Chapter THIRTY-THREE
The Knight-Commander had allowed for Bethany's home visit with some stipulations. Two templars would remain as guards the entire length of her stay, which was to last no longer than seven days. However, Bethany could return to the Circle at any time. If she cast any spells, it had to be with the templar guards' permission and supervision. Aria was certain the Knight-Commander was not afraid of Bethany trying to escape; she was using the guards as a means to eavesdrop on the intimate goings-on of Aria's life. Aria knew they'd have to report back to her everything they saw and the Knight-Commander thought she'd garner leverage from it. Aria wasn't stupid. She was wise to the ways of politicians and others in power. Meredith would have to try harder. Aria had never even seen the woman, and already, she loathed her.
Aria met with Bethany and Gamlen in her study, Fenris at her side and Anders at the other end of the table. Mother had not drafted a Will. That left the tedious task of deciding what was going to happen and who got what, not that Mother really had much anymore. Her clothes, some jewelry, shoes, and things of that nature. Most would be donated, they decided. Aria could not fit into her mother's clothes, but Bethany expressed interest in a few of the dresses and shoes.
As for funeral arrangements, there would be a service at the Chantry early in the afternoon. Afterwards, Gamlen would preside over Leandra's cremation, and store her ashes in the family crypt at the cemetery overlooking the harbour. Bethany wanted to visit the Chantry gardens and collect some flowers to place in the vault. She would probably end up keeping some for crafting their soaps and lotions. Following that, there would be a private wake at the Hanged Man for friends and family.
Anders and Gamlen left together, but split up when they reached the Chantry. Being around so many templars was extremely dangerous for the possessed mage, Aria knew. She could see him struggling to keep control of Justice in the presence of one of the templar guards on duty at the moment, a man named Ser Alrik. Aria noted it and catalogued it as something to question him about later. Gamlen went to the Chantry to discuss plans and to have Leandra's body prepared for cremation.
Bethany and Aria retreated to Aria's chambers, and Fenris excused himself to inform Varric of the plans for the Hanged Man wake. The real reason he left though, was to give Aria and Bethany time alone. The whole situation was new to him and extremely awkward for him. He didn't say as much, but Aria could read the elf like an open book. She kissed him before he left; the familiarity of the gesture gave Bethany something on which she could segue into their conversation that didn't involve Mother. They ignored the guards that silently followed them into the room.
"So you're official, then?" Bethany asked as soon as Fenris had disappeared down the stairs.
Aria sat on the bed next to her sister, her movements weary and lethargic. Her body hurt. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. "I'm surprised tales of our…relationship haven't reached you in the Gallows."
"We aren't privy to much Hightown gossip," Bethany replied, uncharacteristic bitterness staining her words. "But, I am happy that you have someone. And I am happy that it's him."
"Thank you," Aria said with a sad smile, taking both her sister's hands in hers. They faced each other cross-legged on the bed.
"It's…terrible of me, but I don't want to go in there until they've…taken Mother out," Bethany quietly stated, her dark eyes brimmed with tears.
"No, it isn't. She wouldn't want you to see her that way," Aria consoled her, gently squeezing her hands. "That man did…terrible things to her."
"You killed him?"
"Yes," Aria answered, the bitter taste of failure scalded her tongue. She shuddered at the sudden flash of memory that replayed behind her eyes. "I…ripped his heart out, I think. Everything was a blur. I just…I just…snapped."
"You don't have to tell me. I don't…think I want to know. Did she…get to say goodbye, at least?" Bethany asked, her voice hopeful.
Aria nodded, a sudden sob choking her. "Yes."
Bethany let out a single sob and leaned forward to hug her sister. "If…if it doesn't hurt you too much, can you tell me what she said?"
Aria tightened her embrace around her sister and ground her teeth to keep from coming undone. She had to be strong right now. Her little sister needed her to be. "She said… She said she knew I'd come for her. That at least she was free now. That…she'd see Carver and Father…" At this, Aria's resolve broke and she gushingly sobbed the last words, "She said she loved me, and that she was proud of me."
They stayed there for several moments, sobbing in each other's arms. Orana came in with a lunch tray for them, which forced them apart and to focus on something other than their overwhelming grief. It was a much welcome interruption.
"Mistresses, there have been several bouquets and dishes delivered in the past hour. What would you have me do with it all?" Orana asked once they'd started eating, joining them on the bed to share the food at Aria's insistence.
"I will come down and we can sort through it together," Aria told her once she'd started eating some of the wafers, cheese, and fruit on the tray.
"It's probably going to continue all day," Bethany groused, voraciously consuming the food.
Aria quirked a brow at her. "Don't they feed you in the Gallows?"
Bethany rolled her eyes and savoured the fruit-and-cheese-laden wafer she'd just stuffed whole into her mouth. "Not stuff this good," she mumbled through chewing. She had lost quite a bit of weight since Aria had last seen her—nearly two years ago. Dark hollows existed under her eyes and her high cheek bones were slightly more pronounced.
