Chapter 5: Balance Sundered

"After everything she fought for you'd send him in?" Loghain shouted.

"He's the fucking First Enchanter," Maric shouted back. "And she is my wife. If you think I won't try anything to save her, you're crazier than a drunken nug."

Loghain's face, contorted by anger, froze and then became quizzical. "Drunken nug?" he asked, momentarily forgetting that Remille, the First Enchanter of the Ferelden Circle of Magi, who was visiting to see to Rowan's illness, was Orlesian.

Maric pushed his hair out of his face. He needed to shave. He needed to sleep. He needed to rule his kingdom and he needed to play with his son and he needed Loghain to understand that some things were more important right now than where the First Enchanter had been born. "I learned it from King Endrin Aeducan when Rowan and I made a state visit to Orzammar a few years back. But in all honesty, Loghain, you need to look beyond this. This is about more than Ferelden and Orlais. It's about Rowan and her life," he said.

Loghain was usually hard to read, even for Maric, but when it came to Rowan there was no hiding his feelings. "There must be another way. Another mage. Another herbalist."

"Anyone or anything not Orlesian," Maric translated, and Loghain's jaw clenched. "I called you here because I need a friend," he said. "I know how you feel about Orlais. But if I'm the bloody King of Ferelden and I can look beyond what they did to my mother and to my country, I'd like to hope you can maybe at least try to be civil. And if not for me, then for Rowan," he said.

It was a low blow, and Loghain's eyes narrowed. "I don't like it," he said at last. "But you're more bull-headed than most bulls, and you both must be desperate if you'll allow a… a lickspittle Orlesian to tend to Rowan. I can't respect the man, but I can respect desperation," he said at last, and his voice was a little softer. He wouldn't meet Maric's eye.

It would have to do for now.

Remille's diagnosis was the same as that of the Chantry priestesses and the physicians and anyone else Maric had reached out to. Rowan was simply wasting away. Each day she seemed paler, thinner, and more ethereal. Maric feared he would wake up one morning and she'd simply be gone, faded into the air.

He and Loghain parted ways. Rather than go to his study, or to Rowan, Maric headed for the library, where he knew he'd find Remille. The First Enchanter had expressed his interest in the royal collection, and Maric did indeed find him seated at a polished cherry wood table with a stack of books by his side. Cailan sat across the table from him, a huge book opened up in front of him. There was no way he'd gotten it down himself, so Maric figured it was one of Remille's castoffs.

"Are you helping our guest?" Maric asked, kneeling down next to his son, and glancing over at Remille.

"He's helping Mommy, so I am too," Cailan said without looking up. He gently lifted a page and turned it over. Maric glanced at the book. It was written in Arcanum, and by rights, should have been at the Circle of Magi. Cailan studied the words, squinting slightly, and giving his father a sidelong glance. Maric repressed the urge to smile, though Cailan's earnestness panged him. It hurt even more when Cailan sat back with a huge sigh. "Nothing in this one, either," he announced.

Remille looked up. "Your son exhibits enormous curiosity that is rarely seen in anyone, let alone one so young," he said in his lilting Orlesian accent.

"That would be Rowan's influence, fortunately," Maric said. "She was reading to him in the womb."

"Where are you from?" Cailan asked suddenly, sitting up straighter again.

"Cailan, don't interrupt," Maric said gently. He picked up Cailan, who squirmed, and sat down in the chair across from Remille with Cailan in his lap. "What do you say?"

Cailan huffed. "Sorry. Where are you from?"

Maric shook his head, but Remille smiled. "I'm from a tower on an island in a lake, young one," he said.

"You talk funny."

"Cailan!" Maric said.

"It's quite fine," Remille said with a wave of his hand, his smile never faltering. "I was born in a different country far away from here. Maybe one day you will visit it?" he asked, casting a glance at Maric, who just shrugged. "But I was hoping to speak with your father alone," he said.

Maric set Cailan on the floor. "Can you go find a book for Mommy to read? I think she finished the last one you brought her," he said.

"I'll find a good one!" Cailan exclaimed, rushing off.

"Cailan!" Maric called, and Cailan stopped and spun around. "Only the bottom two shelves. Don't go climbing again, okay?"

