Authors Note: Well, as always thanks to my lovely beta-readers. Here we finally get a good look at Alistair after so many years ago. As always, please read and review. I can't tell you how much it means to me to know folks enjoyed the story, what folks think of it...etc. We're back in a 'build-up' stage, setting the pieces for fun to be had in later chapters. I just hope that I captured the voice of Alistair, that slick, smooth, sexy voice....*drools*
Chapter 7
She had thought Zevran's face had looked different after her long sleep. But he could not prepare her for the shock of seeing Alistair on the throne, aged beyond his years with a striking woman large with child at his side. Sylrien had been staring at him as Zevran carried on with his introductions. Only when he mentioned the word 'rose' did she wake from the reverie. 'That was cruel,' she thought. She knew he had said such things so that Alistair might realize what he had said of her, not knowing who it was. The elf's jealousy stung sharply, but she had to forgive him. If he loved her, then simply being here in the same room as man Zevran knew she loved was also cruel to him. Still, nothing could prepare her for actually being so close to Alistair, yet so far away. When his hand touched the top of her head as he spoke, she wanted to reach up to take that hand and press it against the side of her face. Sylrien remembered every callused fingertip, the lines and ridges of his palms. She wanted to kiss his fingers, throw herself into his arms...but the silence was broken by the clearing of Zevran's throat. The reunited wardens snapped their heads in his direction, and he made a bowing gesture. Alistair was the first to speak, regaining some sense of decorum. "Warden, Zevran, my council room. Follow. My queen, tend to the rest of the introductions?" He turned on his heel without looking at her, his cape trailing behind him. Zevran was the first to follow, and it took Sylrien several moments to regain her wits before she hurried after the two men.
She felt eyes on her. Though Alistair had recognized her, few others in the main hall did. But news would spread fast, and if what she had seen in Denerim was any indication of what people thought of her...she would soon be mobbed. But right now that didn't matter. All that mattered was the back of the tall human that walked in front of them. 'Say something,' she pleaded silently. 'Be angry, be happy, please, say something...' But still silence reigned over the trio. As they entered the smaller room, notable only for a large table with many chairs, she saw his jaw clench, his eyes eyes narrow. He was turning something over in his head, thinking - then with the speed and fluid grace of a cat, Alistair had Zevran by the neck, lifting him off the floor. "You did this!" He shouted, gauntlet-clad hand closing over Arainai's throat, pinning him to the wall, several inches off the floor. "I should have known you did this! How did you take her from the tomb! How could you? I swear I will have the life stripped from you..." He growled, towering over the elf, nearly spitting in his face. "You stole her away, nearly caused a revolt you little grave-robber! What have you done? What have you-!" As Zevran's eyes fluttered close, as he tore at the hand that was slowly crushing his windpipe, Alistair suddenly relented, dropping the elf to the floor and turning away from him.
Alistair's anger soon melted away, and he could only slump back into one of the chairs, drained and ashen. Then he felt her soft hands cup his face, tilt his head up hers. She stood between his legs, murmuring soft sounds of comfort as the other elf gasped and swallowed lungfuls of air. "My love, my darling - I will tell you everything that I know, but he is not at fault...." Sylrien lowered her voice, cradling his head as he wrapped his arms around her. The last time he had seen her she was cold and lifeless. Now she was here, warm and soft, and he could even hear her heart beating. The sound thundered in his ears, a reaffirmation of the impossible. She was alive, Thank the Maker, somehow she was alive. It was like everyone in the world had disappeared, except for them . He paid no mind to the hall full of courtiers and nobility that surely wondered what was going on; he did not pay attention to the blond elf sulking in the corner. Sylrien was here, siting in his lap, talking to him. It was a monumental effort not to scoop her up in his arms and whisk her away, a monumental effort to actual listen to her, rather silence the words she was saying by kissing her - by making up for twelve years worth of kisses. And touching, Maker, the touching! Gifts, flowers, strawberries-he had seen her eat strawberries once, at Redcliffe. It was the most magnificent sight he had ever seen, how she delighted in their sweetness, how the juice dripped onto her lips and stained them red, how she had sucked-wait. What was she saying? Crazy witches destroying the world in possession of souls of Archdemons. Not strawberries. He should not. Think. Of. Strawberries.
