10
Nathaniel woke up late. They'd placed him in the same room in which he'd been imprisoned before the descent into the basements, before his Joining. No guards waited at his door. Only a servant stood in the hall when he ventured out, leaning against a wall in a posture of great boredom. The boy gave him a well-rehearsed instruction to report to the queen in the great hall, then disappeared down a corridor.
In the same room where she and Anders had conducted his Joining, Brighid told Nathaniel the truth about being a Warden. He took it in stride — he had been living on borrowed time since his return to Ferelden. Thirty years of it was more than he'd expected. He took the amulet that she dangled from two fingers and settled it around his neck, barely feeling the weight. Then, he'd been ignored, left to mill about with the rest of her followers as they waited for her to find a lull in the business of running an arling. It chafed, being treated just like the others, as though she had not done what she did to his family, as though there was no enmity between them. It did not feel like forgiveness or benevolence. It felt like dismissal, like his malice towards her was simply beneath her notice.
He wanted, needed, to convince her to allow him to search for his sister, but he could not bring himself to ask any favor of Brighid Cousland. He could imagine her response.
So Nathaniel waited and seethed and followed her when she was finally able to depart the Vigil. She argued with her guard captain — or rather the man wheedled and she ignored him — and left with only her fellow Wardens and her pets: the elf, the knight, and the dog. It was well after midday when she did, and thus there was little chance they would make it to Amaranthine before nightfall. The suggestion that they wait until the morning to leave was still summarily rejected. Nathaniel got the distinct impression that she hated being at Vigil's Keep almost as much as he did.
The overcast afternoon sky promised rain, but the road to Amaranthine stretched out before them and Brighid would not be stopped. Nathaniel adjusted his pack on his back and marched on. It rained on them for nearly an hour. Not hard enough to force a stop, but enough so to make the walking unpleasant. Brighid did stop them when it grew dark, proving that — if nothing else — she would submit to the demands of the sun itself.
It might have been impossible to start a fire had Anders not been there, but damp brush was no match at all for his ability to summon fire from nothing. They brought simple trail rations from the keep, so they did not need to cook. Instead, they unpacked their bedrolls and dried themselves out around the roaring blaze. Ser Willem, out of his armor for the first time Nathaniel had ever seen, raised a tent for Brighid. Her dog shook his fur out to much protest from those nearby who were covered in the discharge, then curled up near the fire.
The woman herself sat on a stump by the fire. Zevran's bedroll was closest and the elf stripped from the waist up, spreading his shirt and tunic out near the fire to dry. His state of undress revealed that the markings he carried did not end with his face. They swept and curved across his chest, arms, and back. He grinned and chuckled intermittently as he and Brighid engaged in one of their regular quiet conversations. Brighid smiled with him, the easy intimacy of long familiarity obvious in her bearing.
As they spoke, Brighid doffed some of her clothing as well. She propped her boots against a rock. The thick, grey wool tunic came off and she sat in her shirtsleeves, hair wet and undone and hanging to her waist. She combed absently through the tangles before twisting it back up on top of her head in a glossy black knot, as though she were in her dressing room instead of off to the side of a road in a dreary clearing.
Adjacent to Nathaniel, Anders snored softly. Through some trick unique to him, the mage had kept the rain from himself entirely and so had eaten and immediately fallen asleep, exhausted from the day's travel. Willem completed the construction of Brighid's tent and, upon reporting back to her, immediately announced that he would take the watch. Brighid did not object and so the knight fetched some food from his pack and paced to the perimeter of their little camp, eyes scanning the distance. Zevran, who had taken substantially longer fussing with his hair than Brighid had, retired soon after.
Brighid moved closer to the campfire as Nathaniel watched her from the opposite side of the flames. She speared a hunk of bread on a stripped branch and held it over the fire until it softened. In the night her face looked pale as a ghost and the dancing fire emblazoned it with orange and yellow, the light reflecting in her eyes. Something pulled uncomfortably tight in his chest and he averted his gaze, scowling.
There would never be a better time to ask her about Delilah, but Nathaniel found he could not. He could not force the words past that knot of emotion — anger and frustration and pain and other things he wouldn't name mixed in with all the memories. His family and his life before and the lives he'd imagined he might have someday when he could finally come home: all of that had been been taken from him by this woman, in more ways than one. He wanted to hate her, but he failed at that just as he had at killing her — considered it, got close to the attempt, and then pulled up short.
