The approaching rain clouds looked as though someone had set them on fire. Streaks of orange painted the entire western sky with a stunning vibrancy that left Solona breathless. After so many days traversing a landscape of muted greys and browns, the sight of a blazing sky injected her with a shock of energy, seeming to wipe a veneer of dust off her soul. Forgetting for a moment the task that had led her and Nathaniel to the battlements in the first place, she lingered in the tower doorway with mouth agape, taking in the unexpected display of heavenly color. A gentle hand at the small of her back urged her to continue forward.
"Soon we'll be out of light entirely," Nathaniel cautioned over her shoulder. "We've ten minutes, maybe."
Nodding, Solona stepped out onto the stone walkway, pausing as Nathaniel closed the door behind them. He breezed past, hurried strides from long legs putting him well ahead of her.
"I've already checked the wood stocks, and our supply will need to be doubled at least, preferably tripled," Nathaniel stated, snapping her attention back to him.
He'd already been leading her around the lower levels of the courtyard for almost an hour, and his purpose had spurred more loquaciousness than she'd ever heard from him. It had been been an enjoyable stretch of time, though she'd had little to add to his suggestions. But listening to his pleasant accent and smoky timbre remained as soothing as ever.
He'd been listing off things that needed to be done since the moment she'd opened her door, and she'd nodded constantly in response, like a fool. There was little she could disagree with, and most of it seemed fairly simple. Having something to do seemed to have energized him, and his enthusiasm about his project was infectious. Finally Solona had to interrupt in order to force him to accept his coat back. And then he'd done her the disservice of deciding to wear it. Perfectly fitted, it accentuated all his body's natural lines and contours, and even seemed to make his posture straighter, though that might have been her imagination. The image of him out the corner of her eye was unfairly distracting.
"The southern watchtower needs some slate replaced," Nathaniel said as he stopped and pointed up toward the top of the cliffs that abutted the Keep. Solona offered another nod as she confirmed a patch of broken tile marring the roof of the tower. Turning back toward the courtyard, she scanned over the all the visible walls and roofing, finding more signs of cracks and crumbling stone, pockmarking nearly every surface.
"Your tower needs some work as well," he added, his voice close to her ear. Solona stifled a shiver.
"My tower," she repeated mindlessly.
"The one you go to sometimes," Nathaniel continued softly. "At night."
Another nod. Of course she knew what he was referring to.
"You might consider finding a new hideaway, at least until winter is past." A warm exhalation of breath tingled down the back of her neck, the air around her palpably disturbed by his movement. The resulting shudder was not one she could control. Instead her eyes closed, her mind reaching toward their shared Warden awareness to calculate his exact distance. A few feet away, maybe, his height allowing him to peer over her shoulder while not hovering oppressively close. Just close enough to tease.
The light scraping of cloth against cloth sounded off; Solona knew immediately why.
"Nope," she said, turning, catching the brilliant blue of his gaze for what felt like the first time that night. "Keep your coat. I'm not cold."
Nathaniel laughed, stopping mid-motion.
"Fully dressed this time, see?" She took a step back and held her hands up as though presenting herself. He laughed again, his eyes sparkling. The dark leather fell back into place, sharpening his broad shoulders and laying flat against his lean torso. Solona shook her head and turned away from him, annoyed that these little details of his kept capturing her attention. At least the dark color of the coat did little to liven up his pale complexion. If anything it enhanced the tired circles under his eyes, combining with the black of his shoulder length hair to lend him the appearance of a ghostly shadow.
He couldn't be more different from Alistair if he tried. How regularly had she admired her lover's golden skin and hair? That tan of Alistair's would deepen to a luxuriant bronze with the full strength of the sun, seeming a perfect reflection of his youth and vitality. The man had simply radiated life. She still wasn't sure she'd ever seen anything sexier than Alistair in all his golden, muscular splendor.
But then so much of how she saw him had been influenced by his character, his humor, his generous affection. Strange, then, that now such a dour, dark man continued to ingratiate himself into her consciousness.
