I couldn't remember what happened next. As it all seemed like a dream. The voices calling my name, horses gallops and cries, and the warm protecting arms around me. I could hear whispers of my name, I could feel soft gentle hands on my skin, and when I did open my eyes I could see faces surrounding me. It was so hard to breathe. With every take I could feel my lungs burning, felt as though I was drowning in my own blood. I turned my head slowly. Strength was leaving me...I tried to take a deep breath of air, and I felt fire spread through me. I winced, as I started to cough.
"Arleta..."
Light appeared above my eyes. I turned away, trying to block it from me.
"...What exactly happened?"
They were hushed, but I could still hear them. I slowly opened my eyes to see that I was no longer in the hall. I was in a room that I have never seen before. Tapestries of blue and gold hung around the room, with images of both fire, and water. There were some bookshelves, not alot though, and the door that lead into the room was located to my right where a sat a chair also. I watched the shadows shift from under the door.
"We don't know...we suspect that there is blood magic at work Wynne."
I tried to sit up, but when I moved pain spread throughout my right leg.
"Maker's breath!" I hissed refusing to move anymore. This caused the whispering behind the closed door to stop. I looked at the shadow and saw that they stopped from shifting. I heard the door slowly open with Wynne standing in the doorway. I smiled weakly. "Long time no see..."
She smiled, but I could see the fear in her eyes. "Arleta...my dear I am so happy you are awake."
She sat down into the chair after helping me to slowly sit up. "I understood you're letters," She whispered, keeping her voice low. Relief quickly came into me. For I don't know how long, I had sent letters to Wynne, in a code that only she and the others that traveled with me, knew. "Do you really think that there is a blood mage at the court?" The door shut, by the other person that Wynne was talking to earlier.
"I think what happened to me," I groaned, as my hands discovered my head was wrapped in gauze. "Is enough to make anyone believe." I leaned back onto the headboard, and sighed. "I'm just confused on why they wanted Alistair dead, when they really wanted his blood."
"I think that they wanted his body."
A smile crept up on my face. A joke about how the blood mages, not only wanted him, but needed him. I looked at Wynne, and decided not to say it.
"I mean to say, is that the blood mage wanted to take control of Alistair's body, if you had actually fallowed orders. But from Leliana, and Zevran have told me, it seems that you have made a huge dent in their plan. Why did you do that?"
"You know why Wynne," I said trying to drop the subject. I looked away from her, and tried to think of what my next plan was. I didn't mean to put myself out as bait, or think that the nagging fear in the back of mind was true. How was I going to prove that there was a Maleficar at the court? When Anora has become so paranoid about everything? She was even paranoid about my beloved dog, who...
I shook my head clear of that past. I couldn't live up to that guilt.
"Is there any way to protect me, from further attacks?"
Wynne was silent for a moment, as in trying to figure out how to say whatever she was going to say.
"All we have my dear is the Litany of Adralla. I have made copies of it for you and everyone." She smiled at me and took one of my hands into hers. "Someone would like to talk to you."
"If it is Alistair...then no." I took my hand from her. "I cannot, and will not talk to him. He needs to leave to Orlais as soon as possible." I cannot face him...not now.
"But dear..."
"I said no Wynne!" I snapped, feeling the tears coming to my eyes. I looked at her, as one fell. "I have done enough. I do not wish to fight with im, or anyone else."
The door opened suddenly and he walked in.
"I will not be ignored!" He yelled comming into the room. He looked angry, and this didn't surprise me.
"Now Alistair..." started Wynne, as she stood up, between us.
He looked at her, like I have never seen before. Always, the little banter between them on the roads were always more like mother and son. He would always back down when she gave him that look. But now, he was giving it to her. She bowed her head, then left the room, silently closing the door behind her. Leaving me with him.
"What is going on?"
His voice stung me like an icicle. I flinched as he stared at me. I couldn't answer I just couldn't.
Silence surrounded us, till finally I was forced to answer saying something I shouldn't have.
"You were right."
He looked at me then, and I quickly looked down at his feet. "You were right about everything. About how you should have been King. About Loghian, and Anora...Oh Maker you don't how right you are!" It took all I could to keep all my emotions down. I looked at my hands that I was nervously twisting the sheets.
He didn't say anything which it just made it worse.
"I-...Maker's breath! The reason why I choose Anora was because I loved you! I was selfish, and stupid! I didn't want to become just another girl that the King had loved. I didn't want to become some footnote in the history of Ferelden. Then I discovered at the Circle before we left, the awful thing of being a Grey Warden." I took a breath. Why in Maker's name was I saying this? I tried to stop myself, but I couldn't...WYNNE! Blast that awful, vile woman
"...look. The only reason why I showed up at that bar, was because Anora wanted you dead. It was either I did something, to save you, to make up for my huge mistake and selfishness, or let her hire someone else to actually kill you." I looked up at him then, trying not to tell him everything of why I chose Loghain to save Alistair from a death that I knew he would take. "I had Zev put some potion on it, talk to Leliana, and let me, and you're hatred of me do the rest." I took a deep breath, looking away from again. "Then the plan was to have Leliana and Zevran take you to a ship that I had paid, that would then take you to Orlais. Where, by the Maker's blessing," I waved my hands in the air praying that the Maker was listening. I was growing really nervous, and I could tell that I was talking really fast. "...you would be safe from the people trying to kill you." I sighed and put my head into my hands. "Then, as a precaution, I wiped you're blood off, and cut myself with the knife putting my blood on it, just in case my hunch of a Maleifcar was right, so when I gave the knife to Anora as proof that I did indeed "kill" you, you would be safe then."
Finished.
I kept looking at my feet, with my hands on either side of my bandage head. I didn't want to look at him, to tell the truth, at that point I didn't know if he stayed around long enough to hear about the Maleifcar. And not until I heard movement, and him sitting down in the chair next of me, did I know that my worse nightmare was coming true. The one with me telling him about the truth for four years. Well, part of it anyways.
"...why did you do this?" he half whispered.
Tears sprung to my eyes. Was he this dumb?
"Why did you save me? You didn't have too. You didn't have to have Leliana take care of me, you didn't have to pay for all the food, the inns, transportation, and you sure in hell didn't have to put yourself at risk with a Blood Mage for me! So why in Andraste's knickers did you do all of this?!"
"If you really must ask," I turned on him, with tears starting to run down my face. "Then you really don't deserve and answer." And there it was. My emotions, my thoughts, everything laid bare for him. For the guy that in my mind, still hates me. Still hates everything I stood for, and spat on the ground that I walked on. I looked into his clear blue eyes, and it scared me for I couldn't read them. I couldn't read him anymore.
I looked away before he could see anything else of my soul.
"...Just...just go away," I whispered wiping some of the tears away. "Just go to Orlais and live the life that you were supposed to have, before all of this." Again I waved my hands in the air. I was tired, sore, and still broken both mentally, physically, and now emotionally. The worst part of all of this was. He didn't say a single word after I had told him how I felt. Basically anyways.
I felt him put a hand on my shoulder, then heard the chair moving. I felt his hand leaving my shoulder, hearing his footsteps across the wood, heard the opening and closing of the door and silence.
For several seconds I sat there trying to sort my emotions till finally I turned to my side, against my better judgment, and cried into my pillow long and hard. I didn't care who heard me, I just cried.
