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"Are you going to be all right, with everyone gone?" Leliana asked. She was sitting in Thora's chair on the other side of Alistair's desk.

"I suppose," Alistair said. He stood staring out the window. "In some ways, it's easier. I'll be free to focus on my new duties. Certainly won't have anything better to do," he muttered.

The bard looked at him sympathetically. "At least we had last night," she said softly. They looked at each other for a moment, remembering the happy night in the estate kitchen. The group of them had filled hours with do-you-remembers and shared jokes, all of them gathered around watching the flames, as they had so many nights in camp. Except Morrigan, but then she'd always kept to herself anyway, so no one missed her overmuch.

Alistair's brain still refused to contemplate the night he had spent with the witch. The act itself hadn't been as difficult as he'd expected, particularly once she'd blown out the candle. He recognized that the memory probably would continue to bother him until some darkspawn blade eventually found him in the Deep Roads. He just hoped that the product of that night wouldn't come back to haunt him. Maybe it was cowardly to wish that on a future generation, but there you had it.

Leliana's voice broke into his thoughts. "How long do you think it will take them to get to Amaranthine?"

"Several days, I would expect. Depending on how hard they travel." They had said good-bye to their former companions earlier that morning. When Alistair closed his eyes he could still picture his last glimpse of Thora. The hood of her grey cloak had fallen back, leaving the gleam of her wind-tossed red hair open to the sunlight she loved. There had been a small smile on her face as her eyes sought his one more time, and they'd stared, memorizing each other's face. As if they hadn't done so already, night after night, day after day. And then she was gone, and the sunlit sky might as well have been the dark vault of the Deep Roads.

"I'm surprised Oghren went with them. I'd have thought he'd be heading off to find that dwarven girl."

"Thora said he was afraid to."

"Or maybe he just likes Wynne," Leliana giggled.

"Oh, that's not funny. Not funny at all," Alistair said, shuddering at the image.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," he called.

Arl Eamon poked his head in. "Ah, my boy. I wondered if you might need some company. Oh!" he said, seeing Leliana. "I didn't realize you already had some."

"It's all right, my lord," she said, getting up. "I was just leaving. They're expecting me at the Chantry to talk about plans for a trip to Haven, to study Andraste's ashes."

"They couldn't have made a better choice," Alistair said. "When are you leaving?"

"That'll depend on the Chantry and how long it takes Brother Genitivi and me to get them to open their purse strings," Leliana said.

"So you'll be around for a while, then," Eamon joked. All three laughed.

Leliana gave Alistair a hug. "Will you be all right?" she asked quietly. He nodded.

After she'd gone, Eamon took a seat next to the desk—not the one Thora had sat in, Alistair thought. He was glad this wasn't the royal palace, so that soon he could move out of here and stop thinking of that as her chair every time someone came in. Alistair sat down behind the desk, idly flipping through the stack of papers that lay there. All things considered, he thought he wouldn't mind the paperwork part of this job as much as the politics and the court manners.

"I thought you might be having a difficult time now that your friends have left for Amaranthine."

"It's not my best day," Alistair said quietly, pulling the papers closer, hoping to forestall the conversation by looking busy.

"A motley group," said the Arl, "but they did great things."

"Yes." Alistair signed a paper and turned to the next one.

The Arl leaned back in his chair. "It's a shame your Warden friend couldn't stay," he mused. "Her input would have been valuable."

"I believe she was anxious to get started rebuilding the Order." Alistair didn't look up from the contract he was reviewing.

"Yes, I suppose so. Still …" The Arl's voice trailed off.

Alistair reached for the water goblet on his desk. As he drank, his shirt shifted a bit, and Eamon saw the amulet he wore.

"Is that your mother's?" he asked.

Surprised, Alistair said, "Yes. Yes, it is. Thora found it in your desk when we were at Redcliffe Castle and gave it to me." He looked up at the older man. "I wanted to thank you for putting it back together. I thought often about how much I wished I hadn't broken it."

Eamon looked at the face before him, remembering the tempests of the high-spirited little boy. "I am glad you have it back," he said. "I brought it with me to the Chantry, but—"

"I wasn't ready. For it, or for anything. It took … all this," Alistair said, his hand straying unconsciously to the chain, "for me to understand."

The younger man's voice trailed off, his look faraway and … longing? Eamon thought. "I'm surprised you're wearing it," he said. "I'd have thought it was too delicate."

"Wynne enchanted it for me," Alistair said in a more normal voice. He bent again to the papers in front of him, hoping they could stop talking about this now.

"That was your mother's most prized possession," Eamon said, almost to himself.

Alistair looked up again, interested. "Was it? I— I didn't know that. I know so little of her," he said.

"You're right." Eamon's eyes rested on the lad with regret. "Alistair, we made so many mistakes with your bringing up. We should have—done better by you."

"You did what you thought was best." Alistair shrugged. "It was hard at the time, but I've come to … understand better, I think."

"Yes," Eamon said, unconvinced. He stood up, walking to the window, thinking of Alistair's mother. He shuddered to think what Fiona would say if she knew how they'd raised her son. Although he thought she'd be proud of the man he'd become. "Some day I will have to tell you more about her," he said. "Now is perhaps not quite the right time."

"I look forward to it," Alistair said quietly.

Eamon turned around, looking at the young man, who was bent again over the desk. The light from the window lit the back of his neck. Eamon took a closer look at the chain the amulet hung from. Was that hair? And where had he seen hair the color of that chain before? he wondered. It wasn't his mother's—did the boy have a lover somewhere? Some woman who might make trouble when they were looking for a suitable queen?

Could it be the bard? Her hair was reddish. But entirely too short to have made that chain, Eamon thought. He resumed his seat, sorting through all the women he'd seen recently. Then it came to him. He thought of a few things he had seen in camp and some comments from Teagan he'd paid little attention to and wondered why he hadn't realized it before. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, softly and with great sympathy. "No wonder she left. Best thing for both of you, I suppose."

Alistair looked up, meeting Eamon's gaze levelly, but said nothing.

Eamon was impressed with the younger man's self-command. He'd matured a great deal. "I can't fault your taste," he said. "She's a remarkable woman."

"She is that," said Alistair, torn between pain and pride.

"And it's … over?" He hated to ask—it was clear Alistair didn't want to talk about it—but he needed to know.

"Of course," snapped Alistair. "How could it not be? A king has … obligations," he said, his voice dripping with bitterness.

"He does," Eamon agreed. "But that hasn't always stopped some—" He broke off, remembering who he was speaking to. Alistair knew better than any what could happen.

A muscle twitched in the younger man's jaw before he returned to the work in front of him.

Eamon sat back, drinking his wine, looking speculatively at the man on the other side of the desk.