A/N: Sorry for the delay folks! Not only was this a very long chapter to write but it was Pride weekend here and this ally got swept up in the rainbow madness! (happy Pride to my GLBTQ and Ally readers!)

This chapter is different from my others in that it is light on the dialogue. For some reason it just fell out that way this time around….

Three days later, as night fell, two very different meetings took place in the city of Denerim. One was a lavish affair with glittering riches and a feast of the finest meats and fruits to be found in all of Thedas. The other was held in secret, hushed whispers of desperation and mistrust the only thing to be found in abundance. One was filled with humans, the other elves. And while on the surface they looked to be two very different gatherings, underneath they were very much the same. Politics ran a constant course through the murmurs and slavery was an ever present specter that consumed the thoughts of the attendees.

Neither group were aware of the other, but a web of their own making was being spun ever so slowly, connecting the figureheads of each meeting in a way that would alter their lives forever.

~oOo~

"Such a pleasure to see you, Lady Cousland"

"Elissa Cousland? I thought she was in Highever."

"Ugh, I can't stand that Cousland girl, do you know she insulted my husband the last time she came to court?"

Elissa was the very model of regal politeness, a soft smile painted on her lips, eyes alight with a demure sort of mirth. Were anyone to glance at her, they would venture that she was having the time of her life rubbing elbows with her fellow members of nobility. Anyone who truly knew her, however, would have seen the tell tale signs that inside she was using every ounce of restraint to keep herself from unleashing a torrent of vile words and insults. During the blight and the reconstruction that followed after she had forgotten how taxing it could be to constantly be on guard and couch your words in flowering praise and protocol. Her talents in palace intrigue were rusty and she found herself hard pressed to keep her façade of detached merriment from slipping. And her future husband was most certainly not helping the situation.

After their heated discussion three days previous Alistair had made little to no effort to acquiesce to her request. Perhaps that was due to the fact that she had hardly seen the man since. When not sequestered away with Eamon, granting audiences to commoners and nobility alike, each trying to squeeze a little gold from the crown, he was touring the Alienage or battling his guardsmen in the practice ring. Elissa had offered to accompany him on one such sojourn to the elven quarter but was hastily struck down with a harsh and definitive "no." Whatever he was seeking in that section of the city was something he wished hidden from her, and that most assuredly did not sit well with her.

Despite their lack of interaction during the day, they found themselves thrown together for dinner. Apart from the polite inquiries into one another's activities the meal's were quiet and tense; a bitter and forced interaction that grated on Elissa's nerves with every bite and swallow. And yet, she occasionally caught him out gazing at her, a quizzical look on his face as if she were a strange animal and he were studying her to divine her secrets and origins. Such instances would fill her with a loneliness that was almost over whelming. It only enforced the thought that this man had no idea who she was, what she hoped for, what she longed for in the quiet hours of the night. Perhaps he never would, and that thought was a heavy burden upon her shoulders.

But at the very least she had expected him to honor his promise to attend to her as his future wife in front of the members of court, a feat that was something he apparently could not bring himself to face head on. Not once that evening had he approached her, requested a dance, or even offered her greetings and a smile. Elissa felt her ire rise with every minute that passed without an acknowledgement of her presence. With such behavior it would not take the nobility long to realize that King Alistair Theirin had no desire to marry her, and the conniving and political schemes would start almost immediately in an attempt to replace her with someone who did catch his fancy, someone more malleable and even tempered than her.

Whatever Elissa's feelings on the matter of her marriage, she knew that she did not desire to be a queen who was summarily divorced and sent away in shame; to forever be whispered about in history as the woman who failed so spectacularly at being a wife. Gazing at her future husband across the room, Elissa set her jaw and mentally stepped up to meet the challenge. If Alistair wasn't going to put the effort into this sham of a marriage, it seems she was going to have to take control…lucky for her that was exactly the way she liked it.