Solona continued down the battlement pathway, holding the precious memory of Alistair in her mind even as the resulting ball of longing took up its usual place in the pit of her stomach. She eyed her watchtower, the one retreat in the Keep that allowed her some semblance of solitude. Certainly as the rains increased she'd be forced to seek solace elsewhere, a tiresome thought that she did not relish. So far it seemed only Nathaniel knew about her little rooftop perch, but he'd never attempted to join her there. Now she quickly identified several significant cracks that separated misaligned sheets of slate, areas particularly dark along the section she regularly climbed. She sighed, realizing there was a good chance that she'd caused that damage.
The Keep appeared an entirely new construct now that she knew what warning signs to look for. Even in the dying twilight she saw damage everywhere, and her ancient, impressive fortress suddenly felt on the cusp of collapse. Of course, Nathaniel was the one who knew which cracks to worry over and which could afford to be overlooked for now. This had been the place he assumed he'd once rule as a young man, and would in the near future. It had also been his childhood playground, and likely held a great deal of sentimental value. Surely he would wisely invest whatever slice of Warden resources she allotted him.
Curious about what sorts of experience growing up there might entail, she tried to see the fortress through the eyes of a child. With the main building crawling up a cliffside, watchtowers stretching into the sky, dungeons and cellars dug deep into the ground below, there were so many places for a child to hide and explore. Long, dark corridors leading to mysteries and secret nooks? Countless rooms filled with unexpected treasures? It was irresistible even for an adult. The circle tower had held a similar allure, though the mages weren't granted much freedom to explore. Like the tower, she supposed growing up in the Keep depended on the other people you shared it with.
And if one of those people was Rendon Howe, all the more reason to run and hide.
"Do you have any suggestions?" Solona asked as Nathaniel resumed his pace alongside her. "For a new hideaway? It's nice to have somewhere to escape. Varel sends soldiers out to fetch me much more often than he actually needs to, and the bloody bastards always manage to find me. Sometimes I just need…"
Solona clamped her mouth closed. She didn't need to explain herself, but ever since their ordeal in the forest she'd grown strangely comfortable in Nathaniel's company. Comfortable and increasingly fascinated, neither of which boded well. An attachment to or from him would only make achieving her ultimate goal more difficult.
A long moment was filled with the sound of her own footsteps, while Nathaniel's remained nearly silent. She glanced up at him to see him watching her in return, quietly waiting.
"You need… a quiet place to be alone?" He finished for her. "I understand that. Completely."
The last sliver of the sun disappeared below the horizon, but the sky retained a blush of pink. A flicker of lightning flashed in the distance, brightening the steely stone walls of the battlements. Her feet ached from days upon days of walking, but it was such a stunningly beautiful night that she had no urge to retire anytime soon.
"Where do you go?" she asked. "I won't bother you there, I promise."
Nathaniel breathed a soft chuckle.
"I have a few places. But I wouldn't mind if you did."
"Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"
Nathaniel offered only a shrug in response.
"When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in the trophy room, hiding from my parent's fighting. Then there was Adria's cottage down in the Keep village," Nathaniel's eyes grew distant. Solona recalled the woman named Adria, who they'd come across in the basement of the Keep just after Nathaniel had joined the Wardens. Adria had succumbed to the ghoulish taint of the darkspawn, her flesh rotting away on her bones, eyes turned to dead, blackened pits. Nathaniel's agonized wail at her discovery resonated loudly in Solona's memory. She was like a mother to me, he'd cried of the woman, just before they were forced to kill her.
The ache in her gut twisted at the memory. Solona cast him a look that she hoped communicated some of her sympathy for his loss. Words, she knew full well, would be insufficient.
"Actually, if we enter this door over here…" Nathaniel began as he rushed ahead to grab a brazier out of its holder and pull the latch of a door set into a tall brown wall. "I can show you a place…"
The Keep was eerily empty after so many of the guards and soldiers had been assigned to the farmlands, but the evidence of their past occupation remained in the form of discarded refuse that littered the cold, empty rooms. Tables still held the odd empty flagon, and barrels and crates lined the shelves. A broken shield lay in pieces beside a doorway, and one tiny room strangely held a single shiny boot. Nathaniel led her through small room after small room without pausing, until they turned a corner to a narrow stairwell. As he began climbing upward, Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder, his glacial eyes connecting with hers.
"Was it fun, growing up here?" Solona asked, her words echoing through the narrow chamber.
