Zevran stepped lightly over the thrown blanket, skirting around the battered pillow to kneel by Mahariel's side. Reaching out tentatively, his fingers feathered against her shoulder. She flinched at his touch, at the intrusion of her grief, and immediately he withdrew. A ragged breath caught in her throat, eyes stinging as a fresh wave of tears sprung free.
She turned, head bowed in shame and sorrow. Her hands stretched out to him and he took them into his own. With a strangled sob she slumped against his side. Slowly, wary of scaring her, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
This is how he remained through the night.
She was weakening. That much he knew. He could see it in her sunken, dulled eyes. He could see it in the protrusion of her bones through paper thin skin. He could see it in the mornings when she vanished to the nearest stream to wash her face before he had made his wakefulness apparent and watched in numbed horror as her hair washed away.
The taint was killing her.
They had tried to find a cure. They searched through archives and combed the wild mountains and travelled across seas. There was no cure.
Or, if there was, it was lost. Or perhaps it was too hidden to be found.
What camaraderie there had been when they raced across Ferelden with their Blight warring companions! How they used to jest at his (lacking) skills. Now he couldn't help but stare at his hands, once useless for picking locks and wonder if he could have done more.
Guilt and blame surged through him, a tempest merciless and unbiased in its destruction. Had it been Alistair or Morrigan or any of the others who had been with her through this search would she be saved? His heart said yes. How he wished it would stop.
"I- I'm sorry," she gasped at last. "I'm sorry…"
"Do not apologise," he hushed. "You have every right to feel this way. Do as you please. I am not going anywhere."
This only made her cry harder.