Thank you all for reading! Special thanks to suilven for her support and enthusiasm!
The Archdemon roared its challenge across the rooftop. With Riordan gone, the last hope for happiness had gone, too. Alistair caught Leyden's hand. "I can't let you do this."
She pulled it away. "I'm not giving you a choice."
"I don't want to live without you, can't you see? You—you're everything! You are the only person in my life who has ever believed I amounted to anything, other than Duncan, and he's—I can't lose you both."
"Alistair," Leyden whispered. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
"I'm not. I'm making it easier. You get your life, and Anora gets her throne, and I get to be a hero, and Ferelden gets saved from the Archdemon." He was nearly weeping now, and he should probably be ashamed of that, but he wasn't. He couldn't fathom a life without her, and he didn't want to. Not ever.
Leyden lifted a hand to his face. Her glove was spattered with blood, some of it rubbing off on his face, but neither of them cared. "You're going to be the king. You're going to be the best king you can possibly be—for me, if not for yourself, or your people. And you're going to live, and find someone to love, someone who—someone you can bring home to the Landsmeet."
"Oh, Maker. Leyden. Please don't make me watch you die." There were tears now, rolling down his cheeks.
"I need you here, Alistair. I need your sword, and your shield, and your strength, if we're going to defeat this thing. Can you do that for me?"
He nodded, overcome, convinced at last that she wasn't going to let him do this in her place. "I love you."
She reached up on her toes, pulling his head down to hers, and kissed him, fiercely and hard. And then she let go and turned away, and battle was joined. Those were the last words they ever spoke to each other.
Alistair woke with a start, sitting up abruptly in the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands. Maker, he hated waking with his cheeks already wet with tears. Why couldn't he let the past go? Why couldn't he let Leyden go?
They were the same questions that had been on his mind when he went to sleep the night before, and as a result, Leyden had swirled through his dreams in all her glory, breathtaking and brilliant and flashing fire. She had truly been spectacular, he thought. In combat, as a leader, in bed …
Alistair got up and started getting dressed to avoid letting his thoughts—and his body—go down that path. There had been an anger in Leyden, too, he reminded himself, simmering just beneath the surface. That was what had given her the fire. She had enjoyed playing with Leliana, playing with Alistair, occasionally flirting with Zevran. But the assassin had understood her, possibly better than the others, and hadn't fallen for her games. Eventually she had let him alone, other than on those nights when she toyed with Zevran in order to make Alistair jealous. She had enjoyed seeing the anger in him, enjoyed the power in his body when he took her—
He stopped that line of thought, again, with an inward growl. Because for all the nights they came together sweating and cursing and she brought out the warrior in him, there had been the nights when he wanted to be gentle, to touch her reverently and show her how much he loved her, and Leyden had frozen under his touch, or squirmed away.
That was the truth, then. Leyden had never been a woman who wanted to be loved. Wanted, yes. Desired, longed for, taken, fought for, sought after … but she could never slow down, never trust enough to be loved. Alistair had forgotten that, buried it, in the years since, told himself that she would have changed if she had survived the Blight, she would have learned to accept the love he so longed to give. Because he was a man who wanted to love. The more aggressive man Leyden had demanded of him had been satisfying physically, but emotionally it had left him wanting more. Was that why he had never been able to let go?
She was gone; he had to accept that, at last. He had to stop hiding behind the robes of a dead woman and decide what he was going to do with his life. Enough years had been wasted mourning. Leyden had loved him as much as she was capable of; that he believed with all his heart. And she had given him his life when she chose to die facing the Archdemon. What had he done with that gift that made any difference to anyone at all?
As he looked into the glass to do his hair, another face came to his mind's eye—similar to Leyden's but softer, more open, the blue eyes warm where Leyden's had burned. Lilias. So like her cousin and so different, at the same time. She had deserved better at his hands. He had used her to fill the empty place Leyden had left behind, treated her as though her value lay in the similarities of their faces, in the shared blood that ran through their veins.
He met his own eyes in the mirror, taking a good long look at the man who stood there. That man had a lot to apologize for. He had muffed so many opportunities, through sheer obliviousness and mismanagement and going about things the wrong way. It was time to fix that, and he wanted to start with Lilias. He remembered the way she had felt in his arms after the Fade, like a broken doll, and then he remembered what it had been like to fight at her side in Kirkwall, the focus and the dancing surety of her blade. He wanted to help her bring back that woman, or at least find in herself that woman's strength. And he wanted to help her, and Varric and the Inquisitor, take down Corypheus. After that … well, there would be time to worry about after that later.
Thule climbed the steps above the blacksmith shop slowly, not sure how Cassandra was going to react to being interrupted. She had been silent and withdrawn since they had come back from Ferelden. Not that he blamed her—the betrayal of Lord Seeker Lucius had cut her deeply, and the loss of her former apprentice had been devastating. Thule had seen that despite how hard she tried to hide the extent of her pain. And he had wanted to go to her … but at the same time, irrationally, it had stung that she hadn't turned to him in the first place. Didn't she know, by now, how he felt about her?
But of course, how would she? He had hardly spoken out, too afraid she would reject him, too sure that she could never look down and see him as a man worthy of her, so he had let hints and looks and innuendo speak for him.
So he had stepped back and given her the space she seemed to need—but this was getting beyond what seemed healthy, even for someone as self-contained as Cassandra.
