The trip had gone smoothly, Melisande and Finbar travelling through the misty night and into the dawn. They'd stopped to rest a few hours before picking up to walk again. Without wagons and having to find routes that would accommodate their supplies, the journey wasn't as complicated as their travels across Ferelden had been. She kept them just off the road and out of the eyes of other travelers. No reason to leave a trail to follow, though Melisande doubted anyone would bother. Zevran had often spoken of returning to Antiva, to ensure his freedom. Leliana had clearly been longing to return to her life of peace and solitude with the Chantry. Sten would be heading back to Seheron. With Wynne determined to rebuild the Circle, there was only Shale to consider. But Shale was her own being, now, and proven to be a reasonable soul. She would find her own path.
On the second day, Finbar seemed distracted, circling back and chasing scents, slowing their progress. To make up time, Melisande brought them back to the road and decided to continue into the evening.
Coming across Anora's camp in the dark sent a shock through Melisande as though she'd caught the edge of one of Morrigan's spells and she froze on the path, Finbar sniffing around their feet as Melisande surreptitiously watched Anora enter her tent.
Anora called out to Erlina in a slightly put-upon voice, asking her to bring another pot of tea before she dropped the tent flap, cutting off the light. Why in the Maker's Name was the woman…the queen…out here in the middle of nowhere with only a bare guard and living in a tent, of all things?
Melisande straightened from her observation, intending to go and investigate. Perhaps to ensure that there was proper protection to escort them all back to Denerim, instead of wandering around where any band of stray darkspawn or raiders could come across them when a black thought crossed her mind and made her pull up.
She was dangerous, Anora mac Tir. With the admiration of the nobles of the Marches. Of even Empress Celene herself.
Anora and her intelligence and new coin beauty. Her mind for a devious manipulation. Her father's knack for rallying men to her cause. If Ali…the king stepped wrong once, Anora would have him tangled in such a web of intention and politics that he might never recover.
And what would become of Ferelden, then? And what point everything Melisande had done?
There weren't enough guards here. And even if someone saw her, what would they say to the Warden Commander? Watching the light fail into dusk, Melisande laid a plan as she walked the well-hidden path and followed it to the cliffs.
A ferocious barking and the sound of overturning tables sent the camp into an uproar.
Anora turned from her perusal of a letter she'd received from the Grand Cleric, earlier in the month, and walked to the tent's opening, intending to stick her head out and see what was going on only to be startled to look down into the silvery eyes of Melisande Cousland.
"My lady."
"Warden!"
"Please, you must be quiet, Anora. There are enemies in your camp." Melisande slipped into the tent flap, crowding the woman back out of the spill of light.
Even alone in her tent after what must have been a breakneck escape, Anora was still every inch the Queen. Her hair was still neatly coiled in its richly golden braided knots. Her travelling clothes were nearly immaculate. Her hands were pale and her oval nails were clean and buffed to a shine. A credit to her upbringing. Suddenly, Melisande felt every mile she'd slogged, every festering lie she'd told and heard and every throat she'd slashed must show on her face. Her hands weren't clean. What would Bryce Cousland say of his fierce daughter now?
Anora was startled nearly beyond speech. Why in the Maker's Name was Melisande Cousland here? Surely she should be fighting to save Denerim from the horde? And where was her father?
"We can get out here," Melisande said, yanking free the secured tent edge from the bottom. "Hurry, though. We don't want to draw attention to you. Your guards will do a better job of defending you if they don't have to worry about you. I told them I'd get you away."
Balking, Anora tried to look out of the tent flap again. "I don't hear anything but dogs. And where is Erlina? I certainly can't leave her…"
"I asked her to grab up some supplies, Anora. My mabari is with her. He'll protect her until they can join us. Come on, before we're seen."
"I still don't hear anything that..."
"Infiltrators. They're very quiet. The guard is luring them into a trap, though. They're very well trained, using the mabari to distract from their intent." Melisande put a note of admiration into her voice and smiled inwardly when Anora straightened.
"Well, my father would hardly leave me in the hands of incompetents."
"No. Loghain struck me as very prudent in your care, outside of allowing you to be held by Howe." Anora ducked under the edge of the tent's canvas and Melisande herded the former queen farther into the woods. A small skirmish at the edge of camp had drawn the attention of the guards and the movement assured Anora of the truth of Melisande's assertion and quietly she tiptoed along the nearly invisible path.
After a few moments, Anora tried to find out more. "Why are you here? Should you not be in Denerim, doing a Warden's duty? And what of my father?"
There was only Melisande's harsh, "Keep your voice down, I thought I heard something."
Finally around a small bend in the path, Melisande straightened and ushered Anora in front of her, thoughtfully as she checked their rearguard.
"The Archdemon is dead, Anora. Denerim is safe enough. Your father did his duty and took the final blow."
