Justice / Bethany Hawke
abuse of power
“My brother has gone mad,” Bethany said matter-of-factly.
There was no response, but she hadn’t expected one. Dead men, as a rule, were not good conversationalists.
“Maybe I should have seen it, before he became Champion,” she continued. “Maybe if I had been here, instead of with the Wardens…”
But instead there had been blood and fire on the steps of the Gallows, the crackle of magic and desperation in the air, battling mages barely older than she had been when she came to Kirkwall. Her brother had cut them down and stepped over their bodies as if they were meaningless, nothing—and how close had she come to being one of them?
What would Father have said?
She shook that thought away. “But now he’s viscount, with the full support of both the nobility and the templars behind him. More powerful than Knight-Commander Meredith ever was.” She remembered his face as they settled the circlet on his head, hardened and alien. “And more angry.”
Was it so long ago that he had carried her on his back and let her braid ribbons into his hair? It made her heart ache.
There was still no sign of life from her companion, but she pressed on. “They told me about you, the Wardens at the Vigil. About how you were, before. That you fought a cruel ruler to free the people trapped as her subjects, and swore revenge against the Darkspawn for one murdered man.”
Something finally seemed to flicker in his hollow eyes, like a knife sliding deftly between ribs.
“I know you hear me, spirit—or whatever you are.” She paused, the words sticking in her throat. “Jo- Come with me. Help me end what my brother has become. Rain justice down on this whole rotten city.”
For a moment, nothing. Then his white, stiff lips quirked into a smile.
“Better than haunting some corpse,” he rasped, and sat up.
