Disclaimer: Bioware owns Dragon Age, etc etc
Snow fell over the Arling of Amaranthine. In the lee of the tower above the gate, fat white flakes danced prettily in the swirling wind. Drifts formed against the walls in the courtyard, and a cover like a crisp white sheet settled over the footprints of the few people who had braved the weather.
Standing on the battlements of the castle, I looked up into the night sky, feeling the oppressive weight of the falling snow pushing me down. Snow settled on my hair and face, melting where it touched the warmth of my skin. The sting of the cold air brought tears to my eyes.
Two long years had passed since the end of the Blight. Loghain had delivered the final blow to the archdaemon, regaining both his honour and a great deal of respect from noble and commoner alike. His death had bought his daughter further support from sympathetic nobles, and his redemption had ensured that his lost reputation did not tarnish her.
In that time the Grey Wardens in Ferelden had begun to rebuild. We now numbered around twenty, made up of a mix of Orlesian Wardens and our own new Ferelden recruits. We hadn't been short of volunteers in the days after the Blight, but I had sent most of them away feeling that they weren't suitable. I remembered too well the look in Jory's eyes during the Joining. I feared being the one holding the sword, as Duncan had. I worried that I could do it all too easily, if it came to it.
XXX
That afternoon, a ship from Orlais had docked in the harbour. A messenger ran straight to the castle, bearing word that four senior Wardens from Montsimmard were aboard. I hastily sent word back that we would be honoured to receive them, though my heart was in my mouth.
I had assumed they were here to check on our progress rebuilding, but it seemed there was more to it than that. Five figures came across the drawbridge, not four. One was clearly a prisoner, walking in a shuffle with his hooded head down low and his hands tied in front of him.
I bowed low before the senior Warden, my arms crossed over my chest.
'You honour us, ser. Amaranthine welcomes you.'
'I am Ser Morain. The honour is ours. We all owe you somewhat for the defeat of the archdaemon.'
Despite the cold, blood flushed my cheeks. 'I'm flattered, but I cannot take credit for the final blow.'
Morain laughed. He had a hard voice, the Orlesian accent that could sound so sultry in some instead full of steel. Like Duncan, he had eyes that seemed to have seen too much darkness. His laugh contained sly humour, as though the joke was on me and I just didn't know it yet.
'If you could, we would not be speaking now. Perhaps we should go inside. Your Fereldan weather is not kind today.'
Embarrassed not to have invited him in first, I gestured to his party to go inside, but they were already moving.
XXX
Alone in the dark on the wall top, I shook my head at the memory. I had been so flustered by his tone I had not been paying proper attention. I had built up a credible mask as the leader of the Wardens in Ferelden. I had done it by suppressing my emotions, drawing heavily on everything my parents had taught me about ruling. But the arrival of these Wardens had made me feel like a child reciting my lessons to a tutor again, without much success.
XXX
I followed them into the main hall.
'Summon your commanders,' ordered Morain. He offered no explanation as to why, but turned his back on me and warmed his hands at the fire.
For some reason, his turning away from me spurred me into action. Clearly he expected me to scurry away like a chastened servant. Instead, I clicked my fingers at the nearest guard.
'Bring Tian, Aric and Tam to the hall,' I said. He strode away obediently.
I was a Cousland long before I was a Warden. I didn't react well to being spoken down to. He may very well outrank me, but I was head of the Wardens in Ferelden now, and not about to bow without question to Orlais. Pride brought my head up and straightened my back.
'What is going on?' I asked, moving to stand beside him by the fire.
'I dislike repeating myself. It can wait until your commanders are here.' He didn't even look up at me.
I could really come to dislike you, I thought. Seeing I wasn't going to get an answer from him, I turned to look at the other Wardens, wondering if I could engage one of them in conversation. But they had all turned away, not meeting my eye.
Only one person in the room was looking at me – the prisoner. He had been thrust to the floor between two of the Wardens and knelt there. Unkempt blond hair fell down in straggly locks over his face. His eyes burned fever bright above hollow cheeks.
I took a step forward involuntarily. I let out a short sharp breath.
Alistair.
Morain turned to me. 'I see you begin to divine part of our reason for being here. Ours is a duty that cannot be forsworn. An accusation of treachery is a serious and rare thing amongst Grey Wardens. Abandoning one's duty in a Blight, it is unheard of. Until now.'
I fought to keep my calm.
'What do you intend to do with him?'
