"Men are too caught up in what happens outside themselves to ever truly hear the inner voice of the fade. And they do not look closely enough inside to understand why they do what they do."

No matter how he tried, Loghain could not get the voice of the witch out of his head. He'd left Kya laying peacefully asleep, so beautiful it nearly tore him apart to leave her there without a word. But he had nonetheless, and had rode hard, like a demon was on his heels, hoping to outrun the voice in his head. The voice that kept telling him that he'd lived a life that was little more than a long and bitter lie.

All Loghain wanted was peace. He might rail against the notion in words and deed, but if he let his guard down for only a moment, he knew wanted to be at peace and live a simple, quiet life. A unimportant existence that had been torn out of his hands before he'd even been old enough to know how much he wanted it.

The day those Orlesian bastards took his mother's honor, and her life.

From that moment on, he'd lived only for vengeance and anger and hatred. Now fate had dropped a moment of peace in his lap, and he ran from it like a coward. Very much like the coward he always feared he was, under all the bluster and vanity.

The bridge to Lothering appeared suddenly, tearing him out of his own head abruptly back into the reality. He yanked the reins sharply, trying to halt the lathered horse. The beast's hooves slipped against the smooth worn stone and they skidded to a stop, Loghain wrenching forward in the saddle and swinging down to the ground in one seamless motion. Leaving the horse standing idle, he stalked down the ramp towards the ruin of the village.

It wasn't really accurate to call it a village now. Graveyard was more apt.

Despite the months that had passed since the Blight ended, not a living thing stirred in the wreckage. Even the crows had moved on, finding all the bodies long since picked clean. Loghain remembered Lothering well; it was the first stop his army made after Ostagar. The chantry loomed in the distance, just a moldering shell. Ignoring the horror of the scene, he picked his way through the scattered bones and blackened earth.

He reached the steps of the chantry, or what had once been the chantry, and fell hard on to his knees on the stone steps. He bowed his head, letting his hair veil his face from the grey light seeping through the clouds.

In another lifetime, he'd stood on these self same steps and declared the Grey Wardens traitors to Ferelden and put a bounty on the head of the beautiful woman he'd left sleeping on the side of the road just hours before. A woman, Maker damn him, but a woman that he loved, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. But how dare he?

Perhaps she could forgive the assassin, Zevran, for his part. But he'd been tasked to the deed by Loghain. But could forgiveness really come so easily to woman with such a pragmatic soul? He doubted it very much. And so what was this thing that he was running away from, but just another lie; another delusion of vanity.

Loghain leaned forward, resting his hot forehead against the stone. This pain was all too familiar. But now there was nothing more to be done, no task to set his mind to, to tear him away from his melancholy. He was just a foolish child; a child who'd become an adult so young on the outside and yet where it mattered, had never left that tiny room where his mother died. The room where she screamed and ranted to the Maker to save her. The room where the Maker kept his face turned away.

The Maker let the world punish her, and die. And yet his crimes . . . what crime had his mother ever committed except birthing him? Crime indeed, considering the havoc he'd wrecked upon Ferelden and almost upon the woman he loved.

Love. What did he know about love?

And that damn voice, and those supposedly wise words, haunting him like the old woman was still there. As if she was standing right beside him, with the smug self serving look on her face. That all knowing look that he recalled from Maric's face when he returned from the Deep Roads. That might have been when he started to hate him, mixed with the adoration. Maric had the only thing Loghain had ever wanted for himself, and it wasn't the throne. Maric had Rowan's love and he took it for granted until it was gone.

To the Black City with power; he'd never wanted it. All he wanted was love, as trite and foolish as it sounded. But what man truly wanted anything else, when he was honest with himself? Yet when it had shown its face, he'd turned away. And he was doing it again.

"And they do not look closely enough inside to understand why they do what they do."

Loghain sat back on his heels, staring up at the remaining framework of the building, focusing his eyes on the round frame that once held rose colored glass. He blinked, remembering the way those windows always made the light inside a chantry red tinted. Like blood.

Clenching his hand into a ball, he drove his fist hard into the stone stairs. Then again, until the skin on his knuckles split. He reared his hand back, and hit the stone with full force, the wet sound of his flesh breaking against the rock the only sound in the unnatural stillness. He left his hand throbbing against the stone, dust and grime working its way under his skin, a smear of his blood looking wet against the dull, grey surface.

He had been baptized in blood and now his hands were forever stained with it. Not even the Maker could forgive him now.


She approached so quietly, so tentatively that Loghain hadn't even realized she was there until he felt the gentle touch of her hand against his face.

