I stared down at the boy in my arms, trying to remember how all of this had happened. My sweet, beautiful boy, lying on the cold stone floors of his playroom with bruises covering his arms. Dark circles under his eyes showed a lack of sleep that I had only ever seen in the foulest sorts of people. His hair was a mess; he hadn't let his nanny bathe him in the weeks that he had gone mad. She had been fed to the hounds.

"Mother, it hurts," Connor whined, a face too gaunt for any child drawing up into a grimace. My heart seized in my chest, and I leaned over my son, clutching his head to my breast as though he were still the babe that had left me those years ago. It all seemed like it had been merely moments since his first breath.

And now that bastard child of Eamon's and his elf wench wanted to see him draw his last.

"Isolde, so many people have died," The Grey Warden spoke urgently.

My ears rang so loudly that it sounded as though I were sinking deeper and deeper into the lake beneath the castle. It wasn't like that, it couldn't have been. It wasn't Connor's fault. He was a boy, my boy, and yet… I shut my eyes tightly, my knuckles growing white as I clung to his frail body even tighter than before. If they meant to kill him, they would have to wrest him from my grasp, and I would never let go.

"He's my boy, my baby," I breathed, looking up at the sickly woman in front of me. She was another mage—as though Redcliffe needed one more. Connor stirred in my arms, growling deep in his throat and trying to fight off all of my love for him. Unbidden, I thought of the Mabari that had grown ill the previous winter, snapping and snarling at anyone who came close with the medicine needed to save it, unwittingly sharpening the executioner's axe. Connor was ill. He was very ill, but if they just left him with me, I could care for him! I would care for him.

"He's been possessed, he is not the boy that you love," the elf drew closer.

"He will always be my boy!" I snarled in return, whipping my head up to fix her with a furious glare, "You are a woman, do you not understand? If this was your boy, your child, would you not move the very mountains to save him?" my voice shook, and my vision blurred. I felt a wet drop splatter on the back of my wrist. The elf woman starred back at me for several moments, and her expression was as though I had slapped her.

"It must be done, Arlessa," the Warden whispered.

"I am ordering you to step back!" I snapped.

Just as I had ordered the apostate to teach Connor. The same as I had ordered the knights away when Eamon had fallen ill, and as I had ordered the servants to return to their task of scrubbing blood from the stone floors after Connor had slit the throat of one of the barn cats. Exactly as I had ordered the guards to sheath their weapons when Connor had first struck me with his knuckles; even then, I had taken his fists in my hands and brought them to my lips, kissing his bloodied knuckles and clinging tightly as he struggled for freedom.

A place deep inside of me ached, and the muscles in my arms burned as I struggled to hold onto my son while he writhed and thrashed, his hands pulling at his greasy, unkempt hair. The same wetness that I had felt on the back of my wrist now traveled down both of my cheeks in rivers, dripping from my cheeks down onto my son.

"I can save him, I can get through to him—just step back and let me be his mother," I begged them. I could see nothing through my eyes but the blurred outlines of their bodies. The robed figure of the elf, the dark armor of Alistair, the giant in the doorway, and a second elf in his shadow; the colors meshed together in a painting with grief so strong that it made me choke on a sob, sniffing and heaving like an uncouth country wench.

"Look at him, Arlessa. There's nothing that can be done for Connor, he's sick—don't make him suffer like this, and don't make your people suffer any longer, either," the elf woman kneeled in front of me, reaching out a delicate hand and placing it on my shoulder. Her grip was weak and shaky, as though she hadn't eaten in several days.

I looked at him. I stared down at my boy, but I couldn't see it. I saw the baby that I held against my breast, refusing to allow wet nurses to feed him. I saw the toddler that teetered and swayed on chubby feet with tiny toes, clinging tightly to my hand and to Eamon's, staring up at us in wonder as he took his first steps. I saw him as he learned to run, and then to fly across the courtyards, screaming with glee and playing chase with guards who couldn't help but break bearing and forget all sense of discipline when my son asked to play. I saw the necklace of wildflowers he had made me after I had fallen ill while losing what would have been his little sister. I saw him learning to write, and then sitting on a horse for the first time while his father scowled and teased me of Orlesian practices. I saw his bright smiles, and the immeasurable love for all living things that he held. The butterfly that he held, gently cupped in his palms. The kitten that the stable girl showed him how to feed. I saw my boy stopping as we walked back from the lake to help an old beggar woman that had dropped her walking stick.

