Ostagar was a city of the dead, utterly deserted save for the ghosts.
The march had taken the better part of a week, through inhospitable terrain and the Blighted remnants of what had once been peaceful, thriving villages. Signs of the darkspawn's corruption were everywhere: withered trees, naked and barren of leaves though Harvestmere was still weeks away; blackened, sterile land, incapable of growing even patches of grass; and, of course, the empty villages, sacked and ruined and desecrated with the bloated, defiled corpses of their former inhabitants. The mood of the company had grown steadily more somber as they forged deeper into darkspawn territory, and the lack of darkspawn to fight brought no comfort. Moira knew that if the darkspawn had abandoned the south, then it could only mean one thing – the horde was on the march.
The Tower of Ishal loomed overhead, and Moira suppressed a chill, though the day was warm and pleasant. She was already beginning to regret the decision to come here. All the old, terrible memories flooded back in force – her unwilling flight with Duncan from the ruins of Highever to this old, abandoned fortress, where he had informed her that her life as a Grey Warden would begin; his refusal to elaborate on any aspect of what that life might entail; his savage murder of Ser Jory, with the implication that the same fate awaited her if she did not take up the poisoned chalice and destroy her own soul with the darkspawn taint. And then, of course, the frantic battle, the king's insistence on charging the horde head-on and from the front, and that ill-fated mission to the tower, where all had been lost. She wondered what Wynne and Loghain were thinking, the only two other members of her company who had known the ghosts that haunted this cursed place.
As it turned out, she did not have to wonder very long.
"You can stop glaring at me, madam," Loghain's voice rang out in the silence. "My memories of this place are no fonder than your own."
"No?" Wynne retorted. "I remember good friends dying here, and the man I respected as my king. And I remember his most trusted general abandoning the field."
"All I remember is a fool's death and a difficult choice. And Maker help me, I would make the same again." Despite the rough bluster of his words, there was no pride or defiance in Loghain's voice; only weary resignation.
"After everything that has happened? Every terrible thing you set in motion?" Wynne's voice dripped with disgust. "You still don't believe you did anything wrong, do you?"
"I have done enough wrong for a lifetime and then some." Loghain spoke sharply and with a deep bitterness, and Moira turned to him in surprise. "But of all the mistakes I have made, retreating at Ostagar was not one of them."
"Even knowing that you set in motion a civil war?" Wynne's disgust had given way to incredulity.
"Even so, madam. I did not ask for the fools in the Bannorn to oppose me, nor for that scheming bastard Eamon to play his usual games. If there was civil war, then blame must be laid on those who saw fit to fight me when they should have been sending their armies to secure our border and fight the darkspawn."
"Of course they fought you! You murdered our king!" Wynne exclaimed.
"Ah, such loyalty! Though sadly after the fact, I might note." Loghain's words were slathered in sarcasm.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Wynne demanded indignantly.
"Oh, so you did try to save him, then? My apologies. I seem to keep running into people who have claimed their undying loyalty to our dearly departed King Cailan, and yet who were mysteriously absent when he needed them most. I must have confused you for such a one."
"What? I was fortunate to escape Ostagar with my life, no thanks to you!"
"So you failed to rush to your king's rescue through the endless horde of darkspawn? Perhaps you too realized that his reckless charge at the head of the army left him in an impossible position? Then it seems to me you had no qualms abandoning him to die, either. I admit I struggle to understand why your desertion was an act of heroic loyalty while mine was an act of treachery and cowardice," Loghain taunted.
"I had no army at my command! I could never have reached him in time! But you – "
"Had no magic at my command to break through the darkspawn ranks. I could no more have saved Cailan from himself than you could have. But I suppose you think I should have tried, regardless? No doubt the lives of 'mere' soldiers are cheap in the eyes of an esteemed mage of the Circle."
"That is a low blow, Loghain," Wynne said dangerously. "And what of the lives of the soldiers who fought beside the king? Their lives meant nothing to you!"
"I suppose you think so, don't you?" Loghain's bitterness had tempered into a very real anger. "I have watched you, madam – you have hated me from the day I set foot in Moira's camp. You think you have me all figured out. And so I shall only say this once – I knew all the men we lost at Ostagar. I knew their names. I knew where they lived. I knew their families. I know exactly how much was lost that day. Do you? Or are your only regrets for a fool king who was willing to slaughter good men for the sake of a children's fable?"