"It… had its moments," Nathaniel laughed, the smoky quality of his voice magnified as it bounced off the stone walls. Solona watched his dark form closely now that his back was turned, and tried to analyze the draw she continued to feel toward him. Was it because he'd called her beautiful?
The memory of that word brought a few other things rushing back. His thumb on her cheek, the feel of his fingers closing around her hand on the balcony. The image of his toned torso in the forest firelight. The one time after he passed out and woke back up where he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. He'd done so for warmth, but it had happened so naturally that she didn't think twice about it until after she was comfortably settled into his embrace. A handful of small moments that she'd not allowed to carry any meaning, now presented themselves with a new clarity. She wasn't sure that it was a good thing that her long abandoned body seemed to be creaking back to life, as it seemed to be bringing with it a deluge of counterproductive urges. Anders seemed a safe enough distraction, but the stirrings deep in her stomach about Nathaniel were driving her to greater and greater distraction. Even now she remained breathlessly aware of him with every step they took.
After what felt like an eternity, the stairs ended, leading to a passageway with aged red walls and a wood door that was much larger and heavier in appearance than the others they'd passed through. Without testing the latch, Nathaniel handed Solona the brazier with one hand and thumbed a lockpick out of a little leather pouch that was waiting in his other. Solona peeked around him to watch as he inserted the pick into the lock, and with two measured motions came a low click. She almost asked if he might teach her, seeing the use in such a skill, but swallowed the words down before they escaped. Her mind filled with images of Nathaniel's hands, nimble and strong, his long fingers guiding hers, his face close, whispered instructions while waiting for the pins to fall. It was enough to make her heart leap into her throat, disabling her voice from making any such request.
Nathaniel swung the ancient door open, holding it to allow Solona step through first.
The hallway beyond was short and forked at the end, with one branch leading to yet another door, while the other continued onto into shadow, its destination unknown.
"Maker, I forget just how large this Keep is. A person could really get lost in here," Solona observed. Her voice rang unexpectedly loud in the stillness of the corridor.
"Can and have," Nathaniel confirmed warmly. "Delilah used to chase me all over, and we'd often end up turned around and not sure where we were. This section is quite small though. This was mother's wing of the Keep. Father rarely came up here, and if he ever did we knew to leave immediately."
Solona pictured a young Nathaniel running joyfully through the long passageways, followed by a giggling little girl. The imagery went dark when she realized that everyone who had lived here with him were now wandering the halls of the afterlife along with Alistair.
The glow of firelight revealed broken frames still hanging on the walls, though the paintings that once occupied them were gone. She'd heard that the place had been sacked by several scores of bandits before Garevel and the soldiers moved in, and then additional damage had been done to nearly all corners in the darkspawn invasion. Currently there were only enough people to keep the lowest levels of the Keep in use, with the various cliffside floors and towers remaining abandoned. They were easy to forget about, at least until she was up on her own tower, able to see the entirety of the fortress in a single panorama.
Once again Nathaniel breezed past her, walking decisively toward the last door before the fork in the hall, and had the lock picked and door swinging open before Solona completed her final two steps. In the flickering light of the brazier, she registered a brief moment of hesitation before he entered the room. A wrinkle appeared between his brows as he took in the room's sparse, decrepit contents.
Briazier outstretched, Solona scanned the expansive room before her. Centered by a four poster bed, though the bare mattress upon the frame lay partially burnt, any bedding or other adornments long removed. A half-collapsed bureau sat against one wall, with scattered splinters of wood strewn about. The furthest wall held a set of double doors that were plastered in dingy brown papers and emanated cold. Nathaniel walked straight toward them and inspected its latches. Solona stepped quietly around the room, gazing up at the faded marks where pictures had once hung, thinking of the life that this room once contained. She stayed close to Nathaniel to keep him within the brazier's light.
Nathaniel had asked that the painting of his mother in the main hall be taken down, but as far as Solona knew, it still hung there. He'd said his father hated his mother and treated Thomas as the favored son. Nathaniel had also spoken about tearing apart Delilah's dolls. Solona could only imagine what it might be like to live within such a fractured family, harboring whatever resentment that had driven him to such malice against his siblings. Her own memories of her family were faded, consisting mostly of old images of a large, grandiose house, with towering windows and gleaming chandeliers, gilded vases and a city view. She knew her mother had dark hair and a warm laugh. She remembered a number of old, grey haired men who looked at her disapprovingly. She vaguely remembered the move to Ferelden and the small cabin of a ship taking them between the massive statues outof the Kirkwall harbor. After that the only thing that stood out was the day she was handed over to the Templars. The trauma of her abandonment had darkened her first years in the circle. But eventually, inevitably, she'd adjusted to life there.
