Chapter Two : Thorns (Elissa)
"I was sixteen," Elissa began, wrapping the edges of her cloak around her like a shield. "Or, fifteen. You would think I would remember better, but really I've done my best to forget." Her mouth felt clumsy, and her bare skin felt clammy under the grating texture of coarse-spun wool. She sat with her legs folded under her, in the cold ashes of someone else's camp. She opened her mouth again— paused for a long time. Finally, she muttered, "I wasn't going to tell you about this. No one is left to know." She could picture so clearly Castle Cousland burning; the stirred up ash evoked the memory.
Alistair, mercifully, had fallen quiet. He sat beside her, and put his hand on her knee. "Whatever it is... " he tried, but because he did not know where she was headed, he did not know how to finish that sentence.
"That's not quite right," she continued, ignoring his interruption. "I think one person might. So I have to tell you. My mother has— had— has—" she could not quite decide on the tense. "Mother was a twin. They run in the family line. The Theirin line, that is. Did you know that?"
"No," he said.
"King Brandel had a twin, Princess Blair. They each had a daughter who kept the Theirin name. Moira and Fenella."
"Our grandmothers," Alistair nodded. "I remember the lesson." In the rare off moments, she drilled him on royal history and noble allegiances. Her drawing journal had become a compendium of Ferelden, putting faces to the long list of names he was expected to already know as a prince.
"Fenella and Fearchar had four children." Elissa touched the bridge of her nose, leaving a sooty fingerprint behind. "Three are dead now. The boys died young, boarding an Orlesian warship during the Battle of Denerim Harbor. The remnant— as distasteful as that phrase may be— is Nell Mac Eanraig. It was her daughter who perished from the taint after Ostagar. With Wynda gone, Nell is the last of the lesser Theirin line."
"Besides you, Lis," Alistair reminded.
"Besides me," Lissa agreed, studying her dirty fingertips.
"Then she has a claim on Ferelden's throne," he noted carefully. There was something in his voice. Relief. Caution. "She will be at Caer Oswin?"
"Yes. As the Bann of the Storm Coast."
"And she knows… something about you? Something that happened when you were fifteen or sixteen?" His fingers drummed anxiously across her knee, studying her face with somber eyes. There was a spot that he had missed when shaving, a bristled amber patch on the side of his throat. She fixed her vision upon it, resisting the urge to claw at it with her fingernails. The children of Alistair's garden were impossible ghosts, whispering in her ears. She fought to drown them out.
"I—" She shook her head. "I cannot be certain she will not use it against me. No, I cannot see a scenario in which she would not. She is very much my mother's sister."
"Would telling me help?" he asked.
Her lips pursed. "No, but I do not see another way. There is no love between Nell and I. So you must know."
Alistair shifted, coming to wrap his arms around her from behind. Elissa had not noticed before, but she was trembling like a dying leaf caught in the autumn wind. It was fitting, somehow, that she be so literally exposed when she told him the full truth. "Whatever it is…" he whispered against the back of her neck. His breath was warm and set her nerves alight. "It won't change how I feel."
"It will," she replied simply, and closed her eyes against the fading sunset. She had not forgiven him, but the anger was somewhat tempered by fear. Mottled orange light bathed her skin through the trees, casting gray shadows in the hollows of her cheeks and throat. Her voice was quite calm, detached as she spoke. She felt like she was floating above the scene, like some other woman was kneeling in the dirt with her lover's firm arms around her. "I told you there was a scandal, when I was sixteen."
"When you broke your engagement to Lord Howe."
"I, Elissa Elethea Cousland, was betrothed to Nathaniel Byron Howe on the day of my dedication to the Chantry."
Alistair blinked. "That's quite a mouthful."
"It is," she agreed with a wan smile. "I was three months old; he was seven years old. I grew up with the explicit knowledge of my future— husband, home, duty. Some balk against these sorts of arrangements. Maker knows Cailan and Anora had their troubles. But for me it was… I hesitate to use the word easy, but it was not impossible."
Her first childhood crush. Her first girlhood fantasy. Her first… The memory was blurry, but she could still remember the lines of his face. She'd filled pages of her sketchbook with his angles. Nate was a whip-thin young man, with wiry muscles and the self-satisfied air of the heir to a great estate. Long black hair, strong nose, skin windburned and chapped from days spent climbing the battlements with a bow strapped to his back. He was not conventionally handsome like the prince, even in youth, but he was strong and graceful. He cut the figure of the dashing rogue. When he waltzed, the ladies of the court fluttered their fans with delight, and each fought for a place on his dance card.
