Chapter Three: Family Values
The ruins of Ostagar rose up from the dark earth and ghostly mists of the Kocari Wilds like the sun bleached ribs of a skeleton. The shouts of soldiers echoed on the morning air, breaking the stillness that gripped my traveling companions as we approached in silence.
Having been thoroughly rejected by the other mages present – more senior enchanters than myself, such as the crabby and bald Uldred and the quiet and grandmotherly healer, Wynne – I walked at the front of the band of mages, beside Duncan. After managing to coax, or maybe annoy, the Grey Warden into conversation on the week-long hike, I'd found him to be a lot more friendly and likeable than I had first thought, even if the things he talked about most were darkspawn – and Maker, was he painting lovely images of them – and battle preparations. He was a warrior and a Warden, it was to be expected. Luckily, my origins had led me to study such things in the Circle, and I could hold up my end well enough.
I couldn't help but notice he seemed troubled. Not that I expected a Warden to confide his concerns in a teenage mage, I didn't. But it did make me wonder what exactly he wasn't saying.
Whatever it was, it didn't help with my expectations of survival.
I entered the gates at his side, under the wary gaze of the soldiers that stood sentinel at either edge of the highway at the archway entrance to the fort. In fact, I had the strong suspicion that it was because I was standing so close to him that the templars that immediately swooped in – a messenger had been sent ahead to Ostagar on Duncan's horse to warn the encampment of the arrival of more mages – didn't drag me off to the mage's area.
I couldn't help but feel a twitch of annoyance. Even at a war camp, mages were separated from other soldiers and watched by templars? Why? In combat against the army of darkspawn Duncan had described, mages would be using their powers, and how would any one split their attention between their paranoia over blood magic and abominations to watch both their own allies and fight for their lives against fiends from the Void itself?
Maker, I prayed silently, exhaling as the templars about-faced, feeling a rush of mixed surprise and gratitude as Duncan didn't point out that they were forgetting a mage. Grant me the patience to get through this without roasting anyone like a marshmellow. It's their problem if they're so damn prejudiced that they'll turn their backs on the enemy to watch us. Not mine. Can we keep it that way?
Prayer said, and fervently, as the last thing I wanted was to accidentally toast someone and have the templars here ready to execute me too, I turned to Duncan. "Not afraid to give a mage a little leash, huh?" I asked with pure innocence.
"We have had our share of them in the Wardens. Including maleficarum, and you are no blood mage. Besides," a smile twitched under that dark beard. "You remind me of someone."
That startled me, on more than one count.
"You can keep blood mages in the Wardens?"
"Yes. That falls under the Warden credo: Whatever it takes to achieve victory. We swear no fealty to any king and, as we fight to keep all of Thedas safe, our Right of Conscription supersedes such laws." Duncan led me into the camp, forward past the guards, to a bridge spanning a massive gorge, the Wilds spilling ruggedly as far as the eye could see over the sloping hills south of the fortress.
A bridge which the gold-armored King Cailan was crossing.
"Duncan!" the young king greeted jovially, gripping Duncan's forearm in a firm shake as the more rugged Warden returned the gesture. "Here I was beginning to worry you'd miss all the fun."
The king of Ferelden was stopping for a chat with us? It would seem that the title Commander of the Grey came with some influence.
"Not if I could help it, your Majesty."
"Then I will be able to fight alongside the fabled Grey Wardens after all. Glorious!" Then Cailan turned his attention on me. "And who, may I ask, is this?"
"I am Rowan, mage of the Circle, your Majesty," I answered before Duncan had a chance to politely introduce me. After all, only I could fully answer the king's question. "Rowan Mac Tir."
As I'd suspected, the revelation of my surname got a reaction. Duncan turned and gave me an imperiously questioning look, jaw tight and brow arched. Cailan's blue eyes widened for a moment, then he recovered from the surprise and gave me a smile that was downright sunny.
