The keep looked relatively normal when they approached Highever from the south. The farmholds that dotted the surrounding fields were bustling as they should this time of year, crops going in now that the ground had thawed. Smoke billowed out of chimneys into the cool air. Washing up on the line. Must be Tuesday, Melisande thought. The housewives of Highever always did their washing on Tuesdays, for whatever reason.
But it was with some trepidation that Melisande directed Jacen's family down the main path. There were guards on the gate. But she couldn't see the crest on their shields.
It took another bend in the road to bring her close enough to see…laurel wreaths. Oh, Maker. Cousland laurels. But how? It took all her willpower not to storm up to the nearest guard and beg for news, but she picked up her pace, leaving the travelers a bit behind.
"My lady? Lady Melisande?" A vaguely familiar, utterly disbelieving voice called out from the guardpost.
She recognized this man's face, but couldn't place the name. "I'm Melisande Cousland but…."
"Byron Terrys, m'lady! Mattew's son." Mattew had been her father's seneschal until he'd retired three years ago. This man, in his late forties, shared his barrel-chested figure and the dark blonde hair.
Clasping his arm in greeting, Melisande shook it, heartily. "His youngest. Byron, how in the Maker's Name…? How did you know Bann Howe was dead?"
"News came up…a month or so ago? They said…they said you did it, m'lady." He searched her face and saw the truth there and smiled with satisfaction. "Knew it. Knew you Couslands wouldn't let it stand. The teyrn said you must have raised yourself an army and then we heard you'd made a Warden." He cast an assessing eye over her. "You've done your folks proud, Lady Melisande."
But Melisande was focused on his earlier words. "The…the teyrn? Who? One of Howe's boys? Thomas?" Nathaniel, she recalled, had been sent to the Free Marches to foster and get some of his wild oats out of the way. Thomas had always liked her, maybe…
But Byron was shaking his head. "Howe? Andraste forbid. No, m'lady. Teyrn Fergus. Your brother."
And Melisande was always damned proud of herself later for not fainting dead away at that. As it was, it was a near thing and Byron grabbed her arm as she swayed.
"Tell me…tell me everything, please."
-000-
It probably should have surprised Melisande to see Fergus riding up the path and Alistair and Zev not far behind him. But she felt honestly past surprises.
Nan had been in her kitchen and had set her former charge in front of a giant plate of muffins and a pot of tea to fill in until a proper supper after bemoaning the loss of Melisande's hair. The old woman, thin as a rail and bearing an ugly red scar that reached up from the bodice of her dress to curl nearly around her neck, had survived the initial onslaught, dragged the bodies of Bryce and Eleanor into the secret passage to hide them and had tried to make it farther when she'd been caught by a patrol.
Nan had lived though, crawled her way to a nearby cottage and the folk there had hidden her away until Fergus had stumbled in one day, six months ago. Howe had nearly abandoned Highever at that point, too busy with the civil war and his own poison as he'd made a move on the Arl of Denerim's holdings.
If the former nurse had been startled by the way the youngest Cousland, never a demonstrative girl, fell on her neck, she kept it to herself. Any fool could see the child had been through the wringer and needed a little indulging. "'All right." She patted Melisande's shoulders. "Come on now, a few muffins and some of the pork that's almost ready and you won't recognize yourself." At Finbar's agreeable bark, Nan sighed. "You too. But you have to make due with trimmings." She fed the hound a small smoked fish to tide him over.
When the announcement of the Teyrn's arrival came, Nan only tsked. "See, there's a lad who knows when to make an arrival, right at supper time. You should wash up, child."
Dazed, Melisande could only follow orders.
Less than an hour later, Melisande was staring at Fergus, standing in the Great Hall, big and smelly and beautiful as life. "Maker, big brother. You look like someone dragged you through a hedge, arse first."
He shook his head with a small smile. "And you've seen a mirror recently, I suppose? All ready for the Satinalia Ball?" He caught her, all leather armor and wet eyes, when she launched herself at him. "Oh, Holy Beloved, baby sister. I missed you." They clung to each other for a few minutes and the Keep stopped around them. Mindful of subtle things, Zevran tugged at Alistair's elbow and the two companions stepped out of the chamber, Alistair glancing back at Melisande, and the way she'd collapsed against the teyrn.
