Chapter One: All Good Things

Mother's wide green eyes frantically searched mine, her silver hair pulled into twin buns at the back of her head, too neat and put together for the scene behind her – a blood splattered hall, littered with the bodies of three intruding soldiers and my mabari, his dark fur slick with gore as he stood, fangs bared and rumbling a deep bass growl at the exit to the castle's private chambers.

"Darling," she gasped. "Are you alright?" At my nod, her eyes shifted to the men on the ground. "These aren't ordinary bandits... Look at their shields! These are Howe's men!"

The scene swam, turning into the vision of my sister-in-law, Oriana and her young son, Oren, lying slain in a pool of blood in my brother's private chambers, my own voice superimposed over it, raspy with rage.

"Traitor! He attacks while our troops are away!"

"Where's your father? He never came to bed!" My mother's softer, urgent inquiry, as again the nightmare shifted, this time through a feverish flurry of fighting through the halls of Highever castle to the grand hall, to Ser Gilmore and his men trying valiantly to hold the gates.

"He probably stayed up with Arl Howe. We need to find him!"

The Fade changed the vision of the nightmare once more, playing one last trick with my memories. This time to my father lying his own blood by the servant's exit, my mother crouched at his side, holding him and whispering reassuring words, as the Grey Warden Commander, dusky skinned and solemn Duncan, took me by my arm and started to drag me away.

"I love you both," my voice was husky, torn by withheld tears. "So much."

My mother's smile, her warm gaze met mine. "Then live, darling. Live..." Her grip on my father, Teyrn Bryce Cousland's, shoulder tightened. "Live, and take vengeance."

I woke in a cold sweat, heart hammering in my chest, paying no heed to the ache each beat stirred up anew. For a moment, I lay on my side, staring into the darkness of the bedchamber, trying to remember where I was. My senses were still trapped in the living nightmare – the loss of almost my entire family – smelling the smoke and iron of blood in the air, hearing the shouts of people as they ran or fought for their lives, the whistle of arrows through the night and the clash of steel swords, all as clear to me as though they had happened hours ago, not over a year in the past.

Then I remembered. My father's promise to Duncan that, in exchange for his taking me from Highever to safety, I would become a Grey Warden. The Blight. The terrible failure at Ostagar, and the heavy subsequent burden that had been placed on me and my fellow Warden, Alistair, as the last ones left in Ferelden. The burden of ending the Blight and saving Ferelden, and possibly all of Thedas. The adventures, the experience of gathering our ragtag band – an apostate, a Circle mage, an elven assassin, one who had been sent expressly to kill us, no less, a Qunari soldier, a drunken dwarf, a religious Orlesian bard, and a pigeon-hating golem with an inexplicable sense of free will – flooding back into me in a rush of vibrant images and powerful emotions.

The memory of persuading Alistair to do some dark ritual with the apostate Morrigan, so that we could both survive the slaying of the archdemon. Then actually facing the dragon atop the fortress of Fort Drakon, straddling the beast's neck and hacking at its scales with my daggers until it fell.

As brutal as the memory was... It was a relief. I had honored the order my father had sworn me to. I had done my duty to both my family and my country, as a Cousland always should. I only wished he could be here, at the royal palace in Denerim, to celebrate this victory and crown Ferelden's new king.

New king. That's right, Alistair's coronation was today. I sat up slowly, feeling an added weight tether my heart as I remembered King Cailan Theirin and Duncan, both of whom had fallen at Ostagar, along with many of the kingdom's men and the entire order of the Grey Wardens, save Alistair and myself.

Ferelden had lost its king and its Warden Commander all in one fateful night. Along with its greatest general, a powerful, well liked teyrn – thankfully, my elder brother could inherit that legacy – a queen, and an influential arl. This celebration really would be a day of mixed emotions and huge changes. For everyone.

Alistair would be stepping up to take his half brother's place as king. My brother would take over the Cousland teyrnir of Highever and start anew. The lands of Arl Howe and Teyrn Loghain would be distributed to new lords. New Grey Wardens would be sent to Ferelden to recruit new Wardens for its base.

As for me? Really, I didn't have the slightest clue. I suppose the best I could hope for was a quiet retirement, maybe back home in Highever, when my brother went. If I could stand being there again, and not see the ghosts of my mother and father, Mother Mallol, Nan, Ser Gilmore, and all the others who had died there during Howe's treacherous siege.

Staring into the dark, the memory, a much more recent one, came unbidden to my mind.