Aria chuckled softly but said nothing more on the subject. She kept the underlying, seething rage in check; for now. Later, she fully intended to inquire after her sister's treatment, forcefully if necessary. Bethany was all she had left, and she would kill anyone that dared so much as look at her wrong.
Orana beamed at them as she ate with them, the experience a rare treat for her. The young lady elf was a very bright presence and it lifted Aria's spirit to have her here.
"I've heard so many wonderful things about you, Mistress Bethany. It is a very good thing to have you here, even if the circumstances are terrible," Orana said after a moment.
"Thank you," Bethany replied, returning the smile Orana gave her. "Mother spoke kindly of you in her letters, Orana."
If it was possible, Orana's smile widened. "I am pleased she thought highly of me. I've tried to do well, especially after all Mistress Aria has done for me."
Aria grinned for her benefit and reached out to briefly squeeze Orana's hand. Bethany smiled sweetly at the gesture and loaded another wafer.
"Do you remember that time Father was waylaid on his way back home from Denerim, and he caught you in the field, fighting on the practice dummy?" Bethany asked as she popped the wafer into her mouth.
"The first time?" Aria countered, taking a couple wafers and eating them by themselves.
"Yes! You were using his sword!"
Aria giggled at this. "And he'd just sharpened the blade! How he didn't tan my hide for that, I'll never know."
"I remember Carver laughed so hard, he lost his bladder!" Bethany chortled, leaning forward.
"And then, Father made me whet the blade for him. 'If you're going to use a sword, Birdie, you're going to learn to take care of it'. Three hours I spent bent over that damn blade."
"Carver was so mad that Father let you start learning to fight before he did," Bethany giggled.
"When wasn't Carver mad?" Aria hooted, then sat up on her knees, shaking her fist at the ceiling. "You hear that, you lout?"
"Aria!" squealed Bethany, "He wouldn't listen anyway!"
They laughed together, so hard that when their laughter subsided, tears were in Aria's eyes and her abdominals hurt. It felt... Good. She beamed at her sister and took her hands briefly. Bethany was so precious. Even more so now. She was eternally grateful to have these moments, despite the macabre reason for them. It was... Exactly what she needed to continue on.
"Oh, Maker. I do miss that sodding jerk," Aria sighed. "Goodness, the fights we'd get into. One night, I put a horned toad in his bed. The sound he made when he jumped up and ran outside…"
Bethany laughed again, her hand clutching her side. "Oh don't! I feel if I laugh anymore right now, I'll start crying."
"Master Carver, he was your brother?" Orana asked.
"Yes. A real pain in the ass, but handy in a fight," Aria replied.
"He was very attached to Mama," Bethany hiccoughed, swallowing the sob that rose.
Aria took Bethany's hand, fighting her own tears. She didn't have anything to say that hadn't already been said. Bethany returned the squeeze and turned to look at the door. They heard footsteps on the landing.
"This one here?" a foreign voice asked.
"No, the one over there," came Gamlen's tenor.
They listened in silence as the footsteps moved towards Mother's room. Bethany stood and went to the door.
"Bethany, don't," Aria pleaded, stepping in front of her sister, barring her from exiting the room.
"Could I forgive myself if I didn't see her one last time?" Bethany pleaded.
"Please, please, trust me sister," Aria entreated. "She would not want that to be your last memory of her."
Bethany sighed and went back to sit on the bed. Aria followed, haunted by the last images of her mother flashing behind her eyes. She squeezed them closed and balled her hands into fists for just a second. She abruptly splayed her fingers as she opened them again, then returned to her seat next to Bethany.
"Why did this happen?" Bethany sighed.
"I don't know," Aria resignedly answered her query.
"No, I mean… What did happen? How did everything lead up to this?"
Aria inhaled deeply, then exhaled very slowly out her nose before she responded. "He was a blood mage and a necromancer. He was obsessed with some sort of…resurrection magic. He wanted to bring his wife back. She…happened to look like Mama."
"That's deplorable! Horrid!" Bethany cried. "He murdered Mother because she looked like his wife? What kind of…foul…twisted…creature does that?"
"A dead one," Aria venomously replied.
"Somehow, death just seems too easy," Bethany said vengefully.
Aria couldn't disagree. If there had been any way she could have done more to that man than she did… But he was rotting in the Void. Aria hoped some demon made him its bitch. That would be satisfactory justice for her. And, it would be for eternity.
ooooooo
Aria sat at her desk late in the evening. Bethany slept soundly in her bed. They'd furnished chairs for this shift of templar guards, and they both dozed where they sat across the room, near the hearth. Aria hated their presence. It was a breach of privacy that she deemed disgusting.
She sipped at the wine in her hand, twisting the stem of the glass between her fingers, a dried quill rested in her other hand. She lowered the glass to the desk and sat forward. Aria stared at the journal page, the last entry from two days ago.
