Author's Note: The print version of The Calling places Cailan older than this, but apparently this was supposed to have been changed. It has been in the electronic version of the book. The Dragon Age wiki suggests that Anora is slightly older than Cailan.
The chantry as presented in the game is awfully nebulous when it comes to an afterlife, but I make the assumption that there is one. I do not theorize any further than that.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
~From a headstone in Ireland
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~Kahlil Gibran
He couldn't remember the last time she'd been out in the sun, but he was sure it was just a few steps in the courtyard gardens; somewhere where the healers could be nearby, frowning in worry. It was never a good thing when healers frowned. When they scowled, you had done something wrong and they could fix it. Healers almost never smiled, in his experience. When they did, you had probably done something both silly and non-serious, like picked poison ivy leaves to wipe with.
To return to his original thought: her skin was only a little darker than the fine linen sheets. They were most expensive sheets he could find, with the finest weave to them, and then washed over and over to make them very, very soft. She had also begun to bruise easily. She hadn't been on a horse in quite a while.
She had lost so much of her muscle, which he supposed was why they called it a wasting disease. The healers specifically suspected she had a tumor of some kind, which magic apparently dealt with very poorly. At least, that's the impression he got from the first fifty or so healers that he had dragged to her beside over the last year and a half.
Her eyes and her smile had grown very sad. Her hair had lost much of its luster, though it remained solidly attached to her head. Her mind, thank the Maker, remained as sharp as ever.
They both knew that she was dying, and it was now a matter of days at most, and possibly only a matter of hours. He snuffled in a distinctly un-royal fashion as his nose attempted to drip. The tears welled, but did not spill over.
He sat at her bedside, their young son, Cailan, carefully balanced on his knee. He didn't understand what was happening to his mother in the least; the worst was when he would do something like grab her hand and try to run off and play. The fingers of her left hand had just reached the green stage of the bruises healing, but she wouldn't trade that moment; what was a little more pain, lost in the background with all of the rest of it?
He had thought he would have to deal with awkward questions, but at two years old, Cailan didn't even understand enough to ask those awkward questions, he just wanted his mother to be "normal". That, he noted, wasn't even really normal, but just better than she was now. It was only around a year after the baby was born that she had first started showing signs, fatigue mainly.
Rowan's eyes fluttered open and she smiled that sad, faded version of her smile. He barely slept these days, just so he could be there whenever she was awake. She spent some minutes talking with Cailan about nothing of importance before finally sending him off with his nurse. Even that brief interaction was draining her.
He pulled his chair closer and very, very carefully took her hand in his and held it to his mouth, not so much kissing it as trying to breathe her in.
"Oh, Rowan, how could I ever have thought I loved anymore more than you?"
She knew, knew, that this would be their last moments. It was best that Cailan not be there, she thought; not for the conventional wisdom, that he not see his mother die, but because Maric shouldn't have to deal with him at that moment.
"I forgive you, Maric." Her voice, once parade ground strong, was a faint whisper, weak and tremulous. It only reflected what had happened to the rest of her betraying body. Her head was propped with pillows, because she could no longer hold it up herself. A maid fed her the little that she could keep down. But she had the strength to do one thing properly. The forgiveness was true, she thought. It may not have been completely true three years ago, even a year ago, but she simply didn't have the energy to hold Katriel against him.
"I love you, more than…" more than? Anyone? Feralden? Loghain? Her son? She left it where it was, and wondered which were true and which were lies. She wanted Maric to be strong when she was gone, not weak with regrets for a relationship he could no longer change.
She did wonder though. She had not seen Loghain since her coronation as Queen. The common assumption among those who suspected, which were few, was that he was keeping temptation away from himself, but she knew better. He was keeping temptation away from her.
Hardly a likely temptation now, was it. So where was he? She tried to be angry about it and could only summon some vague irritation. They had been such close friends once, apart from any romantic entanglements. She realized distantly that Maric was speaking to her; her attention also suffered from her lack of energy. He was promising her songs, statues, paintings, that she would be remembered forever.
She really couldn't care less, but perhaps it would help Maric deal with her death. He already looked so sad. She wasn't sure who would help him through things. Eamon had brought Teagan to see her earlier, but he seemed awfully young to help a grieving king. That might be another reason to wish Loghain was here.
She truly wished he were here. Looking in those ice blue eyes might help her sort out her feelings while she still had a chance. She had missed him, that she knew, but she had been so busy being Queen…
And then her father took her other hand, and held her close, and told her everything was fine.
She was not a gossip, blast it. But she never got to go to the capital, and it was a royal messenger bringing a letter from the king for her husband. It was such a long trip back from Gwaren that of course she had to make sure he was fed and keep him company…
This particular messenger, apparently, had been picking up the gossip at every stop he's made over the last few months, so she had heard about this aging Bann's young wife and her pregnancy, about new engagements and old grudges and everything in between. But then he had said something that brought all her attention to bear.
"Well, ma'am, they say that Her Majesty is calling for His Grace. That she's likely on her deathbed and wants to see him before she passes. I heard it from one of her healers. Well, the healer's maid…'s sister. But It only makes sense, with my bringing a letter from His Majesty himself, doesn't it?"