"That's enough, both of you," Moira interjected. She had decided it was best to let them get their mutual animosity out of their systems, but it was clear that this particular argument would never be resolved. Also – though Moira was not quite prepared to admit such a thing out loud – she valued the opportunity to hear Loghain explain his motives for his decision at Ostagar, a decision which she had always assumed – thanks to his inexplicable decision to frame her and Alistair as the 'king's murderers,' and his subsequent, increasingly erratic actions – had been motivated by a desire to usurp power for himself. But ever since she'd had a chance to get to know him, her expectations had entirely been turned on their head. He was not the vainglorious, heartless monster she'd been led to believe – he was just a man, trying to do what he thought was right, and sometimes failing. Could she really claim to be so different?
"My apologies, Moira," he said, sounding, to her surprise, sincere. "Come now, madam. Our bitterness is better spent on the darkspawn than each other."
"Of course," Wynne replied sarcastically. "Maker forbid that I should waste any bitterness on you."
Shaking her head, Moira indicated the gate that led into the fortress courtyard. "The king's chest should be through here," she said. "Let us retrieve his correspondence and whatever else remains, and then we shall be gone from this place."
"And not a moment too soon," Loghain added darkly.
Moira advanced slowly, her senses heightened, prepared for an ambush. The courtyard was as quiet as the approach had been, though signs of the darkspawn were everywhere – discarded weapons, gruesome totems, corpses cruelly trussed up on display. It was hard to believe that a mighty army had once camped here, trained here, fought here, died here. The ghosts of the dead were an oppressive force, weighing down on her. She shivered again despite the sun warming her face, and ran a hand through her braided hair, hoping her nerves were not as evident to the others as they felt to her.
"I feel them too." Loghain's voice was soft, meant only for her, as he appeared suddenly at her side. "Their spirits are restless. Perhaps my presence upsets them. You should not have brought me here."
She gave him a curious look – she had never pegged Loghain as a superstitious sort. "You can't really believe that," she said. "I'd think anyone's spirit would be restless after dying in a doomed battle with the darkspawn. I don't think… I don't think Wynne is the most objective party when it comes to what happened here."
"And you are? How is it you do not share her hatred for my actions here, particularly after I took the opportunity to cast the blame for the disaster on you and your fellow Warden?" His pale blue eyes searched her face wonderingly, and she flushed under his gaze.
"I never said I wasn't angry about that part. You caused me a lot of trouble, you know, and sent more of your men to their deaths trying to stop me." She frowned. "Why did you do that, anyway?"
Loghain harrumphed. "The nobility needed a scapegoat for the crushing defeat and the loss of Cailan. Maker forbid I'd told them that the king died because of his own rank stupidity. I needed a villain, and the Grey Wardens fit the role nicely, what with your Orlesian commander and his refusal to be remotely of use in dissuading Cailan from his suicidal grab for glory."
"Duncan wasn't Orlesian," she said. "Not that I'm defending him, otherwise – his insistence on secrecy made a bad situation worse. But Alistair and I are Fereldan. You could have reached out to us. There was no need to be enemies."
"I think we already saw just how willing your Alistair was to work with me," Loghain said wryly. "If it matters, I did not blame you personally. You were merely a convenient target. Knowing what I know now, I… would do things differently."
"I – thank you, I think." Loghain merely smiled at her in response, and she was left once again wondering just how the man could affect her so deeply with so few words.
A tattered, stained purple flag fluttered in the breeze, and Moira's heart clenched as she realized it was the royal standard, still doggedly serving sentry at Cailan's tent. Whatever her feelings about Cailan, it saddened her that a king of Ferelden had met such a horrifying, lonely end, with no one left to mourn him. If Loghain was similarly affected, he did not show it.
"Here we are," she said. "Let us secure the king's belongings. If we see his body, then we will lay him to rest, but I don't want to spend any longer here than we have to."
