There is more moonshine in me than there should be in any king or young father and it occurs to me that if assassination is on his mind we must be seconds away from him dragging me out into the alley and stabbing me twelve times. I tell him so and in that irritating way of his of prefacing every sentence with a laugh he chortles and says "I would, Alistair, you would not believe the price on your head, but there is moonshine in me too." He takes another dainty sip, first taking care to tuck a stray lock of blond hair behind his ears, and I mirror him except my hand rebels on its ascent, spilling half my drink all over my trousers. A second thought occurs to me and it is that the Ferelden press would have a field day if they could see me now, but when I look around in wild panic to see if anyone's spying on us I realize my fears are unfounded. Without my crown I suppose all anyone sees is a middle aged man with greying hair, a stomach that's gone soft and trousers that looks like they've been pissed in. Same as every other guy at this inn - that's to say every guy except him who, incredibly, looks exactly the way he does in my decade old memories.

"You are still a very beautiful man," he says and I realise I've said my thoughts out loud again. I blush like a boy, remembering how he used to flirt with me mercilessly just to make me uncomfortable. "Do you want to see my room?" he asks.

"Okay." "Okay good."

We stumble up the stairs to the third floor of the Crown and Lion, where he fumbles with keys for an eternity before letting me into a room unlike any other room I've been in for the past ten years. It is unadorned by marble or precious metal and instead of the smell of perfume there is the raw salt smell of the ocean. The smell sharpens when he opens the windows. Though I can't see it I know the Amaranthine Ocean is somewhere out there in the moonless night; Duncan and I have spent the whole summer playing at its shores. Today at sunset it was indigo buzzing gold around the edges and as we waded slowly out into the water, my boy telling me he reckoned the sun was ours to pluck right out of the sky if we just managed to walk far enough, I thought that life had gotten as good as it gets. And yet here I am miles away from that life mesmerized by the way these cheap curtains billow in the ocean breeze like the sails of a ship. Here I am filling up with a sudden strange desire for this room to metamorphose into an actual ship and sail me away. Why?

I notice him unscrewing a bottle of something. "What's that?" "Brandy." "Careful," he says when it's my turn, "savour it, savour it, don't gulp… oh." He groans as a fresh wave of wet spreads across my trousers. "Would you like a clean pair of trousers?" he asks politely but I'm already unbuckling my belt and slipping mine off. There's a bed in the middle of the room, big enough for two, with clean white undisturbed sheets. I lay down to rest my spinning head.

At the corner of the room he's slowly removing his armour. He puts away his sword first and then his dagger and then he undoes his braids and pulls off his tunic. I watch him undress and confronted by his body I am struck by a thought that used to plague me years and years ago: he and I have been inside the same woman. If she could see us in this room, half naked and drunk out of our minds, would she laugh, unable to believe her eyes? Or would she pity us?

I feel the mattress shift beneath me as he comes to bed. "You can stay here tonight," he offers. "Thank you," I say, "I am very tired." "Me too," he says.

I begin to float away. A cloud of moonshine and brandy gathers beneath me. It buoys me through the open window, past the billowing curtains and further and further towards the black ocean.

"Alistair," he calls into the dark, summoning me back to his side. Very quietly, like he's afraid of his own question, he asks, "Do you miss her?"

There's the road we've been able to avoid until now. I've caught glimpses of it all evening and each time I've shied away; I know he has too. But if I'm being honest with myself it's why I've ended up here, isn't it? Following him from the castle to the inn, then from the bar to his room all because we were too afraid to give in to our need to say her name again.

"I miss her too," I say at last. "Sometimes I miss her more than I can bear."

"Me too," he says. He sounds relieved. "Except it's not just sometimes, it's every day. I wake up with a clear head and within seconds the noose is back around my neck." He laughs as if he's just told a joke.

"Even after all this time?"

"I'm afraid it'll never go away," he says softly. "I need to know, Alistair, how do you make it go away?"