On the night of her debut ball in Denerim, fourteen and blemished, in her white satin gown with the bosom padded up to give her a womanly figure, he had finally danced with her. Nate was twenty and change by then, a grown man shackled to a child, dressed in sapphire blue. Amaranthine blue. He never made a mistake, leading her in the reel flawlessly. As if she was not visibly struggling with counting the steps in her head. He was serious and quiet and only kissed her on the cheek when their engagement was formally announced at the height of the ball.
She sighed, feeling Alistair frown against her neck when she lapsed into silence. "Sorry."
"I'm just a little jealous," he admitted. He laughed weakly. "Hearing you talk about loving someone else isn't exactly easy."
"I can stop," she offered.
"No. I just… do you still feel like that?"
"Do I still love him?"
He said, "Yeah."
"Don't be stupid," she scoffed, bunching up her fingers into defensive fists. She hated to think about love. It was a power unfathomable, beyond the control of a clever word or a fast knife.
(But she loved to be loved. Still a spoiled child underneath it all.)
He rested a broad hand on top of her own, cupping it and smoothing out her fingers, whispering her name as a gentle admonishment. "Lissie."
She leaned her head against his chest. There was a hint of sweat and horses about him, and the raw pungency of his seed mixed with her own fluids. Strangely, she found it comforting. "I don't know. I don't know if it's better… more moral, more correct, to say I loved him or that I never did. I'm not sure I know what love is meant to be, Alistair. I can say… I've tried not to think on this for a long time. I know what I did. I ruined him."
"I'm sure it wasn't as bad as all that."
Nate tried to be a gentleman. She was just Fergus's kid sister, even if she was supposed to be his fiancee. Then the summer of fifteen came in, and so did her breasts. Accidentally kissing him, and then purposefully kissing him. The bitter, heady scent of oak moss cologne and pine needles on his skin. Ducking their chaperone in the corridors, finding quiet rooms in Vigil's Keep where the sound of the sea muffled them. Nathaniel teaching her how to move silently, to be invisible, to make make love with danger just around the corner. The thrill of catching him off guard, the surprise on his face when she outpaced him in a foot race. The pride in his smirk when she picked her first lock.
"I got pregnant, Alistair." Her voice was a hammer striking an anvil.
"Oh," was all Alistair could manage.
The wind was gone, and the dusk brought a blanket of oppressive stillness. She railed against it. "I was fifteen. Our wedding was to be in the following spring. I… I cared about him. But I could not be sure he loved me. I only found out later, from his sister Delilah, that he felt the same. He could not be sure I loved him, even after I gave myself to him. I'm told I can be difficult to read." She swallowed harshly. "I panicked. Like a little girl, I ran to my mother to make it all better. She wanted me to stay and tell him, to face my mess with the tattered shreds of my honor. But my father offered me an out."
"Val Royeaux," Alistair recognized, in a thick voice.
"Yes. I took the out. I fled to Orlais. I did not understand why Nathaniel's father banished him to the Marches, why Thomas became the new heir to the arling. It must have been three years before I discovered that Da had made an… allegation of impropriety."
Alistair stiffened. "Did he? Was—"
"No," she said quickly. "I tried to fix things, when I learned of it. But it was too late. Nate's reputation was tarnished. Mine only survived by the grace of the Maker. The rift between our two families could not be bridged."
"And… and the child?"
"He was born in the rented house in Val Royeaux." Her voice turned soft and dull. "Born and died without drawing breath."
Alistair made a soft sound in the back of his throat. "Maker." The word slid from his lips in prayer.
She shook her head. "He was too early. So very small. I remember thinking he was l-like…" She paused. "Like he was the runt in a mabari litter. Small, but… perfect."
Alistair's arms tightened around her. "Oh, Lissie."
"One moment I was a girl, trying to keep a pup alive, and the next I was supposed to be a mother, burying her child. Only I never felt like one. I was just… numb." She closed her eyes. "Da's grief was cloying. I went into the walled garden, barefoot for some reason. It was muddy. It had rained. The earthworms writhed on the paving stones, slowly drowning. Geraldine came to bring me a shawl. I asked her for some paper, and I wrote Nathaniel. I told him a Revered Mother had come to take away our child, and that I could never see him again. I said I was staying in Val Royeaux for good."
"What changed your mind?"
"King Maric went down in the Waking Sea."
"Oh."
For a moment, they were bound together in crystalline, breathless grief. Alistair huffed raggedy into the side of her neck while she searched for some semblance of composure. Her throat and chest ached with tears she refused to shed. She did not deserve them, but she could not manage to swallow them away. The lump caught at her sternum, burning a hole through her insides.
She wept.
"We were obligated to return to Denerim for Maric's funeral. It wasn't… immediate. Loghain tried to delay Cailan's coronation. I think he refused to believe that Maric was gone. Da came back to fix things in the Council. I remember I was sitting in the cathedral, looking down over the balcony, and I saw Oren. A little tot with dark hair, on the lap of Oriana Salazar. Fergus was supposed to be in Antiva. I would have never…" Elissa turned her head, finally brave enough to search Alistair's gaze for the revulsion she expected to see. It was not there. "Somehow, I loved that child because I could not love my own."