'We will debate his guilt. Then we will pass sentence. Such an undertaking is not undertaken lightly. It requires the seal and approve of seven Wardens. The closest Wardens were here.' He frowned. 'Though I would rather have seen justice done in Orlais, truth be told. Take the prisoner to the cells.'
The two Wardens dragged Alistair away. He went without protest, but he didn't take his eyes off me as they marched him out of the room.
'This could be awkward,' said the Warden. 'I understand that the two of you travelled together for some time. I do not want to hear a biased opinion from you.'
I heard the unspoken meaning behind his words. If you doubt his guilt, things will not go well for you.
'I will give my opinion the only way I know how,' I said, turning to face him. 'Fairly.'
My mind was already racing.
X
Once my fellow Wardens had arrived, we all sat around a table. I dismissed the guards, so that only we Wardens were present.
Morain stood. 'In peace, vigilance. In war, victory. In death, sacrifice. Grey Wardens have stood against the Blight since the days of the Tevinter Imperium. Almost without exception, we have striven to live by this motto. Better to fall facing the darkspawn than to run. Vigilance. Victory. Sacrifice.' He thumped his fist down on the table to emphasise each word. 'I am thankful that it is a rare few who fail. A Grey Warden who turns his back on his duty is not a true Warden. He is an abomination, a source of shame to all true Wardens. He is a boil that must be lanced.'
He was a good orator, to his credit. He had the other Wardens' rapt attention.
'To those of you not familiar with the facts, here they are. Alistair, the accused, was Duncan's protégé, a new recruit before the Blight came. After the fateful battle at Ostagar, where Duncan sadly fell, he followed you, Naia Cousland, as you sought to raise Ferelden against the Blight.'
He paused. Some agreement seemed to be required, so I nodded.
'I'm curious as to why you took the lead,' said one of the other Wardens. 'You were clearly the most junior member of the Order.'
'Alistair was not a natural leader,' I said. 'I was a Cousland, the second greatest noble family of Ferelden after the royal family. I was used to being in charge. We agreed that it was the best way.'
'Did you know about his noble blood?' asked another Warden.
I shook my head. 'Not at first, but later he...'
'That is not the issue here,' interrupted Morain pointedly. 'The point is that it fell to him to take the lead, and he dropped it like... how do you say? A hot coal? Already he showed his fear of duty.'
'He recognised an important task and recognised the best person for it,' I countered. 'He didn't abandon the duty, rather the opposite. He sought the best way to see it through. I can say that with honesty. After all, I was there.' And you weren't. I didn't need to say it. The implication wasn't lost on the other Wardens.
I had scored a point, I saw. Morain scowled at me.
'But at the Landsmeet, he chose to leave the Grey Wardens. You cannot dispute this. After all, you were there,' he said.
'He elected to leave me, not the Wardens,' I corrected.
'Semantics. It amounted to the same thing.' He waved his hand dismissively. 'In front of many witnesses, Alistair abandoned the Grey Wardens. He has as good as admitted it to us.'
I shook my head. 'No, Ser Morain, you are wrong.'
'But an admission from the prisoner! It is inarguable!'
I looked around the table, and stood up. 'Have any of you heard of Sophia Dryden?'
'Of course. She is the reason the Wardens were expelled from Ferelden. She is part of the reason we have rules about staying out of politics,' said one of the Orlesian Wardens.
I took a deep breath. 'Alistair's bloodline has already been mentioned here. During our travels we sought the aid of Arl Eamon of Redcliffe. He is a powerful man in Ferelden. He had the idea to unite Ferelden under the only surviving member of the royal bloodline.'
'That would be Alistair,' someone said.
'Exactly,' I agreed. 'I think making one of our own King would be about as far away from staying out of politics as we could get.' There were nods around the table, so I carried on. 'And Alistair agreed. Royal bloodline or not, he had a duty to the Wardens. There were other reasons – that Grey Wardens struggle to have children, for one, and that Anora was simply better at ruling than Alistair felt he could be. We made an agreement with her – she got the throne, and we got the aid we needed against the Blight.
'But there was a problem with this. Arl Eamon's support of Alistair for the throne was... not selfless. Alistair was born in Eamon's house – he respected him and took his advice. We thought that Eamon would seek to make Alistair his puppet. But if we simply told him our plan, we worried that he would withdraw his aid to spite us. That is to say, I worried. Alistair trusted Eamon to act in Ferelden's best interests. I did not.