"Are you really?" he asked, sizing me up for a moment before reaching for my arm. I smiled faintly in return and gripped his gauntleted arm politely. The feel of his hand around my arm made me a little nervous, no matter how good a man he seemed. He felt strong enough and, especially with the heavy plate he was wearing, looked big enough to snap my bone like a twig. I gave myself another mental shake to snap myself out of it. "Yes, I can see that... You do favor him, more than Anora does. Welcome to Ostagar, dear sister-in-law."
Cailan released my arm and gave me an apologetic look that, while sincere, also managed to look as mischievous as an old friend of mine from the tower after he'd fed the templars the rumor of secret passages in the tower. Or every single time he'd 'mysteriously reappeared' at breakfast after his escapes.
"I apologize for having to stop writing, Rowan," he said. "As you can see, I've been a bit busy lately." He gestured over his shoulder to indicate the encampment and bustling soldiers.
I grinned this time. I had thought Cailan wouldn't be the same in public as he had been in our letters. Even if it was nothing personal, just a political matter of keeping up appearances, I hadn't thought he would be openly friendly with a mage. Between him and Duncan, I was getting surprised left and right today. "Yeah, I missed that too."
When Cailan had heard from Anora that she had a little sister in the Circle, he hadn't been able to understand how they had utterly abandoned me. Politics or no, family was family, he'd said, and it should have meant enough to them to keep in touch and to have respect enough to acknowledge my existence. As it was, outside of Gwaren, only very few high nobility knew of me, and it was largely accepted that I had died, likely of the same illness that had killed my mother a few years earlier. Regardless, he had respected their wishes and said nothing. He had simply begun to send me letters.
At first, it had scared me. Why in the Maker's name would the king be writing to me? Greagior and Irving had known my full identity, so the king's letters to his little sister were kept secret and didn't raise any questions, just some exasperation. It hadn't taken me long to see the good, earnest man that Cailan was – even if he did talk to me like I was a toddler at times, he made me laugh – and I had finally relaxed and come to enjoy the correspondence. The trick had been keeping Jowan and the bloody mischief maker Anders, when he wasn't playing seek and find in the countryside with the templars or in solitary, out of my mail.
"I can only imagine. I've been told more than once how fun the Circle is. Are you here to join the Wardens?" A reasonable assumption. I was with Duncan.
"No, nothing quite so noble. Just throwing in with the army."
Cailan nodded, but his expression became more grim as he gestured toward a large, dark tent across from a bright gold one. I assumed the gold one was his, which made the other... "Rowan, Loghain... He's in here. The guard is a suspicious man. Handpicked by the general for that very reason, actually," A fleeting, wry smile turned his lips. "He won't believe you if you try to tell him the truth of who you are. If you wish to speak with your father... Tell the guard I've sent you with a message."
Clever. "Does Loghain know his son-in-law is such a troublemaker?"
"Has for years," Cailan quipped brightly. "Its why he doesn't like me very much. But, Rowan, really, I need to warn you. Loghain's reaction to your being here.. It may not be quite what you're looking for. He's not a bad man, my father trusted him with his life and so do I, but..."
"I know," I interrupted, an action which seemed to surprise Duncan, but not Cailan. We had been writing for a while. He had a feel for what I was like by now. I was a troublemaker too. "Mages get that a lot, Cailan."
The contrite look that Cailan gave me was enough to say that he knew that. It was sweet of him to do his best to apologize for it anyway.
"I hate to cut this short," the king sighed and bobbed his head in farewell. "But I should get back, before your father sends out a search party for me."
And with that, my brother-in-law made his retreat into the camp, followed by a now-gossiping honor guard.
"Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir's daughter, hmm?" Duncan asked mildly. "You could have said something about that on the journey over here."
"Like you've been totally forthcoming yourself," I retorted breezily. "So I didn't feel like getting chatty about it. Does it really make a difference?"
"To me?" Duncan shrugged, making that a clear 'no, not really, my business is darkspawn'. "It's just a surprise. I've had my dealings with the man, and he's... Never mentioned anything about you."
