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The Inquisitor finds her about a week before they’re set to march on Adamant. Varric is below them, lounging against the outer wall of the tavern and watching Cassandra. The Seeker seems to be trying to beat her training dummy into a fine mist.
Marian wonders if the looks he’s sending the Nevarran mean more than she'd first assumed. She also wonders if he knows yet.
Probably not. Varric liked to think he was a genius at reading people, that he could get a person’s story out of them in a few seconds of conversation. He'd been the first to notice what was brewing between her and Anders, admittedly. But if Marian understood anything about Varric’s past relationships, it was that he had a very shaky grasp on his own feelings.
She kept her thoughts resolutely on Varric's abysmal love life as the Herald of Andraste sidled up to her. She leaned into the walls of the battlements. Her eyes joined Hawke’s.
“Thank you for coming, Hawke,” the Herald said.
Marian lifted a single shoulder, tossing a smirk her way. “What are Heroes for?” she asked, but it sounded too jaded, even for her. She hid a wince.
“We have a betting pool, you know,” the Herald said, tossing her chin towards the dwarf and the Seeker below. “Dorian and I think they’ll both be oblivious until the end of the world. Whenever that happens.”
“Varric does love his bittersweet endings,” Hawke said.
“I read the Champion of Kirkwall,” the Herald told her. “When we were in Haven, someone let me have a copy. I devoured it in a night.”
“He does make everything seem so grand, doesn’t he?” Hawke asked. She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. If everything had happened just as her best friend had written, she doubted she’d have half the problems she did now. For one, she’d have a bit more coin in her purse, and food in her belly. Real heroes weren’t supposed to be destitute after the story ended.
“I worry about how he’ll write me,” the Herald admitted. “He’s too kind to me, too forgiving.”
“That’s not the usual response,” Hawke pointed out. She had to admit that the Inquisitor had impressed her. It was one thing for Varric to vouch for her—she trusted him, but again, he tended to paint things with a kind brush—but from what she’d seen, the girl was doing good.
She was young—painfully young—but she had a good head on her shoulders. If Hawke was unkind, or stupid, she would have attributed that to wise advisors. But she’d met the Herald’s companions—they seemed a good sort, but none were extraordinarily wise. Plus, she doubted Cullen had anything approaching wisdom to contribute.
“I have made mistakes. I’ve failed people,” the Herald told her. She turned her eyes away from Varric and Cassandra, who’d descended into a loud argument. “Besides, you did better with just a handful of friends. I’ve got an army.”
Hawke laughed. She laughed so hard she couldn’t speak for several moments. The Herald watched her, seemingly confused.
“Did better? A Chantry blew up,” Hawke reminded her, still laughing. Now she understood why Varric liked this girl so much.
The Herald’s face went still for a moment, and she seemed to weigh her response. Hawke sobered gradually, waiting for the judgment. It always came. The faithful were always the harshest—she hadn’t seen or spoken to Sebastian in years, but she knew just how ardently he still despised her. But there were mages too, who blamed her, mages like Vivienne.
Even Varric had greeted her less warmly than she remembered.
The Herald was a mage, but she was also nobility. Perhaps she regretted losing the comfort of her Circle.
But what the girl said next surprised her.
“I wouldn’t shed tears about the destruction of a Chantry,” she whispered.
Hawke stood straighter, taking the Inquisitor in more fully. “People died. In the explosion, and the resulting chaos. Hundreds.”
“How many mages were in Kirkwall’s Circle?” the Herald asked.
“I don’t know, exactly, Inquisitor,” Hawke lied.
She did know. Anders had told her. But... How could she atone if she continued to make excuses for herself?
“Call me Evelyn, Hawke,” the Herald said. She paused, taking a deep breath as if to prepare for a speech, but her words were still quiet when she said “There were 179 mages at the Ostwick Circle. When the Templars tried to annul us, there was very little talk of guilt.”
Hawke didn’t speak. She couldn’t bring herself to argue for the Templars. The very idea made bile rise in her throat. But even without a response, Evelyn continued.
“When I was nineteen, there was another apprentice. Her name was Ellaria. She was a beautiful girl, and talented. Polite, even. She’d been brought in from an Alienage when she was little,” Evelyn paused once more, closing her eyes for a brief second. “Ellaria was my best friend. When her Harrowing came, we were sure she’d pass through, that she’d become a proper mage.”
Hawke slumped a little. She knew all too well where this was headed. But she waited, letting Evelyn tell her story. She only hoped it might help.
“One of the Templars, Ser Hoss...he thought Ellaria was beautiful too. And he was one of Knight-Commander Tylger’s most trusted men. When Tylger died, he took over. She didn’t even get to take her Harrowing. And what can a Tranquil say, when a Templar asks them for something?”
Evelyn’s grip on the walls looking painfully tight, her knuckles going white, and the way she was looking at Hawke...
Her eyes were wide and pleading. But Hawke wasn’t sure what to say. She wondered if Anders or Varric, hell, even Merrill, might have been able to speak to her. Even Surana would have been better with this sort of thing, for as little as Hawke had known her. Hawke was good at talking, but not so good at comforting.
“I’m...sorry,” Hawke finally said. But it felt so useless, so inadequate. She’d heard of such abuses before, had lived with a fear of Templars herself. But being an apostate wasn’t the same as being in a Circle. Anders had made that clear to her in the past.
“I...” Evelyn began. She released the wall, shaking her head and tugging at her the sleeves of her robes, obviously uncomfortable. “When I was near Redcliffe, I found a copy of the Manifesto, you know. Copies got out, even though the Chantry tried to prevent it. There was a mage in Redcliffe, struggling with a demon.”
Hawke cringed.
“He’d been reading it. The pages were so worn, and he’d made so many notes the thing was unreadable, but I found another copy.”
She pondered telling Evelyn about the countless nights they’d spent, late at night, editing that damn manifesto. The mornings they’d woken up, covered in ink, still sitting at the desk together. Or the fights—tremendous arguments that lasted days, while Hawke begged him to eat more, to sleep more, to take a break. Instead, she chose silence once again.
“I know you say Anders is far away, that you’re protecting him from Corypheus. But if—when—I defeat him...when you return to him, can I make a request?”
“What?” Hawke asked. Her voice was strained. She waited for the girl to ask her for an explanation, or an apology. Or perhaps she wanted to reprimand Anders, present a better way he could have taken.
Once again, this young girl, marked for greatness and leading an army even though she was barely out of childhood, surprised her.
“Can you thank him?” Evelyn asked. She sounded raw, and Hawke couldn’t fight the tears that sprung to her eyes. “I know others might say this is all his fault...they might see the chaos as his doing. But all I see is a future where girls like Ellaria aren’t at the whims of monsters like Ser Hoss. I see a future where they can’t hurt us anymore.”
“Inquisitor,” Hawke began, but she had to stop because she was crying, and she was supposed to be a jaded old veteran, not some weepy, homeless apostate with more problems than coins.
“I assume you’ve been met with more hatred than gratitude,” Evelyn pressed on. “And that’s fair, I suppose. Some mages lost a lot in this war. But there are plenty of mages in the Inquisition who agree with me. From Circles across the South. They still have copies of the Manifesto. Ellaria...she’s still...but she’s here, working with the enchanters. She’s safe. ”
Hawke reached out, briefly, placing a light touch on the Inquisitor’s shoulder. She withdrew, quickly. “I don’t know how to react, to be honest. More used to people spitting at me. But I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him everything you just told me. I swear it.”
“Thank you,” Evelyn breathed. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, for me and the Inquisition.”
“What’re heroes for?” Hawke shrugged. It felt less like a mockery now, though.