He realized that he was staring at her, brow furrowed and jaw tight, at the same time that she did.
"You really should be less surly," she said after chewing and swallowing a bite of bread. "It does not suit you."
There she was again, always picking at him, poking his already raw wounds.
"And how are you to know what suits me?"
She shrugged her shoulders, the slightest of movements, as if she could not be bothered to explain it to him.
"Fine then. You should be less surly, Nathaniel, for it does not suit me."
Nathaniel sneered at her, then pulled his lips back from his teeth in a gross mockery of a smile.
"Does this please you?" he asked as he watched her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen.
"Quite a lot actually," she said.
Then she laughed, as if there was nothing driving his response but genuine mirth, and the sound made something snap apart the knot in his chest. He let the rictus slip from his face. Nathaniel had a fraught relationship with memory since his return to Ferelden. Memories were all he had left for the most part, but there were far too many things he wanted to forget. The well-worn few of Brighid Cousland were among that sort. He had no idea who she was now, in this moment or any since they'd met again, but he remembered who she had been in other moments years before.
He scans the room negligently, unable to feign much interest in the proceedings. Nathaniel is an honored guest at Castle Cousland, but he has been away from Ferelden for years and Highever even longer. There are few who wish to talk to him in which he imagines he would have any interest. Thomas is, as ever, the life of the party. A gaggle of pretty girls surround him, fawning over the heir to the arling of Amaranthine. He preens like a cockatoo. That will undergo alteration once he is far enough into his cups. He will still be the center of attention, but not in a manner that he is likely to enjoy. It will alter the opinions of few of his ladies, however. Any charm Nathaniel's brother possesses is not a heavily weighted factor in their attraction.
Briefly, Nathaniel has been taken under the wing of a few young men who much more commonly attend such functions — sons and nephews of local banns. But they have since found their own companions and disappeared to various corners of the banquet hall into which every eligible man, woman, boy, or girl has so deftly been herded. Doubtless they are being watched by shrewd eyes so that every potential dalliance and connection can be reported back to their parents and plans made. Most of the subjects of this machination are reasonably compliant. Even his sister Delilah sits daintily on the edge of a chair and listens with rapt attention to the young man talking to her.
One girl, however, stands alone and Nathaniel's eyes catch on her.
She is Brighid Cousland, daughter of the teyrn, and Nathaniel has been warned.
Frigid and impossible are the words his companions most commonly used. Brighid Cousland claims no intention towards marriage and, they added in whispers, had turned down then-Prince Cailan Theirin to prove it.
Nathaniel has been warned, but he has also never been one for rumors and hearsay. He remembers a coltish tomboy covered in dirt and freckles. Anything else, he tasks himself to find out firsthand.
She leans back against the wall, arms crossed, and he walks up to her side.
She is still freckled. They scatter boldly across her high cheekbones and the bridge of her nose and more faintly in many other places: the strong chin beneath full lips, the smooth forehead above huge, blue eyes, her shoulders and collarbones and who knows where else as they disappear under the cut of her dress.
Outside of the freckles, he has no real cornerstone.
She does not speak to him or acknowledge him in any way at first. Then, she turns to look at him. Then, past his shoulder — easily as her height matches his. Finally, she presses her back against the wall again, lips pursed.
"I am going to have to demand that you not move, ser," she says calmly.
"Is that so?" he asks, caught between confusion and hope.
Her voice comes at a quick clip.
"Unfortunately, yes. There is a gentleman across the room, directly opposite you — do not look! — with whom I do not wish to speak. You are blocking me from his view."
He is unsure of whether she is jesting, but she seems entirely serious and so he obeys. He is already where he wants to be anyway.
"Happy to be of service, my lady."
"All the better."
Silence descends and then Nathaniel asks: "Dare I inquire as to the name of the man so unlucky to have your disfavor?"
"Thomas Howe," she replies without hesitation.