She was babbling, in a whisper. "I'm so sorry. Fergus, I am so, so sorry. I…"
"What could you have done, Meli? It was an ambush." He brushed a tear away from her face before blowing his nose musically in his kerchief. "Howe was a traitor and a coward and you finished him. You did what you could."
"But…Oren. Oriana. Fergus…Mother and Father…"
"I know. But they're at the Maker's side. C'mon now, I want to hear it all. Those two have been telling some things fit for tales. Trust you to find a king and an elvhen assassin tucked in among the heather."
"A golem and a couple of mages and a singing Chantry sister who can cut a throat faster than I can, too."
Alistair and Zevran had made themselves scarce as the siblings reunited, but once they'd shifted into chairs to tell stories, the two companions drifted back to the sitting area laid out before the huge fireplace in the Hall.
There were still dark patches on the light flagstones that floored the room. Bloodstains. Melisande wondered, in a moment of quiet, which had belonged to Rory Gilmore.
Dragging herself up from the armchair, Melisande stood to greet Alistair. "Your Majesty." She even managed a reasonably graceful curtsey before he grabbed her arm.
"Don't. Don't do that. Please."
"If you like, sire." Her voice was stiffly formal and even though she tried to make it otherwise, Melisande couldn't manage to shift the weight from her tongue. She hid it by giving Zevran a hug and if she missed the bleak despair on the king's face, her brother did not.
Alistair tried to recover, taking the leather armchair that Fergus offered.
Zevran lazed on the bench beside her chair. "You left without leaving a message, Melisande, and so we have traipsed all over the countryside, hither and yon to find you."
Puzzled, she shook herself. "I told you, though. I'm headed for Weisshaupt as soon as I can arrange passage. I need to make some report to the First Warden, I expect."
"I sent a short report, just before we left." Alistair explained, softly as he glanced at her and then away. Not sure exactly how to approach her when she was so cool.
Oh, Maker. I need to leave. Now. Melisande covered her panic by turning slightly away before she answered. "Thank you, Your Majesty. I imagine it needs to come from an active Warden who witnessed the event."
It took him a minute to realize that she didn't know. 'I came back. Meli, I was there. I saw Loghain...take the blow."
Confusion bloomed across her face. "I…didn't. I don't remember that."
"It is true. You should have seen him charge the gate. Quite heroic and manly." Zevran assured her and Alistair managed not to blush.
Dinner was announced, interrupting them.
They were seated at the small wooden table in the small, warm room not too far off the kitchen that had often served the family as a private place to share small, in-between meals.
As they ate, Melisande was told of Anora's death. Zevran caught the way her fingers clenched down on the table knife she was holding and with a swallowed oath, subtly drew her attention so that he could see her eyes. Ah. That was a pity, he thought. She was not made to be an assassin, no matter how well she could throw a knife or slit a throat. But what to do about it?
After dinner they were shown to rooms to freshen up. Melisande found herself tucked safely in her old room, though most of her personal things were gone. On one shelf of her armoire laid the small collection of elvhen arrowheads she'd collected avidly. When Finbar barked behind her, she only had a minute to tuck away the tiny homemade book of poetry she'd kept in the rope lacings of her bedframe before Zevran ducked in, quietly.
"Zev, I…" He held a hand up to silence her and paced the woven rug before her for a few minutes. She watched him from behind a wooden chair, eyebrows raised until he turned on her, a true frown crossing his delicately handsome face.
"You should not have done it, my dear Warden."
"Why not?" She didn't even pretend to not know what he meant but his disapproval baffled her.
With one of his shrugs, he strode back across the room. "Because this was too personal. You had money in the pot."
"That is not why I did it, damn your eyes, Zev! I did it to keep her from being a threat to him. She was dangerous!" Melisande had to brace herself, hands clasped tightly over the worn back of the chair, ridges in the woodgrain rough under her fingertips, before she asked. "Does he know?"
