Chapter 3
9:30 Dragon –Cousland Castle in Highever
Daralis awoke to banging on her door, an unfamiliar male voice calling her name with no lack of subtlety. She groaned under her breath and rolled over hoping the voice might go away and look for her at her mother's hut.
"Daralis Dayes! You will open this door immediately!" Daralis rolled over and pulled the covers over her head. Despite her disheveled appearance, her nobility shone through. Her dark brown hair fell well past her shoulders, her dark steel blue eyes all but screamed justice. She was protective over what family she had, for those who knew her, and most people within the castle left her alone. For the most part. She existed for the simple but important fact that Teryn Bryce Cousland had had a fit of weakness; in that weakened state, had one night of passion with her mother, Annalis Dayes, who was a serving girl there in the castle. With Annalis being an elf and her father being the Teryn of Highever, that had earned her absolutely no recognition to her being nobility.
"Alright, alright! I'm coming just…give me a minute to get decent, will you?" Daralis yelled from her side of the door. The banging stopped momentarily, but picked right back up, more insistent this time. She hastily threw on some light leather armor and opened the door. "What now?" Daralis demanded of the very harassed looking guard on the other side of the door.
"Lady Dayes, your presence is required by the Teryn of Highever immediately." That, in and of itself threw up all kinds of flags in Daralis's mind.
Dear Maker, what now? She thought to herself. He never wants anything to do with me unless I've seriously fucked something up. And this idiot is new and I already don't like him.
"Please, oh please, ser, tell me what my father requires of me this time." Daralis spat back at the guard. He looked slightly taken aback by her sudden change in attitude. He visibly tensed at her hostility.
"H-He did not tell me, my lady. Only that I was to bring you to his quarters as soon as possible." The now abashed guard managed to stammer out. Daralis relaxed, leaning against the door frame.
"Surely, my dear, he told you something. I would not like to walk into an ambush fresh out of bed and at least, you know, if I did walk into an ambush it would not only be your fault, but it would also be your fault that I went down fighting looking like this." She playfully tugged at her breastplate and disheveled hair, and offered a small smile to the now relaxed guardsman, who returned it sevenfold.
"I will accompany you, dear guardsman. Would it be permissible to ask your name?" Daralis inquired of the guard, who, upon closer inspection, was actually quite a looker.
"M-My name is Ser Gilmore, my lady. I already know you, of course. You're the Teryn's-"He would have finished that sentence, had it not been for Daralis's lightning fast reflexes and her blade at his throat.
"You are new. Allow me to give you a small lesson of mine and my father's relationship. We-don't-have-one." Each word emphasized by her blade pressing on Ser Gilmore's neck. "No one. I repeat, no one in this Maker forsaken castle speaks of that night, or that I am a bastard child. I don't like it, I don't appreciate it, and you should pretend you don't know like everyone else here does. Do you understand?" Daralis slowly released her hold over the poor guard, who was as pale as the moonlit sky.
Ser Gilmore seemed to have understood her warning, for the moment, and backed away from her quickly, nearly tripping over his greaved feet. Ser Gilmore walked ahead silently, waiting for her to follow, but keeping his distance from her. He didn't even bother making small talk with her during the long trek from the stables to the castle, and finally up to Bryce's quarters. Ser Gilmore knocked once, and retreated quickly, as though the looming door was about to be possessed or be lit ablaze. Daralis chuckled to herself as she watched the guardsman's paranoid behavior.
"Enter." A booming voice said from the other side. Ser Gilmore nodded, once, to Daralis, giving her the go ahead, and he retreated back within the shadows. Daralis walked slowly into the fire lit room, noticing the Teryn sitting hunched over alongside the growing blaze. She sat down next to him silently, waiting for him to speak.
"Dara…I know we haven't had much father-daughter time and…I wanted to apologize." Bryce looked many years older as he began, and as she watched, she thought she saw tears welling up in his eyes. Daralis, brows furrowed in confusion, stared at him intently.
"But I didn't want you to come up here because I wanted to apologize. I wanted you to come up here because there are some things that I need to tell you. We're going to war, and I'm afraid there will be no one to look after you. I realize you've done fine, Daralis, but there comes a time when I need to let you go. You've grown into a beautiful, deadly, and manipulative woman…" Daralis did see tears fall this time.
