit, rocky gravel churned up by its entrance, as if about to descend. Solas didn’t care. If a demon had come for them, then so be it.

But no. No demons came here. The mist still puddling thinly around his feet remained a warning to any creature within Nightmare’s domain that this place was strictly off-limits. That meant that those footsteps could only belong to…

His head snapped up just as Cole shouted again, pointing down into the ditch where they all knelt. “Here! He’s here; hurry!” The little spirit slid down further into the pit, his hat flapping at his back. Above him, looking around wildly, stood the Champion’s lover, his eyes wide enough to show the whites even from this distance.

That gaze caught on Hawke, and suddenly the statue of the elf came alive, nearly jumping into the pit. “Hawke!”

For the first time, the Champion responded to one of them. He flinched and clenched his eyes shut. “Not again,” Hawke whispered, his voice nearly broken. Solas watched, transfixed, as Hawke’s practiced apathy crumbled into heartbreak, and feared Fenris’ presence had just made their chances even worse.

There was no way Nightmare hadn’t forced Hawke to endure the death of the man he loved more than any other.

Solas’ hand wavered over Kios’ eyes. “Cole,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Can you reach him?”

Instead of moving toward the Champion, Cole went to Kios’ side. “He’s so quiet,” Cole said. Somehow, Kios’ pain, his oncoming death, whatever last, lingering thoughts occupied his dying mind, were enough to call the spirit of kindness to his side. Solas remembered what Cole had said about the human he’d taken his name from. He had gone to the human when he’d been terrified and alone. Dying. He had held that human’s hand.

Cole picked up the Inquisitor’s hand and held it within both of his own. “I’m here,” Cole murmured, and Solas broke.

Azzan. Azzan. Azzan.

Fenris’ mind screamed Azzan’s name, over and over again, as he raced to his lover’s side. Varric moved back, ceding ground immediately. The woman next to him hesitated for only a moment. “The Inquisitor is dying, but he’s refusing to save him. He thinks we aren’t real.”

Fenris ignored her, his every sense attuned to Azzan’s face. His eyes were clenched shut so tightly the laugh lines slowly forming around his eyes had crinkled up. His lips pulled up and back, showing off the cracks in those lips, so dried out they looked to be bleeding. His hair sat in such an oily, unruly tangle it looked more like clumps than strands. His chest heaved with every breath.

Fenris’ eyes burned. Without shame, he let the tears fall as he touched Hawke’s cheek. Warm. A sob broke his silence. “Alive,” he whispered, then, “I found you. I found you. Hawke.”

This one was real. The connection tugging at him led him here, almost pushing him to lean down and lay chest to chest with Hawke, to finally erase the space separating them. His hand shook.

Azzan did not open his eyes to look at him.

“He thinks we’re not real,” Varric said again, coming up beside him. Fenris’ brows furrowed. He stared at Azzan still, but no matter how much he silently urged his lover to look at him, he refused. Azzan’s skin was harsh on his fingers, as it had been when they’d first traveled from Kirkwall to Tevinter. Before and after, Hawke took surprising care of himself, fastidious despite his humble background. Likely something drilled into him by his noble mother.

Fenris slid his fingers into the beard growing along Hawke’s jaw. Hawke had complained countless times about how quickly his stubble grew, how it itched if he didn’t shave twice a day. Careful of the sharp points on his armor, he scratched the skin. Hawke sucked in a breath.

“He won’t believe anything we say,” Cassandra said. “Perhaps if you spoke with him?”

Fenris closed his eyes. He could still remember Faith’s warning, that Hawke had been shown countless visions of death and destruction. He remembered Nightmare mocking Hawke for Faith’s waning ability to heal him from what Nightmare had done to him. He remembered the many faces Nightmare had shown Hawke, everything from the face of the man who had killed Hawke’s mother to Danarius’ to his own, pale and unblinking in death.

Hawke had been forced to watch Fenris die over and over again. Those illusions of Fenris would have begged, choked, cried, cajoled, screamed, accused, accepted. Azzan would have been forced to hear it all. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t mimic something he’d heard. Nightmare would have been thorough. The only thing that might help would be when Nightmare killed him in front of Hawke and the illusion of his dead body never faded. Left there, slowly rotting, until finally Hawke might realize that he’d actually been here, after all.

Someone beside him was crying.

The sound made him open his eyes again, made him look Hawke over more carefully, searching for blood or wound or lack of breath. Only when he found nothing did his gaze leave Hawke and turn to the sound.

His attention had been so focused on Hawke that he hadn’t realized there was another body laying still as stone on the ground. He jerked where he knelt at the sight of the Inquisitor on the ground. Beneath the mist, the green-tinted ground looked black. Blood.

He sucked in a breath.

The only one who could get them all out of this prison was still as death, vacant eyes pointed toward the sunless sky. Beside him, the spirit had taken one hand between its own, murmuring soft words. Solas, the elf Fenris had clearly judged correctly, was bent over the Inquisitor’s still form, shoulders shaking on quiet sobs.

“Is he…?” he asked, voice dry.

“Not yet,” Cassandra said, her voice so tight it was like her throat had closed. “But it won’t be long now. He needs to wake up. He needs to heal the Inquisitor!”

The Inquisitor looked like he was already gone. Fenris’ fingers curled a bit further against Hawke’s cheek as Hawke grimaced, his breaths coming short and choppy as the woman continued. Fenris may have wanted a response from Hawke, but the others needed one. If they were to escape alive, they needed Hawke’s help. But how many times had Hawke been forced to watch this very scenario? How many times had he needed to stand strong, even as his loved ones begged him for help?

Cole looked up, the spirit’s eyes red-rimmed beneath his hat. “He’s coming,” he said.

Nightmare. They were running out of time.

He looked back at Hawke. Nightmare had access to some of Hawke’s worst memories. The destruction of Lothering, the loss of his brother, even what happened to his father, Malcolm, all had direct lines to the darkspawn and the Blights, things that this creature apparently fed off of. Beyond that, blood magic, in being linked, and the efforts of those who sided with the magisters who had broken into this place to begin with, also had links. There was little in a person’s life that didn’t somehow correlate to these things, but in Hawke’s case, nearly his entire life was a collage of the rippled effects of the magisters' actions. The demon would have seen so much. Over the past few days, it would have had the chance to see so much more. It was a demon of fear. Within Hawke’s heart, there were more fears than many might believe.

He thought back to Hawke’s grave, to the fear Hawke held of being too weak. Too weak to stop Nightmare from having its way, and too weak to save those he loved before he lost them.

He could not speak to Hawke without subjecting him to more torment. It would be even worse if he tried to touch Hawke with too much intimacy. Perhaps even this was cruel, for him to place a hand to Hawke’s skin when Hawke thought him to be a demon. But he couldn’t yet make himself pull away. His vision was still clouded with tears of gratitude, with the knowledge that he had made it to Hawke’s side in time. Even if he died here, knowing he had not left Hawke alone was enough.

Still, he had to try. He wasn’t quite ready for the two of them to die.

He reached up, carding his fingers through Hawke’s hair, having to stop when he found knot after knot. It was loose, framing Hawke’s face, the way it only ever did when Hawke was in bed with him at the end of the day or in the bright orange-yellow light of dawn. He opened his mouth to speak, only to pause.

Gratitude.

His gratitude was great enough to reach Andraste, to have him sending wordless prayers of thanks with every moment he spent able to look upon his lover’s face once more. But there was another he needed to thank, wasn’t there? If not for it, he would never have known that Hawke was still alive. He wouldn’t have gone to the Inquisition, and thus would not have met the Inquisitor or his lover. He wouldn't have made it here.

He stared down at Hawke and felt that connection within him stronger than ever. How could Hawke not feel that? How could Faith not tell Hawke who he was?

No. It wasn’t the connection Solas had made that Faith had used. Another connection had linked them together, far before Solas had intervened and granted him a way to find Hawke within the maze of the Fade.

He took a deep breath and activated the lyrium embedded in his skin.

Instinctively, Hawke turned his head into Fenris’ palm. Fenris had little stamina left, but what little he had, he gave to Hawke. All or nothing. “It’s me, Hawke. Check with Faith. It’s me.”

For several moments, Hawke did not move. Even as Fenris could feel the slightest touch of a summer wind, Hawke stayed still. Communicating with Faith, or merely testing to ensure that which felt like lyrium wasn’t just another trap? Hawke’s face scrunched as if taking a blow. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, rolling into his oily hair. Finally, those long lashes fluttered. Hawke breathed out and opened his eyes.

Fenris smiled. “Hello, beautiful.”

The tears spilled harder, faster. Hawke made a horrible croaking noise and leaned up, testing weakened muscles in order to reach for him. Fenris held him tight.

“Real?” he asked, even as Fenris felt Faith and Hawke both sucking on his lyrium like vampires. Hawke’s fingers dug into his upper arms so deeply he felt the crescents of nails digging into his skin. Into his lyrium. He bit back the cry that bubbled up from the back of his throat at the agony and merely held Hawke close.