Cailan's tent had been reduced to shreds by the elements and the darkspawn, and scattered within was the detritus of an army on campaign – discarded blades, stray pieces of armor, the odd bit of wood or fabric that had once belonged to some implement of war long destroyed. A sturdy oak chest, secured in place by a hefty bronze lock, still stood intact at the rear of the tent, a few deep-scored marks on its side the only indication of damage.
"That must be where the king's correspondence was kept." Moira pulled the solid key out of a pouch at her hip and fitted it into the lock. The lock was a bit worse for wear after months of exposure to the naked elements, and the key did not at first want to turn; but at last, the pins within the lock gave, and it sprang open. Lifting the lid of the chest with a somber sense of respect, she spied inside relatively few items – a sheaf of documents, a small jewelry box, and a wrapped bundle that looked to be a weapon of some sort.
She felt Loghain hovering close behind her shoulder as she picked up the documents, which appeared to be personal letters. The first letter was written in flowery, feminine handwriting. Moira blushed as she felt Loghain peering over her shoulder to read the letter for himself – she somehow felt like an intruder, violating the privacy of a family moment. But she quickly realized that the letter had not been written by Anora. It was addressed to "His Majesty King Cailan of Ferelden," and promised –
"The might of Orlais?" Loghain quoted, sounding equally outraged and vindicated. "Legions of chevaliers accompanying the Grey Wardens? I knew it! I knew that little fool was ready to open the floodgates to an Orlesian army, and I was right! Chevaliers in Ferelden! Did he know how much was sacrificed to drive those masked barbarians from our lands? Did he learn nothing from his father, his mother, from anyone? To allow the Empress of Orlais free rein to send an Orlesian invasion force under the guise of 'reinforcements'? The war would have been over without a single skirmish!"
"You are blinded by your hatred," Wynne admonished. "A true Blight will not stop with Ferelden – left unchecked, it will threaten all of Thedas!"
"Yes, and what better opportunity for Orlais to strike than amidst such chaos?" Loghain retorted. "You are a fool if you think that Celene's assistance would come without a price."
Moira stared at the flowery handwriting for several long moments. The request was innocuous enough – a plea for peace, to set aside a history of animosity and work together to face an enemy that threatened both Ferelden and Orlais. But she could not disagree with Loghain's logic – what would have happened once Orlais' feared chevaliers were firmly ensconced on Fereldan soil? She had not lived through the occupation, but she knew, from her father's stories and the history lessons Brother Aldous had given her, that it had been brutal, and that it had taken many decades for the Fereldans to at last gain the upper hand on the chevaliers, who had been ruthless and skilled in equal measure. To invite such an ancient, bitter foe into their lands again, and merely hope that history would not repeat itself, seemed to her a grave folly.
"We don't know that Cailan agreed to her request," she said carefully, as she shuffled the letter to the bottom of the pile. "Perhaps he declined her after all."
"Or perhaps, had he lived, he would have opened the border and doomed us all." Loghain's tone left no doubt about which of the two options he believed more likely.
The second letter was written in handwriting now familiar to her, and she recognized it at once as Arl Eamon's spidery script. Eamon presciently foresaw that Cailan's death would plunge Ferelden into chaos; he also reiterated his claim that Anora was barren and that Cailan should put her aside. She felt Loghain stiffen in outage behind her.
"That old fool never stopped to consider that perhaps it was his nephew who was shooting untipped arrows," Loghain muttered darkly.
"Loghain!" Wynne gasped. "You are in the presence of ladies! Must you be so crude?"
Moira stifled a snigger. Crude or no, Loghain had a valid point. She recalled her discussions with Anora, before the Landsmeet, when Anora had sought Moira's continued support for her reign; Moira had asked her, gingerly, about the rumors of her infertility, and Anora too had implied that perhaps Cailan had been the 'problem,' as it were – especially in light of the lack of any royal bastards, given that Anora had implied that Cailan did not adhere to a strict interpretation of his marriage vows. That such a possibility had never occurred to such august nobility as Eamon betrayed either a lack of willingness to confront uncomfortable truths, or another agenda at play. Regardless, that Eamon wished Cailan to set aside Anora was not news to her, not given the letters Loghain had presented to her from Highever. She picked up the last letter in the bundle – it, unlike the others, was clearly unofficial, and lacked any formal seal. It was also creased and wrinkled, as though it had been crumpled in a haste by its reader before being smoothed out and refolded.