With that in mind, his knock on her door was very firm.
"Go away."
"Not happening, Cassandra."
"Please go away."
He opened the door, instead. "I can't do that. Not until I'm sure that you're all right."
Cassandra was sitting at a table with the tome Lord Seeker Lucius had given her open in front of her. As she looked up at Thule, he could see that her face was paler than usual, dark smudges under her grey eyes that indicated she hadn't been sleeping much.
"You look terrible."
"I … I did not ask you to come here. Please go away."
He came further into the room, closing the door behind him. "It's me, Cassandra. Talk to me. Tell me what's in that book that has you so …" He couldn't find a word that seemed to fit how devastated she appeared.
Cassandra swallowed, her fingers lightly touching the open page. "This book has passed from Lord Seeker to Lord Seeker, since the time of the old Inquisition."
"It's well preserved."
"Yes. No doubt magically." She withdrew her fingers from the book with a faint shudder. "Now it has fallen to me."
"Does that make you the Lord Seeker?"
"I don't know." Cassandra sighed wearily. "I don't … I no longer know if I would want to be."
"That bad?" He looked at the book, frowning. "Maybe you should have left it to rot, after what happened."
"I wonder the same." Her voice was dull, and Thule looked at her in surprise.
"You mean that?"
"I don't know what I mean. Do you know what the Rite of Tranquility is?"
"Yes." They had several Tranquil in the Inquisition. They gave Thule the creeps, with their blank faces and monotone voices.
"It is supposed to be the last resort, used on mages in the Circles who are considered particularly at risk of demonic possession, or of resorting to blood magic. It leaves them unable to reach their magic, but also cuts them off from their dreams and all emotion."
Thule thought of Kirkwall, where he had lived briefly, and some of the rumors there when Meredith had been in charge. "It's misused at times, too, isn't it?"
"Yes. Sadly, that is undeniable."
"It sounds horrible, to live without emotion."
Cassandra nodded. "I always thought it a necessary evil, but … perhaps … perhaps we should always have been searching for a better way."
"Why is this relevant now? Is there something in the book—"
Her eyes met his, and Thule stopped speaking at the look there. "The book says we have always known how to reverse the Rite of Tranquility. From the beginning. And yet we never shared that information with anyone."
"Why not?"
"Because—we created the Rite."
Thule frowned, not understanding.
"To become a Seeker, I spent months in a vigil, emptying myself of all emotion."
Well, that explained quite a few things. He wondered what she must have been like before that—had she been filled with all the unbridled passion that he could sense somewhere deep within her? Then he realized the implication of what she was saying. "You were made Tranquil?"
"Exactly. Then the vigil summoned a spirit of faith to touch my mind. That broke Tranquility—and gave me my abilities. That has been done to every Seeker for generations, and none of us were ever told exactly what it was we went through. If we had known—if we had known, and if we had shared what we knew … could we have stopped the mage rebellion, eliminated the need for the Conclave?" Tears shone in her eyes.
"You can't think that way."
"Can't I? I see no other way to think than to blame so many of the deaths that we mourn on my own Order, on the very people I saw as my friends and allies, on the tenets on which I have built my life. Do you see?"
"Cassandra … that isn't your fault."
"Isn't it? If I had been more forceful, more focused, less blind, could I not have seen?"
"You're talking about secrets kept for a thousand years, and you think one woman could have changed the course?"
"Why not? You are one man, and you have changed … so much. The same for the Champion of Kirkwall and the Hero of Ferelden. Can I not do as much?"
Thule reached across the table for her hand, but she withdrew it. "You already have! You declared the Inquisition in the first place, you brought us all together and created the first camp. If I hadn't ended up with this thing in my hand, you would be the Inquisitor." He smiled. "Probably a better one than I am."
Cassandra didn't rise to the provocation. She got up from the table and walked to the window, bracing one arm on the windowsill. "I had thought to rebuild the Seekers, but now I am no longer certain the Order deserves to be rebuilt. We harbored secrets and let them fester; we acted to survive, but not to serve."
"That's hardly your fault."
"Perhaps not, but I was complicit all the same." She turned to look at him. "Will that happen to us, Inquisitor? Will we repeat history?"
He wanted to reassure her, to say what he knew she wanted to hear, but she would know what he was doing. Holding her gaze, he said, "We might."
"That is honest, at least, if not necessarily comforting."
"All we can do is our best as we see it, Cassandra. That's all anyone can do."
"There should be something better than that."
He smiled, coming around the table toward her. "That sounds suspiciously like you want a guarantee. No one gets that, Cassandra. But … I do know that if anyone can rebuild the Seekers into something worthwhile, you can."
She watched him approach, her face grave. "But are they worth it?"
"You're the only one who can be sure of that."
"And if I'm not sure?"
"Then do your best. Like you always do," he said softly.
"I … will think on your words."
"Good. And … you'll come out of your room, and have something to eat?"
"Right now? With you?"
He caught his breath, wondering if she meant … but no. She didn't mean it the way he had thought, not in her current state. "Yes," he said. "Right now with me."
"Very well." She gave him a small smile. "Thank you. I … could not have found the truth on my own."
"Anytime," he said, meaning it. For a moment he hesitated, wanting to tell her … but it wasn't the time. Instead he led the way from the room, glad that at least he had her talking again.