“Real,” he affirmed. “I am here.”

“You can’t be,” Hawke said. “It’s impossible. The rift is closed. You’re gone. I…”

“It’s a long story, Hawke,” Varric said, coming up so close beside them that the cuff of his sleeve brushed against Fenris’ abdomen. “One I am all too happy to share with you over several long drinks. But Lucky…”

Hawke stiffened.

Fenris curled Hawke in closer. This had to be exactly what Hawke had feared, and exactly what Nightmare had preyed on the most. Fenris gave Hawke his lyrium and said, “just use me. Not Faith. You learned how to heal before Faith. Use me.”

Hawke’s breath hitched. He shook his head. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Whimpered.

Fenris’ heart tore. This was not the man who had left him, granting him one last, easy kiss before leaving their camp. This was not the man who lay smiling, heart open as he greeted Fenris in bed in the morning, coaxing him over for a few more minutes of snuggling before getting up to greet the day. This was not the man who stood by Fenris’ side, helping him plan their next assault. Nightmare had changed him, taken from him the man he loved and replaced him with someone more akin to spun glass.

Fenris kissed the top of his oily head and closed his eyes. He had been a wreck once, too. Through years of kindness and acceptance, Hawke had saved him, returned him to someone he could be proud of. Perhaps not the same man he’d been before, the one Varania had called Leto. But a man he liked, nonetheless.

Hawke may not be the same man he’d been before this week, before the months of hunting down the missing Grey Wardens. But he was still alive, and that meant his heart could still be saved, as well.

“You can do this, Azzan. I believe in you.”

Hawke shivered against him. For all his armor and reputation, Hawke seemed less a well-renowned champion and more a scared child. Still, before Fenris could do more than raise his hand to hold Hawke’s head in place, Hawke wrenched back, took a deep breath, and turned to face the Inquisitor.

Solas, still kneeling by the Inquisitor’s side, scooted away the instant Hawke shuffled close. His eyes were red, tear tracks marring his high cheekbones, running into a long, thin line down his neck. He said nothing as Hawke neared. Cole, on the other hand, whispered, “I can’t hear him anymore.”

Solas’ eyes fluttered shut. If he had been beaten, he could not have looked to be in more pain.

The feel of the summer wind banked back down, until Fenris only imagined the feel of it against his skin. Still, despite the loss, he felt Azzan pull on Fenris’ lyrium. He held himself close, tried to mentally offer up the cursed mineral in his veins, and watched as Azzan’s fingers lit with the familiar blue glow of his healing magic.

The Inquisitor’s body glowed for a short second before the soft glow seemed to seep inside him. Fenris hadn’t seen any wound past the blood that had covered the Inquisitor’s chest and neck and thighs. Watching the glow swirl around the elf’s upper chest, however, he could see, through the small sparkle of light fizzing through the fog, a space on the elf’s upper chest where the cloth he wore sat frayed. He inched closer, finally taking in the large, rough hole there. He paled. “He still lives?” he said.

Solas lowered his head. “It’s my fault.”

Fenris shook his head. Had the two been busy ignoring each other, spinning more of that tension between them? “You pushed him away, and he faced a danger that should have been yours both to carry. How right am I?”

Solas looked away. Fenris snorted.

Fenris had done the same. Pushing Hawke away had done nothing but harm them both. He was lucky that, when it had been most important, he had listened to Hawke and accepted those parts of him he had struggled with. When Hawke had finally lost control of himself and admitted that he would always be a mage, that he would always want to help mages through their circumstances in Kirkwall, Fenris had chosen to listen. It had not been easy, but it had been worth it. Hawke had been worth it. Through Hawke, and Fenris’ love for him, he had finally seen the truth of what Kirkwall had become.

Hawke winced, his hands faltering where he’d raised them to try to heal without Faith’s influence. Without thought, Fenris gave Hawke everything he had. Black blurred at the edges of his vision by the time he thought Hawke might just have enough. Even then, Hawke huffed. “It’s not enough.” Hawke looked back at him, his face broken. “It’s not enough.”

On the ground, breathing in the fog around them, the Inquisitor remained as he’d been. The only difference was his face – his eyes had closed. As Fenris watched, the Inquisitor’s brows furrowed.

Just as he saw, Solas, with his focus only on the Inquisitor’s face, saw, as well. He placed his hands on the ground and leaned closer. “Vhenan?”

The Inquisitor’s eyes snapped open. His body heaved at the sudden movement, blood bursting from the wound Hawke was struggling to heal. The Inquisitor reached out as if to grab Solas, his arm shaking badly, so crippled by the pain in his chest that he barely raised the elbow at all. Instead of grabbing him, however, he thumped his fist against Solas’ chest, once, then again, that shaking limb clearly trying to push Solas away. Solas’ lips pulled back, twisting into a grimace made worse by the tear tracks on his face. Despite this, he refused to move. The Inquisitor writhed on the ground. It took Fenris several heartbeats to realize that he was trying to get away from Solas.

Hawke curled his hands back in, whimpering. “I can’t… not without…”

But the others were already moving. Solas slammed the Inquisitor’s shoulders to the ground just as Cole pressed against the Inquisitor’s wounds. Cassandra, with her warrior strength, came and took the responsibility from Solas, holding the Inquisitor’s shoulders until Solas could rearrange his position and hold down the elf’s hips. This more intimate touch, however, seemed to throw the Inquisitor into a frenzy. Hawke’s breaths turned to gasps. Both hands ran through and got caught in his hair. “I can’t…”

Fenris touched his shoulder. “Calm him down!” he barked, glaring at the three in front of him. “We need to leave here. The demon is coming. Does he not care if everyone here dies because he can’t control himself?”

The words were a deliberate attack. To his surprise, the Inquisitor leaned his neck up and attacked right back, his scarred lips pulled into a snarl. “No one will live if this harellan returns with us!”

Solas flinched. Whatever harellan meant, it was a bad one.

Once again, the Inquisitor tried to shove Solas away from him. This time, with Solas scooted lower on the elf’s body, he could not reach. “Get him off of me!” he screeched. Solas flinched again. “Get this murderer off of me!”

Chapter Text

Almost as one, everyone turned to Solas.

The elf, for his part, only turned his head in shame. “It was a demon,” he said, but his voice was hoarse. “It showed him me.”

Azzan shook his head, his hands flinching over and over again. He backed away. “I…” He shook his head again. Fenris could only watch, his lyrium still activated. The only tether he could give Azzan to the real world. Surely, Nightmare had never thought to pull something like this before? Was it the newness that made Hawke hesitate, or was it the fact that the situation must have become even more confusing for him? Fenris blocked Azzan’s sight of the people around them, taking over the man’s vision.

“Look at me,” he ordered. “Ignore them.” He lowered his voice. “Ignore them and focus on me. What do you feel?”

Azzan shook his head again.

“He can’t mimic lyrium, can he? He can’t make Faith recognize it, and me, the way the spirit does. Can he?”

Azzan breathed fast, his hands curling in tighter against his chest. Never before had Fenris seen such actions. Never before had he known Azzan so desperate to keep from healing someone that he had to physically restrain himself. “It might be…”

A new trick. A new way to get him to open up. Wait a week to make Azzan think the demon couldn’t imitate this one part of Fenris, to make him rely on that as proof that it was all a trick. And then, a week later, to give him this new vision of Fenris, this new emergency, with the added chaos of the lover’s spat drama occurring behind them, to confuse him into believing it was safe. He dared reach for Hawke’s trembling hands and threaded his fingers between, holding them steady as they felt ready to shake apart. “Then don’t listen to us,” he said, letting his voice turn coaxing. “Don’t listen to me. Listen to Faith.”

Hawke’s brows rose.

“You and I both know I trust that thing now,” he said. “If nothing else, I believe it will hold your life as important, since it is matched with yours. And,” he said, daring to go further, “you know I love you enough to trust your judgment.”

Azzan’s breathing sped up. He looked behind them, where the Inquisitor was struggling to shout, unable to find the breath to do so, but refusing to calm beneath the words of his friends.

“Listen to Faith,” Fenris said again, swallowing back his usual platitudes of I’m here, you’re safe, I’m yours. “Close your eyes. Remember. You felt me earlier. You called my name. Faith fed upon my lyrium, and Nightmare pulled at me. He ordered me to come.” Fenris’ voice had dropped nearly to a whisper, forcing Hawke to tune out the argument behind them in order to hear his words. “Remember?”

Hawke’s breath slid out, ruffling the air between them. The fog whooshed around their feet as if carrying dew, though it was dry and empty. “I remember,” he said. For the first time, there was some measure of strength in that voice. “‘Let Balance be restored and the world given eternal life.’” Slowly, Hawke opened his eyes. They were tinged something a bit too bright, a blue that wasn’t entirely accurate to Hawke’s own. It died down even as Fenris watched. “‘Inamorato,’” he breathed. “Fenris. Faith says it’s really you.”