"Father, what are you talking about? There's no war." Daralis said, standing up and crossing her arms. Calling him father felt more like out of guilt now than a sign of affection.
"I'm afraid there is, pup. I must ride out in the morning to the battle that awaits us. I'm so sorry Daralis. I regret listening to Eleanor about how I shouldn't be around you, and now that I think about it, it was her way of making me suffer for being unfaithful. I wanted you to grow up a noble, not some girl who lives in our barn." Bryce paused closing his eyes for a moment before he continued.
"Since I am going to battle, Aedan is in charge of the castle, and I want you to keep your wits about you while I'm gone. If anything goes wrong, which I'm sure it won't, you know the men will listen to you."
"I don't really see a point in you telling me all this…" Daralis began but Bryce held up his hand to silence her.
" I…I love you, Daralis. You should know that. I will fight to protect you until my dying breath. I just feel like I needed to tell you that before I left." Bryce trailed off, looking absently at the now dying flame before him. Daralis shook her head, feeling slightly guilty about how she had treated the guard earlier, and made a mental note to apologize, should she see him again.
"I love you too, Father. I will see you again. I swear that I will abide by your request until I have no breath left within me." With that, she gave a small salute to her father, and backed out of the room. She lingered only a moment longer than she should have, watching her father seemingly ebb away into the abyss of darkness he seemed to have holed himself up in. When she began to feel regret for not being there for Bryce, she knew it was time to leave. None of this was her fault.
Daralis took a secret passageway near her father's study that was a quicker route out to the farm yard. Once back at the barn, she stripped out of all her armor and weapons. Daralis felt a horrible sense of foreboding, but she sighed softly to herself and fell down upon the hay into a fitful sleep.
She was awoken once again by someone pounding on the door. Not feeling the need to put on armor or weapons this time, she pulled open the door in her smallclothes, to be greeted by a terrified looking Ser Gilmore.
"Daralis! You have to get out of here! The castle is under attack! Your father is-"Ser Gilmore's words were cut short by a jagged dagger stabbing him in the back through his heart, a quick kill.
"What in the name of Hessarian's mercy is going on now?" Daralis yelled as she jumped back from the falling corpse that was, only moments before, Ser Gilmore. She had only time enough to grab one of her swords, and cut her attacker's head clean off his shoulders.
"Well, at least they had a good view before they died." Daralis chuckled at her own joke, and hastily strapped on her set of leather armor, and strapped the two swords to her back, praying that no one else hostile had seen her. The scene that greeted her outside was an ugly one. The sight of charred corpses were lined outside the barn door. One guard still had an axe embedded in the back of his head and his body was still warm.
Daralis looked around the burning court yard to the servant huts and ran towards them. A stray attacker ran in front of her and she severed his head with a quick slice of her blade. Without stopping she kicked in the door on her mother's hut and scrambled inside. Annalis was not inside and Daralis knew she did not have time to search every hut for her mother. Grabbing a few things from her mother's chest in the corner; she made her way back into the farmyard.
Once inside the castle, Daralis ran through the parts of the castle that were not barricaded or caved in, and searched for familiar faces that weren't completely devoid of life. She finally found her ticket upon reaching the main hall. A man in heavy plate was fighting alongside her father's men, swiftly bringing death upon each person who made the mistake of getting anywhere near him.
She watched in awe as the warrior flew through the air, bringing a great sword down across two necks, immediately decapitating them. Daralis was brought back to reality as a warrior attempted to sneak up behind her, curving his blade high above his head in order to get more momentum down on his swing. Feeling bold, she waited until the last possible second before bringing one blade across his throat and settling the other one deep within the warrior's heart. There was the moment she reveled in. The moment of feeling that life course through the veins of her blade, watching as the light slowly faded from the man's eyes, and falling to the ground in a silent scream.
They carried on for what seemed like hours, until all the enemies had been dispatched, and Daralis and the warrior paused to catch their breath. All the other Cousland's men were dead. The warrior turned to Daralis with a smile and she saw her own face in his.
