A/N: I make no claim to any of the characters in this story (except for the unnamed protagonist) – they belong to others, and I simply borrowed them for a while. I hope I didn't tarnish them in the process.
This is a sequel to Blood and Thunder. Yes, I know I said I wasn't planning a sequel – and at the time I wasn't. But their story just wouldn't leave me alone, so here we are!
Much of the dialogue is Bioware's, but I've taken some liberties with the order in which it occurs.
As always, any comments/reviews will be much appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Truth and Consequences
"Hello? Is there someone out there? Who is it?"
Alistair starts forward at the sound of the voice coming from inside the dungeon cell, and then stops and turns towards her, puzzled by her lack of movement.
The voice has frozen her to the spot. It's a voice she knows all too well; a voice she never expected to hear again. A voice whose owner she is utterly unprepared to deal with.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
She ignores Alistair's concern and forces her leaden feet to move, one slow step at a time, until she can see into the cell.
"Jowan?" It comes out as a cracked whisper.
His eyes widen in shock and her own disbelief is mirrored in his face. "By all that's holy... you! Maker's breath! How did you get here? I never thought I'd see you again!"
"What are you—" She breaks off as realisation hits her like a slap in the face. "Of course. You're the mage that Lady Isolde mentioned."
She'd thought she was done with being let down by him, but the feeling is all too familiar. And in its wake, echoes of other familiar feelings crowd in, too.
Alistair hisses behind her; he is standing uncomfortably close. "You poisoned the arl." His tone is distinctly unfriendly.
Jowan's face falls at Alistair's accusation and he nods, miserably. "It's true, I did." He casts his gaze downward. "For all I know, he's already dead."
Trying to ignore the pounding in her blood, she shakes her head. "He's not dead... at least, not yet."
Jowan's head snaps up to meet her gaze. "He's not?" He lets out a sigh, and she sees some of the tension leave him. "That's a relief. I can't tell you how much." He takes a step towards her, leaning against the cell door, and she steels herself not to retreat from him. "Please, I know how it seems. Poisoning the arl was... a terrible thing. But I'm not behind everything else happening here, I swear!"
"Ri-i-ight," Alistair drawls, his voice dripping scepticism.
She glances over her shoulder at her fellow Warden and gestures sharply at him to be quiet. Alistair gives her a wounded look and then settles for glaring at Jowan.
She returns her own attention to the cell, and its unexpected occupant. "Tell me everything."
She forces herself to focus on Jowan's words as he relates his story, doing her best to ignore the heavy bruising and half-healed cuts on his face that indicate he's been badly beaten.
He tells her how the templars caught him and brought him to Denerim, and how he was brought before Loghain and given a last minute reprieve: serve the teyrn by eliminating a threat to Ferelden – Arl Eamon – and receive a full pardon of his crimes against the Circle.
He swears to them that his only misdeed here in Redcliffe was the poisoning itself, and that he only heard of the walking dead after his imprisonment.
She closes her eyes when he speaks, with a shaking voice, of his torture by the arlessa's men.
He tells them he was hired by the arlessa to teach her son in secret: teach him to hide his newly-awakened magical talent, so that he need not be sent to the Circle. The arlessa's earlier reticence to speculate on the nature of the threat within the castle suddenly takes on new meaning, and Jowan agrees it's possible the boy has inadvertently torn the Veil, and allowed something evil through it.
And he begs to be allowed to help put things right.
Morrigan is surprisingly sympathetic, and urges her to release Jowan. Alistair, of course, takes the opposing view to Morrigan: he argues that as a blood mage, Jowan cannot not be set free. Leliana, for once, takes Morrigan's side: the bard feels that Jowan should be allowed the chance to redeem himself.
Alistair begrudgingly leaves the decision to her, as he has left every other decision. Jowan is her friend, he tells her. She knows him best, and she is their leader. It is her choice.
Some leader she is. All she has done since Ostagar is let Alistair guide her; he suggests a course of action, and she endorses it. He's the one who should be leading, not her. But he has steadfastly refused to take on the mantle himself, despite being the more senior Grey Warden. So she was the one who stepped up, because there was no-one else.
But this time, the decision will be hers, and hers alone. Alistair is too biased; as a former templar he sees Jowan only as a blood mage. And perhaps, also, a rival.
She ignores the fact that she is at least equally biased.
oOo
Alistair has been her rock since Ostagar; without him, she'd have fallen apart that first night in the Wilds, and many more times since.
His feelings for her are becoming more than that of comrades; that much is clear in his eyes whenever he looks at her lately, in the way he's become ever more protective of her, and in the way he stumbles over his words sometimes when they talk, like he's trying too hard not to say the wrong thing.
She had thought perhaps she might even come to return those feelings, one day. Alistair makes her laugh. He makes her feel wanted, cherished... safe.
And then Jowan has to crash back into her life, and remind her what love really feels like.
It feels like an open wound.
oOo
"We were friends, once. I know I don't deserve to call you that, after what I did, but... if it ever meant anything, please... help me fix this."
The heartfelt plea is echoed in Jowan's eyes, and she wants to believe he is sincere. But his words, pulling her thoughts back to that fateful day, are poorly chosen.
"I helped you once before, in the name of friendship."
Jowan flinches, but doesn't break her gaze. "And I betrayed you. And Lily." Regret is written clearly on his face. "I'm so sorry."
She swallows and says nothing.
"Please, I'm begging you! Won't you help me try and do one thing right in my life?"
Much to Alistair's disgust, she finds herself agreeing to do just that. She offers to release him, on the condition that he comes with them and does whatever he can to help them.