The tears gathered in Hawke’s eyes again. “I wanted… so badly to believe…” He shook his head. “But…”

“It’s all right,” Fenris said. “From now on, I’ll be here whenever you need to know what’s real.”

Hawke nodded. Beneath the tears, those cracked lips lifted into the first smile Fenris had seen from him in weeks. Oily hair, bloodshot eyes, cracked lips, untrimmed beard, pale skin, and trembling limbs. It was the most beautiful sight Fenris had ever seen. He smiled back, leaned forward, and kissed those beautiful lips, heedless of the stench of Hawke’s breath or the rough, chapped skin against his or the slight taste of blood. Hawke moaned, curling around him like an ape. Fenris held him tight. “You can do this,” he whispered, forcing himself to pull back again when all he wanted to do was hold Hawke close. “Save him and get us out. I want to take you home.”

Azzan held the back of Fenris’ head, forcing him to lean up that short space until their foreheads matched together. Azzan’s fingernails turned sharp on his scalp, but Fenris could only notice that ever-widening grin. Blood split bright red through the cracks of Azzan’s lips. “Home?” he whispered.

Fenris nodded. “Home. Orana and Aegis are waiting for you, too.”

“And you,” Azzan whispered.

Fenris closed his eyes. “And me.”

Azzan took a deep breath. Another. Finally, he let go of Fenris and stepped forward. The arguing had gotten worse, but Fenris’ ears were starting to buzz, and he couldn’t quite make himself care enough to parse out the words. He kept his lyrium active, bright enough to turn the fog a bluish tint, but his limbs felt weak. He had fed Hawke and Faith the lyrium in his skin and blood without hesitation, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t already suffered from a lack of stamina already. He was tired.

As if the thought itself summoned it, that cool, summer breeze caressed his skin. He breathed it in, feeling lighter than he had since he’d watched Azzan leave. His back straightened. Before him, Hawke raised his hands, palms up, toward the green-tinged sky. “Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will is written.”

It was a call to Fenris as much as a prayer. Fenris grinned.

Hawke was back.

“A demon?!” Kios raged. Every inch of his body was still aflame, yet somehow through the pain, he was able to discern the source. His chest, just below his heart, where Solas’ staff had pierced through him like he was butter. His compromised vision had still clearly made out the form of Solas above him, smirking as he plunged the blade inside him. And now Solas dared to pretend he was innocent?! “It was you! You always intended to–”

“I would never intend you harm!” Solas said, quickly cutting him off.

Kios’ jaw dropped. Even now, Solas feared people learning who he truly was. What he truly planned. Somehow, Kios had come out of all of that alive – perhaps the others had come upon them, and Solas had needed to pretend to be an ally once more – and now sought to hide again within the ranks of the Inquisition. Kios ground his teeth together. “Never?” he asked, and watched Solas flinch again. He snarled. “You lie to the bitter end.”

Solas opened his mouth, likely ready with a million excuses. Kios struggled to sit up, trying to push Cassandra’s hands off of him. He lost his breath when the pain flared so suddenly it felt like his ribs had turned to ash. Cassandra caught him just before he fell back onto the ground. “Get off,” he hissed. Cassandra just held on tighter. “Get off or get him away from me!”

“Hurting, hiding, hoping. Harellan. He didn’t hurt you! I could feel his fear and pain when you got hurt!”

“Stop!” He tried to wrench his hand free from Cole’s grip, furious when he failed. “Let go of me! You think you can hide what he’s done? I saw it – I watched – I felt – he admitted he’d been lying! All this time! Why try to protect him? Huh? Are you so infatuated with him that you…!” He stopped. Because he’d been the one so infatuated with Solas that he had neglected to acknowledge the truth. He was the one who had let himself be hurt, who to the bitter end had refused to hurt back. If he had just gone for Solas’ throat when he’d had the chance, then this injury never would have happened. None of this…

He clenched his eyes shut. He’d told himself to let go of this fantasy. Yet here was was. He had no one to blame but himself.

The fog around him shifted. He felt it, the touch turning from cool to downright cold as a wind swept through. All his travels in the Beyond both today and before, he had never before felt the touch of the wind here. Warmth suddenly settled over his skin like sunlight. Magic curled cool and light around him. Like a breeze rustling through the trees during the height of summer. He could even faintly catch the scent of apples.

He opened his eyes again, only to shut them once more. A blue-white aura surrounded him. The pain from the light disappeared almost before he felt it. His side numbed, the fire banked so abruptly it left him breathless. He could feel the edges of his skin closing up, forming back together. His insides itched as if they were doing the same.

He turned his gaze to find the Champion of Kirkwall standing on unsteady feet, hands raised. The magic curled and twisted around him. It was cool and calm and light, a feeling he had never felt from magic outside of Hawke’s. The magic of a spirit healer, he’d been told, but that never felt quite right. Looking at Hawke, even scruffy and tired and beaten as he was, the man gave off an aura of healing even without magic.

Kios wrenched his wrist and shoulder free from his supposed friends and scooted away, quickly getting to his feet. He stumbled. His head felt three times as heavy as the rest of his body. The world tilted sharply to the right. Cassandra’s hands wrapped around his shoulder again, pushing him upright just as he caught himself. He snarled at the touch. His gaze shot toward Solas. The man watched him, his gaze intent, but he was wise enough to make no move to help him. Fury rose so hot in him it speckled his vision white. He bared his teeth. “Fen’Harel ma halam.”

Solas’ face pinched.

“Come on,” Cassandra said, nearly pulling him away from Solas. Cole made to follow after them, only to stop still. All of the scant color on his cheeks disappeared.

“He’s here.”

Something crashed. Kios looked around. Other than a large rock in the middle of the space around them, the ground was shaped like a bowl, with them sitting at the bottom. He tilted his gaze up, feeling more and more steady as each second passed. Above him was the lip of their space, fog so strong it turned everything above them into a muted gray-green.

“The remnants I left?” Fenris said, his voice low. Kios turned to see the man’s arms around Hawke’s shoulders. From the way Hawke leaned against him, he might have been the only thing holding the human up.

“He just stepped past them. They stuck to his feet, so he killed them.”

Right. They were still in the Fade. Hawke had just gone through days of torture. Yet here he was, struggling to heal Kios because without him, they would never escape the Fade or Nightmare. He glared at Solas. In order to get out now, they would also need Solas’ ability. They could no longer use the rift they’d worked so hard to create. Not without racing through an unknown length of the Fade with Nightmare right on their heels.

He looked around. Before, he’d been able to take advantage of the lines of the rift in Adamant, so large its tendrils had snaked over the fortress like currents of air. Here, there was nothing. Nothing to take advantage of. They didn’t even have Fenris’ strange link with Hawke. His lyrium, now on this side of the Fade, did them no good.

Their only choice was going back the way they had come. They didn’t have the time to wait for Solas to try to create a rift.

Yet even as he thought that, Solas stepped beside him and raised his hands. “I will need your assistance, Fenris,” he said, even as he gathered magic into his palms. “Tearing down the Veil, even such a small rip, is not so easily done.”

Yet he knew how to do it. Just another piece of evidence that told him Solas had hidden every single part of himself from Kios.

“How are you going to do it?” Fenris asked, not bothering to stew on it the way Kios did. Still, the elf went to Solas’ side. Hawke nearly fell before he had to sit down. The cool wind stopped, abruptly enough that Fenris’ head jerked around to look at Hawke as if the man might have vanished into smoke along with the wind.

“There are demons all around us,” Solas said, jerking his head, of all places, toward the ground, where nothing but a thin film of fog lay. “Their deaths were violent. We got lucky.”

Deaths?

Kios decided he didn’t care just as he saw Fenris activate his lyrium. The light was just as blinding as Hawke’s. Even moreso, as Solas fed off of it to use his own bright magic. Kios caught a glimpse of Fenris gritting his teeth, potentially grinding them, before he had to turn away.

Around him lay the scattered remains of his team. Cole stood facing slightly right of where they all stood, his gaze wide as he studied the lip of their bowl. Waiting for Nightmare to show up above them all. Cassandra stood beside him, her gaze going back and forth between that same space Cole studied, Kios, and Solas. Her lips were thin, her knuckles white around her sword. Even as he watched, she reached back and grabbed up her shield once more.

Solas still stood with his back to where Cole stared, his staff out and the pulled essence of Fenris’ lyrium wrapping around the foci as the fog around the edges of their hole swirled in a vortex around the space before Solas’ feet. Something crashed. Thumped. The ground shook with tiny earthquakes. Kios held up his remaining dagger and pulled up his hood.

The fog pooled thicker around them from the site of said quakes, spilling over the lip of their dug out grave, and then a long, thick leg coated in a brown exoskeleton curled around the edge of the lip, scratched into the rock, and finally pushed against it hard enough to crack.

