"You lied to me," Kya snarled into the darkness.

"I told you not to trust him," Sigrun intoned in a self-righteous voice. Kya swung her head around to glare at her. She almost lunged forward, forgetting bonds of friendship and Grey Warden camaraderie. But Sigrun didn't back down, despite seeing what Kya's magic had done to the smoking ruin of the broodmother. Finally grabbing hold of her sanity, Kya took a step back.

Of course, Sigrun had warned her and Kya knew she should do better at controlling her temper, dead darkspawn and pools of blood notwithstanding. The dwarf had not been happy when Kya had agreed to work with the Architect, instead of dispatching him. Honestly, it had almost become a fight – Sigrun had pulled her weapon and Kya saw in her eyes that she was ready to fight Kya to do what she thought was right. It was only Oghren's quick reaction time that stopped the blade from flying and eventual return to sense on Sigrun's own behalf that saved her life. She was angry and she might never forgive Kya for sparing the Architect, but Legion of the Dead or not, suicide was pointless. She had to have realized that's what it was – even if Kya hadn't killed her, Nate certainly would have.

But the Mother was dead now and the Architect was gone and it was too late to change it now. Kya almost felt pity for the bloated thing; as if just being a mindless Broodmother, stinking of offal and spitting out darkspawn wasn't bad enough. She was madness personified, intended to be a mindless beast, suddenly regained of her senses. Once upon a time, the Mother had been a woman, a human woman. Maybe, she hadn't been so different from Kya – it stood to reason the darkspawn with magic had to have gotten it from somewhere. Wasn't a mage broodmother the most likely reason? It was a horrifying thought Kya did her best to push away. Now Kya stood staring angrily into the nothingness of the Deep Roads, knowing this Architect thing could hear her but was refusing to respond.

It was the Architect's fault; the Blight. It was his meddling that woke the Archdemon. It was his...fault...though Kya was having an oddly hard time blaming him. She'd never been terribly political in anything, despite being raised in the tower, hotbed of dissension that it was. But Anders...Maker, he was always going on about the plight of mages and Kya couldn't help but see the parallels. It wasn't the darkspawn's fault, even if she believed what the Chantry said. They themselves were just victims of a curse, and was it really so wrong to want to free them?

The thought was somewhat disturbing. She was a Grey Warden after all. It was her job to exterminate darkspawn. Her skin crawled when they were near her and maybe it was a sign she should go on her own Calling, but damned if she didn't feel sorry for them. In the distance, she heard a scratching sound that snapped her back to attention, followed by a familiar soft voice.

"I understand why you do not trust me," the architect's slippery and disembodied voice said. "It is for the same reason that I could not trust you with the truth. Whether you believe further is your choice." His voice had a metallic echo, as if he was inside a metal dome. "But I will continue to help you, if you will not impede what we must do. I will keep my brethren from ... plaguing you if only to protect them. For now...but do not mistake me," he paused with a tone of utter finality. "I will not allow you to end us. We deserve to exist as much as you."

And then he was gone. Kya knew there was no point in replying, and she was too busy trying to swallow her heart to say anything. Whatever pity she felt had been quickly drowned by fear. The Architect was determined to find a way to set the darkspawn free, and she had let him live. Maker, what had she done? Kya's brain was reeling. No one spoke in the eerie silence and the only sound was a faintly wet sound of the broodmother's blood dripping from her corpse to the stones below.

It was Sigrun who gathered herself to speak first. Perhaps she could read the expression on Kya's face, but her tone was far less accusatory than Kya would have expected.

"Come on," she said finally. "Let's get out of here before the smell kills us. We can talk about how stupid you are later."

Kya closed her eyes and took a breath, pursing her lips. Andraste preserve her, but she wanted to plant the hilt of her sword into that smug little dwarf's face. She would have thought that by now, these moronic, idiotic cretins would have known better than to keep poking at her. Despite her best efforts to tamp it down, even Kya herself could smell the waft of copper through the stench of the darkspawn ichor. Her vision swam. Her mind provided images to match of both blood and steel.

Her hand moved, just a hairsbreadth, when she felt a firm calloused palm wrap around her wrist. Kya automatically jerked her arm against the pressure, but the grip held fast.

"Kya," Nate's voice was an anchor against the waves of her temper. Her arm went limp.

"Yes, my idiocy is a topic for a different venue," Kya said, doing her best to keep her tone cool and even. Kya almost expected Sigrun to look pleased, but she just looked angry and…perhaps betrayed was the best word for it. Kya couldn't blame her. After all, the dwarf had lost all her compatriots to the darkspawn and now her new commander was making deals with them? Kya wasn't entirely sure she was even going to be able to explain it away to herself, now that the immediate threat was gone.

