Thank you for reading! Please note, this story was also updated last week, but due to FF's alert notification issues, no notification was sent out, to the best of my knowledge.
Ren got up the next morning early, before the dawn had begun to lighten the sky. In truth, she'd slept very little, lying there rigid and unhappy next to the Iron Bull long after he had begun to snore. The real kind, not the fake kind he used when he wanted her to think he was asleep but he really wasn't.
She was ashamed of herself for breaking down the way she had; she hadn't wanted him to see how deeply afraid she was of what was happening to her. Ashkaari's offer to marry her was sweet, if unnecessary, and showed how deeply afraid he was, that he would clutch at useless straws to try to keep her close to him. His offer to cut off her hand … She clenched her fist and held it close to herself. No. Not that. She was going to keep her hand, and the Anchor, and once they had found the answer to this Qunari problem, then she would consider what to do.
It wasn't the Anchor so much. She appreciated its power, and it had grown familiar there in her palm, something that was simply part of her and which she gave as little thought to as she did her middle toe. At least, until this happened. In the long run, losing the Anchor would probably bother her less than losing her middle toe, and she still had hope that some way would be found to do it … although she couldn't forget that Corypheus himself hadn't been able to remove it, and he had really, really wanted to.
This early, few people were about. Ren spotted some elven servants congregated together, partially screened by some bushes. When they saw her, they scattered like frightened rabbits. Idly, she wondered what that was about. Some sort of servants' gossip, no doubt.
The Anchor sparked in her hand, and she turned her face away from the path, pretending to be interested in the flowers at her feet so that no one could see the pain in her face, the tears in her eyes, or the way she couldn't stand against it. She kept hoping it would get easier, that the more frequent the pain the more she would get used to it, the easier it would be to bear. But so far, that hadn't happened, and in fact, was getting worse, and it was harder and harder to grit her teeth and not cry out with the agony.
Maybe the Iron Bull was, once again, damnably right. Maybe she needed to take the hand off. But how could a person fight with only one hand? If she lost it, if she couldn't fight, would she still be the woman he loved? How could she take down another dragon with him if she only had one hand? So there she'd be, pathetic and helpless and no longer the woman he had fallen in love with, and how long could they last together like that?
A tear fell on the white petals of the flowers she was pretending to look at, and then another and another.
A gentle hand pressed against her back, a voice saying her name, and she leaped up, catching her fist just before it connected with her brother's jaw.
"Oh, Cadoc, I'm sorry. I … didn't hear you."
"No, I see you didn't." He was looking at her with concern, and she realized there had been no chance to wipe away her tears or compose herself. He was seeing her vulnerable and in pain and miserable, and that was the last thing she ever wanted anyone to see.
"I'm fine," she said quickly, before he could speak.
"You're allergic to the flowers?"
"Yes. Yes, I am. Terribly allergic."
"So you were sticking your face in them?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Clearly, you're not a very good liar, sister."
Ren sighed. "No, I'm really not. Either that or living with an ex-spy, I've given up trying. He can always see right through me."
"So where is he now?" Cadoc frowned, his face darkening. "Is he the reason you're crying?"
"No! I mean, sort of. But … not really."
"Which is it?"
She turned her hand over, opening it up. The Anchor had reached the first knuckle of her fingers, and was well past her wrist, her whole hand glowing with it. "It used to be this big." She showed him the size in her palm. "It's growing, and it hurts like you wouldn't believe, and the pain is getting worse while the growth goes faster."
Cadoc looked, fascinated, at her hand, lifting it gently with his own. Few people had ever had the chance to look at it up close, although many had asked. Ren rarely allowed anyone such a close look. At first that had been her own discomfort with it, and after that Josephine's recommendation, to preserve the mystery of the mark as much as she could. According to the Ambassador, that had helped with the Inquisitor's overall mystique.
"How did you get this?" Cadoc asked.
"I thought everyone knew this story. Don't bards sing about it?"
He shrugged. "I haven't spent a lot of time around bards … and Father refuses to have you spoken of in his presence."
"He would." Ren shook her head, and then explained to Cadoc about the ritual, and Corypheus, and the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
"Wow. I mean, of course, I knew you had done some big things, but I had no idea." He closed his hands around hers, which he was still holding. "No surprise, though."
"Really? Father thinks I'm a waste of good Trevelyan blood."
"Father thinks we're all a waste of good Trevelyan blood, except maybe Demelza. I think he's actually considering getting married again to sire a new line of heirs."
"You're kidding."
Cadoc shook his head. "I wish I were."
Ren couldn't help but laugh. "He really does only know one way of seeing the world."