He'd somehow fallen asleep, curled against the stone. He had no idea how long he'd laid there, drowning in and choking on his own bitterness until sleep overtook him. But the sun was high up into the sky now, still pale through the thinning clouds. His neck ached and his eyes blurred as he blinked, trying to focus.

At first, he though she was a dream, backlit by the bright sun. Her hair was a copper halo around her shadowed face, tendrils curving along her cheeks and her neck. Like some sweet fade spirit come to take him. But his eyes focused eventually, and there was no denying it. It was Kya, kneeling beside him.

A wild surge of emotion welled up, but he swallowed it back.

"Why?" she said, softly as if she didn't trust her own voice. There were a thousand questions in that one word, and not a single one he had any answer for. Or perhaps he did, if he split himself down the middle and let his heart leap out of his chest on to the ground.

"I would not blame you," Loghain managed, surprised by how gruff his own voice sounded. "If you ended my life right now. I think perhaps I might even thank you."

"What?" she blurted out, staggering back as if struck. Her mouth dropped open. "What would possess you to think that I would want that?"

"How could you truly desire anything else?" he asked.

"And they do not look closely enough inside to understand why they do what they do." Those words again.

"Tell me, truly," he continued, "If I was any other man who'd done to you what I have, would I be still in this world? Or would I rightfully be dead by your hand, or the hands of those that once followed you?"

"I can't answer that," she said, sounded exasperated. "Because you aren't any other man."

"Perhaps not," he replied, pulling himself up, and his walls with them. "But you cannot deny the truth."

Kya gritted her teeth. "And exactly what truth is that?" She shook her head. "What is it that you want to hear? Do you want me to lie to you and tell you that you deserve to be dead? Because by Andraste's ass, I swear Loghain, you aren't going to get what you want."

Loghain looked away. She was young; she had known pain for certain, but it hadn't yet had time to build itself into the festering canker that his had. He hoped she'd never understand at that. Before he could reply, she shot forward and her hands came up on either side of his face, wrenching him to look at her.

"Loghain," she said. "I can't even guess what you are thinking. I expect its so far removed from reality that I can't even begin to understand it. But whatever it is, it doesn't change anything. At least not from here." Kya paused, blinking furiously. "The real question is, has it changed for you? Because if you can look me in the eye and tell me that you don't love me, then I'll leave you here and I won't be back."

"I . . . ," Loghain began, but couldn't finish. His heart was in his throat, and he tried to tell her. Tried to give her the escape she deserved but he choked on the words before they reached his lips. "I can't . . . I can't tell you that," he said. "I'm tired of lies. I'm just tired of everything."

"Then stop fighting," Kya sighed. "Just stop."

"How?" he asked. "All I know is fighting and war. Without them, I don't know who I am."

"You'll be just a man," she said. "Just like you've always been."

And maybe she was right. Kya had shown remarkable wisdom, in everything she'd done since he'd met her. She was the heart of what it meant to be a Grey Warden, doing whatever it took. She was a Grey Warden long before she took her joining, he expected. She did what had to be done to do what was right. Along the way, perhaps those with less clear vision might have seen evil, but Loghain knew better.

"I wish it was so easy," he said finally. "To let it all go. To forgive. How do you do it?"

"Forgive?" she said questioningly. "I don't know how to forgive. I only know that I have to accept. There's no other way. If I can't accept what is then I can't live."

"I don't know if I can," Loghain admitted. "There are so many years of . . . ."

She cut him off. "Lost years," she said. "Don't waste the few you have left. Because soon enough, either death or duty is going to rear its head and tear us apart. I can't imagine it could ever be otherwise. We're Grey Wardens, Loghain. It trumps everything else, even love." She swallowed, sliding one hand back to tangle into his hair and sliding closer. "But we have a moment now. Maybe just this one last moment. Please, by the Maker, don't waste any more time."

Something broke inside him.

Some wall, some dam he hadn't even realized was there was rent asunder in a torrent. Like the heavens breaking open before a storm, he leapt forward and crushed her against him. His lips found hers, and it was like shelter, like home, like peace at last.

Whatever else had come before, all the horror and the pain and everything, it dissolved into nothing. Loghain realized he was crying, as she was. The salt of their tears mingled together, sweet on his lips. It was sweeter than any moment he'd known before, and perhaps would ever know again.

And whatever happened next, whatever duty awaited them, none of it mattered. The steel cage that had trapped his heart since he was a child was shattered. That room in his mind, it burned into ashes and dust and nothing.

He laid her down against the steps, in the boneyard of Lothering, not caring about the dust and the old death, not caring about forgiveness and hatred, and finally not cloaked in the shadow of Maric and Rowan and Orlais, and made love to the woman that finally healed his soul.

Peace. Peace at last.