Nightmare loomed over them, pincers snapping as it looked down on them all. Then, before Kios’ eyes, the spider disappeared.

Before him stood Corypheus, and beside him, wearing golden armor, stood Solas.

Kios sucked in a breath. “I’m going to kill you,” he swore. He swore it to Nightmare. He swore it to Corypheus. He swore it to Solas.

“You think,” Corypheus said, his voice as grating as it had been in Haven, “you are allowed to leave?”

“No matter what,” Kios said, ignoring the demon, “keep him back!”

“Oh, yeah, keep the giant demon away when two steps’ll get us squished! Easy!” Varric said, and shot far above the image Kios saw.

He couldn’t be certain where the demon was; its form had to usually be immense, which meant he was likely seeing only some small part of its body. Its legs, perhaps. Still, its legs were what he was after, and he formed a fireball beneath them before his allies got too close.

In the next instant, he created a barrier – not over himself or his allies racing to the front, but toward Fenris and Solas, who stood to the back, still working on their rift. He was surprised to see the Champion standing with them, until he realized Hawke’s trembling hands were raised out, his teeth bared as he struggled to use his magic again without the aid of a foci.

Kios cursed again and scuttled back. Cassandra and Cole charged, though Kios could tell just by how often Cole leaped back that he was uncomfortable with the battle. Nightmare laughed as if he was watching ants scuttle across his fingers.

Kios passed the Champion his dagger. Solas seemed to catch sight of him from his peripheral vision and turned, his eyes widening as he saw what Kios was doing. “I’m useless in this fight,” Kios said, ignoring Solas. “I can’t afford to get close and end up unable to get to Solas when he needs me, and I can’t battle from a distance effectively.”

The Champion’s brows lowered, but he gripped the handle of Kios’ dagger tight. The foci lit an instant later, and that summer wind blew again. It curled around Kios’ body as if searching for another injury. He felt the wound on his stomach disappear entirely.

He didn’t bother telling the human that there was no way to heal the reason for his inability to fight long-distance. It was what it was.

Solas’ lips thinned, but he turned back to his job. The fog around their feet whooshed, nearly feeling like a sort of riptide made of air. Kios shivered as he passed it to stand behind Cassandra. He could feel the effect of Solas’ ministrations on the Veil. Nightmare, likely sensing it as well, flicked one of Corypheus’ hands. Cassandra went sprawling as if some invisible force pushed her. Following that back to its source, Kios raised his arms and called to the fire he could sense like rage beneath his skin. The image of Corypheus and his loyal dog disappeared, being replaced once more by a spider before something far more terrifying loomed above him.

Seeing the monstrous form of the fear demon before him, Kios couldn’t help but wonder why the demon would choose different illusions at all. Its skin was like the exoskeleton of the very insect it preferred to deceive others with, its legs long and spindly with at least four separate joints. It towered over them, its body oddly bloated around the middle, its tiny limbs belied by the wide, almost blubbery mass of its chest and stomach. Its insect arms, all six of them, raised as one as if to smash down on the lot of them. One eye trained on each of them with eyes to spare. He grimaced, memorized the eyes’ location, and called out to Cole. “Cole!”

Then he closed his eyes and pointed those eyes out to the spirit.

“I can’t!” Cole shouted, and Kios jerked back. Of course. He was an idiot. Before Cole had become more human, he’d mostly been a spirit. He’d likely already seen Nightmare’s true form.

Cole couldn’t get close enough. Its multiple arms would stop him.

“Varric!” he shouted. “Barrage, thrice her height above Cassandra and a meter and a half to the left! Now!”

Varric cursed up a storm.

Another whirl of summer wind, apples ripening and sun shining, and then Varric’s bow knocked and arrows thundered out like rain.

He grinned.

Just as he’d suspected, while Nightmare could move its arms with great speed, its body was another matter. The best the bastard could do was lift its limbs to block the shower of arrows crashing down upon it.

Kios needn’t say anything. As soon as its arms were raised, Cole flitted up to its head.

“Cassandra!” he shouted, racing forward. “Shield!”

She did as he commanded, raising her shield and hiding herself behind it, shouting some line from the Chant to anger the demon. He shifted between, using the torn Veil around him, and ran through one of Nightmare’s feet, momentarily incorporeal. The feel of it was wrong, wild somehow due to his body being on this side when it was supposed to be on the other. Above him, Nightmare screeched, the sound an octave so high it rang in his ears and so low he could barely hear it, both at the same time. An instant later, Kios returned to the Beyond, slamming out of Nightmare’s body and arriving back by its leg, nearly directly to Cassandra’s right. The leg buckled. He took his chance to retreat. “Cole!”

Cole came to Kios’ side, grabbing him by his shoulder and shoving him further back. The spirit’s eyes were wide as saucers.

Nightmare’s scream turned from pain to fury. Its feet slammed into the ground around them. The earth beneath his feet buckled, cracked, and finally split wide. Cole’s wide eyes disappeared from few as the spirit fell.

“Cole!”

He reached forward and grabbed Cole’s arm, only to be tugged forward by the spirit’s momentum. He fell to his knees, his one free hand slamming against the ground for purchase, the other holding Cole up as the rocks beneath their feet split apart into tiny islands. The next instant, he was hanging on to Cole as another rock lifted Cole into the sky. He dragged the spirit back to the ground as the rock beneath his feet shook again.

Kios heard someone behind him groan, only to turn and find the Champion on his knees. A moment later, Fenris fell, as well, his eyes a bit glassy. Kios’ heart shot to his throat. “Solas! What are you doing?! You’re killing him!”

Solas’ lips peeled back. “The Champion has been giving us all energy. He will not die.”

That didn’t sound reassuring at all. Even if it was the truth, it didn’t mean he wasn’t bringing the man to within an inch of his life. “We came here to save a man, not replace him!”

Solas said nothing. Kios didn’t need him to. He could see the censure in the line of Solas’ shoulders and the rigidity of his spine.

From on his knees, the Champion held Kios’ dagger before him. The mana around the man began to shimmer gold. As if nothing had happened, Fenris sat up straight, then stood once more. Kios breathed a sigh of relief, only for Fenris to turn a wide-eyed gaze at the mana surrounding the Champion. “Hawke!”

“Inquisitor!”

He looked up. On one of the rocks stood Cassandra, who had failed to jump down in time. The piece of ground she stood on kept rising, rising, rising, until it was the same height as Nightmare’s head. Nightmare’s form shimmered as he watched, once again replaced by the figure of the monstrous spider. “Little insects thinking they can run from me in my own domain, taking my precious toy from me. You vastly overestimate your abilities.”

Cassandra stood tall against the demon, but she was too far away for Kios to see anything but the straight length of her fuzzy form. His vision trembled the harder he tried to focus. He grimaced, cursing his body all over again. He moved to step forward, only for Cole to shove him back again. He was forced to retreat several steps in order to keep his footing. He watched as Cole stepped forward. A second later, he heard Varric’s voice – right there beside Cassandra. In all the chaos, Kios had lost sight of his shorter friend. Still, Cole refused to let Kios move forward. He barely managed to get his feet steady beneath him before he understood why.

With the crash of a single leg, the world began to crumble once more beneath Kios’ feet. He spun on one foot to look behind him. Just as he’d thought, the demon had chosen to ignore those he’d trapped above and gone for the most integral of their group. Kios grimaced and thrust out his hand.

Whatever Solas had managed would have to be enough.

“Varric! Cassandra! Get down here!” he shouted. Green shot out from his hand> He had to turn his face away as his eyes burned. Solas shouted in surprise and stumbled back.

“I’ll get right on that!” Varric shouted, responding to Kios’ order.

“Just jump!”

“Are you nuts?!”

Nightmare screamed. The earth broke and shattered around them. Nightmare staggered forward, almost trying to lunge. His movement was slow, so slow it seemed he moved in a different realm of time than them; in order to move his hulking mass, Nightmare needed to fall onto its hands and feet and lean its front arms down nearly to the ground. Its chest and stomach swung forward like a giant, wrinkled ball. Only as it swung forward could it move its back legs to keep up. As the mass swung back, it heaved its hands forward again. This one move took the demon well past Cassandra and Varric, however; for all that Nightmare was slow, it was huge.

No wonder it had always seemed so fast. The demon’s own weight swung it forward so quickly that its illusions almost seemed to snap from one position to the next.

As Nightmare approached, the swirling mass of fog churned into a vortex, ripping the loose stones from the edges of the broken earth to hover like dustaround them. Green saturated the fog, the rock, the very air. And then, so suddenly it burned his eyes, color. Like fire, pinks and blues and reds burst like shadows into the Beyond, shining in beams from the rift Solas pulled into being. Fenris, on the ground, looked like a blue flame, his lyrium lighting the fog around Solas’ feet like firelight. Hawke’s golden magic swirled around Fenris unceasingly, seeming to be the only thing holding him up.