Nathaniel does not laugh, but he would like to do so. They do not speak of it directly, but both Thomas and their father would be quite chuffed if Thomas could attract the teyrn's daughter. Nathaniel takes no small pleasure in how unlikely a proposition that seems. He smiles when he speaks.
"Sadly, my lady, I feel compelled to inform you that Thomas is my brother."
She looks at him appraisingly, but turns only her head so that she is still neatly shielded by his body.
"You are… Nathaniel then?"
"Do you not remember me?" he asks, though he does not truly expect it.
"You are squired in the Free Marches are you not?" There is no apology in her tone. "It must have been years since you've last been in Highever."
"True enough," he admits. "Quite a few, in fact. We were children. You had to have been about twelve at the time." He watches her face for reaction. "You threw pebbles at me."
She raises her eyebrows, though she does not seem surprised.
"Did I? I must have demanded that you fight me only to be declined. Pelting such offenders with things was how I usually reacted to rejection."
"Indeed it was that."
"The squires of Castle Cousland eventually learned not to deny me. Did I get you good?"
"Quite so," he confirms. "I had a welt on my neck for three days."
Her smile is feline.
"Then perhaps you learned your lesson as well."
"Perhaps I did."
She looks pleased with this, but her brow wrinkles soon after.
"Though, given that you are a Howe, I do believe you are less useful to me than I originally thought. While you help me to avoid Thomas's attentions, if my mother is to hear of us speaking she will likely get it into her head that I should marry you instead." A grimace. Not all rumors are lies it seems.
"Should I be insulted that you see it as such a terrible fate?" he asks, though he is not at all.
"If you wish to be insulted then be so," she says. "Though it no offense to you. I have no interest in marrying anyone. I'm certain all of the gossips around here have told you that already."
Caught, he sees no reason to pretend otherwise.
"I heard it, yes, though nothing regarding why exactly it is."
She responds, again, without hesitation.
"Why shouldn't it be? Do you think the institution alone recommends itself so much? Particularly to one like myself who is positioned to have little say in the matter." She turns up her chin. Her lower lip protrudes ever so slightly. "Everyone supposes that I need a reason to eschew marriage. I think that I need a reason to carry it out. And I have never yet met a man who gave me a compelling one."
Her eyes are challenging and his blood races in his veins.
"Now I think I will be insulted," Nathaniel says, smoothly. "Considering that you and I have just met."
She leans closer to him, but not inappropriately so.
"So be it," she says, wrapping her mouth meticulously around each syllable.
"I confess, I think it quite a waste for one so beautiful."
She smiles this time like she's caught the canary and he realizes his mistake the second before the words leave her mouth.
"Do you think it charming — the implication that should I remain unwed my beauty would be wasted? I will still exist will I not? My beauty will still be available for all who wish to look upon it. I should think I would be far more wasted were I, for instance, to have a jealous husband who locked me up in his castle and kept me all to himself."
He bows his head in concession. "You make a fair point, my lady. Perhaps wasted is not the word. You will be like unto the stars or the moon, your beauty there to be seen by all, but touched by none."
When she laughs, high and light and full of genuine amusement, he considers his recovery successful.
"Now that is charming," she declares.
"Every word of it is true."
She shakes her head, a quick, sharp motion, and then scoffs.
"Oh, I don't mean that. I mean the assumption that should I never marry," she says, "I shall also never be touched."
There is no stopping his flush or the clearing of his throat.
"You are a lady," he reminds her firmly. "And I would never imply otherwise."
She shrugs, unimpressed and unconcerned.
"Have it your way," she says casually. Then, with sudden urgency, she moves away from the wall and from him. "And here comes your brother."
She doesn't run. Not exactly. Her voice wafts back to him.
She says: "Good day, ser. If you tell him which way I went you will regret it."
He thinks: "In more ways than one."
If there was anything he'd learned from his ordeal since then it was that you came to regret everything, eventually. And he did regret her. Not just what he'd felt, but knowing her at all. A stranger would have been better. False starts and nascent possibilities weren't worth much. And they certainly weren't worth not being able to properly despise the woman who gleefully tore his entire world to shreds.
Brighid's laughter tapered off and he had nothing else to say to her. He could not ask her about Delilah. He could not ask her anything. He could barely look at her. So, instead he lay down on his bedroll and closed his eyes without another word.