I slammed open the heavy wooden door, Alistair, Zevran, and Morrigan at my back. Just beyond, in the prison antechamber, stood Arl Howe with a pair of his guards and a court mage. Anger churned in my stomach, like acid. Not only had he felled Highever, adding it to his arling of Amaranthine, but he'd taken the title of Arl of Denerim as well, assisting Loghain, hiring assassins, torturing nobles deemed to be too loyal to the Theirin rule, running after the power mad general like a stunted mabari, snagging up scraps of influence in the wake of his corrupt civil war.

Upon the name of the Couslands, my family, I swore to myself he would die here.

"Howe!" I barked, twisting my daggers up into a ready position. "Traitor! What do you think you've been doing here, you filthy little snake?" I could practically feel the amused glee from Morrigan. This was the kind of scene she lived for.

"Ahh," Howe lazily turned to face me, his nasal voice mocking, condescending. "If it isn't Bryce's little spitfire. All this time, and still no one's shown you your place, girl?"

"If we're going to talk like that," my voice was cold, frigid as Highever in the winter. "Then we really should be talking about who's about to put you in your place, Howe."

He laughed. The son of a bitch, he laughed in my face. "Oh," he said derisively. "Is this the part where I have to deal with the monster I created? Please. You have much to learn." He smirked. "Watch." He stepped forward, leaning in much closer than I ever would have let him if I had expected it. "I made your mother kiss my feet before I killed her. It was the last thing your father saw before he died."

Maker help me. That did it. I snapped, plunging a dagger recklessly for his side. He, of course, was ready for the thoughtless move, and drew his small battle axe, using the curved edge to deflect, hooking my blade and ripping it from my hand, tossing it across the room.

No matter. I had another. I charged him again. This signaled the start of the fight, and from behind me, Alistair surged forward with his shield arm up, throwing one of the guards that had come at me to defend his lord clean off his feet, expertly switching stance to swing his father's blade with deadly skill. Zevran, using the training the Antivan Crows had given him to its fullest, burst out of the shadows and plunged a knife into the mage's chest, sending him to the ground, gurgling on his own blood before he could finish the spell he'd been about to cast. Morrigan froze the other guard, leaving Alistair to shatter him with a harsh blow of his shield.

That left Howe and me. Just as it should be.

The icy wind left in the wake of Morrigan's spell stung my face and my hands, even through my leather gauntlets, but I ignored it. Howe had to back up to get me in range of the swing of his axe. I couldn't let that happen. I kept coming, staying on top of him and hacking at his leather tunic with my remaining dagger, slowly backing him toward where my other had fallen.

We were on top of it when I took the hit. Howe had given up on trying straight for getting me with the blade of his axe. Instead, he swept out a foot, knocking me off balance, and smacked me in the head with the blunt end of his axe.

I went down, and went down hard, black spots dancing across my vision. Howe laughed. "This is all the legendary Grey Wardens can do? No wonder the teyrn doubts your ability to end the Blight!"

I ignored him, and thankfully, my friends had the good sense to stay back and let me have this fight. Maybe it was frantic, maybe it lacked grace, but my hand closed around the handle of my dropped dagger, and I rolled onto my back to get a good look at Howe, and I grinned. I felt the smile freeze and fracture my lips, cold as fresh fallen snow.

"You want to see what the Wardens can do?" I asked softly. Then I threw the dagger. It hit with enough force to pierce his leathers, plunging into his lower chest. Howe dropped his axe, letting it land on the stone floor with a clatter as his hands gripped the hilt of my dagger, wavering before falling to his knees, face contorted with pain.

Good. Maker, did it do my heart good to see that.

I pushed myself to my feet, a little dizzy and unsteady at first, approaching Howe with slow, weaving strides as my head rang from the knock with his weapon. My hand rested for a moment on the hilt of the sword at my waist, a hilt stamped with the Cousland family crest, the curved olive branches. I had never been big on swords, never quite been big or strong enough to wield one properly, but, as my mother had said, it was this blade that should slit Arl Rendon Howe's treacherous throat.

With the stark shink of metal on metal, I drew the sword from its sheath, taking a firm grip in Howe's hair with my free hand, jerking his head back to force him to look up at me, and to hyperextend his neck.

"My only regret," I said silkily, raising the blade to rest the sharp edge, feather light, across the exposed neck. "Is that I have to sully my family blade with your blood." The darkspawn's acidic, tainted blood was like mother's milk in comparison to the stuff that ran in Arl Howe's veins.

"Maker spit on you," Howe hissed raspily in return, his gray eyes afraid, but still fierce. "I deserved more!"

And with that, I jerked the blade, severing his throat. And I let him hit the floor.

I would take the Maker's damnation a thousand times for that.