The force of the sudden formation of this new Rift felt the same as the Breach; the mark on Kios’ hand sparked and tore as if ripping his skin in two. He gritted his teeth against the pain and raised his hand. As always, the lack of blood around what felt like an open wound managed to surprise him. But he’d become accustomed to this. Every time he opened a rift, it felt like he was tearing the empty space of the mark open a bit further. Sometimes he wondered if he wouldn’t eventually be swallowed inside. Perhaps he, too, one day, may become a rift. He gritted his teeth. But not today.

He reached out and focused on the electric power sparking within. The instant he fully activated that power, he cried out. Opening rifts always felt like he was tearing himself open, as well, but this felt like he was ripping himself apart. His bones quaked like the earth. He fell to his knees on a scream. He wasn’t just widening the hole the rift had caused in the Veil like someone stretching out an already torn article of clothing. He was grabbing perfectly spun robes and yanking the raveled threads himself, from scratch.

“Viane, delltash!”

The cracks in the earth all burst into a liquid flame, popping and boiling like green water. The liquid curled over the edges of the broken stone, licking upward like tongues to devour the small sanctuaries left to them. Everything it touched hissed and spat. Kios panted in the sudden heat.

“Stay out of it!” Hawke told them, struggling to get his own feet beneath him again. “I can’t save you from that!”

He couldn’t move. He could never move when he was opening or closing a rift. Knees locked, he found himself trapped as the world tilted beneath his feet. Fenris slid, too, his body almost boneless as his lyrium deactivated. Hawke grabbed the elf and held him close. More magic encircled them.

Slowly, the rift wrenched itself open. “Jump!” Kios shouted again.

“You will not escape again!” Nightmare said, its voice so loud it shook the rocks floating in the sky. A rain of dirt cascaded down to the bubbling ground. Kios looked up, only to see the underbelly of a giant spider as the demon reached for the rift and those around it. Legs stretched on every side. One bent down to him, as well. Cassandra leaped onto the spider’s back with a war cry. Kios yelped.

“Cassandra! Fenedhis!” He screamed again as the rift slammed open. His eyes burned from the bright lights, tears of pain streaking down his cheeks. His entire arm trembled as agony lanced up his joints. If he weighed a thousand pounds, he wouldn’t feel heavier than this.

The ground beneath him snapped.

He felt his body shake. Forward, then backwards, as the ground he sat on become like a broken block of ice. Green lava splashed upwards, then exploded. He cringed, ready for the familiar feel of pain.

Instead, he felt a barrier curl around him. A second later, arms wrapped around him and pushed him down. His connection with the rift severed so abruptly he fell. Only the arms holding him held him from the fire.

“Get out!” Solas shouted, the voice so loud in his ears it made his eyes widen. He felt the rumble of that voice from the chest he was pressed against. “Everyone make for the rift! A broken leg or two is better than death!”

Kios flinched as something splashed by his right. He quickly formed a barrier, as well. Instinctively, he placed the protection over Solas, as well. The next second, he felt the arms around him go rigid. Solas yanked him to his feet.

“Come on!” Solas urged. “Let’s go!”

Kios tried to make his feet move, only to stumble. The feel of the Champion’s healing aura no longer seemed cool and light, but hot and suffocating. Kios turned his blurry gaze backward as Solas held him up. The world dipped and swirled beneath his feet. Some new weight crashed behind them, and for a moment Kios struggled to get away from Solas and turn back, certain the weight was from Cassandra or Varric. Instead countless spiderlings scuttled over the cracked earth, some of them screeching as the lava bubbled and spat onto them. One fell straight from Nightmare into the lava and died with a short shriek. Kios felt a palm on his back as the spiderlings spat webbing at their group. Before he could even tell who got caught in the blast, the palm on his back shoved him hard. He fell forward, stumbled once, and fell. The world turned dim gray and freezing cold. His face sank into snow.

He was out of the Beyond.

He shuddered, huddling into the wet snow for a moment before pushing himself back up. When he looked back, only the usual shifting, roiling green miasma of an active rift stared back at him. His heart leaped up to his throat. Of all those he’d risked in this venture, had he managed to lose everyone? Had he saved nothing?

A second later, Solas popped out. In the next, Cassandra landed, her scream cut off suddenly by her landing as she used her shield to take the force of the blow. He scooted over to her, trying to ignore the emotions raging inside him at the sight of Solas. Solas, who had tried to kill him. Solas, who had ensured Kios lived by getting him out of the Beyond first.

Cassandra didn’t move for a few seconds. Kios held out a hand. He had no potions, nor any ability with healing magic. He looked around, thinking to find Cullen and ask for aid, only to realize they were alone. The frosted tips of the Frostback Mountains spanned in every direction around them, their bright white fading into the dark gray of the sky above them as snow whipped around their heads. His already abused eyes slid to slits at the sight of so much bright snow, and he finally had to close them against the pain.

They were nowhere near the army.

He shook his head and tried to open his eyes. Now that they’d closed, however, the tears in them burned them worse when he tried to open them again. “Where’s the Champion?!” he shouted, trying to speak above the wind.

Cassandra winced as she moved, and he gently pushed her back down. She heaved in a few breaths as he looked her over. He couldn’t see much beneath her armor, but he still fanned his hands out to check her neck and back.

“He must still be inside!” Solas said. Kios stiffened. Of course. Saving Kios’ life would look good in front of the others. But they’d gone back into the Fade specifically to save the Champion from Nightmare, so that the demon could not use Hawke and his spirit for its own ends. If they failed, the demon could use Hawke to heal itself or Corypheus.

He turned to glare at Solas. The elf’s gaze, however, was on the rift. He realized Solas had yet to order him to close it.

Of course not. That would make Solas look suspicious.

Cassandra groaned and sat up, spitting out snow as she did. Her face contorted. She turned onto her side and started struggling with her shield. Trying to take it off, he realized. He paled. Her arm, now that she had moved around, was clearly not moving properly with the rest of her body. It was broken.

Shit. Besides Hawke’s lover, she was their only warrior.

He helped her remove the shield, then stood with it and looked back to the rift. It had been at least two minutes since they’d left the Beyond. No one else had come out.

By now, the others could be dead. Hawke could be recaptured. Fenris, now, as well. Everything he’d done had been for nothing. Worse than nothing. He’d lost Cole and Varric, too.

His balance wavered. He felt numb.

The rift bubbled. Burst. Exploded, just as it always did when demons escaped through to their side. He stiffened. He had neither of his daggers.

Spiderlings burst out on either side of them. Cassandra held up her blade. Solas held out his staff.

The rift exploded again, pushing all of them back. Kios’ knees bent, his feet so numb he nearly fell. A scream rent the air.

“Fenris!”

A small body hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat tugged on the Champion as he made as if to race through the rift once more. Cole looked to Kios. “Help.”

Acting on instinct again, Kios grabbed the Champion’s arm. The champion wrenched it free, turning bared teeth toward him. “Don’t touch me!” He moved toward the rift again, only to stop short. Cassandra’s blade pointed at his neck. “Leave me be!” he snapped. His voice broke. His eyes looked wild. Kios’ dagger glinted in his hand.

“We have all risked our lives to save you," Cassandra said. "Sir Fenris included. You will not dishonor his efforts.”

“I won’t leave him!” Hawke cried. Kios’ heart twisted. In Hawke was the same madness Fenris had shown when he’d arrived in Skyhold. The madness of loving someone and facing having lost them.

“This is my fault,” he said, standing tall. Cole flitted around them, and Kios let himself relax for a moment. The spiderlings died to Cole’s blades. He held up his hand. “I will carry this sin.” He took a deep breath. "Mythal, forgive me."

“No!”

A hand clamped around his wrist. Kios’ eyes widened.

Beside him, Cole dared raise his head and meet Kios’ gaze. “I will go,” he said. Kios’ breath stopped. He shook his head. “I will bring them back.” Kios shook his head faster. He would not risk yet another loved one. He’d made so many mistakes on this mission. Trusting Solas. Losing the others. And now, he faced losing a friend and a man who had come to him for help. All because he’d wanted to save one human. Cole clenched his wrist tighter. “Believe in me,” the spirit said, more human in that moment than it had ever been.

His jaw ached when he clenched it. “You know what you’ll cause if you don’t return,” he said, knowing the spirit could feel his pain.

Cole nodded. “We’ll return.”

We. In the end, it was that word that made him lower his hand. Cole gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

In the next instant, Cole was gone. The rift shifted. Snarled.

Hawke fell to his knees. “Please,” he said. “Please, please.” He hung his head, dropped Kios’ dagger, and held his hands before him. “Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond.”

The Beyond. Funny how the humans’ Chant of Light happened to call the Fade the Beyond, as the elves did. Kios stepped forward and grabbed his dagger. “Everyone,” he said, his voice empty in his exhaustion, “get ready.” He placed one hand on the Champion’s shoulder, then stepped back. More spiderlings would be joining them soon. He saw Solas and Cassandra take their usual positions beside him. He lifted his chin.