Alistair kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry."
She pushed away his sympathy. Her stomach felt hollow. "I killed them."
"Lissie, you can't possibly believe that. An evil man did an unspeakable thing to your family. You are not to blame."
"Aren't I?" she whispered miserably. "If I had stayed and done my duty then they would be alive."
"You can't know that for certain."
"The funny thing is, I can't picture Howe as… He was not a just father. He was not a good husband. But he was always kind to me. I play the events of that night back over and over. Terrorizing Nan. Teasing Gilly about the Wardens. Saying goodbye to Fergus. Vespers in the chapel with Mother Mallol. Tucking Oren into bed. Playing cards with Landra, Oriana, and Mother. Dairen, Da, Duncan, and Rendon discussing Cailan's campaign…" she recited. She knew every movement by rote.
The scent of pipe smoke lingering in her hair. The distraction of the elven maid, Iona, with the sweet eyes and blonde hair. Just her type, although on principle she would never bed a servant. Sneaking back to her bedchamber to steal a few moments talking with a pretty girl. Falling asleep listening to a story of the alienage, with slim fingers combing through her hair. Waking to fire.
"I sent a letter to Starkhaven after I joined the Wardens. But there was no reply. There is unrest in that city. Some sort of coup against the Vaels. No telling if Nate got it. He used to write me fortnightly, before."
She stood abruptly. Darkness had rolled over them completely, in that sudden way of the waning months nearest to winter. She marched to her pack, chilled to the bone, and fumbled with the latches, searching for clothes and her flint. "You see, I'm not meant to be a mother. It's good—" she hiccuped noisily, as water streamed down either side of her nose. She refused to acknowledge the tears. "It's good that you and I can't— it's better this way. The Maker must want this. My father blamed me. The last thing he said to me was, 'Our family always does their duty first.'"
She jerked the trousers up over her hips, felt the smooth, unmarked flesh which should have been mottled with silver stripes. The Orlesian ointments had been efficient. One would never know from her skin that she had once borne a child.
"You hate that word. Duty. You always say it like it's a curse. Now I see why." Alistair's voice was hard when he caught her. "But don't hide from me now. Don't you shut me out, Lissa. Because I can feel you trying in the bind." He turned her with firm hands, surprisingly gentle. Reluctantly, she faced him again. His nose and cheeks were blotchy like he had been crying. Had he? She had not noticed. "I don't know how you do it, how you go on with all of these things strapped to you— Thedas weighing down your back. How do you bear it?" His eyes darted past her. "I— wait here."
Alistair darted to his pack, and pulled a bundle of rags from the bottom. He unwrapped the bundle and unscrewed the lid on a glass jar. She took a hesitant step closer, confused when he stood clutching a flower. "Alistair?"
"Here, look at this. Do you know what this is?"
"Your rose. I've caught you thumbing it from time to time." She clutched it tightly in her fist, feeling the bite of the thorns tear into her palm. The head of the flower was unblemished, perfect as the day it was plucked, with silky petals the color of blood.
"I picked it in Lothering. I remember thinking, 'How could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness.' I probably should have left it alone, but I couldn't. The darkspawn would come and their taint would just destroy it. So I've had it ever since."
"A trophy?"
"I thought… I've been working up the nerve to give it to you, actually. Don't tell Morrigan it took me so long, she'll laugh."
"I promise."
"In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you. I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this… darkness."
"Thank you," she said softly, taken aback.
"You know I love you, right? Maybe it was a stupid impulse, or I did it at the wrong time. I… Oh! You're bleeding!" he gasped, grabbing her fingers and forcing her hand open. A second drop of crimson followed the first in a trail which curved gracefully down her wrist. "Damn it. I'm sorry. I should have cut them smooth."
"No, it's perfect." She cracked a pale smile. "Do you think I'm thorny?"
"No, but now I'm a little worried about your self preservation instincts. Didn't it hurt?" Alistair chuckled grimly. "No, don't answer that, my dear." He bound her bleeding palm with his handkerchief. "Listen. I know it was a terrible thing. I can't begin to imagine how you must feel. But I cannot believe that the Maker never wants you to love another child. You care too deeply and too honestly, and I've seen the way you care for the refugee children we meet in our travels. How you grieve for them."
"But we can never. You said so yourself. We're tainted."
"We'll find a way. If it's what you want. There must be a cure… Some magic we can try. We seem to have an excess of mages." He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. "And I hesitate to mention it, but we're both technically descendants of Calenhad. Either one of us, by ourselves, could produce a royal heir. Not that I'm suggesting we..."
She shuddered. "No. Together, or not at all."