"Were you close with your mother?" Solona asked.
"Not as close as I should have been," he answered softly. "She… wasn't a happy person. Of course, with the things my father said to her that's not a surprise. I didn't understand it for a long time. I assumed she must have deserved his treatment."
Solona was taken aback. Her first thought at the word "mother" were those few memories of her own, dim impressions of warmth, love, laughter. Solona hardly knew how to respond to Nathaniel's statement. She could only repeat his words, aghast at the possibility that he might believe them.
"Deserved it?"
"I know now how unkind that was of me. But my father didn't do things without reason."
Solona swallowed hard, feeling her face screw into a frown.
"I'm guessing his reason was that he was an asshole?" Solona sighed angrily. "You don't have to answer that. I already know it's true."
Nathaniel pulled one of the double doors open a crack and peeked out into whatever was beyond. His posture betrayed no immediate emotion, but the voice that answered her was sharp.
"I don't expect you to understand, Solona. I'm fully aware that you believe my father was a monster."
Solona clenched her jaw. A hundred arguments sprang to mind, anecdotes of Rendon's treachery replaying behind her vision, but it didn't feel like the appropriate moment, and she had no desire to turn their time together hostile. At least he knew now that his assumption about his mother was unfair. Solona felt a deep pang of sympathy for his mother, and turned to scan the room for any lingering sign of her. Torn papers lay in a decaying heap in one corner of the room, along with pieces of wood and glass. Anything valuable had been long removed, but she may have owned some things that didn't appeal to the thieves. Solona pulled open the one intact drawer in the half-collapsed bureau, surprised at how easily it slid free. Inside rolled an empty, intact perfume bottle, a faint waft of a floral chemical detectable in the dusty air within. Nathaniel's head turned toward her, his silent form appearing at her side. He picked the bottle up, rolled it in his fingers. The glass of the bottle was clouded and brown, its topper long gone. Nathaniel held it to his nose and took a deep breath.
"Did you never have any happy times here?" Solona asked, her voice breaking the silence. "You must have, right?"
Nathaniel's eyes flickered to hers, growing distant as he pondered.
"Your father hated your mother. You hated your siblings…" Solona recanted, "but was it always that way?"
"I didn't hate my siblings," Nathaniel retorted, brows furrowing.
"You just liked to hurt them? Or, the things they loved," she said. She wasn't sure what she was getting at. The dynamics of their family seemed such a mystery. Solona had always dreamed that if her own family had been allowed to stay intact, they would have tried to make the best of their time together. After those first lonely years in the Circle, once her mother's letters had started coming less and less, all she wanted was simply to go home. She imagined parents who cherished her, brothers and sisters who understood her, family dinners around a single table where everyone talked about their day, winter nights warming up in front of a fireplace. Of course the details of the fantasy grew more difficult to fill in as she aged, the normal lives of normal people being something she had no opportunity to observe from a prison tower in the middle of a lake.
Nathaniel sighed. "We were no different than any other siblings. We fought often, but… we were family."
Solona sighed and turned away. She wasn't sure she even knew what that meant.
"Besides, they antagonized me too. Delilah threw my favorite sword and shield set into a fire, so I ripped the arms off her dolls. Thomas released my pet nug into the stables in order to spook the horses and the poor thing ended up trampled. I was going to kill one of the birds, but honestly even if it hadn't bitten me, I'm not certain I would have gone through with it. I know the bird didn't deserve it, just like my nug didn't. Thomas would specifically ask to do the things with father that I wanted, because he knew father always chose him over me. While he was gone I'd bury rotten fish in the drawers of his bureau so that all his clothes stank to high heaven. I abuse them, they abuse me in return, cycle starts over…" Nathaniel shrugged like it was nothing. "You know. Family."
