Chapter 19: The Reclaimed Throne

Denerim: The Palace

It should have felt better than this.

Cailan sat on his throne, his heavy velvet robes pooling around his feet. He stared out across the room, empty but for the servants scrubbing the blood off the floor from the earlier duel. The wan late-winter light slanted through the windows in the ceiling and dust floated in the air. He'd sat in this same place on days just like this, wondering where his kingdom was going and what he was doing. And thinking about his father, and how he'd just sort of disappeared. Then he realized he'd done something similar, but unlike his father, he'd come back.

What have I come back to? He wondered. His father-in-law was dead and his wife was angry at him, when he'd made it his mission to make things right and take their marriage seriously. Fergus was moody and avoiding him; he didn't know where Viviane had gone; and Jowan was off with the Grey Wardens now. Cailan was happy for Alistair, though; he'd always wanted for his younger brother to be happy, and though he was a Warden with the difficult task of ending the Blight on his shoulders, at least he wasn't doing it alone. For that, Cailan was grateful.

Everyone had a task to do… except him. Again, he was a figurehead king.

The great doors creaked across the room, and he looked up. He sat up straighter, hands resting on the arms of the throne, ready to face whoever walked in that door.

It was Teagan, so Cailan relaxed. Teagan always seemed to be there for him, knowing just what to say and do, after Cailan had been through something particularly difficult. Teagan entered and knelt before the throne, then looked up. Cailan and Teagan met one another's eye and kept solemn faces, until at last Teagan burst out laughing. "I can't take you seriously when you make that face," he said at last.

"I don't make faces," Cailan said, but he couldn't help but smirk. It felt good after the tension the day had held. "What news?"

"Fergus and Eamon are massing their armies, and the Wardens' allies are en route. The hoard is moving more quickly than they expected," he said with an uneasy look at Cailan.

But Cailan just nodded. "I have faith in my brother and his companions," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "Do you think we have a chance, Teagan?"

Teagan appeared thoughtful, tapping his chin with one finger and eyes turned up to the high windows. "The Blight has devastated the country," he said at last. "The people are weary, and the enemy is great. They may indeed prove too powerful for us."

It was what Cailan had feared. Even with the numbers he'd lacked at Ostagar, he was still going to be overwhelmed. He stood, stretching, and paced back and forth in front of his throne. "Is everyone still at the estate?" he asked.

"Yes. Would you rather we move over here as a command base?"

Cailan shook his head. He knew he should feel at home in his palace; it was where he'd grown up, and he knew every passage and hallway and room. But he also was afraid of facing Anora after this afternoon; she'd burst into wracking sobs and when he went to comfort her, she'd pushed him away in front of all of Ferelden's nobles and left the chamber. "I think I'd rather go back to the estate. That's where everyone else is, anyway," he said to Teagan's skeptical expression.

"Should I have the queen brought as well?" Teagan asked.

"You may send an escort for her if you wish, but if she doesn't want to don't force her," Cailan said. "She's been through enough of that."

Though Teagan knew he was referring to the time she'd spent at Howe's estate against her will, his skeptical expression softened. "You'll have to face her again sooner or later, Cailan."

"I know," Cailan said. "And I will. But… I can't right now. I want to see Alistair and Fianna and start planning strategy, and we need to start getting the refugees inside the city walls before the hoard closes in any more." There was never any rest for the weary. He was beginning to think he wouldn't really rest until the Blight was over and the country safe.

Now that Cailan had revealed himself, there was no need to traverse the quiet side alleys and stay out of sight. He and Teagan left the palace amid a chorus of cheers. A contingent of Cailan's bodyguards waited at strict attention, and surrounded the king and his uncle as they stepped out. Cailan walked tall, shoulders back, head up, letting the people see him. He was their king; his presence gave them hope, and he refused to let them down again.

Over the next few days Cailan flitted back and forth between the estate and the palace. He always kept his eyes open for Anora, but she stayed away from him and he would leave the palace feeling more and more frustrated. But at the estate things were coming together better than he would have hoped for the stand against the hoard, and the draconic archdemon that had been sighted. Mages arrived from Kinloch Hold; the elves traveled up from the Brecilian Forest just south of Denerim. The dwarves took the Deep Roads and were able to avoid the gouts of darkspawn spreading across Ferelden.

Fianna took to pacing around the courtyard of the estate, her eyes often turning to the sky as if she were waiting for a sign that wouldn't come. "What's it like?" Cailan suddenly asked her one day. He leaned against one of the walls, watching her and marveling that someone so tense had not yet snapped. She paused to look at him curiously. "Being a Grey Warden and waiting like this."