When Anora looked back at her startled, Melisande recalled that she still wasn't aware…bloody, sodding secrets. Ah, well. They wouldn't go any farther. "It requires a Warden to kill the Archdemon, to truly slay it. But the Warden dies too…it's a binding of souls. The taint in our blood keeps the Archdemon from simply inhabiting another host and the Warden's soul prevents it from escaping...it is foolish and complicated but there it goes."
Astonished, Anora had to close her mouth. "He's dead then."
"He died well. Perhaps someday, that's all that will be remembered of him." There was no reason Melisande couldn't be magnanimous. She'd won, after all. It had gone as she wanted. Gracious in victory, had always been her mother's caution.
The path dipped into a small depression, and the ground was growing chalky as they reached the bluffs.
"That's why, isn't it? You conscripted my father because you knew."
"Yes."
"Why didn't Alistair…"
"I found out from my father. But I had no proof. And it seemed too awful for him to believe. So, I did what I had to, to protect my king and his kingdom." She'd said it so often, that it was beginning to ring hollow.
The queen was quiet for a moment, pushing aside a low-hanging fir branch and letting the fragrant needles slide through her fingers. The night was still and soft around them, unseasonably warm for the early fall.
"You are sure Erlina will be able to find us?"
"Eventually, yes." The Warden turned on her then and the blade in her hand and the fixed look in her eyes sent Anora's blood still in her veins.
"Did you hear something?"
"No. We're well away. I don't think we'll be heard." The little remaining light glimmered off of the dagger in Melisande's gloved hand and Anora backed away, only to find herself at the edge of a bluff, with the Warden blocking her path.
"Is…is this about your stay in Fort Drakon? I explained…I was afraid that they would lock me up again. I wanted to get away to inform Arl Eamon…"
Melisande nodded, calmly. "I know that. I don't blame you."
"I did not know about the betrayal at Ostagar, Melisande. I didn't know about Howe or what he did to your family…I admit I want to keep the throne but,..."
"I don't think you're a bad person, Anora. I think you loved your father. I even think you tried to do what is right for Ferelden. You were a good queen. Maker, I think we really used to be a lot alike."
"Then, why...?" Anora indicated the knife.
Because he'll be a great king, if he's allowed to get his feet under him. Unlike Cailan he hasn't soaked in adoration with his mother's milk. He understands the hardships his people have endured. But, he's...at his heart, a Chantry raised knight. With all the chivalry that entails. He'll be lenient with you, the widowed queen. The traitor's daughter. You'll get in his way, interfere. Tell me true, Anora...if you saw him put his foot wrong, would you help him? Or would you...push? Twist? Draw his support to you?" The queen couldn't help the look of calculation that crossed her face and Melisande smiled. Eleanor had been a far better teacher, it seemed, when it came to a noble's veneer of calm. "You'd try to overthrow him."
Anora shot her an icy glare. "Well, if you think he's so vulnerable, maybe I should."
Melisande scoffed. "He'll win. He's tenacious. But it will be messy and bad for Ferelden's recovery if you fight. This is better. A simple solution to what could be a nasty problem. Just this once, I can clear up a mess before it starts."
"It's not right. It's not... You're supposed to be a hero. Heroes don't..."
Nodding, Melisande agreed, "No. It's not right. Whatever it takes to win, Anora. That's the, ah, unofficial Grey Warden motto. I'm bloody effective, though the king made me try harder to be good. But I was a Cousland first. I serve Ferelden and I serve my king. Before I turn completely to the Wardens, I will do this one last thing, for him and our country and stop a rebellion before it begins.
"Why?! I promise...I won't..." Anora was backing away from her, truly afraid, now, moving unwittingly towards the cliff Melisande had reconnoitered earlier.
Melisande smiled, just a little sadly. She was crossing a line here, she knew. Zevran had told her once, when he'd just started to train with her that there would come a point when she would know. That one kill would decide who she would be.
Anora had once seen a wolf brought into Denerim by some lesser noble. It had trotted tamely at the woman's side for a week, while she told how she'd rescued it from hunters and raised it by hand. The creature had done tricks, fetching and even bowing to her on command. And then one day, it had, delicately and neatly, bitten the fool woman's hand clean off when it was denied a bit of freedom. The wolf had had eyes just like Melisande Cousland. Did Alistair know, she wondered, what sort of a woman he'd been fighting beside?
"Because I can and I don't want him to have to." Melisande advanced with a swaying walk. "Your father died well. Brave to the end. Will you, Anora Mac Tir?"
Anora was stronger than she looked. And she was taller than Melisande by nearly three inches. A year ago, it would have been a more even fight. But Melisande was...well, she was a killer now, wasn't she? What a year of slogging across endless countryside and fighting constantly would do to a person.
In the end it was a short fast dance. And a sharp blade against a lovely long neck. And blood on her hands, again.