Solona stared at him blankly. That sounded like a few so-called friendships she'd had in the Circle, but when it came down to it, whatever Nathaniel seemed to be expecting her to understand about it, she simply didn't. She couldn't. Nothing about that sounded like the type of family-filled homes that she'd always imagined.
"Look, I know it sounds terrible, but I'd give anything to have any one of them here now," he added, looking away from her quickly. "Even Thomas. If they needed me, I was there. If I needed them, I knew I could count on them too."
A heavy ache infiltrated Solona's chest; a feeling as though she'd just been punched. The massive imbalance in their losses surfaced in her mind with such lucidity it made her dizzy. It seemed incomprehensible that he could even stand there and talk about it, when Solona felt on the verge of collapse at the mere uttering of Alistair's name. How was it possible that he was handling a loss so much larger than her own with such unfathomable strength and grace?
It seemed yet another reason he was more suited to her title. But he would have it soon enough.
An impulse to reach out to him made her fingers twitch, though she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Her eyes burned in that way they often did before she cried, but even that seemed an inappropriate response. What would he think to see her standing in his mother's room, hardly able to handle the details of his reality, while he himself displayed no such emotion? He already had enough reason to think her unstable.
Solona glanced up into his eyes for a moment, hoping she was keeping her face placid and peaceful. In the tiny nuances of his face, his gaze, she saw there was much behind that scenes that was being held in. Again he looked away quickly, communicating his discomfort with how heavy the moment had grown.
Solona cleared her throat again. It seemed as good a time as any for a change of subject.
"So this is the place you come to?"
Nathaniel nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck and turned away from the glass double doors and toward a smaller wood one on the opposite wall.
"This room has two very special features," Nathaniel said, his tone lightening. While his back was turned, she pulled a small flask from her robe pocket, downing half its contents in two large swallows. The burn down her throat spread its numbing effect through her body, pulling her safely away from the previous moment's dangerous swell of emotion. She sighed again, relieved that she'd thought to fill the flask before they'd set out that evening.
With quickened steps, she followed him toward the small door, curious of what it could be hiding, but behind it appeared to be only another dark room, which the brazier light revealed had once been an expansive closet. Broken wooden bars which had presumably once held substantive wardrobe lay in pieces on the ground, along with strips of grimy, tattered fabric. Nathaniel kept an eye on her as they walked a circle around the room, seemingly waiting for her to see something. The room was relatively empty, and the brazier-fire dimmed, growing low as all the oxygen in the enclosed space was eaten up by flame and breath.
"Well?" Solona asked. "I mean, it is impressive that she had so much clothing she required a separate room for it." Looking around the room she wondered if that was unusual for nobles. She had no recollection such a room in the large mansion of her childhood memories, but that had been so many years ago…
Nathaniel let out a small chuckle. "It's well hidden, isn't it?" It seemed a question hardly directed at her since she had no idea what it could be. Solona tapped her foot, waiting for Nathaniel to let her in on the joke. He nodded, registering her lack of amusement, and turned on his heel to walked directly to the back of the room. Solona approached, holding the brazier close as his fingers slid down a seam near the corner of the wall. Seeming to feel something, his fingers paused, running over the same spot a few times. Clearly detecting something at the seam, Nathaniel grunted in satisfaction and pushed.
Solona's breath caught as an entire section of wall moved away, receding several inches deeper into itself and then sliding aside, revealing more black space behind it. Nathaniel flashed her another quick glance, the blue of his eyes almost silvery in the firelight.
"A secret passage!" Solona breathed, fascinated. She stepped into it but stopped at the sensation of Nathaniel's hand gently grasping her elbow, warning her not to rush ahead. His hand lingered, but the long passage before her absorbed her attention, and she held the brazier out to try to illuminate as much of it as she could, but wherever it led was not evident.
"Where does it go?"
"There is a safe room that is carved out of the hillside, and the hall continues on down to the armory. Lots of stairs to get there, many of which are probably rotted away by now. It would probably be safer to explore it from the other side, working our way up."
Solona nodded, but her heartbeat had quickened, entranced by the prospect of sneaking through hidden vaults of the Keep. This was precisely the sort of thing she imagined a kid delighting in.
"There is another passage, in the western wing. It has listening holes placed behind what used to be the guard's quarters and training rooms," Nathaniel said.
"Listening holes?"