"That was beautiful, sister." Aedan sauntered up to her, grinning from ear to ear. He readjusted his armor and placed his massive blade behind his back.
"Hello brother." Daralis felt tears stinging her eyes, overjoyed at seeing her brother alive. A brother she knew well but barely spoke to was still family to her.
"Sister, have you seen Father? Or Mother?" Aedan's concern was written all over his face.
"No, brother. I haven't. I haven't seen my mother either. I checked her hut before coming here. I think she said she was cleaning the kitchen this even…" Daralis trailed off as Aedan gestured for her to come closer to him.
"Your mother is alive. I saw her moments ago, heading towards one of the servant's passages. Let's go. Follow me." Aedan nodded to an open door.
Aedan led Daralis away from the majority of the fighting, and into the cellar that was behind the kitchen. Bryce lay on the stone floor in a dark pool of his own blood, fatally wounded, but alive. Eleanor lay next to him, an arrow through her heart. Daralis and Aedan rushed to their father's side, kneeling in his blood.
"Father! Father! Who-?" Daralis was in a frenzied panic, demanding answers. That was when she saw the crest emblazoned on one of the dead men's shields. The Howe family crest. The family that had been allies of her father's for years had now turned on the Cousland line. And for what?
Aedan was sitting on the ground, Bryce's head in his lap, tears flowing freely now. Aedan bent down close to his ear, and Daralis, from where she kneeled onto the bloody floor, could see Bryce was telling him something, though she couldn't make out what. She watched in horror as Bryce's eyes fluttered closed for the final time, and she began to cry.
"DARALIS!" A voice yelled from the doorway, making Daralis jump clear out of her skin. With not even enough time to get over her initial shock of being scared senseless, she was swept up in a firm and reassuring embrace.
"M-Mother?" Daralis cried even harder wrapping her arms around the elven woman in return. "Oh thank the Maker you're alright!"
"Daralis…how did you make it back from the barn?" Annalis inquired of her daughter trying not to look at the gruesome sight before them.
"I got lucky, I suppose Mother." Daralis replied shaking her head before turning back to Aedan and collapsing to the floor at his side over Bryce's body. Annalis frantically looked around the room as a large older man wearing rogue robes, with a sword and dagger secured to his back strode into the room. He firmly shut the door behind him.
"Aedan," He spoke firmly. "There is no time now for mourning. We must leave now or we are all going to die." The man pulled Aedan to his feet towards the servant's passage that led out into the city. Annalis pulled at a sobbing Daralis to follow.
"No…Duncan…" Aedan muttered.
"No time!" the older man, Duncan, insisted as they disappeared into the passageway with Daralis and her mother not far behind.
"Darling?" A voice whispered soothingly into Daralis's ear. "Wake up my child…" The voice continued as Daralis opened her eyes to see her mother sitting over her. "Child, you can't sleep all day we need to move and quickly."
"Where is Aedan?" Daralis rose to see they had camped in a wooded area. She could not remember how far or how long they had ran. But she did remember the pain of Bryce dying and the ache in her head from all the sobbing.
"Gone dear," Annalis spoke firmly. "Left not long after you passed out. That old Grey Warden insisted that Aedan leave with him without waking you."
"Grey Warden?" Daralis questioned rubbing her face trying to wake up. "Aedan went with that man? Why?"
"I do not know Dara," Annalis sighed shaking her head and looking around them. "But we have a long walk ahead of ourselves and you'd best be ready."
"Walk…Where are we walking to?"
"Where else child? The place I have always said I'd go back to once you were old enough to be on your own. But since we have no home we will go now. Even if you are only sixteen." Daralis's mother smiled as she turned and began to walk away. Daralis hurried to her feet, confused, tired, and most of all hungry.
"Where Mother?" She pleaded once again before realizing what her mother meant.
Annalis was born in Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Imperium. The very thought of the place ruled by mages terrified her and to leave behind the only place she had ever known.
"Why there mother…" Daralis sighed catching up with her mother.
"You know why, Dara. Once your sister hears of the Cousland line dying out she will come to us and the only place she knows where to look is our home…"
"Tevinter is not my home…" Daralis scowled as they walked into the early morning light out of the woods and toward the Imperial Highway.