A wry smile passed over her lips. "It's the worst feeling in the world," she told him. Again her hazel eyes drifted skyward. "I'm waiting for something horrible. I can feel it in every bone and every organ that it's going to be the most terrible thing I've ever seen. And I want it to happen so I can get it over with, but I still have to wait." She shuddered. "It's been like that ever since Ostagar, but it's only gotten worse as the months have gone on." She glanced around to see if anyone else was there, but she and Cailan were alone. She joined him, leaning against the wall. "We can sense the hoard of darkspawn," she confessed in a whisper. "The closer they get, and now with the archdemon revealed, the worse I feel."

"Can you tell what's going to happen?" he asked, trying very hard to keep his voice from trembling.

She shook her head. "No, they're not that organized. I just know that they're going to break upon the walls of Denerim like a stormy sea upon the shores. And all of our best efforts may not be enough."

Cailan had known that Grey Wardens paid a terrible price to become who and what they were, but Fianna described a nightmare existence that hardly seemed worth that price. He knew now why Fergus was torn when it came to Fianna: feeling proud of who she'd become and the responsibilities she'd taken on, yet anguished by what she'd paid for that. He felt the same about Alistair.

He'd long thought the entire situation unfair; he'd spent the better part of his teenage years pondering the unfairness of it all. But now, knowing that Alistair had been freed from the Chantry, only to have to live like this, gnawed at Cailan horribly.

"Fi? Riordan wants to see us," Alistair said, leaning out the door into the courtyard and startling Cailan. He nodded greeting to his older brother. Fianna pushed herself off the wall as if it took great effort because of her weariness. Cailan waved, and watched Fianna approach Alistair. He smiled down at her, she slipped her arm about his waist, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders, and they were gone. How they could manage to find such joy in one another, in spite of their constantly tormented existence, struck Cailan as one of the few miracles he believed could happen.

It took him a long while to reach the palace, because he kept stopping to see to the refugees now piled into the market district and anywhere else they could fit. The situations were less than ideal, but the people had a remarkable outlook. It was as if seeing their king, mingling about and checking on them, made everything more bearable. It reminded them, and Cailan, that they were Fereldans; and Fereldans were, if nothing else, resilient.

He dismissed his bodyguards once he was inside the palace, and resolutely headed toward the wing that housed his quarters. His study was empty, which was a relief. Even though Loghain was now dead, the man had occupied Cailan's own study more often than he'd have liked, and he didn't doubt that Loghain would try to come back from the dead for one more power struggle. But it also meant that Anora would be in their chambers.

Cailan approached the door to their bedroom with a trepidation that he could not shake. Maybe the door will be locked, he thought, and then banished the idea. He had faced darkspawn; he had faced Loghain; he had faced his own death. Why then was he afraid to face his own wife?

The door was actually unlocked, and he pushed it open slowly. The bed was made, the hearth was empty and cold, and the room was tidy and in order. But no sign of Anora. He stepped in and looked around this chamber he'd not seen in months. Nothing had really changed much. He paused at Anora's vanity, neat and organized as always. The silver coffer that had belonged to his mother had a few hairpins in it; Anora's brush and comb were set side by side, parallel to the edge of the vanity table. And folded neatly in the center was a piece of parchment.

Cailan's heart quickened as he wondered if Fianna or Alistair had given Anora one of his letters from Ostagar. He opened it with shaking hands, but it was the letter of farewell he'd written to her and left before taking his leave for Ostagar. It had been folded and unfolded again and again, and the ink was smudged. His throat closed and heat pressed the backs of his eyes when he realized she'd read his letter over and over.

With a new resolve he began to search the castle for Anora in earnest. Servants bowed as he passed, and he heard whispers among them, but ignored them. He checked Anora's small workroom, but she wasn't there, either. Frustration twisted his guts, and in a last desperate effort he checked the gardens. She'd often enjoyed the relative warmth of the gardens, and the longer blooming season Denerim enjoyed; in Gwaren, summers were short and planting efforts reserved for crops.

He found her tending to the rosebushes, long past their prime, but still in need of pruning. She would take a stem carefully in one hand, so as to avoid the thorns; with the other she used a pair of shears to snip the branch away, and then she tossed it in a pile at her feet. A few locks of golden hair curled in tendrils about her face, set in a serious and intent expression.

Cailan inhaled deeply and strode forward. "Anora?" he asked voice soft and tentative as he approached.

He expected her to try and run from him, or even brandish her shears; and he wouldn't have blamed her for either. She just dropped the most recent branch she'd cut, turned, and sighed, with the shears hanging loosely at her side. There were gray-purple shadows beneath her eyes, which just looked tired and defeated. "Cailan," she said in that steady voice she always used when she was trying to remain calm; underneath her cool exterior he knew she was a raging mess of emotions.