Cailan,
The visit to Ferelden will be postponed indefinitely, due to the darkspawn problem. You understand, of course? The darkspawn have odd timing, don't they? Let us deal with them first. Once that is done we can further discuss a permanent alliance between Orlais and Ferelden.
The handwriting was the same flowery, feminine script as the first letter – the author could only be Empress Celene.
"That cheating bastard!" Loghain raged, and before she had even quite finished reading the letter, he had spun away in a fury, lashing out with his boot to kick over a pile of rusty daggers, which scattered across the ground with a cacophonous crash. "Was it not enough that he dallied with serving wenches and painted whores in Denerim? His betrayal was so complete that he planned to take up with that Orlesian bitch?"
"Loghain! Mind yourself!" Wynne exclaimed.
"I will not, madam! You can read as well as I! Do you deny now that his relations with Orlais go far beyond the innocent? He betrayed my daughter and all of Ferelden! A 'permanent alliance' with Orlais? He would have accomplished with one stroke of a pen what eighty years and an army of chevaliers could not! And for what? All so that peacock could strut about and call himself an emperor?"
"It is damning, Wynne," Moira agreed. "If Cailan had married Celene, do you really think Orlais would have been content to allow Ferelden its autonomy? We would have become just another imperial province. My father fought to liberate our country, and so did Teryn Loghain, and King Maric and Queen Rowan. I cannot believe that Cailan would have treated their sacrifices so lightly."
Wynne glared at Moira and Loghain in turn, seeing that she was outnumbered. "And what of peace?" she challenged. "Is your hatred of Orlais so deep that you cannot fathom such a thing? I understand that Loghain is incapable of being rational where Orlais is concerned, but I am disappointed in you, Moira. Grey Wardens are supposed to set aside political allegiances for the good of all."
"I never asked to be a Grey Warden," Moira rejoined bitterly. "I was not given a choice. I was born and raised the daughter of a teryn of Ferelden, and I will not set aside my loyalties because Duncan conscripted me against my will." A dark, foreboding prickle tingled within her, an ominous sense of doom that pressed at the back of her skull, but Wynne's angry retort cut through her apprehension.
"Young lady, you are a Grey Warden whether you like it or not! You might as well accept your fate! Complaining and wishing otherwise will change nothing! Duncan was a good man, whether you want to believe it or not – and thanks to Loghain's betrayal of your order, this Blight has gone unchecked for far longer than it should have."
"Duncan's obsession with secrecy is the reason we are in this mess to begin with!" Moira retorted, the uneasiness rising within her as her blood began to stir. "He knew with certainty that we faced a Blight, but he was more concerned with keeping Grey Warden secrets than in giving such information to Cailan, or to Loghain! Had they truly understood what we faced, perhaps things would have been different, but they had no way of knowing for certain that the darkspawn were harbingers of a Blight – all because Duncan placed the Order above the safety of Ferelden!"
"I know you resent Duncan for what you think he did to you the night your family died, but – "
"Shut up!" Moira shouted, the black, malicious presence now overpowering.
"Excuse me?" Wynne demanded. "I will not be –"
"Be silent, old woman! They are here, somewhere." She heard Loghain's voice through the pounding in her skull. He sensed it too – of course.
"We need to leave. Now." Moira said. Her taint burned in such proximity to the vile fiends, far stronger than it had at any time since she had been in the Deep Roads. There were many of them, and they were moving fast. More than their small party could hope to fight off on their own.
"Agreed," Loghain said briskly. "You see, Wynne – a wise warrior knows that quitting the field in the face of overwhelming odds is the only way to survive to fight another day."
"It is not the same, and you know it, Loghain." But Wynne's heart had finally gone out of the fight, and as Moira gathered up the contents of the king's chest, the party lapsed into silence as they quickly retreated across the courtyard and back to the bridge across the chasm. As they moved, she felt the raging in her taint growing fainter, as though the darkspawn were – for whatever reasons of their own – unwilling to leave the graveyard that was the battlefield. As they retreated across the bridge, she knew that they were safe, at least for the moment being.
"Oh, Maker. Cailan. No."
