Chapter 1: The Proclamation
Denerim, the Royal Palace
Queen Anora looked up at the sound of the messenger's heavy breathing. She set her embroidery work in her lap and turned to face the red-faced man. Though her heart thumped against her ribs and her lungs constricted with panic, she kept her demeanor calm. She smiled pleasantly and clutched at her skirts to keep from throwing something. "News from Ostagar?"
He drew one final gasp before sagging against the doorframe and wiping the sweat from his brow. "My Lady, the Teyrn rides this way."
"Then the battle is over." She kept her voice even, though her knuckles were going white from the effort of holding back her frustrations. "Do you bring more news?" Her mind screamed at her to ask what she really wanted to. What of the armies? What of her husband the king?
"The battle is over, my Lady. But any specific news, Teyrn Loghain would tell you himself. He sent me on ahead to tell you to anticipate his arrival shortly."
Anora set her embroidery work on the side table and rose, smooth and fluid. She adjusted her skirts. "Thank you for your pains, ser," she said with a pleasant, if cold smile. "Go rest. Erlina?" She turned from the door and the messenger, seeing he would not receive any more for his pains than the queen's thanks, tromped down the hall. Anora had forgotten him; she only remembered his words that Teyrn Loghain, her father, would share anything specific.
"My Lady?" Erlina had appeared seemingly from nowhere, a talent of hers that often disconcerted Anora. The elf curtsied slightly, bowing her dark head, then looked up at Anora with curious eyes.
Anora's smile faltered slightly in the presence of her longtime maidservant. "My father is returning. Can you ready tea in the study?"
Erlina bowed once more and glided away, leaving Anora truly alone. She looked around the sitting room where she liked to work. Sunlight flooding the room. Motes of dust floated in the beams of light and in the back of her mind Anora made a note to ask Erlina to dust more thoroughly. Or maybe she would ask Aubrey to do it. Any sort of menial task for that elf. A fire burned in the stone fireplace; the basket of needlework materials sat on the polished wooden side table with Anora's cushioned chair next to it.
She closed her eyes and remembered days when she was at work, concentrating on the neat, even stitches. Cailan would come in, quiet as a ghost even in his boots. He would rest his hands on the back of the chair and lean around so his nose was almost touching her, and then he would blow in her ear. It was a whisper of a breath but it was warm and it was just enough to startle her into dropping whatever she was working on. He would laugh and the sound, rich and golden and warm as a sunrise, would fill the room. Then he would draw her to her feet, and try as she might Anora could not be angry with him. He would swing her around, her feet in the air like a little girl and her own silver, tinkling giggle would weave with his.
Since Cailan had left for Ostagar weeks ago, Anora had taken to working at her embroidery. She hunched over, looking closely at her perfect stitches and just waited for the surprise breath on her neck and in her ear and it never came. And now her father, Teyrn Loghain, rode to the palace. There was no mention of King Cailan.
Anora dabbed at her eyes. She glanced in a mirror and steadied her expression to be one of icy neutrality. Whatever news her father brought, she would bear it with dignity and grace: as Queen Anora Theirin bore everything.
Her steps toward the royal study were measured. She didn't want to run; then she would only have to wait for her father to finish in the stables. But she didn't want to delay if he was already in there. She held her head high and her shoulders back and was every inch the perfect monarch.
Inside, she was a shuddering, writhing mess.
"My Lady," came a voice, and Anora came out of her trance to focus on Aubrey, the red-haired elven girl who'd ingratiated herself into Cailan's life. Anora had a good idea of just how well Aubrey served the king, but never got involved. Cailan's dalliances were his business, after all. But that didn't mean it didn't make her furious. "Word from the battle?"
"You overstep your bounds," Anora said, anger making her voice brittle as the thin ice Aubrey was treading on. She finally made herself meet Aubrey's stunning green gaze and begrudgingly admitted she understood Cailan's infatuation. Oddly enough there was a sense of pity. Without Cailan around, Aubrey had nothing to protect her from the unwritten politics of the castle.
And of course, there was the jealousy… and the rage that a servant and an elf from the Alienage at that would think nothing of addressing the queen for news of the king.
"You will attend to your duties and remember your place," Anora said by way of farewell. She hoped to have left Aubrey stunned, or hurt; how else would Anora feel better about her own insecurity regarding her husband? But the pretty elf merely nodded once and continued down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Anora had expected her father to take time to remove his armor before meeting her, but there he stood in the study still clad in full plate, the metal splattered with dried mud and blood. He turned to face her. Anora was accustomed to her father looking grim, used to the hard lines and crags of his face etched there by years of worrying over Ferelden.
