A/N Angst rears its ugly head.


Kya really should have not been surprised, but Zevran was not helping matters any.

It was still more than a week to Amarathine, and it was hard enough even making eye contact with Loghain after her incredibly forward promise. Whenever she caught his eyes, she found herself blushing furiously. Loghain was holding up little better, but instead of being flustered, he was clearly getting frustrated and had found a reason to argue with nearly everyone that crossed his path.

"My, my," Zevran purred into her ear as she tried to casually sent up her tent. "I am not sure exactly what music is playing between the two of you, but I do recognize the tune." Kya gave him her new standard, a long suffering look. She'd learned that particular expression from Loghain.

"Do you think you could try to keep the innuendo to yourself?" she asked pointlessly, knowing that he couldn't.

Zevran gave her a very dirty smile and then turned to look at Loghain who had busied himself tending to the horses. He turned back to Kya.

"You know," he said, wagging his eyebrows suggestively. "There is lovely pool in a grotto by the river here that many of your Grey Wardens have taken to bathing in. It is very quiet and secluded, and I do believe the rest have already finished their ablutions. It should be deserted by now."

"I'm sure," Kya sighed. "So secluded that you can probably tell me which of the others have birthmarks."

"I promise I won't look," Zevran replied putting his hand over his heart in a mock salute. "Although I cannot guarantee I will not listen."

"I don't trust you as far as I can throw you Zev," Kya growled, although she knew her ears had turned a brilliant shade of red under her hair.

"Or," Zevran said, gesturing subtly with his eyes, "You can watch instead, if you do not wish to partake."

Kya followed Zevran's eyes. Loghain was talking to one of the Orlesian Grey Wardens, Johan, if she was remembering correctly. He was just barely older than Kya herself, with pale yellow hair and rather shocking green eyes, but his face was deeply scarred and it gave him a fearsome appearance. Loghain seemed to like him just because of that. Although Kya was fairly certain that his bland accent didn't hurt matters.

Johan's hair was wet. He pointed towards the river, and Loghain nodded. He slapped Johan on his bare shoulder in that singularly masculine way when two men are discovering they might like to be friends. And then Loghain walked off in the direction of the river, swinging one of his saddlebags over his shoulder. The particular bag that she knew he kept his clothes in. Which meant Johan had told Loghain about the pool, just as Zevran told her. And that the opportunity Zevran so lasciviously suggested was about to present itself.

Kya thought she might die just thinking about it.

She was reminded of nights sneaking about the tower, peeking around screens and trying to get a look at the Templars. They may not have been nice to her, but they were often very nice to look at. Luckily she'd never been caught, but once Jowan found out he teased her mercilessly for weeks.

Oh Maker, Jowan.

Any urge she had to do something inappropriate fled. Zevran was still watching her and saw the change in her expression. He looked serious suddenly, which was rare enough that she knew she must have looked unhappy indeed.

"Mia Cara," he said, reaching out and putting his hand on her arm. "I did not mean to upset you. I thought . . . ."

"It's not that Zev, although if looking sad is what I have to do to get you to behave, I'll have to keep that in mind." She tried to sound joking, but she could tell he didn't believe a word of it. But Zevran was useless when it came to this sort of thing, and he knew it. He gave her a last sad smile and slipped away.

Kya went back to struggling with her tent. She tried very hard to focus on the ropes and the canvas, but it didn't seem to be helping. It seemed to take forever to get the thing to stand, even though she'd done it hundreds of times before.

She wondered when Jowan would stop being her most vulnerable spot. He had been for so long, but she expected that once it was over, and he was gone . . . but it wasn't any easier. It was always the one thing the other apprentices could use to hurt her. And they would. They knew that insulting and abusing Kya herself had no effect. They could say whatever they wanted about her and she'd brush it off with hardly a reaction.

She assumed they were jealous. Jealous that she was talented and powerful and Irving's pet. And she was right.

But Jowan; he always struggled. Spells that Kya could cast at ten, took him until he was fifteen to master. And when they were tested against the Templars, as much to test the Templars ability to drain mana as to test the mages, Jowan was always sick for a week. Kya didn't like the feeling much herself, but in a few hours she'd be back to normal. But he would scramble to cast for days after that.

So they abused him mercilessly. And maybe they would have done it anyway, but Kya always suspected that her violent reactions to their tender mercies were as much a catalyst for their abuse as Jowan himself was.

But it was only one of many things she felt guilty about, when it came to Jowan.

Kya flopped down on the ground in front of her tent once she'd finally managed to get it to stand. She rummaged through her pack. Tucked into the bottom she found what she was looking for. It was a shard of glass, wrapped in a piece of fabric torn from the bottom of her robes. A piece of glass no one knew she had. A tiny piece of glass from Jowan's shattered phylactery.