"No." And he watched her deflate, taking her hand in a soft grasp. "I will not be the one to tell him. But, please, Melisande, do not do this again. It's not in you. I would regret meeting you, if I knew that you were becoming…too like me. And it would have been a terrible crime for us to not have met." The wicked grin flashed on his face and it drew a half-smile from her.
Zevran patted her cheek, fondly, before he loosed her hand and went to the door. Melisande's question came so quietly that he almost ignored it.
"Did he really come to Fort Drakon?" He turned to look at the Warden, half in shadow since the brazier threw little light. But there was something almost of hope in her face. No. She would never make an assassin.
And he could not ignore her question. She should know. "He did. Wynne told me he was a handsbreadth away from killing the Archdemon himself, if she hadn't stopped you. And too, he carried you, unconscious from the rooftop and tended your lovely, exhausted self." Zevran had been teasing for a moment, but his tone turned quite serious, suddenly. All with the eyes of a tortured man. Do not take his being here lightly, inamorata. He defied his uncle with no hesitation."
"Thanks, Zev." Her words followed him out of the door.
When Alistair tried to find her an hour or so after supper, Melisande was gone again.
Fergus was able to direct him this time, too, pointing the king to the wooded bluffs overlooking the keep where the fading sunlight was turning the branches of the bare trees golden. "She always used to go up there when she was feeling moony. Like as not, that's where you'll find her."
Wearily, he followed the path up. All the time wondering what he could say. The trail took a hard bend, only to reveal her, silhouetted in the pale early spring sunset.
Melisande was seated on a slab of dark sandstone worn down into a comfortable divot, arms wrapped around her knees, delicate chin balanced atop. Her hair was askew, the roughly cut locks starting to curl as they grew out again. She looked…tired and ragged, careworn. There was a new red scar along the outer edge of her eye.
Too young to be so tired. She'd only been 20 on her last name day, Alistair thought. Younger even, than him. Not even old enough to be of age, yet. And still she'd borne the whole of Ferelden on her shoulders. She'd never complained about it. Just at first, when she'd expected him to direct them. And with a certain disapproval in her eyes, she'd picked up the reins and steered them to victory.
Finbar whined when he approached standing from his vigil over his mistress and nudged Alistair's hand for an ear scratch. Alistair obliged him as he considered her.
Well, nothing like humor. Always worked before. "Here you are. I thought you were done playing rabbit, that I wouldn't have to keep running after you, like a hound." He tried to keep his tone jocular, but the small joke faded to nothing between them as her eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.
"I don't know what I expected. Coming here, I mean. I…Maker, maybe I wanted it to just be a bad dream. That I'd walk into the hall and Mother would scold me for missing dinner and Father would sneak me an apple turnover and …" Her voice choked off, but before he could comfort her, she shook herself. "Fergus is alive. Maybe I'm not grateful enough for the miracle I was handed.
"Meli, I…I know why…about Loghain."
"I told you why."
Alistair nodded but tried again. "I found some of Duncan's old journals. He...laid it out. That's why I tried to come, tried to help."
"Oh." She blinked wide eyes at him. "I…"
"I'm sorry I doubted you." He wanted desperately to sit beside her or to pull her up to stand by him, but couldn't manage to figure out what to do if she wouldn't allow it. So, awkwardly, he simply stood a few feet away, scuffing his boot against the tufted dusty green grass that was sprouting in a crack in the stone.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shuffling and bit back a scold. No way to treat such fine boots.
"I'm still going to the Anderfels." In a rush, Melisande felt the words leaving her mouth. He would wonder why, though, so…"I killed her. Anora. You should know that." She said it gravely, as it was a grave matter. Melisande had considered keeping it a secret. From what Zevran said, Alistair had no suspicion that Anora's death was anything but an accident. But he deserved the truth. He had to know why she couldn't stay, even if he'd forgiven her for Loghain.
Alistair stared at her for a moment, all his movement arrested. "In the Maker's name... Why?!" Trying desperately to think of a reason that would excuse it...surely Anora must have attacked her or threatened...but how could Anora have even..."Why?"
