Early again but I'm moving and am not sure when internet will be available at my new residence. Enjoy!

Chapter Ten: Game Change

From the correspondence of Berwick, an elven archer in Lloyd's tavern:

We need your eyes and ears in Redcliffe. Stay in the village, keep your head down, and watch the castle. Report any changes, and you'll be well paid.

After some persuasion on Eliante's part and much swearing on Nathaniel's, Anders had complainingly agreed to abandon his mage's robes in favor of a set of Nathaniel's clothes. "It's not fair," he had griped. "There's nothing wrong with being a mage."

"If you were here on your own, you'd have my blessing to try explaining how there's nothing wrong with a mage outside of the tower to Bann Loren," Nathaniel had retorted, "but you're not."

Eliante had looked on, only partially amused and mostly annoyed. At this point, she was beginning to find it more tedious than anything else, these miniature battles that her two male companions fought, especially when one of them had done everything in his power to deny her presence in the last few days of travel. The silence had hardly helped to heal the wounds, old and new. She tried to simply push it behind her, focus on the vision of a proper bath and a proper bed at Bann Loren's estate. And answers. Those too.

Yet trying to convince herself of such things only made her recall the old argument between her mother and Nan, that you could not simply settle for covering up the cracks in the floor with rushes as a long-term solution.

But as she buried her uneasiness about Nathaniel beneath the prospect of meeting Bann Loren at his home, entire new doubts took its place. Did the bann know of his wife and son's deaths, or was she to be the harbinger of bad news? Worrying over that just brought the memory of the guest room, of the blood, of Landra's smashed-in skull, the blood dripping from the bedframe… It was better to think of Nathaniel.

It was as though she had to continuously cheat just to keep the game moving forward.

Bann Loren had been at Ostagar, she reflected as they rode through the small hamlet that surrounded the castle, when the thought of showing the Deep Roads maps to Nathaniel and revealing her aims concerning their purpose became just too heavy. If he had returned early –and they had seen many soldiers on the road, although they had not dared to stop and question them –he would know perhaps of Fergus and whether her brother had even reached the south. Moreover, he would have no love for Howe when he learned of Landra and Dairren and the fate that had befallen all of the residents of Highever Castle save two, excluding the villain in question and his men.

She had nothing to fear from Bann Loren save perhaps the anger that would borne out of despair, and that should not even be directed towards her. This was a good plan, far sounder than trekking all of the way out to Denerim. Besides, Denerim would mean justice and that was something Nathaniel did not seem to understand she did not want for Arl Howe… although she caught herself wondering if she really did want him to understand. And if she didn't, what did that mean?

If their places were swapped and it was Eliante's adored father who Nathaniel wanted dead, would she not want to understand if not fight for justice for her father? Didn't he deserve to understand as she felt she would deserve to in this alternate scenario?

She felt like she was cheating again.

In the evening's fading light, the people of the hamlet of Lakeside were whispering. Their eyes were wary as the small party of unassuming fugitives, disguised nobles and an apostate, rode past along the pockmarked road toward the diminutive keep. Eliante could not help but mark that these did not seem to be people who had just received news of a successful battle and recently welcomed the returning soldiers home. Had Howe's influence extended this far west or was it something else?

She was not the only one put ill at ease by this joyless reception. Seated behind her on the mare, Anders muttered, just loud enough for her ears, "You'd find more cheer at a funeral. And at least there, there'd be drinking."

Half-way to the keep, a silver-haired man with a crooked back stepped up to the roadside and spat in Eliante's path. "Damned deserters," he swore. "Find another town to plague. We've enough of your kind here already."

Pulling at the reins to bring her mare to a halt, she looked down at him. "We're not deserters," she said, more confused than insulted.

"We came from the north," Anders added. "That would explain why we're on the North Road, wouldn't it?"

Nathaniel brought his horse up beside Eliante's. Grey eyes fixed on the commoner, he said, "We're here to see your lord, Bann Loren. Is he here or are you wasting our time?"

The man spat again, this time closer to Nathaniel's horse's hooves. "Aye," he agreed sourly. "Bloody coward, like the rest of them, scuttling home in a terror."

"Mind your tongue," Nathaniel retorted sharply. "He's your liege. You owe him as much respect in voice as King Cailan."

The man laughed: the sound a harsh bark. "King's dead," he snorted contemptuously. "And for all the good our lord's done us over the years, he might as well be too. All hail the regent, Teyrn Loghain," he added, mocking.

