THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER CROWN

She was lying in her bed with her head pressed against her lover's chest, listening to his rhythmic breathing. Her naked body was pressed against his, waiting for sleep to take her, when she heard Alistair say, "You know, I think maybe you were too hard on Anora earlier."

She lifted her head off his chest and glared. "Do not tell me you are taking her side."

"No! I just think that, maybe, you could have been a tad nicer. About her infertility, for one."

"I was just defending myself. She called me a slut."

"I know, but . . ."

"Oh, do you agree?" Lyna asked. She was suddenly all too aware of her nakedness; she drew the white sheets tighter about her.

"No, of course not," said Alistair. His head collapsed unceremoniously onto the pillow; his eyes searched the ceiling. "Forget it." He closed his eyes as if to sleep. A troubling quiet fell upon the bedchamber. Moonlight entered through the open windows, turning her white sheets a brilliant silver.

That silence lasted for a good ten seconds before Alistair sat up sharply. Lyna thought he was going to have more words with her, or worse, leave for the night, but instead he just put a tender hand on her swollen belly, and smiled. It was a small swell, and soft, not as big as it would be eight months in the future. Still, Lyna Mahariel thought, it holds a promise of life, amidst all our years of death and more death. Alistair and I . . .

"How is this possible?" asked the king, as if the question had never been asked before.

"I don't know," she answered, truthfully. "Perhaps it is best not to know."

Alistair's eyes fell to mournfully gaze at the mattress. "You know that what Teagan said earlier is true. About . . ."

"Yes, I know." Lyna was not eager to think about it, either. She wished Teagan had never spoken . . . no, that wasn't true. It was not his fault: the matter of inheritance would have to be discussed sooner or later, though she had hoped it would be later. Much, much later. This is all too much, too soon. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose," she said to Alistair.

"Forgive me for not holding my breath," he said.

Lyna smiled. "You're forgiven."

She dreamed a strange dream that night, of a young girl with leaves in her hair, and eight figures in gleaming plate, and hovering about them all, a shadow that filled the dream with darkness.

She first found herself in a well-lit hall. The dome-ceiling was painted gold. Pillars of white marble lined the hall, five abreast. The floor was hard and cold beneath her feet, and it was pitch-black, as of obsidian. A scarlet carpet ran from the door she stood before down the length of the hall towards a many-tiered dais. On the dais sat an empty throne with jade armrests and a cushion and seat of violet. Behind the throne a white staircase ascended to the rear of the hall, then branched left and right. Lyna walked towards it.

She strode down the very center of the carpet, beneath high windows that seemed to reflect neither day nor night. There was a pleasant fragrance in the air. Her footsteps echoed in the empty hall. She ascended the dais and paused to examine the throne. It looked so sad, so abandoned with no king or queen or lord to sit it. She ran her fingers over its crest and down the armrests.

As she came to the first landing on the staircase, she looked rightwards and leftwards. She turned right first, and felt a strange horror come over her. The rightward steps ended in a golden door with a silver handle, but she sensed a hidden malice behind the splendor, like a cruel predator waiting to spring a trap long planned. She did not wish to go that way, but neither could she head left. The steps on the leftward side simply trailed off into the wall. There was no door there, no window or passageway. It was like she was being herded to the right. Reluctantly, every part of her brain screaming in protest, she turned back to the right and hiked up the steps and opened the door.

But no enemy was waiting for her on the other side, only a narrow passageway that led off into darkness. Somehow, though, it was no less disturbing. This hallway was old and appeared to have partly fallen into ruin. There was a sickly stench in the air that somehow reminded her of how Denerim has smelled after the Archdemon was slain. And there was only a single, solitary torch, hung on a scone at the far end of the hall. She crossed the threshold and she felt, once more, a carpet between her toes. But this carpet was damp and covered with moss. It seemed to tickle her feet. She looked down and saw to her horror that from a dozen little wormholes insects of all shapes and sorts were issuing, and were crawling over the tops of her feet. She recoiled, shook out her legs and half-jumped, half-ran halfway down the hall, putting the loathsome insects behind her.