~oOo~

Mortain surveyed his surroundings and felt grim satisfaction fill him. For three days he and Simon had quietly but effectively spread word of their gathering, fanning the flames of unrest with a well placed word or phrase. The result? Twenty able bodied elves crowded into Valendrian's now abandoned house, all eager to hear his gospel and fight for the cause. Sabine was among them, huddled into a corner, trying to appear as small and inconsequential as possible. Mortain felt a stab of guilt wash through him as he gazed at the dark and angry bruises that stamped her jaw. The guilt was quickly replaced with anger when he pictured his beautiful wife naked and panting below a human male, a measly forty silver lying on the night stand next to her. As much as he enjoyed his new found freedom, he refused to accept the manner in which it was bought. With rage simmering below his skin he scrambled up onto a nearby table and waited with a proud bearing for the crowd around him to settle.

"Welcome," he called out, eyes sweeping an arc over those assembled, "my heart swells at the turnout before me. To think that such fine elven men and women are willing to take up my banner, it is a heady thing." He let his words wash over them, placating them with praise and flattery. "Two years ago, I was taken from our home. Ripped away by the hands of humans and sold into slavery as if I were a trinket to be traded at market. For two years I suffered degradation and punishment at the hands of those who thought themselves my betters, and for two years I quietly plotted my revenge."

"How did you slip free, Mortain?" a voice called out from the crowd.

"One of our own raised the coin to secure my freedom, my lovely wife Sabine," he said with false devotion as he fixed his gaze upon her. With a menacing gesture he motioned for her to join him on the make-shift dais and she cautiously crept forward, eyes wary and frightened. When he gently lifted her to rest beside him she trembled at his touch and waited for the blow she was sure to come.

"This rare and precious beauty did the unthinkable," he said softly, hand gliding a trail from her cheek to her wrist, sending shivers of morbid anticipation through her body. His gaze turned harsh as his fingers dug hard into her skin, grinding against her bones in a twisting manner, "She sold herself to the shem! The very people who took our kin from their homes and sought to break their spirits, and she welcomed them into her bed to defile and debase her."

Gasps of outrage filled the room and Sabine's face flushed a bright crimson from humiliation. Her eyes watered as she stood complacent in her husband's grasp, enduring his vile words with little more than whimper. Distantly she wished for the courage to shake out of his grasp and return his harsh treatment in kind, but the part of her that longed for sweet and loving husband to resurface stayed her hand and she submitted to his tirade.

"Do you see?" Mortain raged on, shaking his wife violently by the wrist, causing her to cry out, "Do you see what we as a people must do to survive in their world. We scrape and scramble for the barest scrap of food and coin. We accept far less than we are worth and our women are forced to couple with our oppressors to make up the difference. The humans sell us into slavery, sling insults at our feet, and seek to take what is not given freely by force!"

Angered shouts of agreement and other crimes perpetrated against the elves filled the room and Mortain felt himself swell with triumph. He glanced to the back of the room, his eyes catching Simon's heated gaze. His friend smiled at him in victory, pleased that their plan was succeeding with such swiftness.

"I say we stop bowing before the shem as if they were our masters. The time to hide in the shadows and hope for nothing more than indifference is past. The humans think the take our women, our culture, our crafts, our freedom? I say let them come, and I'll be there to plant ten inches of steel in the guts of any shem who dares!"

The crowd erupted in a roar of approval, the passion of Mortain's words suffusing them with a battle fervor they did not know they possessed. Satisfied that he held them as his own he released Sabine's wrist and the woman quickly scrambled down from the table and made for the door. Mortain cared little for escape but was surprised to find it thwarted by the door suddenly crashing inward and Shianni stepping inside, her gaze stony and disapproving.

"What's this then?" she asked, glancing around the room. When her gaze came to rest of Sabine's face, her wrist cradled protectively against her chest, Shianni's eyes flashed bright with murder. Gently she traced the lines of mottled purple across the woman's face, remembering how she too had sought to evade anyone's knowing stare when she had returned from her own share of abuse.

"Mortain," she muttered softly, her words no less threatening for lack of volume. "Whatever has happened to your wife's face?"