The body dropped limply off the cliff. Melisande stood there, looking at the figure sprawled on the rocks below.
It needed to look like an accident. There mustn't be any chance of this falling back on the king. She glanced back at the camp where Finbar was guarding the rear approach, recalling a foolish conversation. "You wouldn't know if it was human flesh," he'd jibed Finbar. "I'd never feed you people," she'd assured her hound.
But that at least wasn't necessary now. She concentrated, seeking the low buzz just beneath her consciousness. She'd learned this trick as an adolescent, dallying with an elven boy whose clan used Highever's cliff path as a byway. Torin had taught her about her first poisons and how to kiss and how to call the wolves. It had come in handy more than once, an extra companion along the road.
This one was huge, dark and sleek with baleful yellow eyes. It smiled at Melisande before it ripped the queen's slashed, gaping throat out, hiding the evidence of her own vicious nature.
-000-
Only Fergus and Zevran had been able to accompany him. Sten had chosen to remain behind, telling them, "If the Warden has chosen her path, I have no right to challenge it."
Wynne was still elbow deep in healing, with several patients she was loathe to leave behind so, she too, had stayed in Denerim. Leliana had been harder to track down, as she had decided to make herself of use to the Revered Mother. Zevran found her teaching a song to a group of young children and couldn't bring himself to interrupt her. She looked so happy.
Not too terribly far behind, Alistair and his small band found Anora's campsite the next morning.
Terrance saw the king and his company and with a grim pallor approached the horses. It looked to Alistair as though the guard had aged a decade since he'd been sent to guard Anora.
"Your Majesty, I…" He stood at Alistair's stirrup, looked up and swallowed. "I am afraid I have terrible news, sire. I take full responsibility."
"For what, Terrance?" The man's nervousness was transferring to Alistair's horse and he had to settle the creature.
The guard set his shoulders before, "Queen Anora is dead, King Alistair."
"What?!" Alistair dismounted and behind him, Fergus and Zevran did the same. "What happened, man?"
"I…I am not sure. We had a disturbance last night, some wild mabari broke into the camp and when we straightened it out, she was gone. We tracked her to the edge of the cliffs. She fell, I think. When we got to the bottom, it looked as though she might have been attacked. Maybe one of the mabari or a wolf. We recovered her body…but there was nothing that could be done. Your Majesty, I am so…"
Mystified, Alistair glanced into the tent Terrance indicated. A corpse, well wrapped in white linen was laid out on the cot. "What made her leave the camp?"
"Your Majesty, please." He glanced back and recognized Anora's maid. The slight elf was clearly grieving, eyes red and swollen and her Orlesian accent thick with held back tears. "She would not have left her tent. She had been insisting all day that we return to Denerim. But they say there is no sign…come look, please!"
"Zevran?" The assassin was already walking into the tent, nodding to Erlina as he passed her. Carefully, he looked around, eyes sharp and assessing. But in a few minutes he turned with a shrug. "No sign of any struggle I can see, Alistair. Did you move anything? Straighten up, perhaps?"
"No!" But even Alistair could see that her eyes had cut to the desk and the stack of papers. He picked up the pile. Foreign, but he recognized a word here and there. Orlesian. "Zev, do you read Orlesian?"
"It has come in handy. Ladies of Antiva are fond of the occasional poem." He glanced over the sheet. "Letters from the Divine and other noble folk. It seems our Queen did not share her father's distaste for Orlais. Mostly innocent, I think. Condolences and offers of sojourn to recover from her grief."
"Where did you find her?" Fergus was asking Terrance.
"Over this way." He indicated a narrow trail that ran along and then behind the camp. "This way leads down to a stream, but this other way heads right to the cliffs. I don't know if she got confused or…"
"My lady was never confused, you idiot!" Erlina snapped and Terrance ducked his head.
The path was narrow and trampled, where booted feet had run that was left of Anora's trail. Branches grabbed at their clothes, but so many had been broken by the searchers that there was no way to tell if the queen had been running, had felt threatened.
Not far from the edge of the cliff, there was one deeper, scuffed footprint, as if she had stopped for a time and further on, a scrabbled place that could have been a fight or just where Anora had struggled to not fall. A ledge about thirty feet below was dark with blood in the clear morning light.
"There were paw prints around the queen's body and…she had been…I failed her and you, Your Majesty. I can never…"
Alistair shook his head. "It was an accident, guardsman. It…you can't be held responsible for someone taking it into their head to wander away from camp in unfamiliar territory. Anora didn't strike me as that foolish, but…" Erlina choked out a protest, but when they turned to go she followed the men back to the camp with only a few glances back.
After they searched the camp and found nothing to indicate why Anora had left her tent, Alistair ordered them to break camp and to take Anora's body back to the city. They watched as the small party, Anora's horse dragging a travois covered in a coverlet woven in a pattern of lilies, set back down the road before mounting and taking the turning to Highever.