"Mother, it hurts, it hurts so bad," Connor whimpered.

"Shh, sh, it will be alright Connor, we can do… something…" I whispered.

I saw the boundless potential as Eamon and I aged, and Connor grew older, showing his interest in the art of ruling an arling, and I saw the day that I might be a grandmother, holding my son's child in my arms with their head on my heart. I saw a people that loved my son as I did, and looked to him for noble and honest leadership.

But as the Warden's hand gripped my shoulder tighter, and her voice came from some place above the dark depths of the water I had sunken into, I saw other things.

I saw him scratching the flesh from his arms as the madness brought on by the demon first began to settle in. I saw him standing above Eamon's bed hours into the night, bright eyes dulled and focused listlessly on the pulse in his father's neck. I saw him fighting his nanny at bath time, raking his fingernails across her face and leaving bloodied cuts. I saw him sitting at the table; eating nothing until at length, he ordered that the elven servants cut off their ears. I saw him chewing one like jerky as he fed the others to the mabari hounds, laughing as they played tug of war with them. I saw my boy reeling his hand back to hit me across the cheek with his knuckles, and I saw him struggling to get farther and farther away from me the more I tried to love him and help him.

I saw something that wasn't my son, a boy that had terrorized Redcliffe for months, delighting in death and destruction. I saw him cheering as he leaned over the castle walls, watching the skeletons he had raised from the ground march into the village. I saw Connor clapping his hands as one of them rammed a rusted blade through the gut of the old woman he had helped.

I saw her walking stick clatter against the wooden planks of the docks, falling down with just the memory of the peaceful lives that we had led before—dust from the granary disappearing on the breeze.

I saw the monster that they had been talking about, and he saw me.

"Fool Woman! If I crushed Father's throat, would you watch?" the creature that wasn't Connor sneered, forcing its lips back into a viscous snarl. "Would you cry? You are pathetic!"

"No, no no… Don't say such things…" I breathed, closing my eyes tightly as my hands began to shake. They were right. My son, my baby, the life that I had created had withered and faded away. I thought of how the flower necklace had crinkled and dried up. It was nothing more than a memory.

"Arlessa!" The Warden shook my shoulder, forcing me to return to the terrible reality.

I still felt like I was drowning.

Connor's nails dug into the skin at my neck and chest as he clawed at me to try and get away and escape into the corridors once more, but I held fast, looking up and meeting the Warden's eyes grimly.

"I can do it for you," it seemed to me that she only mouthed the words, drawing a small knife from the sleeves of her robes and holding it tightly, as though the slightest of breaths would destroy this one opportunity to save Redcliffe. One of my hands reached out to close over hers, and my chest heaved as I took the knife from her grasp, shaking my head.

"Leave us," I sobbed, "Get out," I begged.

I brought him into this world. I had swaddled him and held him close, I had changed him and dressed him, and delighted in all of the menial servant tasks, I had watched him grow and thrive. My lips quivered, and I held onto Connor's thrashing form until he settled once more, bruised hands returning to grip handfuls of his hair, fighting himself for control in the final moments.

"I'm here, Connor, Mommy's here, just…" I couldn't breathe. It felt as though the air itself were crushing in around me and strangling me like the hangman's noose. "Just close your eyes for mommy," I whispered.

"Moth—Mommy," Connor whined, bloodshot eyes staring up at me and brimming with tears that were confused and hurt.

"Close your eyes, Connor," I pleaded with him, keeping him close to me, cradled in my arms. I would not lie him on the floor and detach myself from him. I had watched his pink, wrinkled face draw its first breath, and I would watch this new face, this gaunt, terrible face draw its last breath.

With agonizing slowness, Connor shut his eyes, his fists moving to cling to the front of my gowns for security. My tears dripped down onto his cheeks. Pressing my lips together to keep them from quivering, I brought the knife down to his ribs. He was young enough, and the dagger was long enough that if I angled it correctly, I could pierce his heart and kill him with as little pain as possible. Connor's breath came in short, exhausted pants, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the Warden and her companions drawing back into the hallway.

The smallest part of me considered scooping him up in my arms and fleeing, but I knew that no matter where I took him, only death would follow. There was no place to go, and even if he lived, he would never be my boy.

"I love you, Connor, so much," I sobbed, tightening my grip on him as I positioned the knife. "I love you more than The Maker Himself," I promised him, pressing a kiss to his forehead; "I love you more than life itself."

I forced the knife into his heart.

And all at once into my own.