How could life go on? Somehow, she felt that if she penned the events of the past 24 hours, it would make them seem more real. She didn't want to relive the memories. She didn't want to feel any of this anymore. This…constant fear of losing everything was like a blood hound on a trail, her trail, and it now had her treed with no escape. She could either fall to her death at the bottom of the void in which the tree grew, or throw herself into the hound's jaws.
Flemeth's words to her were starting to make sense. She stood now on the precipice of change, the Demons of the Void savagely drove her to the edge. Before her was the abyss. How did one learn to fly? What waited at the bottom of the abyss that yawned ominously before her should she fail to take to the air?
"You should be sleeping," Fenris's voice greeted her from the door. She didn't know how long he'd been there, but the way he looked at her, she could tell it had been for quite some time.
"I've slept too much today as it is," Aria replied, thankful for the distraction his presence granted her. She closed the journal and stretched her cramped limbs.
He strode in and took the glass from the desk. Fenris sniffed at it, swirling it expertly to release the flavour of the wine. He took a sip and nodded appreciatively. "Antivan. You do have a proclivity for it."
Aria smiled at him and took the glass as he offered it, taking a long draw from it that drained half the glass. She handed it back to him and he finished it, gently setting the glass on the desk before he offered her his arm. He looked exhausted, she realized.
"Where are we going?" she asked him, ignoring the obviously perked attention of the guards, who were now fully awake.
"Wherever you wish," Fenris replied as he led her from the room. He nodded at the templars, who returned the gesture.
"You look so tired," Aria said to him, allowing him to lead her down the stairs. She froze when she reached the bottom step and looked up at the parlor before them.
Bouquets of varying sizes and flower species adorned all the tables and shelves in the room. She was shocked by the response from the townspeople. It was a humbling thing, seeing the physical evidence of others' regard for her family. Bodahn slept in the chair by one of the hearths, a ledger on his lap.
"I've been worse," Fenris responded to her statement, watching her take in the scene.
"How am I going to get through tomorrow?" Aria asked then, looking to the ceiling to keep her eyes from tearing up again. She felt as though she'd cried so much today, she'd wilt and float away on the slightest breeze.
"One foot in front of the other, one breath at a time. This too shall pass," he softly answered her, turning her gently by the shoulders to face him.
Aria swiped angrily at the tears she couldn't hold. She glared at her feet a second, then met his eyes, unable to think of anything to say.
"Do you wish to stay here tonight?" he asked her after a moment.
"I should," Aria resignedly sighed. She surveyed the bouquets again, noting that many of them possessed lavender and vanilla flowers, along with several other, more exotic looking species. "I don't think Bethany is going to need to go to the Chantry gardens tomorrow."
Fenris chuckled and looked around the flower-strewn room. "I think that's where most of these probably came from."
"Probably. The nobles will then blame the acute flower shortage in Kirkwall on me, and things will go back to normal," Aria snarkily stated.
"They'll find something, I'm sure."
She turned to him again and tenderly ensnared his neck in her embrace. His arms went around her and he rested his chin on the top of her head. Aria closed her eyes and savoured his warmth. He always had a way of making her realize how cold she felt without him.
"You should go home, get some rest," Aria murmured momentarily.
Fenris stepped back from her to look into her eyes. "Only if you do the same."
Aria placed a quick kiss on his lips. "I promise."
He eyed her dubiously, one brow arched. "I'm not sure I believe you."
"I'll do my best, then," she wryly chuckled.
He sighed and pulled her back to him, his mouth gently claimed hers. It was a lingering kiss, one that made her suddenly feel as though her limbs were made of lead, as though she'd just finished a grueling battle and adrenaline dump sapped her muscles of all their strength.
"I'll accept nothing less," Fenris whispered as his lips brushed against her ear. He stepped away then, his hand catching hers. "What time shall I return?"
"Whenever you deem necessary," Aria noncommittally declared.
He chuckled. "I'll be here as soon as I wake, which will probably be shortly after dawn."
"You know where I'll be," she murmured. "Good night, Fenris."
He kissed her hand, then once more on the lips. "Good night, Aria."
Aria slid the bolt back down once she'd closed the door in the wake of his exit. She then went over to Bodahn. She gently shook him awake, catching the ledger before it could fall and spill its contents on the floor. She deposited it on the desk and bade the dwarf good night. She extinguished the lanterns and stoked the fires in the parlor hearths before she went back up the stairs to her room.
The templars nodded politely at her when she returned and she asked them to step outside the room while she changed into her bed clothes. They were reluctant to do so, but she promised to be quick. As soon as she finished, she let them back in, then crawled under the covers next to Bethany.
She stared at her sister's gaunt, peacefully sleeping visage, her broken heart full of gratitude that she still had Bethany, until at last sleep overtook her.