The voice belonged to Wynne, and was so riven by grief that Moira's heart went out to the old mage, in spite of their recent sparring. She followed Wynne's gaze to the side of the bridge, where a grotesque darkspawn totem had been constructed, the centerpiece of which was the crucified, naked body of the king, trussed up on display as a warning or a cruel joke – whatever the possible motivations for such soulless beasts as the darkspawn could be.
Moira's stomach wrenched in revulsion, and she saw that Loghain, regardless of whatever his feelings for Cailan might have been, looked ill at the sight. Wynne sniffed loudly, and brought her hands to her face, wiping away tears, and – to their credit – everyone in the party remained quiet, allowing her a moment of private mourning.
I think Loghain was right about you, Moira thought as she regarded the desecrated corpse of the king. You were a fool, and you would have damned Ferelden with your naiveté. But you deserved better than this.
"Well?" Wynne said abruptly, her grief-stricken voice tinged with anger as she turned to glare at Loghain, as if holding him directly responsible for the ghastly vision before them. "Spit out your venom and get it over with, Loghain."
Loghain furrowed his brows in a deep frown, and even he appeared taken aback by Wynne's hostility. "He may have been a fool, but he doesn't deserve to be strung up like this. No one does."
"No," Moira said, interjecting before Wynne could respond. "Take him down. We will build a pyre for him, as befits a king of Ferelden." Loghain curled his lip, as though he were about to say something, but seemed to think better of it. Moira positioned herself on one side of the king's body, and Loghain on the other, and, using their daggers, they cut him down and lowered him to the ground gently. She directed the others to search the nearby woods for kindling, and as they constructed a makeshift pyre, Moira looked down at the face of the king, so young and so feckless, even in death. She had never realized just how startlingly he resembled Alistair, and the sight of her friend's face, caked in his own dried blood, brought a tight lump to her throat. Her thoughts a wicked jumble, she strode away towards the tree line as Wynne and Leliana dragged Cailan gently over to the pyre, Wynne lighting it with a soft burst of magical fire. Moira sat down heavily, the exhaustion of the day overwhelming her, and she gazed indirectly at the guttering flames. She heard a pair of heavy footsteps approaching, and she was unsurprised to see Loghain's silhouette in the shadows as he sat down next to her.
She felt his eyes on her in the deepening twilight, and after several moments of silence, he snorted softly. "A grand funeral pyre for the fallen king. You should have thrown roses and waxed poetic about what a great leader he might have been had he not thrown himself on the swords of the advancing darkspawn."
"You object even to a proper burial for him?" She regarded him with surprise. He had been affected by the king's ill-use just as she had – she had seen it in his eyes. "Is your animosity so great that you would deny him even this final dignity?"
"And where are the pyres for the other men and women who died here?" His voice was soft, but defiant. "Where are their proper burials, their dignified farewells? Or do they deserve to be left to the darkspawn's mercies because they had the misfortune to lack royal blood?"
"You know that is not what I believe."
"Perhaps not. Still, every soldier who died here on Cailan's command deserves a pyre more than he. Even your Warden Duncan deserves such an honor more. Whatever else he might have been, he was a true warrior. Cailan believed that war was a boy's adventure story, and he died for it. A fool's self-inflicted death is not a tragedy. The tragedy is how many good souls followed him to his grave."
They lapsed into silence, the crackling of the flames their only company. Returning to Ostagar had raised as many questions as it had answered – how long had the secret plans between Cailan and Celene being going on? Had Eamon known of the full extent – had it been he who had encouraged Cailan to set aside Anora specifically to make room for a match to the Orlesian empress? If so, then the letter he had written to her father must be read in a new light. Moira shuddered to imagine that Eamon had very nearly drawn her father into such a dangerous game. Her father would never have consented to a marriage "alliance" between Orlais and Ferelden, she knew it. The peace was barely older than she was – did Eamon, Cailan, and their like really believe that Orlais did not resent its defeat, did not hunger for past glories? At least now she had proof that Loghain had not been entirely paranoid and irrational in his fear of an Orlesian ploy. She thought of how cannily Eamon had used her, playing upon her sympathetic friendship with Alistair to manipulate her loyalties. At least she now had proof of that, too.