"Anora." He breathed her name out and strode across the study. He gave no regard to her clean dress or confused expression, merely reached out and clasped her to him. Anora felt the hard, cold metal under her cheek and suddenly she didn't want to know what news he brought from the south. "I'm so pleased to see you, daughter."
"And I you, father," she replied, her voice automatic and dull. She pushed away from him. "What news from Ostagar?" she asked, though fear nearly made her throat close up. "What news of Cailan?"
"The darkspawn enemy is great," he said. "Greater than the forces of the Grey Wardens your husband placed faith in."
"So the Wardens have failed," Anora said. She sat down at the small table on which Erlina had laid out tea service for two. Her father remained standing. Anora's stomach clenched and nausea roiled within her, but she still poured her tea perfectly and forced herself to smile. "Does this mean the Blight advances?"
"Only Cailan's vanity demanded that this be a Blight," Loghain said, clenching one gauntlet into a fist. "The enemy is great, but can be vanquished once we increase the army's numbers."
"Increase their numbers? How many were killed?" Anora asked, stunned and momentarily forgetting her worry for Cailan.
Loghain sighed. "It was nearly a total rout. If I'd not had Cauthrien pull the Gwaren forces when she did… I wouldn't have come back."
Anora tried to take a sip of tea, but her hand shook too badly. "What are you saying?" He didn't say anything and for a time the study was silent as a tomb. "What… happened… where's… oh Maker, Cailan." She shook as if with cold and try as she might she couldn't stop. She held the delicate cup more tightly and steaming brown tea sloshed over her hand and dripped like blood down onto her dress.
"Anora, please, be calm." Loghain turned and knelt next to her and took the cup from her hands, but his metal gauntlets were too unwieldy for the thin porcelain and the handle snapped. The cup fell to the stone floor and shattered, but he took no notice of it. He took off his gauntlets and clasped Anora's hands in his. "Cailan insisted on fighting on the front lines with the Grey Wardens."
"You should have stopped him."
"I am a servant of the crown." He bowed his head. "Cailan's orders were for him to be on the front lines with the Wardens. He underestimated the strength of the enemy and was overcome."
"Overcome." Anora pulled her hands out of her father's, suddenly aware of how cold and rough they were. "You mean killed." Cailan killed; Cailan dead. Her husband dead. "Maker, no," she murmured. She backed her chair away from her father, who remained bent on one knee, his pale blue eyes trained on her. It was always hard to read his expression, and she supposed he was trying to look sorrowful. "You left him."
"Anora, no, I didn't. I did everything I could…"
"Except stay beside your king. Your son-in-law. My husband!" Her voice reached a high pitch and the more panicked she grew the more difficult it was to force the words out. "Leave me."
"Anora, we must speak of upcoming matters," Loghain said, rising to his feet.
She regarded him with wide, incredulous blue eyes. She felt icy, too cold to move or feel or cry, all things she wanted to do so badly. Most of all she wanted to throw herself at Cailan's solid bulk, feel his large hands around her. And then another shock made her stagger back. "Did you collect his body?" she asked, voice rasping around the lump in her throat.
Loghain's silence broke the ice Anora had built up around her mind and heart. "How could you?" she hissed and then the tears came, spilling out over her cheeks and running down her face. There was a painful tightness in her chest. The tension built within her until she felt like a bowstring pulled taut. And if she didn't leave her father's presence right now she was going to fire at him.
Anora spun and ran, the porcelain shards crunching under her delicate boots. She heard her father call her name, heard the creak of plate, but refused to look back. "My Lady!" Erlina called, and Anora didn't turn to see her, either. All that mattered was getting away.
She turned a corner, ran up a set of stairs, the confident, precise monarch gone; replaced by a grieving madwoman. Anora clapped a hand over her mouth to keep the screams in. Tears ran over her cheeks and her hand and it was too hard to breathe through her nose. She reached her room, where she shared a marriage bed with Cailan.
Anora ignored Erlina's worried shouts behind her and slammed the door, then threw the deadbolt for good measure. She leaned against the heavy oak-paneled door, her chest heaving, her ribs too tight. Then she flung herself face down on the bed and screamed into the pillow until she had no more sound within her. And then she kept screaming.
When morning broke Anora was still awake. She climbed out of the still-made bed and unlocked the door. Erlina sat outside with a tray, and she woke up with a start. "My Lady. I apologize," she said, blinking sleep from her dark eyes. Her hair was mussed and her own clothing as rumpled as Anora's, and the queen realized her maid must have slept outside the door all night. "How may I assist you?"
"I wish to dress, Erlina." Her voice was surprisingly steady.
"Yes, my Lady." Erlina scurried in and began picking through Anora's gowns in the wardrobe while Anora sat at the vanity and began to unwind her hair from the braids wound and pinned tightly at the back of her neck. "Your father wished me to tell you that there will be an emergency Landsmeet held today."