"To secure your throne, Your Majesty." Those damned icy eyes of hers, that bloody set chin. And everything that was really her, that was Meli and not the Warden, locked up behind that Maker forsaken smooth noble mask. "There was a danger that she could rally a rebelli..."
"For me?" She had no right to lay this at his feet. "Stop it. You..."
She was up and nearly vibrating with her own tension. "No! Not for you. For Ferelden! Anora would have sat sweet as a grass snake until there was a chink in your armor and then she'd have turned on you like a viper! The whole bloody country would be torn again between you and it would take nothing for enemies to come in and pick up the pieces." She heaved in a breath before continuing. "I could not take the chance, Your Majesty."
Alistair bowed his head for a moment and when he looked up Melisande was startled at the bright, hot anger on his face and the snarl on his lips.
"Stop! Do NOT call me that unless you believe it. Do you?"
What? "Of course I…"
"Then it was not your place to make such a decision." He was so...upright in his bright armor. His eyes nearly blazed with his fury and it took her aback. "This was not a Warden's concern. You had no authority, Lady Cousland, to make such a decision on your own, without consulting your king."
"I..." He'd told her more than once, that Grey Wardens were not heroes. But he was. He'd always been.
"Loghain was...as Warden Commander, that was your right. To make him a Warden. Whether I agreed with it or not...but this...Damn it all, Melisande..." He shut his eyes. "I should have you arrested. It's...Maker. You should be hung."
And maybe that was the answer. Unable to die with the demon, maybe she'd been meant to do that one last service for Ferelden. Swallowing, Melisande nodded. "That is of course, your decision." She reached up and unbuckled the crossed scabbard belts. The dagger and sword clattered to the ground in a heap of tangled straps and metal at her feet.
Alistair stared, shocked. He'd never seen her treat her weaponry so carelessly.
"I won't fight it. I'll come quietly."
She was looking away from him now, gazing back across the lands her family had ruled for centuries. Longer than his had been kings. Back over the bluffs that overlooked the keep. The new tomb, hastily built to hold all the ashes the Highever folk could recover from the massacre, looked like a decorative berm from here. Moss and stone covered the artificial hill.
"If I can request it, Your Majesty...if my ashes could be brought back here?" And there was a part of her that wished she'd never left. Wished Duncan had picked some other place to visit that night.
The quiet question struck him like a lance. Still. After all she had accomplished, she yet clung to the guilt. He'd thought she'd gotten past it...but, no. He'd left her alone and she'd pulled it back over her in a smothering blanket. "I can't..."
"I see." Oh, Maker, did she not deserve that even, in his eyes?
"No...Meli, I'm not going to hang you." She looked at him again and, oh there she was. The mask had slipped and there was the shy, heartbroken woman who wore it so well. Almost all of his anger fled with it.
"There's a ship leaving. I'll be on it. I'll go to Weisshaupt and I won't come back. Is exile enough?" Oh…but to never see Highever again? To never see him. No. It was right.
Alistair felt as if the bluff he was standing on had lurched beneath his feet. "You'd leave Ferelden forever?"
"I ...killed her. There have to be consequences, I know that. What better way than..."
"Is that why? Is.. is that why you left? To exile yourself?" And perhaps why she'd killed Anora. To have something to force his hand. "You saved Ferelden, Melisande. There were casualties. And no...Maker, you shouldn't have killed her but...Why in Andraste's name do you think I would punish you? I couldn't…even if…"
She looked back at him evenly, her voice back under her own control. "I betrayed your trust. You only ever asked one thing of me, the right to see Loghain dead, and to save myself, I refused it. Why wouldn't you?"
Alistair shook his head, closing his eyes for just a minute. "If you'd done it to save yourself, I might. But I was there. I saw you trying to...you did it for me."
Melisande couldn't deny it, this time. "I'm the one who always walks away clean. I never bear any brunt. This time...it should have been me. It would have been better."
"Meli..." He laid his hand on her arm, a hair away the patch of scarring left from a dragon fire burn, taken when she'd stepped in front of him when he'd stumbled fighting the false Andraste. "You always bear it. You carry it all, even the things that are not your fault."
Softly, with her chin firm and her eyes steady she looked up at him. "A Cousland does her duty. That's my place. To bear the responsibility."