"Just go," Kya said, gesturing forward with the hand not in Nate's grasp. "I'll catch up."

Oghren gave her a nod and he quickly ushered Sigrun ahead of him. If anyone had told Kya that Oghren was going to become someone she could so depend on when she met him in Orzammar? She would have never believed it.

She watched them go with an odd expression on her face. There was a part of her that was jealous of the dwarves' casual relationship. Oghren made it clear he would never marry again – that Felsi was his last one – even if he'd left her. The Joining was more about that for him than anything else. And with Sigrun? In her mind, she was already dead. This thing between them was no different than a good meal or a cold ale; just a physical pleasure in a life with no other desires.

Kya turned to look at Nate over her shoulder. His hand was still firmly around her wrist, but at the touch of her eyes, his grip loosened a little, though he still didn't let go.

"You too," she said. She didn't want him to go, but Maker if he didn't deserve something better. "Go. Please."

"No." It wasn't so much an answer as a statement of fact. The look in his eyes made it clear he wasn't about to walk away. "I'm not leaving you here."

He had a point with that. In the state she was in, Kya was as likely to walk deeper in than back out again. She'd made so many questionablechoices; she hardly knew where to begin. Some she'd made peace with, but others seemed to rear up again and again. This business with the Architect made it abundantly clear that she wasn't suited to be Commander of even a group of rowdy school children and certainly not leader of the Ferelden Grey Wardens. Maybe she ended the Blight, but only by making a decision that might put this one to shame.

What exactly was Morrigan's baby going to be?

She'd clung to Morrigan's friendship so fiercely; she'd trusted her too much perhaps. And there was no way that wasn't going to come back to bite her and possibly everyone else in the ass. And now, she may have ended the fifth Blight but she'd just set loose a creature capable of starting the sixth.

"I don't know what you are thinking, but just don't." Nate's voice was calm but firm. "Let's get away from here. The taint is so strong here I can hardly think; I can only imagine what it's doing to you."

Kya didn't want to believe it. This wasn't the taint; this was guilt, well and surely deserved. She was so tired, so drained – the only way she could get away from him would be tapping his blood to fuel herself. She thought about it for a moment, actually imagined herself draining his life force and the immediately hated herself for it.

She turned her face away, unable to look at him after...after what sort of a horrible person was she? By Andraste, had she really had that atrocious thought? What sort of sick person thought of such a thing? She shuddered and pulled her wrist out of his hand. She took a few stumbling steps back and put her hand up like a ward as he moved toward her.

"Fine, I'll go," she said quickly. "Just don't. I...," she stammered a little. "Just don't touch me. Please. It's not safe."

Nate's brow furrowed at that, but he didn't press the issue.

"After you," he nodded, slinging his bow over his shoulder.

Kya didn't bother to hold her head up and pretend she felt strong. There was no one left to fool; not even herself.

The sky was grey outside and it was just beginning to drizzle, which was only fitting. Oghren and Sigrun had taken Kya's order seriously. She could see they had been there from the footprints that the rain was beginning to tamp down in the dust but there was no sign of them now. Their footprints led up and out of the valley, back towards the Vigil and life.

She stopped just outside the entrance of the ruin, glancing out over the bleached bones of the dragons, watching as the mist changed the brilliant white to a shade of glossy golden grey. It made them seem less like bones and more like carved bits of limestone. Maybe that's all they were after all, just oddly shaped bits of stone. It wouldn't be the first time the world looked and saw something that wasn't as it appeared. Sometimes, the myth of a place was powerful enough to overcome sense and everything else.

And maybe, sometimes a darkspawn that spoke might really just want to be free. Wasn't that what all living things wanted after all? She wouldn't let this Architect start another Blight, but that didn't mean she had to murder him for making a mistake. Kya immediately made a decision that she wasn't just going to let Morrigan be gone without a word. Kya was going to find her and make sure her child – Loghain's child – wasn't going to destroy the world. Knowing Morrigan, likely the child would just have bad manners. Kya smiled a bit at the thought of a child with her friend's acerbic mouth planted into an angelic face with Loghain's eyes.

Kya could feel the anger fading now and Maker bless him, but Nate was right about the taint influencing her thoughts. She began to feel like herself again – no second guessing herself. Mistakes? Well, they were as inevitable as the sun. But it did scare her a little, seeing how the taint had influenced her. She thought she was stronger than this. Maybe there was more than one reason to go see Morrigan. Her friend knew more about the taint and the darkspawn and about blood magic than she'd let on. Kya knew that now. It was possible...anything was possible.