And it did make sense. And yet didn't. She, of course, had heard the tales of the legendary friendship between her husband and Their Majesties, but always thought it was the exaggeration of legend, and Loghain had certainly never invited her to speculate. If nothing else worked, he tended to go with the tried and true The Past Is Past. (Or was that Passed? Hmm.)
Regardless, she's seen her husband with Maric, when the king had visited Gwaren. They had been friendly; Loghain had addressed him familiarly. But truly, they had seemed to be at just arm's reach, emotionally speaking. Loghain told stories to her that would have been proper to anyone else, she supposed. She had never really thought about it, but putting all of that together seemed to point to a falling out between once close friends.
But that was only half the equation. The messenger had said the Queen was asking for Loghain. The Queen was never mentioned casually in her husband's stories, though she was in them. Her Majesty had never visited Gwaren, but she had thought that had more to do with the royal pregnancy and the Queen's illness.
She never went to the capital because Loghain never went to the capital. There were always reasons to avoid going, even for the festivities for the young prince's birth. On that occasion, Loghain had been ill. He never admitted to illness, and never complained about symptoms that would have kept a lesser man in his bed, but on this occasion, he had been too ill for the long trip.
The arithmetic in her head was becoming quite complex and more than a little uncomfortable to contemplate.
He was examining the account books when Celia came in. His seneschal was good at what he did, but even the best could make mistakes. He looked up as the door opened and nodded to his wife. He thanked the Maker frequently that their young daughter seemed to be taking after her beauty and not his own coarseness. His eyes narrowed; there was a crease in Celia's forehead and she clutched an envelope in her hands. Something was wrong. He cocked his head in query and she wordlessly handed over the missive.
Communication wasn't always in words. He wondered what had her tense and worried. The letter bore the royal seal, but was unopened, so there must have been news that came with it. An icy hand clamped down on his heart. He knew that Rowan had been ill – was this the letter that… he couldn't finish the thought.
He read and the feeling only got worse. Rowan still lived, but not for long. Maric bade him get his "ass on the back of a fast horse and ride immediately". Trust Maric to be blunt when that was called for. His vision began to blur. He only realized why when a tear dropped hotly onto a hand that was barely holding the letter.
A truism had been broken: Loghain Mac Tir did know how to cry, albeit badly. You did not, in general, cry over an ex-lover in front of your wife, for example. He realized with that thought that Celia had not come over to comfort him, which would be awkward, but rather had her arms folded tight to her body. She stared at the floor silently. The flickering flames of hearth and candle did not reveal if she had flushed or paled, but it was safe to say that she not overcome with grief for a woman she had never met.
He, however, was not going to bring up the subject; he had stopped looking for trouble a bit ago. At least, that was his plan, but the message didn't quite reach his mouth, apparently.
"Celia…" A faint whisper, but she heard it, for her head came up. This was a woman who knew how to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but her eyes and nose had not turned red. From a distance, someone might never have known at all.
"You… the Queen…" were the only choked words to make it past her no doubt constricted throat. He sighed and shook his head to scatter his tears.
"That was long ago…" This was met with a snort and the tears began to give way to anger.
"The Past. Everything is in the past. Loghain, we are the sum of what has gone before! We are all made of ours pasts, why is it acceptable for you to shut yours up in a box?" Her voice was angry, but she was not yet shouting. Perhaps he could save things.
"Celia, please, the only thing that matters is that I love you. I married you." She had captured his heart with her strength in the face of losing everything to the Orlesians. It had reminded him of… well, that did not bear thinking of at this moment, obviously.
"How could you not tell me, though? How could you hide that from me? If it was truly in the past, why do you not speak her name, why stay away?" It wasn't enough. She was nearly shouting at him now. He had killed those relationships, as surely as any combatant, in the name of Ferelden, and now he paid by being shouted at by his wife! He began to get a little angry himself.
"She's a dying woman, Celia! Do you think we'll fall into each other's arms as the revered mothers stand by, waiting to take her body to the pyre?"
"You don't even trust yourself, or you wouldn't have stayed away!" She stalked to him while she spoke and poked him for emphasis. She spun away from him. "It's not what might happen, it's the principle. You, you still love her." Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper by the last. "Please, don't go."
"Celia, I said she's dying. Her dying wish is to see a friend for one last time. I can't deny that! How can you ask me to, just to placate some half-witted worry about a brief romance that was over years ago?"
That, he knew the instant it left his mouth, was too much.
"Because I ask you to! You will stay here, or don't bother to come back!"
His greatest sorrow was that his horse foundered and broke down, and he could not find another fast enough. He arrived in time to see her burn, but not in time to look one last time into her eyes, to hold her hand one last time. He had lost all he had, and gained not one measure of an ending.
He knew that Celia would back down from her ultimatum, but things would never be the same between them. He knew that, he knew it while he threw a saddle on his fastest horse.
His great joy was that he was there to dig Maric out of his pit of despair and ensure that he did not lose the remnants of that, as well. Once again, he gave up himself for his country.