Anora dropped a pin on the vanity table with a clatter. "Today?" My husband is barely cold in his grave and father is holding a Landsmeet? Though she shouldn't have been surprised. King Maric hadn't been gone for even a month before her father forced Cailan to hold the funeral and call the Landsmeet. If it hadn't been for Loghain she supposed Cailan would have taken more time to grieve. And now, as Erlina unpinned, brushed, and redid Anora's hair, Anora could understand why Cailan had been so resentful of Loghain during those months. "We must move on, Majesty," Loghain had all but snapped at Cailan. And Cailan, looking like a resigned, wounded Mabari puppy, had moved on.
Erlina spoke soothing nothing words to Anora, and sometimes hummed as she worked at one side of the queen's long golden hair. Anora looked at the other side and ran her own fingers through it. Cailan always wanted her to wear her hair long and loose more often. And now it wouldn't matter anymore.
"Shall I have breakfast brought?" Erlina's voice snapped Anora back to reality. "You didn't have dinner last night, and after yesterday I can only assume you'd be ready for breakfast. You need your strength," she added in that kind, almost motherly voice that always surprised Anora; she wasn't sure if it was because of her size, but Erlina seemed younger than Anora's own nearly thirty years. And just now Erlina was watching her, meeting Anora's gaze in the mirror. The elf smiled, resting a hand on the queen's shoulders.
Anora forced a smile. "Yes, thank you Erlina. I don't know how I'd get through this without you."
Erlina left and Anora took advantage of the time alone to compose herself and force away the fresh bout of tears that she felt welling up inside. She remembered handling the affairs of the palace the day after Maric's funeral, recalled clearly the way Cailan took to his bed and stared at the wall even when she climbed in and snuggled against him. Then, his cold indifference had hurt her. Now she realized it was only because he wasn't capable of feeling anything other than his grief. Back then, she hadn't lost anyone.
Now, she understood.
But she had to put on the mask of strong, regal monarch. She had to be the queen Ferelden needed, not the woman who'd lost her husband.
So she stood on the balcony overlooking the floor of the Landsmeet chamber. She'd been here when the room was empty, cuddled on the dais near the throne with Cailan, just after lovemaking; she'd been here when the room was full, watching Cailan's coronation. Come to think of it, this was the first time she could ever remember being in here without Cailan. They'd spent so much time together, having been betrothed so young. She'd been with him for every major event in his life, and he for hers.
Except this.
"Arls and banns of Ferelden!" her father began, his voice echoing over the murmurs of the gathered people. "The country has come under attack. Not from Orlesians, not from darkspawn. But from those who would see this country torn apart!"
Anora's heart twisted.
Loghain continued. "We must unite against the threats to our kingdom and to the throne! The Grey Wardens left King Cailan to die because they said there was a Blight. They tricked your king into believing the country was in danger and that his attentions were needed on the front lines. They have betrayed Ferelden and King Cailan, Maker rest his soul." Loghain looked out over the murmuring sea of nobility. Anora stood next to him, a pillar of ice. "Two Wardens remain. They betrayed your king to his death. We must stop this threat. And I expect each of you to provide the men necessary to fight this."
The voices rose to roars of protests. "It is your duty to Ferelden!" Loghain yelled, his voice carrying out over them. "And you all will do it. In the interim I shall serve as Queen Anora's regent, and I will see you do your duty." He swept his cold glare over the crowd, which was outright yelling now.
"The Bannorn will not bow simply because you demand it, Loghain!" The voice rang out loud and clear over the other indiscernible voices. Teagan, Bann of Rainesfere and one of Cailan's uncles, stood at the front of the crowd clad in chain mail and staring up at Loghain. Loghain gave a haughty sniff, turned and walked away.
Emotions ran rampant within her and Anora wasn't sure she liked the feeling; she was so used to being stoic, and able to organize her feelings. "Bann Teagan, please," she called down as everyone else began to leave. "My father is doing what's best for Ferelden!"
Teagan looked up at her with his eyes, piercing blue very much like Cailan's. "Did he do what was best for your husband?" he asked, meeting her eyes. Then he turned, his sword bumping his hip and his shield thumping against his back, and left. Anora looked to where her father had disappeared; watched the nobles, people whose respect she'd earned, leave with questions in their voices and anger in their eyes, until she was left alone.
Everywhere Anora looked reminded her of Cailan: the blue of the carpets, the golden sunlight streaming in. He was everywhere except right beside her, where he belonged. She stood in the gallery for a long time, until the sunbeams slanted and the room began to darken: a queen without a king.
Alone.