There was still the stain of his blood on it. Kya wondered at how it never seemed to wear away, no matter how long it had been jostled about in its cloth covering. But it looked as if the glass was going to be colored red forever. Blood that was rightfully on her hands.

She betrayed him, for what she thought was justice. And now he was dead.


Loghain reappeared just as the sun had finally disappeared behind the trees. His hair was still wet and his thin linen shirt stuck to his damp skin. The pale fabric outlined the chiseled lines of his torso and his impressive shoulders where they tapered down to his narrow waist. It was a pleasing enough sight; it was easy to forget he was thirty years older than she when he looked like that. Kya only wished she was still in a mood to appreciate it.

He found his way over to her hesitantly. It hadn't been easy, talking together with the new expectation between them. But at the moment, that tension was the last thing on her mind. She almost wished for a good case of fervent blushing. At least that didn't hurt so bad.

Loghain sat down beside her and Kya looked over at him. He did really look very handsome now, with his hair all loose and that astonishing expression he'd taken to wearing when he looked at her. But she looked away and back to the little piece of glass still cradled in her hands.

"What's that?" Loghain asked.

Kya looked back up at him. No one knew about how weak Jowan made her feel. Not even Loghain, not even after he stood with her when Jowan died. She wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know about it. But he was looking at her so earnestly, and he had told her things that she was certain that not even Anora knew.

If she was going to trust him, she might as well do it all the way.

"It's a piece of glass, from Jowan's phylactery," she admitted, taking a deep breath. "I took it after he broke it when he tried to escape from the tower. Right before I tried to deliver him into Greagoir's hands."

Loghain didn't reply, he just watched her. His face was carefully blank.

"You know, I just thought they were going to make him Tranquil. And I knew there was no getting out of it for him. You only have three choices as a mage that walks through the doors of the tower. You take your Harrowing, you become Tranquil, or you die." She sighed and her chest felt tight. "I just thought that if I went through with helping them, then Lily would be punished too. It was all her fault, after all. No matter what I did, Jowan was going to be a Tranquil. Even if it horrified him."

"I've never understood what that means, being Tranquil," Loghain said. "I have seen them, of course, very quiet and efficient. I know they don't have access to magic, but that is all."

"They don't have access to the Fade anymore," Kya explained. "They take dreams and emotions when they take the magic. The thought scared Jowan to death. Enough that he almost killed a half dozen Templars, First Enchanter Irving and me to escape it. I really didn't think he had it in him."

"And then I found him, or I found the Templars that had captured him, to be precise," Loghain said. His voice was emotionless.

Kya looked over at him again. It had been easy to forget about that part. And a lot of other things in recent days. This Loghain seemed so far removed from the man involved in all those plots and twists, that she almost willed herself to forget about them. As if all of that had just been a nightmare. But it was a bad idea to forget those things. They were a much a part of him as her dark parts – blood magic, cold pragmatism and selfishness – were a part of her.

If Loghain had been a different kind of man, she expected he might apologize for the role he played in Jowan's destruction. But he wasn't a different man. It was a harsh decision he'd made, but one she expected he only regretted for it's failure in the end.

He was who he was, after all.

"I betrayed Jowan," she said. "I made this happen. I forced Jowan's hand. You would have never had the opportunity if I had not. All out of some twisted sense of justice."

"Justice is harsh; it always is," Loghain said. "I watched Maric kill the woman he loved, while she wept and cried out his name. But it was justice, and it had to be done."

"Katriel," Kya said. "The elven spy that was sent to betray him to the Orlesian king?"

He nodded. "And I watched while a piece of Maric died with her. After that night, our friendship was never the same again. But if he had not done it, he would have been a poor and a ineffectual king."

"Maybe," Kya replied. "But if she had lived, maybe Rowan and . . . ."

He cut her off. "No," he said quickly. "Rowan was Maric's queen, I always knew that."

"Don't you regret at all?" she asked.

Loghain fell silent at that. She felt something cold creep around her, like a silent wind bringing in the unmerciful depths of winter. A wall leapt up between them, solid and unyielding.

"No," he said. "And yes."

"I regret," Kya said. "But yet, when I think about it, there was no other way." She exhaled sharply. "I don't know how to reconcile it in my head."

"If you figure it out," Loghain said, his voice pensive and quiet. "Let me know."

The cold seemed to wane a bit. Kya leaned over against Loghain, and he slipped his arm around her back. The wall between them crumbled again.

"We are quite the pair, aren't we?" she commented. Loghain nodded in wordless agreement.