"No, I can't imagine he has." The smile I gave this time was small and sad. I could feel the weight of it on my lips. A cool autumn breeze rifled through my sweep of black hair, and I lifted my head to it for a moment, closing my eyes and letting out a slow sigh before clicking my tongue. "Bah, politics." My eyes snapped open. "I should get to the mage's camp, or maybe hunt down a quartermaster and see if he has anything I can afford."
Duncan nodded and skimmed a hand through his hair. "I need to find my latest recruit, Alistair, and make sure no one's managed to drink themselves into alcohol poisoning in my absence." Duncan replied, turning and making for the army camp.
Standing alone in the middle of the camp, under the vaulting blue sky with armed soldiers everywhere, weapons lying about, I couldn't deny that I felt exposed in simple, ankle length cloth robes. They weren't the best for running in, and they weren't much defense against arrows or blades. And I didn't like it.
Quartermaster it was.
After an hour's searching and asking countless soldiers, all of whom eyed my robes warily, I found the quartermaster and he, in turn, robbed me blind in exchange for a set of battered leathers. Deciding that bartering definitely was not one of my talents, I tucked the new armor under my arm, found the templars, let myself be sheperded to a tent, and changed out of my robes into the light and supple scuffed leather.
Changed, I ran my hands over the front, feeling the joints and leather plates, the strong areas and the weak points. It wasn't the impenetrable kind of protection Cailan and the templars had, but it was better than cloth, and it freed up my movement in spades. I couldn't deny it. I liked it. I felt powerful for once, armored up with my dagger strapped to my hip, for the first time visible to the world. Rather like myself, actually.
I was getting to make choices for myself, ones that mattered. The feeling was intoxicating. It brought to mind a faint memory from my brief childhood in Gwaren, the first time my father had taken me from the castle to see the ocean. Well, the first time I could remember anyway. I'd gotten the same feeling standing on the docks with him, the salt spray in my face, tiny hand held tight in his huge one. At seventeen, almost eighteen years old I was feeling the excitement of a child. Over a little shopping trip. Who knew?
I was in a half-crouch on the floor, hands down in front bracing me, swinging one leg out in a sweeping motion meant to knock the legs out of any assailant when my roommate came in. And my kick almost took out Wynne's leg as she ducked into the tent. I froze, flinching at the thought of what that kind of blow would do to bones that old, and quickly tucked my legs back under me and straightened, blushing and folding my arms behind my back, the picture of innocence.
Wynne gave me an amused look before moving to her cot, sitting down and pulling the tie from the base of her short white ponytail. "Practicing for the darkspawn, are we?" Her tone was mild. I didn't think she was angry. I gave a noncommittal shrug. She, in turn, gave me a look that felt like she was spearing through me. It was unnerving. "You don't carry a staff. Why?"
"Most of my magic is... Unreliable. I'm excellent at some spells, absolutely irredeemable at others." As my mentor and I had found out the hard, very painful way. How was I supposed to guess that my spell, meant to absorb hostile magic, would instead reflect it back at the caster... And cause it to splinter and shoot everywhere? "I like to have another skill or three to get by with. I'd probably die out here if I relied on my magic. The only thing a staff would do for me is give me an extra long stick to whack things with."
A small, patient smile pulled at Wynne's lips. Yeah, there was something about this woman that spear headed home the point that I was missing out on the whole family thing. "Then tell me, my dear, if you feel you can't rely on your spells and, as a Circle mage, you're untried with that blade of yours, what brings you out here? It doesn't sound like a survival-oriented choice to me," she added gently.
I could think of a handful of honest answers to that question, and just as many ways to skirt around it. Why was I here, heedless of untried skills? Like most mages, I was small and slender, lithe and fast as a fox when I wanted to be. Physical fitness might be discouraged in the Circle, as it made it easier to run from templars, but if a girl were careful, she could find ways to maintain her body. All it took was knowing the right people and frequent requests to carry messages through the tower. Or a lazy senior enchanter and a little mastery over a strong dislike of spiders. So, while unpracticed, I did have skill, and its not as if I would be completely on my own in the midst of an army, and my first memories were of a childhood molded by Ferelden's most respected general, who had planned for me to inherit his position one day. Instinct had to have something there. There was the fact that I wanted to meet my father, whatever he had to say. Maybe it was patriotism to Ferelden, Maker knew I'd been soaked to the core in that at home.