"Dead?" Eliante repeated, disbelieving, but Nathaniel caught her arm before she could speak further.

"Waste of our time," he said. "We'd be better off at the keep, now." And with those words spoken, he spurred his horse onward, moving fast up the hill and through the remainder of the town, the beginnings of the last of the late summer storms darkening his hair and the cape about his shoulders.

Eliante followed suit, kicking lightly at Dancer's sides to urge the mare forward, but not before the man at the roadside spoke again. "The world is changing," he shouted out and the words seemed to carry up with the wind to bite at her horse's heels. "The day a common-born man becomes regent of Ferelden is the day nothing will be the same."

She and Anders caught up to Nathaniel at the castle gates. "Don't listen to that fool," said the young noble shortly. "I'll believe Cailan is dead when I hear it from Teyrn Loghain himself. He would never let anything happen to King Maric's precious prince; my father always said…"

Her hands tightened around the reins even as Nathaniel's voice faltered but she made herself speak. "He always said that he thought as much of the king as the king thought at all," she finished, not sure if that was what he had been about to say but it was accurate enough.

"He said that too," was the reply after a long silence.

Behind her, Anders heaved a sigh. "Can we get out of this blasted rain?" he complained, turning his fair face to stare up at the heavy clouds. "I'm a cat person; I don't like getting wet."

"There is no correlation between being a 'cat person' and disliking the rain," said Nathaniel, also cross. "Unless you mean to imply that you are in fact a cat. You're certainly moody enough for the part."

"If I'm a cat and I'm moody, it's for a good reason. Like that someone made me get rid of my nice comfy robes and stuff my tail into a pair of too tight trousers."

Eliante turned around as best she could to stare at Anders in disbelief. "You're hardly larger than he is," she pointed out. "All of those years inside hardly did you any good for gaining muscle, seems like."

"You assume I'm referring to sheer bulk, dear lady," the apostate answered with a wink. "There are other–"

"Oh, look: the guard," Nathaniel announced as a disheveled female soldier made her way across the courtyard to them. Eliante turned her attention his way as Anders sighed again.

"Guard-Captain Mathias," said the woman by way of introduction, gruff and direct in manner. "Do you folk have business here? If not, I suggest you move on. The lord's just returned from Ostagar yesterday morn and he is… hardly in a mood to entertain passerby."

"What's happened?" asked Eliante.

"Well, in confidence, between his son not ever showing up at Ostagar and his wife not being here when he returned–"

"No," she interjected. "I mean, what happened at Ostagar?"

Captain Mathias's blonde eyebrows knitted in puzzlement and slight suspicion. "I thought everybody knew," she said. "What business do you have here?"

"Our business is for your lord's ears and his alone," Nathaniel cut in. "It regards his wife and son, if that's slightly more persuasive."

"And you could just be saying that, considering I just told you all about it. State your business or be gone. I will not say it again."

Eliante sighed softly and pushed the hood from her hair. "You probably don't recognize me," she admitted, hyper-conscious of the dirt of the road on her face and the snarls in her hair, "but I was here at Lady Landra's spring saloon with my mother, Eleanor Cousland."

Beside her, Nathaniel drew in a tight breath, clearly disapproving of the trust involved with revealing her heritage but he could be damned right now, or so Eliante decided.

The guard-captain froze, registering the gravitas of the statement. "Wait here," she finally said stiffly. "I'll check things over with the bann."

As Captain Mathias departed toward the keep's interior, Eliante nudged Anders, indicating he should dismount her mare. Nathaniel swung his leg over his own horse and hit the ground with a business-like lack of grace. She followed suit, but the moment her feet hit the mud, Nathaniel had rounded on her.

"What are you thinking?" he hissed, trying not to draw attention to the exchange. "You can't wave your family name around like that; you have no idea how Bann Loren will react–"

"Oh, so now you want to talk strategy?" she snapped back. "Besides, why do I have to hide who I am? What has my family got to be ashamed of?"

"It's a tactical move–"

"What would be the difference between her telling him and me telling him when we go in? If we even could have gone in without saying who we were? Besides, why do you get to call all of the shots?"

"I didn't argue for us to go to Soldier's Peak or even here. I wanted to go to Denerim, as I have from the very beginning!"