They stood apart, glancing up at one another nervously. Finally Cailan sighed. "Anora, we need to stop this. I've always ruled with you by my side, and I can't do this without you now."

Anora watched Cailan with that calm face, but he saw the tumult stirring in her eyes. "Maybe you should have thought of that when you let your brother execute my father in front of me."

"I've thought and rethought that over and over," he told her. "But it wasn't my decision to make. He abandoned and the Grey Wardens to their deaths, and outlawed their order, sending assassins after Alistair and Fianna."

Her smile was lifeless. "So that makes it alright to let it happen? You don't stop to think that you're the bloody king?" Her voice rose to a higher pitch and she threw the shears down to the ground. The blades impaled the ground, and Cailan was grateful that it wasn't his chest instead. "My father was a hero," she said in a shaking voice. "Maybe he'd changed, but did he deserve death?"

"He left me to die, too," Cailan snapped. "If I'm the 'bloody king' it would have been within my rights to execute him myself on the spot!"

"But not in front of me," Anora said, her voice returned to that chilling calm. "Every time I close my eyes I see Alistair and that sword and my father looking up at me. And then all his blood everywhere. At least you can comfort yourself with the delusion that your father still lives. Me? My last memory of my father is of his head rolling across the throne room for all of Ferelden's nobility to see. People he fought to free."

"People the Grey Wardens and I are trying to keep free," Cailan said. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I am sorry," he finally said. "Very sorry; I didn't think things through in the heat of that moment."

Anora turned away from him and busied herself with plucking dead leaves from the rosebush. "It may take me more time to forgive you for this," she told him after a lengthy silence. "And I may never forgive Alistair. Can you live with me not forgiving your brother?"

"As long as you don't intend to force me to choose between you and him," Cailan said carefully. It was always best to approach things carefully with Anora. Even in her anger and grief her brilliant mind was still hard at work. "I have my chance to learn to be a brother now; and I have my second chance with you. I want both to work out, and don't want to choose. I won't subject you to his presence any more than I can help."

She didn't like the thought of compromising. He could see it in her stance, in the tension in her neck and shoulders. He wanted to go to her and massage that tension away, but when he did, she swatted him away and would not turn to look at him. "I'll give you space," he said, feeling heavy with the lack of resolution between them. It was like the night before Ostagar all over again. "But my only request is that you will consider coming to Eamon's estate, where you can be safe. Most of the army and guards are gathering there."

"And Alistair is there as well."

"So you'll put aside your own safety for the sake of your grudge?" he asked. She was silent in reply. "Fine. I cannot make you do what you don't wish. But please consider it, if not for me now, than for what we once shared, and could share again."

He left her to her silent pondering and her lifeless roses. Later that night he waited up in Eamon's study, but Anora never came.

"She's stubborn," Alistair told him with a shrug. "As stubborn as Fianna, if not more, and that's saying something." His light brown eyes were troubled. "We got some troubling news from Riordan about the whole archdemon thing, and she's locked herself in her room. Won't come out, hasn't eaten in a day, which for a Grey Warden might just be a record."

"She loves you; she'll come around," Cailan said, even though he wanted to know what the news was. But there was no point asking, because the Wardens were so secretive.

"Anora loves you and she hasn't yet," Alistair said miserably.

"Anora and I have problems that go deeper than what's happening now," Cailan said. He wished it weren't true. "You and Fianna truly love each other and have a faithful relationship. That will overcome whatever is bothering her right now."

"Didn't you and Anora have that?" Alistair asked.

"No," Cailan said. "We were betrothed for so long as children, and I only saw her occasionally, so I wandered when I was young. And never quite broke the habit." Confessing that to his brother went on the list of difficult things Cailan had had to do since returning from the supposed dead. "Anora knew and never really confronted me about it, but she didn't like it. But because I kept things discreet she did too. But there was always that wall between us."

Now the wall had come to haunt him in his darkest hour, when needed the most support he could possibly get.

A breathless messenger came in, escorted by Zevran and Oghren. Both of Alistair's friends looked worried. "The darkspawn are here," the messenger said. His face was covered with sweat, but he was shivering from his fear. "They may be a day's march from the city. By this time tomorrow we will be overwhelmed."

Alistair's concerned smile had faded, and his lips were now pressed into a grim line. "Fianna's going to have to stop being stubborn now," he said and got up to leave.

Cailan stood. "Thank you, ser. Your news will help us prepare to meet the enemy. Zevran and Oghren, please see that this man gets some water and a place to rest. I'm going to find the Wardens."