He watched her choose her words carefully, look away and wince at painful memories. Slowly she started speaking, "After...After Denerim...The last thing I remember is being put underneath a deep sleep. It surely was a spell, and she would have had me trapped in the Fade forever, living yet not so. I do not know how I escaped, how I woke up..." Her voice trailed off into silence as she frowned, still turning over the possibilities in her mind. "I woke up in Antiva, with Zevran sleeping-" He raised an eyebrow in alarm before hugging her tighter to him. "-Sleeping at my bedside. He had taken care of me, watched over me. He told me it had been a month?" She looked to the elf, who Alistair finally remembered being in the same room with them. Zevran nodded though he kept his eyes away from the pair. "Yes, a month. And I spent a few days, a week or so-the time is all blurred...but I know what Flemeth did, so we came here. I knew you- I knew that we could find aid here, that if we had stopped an archdemon before, that it was with you and the others that we could stop her again. I don't know where she is...I just..." Syl took a deep breath. "This is all my fault. If I had not spared her life, if I had not tricked Morrigan, then this all wouldn't have happened. Our souls - mine and the archdemon's...we were intertwined, destroyed together. To capture the essence of the old god, she had to bring both of us back to life and then separate us. I...I..." Tears filled her eyes as she looked up at him. "I am sorry. I am so sorry."
To Zevran, things had gone about as well as he thought they could be. The woman he loved was currently locked in an embrace with another man who had just nearly choked the life out of him. And now she was crying and he could do nothing. Alistair had taken that duty upon himself. As she began to sob, he had begun to wipe her tears with his hands, shushing her and kissing her cheeks. Zevran couldn't look at it. If anything brought him pleasure out of this touching scene, it was that she had glossed over her stay with him in Antiva. She did not mention the long nights of passion, nights that turned into days. She failed to mention how they rarely left their bed on the long voyage to Denerim. She made him no promises, but it was not Alistair's name she had been crying out in passion. He had expected this to a degree, but it amazed him how much it hurt. Still, the sound of her sobbing bothered him like no other. Zevran stood up slowly, still rubbing his neck as she managed to quiet herself, resting her head against Alistair's chest as she continued to speak. "You don't understand...I know what she wants. There is only one thing...one reason why she would do such a thing. She doesn't want to possess it for some ritual component. She wants to be it. She wants to take the powers of the old god - settle into whatever body the soul now resides in. This is always what she wanted - why she saved us at Ishal. Why Morrigan, why Morrigan came with us..." Zevran raised an eyebrow at this recent piece of news, and Alistair gave her a somewhat incredulous look. Reluctantly she left the human's lap, leaning against the table as she stared at some point on the wall.
"The night...the night before...Denerim, you saw Morrigan in my room. She wanted me to convince you to lay with her and conceive a child." Sylrien's voice went dangerously flat, her hand knotting into a fist. Alistair jumped up at this, shaking his head to try to dispel the thought, "What?!" Thoughts flashed in Zevran's mind of his brief encounter with Morrigan's mother as he took careful, measured steps towards the shaken woman. She continued to speak evenly despite her shoulders trembling. "You would have a fathered a child that would have had the Taint. The Archdemon's soul would have jumped to it, like a beacon, she said. No-one had to die as long as she had what she wanted, Morrigan would leave and you would have never seen it." Alistair seemed to recoil from her presence at the very thought as Zevran slowly approached her. Still she kept speaking, now to herself more than either of the men in the room. "...And I knew, I knew she spoke the truth. And I knew what would eventually happen. I had to die - I had to keep it from her...I couldn't let you have a bastard that - I couldn't share you again after knowing I would never...never be able to give you that, never be able to be with you knowing - I...I couldn't live with myself knowing that I had doomed the world to with my own....my own selfish desires - I...I..." Zevran had almost reached her, was reaching out a gloved hand to take her own.
Sylrien looked up at them both. Though her cheeks still glistened with tears, she was calm. "Flemeth would become Morrigan, as she has done so. That soul is now bound to something - someone. And in time, Flemeth will settle into that body. If Flemeth had died, Morrigan would have done the same, I think. They - she would become a god. And now she has the means to do so." 'And she had carried that burden alone,' Zevran thought, 'so she could save Alistair as well as the rest of us.' He turned Sylrien to face him, holding her tightly as Alistair sat there, still processing all this information. "And so..." Alistair spoke, breaking the silence that had settled over the room. "And so you sent me to the gates so I couldn't...Maker, you never intended to come back. You were going to-"
He couldn't speak anymore. Zevran watched him stand and move to the door. He looked sidelong at them both, speaking with a rather surprising and imperious tone of voice that Zevran would have never associated with Alistair. "There will be a banquet tonight in your honor. You have other duties you must see to before we go on this quest to stop Flemeth. Quarters will be provided for both of you, and whatever needs you have will be met. I must now tend to my duties as king before I set out with you." With that, he left the room. Zevran was impressed; He had grown into a man, and into his kingship. If Alistair wasn't the one thing that opposed happiness with Sylrien, he could almost respect the human.