"But you keep treating me as though I'm the one that's done something wrong, or the one that needs to be watched constantly!"

"Thus implying that I'm the one that needs watching?"

"You introduced me to Avernus for me and don't think I didn't notice you sneaking away to try and kill him in the night. He helped us."

"If you would listen to what I have to say, you would know that he's helped me too."

"Me, listen?" she chuckled darkly. "As if you've been saying anything to me for me to hear."

"Not that I'm not entertained by all this drama," Anders cut in, amber eyes wide and smile tense, "but can we keep focused on the task at hand?"

Nathaniel stepped back, regarding Eliante coldly. "I suppose I now see why we haven't been speaking," he observed. "It would seem that you don't like what I have to say."

"That goes both ways," she retorted back, folding her arms. "If I were you, I might keep my family name to myself," she added with a slight smirk, "we don't want to draw Bann Loren's attention unduly to you for your father's actions."

"I never suggested otherwise," was the curt reply.

"Seriously," Anders insisted, a broad smile plastered on his face for the benefit of the approaching Captain Mathias. "The way you two carry on, people will talk."

Face hot, she fixed her gaze on the toes of her boots, trying not to remember a time when people did talk and her father had had to speak privately to her one winter at court. It felt like another era. If the talk was true and King Cailan was dead, perhaps it had been. Still, Anders's pleading advice was taken in stride and Captain Mathias returned to a trio of very quiet people.

"Bann Loren wants to see you," said the captain to Eliante. "He's taking dinner in his study. If you'll follow me…"

She nodded and stepped forward, following. As they crossed the courtyard, captain and Cousland, Eliante glanced backward at Anders and Nathaniel, still standing in the rain beside the horses. For a moment, it seemed that her blue eyes met Nathaniel's grey and she wondered why he wasn't walking forward, demanding to see Bann Loren as well. But he wasn't.

For a moment, she considered calling back for him, taking him with her. But she didn't. He didn't ask and she didn't offer and she felt a strange satisfaction at leaving him behind, just as she had in the main hall at Highever Castle all that time ago.

My lord,

I apologize for the delay in correspondence but this is the first letter I've managed to get out since the Arl's illness. Undead enemies attack Redcliffe village every night, coming forth from the castle. This developed just after there was word of some kind of scandal involving an apostate and the Arl's son. But somehow I think you'll be more interested to hear that the Grey Wardens have arrived in Redcliffe. With them is Fergus Cousland.

Are my eyes and ears needed anywhere else? I would like to move on from this Maker-forsaken town.

-B

A manservant was barely removing a tray of half-eaten pie from the study when Eliante entered; she stepped to one side to let the man pass. Backlit by crackling light projected from the flames within the fireplace, Bann Loren –a balding man of middling height –wiped his mouth with an ivory napkin and regarded her with a level gaze. She refused to flinch at the scrutiny, reminding herself of her father's lessons that life as a noble was to be subject to constant study, and returned his even regard, chin parallel to the floor, a determined set to her mouth and brow. After another moment had passed, Bann Loren cleared his throat, set down the napkin, and slid a sheet of rough parchment across his desk. "Can you explain this?"

Slowly, as though she did not trust her movements, she took three steps toward the desk, leaned forward, and reached out, dragging the parchment across the smooth wood service. It was grainy and coarse beneath her fingertips and she felt an intense sense of foreboding at first contact. Once the sheet was squarely upon the desk in front of her, she looked down, eyes tracing the words with a growing disbelief until… "That doesn't look anything like me."

The statement triggered an unexpected chortle from the bann. "You're lucky it doesn't," he agreed, wiping the back of his hand across his brow, "otherwise you probably would have been stopped on your way to my estate. Is it true?"

She shook her head, the motion growing more and more rapid until the letters that spelled Eliante Cousland: A traitor and a coward blurred before her eyes. "No," she said and then repeated the dissention. "No. It isn't. I'll stake my life on it. It's not true."

"You may have to," was the chilling response. "Whatever evidence Arl Howe went to Loghain with was obviously rather convincing."

Her fingernails dug tiny crescents into the parchment, biting through to scrape against the polished wood beneath. "Where is he?"

"Dividing his time between his lands and the city arl's estate in Denerim," Loren answered, folding his arms. "Or so Teagan has written me. Apparently Eamon's brother has started quite a stir upon his return from Ostagar."

"Ostagar," Eliante repeated. "What really happened there?"