Jowan's eagerness to do the right thing ebbs noticeably at the prospect of accompanying them while they fight their way through the undead monstrosities filling the castle; but Alistair's scowl has him quickly agreeing to do what he can.
oOo
Between fights, she finds herself trailing behind the others with Jowan pacing silently and miserably at her side. Eventually, he plucks up the courage to speak.
"Please, I need to know... What became of Lily? They didn't hurt her, did they?" He swallows. "The thought that she might have paid for my crime..."
A fist clenches around her heart and squeezes. She shouldn't be surprised that he would want to know Lily's fate; of course he would. But it hurts, even so. Bitterness roils up inside her, and makes her reply a harsh one. "You should have thought of that before you involved her."
He hangs his head. "You're right, I should have. But please... just tell me she's all right!"
His torment is too much for her to take, and she relents. "I'm sorry, Jowan, I can't. The templars took her away, to Aeonar. She... didn't fight the judgement."
He moans. "Oh, my poor Lily. She must hate me now... if she even still lives. What have I done?"
She doesn't answer.
oOo
After a long silence, he hesitantly speaks again. "You... you haven't told me how you came to be here. How is it you're not in the Circle Tower?"
Tensely, she tells him of her recruitment into the Grey Wardens, and of the battle at Ostagar, and how she and Alistair alone remain to carry the mantle, and fight the Blight.
"Alistair – that's the one who keeps frowning disapprovingly at me, right?"
She glances ahead; sure enough, Alistair is glowering at them over his shoulder. She returns his glare, and nods at Jowan.
"He doesn't seem to like me very much," Jowan comments.
"No, he..." she starts defensively, and then wonders why she's defending Alistair to Jowan. "It's not you, exactly. It's more what you are."
She doesn't say the words blood mage, but he nods his understanding anyway.
"That other mage that's with you..." He gestures towards Morrigan. "She mentioned something about him being a templar?"
She sighs. "He was a templar, yes. He's not any more."
Jowan snorts. "Well, that certainly explains the disapproval." He looks at her, his mouth unexpectedly twitching into a sardonic grin.
She frowns. "What?"
The grin widens. "Oh, nothing. It's just..." He's struggling not to laugh, now. "You gave me such a hard time for getting involved with a Chantry initiate, and then you go and take up with a templar?"
Her mouth falls open. "I... what?" She stares at him incredulously. "I didn't... And I told you, he's not a templar now, he's a Grey Warden!" Even she can hear how defensive she sounds. "And I did not... there was no taking up with!"
Jowan arches a brow sceptically.
"He's a friend." She glares at him. "And Maker knows, I needed one, after—" She breaks off abruptly; this is not the direction she wants this conversation to go in.
"After I betrayed you," Jowan finishes for her, his voice suddenly quiet and full of pain.
She shakes her head vigorously. "Jowan, I don't want to talk about—"
"Well, I do," he interrupts. "I owe you that much, at least." She starts to protest, and he firmly cuts her off again. "I know what I did – to Lily and to you – I know it was unforgivable, and I'm not asking to be forgiven. Maker, I don't even want to be forgiven. Do you think I haven't thought about it, over and over, since I left the Tower? Do you think I haven't agonised over the way I abandoned you both, left you to answer for my mistakes, left you to..."
"To be made Tranquil? Or perhaps even be executed?" Her voice is harder than she'd intended; the anger and bitterness she's been bottling up for so long finally has an outlet, and it won't be denied.
He drops his gaze to the floor. "Yes." It's barely a whisper. "As soon as I was free and clear, and had time to think about it all..." He swallows, and one hand clenches into a fist. "It was stupid and selfish and cowardly and..." He trails off with a helpless shrug and meets her eyes. "There aren't words to do it justice. But I promise you, you can't hate me more than I hate myself."
"I don't hate you," she whispers, surprised to find that it's true.
"What?" Jowan's tone is incredulous. "How could you not hate me?"
"Because I love you, idiot!" She claps her hands to her mouth in horror but the words she never, ever meant to say are said, and there's no taking them back now. Choking back a small sob, she turns away from him in mortification.
Her confession is met with a stunned silence, and the minutes drag out into years as she waits for him to laugh, to say it's a good joke... to say something. Anything.
Alistair turns, noticing that she and Jowan have stopped following the others. His eyes narrow and his expression hardens as he sees the look on her face, and he takes a step back towards them both, his hand unconsciously drifting towards the pommel of his sword.
She waves him away with an angry gesture, motioning for him to continue after the others; reluctantly, he does so.
Then Jowan's hand tentatively touches her shoulder, and she flinches away. His hand drops, but she can feel him standing there, right behind her.
"What did you say?" he asks quietly.
She swallows and squeezes her eyes tightly shut for a moment. "You heard well enough," she whispers, almost hoping he won't hear her. "Don't make me say it again."
Jowan's hand grips her upper arm firmly and he pulls her round to face him. His expression is one of disbelief, and she looks down in dismay, unable to meet his eyes.
"Look at me," he demands in a hoarse voice. She gives a tiny shake of her head, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground.
He reaches out his other hand and puts it under her chin, gently tipping her face up towards his. "Look at me, please." His voice is gentle too, now.
Reluctantly, she looks into his eyes, trembling under the intensity of his gaze.
The disbelief gives way to wonder. "You... you're serious, aren't you?"
She holds his gaze silently, afraid to give voice to the emotions churning through her.
"But... all those times I talked to you about Lily, and you... oh, Maker. Why didn't you ever tell me?"
She just shrugs.
"I had no idea you... You were like a little sister to me, it never even crossed my mind that you might... That we could..."
His inability to even say the words out loud infuriates her, and it breaks the hold her emotions have on her. Her eyes flashing, she pulls her arm out of his grasp. "It doesn't matter any more." Her voice is cold. "We have a job to do. And I don't need you distracting me from it." She stalks away from him, her head held high, her heart encased in ice.