"I can't believe I ever trusted him," she said.
Loghain raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Who, Cailan? He was the king. You need not fault yourself for your loyalty."
"No, Eamon. He spun me a whole sob story about how Ferelden could only be united with a Theirin on the throne, that peace would only come if Alistair were crowned king, even though Alistair wanted nothing to do with his heritage and never has. But all that time, he was moving behind the scenes to secure an 'alliance' with Orlais, under the authority of a king who would rely on him as a most trusted advisor." She cast a glance askance at him. "Of course, you had befriended Howe and were busy trying to kill me, so I really had no other options, did I?"
Loghain huffed an impatient sigh. "I believe I already told you I would have done things differently, if I had known – "
"If you had known what?" she challenged. "If you had known that I was not an Orlesian agent? I am a loyal Fereldan, Loghain. You knew my father. You should have known better."
"Yes, I should have!" His voice broke with anger, but Moira did not flinch – she sensed that his anger was self-directed, not aimed towards her. "I should have known better about a great many things! The farther I move from the chaotic events after Ostagar, the more I become aware of the magnitude of my errors. I will not wallow in self-pity, Moira, but do not mistake my refusal to dwell on the past as a refusal to admit my mistakes. No one is more aware of what I have done wrong than I. But I cannot change what has already happened. I can undo nothing. All I can do is move forward and hope that I will have the opportunity to atone for some of what I have done, in service to my country. That is all I have ever wanted."
His blunt, unexpected admission rendered her momentarily mute. Loghain was a soldier's soldier, trained never to show weakness or vulnerability in the face of the enemy, and Moira began to wonder whether he had been wearing his armor for so long that he'd forgotten how to live without it. Impulsively, she tugged off a gauntlet, and placed her hand on his shoulder, the metal of his silverite plate cool against her hand.
"It is a brave thing, to admit when one is wrong," she said quietly. "You have my respect."
He harrumphed, plainly uncomfortable with her sincere praise, but he reached up to his shoulder to place his own still-gauntleted hand on hers. "And you have mine." He chuckled softly. "If you had told me even a month ago that I would one day consider you a friend, I would have laughed in your face. It seems it is the Maker who has the greatest sense of humor, after all."
"Perhaps so." His gauntlet was cold on her bare hand, but she did not want to move, to break the spell. Cailan's pyre blazed into the night, shedding a soft, intimate light across the field and glinting softly off of Loghain's silver armor. Her other hand reached down, to adjust a stray leather strap against her side, when it brushed against a solid package, lying beneath the bundle of documents. The wrapped parcel from Cailan's chest. Her curiosity took over as she removed her hand from Loghain's shoulder and brought the package to her lap.
"What is that?" he asked. "Was that from Cailan's chest?"
"It was. It seems to be a weapon of some sort. I wonder why he did not have it with him during the battle?" She unwrapped it carefully, revealing a stunningly-wrought sword of dwarven craftsmanship, with a blade of finely-hewn dragonbone, inlaid with glowing runes, and a hilt of softly curved gold. It was one of the finest weapons she had ever seen.
"Maker!" Loghain breathed. "That's Maric's sword! I haven't seen it in years!"
"Maric's sword?" Moira hefted it to better examine it in the firelight – the blade was feather-light, and the balance was perfect. "Why in the Maker's name would Cailan not have taken such a fine blade into battle? Especially if it belonged to his father?"
"I do not know. Cailan had not truly admitted me into his confidence for years," Loghain admitted. "I think he disliked being reminded of his father's legend. He felt inadequate to it, in many ways. It does not surprise me that he would hide away even a sword such as this, if it served as yet another measure of his failure to live up to his father's deeds."
"Of course he couldn't live up to his father's deeds!" Moira exclaimed. "Maric freed Ferelden from the Orlesians – there was no such war for Cailan to fight!"
"And now perhaps you better understand why he was so taken with the heroic mythology of the Grey Wardens, and why he so hungered for glory at the head of an army that he seized at the first chance that presented itself to throw himself at the darkspawn." Loghain's eyes drifted to the pyre, the flickering light casting shadows across his brow. "Stupid boy. Why didn't you just listen?"