"What didn't happen there?" Loren said with another bleak bout of laughter. "Total upheaval is what happened. The king –poor foolish Cailan –dies on the field and Teyrn Loghain turns about and rushes back to the capital just in time to claim the Regency for his daughter. And that slime Howe is right there waiting for him, Cousland personal documents and Orlesian missives in hand and the accusation of your family's treason on his tongue."

"And Loghain believes him."

"And Loghain believes him," repeated the bann in agreement, raising a chalice to his lips. When he pulled the brim away to speak again, the wine had stained his mouth. "And who is around in Denerim to refute it?"

Her hands curled into fists, her mouth struggling to keep her lower lip from trembling in sheer blinding fury at herself for being so stupid, so childish to run off and play at having an adventure in an abandoned fortress like a child. Nathaniel had been right. She should have ridden to Denerim at first opportunity. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Her nails dug into her palms and her teeth bit into her lower lip.

Loren noticed and something in him softened at the sight. "I don't think you could have done anything," he said gently. "At best, you would have been put under scrutiny and married off to some border lord's second son with no influence and, at worst, named a traitor with the rest. You've done very well, keeping your head down and out of trouble and then coming to those with better wisdom and experience for aid."

She said nothing for a few long moments. When she spoke, she asked quietly, "Did my brother Fergus make it to the camp at Ostagar?"

After some thought, Loren nodded. "He did but, from what I recall, he did not return from a scouting mission before the final battle. I don't know anything more, I'm afraid." He paused and the wrinkles about his eyes multiplied into an expression of complex decision that culminated in: "Is it true that you were the only one to make it out from the castle that night?"

Looking up at him from between stray strands of dark hair, she considered her answer, a knot in her stomach. "No," she finally admitted. "Nathaniel Howe is with me. He got away and he got me away."

"What of Landra?" he asked and his voice seemed very fragile: a strange sound to come from such a round man. "Did you see her? Did my wife survive?"

As the images came flooding back to the forefront of her mind, one hand rose to clamp against her mouth, choking back her grief at the memories. Wordless, she shook her head once, and then twice, and then several times more, blue-grey eyes staring at some ornate carved figurine that was perched upon the desk beside her arrest warrant.

"What of my son?" he asked and this time his voice did break.

"I didn't see him," she managed to get out between her fingers, eyes burning. "I didn't see him; I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Bann Loren stood very still, arms still folded, mute in his own grief. "So Rendon Howe's son survives and mine does not," he finally stated bleakly. "And now he's here." At her nod of confirmation, his brown eyes turned crystal, like the amber sap that oozes out from trees. "I don't want to see him," he said stiffly. "You are welcome to stay here but I don't want to see him. You tell him that. I don't want to see him."

"With all due respect—"

"I don't want to see him."

"I understand," she said quietly, starting to back out of the room. He said nothing in return. Softly, she closed the study door behind her and, as she turned to walk back down the hallway toward the stairwell, she heard a shattering from within the study. She doubted that the carved figurine on the desk had survived.

A letter to Antiva, from the desk of Rendon Howe, Teyrn of Highever, Arl of Amaranthine, and acting Arl of Denerim:

You have failed me. I have little tolerance for failure. You will have the remainder of your payment when I have his head and the heads of the Grey Wardens he travels with.

Redcliffe. Get it done right this time.

-RH

It felt like another time as Eliante stepped out of the tub of now murky and tepid bathwater and enfolded herself into a warm sheet. Behind the privacy of a folding screen, she worked her hair out of travel-ratted braids and combed through, wincing at the number of individual hairs that the comb's teeth tugged free from her scalp. The weeks of travel had not been kind on her hygiene; in the polished metal pane of the mirror, she had almost looked worthy of the crude etching on the warrant. The idea that it could be an accurate likeness frightened her. A coward and a traitor…

She stepped out from behind the screen, glancing about the room. A maidservant had spirited away the clothes she had arrived in, all of the way down to her smallclothes, insisting on giving everything a proper washing. That encounter had been a new and somewhat unsettling experience. It was the first time anyone had looked at Eliante Cousland as though she was as poor as a church mouse.