"I don't know," I say. "When she and I ended things I was so confused… It was for the best, I know, but then she started seeing you and I didn't understand-"

"What she saw in me, yes." I can't see him but I can tell he's smirking. "Yes I remember how you used to stare at me with daggers in your eyes from across the campfire when you thought I wasn't looking."

"You are hardly innocent."

"Yes," he concedes. "I, too, struggled to understand the part of her that loved you. Especially at the end, you know. When she insisted on sacrificing herself, even after we'd talked about a life together. What a stupid, stupid, brave woman."

I tell him a thought that had once been so cancerous it had almost eaten me alive: "When she died I wished so badly it had been me instead of her."

He sighs but says nothing to that. There is a long, unhappy silence. Then he asks, one more time, "How do you make it go away?"

"Duncan came along." As I say the words I realize it is the truth. "It might sound sentimental, but when I found out Anora was pregnant despite the taint and everything I felt like the Maker had granted me a miracle. I finally had a reason to keep living."

"So you're saying I should have a child," he says, laughing. I try to imagine him as a father and realize I can't even imagine him as a child, having an age-appropriate conversation with another child. "I'd need a lifestyle change first," he says dreamily, briefly indulging the fantasy. "No, a lifestyle revolution. I should never have gone back to the Crows."

"Why did you?" I ask. "After everything they did to you?"

In the dark I feel him shrug, his shoulders heaving up against mine then falling away. "They were persistent. Join us or die. At first I said, go ahead, kill me, I welcome death. But you tend to change your tune when there's an actual blade pressed against your neck. No matter the amount of alcohol in your blood."

"Why not pretend to join them and escape later?"

"There was comfort in familiarity," he says simply.

"I understand, I think," I tell him.

"You're less sanctimonious than you used to be," he says, and I wonder if I detect a hint of approval in his voice.

I'm surprised by the ease with which conversation flows between us. I find myself not wanting to close my eyes despite the tiredness in my limbs. "Let's stay up all night then," he says when I tell him. "Like teenagers." "Okay," I say, except I know there'll be hell to pay tomorrow. I am not a young man anymore.

And so we stay up all night, talking till the sky beyond the curtains begins to lighten and the haze inside my head begins to clear. Somewhere in the early hours of morning, when the light turns pink, he sits up in bed. "It's time for me to go," he says. He gazes down at me, regarding me for a moment with his clever hazel eyes, then turns away to peer out through the window. He says, "The ocean is closer than I thought."

I sit up beside him and look out of the window, at the dense latticework of houses and shops and streets and alleyways slowly coming alive at the signal of daybreak. Smoke has begun to rise from the odd chimney and I spot travelers making early starts down the roads. Past all of that is the ocean, finally visible in the early light. Ships and boats bob mutely on pale waves that grow bluer in the sun. I wonder which of these vessels has come to take him away.

"Do you have to go?" I ask. I am dehydrated from a night of drinking and my tongue is thick in my mouth. I look around for water but there's only brandy.

He smiles a little but he's already on the other side of the room, pulling on his clothes and his armour. "Why, are you one of those people who needs to get breakfast after spending the night together?"

"We didn't-"

"Don't worry," he says, "I have a feeling we'll see each other again." Now fully armed and dressed, he comes back to the bed and sits beside me.

"So this is it, then," I say, wondering if we should hug or shake hands.

Suddenly, without any warning, he leans forward. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me on the mouth. The kiss is more than a peck; he parts my lips with his, he moves his mouth gently but firmly against mine. Then, as quickly as it began, it's over. Before I can respond he pulls away and looks me in the eye without any embarrassment, like he does this all the time. Who am I kidding? He does this all the time.

Without a word he crosses the room, slips his weapons deftly into their holsters and heads for the door. "Goodbye," I call after him hoarsely. But he's already gone, leaving me alone in the room, somewhere between the swinging door and Amaranthine blue.