And then there was the fact that I just wanted out of Kinloch Hold like the Chantry said the Maker had wanted out of the Golden City when the Tevinter magisters had come with their taint of pride. The Maker had fled what had become the Black City. I'd made it out of Kinloch Hold. Whatever the truth behind my reasoning really was, I knew in my heart that I would die happier if I died here on the battlefield, as free as my fellow Fereldans, than if I one day dropped of... I don't know, a dust bunny lodging itself in my throat while reading in the tower library. And that had nothing to do with the excitement of one over the other. It had to do with fresh air, a blue sky, and control over my fate versus tight routine locked within a stone phallus in the middle of a lake.
Alright, maybe I had a whole load more respect for Anders now. Briefly, I wondered where he was. Back in the tower, biding his time again, locked up, here at the camp as well? Maker knew. If any mage was kin to a fox, it was him. Or maybe a cat. He sure loved the tower's mouser.
But I didn't say any of that to Wynne. Instead, I threw myself down on my own bedroll – either the templars feared Wynne wouldn't be able to get in and out of a bedroll or as a senior enchanter, she merited an actual cot, I wasn't sure which it was – with a shrug. "I don't know."
To her credit, Wynne didn't press the issue. She simply looked at me for a moment, or until I rolled onto my side and gave her my back to stare at. I didn't bother getting out of my armor again. I liked the feel of it too much at the moment.
Belligerent? Maybe a little. But soon enough, I heard the slow, even breathing that told me she was sleeping. I wished I was so lucky. I felt wide awake and my whole body prickled uneasily. I hadn't gone to visit my father yet, and, in spite of Cailan's warning, or perhaps even because of it, I was anxious to know how badly he would react to me.
A man couldn't completely abandon his own flesh and blood, could he? I'd once been my father's shadow. I'd idolized the man, and, before he ever told me that Gwaren would be mine one day, since Anora was promised to the prince, I'd hoped to grow up to be just like him, and prayed it to the Maker every time I actually remembered to do my prayers. In fact, I could vaguely recall asking my mother once if I would be able to get armor like his one day. She'd laughed and told me I would likely always be too small for such heavy plate. She'd been right, but she'd died before I'd found my abilities. "Finding" meaning accidentally setting fire to the hair of some scruffy peasant that had tried to rob my father at swordpoint. I had known my dad, my hero and the Hero of the River Dane, could have handled it and paddled the boy with his own blade like a naughty child playing inside with a stick, but once, just this once, I'd wanted so badly to do something for my father. To do something besides hide in his shadow like a miniature wisp of the real thing.
And, lo, the Maker had given me my wish.
That was one thing I was grateful for, that she hadn't lived to see me taken from our home.
I played with the tie on my bag as my father paced before the hearth. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. His hands were clasped at his back, for once neither in his heavy armor nor the light hunting leathers he usually wore, even inside, just wearing a simple tunic and breeches. Even then, I knew the rule: No Orlesian silks in our home. He'd told Anora often enough. Me, I was happy with my cream breeches and dark blue tunic. Boy's clothes, Anora always told me, but it was what my daddy wore, it never made him mad, and it let me play. Dresses did not, not the way I played.
Maker, I thought. Please don't let me grow up and get boring like my big sister!
The fire kept his face half in light, half shadow, but I could tell by now when he was troubled and when he was just being his gruff and grumpy self. He was upset about something. Was it really about that robber? I looked down, focusing on my hands toying with the knots on my knapsack. I'd messed up before, I was six, of course I had, but I could never remember doing anything that made my daddy mad, much less for days. It'd almost been a week. The guy'd run off, he'd been screaming, yeah, but he could run. Certainly he'd found some water to put out that fire.
Where had it come from, anyway?
For my daddy to be like this, it had to have had something to do with me, and it meant something bad. My daddy was smart, so smart, but he always kept the bad things to himself for as long as he could. Well, he didn't tell me or Anora at least.