Finally spotting a nightdress and robe folded beside a covered tray, she quickly scuttled across the guest room and arranged herself into some state of decency. With a sigh, she finally allowed herself to let go of the exhausting ever-in-motion and slightly paranoid attitude she felt she had adopted since the flight from Highever. It was fine. She was among friends. She could allow herself to sleep deeply. She could completely comb her hair every morning instead of simply undoing and then redoing a braid. She could stop looking over her shoulder. She could eat a meal that didn't seem undercooked in the haste to eat quickly and move on. Despite what that warrant said, she could play the Cousland lady again instead of the Cousland fugitive.

A coward and a traitor.

Well, she could, if only for a night.

There was a bark from outside the chamber and she turned away from the covered tray to hurry to undo the latch and pull the door open. Immediately, Hunter bounded forward, tail a blur, nearly knocking her to the ground. Laughing, Eliante slid forward onto her knees and wrapped her arms around the mabari hound. "That's my boy," she said affectionately, "always forgetting he's not a puppy anymore and probably weighs as much as I do. Hey, watch it," she yelped, still laughing as she deftly dodged Hunter's tongue. "I just bathed, you little monster."

"I think he was jealous that you shut him out and denied him the view," said Anders from the hallway, grinning with wicked amber eyes peering through damp locks of pale hair. Undone from the leather tie, his locks were longer than she had guessed. "I know I am."

"Oh, I'm sure," she said dryly, getting back to her feet, still fending off her hound's excited antics. "Somebody seems to have bathed him."

"He certainly needed it more than the rest of us. I hope they cleaned his teeth too; some of that fish we fed him two nights ago was starting to smell." He winced theatrically and then looked around, taking in the carpets and tapestries, glancing through her chamber door at the bed within. "You know, I think I could get used to this."

"To the noble's life? We'll have to find some bann's daughter for you to marry."

"Nah," he shook his head. "I couldn't bear the weight of responsibility. I'd just like a couple doors in my house is all. The Circle was severely lacking in those."

"You were in dormitories, weren't you?" she questioned, scratching Hunter's head. The hound's tongue lolled in satisfaction. "Like the Templars are during training?"

"For our apprenticeship, yeah," replied Anders with a shrug. "But once you move up in the world –literally, mages' quarters are a flight of stairs up –you still don't have any doors on your bedchambers. It's really just… monstrous. At least the cell gave me some semblance of privacy, illusionary as it must have been."

"That's just wrong," she muttered.

"Shame there aren't more people who feel as you do then," was the dry response. "Oh wait, there are. They're just all second-class Maker's creatures. Anyway, I'm for bed. Think the bann will want to chat in the morning?"

"I think… he's at a difficult place," she answered, trying to be diplomatic. "We'll see."

"Fair enough. See you in the morning. I wonder if they'll give me honey with whatever gunky breakfast oatmeal they serve up. Never thought I'd miss the Tranquil cooking…"

With his audible musings, Anders disappeared into the chamber he had been allotted. Yawning, Eliante lingered in her chamber's doorway, fluffing up the fur around Hunter's collar and cooing endearments now that there was no one around to hear them. "Such a smart boy," she enthused. "A very, very, very smart boy. We'd have never found the Wardens' stash without that nose of yours, or however you managed it. And those skeletons we found in the armory would've gotten the jump on us for sure if you hadn't warned us first."

"You're right," Nathaniel agreed, entering from another room off of the hall. "He did help make that entire little adventure somewhat less of a waste."

She glanced up at him, biting back her initial scathing impulse. "And here you were telling me before that Avernus helped you in all sorts of unnamed ways," she settled for commenting coolly, scratching behind Hunter's ears.

His mouth twisted slightly. "Just one," he said. "Just one."

"Glad that you didn't decide to 'do something' with the poor old mage then?" Chin held high, she rose to her feet and swept regally into her chamber, Hunter at her heels.

Nathaniel watched her dramatic passing with something of a patronizing wryness. "Against my better judgment," he begrudgingly conceded.

"You never did say what turned you so against mages," she remarked, perching on the edge of the empty bath.

"You've never been interested in what I have to explain," he answered, following to lean against the doorframe, "about anything. Not that it's a story I enjoy sharing. In fact, I do everything I can to wipe it from my memory."

"It'd be a waste of energy to put interest into something you won't share anyway," she replied, unable to bite back the cruelty of her words.

"All for the best," he responded coolly, "because you'd be about the last person I'd confide in about it."

Silence dropped between them like a heavy curtain. Finally, guilt knotting in her chest, Eliante said, "I'm sorry. What I said was uncalled for."