"Places to eavesdrop on conversations and spy on the guards. Father wanted to be certain of the soldier's loyalty, make sure there were no moles or dissidents in the ranks."
Solona laughed and shook her head. She wasn't surprised at all, but bit her lip against adding any additional commentary. Her tongue already felt looser with the whiskey running through her veins.
"And," she asked, returning to his previous statement, "the second special feature?"
Nathaniel waved her back toward the main bedroom, leading her directly to the double doors.
A frosty gust of air welcomed them out onto a wrap-around balcony, its rail an intricately designed pattern of curled iron.
"It's the view, which isn't going to be nearly as enjoyable right now as it is during the day," Nathaniel stated. Solona stepped against the railing and took in the expanse of space before her. The balcony looked out over the outside of the Keep, with only rolling hills and jagged cliffs to be seen. No crumbling Keep walls, no sounds or sights of people milling about. The left half of the sky was filling with flickering storm clouds, while the right half was cluttered with countless stars twinkling bright. It took a moment before Solona realized she was holding her breath. Even at night, with so little to be seen under the cloak of darkness, the view was still immeasurably better than her little watchtower roof.
Long silent moments stretched by; if it weren't for her Warden sense she would have forgotten Nathaniel was there altogether. Slowly the cold and silence invaded her consciousness, filling her with a welcome peace. The only sound that came was the brief hiss of Nathaniel extinguishing the brazier after he'd gently taken it from her hand.
Eventually though, he broke the silence..
"Where is your family, Solona?" His elbow brushed against hers.
"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "They might as well be dead. They haven't been my family since I was eight years old."
"That's when you went into the circle?" he asked. Solona nodded. She was tempted to close her eyes to capture the sound of his voice, to roll it around in her mind, savoring it like she would a flavor on her tongue. It really was lovely. His elbow against hers pressed with slightly more force, and she wondered if he was moving in closely or if she was doing it herself. A flash of his eyes filled her mind, with that intense look of longing that he held sometimes. Her stomach, already so twisted and unsettled for so many reasons, seemed to flip entirely upside down. What was he longing for exactly?
"That seems young," he said. "I've heard of others going in much later than that…"
Solona shrugged. "If I remember correctly, magic was strong in my family's blood. They might have known the early signs better than most."
Glancing toward him, Solona studied the shadow of his profile. It was easier to do in the dark, with the movements of her eyes shrouded by the veil of night. The pale skin of his face stood in sharp contrast to his hair and surrounding blackness, making it easy to follow the line of his nose, his strong jaw, his full lips. His face turned toward her just as a flash of lightning bathed him in vibrant silver light, and Solona felt her breath hitch.
Fuck. He's beautiful.
"I know the name Amell. There are Amells in Kirkwall," he said. The silence after he spoke filled with the growing rumbling of thunder. Solona waited for it to pass before she answered.
"I was born in Kirkwall. But we came to Ferelden a few years before they handed me over."
"Do you… ever think about trying to find them?" he asked cautiously. "Your parents? It should be easy to do. In fact, I still have many friends in Kirkwall, I could write to them for information. At the very least I could get an address for you." Solona looked toward him again, confirming that he was still watching her. The place their elbows touched seemed to be tingling, her awareness of his closeness growing more difficult to ignore. The roiling in her stomach worsened, one minute feeling something close to elation, the next crushed by a terrifying guilt. Swallowing hard, she pulled her flask out of her pocket again, drinking down all but a little of what whiskey remained. She offered the last to Nathaniel. He tilted his head, looking at her with concern.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude," he said.
Solona coughed down the large mouthful of liquid fire. Nathaniel's fingers closed over hers for a moment as he accepted the flask. Solona winced at the feeling it invoked, the powerful desire for them to stay where they were, to reach for him and pull him closer. She almost clutched hard at the flask, not allowing him to take it so that his fingers would have to remain in place over hers. And then in kneejerk fashion she forced herself to release it, withdrawing her hands as though his touch burned. He fumbled for half a second, but quickly got the falling flask under control, throwing the last of the whiskey back in a single gulp. Solona's heart pounded in her ears. She wasn't even sure what she was reacting to. Was it the fact that she wanted Nathaniel to touch her, or was it the prospect of…. Of being rejected by her own family again? They'd already done it once, why wouldn't they do it a second time?