"Kay, Daddy!" Cailan said, and was already running again. He rounded a corner and was gone, and things were suddenly silent. Maric envied the way Cailan could lose himself. It made it easier to deal with everything, knowing that he didn't have to worry about his son. He'd heard stories from Bryce Cousland about his son, Fergus, getting into things and raising all sorts of mischief around the castle in Highever. Eleanor was finally pregnant with their second, after losing two pregnancies; after what they'd dealt with from Fergus, they were due for some peace.

"King Maric," Remille began, when they were certain Cailan was out of earshot. "I wondered if I might ask you some questions that may prove difficult," he said. "I know there may be uneasiness between our home nations…"

"I'm not Loghain Mac Tir," Maric said. "I invited you here as the First Enchanter of Ferelden. I don't give a nug's arse where you were born or what your accent sounds like," he said. "Ask what you need. I just want to know what can be done for my wife," he said.

Remille nodded. "I appreciate your candor, Your Majesty." He leaned forward, pressing his fingertips together in a tent shape. "I've done some reading, and wanted to confirm that you were, indeed, in the Deep Roads during your rebellion."

A sharp pang shot through Maric's gut and the library felt darker and stuffier even though the sun was still shining through the windows. His pulse drummed in his ears and he clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists. The Deep Roads. The trip beneath Ferelden had been a necessary evil, and he tried to repress the memories of the cloying darkness and spider webs and smoke.

Katriel in his arms, her lips on his.

Rowan, somewhere in the dark, crying. Loghain the one to comfort her, not Maric. Tension thicker than the corruption that surrounded them. Tension that smothered him and nearly got him killed.

Maric forced himself back to his senses. That was the past. He made himself meet Remille's eyes. "Yes. Yes, we were."

"Are you familiar with the darkspawn?"

Maric shrugged. "The Chantry teaches that it was the hubris of the Tevinter magisters," he said, something he'd repeated often in his Chantry lessons as a boy. "And the last Blight was four hundred years ago. We didn't see any darkspawn when we were in the Deep Roads, either." He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back. "What would any of that have to do with Rowan?"

Remille stretched out his lanky arms and his elbows popped, a loud sound in the otherwise silent library. Maric wondered vaguely what Cailan was up to. "Darkspawn kill, as you know; but they also infect all they touch with corruption. Lands. Plants. Animals. And humans." He paused and stared at Maric, who was beginning to feel cold. "It is very likely the Queen was exposed to the taint and that may be the cause of her illness."

Maric's head was spinning and he closed his eyes, but it didn't help. The Deep Roads memories; the taint; the darkness. Death. "Is there a cure?" he asked at last.

"Only the Grey Wardens have mastered the taint, and they've been cast out from Ferelden for many years," Remille said. "Though I cannot say what they would do even if they were…"

Remille's voice drifted off when a shriek pierced the air, followed by a thud. Maric sat upright, clutching the arms of the chair and looking all around. "Cailan," he said suddenly and jumped up. Fear made his pulse throb in his veins and choked the breath from his lungs. "Cailan!" He called, running up the main aisle of the library, looking down the side shelves. Four rows down he saw Cailan on the floor.

He ran to his son and knelt. Cailan was pale, his eyes glassy and rolling up into his head. A ruined stack of books hinted that he'd been trying to climb up to a higher shelf and lost his balance. "Cailan, it's Daddy," Maric said in a strangled voice. Maker, no, he couldn't do this; not while losing Rowan, too. "Cailan?" he asked. He reached for his son and realized he wasn't breathing.

He thought he might pass out. No. No, no, no, nonononono…

He'd seen the sailors on Lake Calenhad save a drowning man once, and they'd taught him how to start the lungs again. Maric bent over Cailan and breathed into his son's tiny lungs, and felt his small chest for a heartbeat. Somewhere, someone was calling his name. He was seeing stars. He could save his whole kingdom, but couldn't save his wife. Couldn't save his son—

Cailan was wriggling beneath him. And his breath was warm on Maric's face. Maric sat up and picked up his son, who looked around groggily. "Good morning," Maric said gently, cradling Cailan in his arms. He glanced around; there was no blood on the floor, and just a small gash over his pale eyebrow where a falling book had caught him. There was a good-sized lump growing on the back of his head, and as Cailan regained more awareness, he seemed to pick up on Maric's pain and relief and fear and then his own uncertainties all at the same time.

When Remille found them, Maric was clinging to a sobbing Cailan, murmuring incoherently, while Cailan cried for his mother.