There seemed to be no response to that, and so Moira sat back, her shoulder resting lightly against Loghain's as they watched the flames in companionable silence.
"I want you to have it," she said, her hand brushing the hilt of the sword.
"What?" Loghain at first seemed confused as to what she meant, until he noticed her hand resting against Maric's sword. "No. Absolutely not."
"And why not?" she said, picking up the fine blade. "I already have a sword that suits me well. And you knew him, fought with him. If anyone should carry this blade, it is you. Take it."
"After everything that has happened, you think me worthy of Maric's sword?" Loghain stared incredulously at her. "Maric united Ferelden. I almost tore it apart."
Her eyes met Loghain's in the firelight. "You were his friend. He trusted you. He must have seen something in you that was worthy of that trust."
"And I have repaid him in fine form, haven't I?" He stood abruptly, turning his back to her. "No, Moira. You deserve that blade far more than I. You brought Ferelden back together after I nearly destroyed it. If anyone is Maric's worthy heir, it is you."
She was thankful that her blush was concealed by the darkness. "Such words carry weight coming from you. Thank you," she said. "But I do not believe you are so unworthy as you think. You were once a man Maric respected more than any other. Be that man again, the man he knew you to be."
"Why? Why does this matter so much to you?" He rounded on her, pale eyes blazing in the dim firelight. "Why do I matter so much to you?"
"Because you are more than the sum of your mistakes!" she said heatedly. "Yes, you were wrong about many things. Yes, you made some dreadful decisions. But there is no one here –" she flung an arm out in the general direction of her companions – "who can claim that they have always done the right thing. Everyone here has made mistakes, everyone here has regrets. Even me." Especially me, she thought ruefully. "I refuse to believe that the poor decisions of a few months erase a lifetime of good deeds. You are a good man, Loghain. You just need to start acting like it."
"You don't know me, Moira." His voice was brittle and rough, and Moira realized that at some point in the past several minutes, they had moved closer together, so that he was now a mere arm's length away.
"I would like to," she said, taking a bold step closer, and reaching out to place her bare hand against his arm. "If you would let me."
Her breath caught in her chest as he inched towards her, his rugged, hawkish features cast in chiaroscuro in the flickering light of the pyre. His eyes held hers and did not waver, and she felt rather than saw him nudge closer, his nose mere inches from hers.
"Moira, this – "
"Hush," she whispered, and she lowered her gaze from his eyes to his lips. Her own lips were suddenly dry, and as she flitted her tongue across them, she heard him hiss, a sudden intake of breath so close she could feel the air move between them –
"Hey, you two! Whatever Grey Warden business is goin' on over there in the shadows can wait. We're ready to move and make camp. No one wants to sleep next to this sodding place, and I can't blame 'em!"
Moira jerked away from Loghain like a puppet whose strings had been tugged, and she mentally invoked every curse she knew, in every language, for that thrice-damned dense-as-bricks dwarf.
"Yes, of course," Loghain said briskly, as if nothing had happened. "Your pyre seems ready to burn itself out, and we needn't tarry here any longer."
"Yes, we should set camp soon." Still cursing Oghren for ruining whatever had happened between her and Loghain, she quickly gathered up the items from Cailan's chest. Loghain had begun moving back towards the rest of her companions, but she stilled him with a hand on his shoulder. When he turned around to face her, eyebrow cocked inquisitively, she thrust Maric's blade into his hands.
"This is yours," she said. "I won't take no for an answer." She began walking away before he could argue, moving into the light of the dying pyre where her companions waited for her.
Behind her, she heard him scoff in astonishment.
"You are a stubborn woman, you know that, don't you?"
She smiled as she left him behind in the shadows to wonder exactly what had changed between them.
A/N: And here is the promised second half of my marathon Ostagar chapter, this time with plot advancement! I don't have such a clear timeline for completing chapter 7, but rest assured I will get to work on it as soon as possible and hopefully it will be posted soon!
Another great big thank you to all my reviewers, followers, and readers! Your support truly matters - it's so heartening knowing that there are people out there who are as invested in this story, and in the adventure of Loghain and Moira, as I am! Hearing from each of you truly makes my day. And another big thanks to my fantastic beta EasternViolet, who keeps me on track and provides invaluable feedback.