Well, came her inner voice, because she was the fucking Hero of Ferelden, that's why. And besides, they had no choice but to put her in the circle. No parent has a choice in that.
Still, came another voice entirely, Mother only wrote for, what, six? Eight months? Never a peep from father. Less than a year for them to move on with their lives, as though their daughter, their own fucking flesh and blood never existed.
If they were still alive, then they would have already heard her name, just like every other living person in Ferelden. It was common knowledge now that the mage who'd survived the final fight that ended the blight is named Solona Amell. If they lived then they knew their daughter was alive. They were the ones who'd handed her over so easily, the least they could do is be the ones to track her down. They could have, if they wanted to.
"Solona?" Nathaniel asked. She heard it only distantly.
That settles it then, doesn't it? Either they're dead, or have chosen not to try to find her.
Gulping at the cool night air, Solona grasped onto the iron railing, trying to steady herself.
"No thank you," she forced out, trying to make it sound natural. "I appreciate the offer, but please don't write your friends."
A new flash of lightning revealed black furrowed brows over concerned blue eyes. She resisted the urge to fall toward him, to let him catch her. He would catch her, she knew he would.
Or… maybe he wouldn't. It had only been a handful of minutes since he expressed the desire to have his own family back. And here she had a chance for hers and she was rejecting it. That didn't sit well with her, surely it wouldn't with him either. Solona shifted, glancing toward him. Standing completely still, he stared down into the countryside, the air around him heavy.
"I'm afraid they wouldn't want me," she confessed. The warmth of the liquor in her belly made the words come out easier than she expected.
"What?" he asked with genuine surprise. "Why in Andraste's name wouldn't they?"
"If they did, they could find me themselves. They could have done so already. They gave me up, left me alone in that place with all those strangers… And now they're the strangers. I don't know them. It wouldn't be the same as you getting your mother back, or your sister. These are people who… I have no reason to trust. Or to love."
Nathaniel turned toward her, and she felt precisely what her mind had been on alert for: a heavy, warm hand resting on her forearm. Without meaning to, she leaned into his touch. The slight adjustment toward him seemed to provide encouragement, and the hand slid up her elbow and toward her shoulder. A wave of butterflies took flight in her chest. If it continued his arm was going to end up around her, and Maker, that would be nice. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation, the weight and the warmth. It seemed so different this time. They were no strangers to touching each other, but it had been so casual before, so meaningless.
And then, came a flash of Alistair. Solona winced as the thought of him invaded her mind, turning the butterflies to daggers that pierced painfully through her conscience. Her plan to join him was already in motion. Her successor had been decided. Solona was leaving this realm at the earliest opportunity. Yet she'd thought of Alistair surprisingly little since setting out from her room with Nathaniel after dinner, much less than usual anyway. Her body went stiff as Nathaniel's touch continued to travel, but he stopped, sensing her tension.
"Solona," he said again. Fucking hell it didn't help to have him saying her name like that.
A bright web of lightning stretched across the sky and for a moment she could see Nathaniel clearly. Hovering close, his eyes brightened by that inner fire of his, it would only require a single step forward to put herself against him. But Solona couldn't move, frozen by equal desire to move closer and to run, to get away before she did something she'd regret.
Out the corner of her eye, a strange movement. Nathaniel and she both turned their heads toward it, waiting for the next lightning bolt to reveal what it was that they saw. Nathaniel's hand remained motionless at her shoulder, but his grip twitched, tightening slightly. Inwardly, Solona wished for darkspawn. Something to fight, something to do, some reason to extricate herself from this precarious moment where she was probably going to do exactly the wrong thing.
"Darkspawn," Nathaniel stated after the next flash. The clouds were moving closer, the thunder sounding off much more quickly after each bolt. Solona felt a powerful calm come over her at the confirmation.
"Let's go get them," she said, all her worries and anxiety fading at the prospect of a good fight.
Nathaniel shook his head.
"We don't need to," he said decisively. "Sun's down, the gate's closed. They're not getting in, and there's no one out there for them to harm."
Solona pulled away from Nathaniel, already feeling the adrenaline begin to flood her bloodstream. With each step away from Nathaniel she felt her clarity returning.
"Fine," she shrugged. "Stay here. I'll go by myself."