She looked round. The whole passage was rotted, as if it had been exposed to constant rain and humidity for a hundred years. There were more wormholes were she now stood, but fortunately there were no more insects to behold. The carpet, she now saw, must have once been of many colors and designs, but now was a sickly green hue. Paint had run down the walls and hardened as it did, so that the walls seemed to crying many-colored tears. This was a bad place. How she longed for the splendor of the golden hall. Lyna looked back, hoping to head back out, but the door was now lost to the darkness. She had no choice but to move on.

There were two doors in the hall, one at the far end, and another fast approaching on her right. As she moved closer, a strange feeling came over her, as if she had been here before. The door was open, she saw. She felt she must not gaze inside, but could not help herself.

She found herself looking once more upon the golden entrance-hall, but as if through a silver veil. The hall was not empty now: eight figures stood by the throne, four men and four women. She tried to examine them closer. At a distance all seemed human, but the more she stared the more they appeared elvish. But these were unlike the elves she knew; for one, they were taller, their bodies not so skinny. There was a beautiful grace to their movements; every action a song, every movement a symphony. Most wore some kind of silver-white plate armor under their cloaks, and their faces seemed noble, as if they came from an ancient and unpolluted lineage of royalty. Lyna Mahariel had seen such dignified features in some of her kindred, such as in Zathrian and Lanaya, but none bore such a nobility as these eight. The very air around them seemed electrified. They seemed to be talking in some strange language, as well. It seemed somehow familiar . . .

But they were not alone. A shadow moved about them. Lyna called it a shadow because it could be called no other name. It seemed evil, shapeless as the Void. At first it seemed bat-like, but like a shadow it changed as it moved, taking first the form of some four-legged beast, before it became roughly humanoid. But it never became a solid thing; always it was like a colored vapor. And as it moved, a fierce chill crept down the hall and seeped to where she stood in the dilapidated passage. A shiver ran up and down her spine; the lone torch in her hall flickered uneasily. All at once she desired to be free of this vision, whatever it was. But she remained glued to where she stood, watching this surreal scene.

These elves, or humans, or whatever they were, all seemed to welcomed this formless horror warmly, as if it were one of their own, returned at long last from some lengthy journey.

All of them, save one.

Lyna did not notice at first, but one of the women stood apart from the others, slightly to the right and a few steps down the steps of the dais. She, like Lyna, watched the shadow with suspicion, and perhaps, a little dread. Her hair was raven, a bow was at her back and strangely, a hawk or some bird-of-prey was perched upon her shoulder. She alone of all the others did not rush to embrace the shadow. Lyna looked at her more attentively. She looked familiar, but at this distance she could not determine how. At length she turned her head and looked, it appeared, directly into Lyna's eyes, seemingly beseeching her. But then the scene dissolved, and the door slammed shut before her.

I need to get out of this place, Lyna thought. The golden entrance-hall seemed only a sinister illusion now, shrouding the true horrors within this place, luring the unwary in with the false promise of comfort. There would be no escape from this nightmare if she returned there. She had no choice. She had to try the other door. She walked on, leaving the eight elf-humans and the shadow behind.

The far door was even further away then she thought. She walked for what seemed like ages before she at last reached it. The torch blazed, cascading her face with heat. She tried the knob on the door, opened it. Beyond, there was only blackness. She took a step into the black . . .

And found herself in the midst of a forest clearing. She looked about her. The miserable hall was gone; not so much as a single pungent stench remained of its legacy. All around were trees and trees. Cool grass was beneath her feet, and flowers hugged the trunks of trees. A sweet fragrance was in the air. She drank it in; it reminded her childhood days in the Brecilian Forest. The sun was setting to the west.