Speaking of Anora, where was she?
I wanna be like daddy, right? I scolded myself, tucking my chin to my chest at my own admonishing. Then you gotta be brave! Sitting here staring at your hands isn't doing anything! Daddy wouldn't do that!
The voice was right, and I knew it. Quick and quiet, I got up and crossed the room and was tugging on my daddy's sleeve before he could notice I'd moved. It startled him a little, which was unusual, I felt the tense before he looked down at me. Even when I surprised him, I'd never managed to... Startle or scare him. When had that changed? When I'd set that man's hair on fire?
My little fingers tightened around the cuff of his shirt. "Daddy," I asked quietly. "Did I do something bad? I'm sorry. Can I make it better?"
I'd also never managed to put him at a loss for words before. I still hadn't, but he had to think, long and hard, before he spoke. When he did, he knelt to my level, the harsh lines of his face softening into the look Anora, my mom, and I had often been on the receiving end of. In fact, it was a look he had only for us, and on occasion and to a lesser degree, King Maric and Prince Cailan. It was affection and pride, mixed with a little exasperation. In this case, I had the feeling the exasperation was at himself, for making me worry.
"No, Rowan," he said finally, voice gruff sounding as ever, like the wary growl of a mabari, but soft. He twisted his sleeve free of my grip and took both my hands in his. "You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, I think that child will think twice before he approaches anyone else that way again." A grimness settled on him with the next words, and that scared me. My daddy had only ever gotten this look, the graveyard stare, when thinking about the Rebellion, when he'd told me about my namesake, Queen Rowan, and when he talked with King Maric about how to handle Orlesian relations. Especially when King Maric wasn't listening. Whatever this was, it wasn't good.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he continued. "But what happened... It showed that you aren't an ordinary human." The look on my face must have been something, because he quickly backtracked on himself. "You are human, I mean. Just not like most of us. To set that man's hair on fire, it took power. Magic." He sighed and let go of my hands, clasping his on his knee instead. "You're a mage, Rowan."
I'd read about mages. Between those stories and the things I heard when I went to Denerim with my dad and Anora, I knew what was coming next. I'd assumed he'd had me pack because we were heading to Denerim again soon. But...
"I'm being sent away?" I asked in a voice that sounded tiny even to myself. My heart went from thudding painfully behind my ribs to sitting so still I could barely breathe. My daddy wouldn't do that to me, would he? There had to be some way I could stay. He was the second most powerful man in Ferelden, and the king's best friend. I was his heir, and more importantly, his daughter. Didn't that mean more than the rules of a religion?
Apparently not, because two templars chose that moment to step into the room, sparing my father from further explanation.
I fought them. I was young and I was tiny, but the whole point was that I was tiny, and even then I moved like a weasel. The templars would get a hold on me only for me to twist out of the grip of their bulky armor time and again, but they were too good to let me get around them to try to run.
"Rowan."
My daddy's voice stopped me. I stopped struggling in the grip of one of the templars and looked up at him. I could feel the hope in me, that he would step in and stop this from happening. Until I saw the expression on his face. Blank. There might have been a brief flicker of pride in those eyes as pale as mine, but it was there and gone so fast I couldn't be sure.
"Stop. You have to go with them. You're being trained as a mage of the Circle of Magi now."
Those two sentences sucked the fight right out of me. I felt tears prick at my eyes, run hot over my cheeks as, relatively sure I wasn't going to try to kick him again or run away, one of the templars took my hand firmly and the other retrieved my bag. My father didn't move as they took me from the castle and the one holding my hand lifted me onto his horse in front of him. I didn't see Anora at all.
Twisting around to see past the templar's bulky armor, I stared as first my home, then my entire hometown passed away behind us as we rode onto the Brecillian Passage. It was the first time I'd felt completely alone.
It wasn't the last.