"That's true. But you've never gone along with that—you've always insisted on finding out about the world, and refused to be what you were told to be." He smiled. "Gawen and I used to envy you so much. There you were, out roaming the grounds, swimming and climbing and hunting and we didn't even know what, and we were stuck in stuffy classrooms, memorizing languages and lineages and whatever other –ages Father thought necessary for his heirs."
"It was a good life," Ren agreed, "although at the time I would have given anything to be in the classroom with the two of you, to have Father pay me the slightest attention."
"Is that why you acted the way you did, then, so that he would have to notice you?"
"For a long time, I think so. Eventually I stopped caring whether he noticed me or not, and I just wanted to … go somewhere. Be something other than someone's bought and paid for wife. Something other than a bargaining chip."
Cadoc sighed. "I was a bargaining chip, too, only I didn't know it until it was too late. I thought … I really thought when I went to Father and told him I couldn't—couldn't … But he didn't care. He talked about potions, and magics, and I realized that the bloodline, his precious heirs, were all that had ever really mattered to him."
"Is that when you took matters into your own hands?"
"Yes. Finally." He looked at her, his eyes sad. "Do you know I used to wish that I had snuck out with you and Gawen that day? I used to wish I had gone and I had been the one to get sick and die, so that I wouldn't instead have been the one left alone with Father's anger and his expectations and his demands." Reaching out, he put a hand on her shoulder. "I used to blame you, Ren, just like he did, for what happened to Gawen, but … it wasn't your fault. You know that, don't you?"
She shook her head, tears starting again at the thought of her little brother, his pale, cold hand in hers. "If I hadn't made him sneak out with me …"
"He wanted a life. For a brief moment, he had one. He had … fun, which was sorely lacking in our childhood."
"But then he lost his life! He might still be alive!"
"Or he might have caught cold some other way. Gawen was always delicate. So was I. We were sick all the time. You can't know what would have happened, and you can't hold yourself responsible. Not any longer."
"I …" Ren turned away, trying not to let him see her cry, but unable to stop the tears.
Her brother put both hands on her shoulders, saying softly, "I've seen how things are since I've been here. I've been asking around. The Inquisitor's put everything on you again, hasn't he? You ran from home, you ran from what you thought were your responsibilities to the family, and then you took on this massive weight of other people's problems—and you saved the world. It's all right to stop and take care of yourself for once, Ren."
"I can't." She rubbed her arm over her face. "There's—I can't tell you everything, but there are things going on that … I can't stop. Not now."
"Then when? When this thing on your hand takes over your whole arm, your whole body?"
She shuddered, imagining it as she had so often. "Maybe there will be time …"
"Maybe there won't." He turned her around to face him. "I only just found you again, sister. I don't want to lose you. And that Qunari of yours, he doesn't want to lose you, either. Or all the friends you have. You've rebuilt your family—you have people who love you all around you. Don't throw that away because you're too stubborn to ask for help."
"And if the world falls apart while I'm whining about my hand?"
"Then someone else will have to step up."
"Who, Cadoc? You? Morris? The Divine? None of you are out there fighting the enemy, hand to hand, standing up against what's coming against us all. Tell me how I'm supposed to do that with only one hand?" she said, keeping her voice low only with an effort.
Cadoc shook his head. "I don't know. I don't have that answer. I only know that I don't want you to die."
"You think I do? Of course I don't! But I also don't want a lot of other people to die because I took my eye off what was going on to deal with my own issues. I was—I was really selfish for a long time, Cadoc. I only thought about myself and what I needed and wanted. And then I woke up in a jail cell with some weird green glowing thing on my hand, and I was thrust into a whole world of people who needed … everything! Food and shelter and someone to protect and defend them, and someone to stop the world from ending. And I became that person, because the other choice was to run, and hide, like a coward. Now they need me again, and I can't run, or hide. Not and live with myself in the morning. You say Gawen deserved a chance to live, on his own terms. A lot of other people out there deserve a chance to live, too, and I'm going to give them that."
He squeezed her hand. "Do you know how brave you are?"
"Not brave, just … unwilling to leave something undone because no one else has stepped up to take care of it."
"If your mind is made up …" Cadoc gave her a small smile. "I've spent too much time with Father to bother arguing with a Trevelyan. But I want you to promise me that as soon as you have even a second to breathe, you will do something about this hand. If not for yourself, for me, and for your Iron Bull, and for all the people who love you."
Ren swallowed against still more tears. "I promise."
"Good. Now let's get some breakfast, because I'm famished."
"Lead on." She walked with him down the paths of Halamshiral, feeling the ghost of Gawen that had haunted her for so long dissipating. She would always miss her little brother, but maybe she didn't have to feel responsible for his death any longer.