As long as they were able. They would hold their ground until the last possible second. “Get up, Hawke,” he said, injecting strength into his voice. “If Cole is to get the others, then he can’t focus on the smaller demons. That’s going to be our job.”

“For there is no darkness in the Maker’s light,” Hawke said, head still bowed, a conviction growing in his voice, “and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.” Hawke stood, slowly stepping back from the rift, his gaze like fire as it watched the burning edges of the rift. “I’m ready.”

The rift hissed as if it could hear him. Kios held out his blade. His arm trembled, his muscles quivering. His lips thinned.

More spiderlings emerged from the rift. He attacked.

Chapter Text

“Quickly, before more come through!”

The words still rang in his head long after the grip of the bald elf had loosened and released him. The man had been so assertive, almost angry. There had been no desperation in his voice. No confusion. No surprise. After his act, his explanation was merely that he had hoped it would work. Yet he postulated nothing as they traveled, nor after they returned. He never showed even the slightest hint of excitement at the discovery or curiosity in the possibilities.

Conclusion: there had been no hope. He’d known.

Kios’ suspicions deepened as they traveled up the mountainside; Solas said his reason for being so near the mountain had been an interest in the conclusion of the Conclave. But Kios had been sent to the Conclave for the same reason, and he’d needed to get inside to have any hope of learning how the meeting would end. Solas would have needed to do the same. Unless he’d intended to enter, only for the Clave to blow up before he could – in which case, he would have been extremely late to the meeting – then he’d been lying.

Kios held his tongue, however. Even if he was right, there was no point in speaking his suspicions. If Solas remained, then he planned something, and Kios wanted to know what it was.

The humans, of course, would be of no help. They’d taken one look at Kios’ ears and decided his guilt. If he had any intention of learning Solas’ plans, it would be up to him to find out and stop him. If the humans found out first, Kios would be thrown on the pyre with the flat-ear.

It wasn’t until they returned from the mountain, the pride demon dead behind them, that he learned exactly what Solas’ game was. After an awkward initial conversation, in which Kios promised to defend Solas from the humans if necessary, he found he’d gained enough trust from the elf for Solas to incriminate himself. “Closing the Breach is our primary goal, but I hope we might also discover what was used to create it.”

For several moments, Kios thought he was the fool. Surely, he thought, there truly must have been something used to create something so enormous. Surely no one had that power on their own. But according to legend, several human magisters had managed exactly that, by spilling an ocean of elven blood. What if the ones responsible had merely used something of that sort? Or would that be the ‘what was used’ that Solas spoke of?

Then he realized Solas had once again failed to conceal his conviction.

There was no conjecture about whether or not there had been some sort of object used. There hadn’t even been a note that humans couldn’t harness such power without some sort of aid. Once again, Solas knew.

“Any artifact of such power is dangerous,” Solas continued, further nailing in his own coffin. “The destruction of the Conclave proves that much.”

Artifact? Even if something had been used, even if those responsible had needed tools, why on earth would such tools be artifacts? From what? From whom?

Solas, he realized, was working for the enemy.

It took only a thought for him to realize the reason Solas had chosen to join the burgeoning Inquisition. It was Kios. Kios himself, and the mark he now carried on his left hand.

“You don’t think whatever created the explosion was destroyed in the blast?” he asked, daring to act as if he, too, knew there was indeed an object involved. Solas didn’t catch it. He didn’t even blink at the question.

“You survived, did you not?” Solas asked. Just as Kios feared Solas considered him to be an artifact, as well, the elf continued. “The artifact that created the Breach is unlike anything seen in this age. I will not believe it destroyed until I see the shattered fragments with my own eyes.”

Amendment, Kios thought to himself: Solas was here for Kios and this ‘artifact.’ This artifact he knew of so intimately that he knew, without doubt, that it was not just an artifact, but one either hoarded by an unknown culture – unlikely, since Kios was Dalish and had attended the last arlathvhen less than a year ago– or lost to the annals of time.

Kios had to pretend he’d come for information, and he chose to question Solas about himself, pretending it was Solas being an unknown that made him someone Kios needed to get to know. Yet he’d learned much, and had his heart shaken once again. This time, however, it was his beliefs that he found himself questioned. And then he was rattled again, as Solas noted his interest in seeing Kios’ will dominated and Kios’ heart quivered, something within him longing so desperately for something he’d never heard of that it had shaken him to his core.

Not that it had mattered. The damage had been done.

He’d known since then that Solas was an enemy. He’d allowed himself to fall for Solas’ tricks, to believe Solas cared simply because Solas hadn’t betrayed him when Corypheus had attacked Haven.

No. Simply because he’d loved Solas. Somehow, despite being unable to trust him, Kios had fallen in love with him, anyway. Because despite knowing emotions were weaknesses, he’d still chosen to act on them, anyway.

Now here he was, in the middle of a snowstorm, desperately keeping the spiderlings that crawled through the rift back even as his chest heaved. Beside him, Cassandra struggled to keep up, her shield arm held tight to her side as she swung her blade, having to dodge back without her shield to defend herself. And Solas, to his left, pushing back the encroaching cluster with ice and steering clear of his usual rift magic, for some reason. Behind them all stood the Champion, his magic a searing hot wind that felt like it should have been melting the snow at their feet. Their exhaustion made them sloppy, leaving aches and pains that Hawke’s magic barely managed to heal. Kios estimated only a few more minutes before they collapsed and the cluster swarmed them. Before that happened, he would have to close the Rift.

“By the gods,” he growled, “if you can hear me in there, you’d better be hurrying up!”

No response. He gritted his teeth. It was looking like he was going to have to make the call. If he had to leave the rest behind, he would do it. He would just never forgive himself.

“No! No, Fenris, please, Fenris, let me stay, don’t do this, please, please–”

“Spirit! Get him out of here!”

“No! No! Don’t – get off me! Don’t make me do this again! Please. I can help. I’ll use my magic. Just please – don’t make me see – no! No! No!”

Fenris’ ears still rang with Azzan’s last screams. He wished what he heard was only in his mind, but the demon kept playing it on repeat, forcing him to watch those moments over and over again as they fought; the demon’s baby spiders danced around them, enacting the scene over and over again. One – the one that had taken on the illusory image of Fenris – turned away even as Hawke screamed, his eyes wide and hair in his face, one hand reaching out for him even as the rift pulsed and they passed through. “It will take too long for the Inquisitor to close that thing again! We need to hold the demon off as long as possible.”

Varric’s image, moving until it stood only inches from where Varric stood now, readied its crossbow. “Was just thinking the same thing.”

Varric shot another arrow, his lips thinning as he reached for his quiver and heard the bolts rattle loudly, marking the empty space within. “Don’t have much left!” he snapped, even as he aimed and shot the demon’s front leg again. It kept reaching for the entrance, almost not caring about their interference. Fenris stabbed its other foot straight through, trying to lodge his sword into the ground and force the demon to remain in place. Instead, it screeched and reared back, nearly pulling both him and his sword into the sky. He barely wrenched his blade out in time.

Around them, the Inquisitor’s spirit friend flitted back and forth, no longer seeming to disappear and reappear, but always, always visible. It was tiring. They all were.

His lyrium no longer lit the green earth around them. He held no more stamina to keep it active, and no healing to rejuvenate him. They wouldn’t be able to last much longer, and the rift was no smaller than before. He scowled. “They’re still not closing it? What’s wrong with your Inquisitor?!”

Varric laughed. “I don’t know! I guess he likes us!” A moment later, the frivolity left. “You know Hawke wouldn’t leave us behind, either.”

Fenris blocked the demon’s next attempt to step through the rift with his sword. The pressure of its simple step forward pushed him back nearly to the rift’s edge. All around him, the earth warped and crumbled beneath the rising green miasma that lay beneath. “If they don’t close it, the demon will get through, too!”

Varric shot cover fire for Cole, depleting his store of bolts further. “You know as well as I do that if you stay here, Marshmallow will just come racing back in. It’s time for you to go.”

“He’ll come back for you, too, you ugly ball of chest hair!” He ignored Varric’s affronted shout and stood before Varric, holding his sword before him as Nightmare tried to squash both him and Varric like bugs. He could see the creature’s gaping body, the wide expanse of its abdomen and the pincers longer than Fenris’ sword. The creature could have easily stepped around them and chased after Hawke and the others, just as its spiderlings did. Instead it fought with them, nearly toyed with them. Once again, Fenris thought of its end goal – to capture him and bleed him out in front of Hawke. His heart twisted as he realized a second reason for it to constantly play those last moments over and over again. Hawke was only a single step from being broken by this beast. He’d already sworn to use his magic, so long as he didn’t have to watch Fenris die again.