I woke up with tears clinging to my lashes and my arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Blinking, I tried to pinpoint when I'd fallen asleep, but, as that meant thinking about the memory I'd relived in dream form, the hollow cold that rose up inside me put a stop to that, and I sat up. Irritably wiping my eyes with the back of my new glove, I found my satchel sitting on top of my discarded robes, reached past Cullen's parting gift to feel the brush of old, cheaply made Ferelden silk. A faint smile touched my lips as I pulled out an eleven year old child's tunic, the color blue that burned at the heart of a flame with black embroidery. I let the worn fabric slide over my fingers, wondering, not for the first time, how do we find out who we really are? Who decides what happens to us? I hadn't asked to be born a mage, but a lot of what shaped my thoughts and feelings was my upbringing in the tower and how my family had, essentially, given me away.
What happens when you fight fate?
I closed a fist around the cool, watery cloth and smiled grimly. It was about time I got the answer to that question. I got up, tossing my old shirt back down over my satchel. Wynne wouldn't bother it, if she woke up before I got back. I glanced up. Yeah, she was still asleep. I rolled my shoulders to loosen the muscles that weren't too happy about having slept in armor, and walked out of the tent into weak early morning light.
It was about time I went and talked to my father.
I found it funny that his tent was right around the corner from the mage's miniature stronghold, and Cailan's directly across from it. With all the paranoia mundanes showed about my kind, why were they keeping us so close to their leaders? What about blood mages in disguise, with their mind control? Hypocrites. All of them. They were keeping us so close so we could be there in seconds to defend the most important people in the camp, I was sure of it.
As I approached the guard of Loghain's tent, I was suddenly profoundly glad I had changed out of my robes. No fool would go around an army camp unarmed, so the knife was overlooked, but I had the distinct impression from the way he was staring me down even as I walked up that a mage would not be getting in to see the Teyrn. Maker, even with Cailan's excuse, it looked like I'd be lucky to as it was. The pinched look to his face told me he would probably ask for me to give him this message so he could deliver it, or for me to tell him if I claimed it was verbal.
Yeah, my father sure seemed to be a friendly guy.
"Hail!" I greeted with false cheer. "Lovely morning, isn't it?" It had no effect on this guy, so I smiled in what I hoped was a convincing way. "The king wanted me to deliver a message to Teyrn Loghain. Is he inside?" I pointed helpfully at the tent. See me? See how harmless? Now stop looking at me like that and let me in.
The scruffy guard gave me a brief once-over. "You the king's latest dalliance, huh?" he grunted, looked at my face, then quailed. "Don't know how he can do that." I was hoping my sister just showed in my face, and that it should be creepy cheating on the woman with someone who looked like her. My ego didn't like the other option. "Go in, make it quick."
Somehow, I had the feeling that this would indeed be quick, and that I would have very little to do with that fact. And, considering my nightmare of a memory and being mistaken for my brother-in-law's mistress, if my luck kept going this way, my eviction would be over crossed blades.
I passed him and slipped into the tent.
It was gloomy in there. Our castle in Gwaren had been a bit gloomy, what with the lack of windows for enemy archers to put arrows through. I let the flap fall shut behind me. My father was up, of course, and in the same armor I remembered, dark gray, heavy plate. His back was to me when I entered, bowed over a map on a thin table that might well double as his cot. He'd always been serious about his duty, it wouldn't shock me if he slept on it.
I didn't have to say a word, of course. He had heard me come in. Shoulder length black hair was brushed absently back from a pale and prematurely lined, yet strong face, pale blue eyes as fierce and consistently annoyed as I remembered them. He'd gone into the turn with a growl of, "For the last time, Cailan-" but had broken off abruptly when he saw me. No introduction was necessary. I could see the war that started straight away behind those eyes. Surprise. Remembered affection. Nostalgia. Regret? Maybe a little anger? Dread?
I crossed my arms and offered an empty and placid smile. I wanted to hold myself to no expectations with this encounter. I did not want to get disappointed. It was just something I had to do. As long as it was done... Nothing had to come of it. I was here to fight darkspawn. I just needed to see what would happen in case I died doing it.
But in my heart of hearts, I wanted this to go well. I wanted that so badly it hurt.
"Long time no see, Pa."