Not many people could say that they had ever seen Gwyneth Surana cry. As a mage in the Circle, tears gave the crueler templars something to hold over your head. After the Blight, they would have been a weakness in the new Chancellor that the nobles of the Bannorn and the ambassadors from abroad would have exploited to the detriment of Ferelden.
Now, as she rode to the landing of the stairs to the Denerim palace, they flowed freely as she waved to the cheering crowds and smiled at Alistair. Her Alistair. He looked just as she remembered him when she had departed five years prior. The gold of his crown made the red in his strawberry blonde hair brighter, and his skin was paler from all the time spent indoors, but he still made her heart stutter as he had when she met him at Ostegar. From this distance she couldn't see his eyes, but she could feel them on her. As soon as her horse's hooves left cobblestones for slate flagstone, Gwyneth leapt from the saddle and ran up the steps. She paused, dropping into as deep a curtsey as her armored Warden's robes would allow. "Your Majesty, I have returned after a long search with the cure for the Taint."
"Gwyn." Just her name from his lips, and he swept her up into his arms.
"Alistair!" They had agreed, after talking with Elissa, that it was best to keep their relationship with each other secret. An elven mage hero was one thing, anything beyond that was quite another.
The crowds roared, and he whispered into her ear, breath fanning cool across her neck, "Stay with me, Gwyn. Be my wife."
Surprised, she pulled back. "I can't. The people, the Chantry…"
"It's all been worked out. You saved us from the Blight, you've been the steadiest Chancellor the kingdom's had in Ages, and you've saved my life more than once." The smile he gave her as he touched his forehead to hers was the one that a certain sarcastic Grey Warden had given her when noting that the one good thing about the Blight was how it brought people together. He tugged on her flame-red braid gently. "I even got Teyrn Fergus and Arl Teagan to convince the Bannorn to agree to it."
"Yes." It was what she wanted most in the whole world. She had made Alistair king and convinced him to marry Elissa Cousland for Ferelden's sake after the Mac Tirs had almost torn the kingdom apart with their plotting. Her homeland was recovering, albeit slowly, and as safe for mages and elves as it was possible to be with the state of things in Thedas, so she would never consider it a mistake. Elissa had been gone for six years, so no one could accuse them of not being respectful of her memory. "Yes, Alistair, I will."
His lips felt strange, cold, but Gwyneth was so thrilled to be kissing Alistair again that she threw herself into it wholeheartedly anyway. The next few minutes seemed to pass in a whirl, Alistair announcing their engagement, being swept into the palace, and to a grand banquet. As she took her place at his side at the head of the trestle tables, she leaned to him and asked, "Ali, love, where are the children? I want to see Duncan, it's been too long since I've seen him."
"Duncan will be joining us momentarily, Gwyn. The others," he stopped take his hand in hers and press those oddly cold lips to the back of her hand, "will not be joining us."
Gwyneth blinked in surprise. "Are they ill? I've missed them, too, Ali."
"You don't have to pretend anymore, Gwyn."
"Pretend? I don't understand. I love Elissa's children. Just because I'm not their mother-"
"Duncan is first in my heart, after you, my love. Ah, there's my boy!" Alistair rose and hurried around the trestle table, then scooped up his miniature that came running across the dining hall, flustered nanny hot on his heels. "Papa!"
"Mama's back, Duncan! We need to welcome her!" The smile that had begun to form was frozen on Gwyneth's face as Alistair turned, allowing the three-year old boy in his arms to wave at her. This was wrong. She'd been gone for five years, Duncan should be eight now… shouldn't he?
"Is something wrong, Lady Gwyneth?"
She looked at Arl Teagan, bewildered, "He should be older."
Teagan laughed, "Don't say that, my lady! Why, in a few years, you'll be lamenting that he's not of an age to still want you to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight."
"No, this is wrong. I've been gone for five years. He should be older now. And where is Moira? Where are Maric, Bryce, and Elissa?" Her voice was getting louder, carrying over the din of the hall, and Duncan's eyes welled with tears. Alistair frowned, pulling the boy closer to him. He leaned over the table, as if he was going to say something. His eyes were wrong, not Alistair's warm amber. They were cold, dead. Empty. Gwyneth shot out of her seat, spirit blade forming in her right hand and rising to the false Alistair's chest. With her left, she cast a wall of flame around them.
"I can give you all of this," the demon hissed, no longer with Alistair's voice. "A cure, a life with him and your child. You would be a queen, your son a prince. The other woman's children wouldn't stand in his way. All you have to do is let me in, just for a little bit. Don't you miss him and your son? Don't you want the best of everything for your boy?"
The spirit blade trembled, and Gwyneth let out a sob. Empty eyes met Stormheart eyes, and Alistair's voice was back. "Gwyn, come back to us."
She screamed and shoved the blade through the demon, sobbing as she tore herself from the Fade to the waking world. Nathaniel caught her a hairsbreadth from the campfire as she flung herself from the image of Alistair with her blade through his chest. Here, out in the wilderness, her tears were allowed to flow freely.