If she'd only known what this taint was going do to her; if she'd known how it was going to twist her up and soak her in blood...to be entirely honest, Kya probably would have done everything exactly the same way. She took a deep breath and turned just as Nate appeared out of the shadowed mouth of the ruin behind her. Exactly the same way or she wouldn't have had this amazing life she'd had so far.

Nate's words came back to her in a rush.

Look, maybe you don't realize this, because it's come so easy for you, but most of us don't get loved at all. And you . . .Maker. . . the King of Ferelden and the Hero of River Dane loved you. Don't you get it? Not everyone gets those sort of chances. You got loved. Maybe you should think about that instead.

He wasn't just gorgeous, apparently.

Nate cocked his head at her, trying to gauge her somewhat bewildering expression. He took a few steps out into the open and glanced up at the sky, squinting against the fine mist. The droplets were obvious against the dark of his hair, giving him an odd halo of sorts from the disheveled strands that had escaped from under his braids during the battle.

He smiled a little, deciding apparently that Kya was no longer on the verge of going mad. If only he realized that she was starting to feel crazy in a different way, now that the oppressive voice of the taint was muted and the stone was under her feet instead of over her head.

"Nate, I," she started the sentence but wasn't sure how to continue. It was never this hard before – and maybe more than anything that was because unlike those before, as Nate so aptly put it the King of Ferelden and the Hero of River Dane, Kya always knew those were never going to be more than temporary.

It was only true of course that life itself was only temporary, especially for a Grey Warden, but this was different. They were young together. There was no titles, no lands, no heroic deeds standing between them. After this, what they chose to do was their own.

Kya had to see Morrigan, true, and Nate? She knew he would want to do what he could to redeem his name and undo the stain his father had placed on it. But these were their choices. Whatever came now, they would decide on their own and duty and guilt and everything else could be damned right to the Black City where they belonged.

"Once, you told me something really wise," Kya said finally, the ghost of a smile creeping into her eyes. "You said, some of us don't get loved,and I'm sure you meant yourself." She shook her head with merry eyes as she took the few steps to touch him. The furrow between his eyebrows was there again, encouraging her to continue. "And you know, it is true. Some people don't get loved and I can't even imagine how sad that must be. But Nate?"

"Hm?" he hummed questioningly, almost as if he didn't trust himself to say anything aloud.

"Youaren't one of those people," she continued. She smiled after being rewarded for her words with a slow smile that crept from one of Nate's ears to the other. "Thank you, for everything really, especially saving me from myself back there."

"Anytime," he grinned. "Besides, I should thank you as well. You saved me from myself too, once or twice."

"Maybe we should just keep that up, since we're getting good at it," Kya chuckled.

He reached out and cupped her face in his hand, his thumb running along the line of her jaw and stopping at her chin.

"You do know this will never be easy, and it will end with us down in the Deep Roads," he said, suddenly serious.

"I know," she said softly but not quite matching his somber tone. "But at least we'll do it together. Won't we?"

Nate smiled and nodded, yet his chin trembled just a little when he did. "I'd like that."

He kissed her.

At some point, the wind shifted and the mist blew itself out. The sun peeked a bit from between the heavy clouds, tinting them faintly with gold. The silence that had been as much a part of the place as the bones, it blew itself out too as tiny bids and creatures emerged now that the darkspawn and the rain were gone.

"I still don't know," Nate said against her mouth, his forehead resting on hers and the cadence of his heartbeat like music against the palm of her hand. "I know why I feel this way, but I just can't figure out how I got so lucky. I've hardly earned it."

"Nate?"

"Yes?"

"Just shut up and kiss me again."

His lips were warm, soft, gentle and just hesitant enough to let he know he was sincere. He really had no idea. She could go on forever about him and hardly get started with how perfect it felt standing there in his arms. With Alistair, she'd always taken the lead, always been the strong one. With Loghain, she let herself be passive, let him be her guide. But with Nate? Even considering his shyness, his blindness to his own value – he was her equal. When they stood together, they stood together. Kya pressed herself against him as best she could with the bulk of her armor between them before reluctantly pulling away.

She held her hand out to him.

"Come on," she said as he accepted her hand. "I'll tell you all about how wonderful you are on the way. It's a long walk, so it should be just long enough for me to tell you exactly why you're worth loving and then have enough time to convince you it's actually true."

He looked appropriately sheepish, which went promptly on to Kya's list of why she loved him.