She turned and plunged out of the clearing and into the trees. She wanted to explore this forest. It did not take long for her to realize that this forest, whatever its name, was old. It had existed for ages beyond counting: before the darkspawn, before the Imperium, even before Elvhenan. It had been here in the days before the written word, and it remembered. The trees were full of memories . . . and of anger, and sadness. There was not a sound save her soft footfalls on the soil. The whole forest seemed still, as if it were waiting, watching. It made her uneasy.

She weaved in and out of ancient meadows that had not been disturbed in centuries. She passed undying pines, rowans and oaks. She walked for what seemed like miles and miles until she heard a single noise, strange amidst the silent trees: a child's laughter. It was full of mirth. The sound drew her. She followed its tones; louder and louder they became in her ears, until she walked between two trees and emerged in a grove, its floor orange with the light of the dying sun. A large boulder jutted out from its center, a twisted and jagged thing, grey as rain-clouds amidst a magnificent sea of many colors. Two young girls were playing on it. One, a redhead, was hanging about the lower reaches of the boulder, where its edges were less perilous and the promise of safe and soft grass was not far away. There was an anxious look on her face as she watched the other girl dance on top of the rock. Neither seemed not to notice Lyna, standing a short distance away. Leaving the redhead girl, Lyna moved off to get a closer look at the other girl.

She had hair the color of obsidian; it fell to her shoulders and about her neck in an elegant way. Her skin was so pale it was translucent, and she seemed to give off a faint shimmer or glow, as if she was not of this world. It reminded Lyna oddly of the elf-humans she had seen in the golden hall. A thin silver circlet was on her brow, embroidered with fallen leaves she must have picked up off the ground. She was slender where the other girl was skinny, confident where the other girl was anxious. And she seemed eerily familiar to Lyna Mahariel.

As she came ever closer to the dancing girl, Lyna noticed that she was humming softly. The tune felt familiar, as if it was something Lyna had forgotten from childhood. A smile was on her face, and the girl's eyes were closed. Lyna was about a meter away when they opened, and her heart caught in her throat. The girl's eyes were purple. Purple like Lyna's own. And her hair . . . For a few moments the dancing girl seemed not to notice Lyna, though they were not far apart. Then her eyebrow arched, and a bemused expression came over her face. Slowly, tentatively, the dark-haired girl murmured a single word. A single elvish word. And when she heard it, Lyna Mahariel gasped.

The dream dissolved around her. Lyna found herself back in her own bedchamber, lying on her own bed. Dawn had come. The sun had broken through the harsh rain-clouds of yesterday. Rays of golden sunshine fell, fractured, through her windows, filling the chamber with loveliness. Through the opened windows she could hear all the morning resonances of the district outside. Doors opened, shut as the common folk left for their daily chores. The sickly splat of nightsoil as it was upended over the street. The inevitable curses of disgusted passersby. The plop plop of horse-hooves on the cobblestones.

Lyna turned over. Alistair was still beside her, sleeping. She felt his warm body beside her own. She supposed that that should give her comfort, yet in truth her thoughts were dark. She wished she were back in the dream. She would give a hundred nights with Alistair for one more minute in that dream-forest. She had seen her. In the flesh. Her own blood . . .

Though not everything in the dream had made sense. The shadow and the eight noble figures, and the forest and the red-haired girl, those most of all. Somehow it all seemed connected. Who were those people, the eight elf-humans she had seen, and that hideous shadow? And the forest . . .Where was it? It was not the Brecilian Forest, she knew for certain. And the ginger girl, who was she? She seemed important, somehow. Her head hurt.

By the gods, Lyna thought, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes, I feel I've aged a hundred years in a few hours. But there was one thing Lyna Mahariel was sure of, amid of the riddles the night, and that was the word that the dancing girl had spoken, just before the dream had faded. The girl had said it to her, to Lyna alone, not to the redhead, because it was a word that had only one meaning in elvish, and that was how Lyna knew. It was a word that was spoken a thousand-thousand times a day, in a dozen different languages across Thedas, and would now echo in Lyna Mahariel's thoughts for months and months.

Mamae?

Mamae?

MAMAE?