Fenris snarled and pushed the leg back. The demon tottered for a moment on its other five legs. Fenris cut forward, slicing the leg in front of him off completely as the spirit flitted over to its next right leg. Varric managed to shoot the closest one on the left. “Besides,” Fenris said, responding again to Varric’s words, “I have no intention of either of us – any of us,” he amended, watching the spirit dart behind the leg bearing down on Fenris to cut high and wide, making the monster scream, “remaining here.”

“Oh?” Varric scooted close to Fenris’ elbow, aiming below Fenris’ arm. “Is that the sound of an idea I hear?”

A long bead of sweat snaked down his temple as he grinned. “That spirit gave me an idea.”

Cole barely evaded a swipe from an arm that hadn’t been there seconds before. “I don’t want credit for that.”

Varric grunted. “Great. I love it already.”

It had been too long.

They were getting swarmed. They were too tired to take care of even these small nuisances anymore. Azzan’s healing aura felt like a blaze, and it dipped and died off and felt skewed, because he held no foci to center his mana. Kios was doing his best to keep up with the scuttling demons the way Cole always had, but no matter his skill, he wasn’t as fast, and with only one dagger, he couldn’t slice as quickly. Slowly, the demons became too many, their webs gunking up his feet, their tiny bodies launching themselves onto him, dragging him down even when he used Cassandra’s shield to shove them off of him.

Cassandra herself fell further and further back, her arm still clutched to her side despite Hawke’s attempts to heal her. Solas kept creating barriers and freezing opponents, blocking the creatures off with ice walls as often as possible, forcing them into lines that made Kios’ job momentarily easier. But he was clearly exhausted, as well; his usual smooth movements were sloppy; he threw his magic instead of pushing or gliding it along. His breaths came more and more labored; his walls got thinner and thinner, shorter and shorter.

He had to do it. He had to make the call. He had to leave them behind.

He turned to the rift. He’d let Cole go, and he wasn’t sure anymore if it was because he’d trusted Cole to come back or if he’d simply wanted. He’d wanted them to come back. But they were facing defeat, and they would lose everyone if he didn’t do something about it. Half the team lost to retrieve one person. Some might call that a victory.

He gritted his teeth. He felt like he’d been impaled all over again. He raised his hand. “Mythal,” he whispered. “Judge my heart. Do not find me wanting. Please.” It was his job to make the hard calls. To do the things no one wanted to do. To abandon the templars. To force Orlais to acknowledge elves. To spurn the humans’ Chantry. To choose the fate of the Grey Wardens. To drink from the damned waters of the vir’abelasan and accept Mythal’s curse. Over and over again, the hard choices had fallen to him.

One more time. He would carry the choice one more time.

He winced as the mark sparked, responding to the rift before him. It hurt like he’d pulled a muscle, stretching along the canvas of the scar. He heard Hawke scream when the man saw what he was doing.

It hurt. Hawke was the only person he’d ever known to get it right. To find something as amazing and rare as love and to receive it in return. Simply seeing Hawke speak of Fenris, simply watching Fenris’ devotion to Hawke, had been enough to make him believe in it all again. Despite his own experiences. Despite his own shattered heart. And here he was, about to destroy that beautiful bond all over again.

Someone grabbed his wrist.

Gods help him, he recognized the feel of Solas’ fingers, the look of them, without ever having to look. He snarled. “We’re dead if this continues,” he snapped. “And I’m not letting it take the Champion again.”

“I will go.”

Some wordless sound tried to crawl its way out of his throat. The idea of leaving Solas behind caused a fear unlike any felt before. His instinct was to refuse, to demand Solas remain out of the Beyond where he was, if not safe, then safer. Then, after that hideous moment of instinct where his body betrayed him, his mind finally kicked in and realized that Solas was an enemy, that he shouldn’t fear Solas’ death, that he was being an idiot. Again.

If Solas was their enemy, then he was Nightmare’s ally. Letting Solas enter the Fade again would mean giving Nightmare back-up. Any slim chance the others had would disappear. He forced himself to recognize that fact and acknowledge it, told himself it was the only reason he scowled, still wide-eyed, and said, “no.”

Solas was no fool. He must have known everything that had happened. The instinctive reaction. The subsequent suspicion. He slid his hand off of Kios’ wrist, leaving nothing but an echo of warmth behind. He said nothing. Just stared. Kios had done so many scenes with him, however. Hours of watching Solas’ every movement. Every step, every glance, every flick of his fingers. He’d knelt, poised and ready, for the instant Solas showed displeasure or triumph or curiosity or satisfaction. He’d hummed with the need to receive that thin-lipped smile that told him he’d done well, that Solas was proud of him. That told him he’d aced the scene.

He knew, almost before Solas moved, that he would turn to the rift, ignoring Kios’ order.

“Solas!” He reached out and grabbed Solas’ wrist. It had been instinct again. His voice had not sounded like someone giving an order, but instead someone making a plea. He froze, furious with himself for reacting in such a way once again, even now.

Solas stared at him. Solas’ eyes always seemed to soak in the world around him. It was the gray in them, he knew, but it felt more ethereal than that. Like now. It felt like Solas’ eyes captured light. The Fade’s green glow echoed in those irises as he pushed off Kios’ hand. “If I don’t go,” Solas said quietly, “Then he will.”

Kios reared back. His head began to turn and look back, toward Hawke, even as his mind screamed at him to pay attention. It was a clear distraction. Obvious. Solas would leave while he was turning away.

He caught himself. Head half-turned, left foot shifted toward the side to balance him as he looked back. He just didn’t stop himself quickly enough to do more than watch Solas head toward the rift out of his peripheral vision.

And to see the long, hairy leg of a spider writhe out of the rift, moving blindly to crush Solas as he reached the edge of that green light.

He screamed. Moved again, on instinct, cutting through this side and the Beyond, Cassandra’s shield in his hands. He returned to this world with the shield up, barely inside the leg as it crashed down. Nightmare reared back at the pain of Kios’ return to corporeal form, then struck down. Kios took the full force of the hit with a groan, buckling beneath the weight.

Then it was gone. He felt pressure against the shield, but nothing else. He looked up to see the leg frozen above him. An instant later, Cassandra ran in, cutting the limb off entirely. If Nightmare felt it, they couldn’t hear.

Cassandra yanked up the dead limb and tossed it into the rift. For a short moment, no more spiderlings chased after them.

“Start closing the rift!” Solas said, still heading inside. Cassandra made a wordless balking noise around the same time he did. “I’ll bring them back out, I swear it!”

He’d already told himself he would lose everyone still within the Beyond; he’d already mourned the decision to let Cole go inside, believing that he’d killed the spirit with the choice. If he sent the traitor in, would there really be a difference? Unless he was still holding on to hope, even now? Which was illogical. He needed to accept reality.

If only his body hadn’t just proven that it was still prone to hoping for the impossible.

He didn’t try to stop Solas this time. There was some sort of sad acceptance there he couldn’t accept – as if Solas knew he was walking to his own death. But that couldn’t be it. Nightmare wouldn’t kill him. Perhaps it was the end of all of this, this entire farce, the way he’d planned. Perhaps he only mourned he hadn’t managed to kill Kios.

He turned away. He couldn’t bear to think like that, even when he knew it was true.

He heard the rift expand and contract. Instead of footsteps receding away, however, something crashed down behind him. It started cursing liberally.

“I can still fight, you walking moonbeam!” He turned, wide-eyed, at the sight of Varric scrabbling onto his feet, Bianca still in his hand. The quiver on his back, however, was empty.

He sucked in a breath.

“Varric!” The Champion raced past him, grabbing Varric’s shoulders and sizing him up. Despite how exhausted the Champion must have been, he pulled at his healing aura to wrap around Varric’s form. It surrounded the dwarf in golden light.

“I’m fine, Marshmallow, I’m fine. Save your energy.” If anything, the words made the Champion stiffen further. “So’s the elf and the kid.”

Even with that said, the Champion’s face hardened. Kios grabbed the man’s shoulder, forced to have to choose who he stopped. If nothing else, he needed to make sure Hawke did not return to the Beyond. Even if they all died, it was better than the alternative. A Nightmare that could heal Corypheus and his army.

The Champion turned on him, but it was long enough for Solas to hurry inside. Varric made some sound of distress at the sight. Cassandra just came up on the Champion’s other side. “Solas is strong,” she said, even as she helped Kios wrenched Hawke away from the rift. “He will get them.”

“He’s weak,” Hawke argued. “And he can’t heal.”

“You’re weak,” Kios snapped. “And everyone here has risked their lives to save you. If you go in, you’re dooming those of us who remain.”

Logic. He wasn’t surprised that it didn’t work. Hawke looked like he’d been the one stabbed, as if he could barely move under the weight of the pain. Kios was forced to stand before the human and take up arms again; spiderlings came out in droves, heralding the nearness of the demon they suckled from. His muscles ached. His back slouched. The spiders gnawed on his legs as he stabbed them through.

