He still lets other people tell him what to do.
She thought that was supposed to stop when he became king, but he waits for orders from Arl Eamon and Riordan, and when they tell him to go to Redcliffe he gives an apologetic little shrug and looks to her.
He should know by now that she doesn't have any more idea what she's doing than he does and she's getting sick of faking it.
At least he's decided to ignore whatever the people might think about the two of them (for now, a little voice whispers in her head. He's not the king, yet, he's still a Warden). She shrugs the nagging doubt away.
No point in dwelling on it. More pressing concerns.
They get to Redcliffe to find it already surrounded by darkspawn.
She's one step behind, a little slow, a little late.
She always is.
And they tell her the horde is marching for Denerim, and she almost screams. They were just there!
The days they spent, getting to Redcliffe, awkward camps and tired walking because everything's changing, everything's ending, and they can't find the old ways of joking and singing anymore... it was all a waste.
People are going to die, because she listened to the wrong advice, she trusted someone else when he said he knew what he was talking about, that all signs pointed to a darkspawn assault on Redcliffe.
It gets worse.
The archdemon has made its appearance (but she knew that already, she hears it screaming in her dreams, loud and painful, worse every night, and she sees in Alistair's eyes that he feels it too).
The army has to go to Denerim, there is no choice. But even on a forced march... they can't make it in two days.
It usually takes five. They will lose men to exhaustion before they even get to the battle.
And Riordan says quietly, out of earshot of Arl Eamon or anyone else, that he needs to speak to her and to Alistair, and he will not meet their eyes when he asks them to find him in his guest room that night. And when they do, he tells them the truth that a part of them had always known but refused to admit: there is no coming back from this war, not for them.
"One of us will have to die," Riordan tells them. And she can't help but hope it's him, because he even says he wants it. Alistair's told her what happens to Wardens after too many years. She hopes it's him, but she knows... if it's not him, it'll have to be her. Because Alistair's king, he can't die.
But she's surprisingly... content, with the knowledge.
"It's not how you die, it's how you live." Duncan's words.
He was there with her at the beginning of this, he's the reason she's not dead already.
And she'd hated everything about him at first, thought he was just like everyone else in the world who only wanted to use her.
Alistair's the one that told her that Duncan saved his life, made her believe it that he'd saved her too, given her a second chance because she deserved one.
She'd been running from a death sentence for so long, one she didn't deserve, one forced on her by other people judging her, knowing nothing, ready to kill her out of nothing more than fear.
But this is different.
This death sentence she accepts, she claims as her own. It's not a sentence, it's a sacrifice.
Her life for the lives of all of Ferelden.
And she knows that they won't mourn her, because she's still a mage, a Tower slave.
But it's still worth it.
They tell her to get some sleep. Her mind is buzzing, she can't sleep, there's no way. Anybody who thinks she could is crazy.
They've given her a private room, separate from Alistair, to keep up appearances or something, but she doesn't care. She doesn't plan to stay there.
She only goes in to grab some of her things, but she freezes when she sees Morrigan, waiting there, sitting on the bed with that slightly bored "this whole world is beneath me" expression on her face.
"Don't you have your own room?"
"I have your way out," is the response, cryptic as ever. "The loop in your hole."
"You can start making sense any time now?"
She speaks of "old magic" (blood magic, dark magic), but it can keep her and Alistair alive.
She tells her to talk to Alistair, to ask, but Rhyanon shakes her head.
Sex with Morrigan, to create... what? A darkspawn abomination?
Even if she wanted to do this, even if she thought it was a good idea, and she doesn't, she could never ask him to participate in something like this.
It would mean turning his back on everything that makes him who he is.
It would kill everything they ever had.
This is no loophole. This changes nothing.
"No deal."
Morrigan flutters and spits angrily, and leaves.
It's not how you die. It's how you live.