I am stone.
As Riordan finishes speaking, and the truth sinks in, I look at my lover. My beautiful, ridiculous, improbable human lover. And I see in his eyes that his heart is breaking.
Now we know the truth: a Grey Warden must die to kill the archdemon. And there are only three Wardens in all of Ferelden, only three of us who will enter the field of battle.
Alistair and I can wish, cruel as it is, that Riordan will be the one to make the final sacrifice. But the odds are against us. The odds say that one of us will bury the other. He knows it as surely as I do. I can read in his face the same anguish that I will not let show on my own features.
One of us will die tomorrow, and perhaps it will be Riordan, but I do not know nor trust his skills as a warrior. So, then: either Alistair or I. One of us will die, and one of us will have to live on.
My mind is stone.
I cannot bear the thought of him taking the killing blow—though it is hard to say which I dread more: his death, or my life without him. I know what I must do. I will kill the archdemon. I will die to save all of these preposterous humans, but most of all, I will die to save him.
As I come to the decision, the turmoil in my mind becomes still and quiet. I will die. After so much delay, I will finally execute the sentence that was laid on me: to die at the hands of the darkspawn. The death befitting the Legion of the Dead. A good death, an honorable death.
We do not speak as we leave the room. But I do not mistake the way he sets his shoulders, the glint of protectiveness in his eye. He clenches his jaw and gives me a curt nod before turning away.
Of course. I should have known. He will not let me make the sacrifice. When we come before the archdemon, he will take the killing blow and never even consider the alternative. He will die.
I am stone.
I go back to my room. And then Morrigan appears, bleeding out of the shadows, the flickering firelight dancing around her.
Morrigan knows. She knows about the sacrifice of the Grey Wardens, in the way that she always seems to know precisely that which should be secret. And she presents an alternative: a way to kill the archdemon, she says, without a Grey Warden having to die. Alistair will live, I will live, the archdemon will die... and Morrigan will become a mother.
Her plan makes the hair on my arms stand up. I do not fear magic. I am a dwarf. Lyrium is a gift the Stone gives to us, and mages and Templars alike cannot live without it.
Still, the idea makes me uneasy. When have my victories ever come without terrible price? I think about how I oh-so-slowly earned Morrigan's trust, and about the trust I have come to place in her. But I wonder about the things Morrigan has said—and left unsaid. I wonder about why Flemeth was so unafraid of death. I wonder what kind of mother Morrigan would be.
There is truth in Morrigan's eyes. Her ritual will do what she says it will. As for the consequences... well, I have more pressing problems than the consequences of this ritual. I have an archdemon to slay, and a man's heart to break.
My heart is stone.
Alistair goes in to Morrigan, and I flee. I asked—no, in honesty, I ordered—him to do the most reprehensible thing he could imagine, and he obeyed me. Alistair never wanted to lead, turned down power, and even though he was the more senior Warden he placed me in authority.
As for me, I was born to lead. I was born to power and authority. Treachery and destiny twisted my path, but in the end, I still became a leader befitting my caste and family. Leaders are those who bear the burden of making hard choices, no matter how painful.
I shut the door to my room, and though I am far from Morrigan and Alistair, I still imagine I can hear them. I sweep aside the heavy rug on the floor and press my face against the cold stone. It is not my stone, not the stone of Orzammar, but it is still stone. Life-giving, sacred stone.
I imagine these hewn stone blocks, stretching down below me to the foundations of the castle, far down into the earth. I wonder if there could be a lost Thaig far below me, a resting place for the bones of my ancestors. I wonder what they think of me, a daughter of the noble line of Aeducan. I hope that they will smile on my choices.
Tomorrow, we fight the archdemon. Tomorrow, we will end the fifth blight for the sake of Denerim, Ferelden, Thedas, and for my people who know the constant threat of darkspawn.
I do not know what will come after tomorrow, what Alistair will think of me, whether he will be able to forgive me. But in my heart of stone, he burns bright, like a vein of lyrium, a gift.