'My solution was, I admit, not the best for us personally. Alistair had to take himself out of the running to be King, but he had to do so in such a way that Eamon could not hold it against the Wardens. The only logical reason we could think up was our treatment of Loghain. So, as you know, Alistair threw a tantrum in front of the entire Landsmeet when we invited Loghain to become a Warden.
'I admit that I expected him to return, but we travelled a lot in the weeks before the battle and it is quite likely he could not catch up to us.'
'But what about afterwards? You spent a lot of time in Denerim after the battle. The whole country knew you were there.'
I lowered my head, blushing. 'I believe that to be a more personal matter. Alistair and I were... close... before the Landsmeet. After the battle, rumours spread about another of my companions and I, about how much time we spent together. If Alistair had heard them, he may not have returned. But that does not constitute abandoning his duty in a Blight. The Blight was over by then.'
There was some more discussion, though I could tell the argument was won, and I answered questions mechanically. My hands were shaking, and I kept them under the table so the other Wardens couldn't see.
It was conceivable that events could have unfolded that way. Most of the Wardens wanted to believe the best about me and about Alistair, and I had given it to them. The best lies are based on truth, they say. And this was one of the best lies I had ever told.
I just hoped Alistair had the sense to play along.
XXX
I grinned ruefully and the cold stung my teeth. If only it had all happened that way! Morain's accusations were close to the truth than I wanted to admit.
Nothing had been faked about Alistair's tantrum. If I was totally honest, I knew he had abandoned his duty to the Wardens during a Blight. Perhaps he even deserved whatever punishment Morain wanted to inflict on him.
Despite that, I didn't think Morain was in a position to judge. He didn't know what it had been like at the Landsmeet. Plots had mixed with intrigue, a thousand threads of possibility that I didn't have the political skills or the time to unravel. I had been uncertain what consequences my actions would have. I had to try to judge what was best for Ferelden and for our efforts against the Blight. I had to put all personal consequences aside.
The cost had been higher than I cared to admit. Whatever my dreams for the future had been – and how they had changed in the last few years! – they had never involved becoming the lonely leader of the Ferelden Wardens, responsible for so many lives, but involved in none. I had friends among the Wardens, but they kept me at a respectful distance. All my travelling companions from before the battle had gone their own ways. I missed them all – even Loghain, sometimes. I had learned something of his history, and we had more in common than either of us cared to admit. We would have had even more, if I had followed my initial instinct and put Alistair on the throne beside Anora.
I missed Alistair most of all, despite everything. We had been there for each other in tough times. Perhaps it was just the Grey Warden taint that linked us, but there was a bond between us that I had not had with any other of my companions. It was friendship, love, trust and respect, and it went deeper than any of those things because it was all of them at the same time. I'd loved before, had good friends before, had people at my back that I trusted to protect me as I protected them, but never anybody who was all those things in one.
I thought I could forgive him, if he asked, if I looked into his eyes and thought there was any chance of reclaiming what we'd lost. I recalled the stare he'd given me as they dragged him from the hall. Was the intensity I saw there born of love or hate?
Wynne would have known, or Leliana. Oghren too, though he would have taken great pleasure in keeping the knowledge to himself until I'd bribed it out of him with a few strong drinks. I wished they were here with me, so I could ask them. All I had were a handful of Wardens, who didn't know me well enough to recognise that I was in pain and needed a friend.
I could stand out here all night and nobody would come to find me, to invite me down to the hall for a drink or a game of chance. I could freeze to death, die in the drifting snow beside the wall and nobody would find me until the thaw came.
Alternatively, I could go sit in front of the blazing fire in my room, and at least be warm and comfortable while I felt sorry for myself. I laughed out loud. I could hear my mother offering me that piece of good advice, telling me to pull myself together and stop being foolish.
I brushed the snow off my cloak. A lot of the fluffy flakes clung to me and I wondered just how long I had been standing here, reliving the day's events. I realised part of me had been hoping Alistair would come to find me up here. Someone would have told him the story of how I rewrote our history to save him, and his heart would overflow with gratitude, and all would be forgiven between us.
I grimaced. This was not some fantasy, some fairy tale. He might once have been my knight in shining armour, but he was a man underneath that. He had pride, and a heart that I had broken. Perhaps he would forgive me or perhaps he would not, but things could not be the same between us again. Perhaps he had even already left Amaranthine, despite the weather, so that we did not have to have that awkward conversation where he would want to know why I lied for him, and I would have to admit that I still loved him.
I went back inside.