He shrugged. "You haven't exactly been trying for my good opinion for a while now. Why the sudden change?"

"You clearly came here wanting to talk."

"I did. There was something I learned at Soldier's Peak."

Her gaze darted to the desk across the room, unable to help herself. "There was something I… learned there too."

"You saw what the mages did," he said, looking at his boots, "how they raised the demons. That… wasn't the only use they had for blood magic, I found out."

She shrugged, not following. "What do you mean?"

"Avernus…" Nathaniel hesitated, his face betraying inner conflict. "Avernus mentioned to me that as the warden-mage during the rebellion… He used blood magic on the Fereldan nobility, to draw them to Sophia's cause, to evoke their sympathies when they would not otherwise lend them to the Grey Wardens."

"But isn't that all ancient history?" she said, trying to be tactful and failing. "What's that got to do with things now?"

He uncurled his spine from the doorframe, stepping further into her room, grey eyes intent. "The father I knew would never have done the things, the atrocities, that the man who killed your family did," he insisted. "It was completely uncharacteristic behavior; there is a complete disconnect if you look for it."

"You were gone," she rebuked, rising from the bath's rim. "You were gone for years and years. People change, Nathaniel."

"I see that," he stated tersely and something in his tone and gaze made her quite sure that she herself was the object of that statement. "Believe me, I do. But our fathers saved each other's lives at White River; they were the best of friends after that battle. I refuse to believe that the man that raised me would throw all of that away on suspicion alone, abandon years of trust and comradeship in some fit of jealous pique."

"Maybe he wasn't the man you thought he was," she suggested, irked.

"And you would know better?"

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it," he pointed out curtly. "I say it again: the father I know would not go to such drastic lengths without reason."

"There was no reason," she contested, "and 'drastic lengths' is a very pretty way to describe what his men did to my brother's wife and son."

"Maybe they weren't in their rights minds. And maybe my father wasn't either. And maybe it wasn't his fault."

"Wasn't his fault?" Eliante repeated incredulously. "And whose fault was it then?" Rapidly, her mind raced to connect the dots. "Maker, Nathaniel," she started, comprehension dawning, "are you trying to tell me that you think blood magic is the cause of all of this?"

"And what if I am?" he snapped, pacing back and forth on a closed circuit between desk and bed. "I need more than ten fingers and toes to count the number of people who could wish your father dead and mine discredited: some Free Marcher state, any number of coastland pirates, insurrectionists, patriots trying to spur on a war with Orlais, even Urien Kendells always resented the attention the north drew away from Denerim. The Empress of Orlais herself; why not her too?"

"Why would Orlais want to incriminate itself along with my father?" she asked, unimpressed, raising her gaze to the ceiling. "I mean, really, Nathaniel. Are you sure you're not drawing at straws?"

"I won't rule it out," he stated grimly, "because Orlais has been known to play a very long game. Besides, blood mages are hardly few and far between. It wouldn't be difficult to secure one's services, and both of our fathers were very conservative men. It's easy to see why an apostate mage would hold little love for either of them."

She said nothing in response; only stared, mentally processing and rebuffing. He flushed under her gaze. "What, do you think I've gone mad too?"

"No," she answered quietly. "I think you're just trying to find a way to redeem the father you love."

Nathaniel's lips curled back into a slight snarl. "Don't pity me."

"I don't pity you, Nate," she said, taking a step toward him, "but I understand what you're trying to do with this, with what Avernus told you about what happened all those years ago. I'm just trying to say that I think it's extremely farfetched and I… I will not buy blood magic as an excuse for what that bastard did to my parents, to my sister, my nephew, my nursemaid, my tutor, my home. He can't be forgiven and I refuse to lie to you that I will ever think otherwise."

Now he was staring at her. "This is what you do," he finally said. "You just think that you know everything. You really do; you just assume that the only side to the story is yours and yours alone. And even when you're in the wrong about something, when you know it, you will refuse to admit it every single time."

"I've admitted that I've been wrong in the past," she snapped but he would have none of it.

"No, you just know better than the rest of us," he continued, quietly scathing, "and you never give us a chance to explain, not ever, because you already know the truth. And the truth, Eliante, is that you really don't. I mean, do you even really know whether your family was conspiring, even corresponding however innocently, with the Orlesians? Would your father really have shared that with you? Or are you just so adamant in your belief that you must have known him best, beyond anyone else in Thedas? Were you privy to every letter he wrote in his private study, every quiet meeting he had at the nobles' tavern in Denerim? Can you tell me that? Tell me you were, that you would put your head on a block to swear it so, and I'll believe you. Go on, tell me."