I blinked, shivering against the numbing chill that had wrapped around my heart and leeched through my body. That night had changed me, and I didn't know how permanent it was. I hadn't truly laughed since, the satisfaction of ending Howe having, in reality, been an empty victory, seeing as it would never bring my family back. Distant and dutiful, I had pressed forward, won the Landsmeet, defeated the Blight, and now Alistair would take his place on the throne, after all the others of his family.

But what if all this, all the good I had done, had damaged me permanently? Would I get to be myself again?

It was far too cold in here for just this nightshirt.

I was about to get up and find my leathers when, without a knock, the door creaked open, letting in flickering torchlight from the hall. The lack of common courtesy for the new "Hero of Ferelden" could only mean one person.

Zevran.

Sure enough, it was his face, oddly delicate for an assassin, but perfectly ordinary yet handsome for an elf, that popped around the edge of the door, long blond hair sweeping his leather clad shoulders and odd amber eyes glittering in the dimness with their usual cheer.

"Rise and shine, my dear Warden," he fairly purred in his heavy Antivan accent. "The rest are up, and the festivities await, no?"

"Yeah, yeah, Zev," I managed to give him a weak smile."I'm coming, if you wouldn't mind letting me get dressed... You know. Alone. Privacy. That thing you don't quite have a grasp of yet?"

I joked, but I knew it wasn't true. Zevran internalized, had buried things – regrets, doubts, fears – deep inside himself. Things that he had only reluctantly told me about, only once he realized he'd found a true friend and an understanding ear in me.

However, the damned observant elf noticed the half heartedness in my smile, my jab at his lack of manners, or both. Those bright eyes scrutinized me more closely, feeling very much as though they were piercing me as effectively as he had once tried with his daggers.

Among other things, but that was a different story.

However, for once he chose the tactful route. He shrugged merrily, not pressing for more than I was willing to give, as was his way. "Your loss," he said carelessly. "Just bear in mind, who else could protect you, should the Crows storm these stone walls?"

I rolled my eyes, this time getting up and ignoring the fact that I could feel him eyeing my legs, which were, for what felt like the first time in forever, exposed and not wrapped in boots and greaves. I turned my back on him, opening the wardrobe to find my newly cleaned and repaired armor. Good. It'd been awfully sooty after breaking the darkspawn siege of Denerim and battling the archdemon.

Completely ignoring Zevran when he was in the room, especially a bedroom when an impending change of clothes was involved, however, was about as bad an idea as bad ideas came. The man got up to all kinds of mischief when left to entertain himself, and it was always a good idea to keep him talking to keep track of where he was standing. So I threw him a little sarcasm to chew on while I pulled down my armor.

"Oh, yes, because I'm sure the Crows infiltrated the palace months ago," I said. "They knew I would survive all of this, and would be here around this time, and they personally picked what room I was to be put in, I'm sure. All to make sure their contract on the Warden was carried out, of course."

"You never know." Damn it. I hated it when I was right. Silent as a cat, he'd snuck up right behind me, and now his hands rested over mine, his chest pressing against my back. In that moment, he was silent, and I had to wonder why, by the Void we weren't a couple, why I didn't just pull the one man who seemed to understand and never question me to the bed and get it over with right then and there.

Because you look at him and see a brother first, A truthful voice in my head brutally reminded me. Someone who knows exactly what you're going through, service to an order you didn't choose and living through loss after loss, and yet still, for some unfathomable reason, wanting to survive. Hard to keep a lover in your elven brother, right?

Damn it.

"Okay, okay, Zev," I said cajolingly, pretending to ignore his touch and yanking the armor down, tossing it onto the bed and turning to him, pressing my hands to his shoulders to force him around. "Get outta here, and you can bother me when I get downstairs in a few minutes."

"Ahh, but it's so much more private in here! Unless..." The assassin smirked at me over his shoulder. "You like having an audience?"

I felt my cheeks burn. "Damn you," I muttered under my breath, working on sheperding him out of my chambers. It was like herding a cat. He went, but he weaved and dodged with it, and with his light step, that made getting him to the door, out, and the door shut behind him difficult, even for someone like me with a skillset similar to his.

I finally got him out and slammed the locking bolt home. I had some comfort in the knowledge that he likely couldn't pick it – Leliana and I had all the lockpicking ability in our merry band. Zevran relied on his speed and stealth.

I heard him chuckle. "I'll tell the others you'll be down in a little bit. They did not want to begin the coronation ceremony without their hero present."

Their hero. Huh. Now that was going to take some getting used to. From the Cousland's roguish little girl, who's antics were tolerated because of my status as the most powerful eligible daughter in Ferelden, to an honest-to-goodness icon, all in one fell swoop. I couldn't help but be reminded of what Alistair had once said about Morrigan. "Swooping is bad".

Well, I suppose time would tell how this would turn out.