He couldn't help a small smile. That was one of the reasons he needed her. Born a noble, raised to understand the nuances of what was owed her people. But…"Was it all just duty?"
Melisande looked up into his eyes, sweetly hazel and worried. Oh, she'd missed him. Missed the way he felt beside her, solid as stone. "No." she whispered. "No, of course not."
He drew himself up trying to make himself as kingly as he could manage. "Ferelden needs you. I need you."
"You don't. You'll be fine." When he looked like he might argue with her, she shook her head. "Look at what I've done! How could I be of any use to you?"
Honesty. It was all he could give her. He'd never managed to be manipulative. "No. No, I won't be fine. I can….I think I can do this. But, I'll hate it. I'll hate every minute if you aren't…Meli, please. Don't make me do it alone."
She'd pulled away but tired, Melisande leaned against one of the boulders exposed by wind and weather. "You have advisors…Eamon and Teagan. There are others. Fergus knows the nobility, if you can bear his humor. Bann Alfstana. She's a little blunt…but, she has a good head on her shoulders, a good heart. She should be invited to…"
Following, Alistair argued. "I don't want advisors. I need you. You know me. You know where I lack…where I'm not ready. Ferelden needs you, more than that. We have to rebuild. Do you not think all of that will be easier if the Warden Commander and the King stand together? The darkspawn aren't going to just…disappear. There's still…you can't leave. I command it." And it was a soft mockery of the old, slightly childish Alistair he'd left behind.
She was very still for a minute and then she huffed a laugh, just a shadow of her old chuckle. But…that was how they had started, Alistair recalled. With her grieving and him making her laugh. Maybe this wasn't the end. "The king has no authority over the wardens. You know that."
"Maybe…but..please?"
"So persistent." She sighed. "I…don't know if I can stay. If it ever comes to light that I was the one who killed Anora, it would damage your authority."
"No, it won't."
"You can't just..."
"I'm the king. If someone questions it, I'll make them believe I ordered it." Not laughing now, he meant it. He could order an execution and in all honesty, he did not think the nobles, tired as they were of fighting and scrambling to rebuild, would object. It was a failing, he thought, that he was not more grieved over Anora. But grieving would not bring her back.
"You will not! Alistair…" Melisande covered her mouth with her hand. It was the first time she'd said his name in nearly two weeks. He didn't know that, though and bulled forward.
"But I'm not just the king. And you aren't just a warden. Maker knows, I have regretted not being there nearly every minute since you left Denerim. Can we not…just try? Go back to before and stand shoulder to shoulder?"
"For Ferelden?"
No. Just for us. He almost said it, too, but Alistair could see the distance still between them. Duty would bring her back where her heart wouldn't, yet. Patience, then. "Come back to Denerim, Meli. Let's celebrate the end of the Blight. For Ferelden." Hesitating he added, "You…you have to promise me something. Swear to me, Cousland to Theirin."
He'd squared his shoulders. The dying light of the setting sun gleamed off of his armor and Melisande closed her eyes against the spell of it. Her knight, shining. "What's that, then, oh king?"
"Never again. Melisande…you have to swear you'll never again kill someone who isn't intent on killing you…or one of your companions." If she made such an oath, she'd keep it. Especially if he made her swear on her name, here. "I may, someday, have to order you…or in service as a Warden…but, I don't need an enforcer. Until then, I need your vow, Lady Cousland."
"I don't know that I can promise that." She wouldn't lie to him again, but there was too much at stake. And she couldn't know what lay in her future as a Warden.
"Can you promise to try, then?" He made his voice grave. If there was any chance that she thought to make this a regular occurrence, killing off any perceived threat to him on whims, then he would have to reconsider. But this was Melisande. He had seen her make poor choices and strive to make them right. And no matter what, he didn't believe she was a murderer.
With her head tilted and ragged bangs obscuring her eyes, Melisande considered him for a moment. It felt like an eternity before she nodded. "I can do that."
Alistair held his hand out and she took it for a moment, but she dropped it as soon as they gained the trail. They left the loneliness of the sheltered bluff and walked silently into sight of the Keep.