PROLOGUE

Vengeance Won

O Maker, hear my cry:
Guide me through the blackest nights
Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked
Make me to rest in the warmest places.

Canticle of Transfigurations

The setting felt almost cavernous, the surrounding trees pressing out the natural light and chilling the soft sand at their feet. Occasionally, the dream gave the impression of bodies littering the ground, disfigured beyond recognition. Before one flickered out of his perception, Davin Hawke caught a fleeting glimpse of a Sword of Mercy on a piece of mutilated armor, and he knew. It's the campsite that started his flight from Vigil's Keep. This would be where Rolan met his end. Of course it would be here; this was the first occasion the bloody spirit had to suppress the nature of a born healer.

The landscape wouldn't be still, constantly shifting in contrast with the static resolve of those who would intrude upon a nightmare. With every blink, Hawke was shaken from his ingrained and automatic concentration. Each time a landmark moved, or a stand of trees disappeared entirely, or a fresh tent was created in a new and inconvenient place, he lost the measure he held for timing and distance to his target. Almost too late he switched his focus, marking instead his brother and his friend as they danced around their foe, weaving and dodging, their distance holding fast at the points of their great blades even as they were deflected by the shield the ethereal form carried.

They were making progress, but it had been a long and bloody battle to weaken their quarry. Vaguely aware of Merrill at his left, Hawke stepped back to give her the fore as the shocking bursts from her staff cut off abruptly. Seeing her target's increasing fatigue, the elf traced patterns in the space before her, the very air alight with the angry strokes of her sigil, the spell flaring as her voice touched each nexus of the invocation. "That's just about got him! Hit him while the hitting is good!"

That same sigil lit the ground below their target, weakening their enemy's resistance to the blades his flagging energy was no longer able to successfully repel. Alarmed, he summoned a burst of spirit to stagger the warriors, sending them off their feet and out of reach. Glancing around to choose his tactic, he advanced on Fenris, whose blade had fallen too far from his hand to be reclaimed. The elf crawled backwards, determined not to make himself so easy a kill, when the land beneath him shifted again. Cornered, now, against a mound of cursed magical earth that hadn't been there before, his sword glinting in the distance as if taunting him with his failure.

And then his opponent stumbled away, stricken forcefully by a fist summoned from that earth, keeping his feet only by the grace of the crackling ice that consumed his form. Fenris's eyes met Merrill's as she called out something that was at once both lilting and vindictive. As he began his dash to rearm himself, his gaze passed over the remnants of frost hovering about Hawke's extended arm.

Injured now, their foe opened an arcane channel to… Maker, he wasn't here before! Must have saved him until he was needed. Hawke's perception shifted, following the lines of power to the chained and struggling apparition of the blond man they sought to free. Before he could fully comprehend that the prisoner was being drained to restore their enemy, Carver closed the distance between himself and the former spirit at a sprint, calling for a shield as he ran.

Understanding his brother's intent, Hawke watched for – and even at such a distance, felt a touch of – the smiting power Carver unleashed to interrupt the demon's sickening transfer of energy. As soon as the bonds broke, Hawke's spell came to a close, enveloping the healer's form in a sphere of force that would repel any further attempts at using him to prolong the fight.

Judging the window to shatter the demon with a pommel strike to be closed, Carver brought his sword around and lunged, piercing his target's back and eliciting a scream of rage as the essence of the being left its body around his blade. Seeing his chance, Fenris swept in from the side, his blade connecting with the one already lodged in the demon's chest. Wordless cries of defeat echoing throughout the Fade, the corrupted spirit evaporated into the empty air around them.

Justice had long since been consumed. And now, with the realization of the deadly promise Hawke had made years ago, Vengeance was no more.

Even as Hawke dispelled the shield he had cast to protect his love and ran toward Anders's side, the landscape faded, taking his companions with them, replaced with the unrelieved blackness of a dreamless sleep.

Waking from the spell, Hawke felt like a drowning man taking his first desperate gulp of air. Surging up from the reclining chair he had occupied during the ritual to send the four of them into the Fade, he crossed the dimly lit room, fast strides carrying him to the table where Anders was restrained. He took no notice of the marks remaining on the floor where the magisters had traced them. If he scuffed them now, it would be of no consequence; their purpose had been fulfilled.

Leather straps bound the healer to the table's surface at his wrists, at his feet, across his chest and his legs. Wrists first, Hawke thought, recalling the horrors his love had told him of suffering, hands bound all the while. If he can move his hands, it will be… less.

Too soon, Anders awoke from the spell and was immediately aware of his condition. Thrust from the panic of drowning under the ritual to the terror of his waking prison, he struggled violently against the bonds that held him down, even as they were released one by one, then two by two as Merrill stepped up without a word to help with the buckles and clasps.

Hawke left Merrill to finish with the restraints once Anders was able to sit up, turning so the healer could hold on and steady himself, speaking low enough that his words remained private. "They were for Justice, Anders. Never for you. If we failed and he took you over, the others would need time to flee. Never again, Anders, I swear it."

The fog of terror receded, whispered away under the soothing breeze of his love's voice. In the calm that followed, Anders realized what had been done. He's gone. I'm… me, all of me. None of him. At once, a tide of memory and anguish rose up within him, a forced recollection of all the battles he had won to preserve himself against the spirit and… the consequences of his ultimate failure. Broken, he leaned heavily on the other mage, choking out his gratitude when the man heard the unspoken plea and helped him away from the table where he'd been held.

Remembering Fenris's words before they joined the odd collective of magisters who had aided them, the four combatants gathered their weapons and ushered Anders toward the door without a word. They offered no additional thanks, having traded coin for the favor of the ritual as negotiated. Leaving the magisters with no foothold to imagine any further indebtedness, they exited the small chamber at the base of a gleaming tower and carried their charge back to the tavern and the privacy of their rented space.