"No!" she burst out, vision blurring in anger. "I don't know for certain!"

"See?" he said with quiet satisfaction. "Now you're just like me. You're just trying to find a way to redeem the father you love."

Flinching, she recoiled, fingers curling around the polished wood of a bedpost. "All I know," she responded with muted contempt, "is that I will not shrink from my duty to my family and what I have promised to them and to myself and run off to the Free Marches like a coward!"

"Again, you pretend to know things that you don't," he seethed, stalking toward the door.

Quickly, she crossed the room after him. "Where are you going?"

"To Denerim," was the short answer, "where I should have ridden at the start."

"You say that I don't understand," she said tersely, grabbing at his sleeve. "Well, enlighten me, why don't you? Because all I know is that we were promised to each other and we…" Her voice faltered, shaking. "And then you left. And you didn't just leave; you left. And I didn't hear from you again until the dinner at Highever Castle before everything went to hell."

He stood very still, as though evaluating the weight of her words. But he did not pull away, at least not immediately. "I wrote to you," he said in a voice like ice, "every week for six months and then every month for another year, trying to explain. By then, it was rather clear that you weren't interested in anything I had to offer you, no explanations, and no apologies. And then I come back and you're different, suddenly this new Eliante that makes eyes at the fop across the dinner table to get a rise out of someone."

"I never got a single letter from you," she whispered softly.

"Didn't you?" Nathaniel said scornfully. "So then you would be blissfully unaware that my father was not only going to have me break off the betrothal that winter but also threatened to disinherit me completely if I didn't pledge to wed someone else. That's rather convenient. I applaud you."

"No," she answered softly, "I didn't know. And you left."

"I left," he affirmed with some satisfaction. "Sent a letter off with my father's seal to Starkhaven, sent myself off on the next boat out of Denerim. Of course then my father had to put some clever spin on it all, keep the family name out of the gutter. But at that moment I had decided I was done with politics." He shot a look down at her, somewhat suspicious, somewhat accusing. "I left you a letter too, before I left."

"I never got it," she protested.

He gazed down at her, scrutinizing. "Lying?" he contemplated aloud. "I can't tell anymore. When I left, you were just you and you didn't have your father's mouth and the Cousland slyness. Now I can't tell if you believe what you're saying or you're just telling me what you think I want to hear because you think that 'your chances of survival are better with me than without.' Isn't that right?"

"Nathaniel," she started, her grip tightening on his shirtsleeve just in time for him to shake her off.

"I got you this far," he was saying, more to himself than to her as he started for the door. "I humored you and that apostate and the merchant and let you run around Soldier's Peak and now I've gotten you to Bann Loren. He'll look out for you, take you to Denerim for the Landsmeet and maybe your brother will show up somewhere. I've done my part. I've done what I owed your father."

Stricken dumb, still processing, she watched, mute, as he left the room and disappeared down the hallway. Perhaps if she had rallied herself, refuted his point, protested that she had not known, had never known and had been led to believe otherwise in all things concerning his departure, she could have made him stay. But she found that she could not summon the words; that for all his talk of the Cousland slyness, it failed her now and it felt as though he, her one true ally in perhaps all of Thedas, had slipped through her fingers.

It was true. The world was changing. The king was dead, her greatest enemy at the regent's right hand, and now, for all Nathaniel claimed that Bann Loren would look out for her, Eliante Cousland was alone with what appeared to be few options left at her disposal.

She glanced over her shoulder at the torn out pages on the desk, the smooth lines of roads and the jagged scribbles of mountains, the carefully labeled passages to the underground.

Out of her sight-lines, Hunter whined.

If the blood mage coven underneath Denerim doesn't have its fingers in the nobles' pies (more like heads), I'll bet my favorite pen that the magister Caladrius of "Unrest in the Alienage" infamy does. Regardless, there are many candidates with reasons to mess with Ferelden and blood magic at their disposal, as Nathaniel insists.

I seem to remember reading/hearing somewhere (from the beginning of Return to Ostagar DLC?) that Bann Loren died at Ostagar. Regardless, he is very much alive in my AU.

Feedback, both positive and constructive, is very much appreciated as always.