“Cassandra,” he said, panting. Solas had ordered him to begin closing the rift. Gods help him, he had to do it.

Seal away Solas. Seal away those still inside, still trying to survive. He raised his hand. Hawke screamed. “No!” Cassandra barely stopped the Champion in time. Varric bashed the spiders trying to reach Kios with Bianca, murmuring apologies to the crossbow with every hit, promising even better upgrades for her when they got back to Skyhold. If they still made it back to Skyhold. “Don’t!”

Despite logic. Despite common sense. Despite the last several hours, in which he’d had it proven to him just what Solas was. Despite it all, he found himself wishing Solas might bring them back, after all. Just to save Cole and Fenris from his mistakes.

But since trusting Solas had been his biggest mistake, he didn’t hold any hope.

“You have to go!” the spirit shouted, trying to push him through with Varric as Nightmare snapped its mandibles down on them, pushing them back. They'd used the mist around them, kicking it up the way it had swirled around the spirit as he'd attacked. Varric had been able to hide most easily, and Fenris had managed to slide in some well-aimed slashes at the demon's legs and underbelly. Because of their efforts, the spider had lost its front legs entirely. The one they’d failed to stop had been halted by those outside and thrown back in, the weight and heft of it too great to be fake. They had been the ones to take the other, and had desperately tried to take a second before Varric had run out of arrows and elemental mines, and Fenris had shoved him through the rift.

Their actions had managed to push Nightmare momentarily back, but the demon seemed to answer it all with a new level of fury. The spiderlings that had ignored them now turned on them. The demon which had largely been toying with them now reached out with mandibles outspread, legs grasping, webbing spraying around behind them, encasing them within this frontal assault they couldn’t possibly win. Fenris gave an optimistic estimate of perhaps a minute before they fell.

But it was all right, he told himself. Varric was safe; he would help Azzan cope with his loss. And finally, the Inquisitor had gotten his head on straight and begun to close the rift.

If he could just hold on for that one minute, then Azzan would be safe.

He stepped before the closing rift and held his sword aloft.

“No! Run forward!”

The voice was not that of the spirit’s, nor of Varric’s. It was the voice of the Inquisitor’s lover, the one who had betrayed him. Fenris turned on his heel and snarled. “Get out!”

“Run forward!” the elf shouted again, his staff held before him, nearly horizontal. “We only have one chance!”

“Not the left!” Cole shouted. “The right! The right!”

“Go!” Solas snapped, his head still turned toward Fenris. Though Fenris instinctively chafed against a mage other than Hawke giving him orders, he ran. The thought of having a chance, even the slimmest, of meeting with Azzan again made his feet move even as he snarled at the command. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but Cole’s shout still rang in his ears. The right! The right!

He ran right.

He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do; leaving the rift to be guarded by the mage alone made his shoulders ache as he moved forward. He could hear the rift behind them all, louder than ever before despite the fact that he knew it was shrinking. He watched the shadow of the demon above him move, felt its looming movements like a weight upon his back. The demon threw itself at him. He tensed as it moved, ready to be split open, certain in that instant that he was being used as a diversion.

Then the ground turned slick around him, the rock turned a bright sheen that made it more teal than green, and the monster’s weight slid and fell wide. The creature’s legs splayed so wide along the ground that it needed to hold off its assault or else risk falling. The leg Fenris, Varric, and Cole had managed to injure buckled.

Fenris leaped up and swung his sword.

The sword stopped on the demon’s unnatural exoskeleton, as usual, but this time, his momentum had gotten his sword deep enough into the armor that he got caught within instead of ricocheting off. The demon shrieked and shook its leg, trying to fling him off. He swung like a fool for a split second before Cole slid across the icy ground and stabbed into an area where Varric’s arrows had dug into the demon. With another scream, the demon’s leg finally crumpled. His feet touched the ground. He used the new position to give himself enough stability to slice through, nearly completely severing this leg, as well, and got himself and his sword free.

Cole grabbed him by his arm, dragging him back toward the rift. “Now! Now!” the spirit hissed, its hat banging against the side of his head as the spirit yanked until he could get himself turned around properly and run. The elf, Solas, stood before the rift, his hands out. Fenris felt a barrier form around him just as he reached the elf’s side. Cole clasped Solas’ shoulder, pushing him, as well. Solas dropped his hands and turned around. The rift was still wide enough for them to dive through. Cole dove first, shivering as it passed through. He watched its body disappear. Then he turned to the elf.

“Go!” Solas shouted. Behind them, Nightmare shouted in fury. He heard the spider scrabbling back up.

Fenris went, grabbing Solas’ wrist in a bruising grip. The elf jumped. “Whatever’s going on between you and the Inquisitor,” he said, his gaze sharp, “you face it.”

The rift was small enough now that he had to bend at the waist and lift his legs, one hand still around Solas, the other dragging his sword through with him, in order to get through. He high-stepped through the rift, jolting at the shock of cold and wind on the other side. Perhaps the spirit had been right to just dive through like he was entering a lake.

He pulled Solas closer, even as the elf threw a tiny shard of ice toward Nightmare’s face. The demon had gotten back to its feet, its beady eyes all trained on them. It reached out with its closest feet. Fenris levered himself through the rift onto his cold leg and threw himself to the other side, dragging Solas with him like a club. Instead of green rock and stagnant air, he found himself suddenly surrounded by a whirlwind of white. He stumbled through, still pulling Solas. The mage pushed himself through, as well; Fenris could feel a slight lessening in the weight in his hand and knew the elf had tried to jump through. He grimaced and yanked harder, nearly scraping Solas against his blade in the effort. Solas screamed, stiffening in Fenris’ grip, and he yelled, too, desperately trying to get the elf through before the rift became too small and Solas was crushed and torn apart by it.

They both stumbled onto the other side. Solas fell to his knees the instant his feet hit land, and blood colored the ground beneath him. Fenris pulled his sword through and sagged to his knees, trying to find the energy to move to the elf’s side but unable to get his feet to cooperate.

“Fenris!”

He barely had time to look up before Azzan was on him, arms wrapped around his neck. Fenris sighed. He let go of the elf, dropped his sword, and wrapped his arms around Azzan. The man was sobbing, clutching him tight enough that his armor chafed, pressing so close the metal of Hawke’s chin guard was digging into his neck, into the lines of lyrium following his arteries, and it hurt. He clenched his hands around Hawke’s, trying to bring him even closer.

They’d done it. They’d made it out of the Fade.

“As touching as this is,” Varric panted, “we need some help!”

Just as the words filtered into his mind, he felt something grab at him. Pressure dug into the back of his armor, into the leather, trying to breach it and reach skin. An animal bite. He curled his arm around Hawke until he could hold the man up with one hand, then grabbed his sword. The handle felt like ice; he became aware enough of his surroundings to realize he knelt in snow, and more of it was swirling around them in giant clumps. Yet somehow, the ground was mostly brown. Brown and… writhing.

He slid his sword behind himself, hefting its weight horizontally so he sliced whatever was trying to eat him. His sword came away slick with juices. A spiderling fell to the ground.

Spiderlings. They were everywhere.

He stood up. His legs trembled, yet despite the battle still raging around him, Hawke did not activate his healing aura. Fenris grimaced, forced to push Hawke back and stand in front of him, trying to shield him from the bugs. Spiderlings weren’t powerful, yet the idea of fighting the tiny army made his arms shake as he lifted his sword. He saw the others around him; the spirit was already slashing his way through, his thin chest heaving from exertion. The woman, the female warrior, fought without her shield, stabbing over and over, creating a pile of the dead things as they raced toward her. And then there was Varric, standing with the woman’s shield before the Inquisitor, his feet gouged into the snow as he tried to stop the things from chewing on the man as he held his hand out to the rift, that green arc of lightning spasming between him and the rift.

It was dwindling even as he watched, though the Inquisitor seemed to be struggling with it far more than he had the first time. Beside him, Solas wrapped one hand around his leg, trying to stifle the blood loss. He held his staff in his other hand, using it more as a cane than a staff. He looked back, teeth pulled back, and watched the rift as it shrank to the size of a man’s head.

Two legs breached the rift, looking less like oddly armored insectoid features and more like scythes. They rose high into the sky. “Everyone get back!” Fenris shouted, already grabbing Hawke’s arm and running. Hawke stumbled, the legs he hadn’t used for days failing him in their weakness. Fenris stumbled with him, too tired to continue further. He chose instead to use his last remaining strength to pull Hawke by his side and fell to the snow, quickly rolling over Azzan and curling himself over Azzan’s head. Azzan screeched in his ear, some wordless wail of impending loss.

No one passed them.

He heard the riotous tumult behind him as everyone tried to react in time; spiderlings danced over his legs, grabbing at him and biting, this time reaching past his armor into skin. He heard Solas shout for the Inquisitor before the scythes slammed into the ground and the world shook. Something slammed into the back of his head. The snow-white world around him turned black.