"It was a guard!" Sabine blurted out, eyes wide with fear, "One of those that patrols the market. He was-a-a-a customer of mine…at the pearl. Sought to buy my favors again. When I refused he grabbed me."

"Was that the way of it?" Shianni asked, her eyes locked accusingly on Mortain. The man spread his arms wide in a gesture of innocence and Sabine nodded quickly. Turning back to the battered woman before her, she softened her voice and patted the woman's hand. "There is an elfroot potion at my house. Cyrion is there, he will see to you."

Sabine hesitantly nodded before fair running from the house, escaping into the blessed night as if it offered her salvation. Having been in her position once herself, Shianni all too well remembered how any place that did not include her abuser was a sanctuary in and of itself.

"All of you, go home," Shianni said after a moment, her voice hard and demanding, "Valendrian was our elder and I will not have you defile his house with your shit-brain plans that will only make things worse for our people." When no one made to leave she narrowed her eyes and grabbed the nearest elf and propelled him out the open door. "I. Said. Leave."

Grumbles of dissidence and displeasure rose from the assemblage but they obeyed her nonetheless, Shianni being the closest thing to an elder they had now. Mortain fixed her with an evil stare, one she returned with just as much malice. When the last elf has exited the house, Shianni slowly turned and took her leave, slamming the door behind her as she did so.

"She's going to be a problem," Simon muttered from across the room.

"Yes, we'll have to do something about her, won't we?" Mortain replied, his words holding a dark promise.

~oOo~

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Eamon called out, a wide smile splitting his face, "I'm sure you are all wondering why His Majesty has gathered you here this night."

Here we go, Alistair thought with trepidation. All night he had managed to avoid Elissa, wishing to have these last moments be his own before he was forever tied to her. He could tell he had irritated her with his behavior, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. He felt like a man walking the slow and tortuous walk to the gallows, every step taking him away from Harlow and closer to this woman who had been thrust into his life to replace her. Letting out a weary sigh he quickly climbed the dais to stand beside his uncle and turned to face the nobility with an impassive face.

"It brings me great pleasure to announce that our King, Alistair Theirin, has decided, at last, to take a bride," Eamon said cheerfully. Alistair shot him a side long glance, amazed at the man's happiness. Eamon had been attempting to wed him off since the moment the crown had come to rest upon his head. Playing match maker had not been easy for the former Arl and he viewed tonight as the much anticipated conclusion to those efforts. Like a worried mother marrying off her spinster daughter… Alistair thought in amusement, so unused to seeing the usually calm man practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Lords and Ladies, I give you your future queen, Elissa Cousland!"

Alistair's gaze unthinkingly sought out the woman and found her demurely gliding through the crowd to make her way towards him. He couldn't help but take notice of the smiles that melted away into anger or disbelief as she passed each member of the court in her path. For all that he'd been at this two years he was still taken aback by their blatant jealousy to such news.

When at last Elissa had joined him at his side he politely grasped her hand and placed a chaste and quick kiss upon her knuckles. Elissa smiled sweetly, but he caught a quick flash of calculation in her eyes and felt dread settle in his stomach as her smile took that turn from polite to sly.

"A wedding shall be held three months hence-" Eamon began but was abruptly cut off by Elissa's clear voice.

"No," she called out, her eyes still locked with Alistair's, "Forgive me, my lord, but three months is far too long a wait." Alistair cocked an eye brow at her as she stepped closer to him and gently placed a hand upon his cheek. "For you see, the adoration I bear His Majesty is far too great for such a length of time. A week, no more, will I wait to wed this man I love."

Her words alone were enough to surprise and tip him off to her life, but what happened next truly rocked him into silence and stupefaction. He was woefully unprepared when she surged forward and pressed her lips against his in a heady kiss. The shock of such an action had him losing sense of his actions and he unthinkingly parted his mouth, allowing her to deepen the kiss. Startled gasps and whispers rose from the on lookers, but Alistair himself was still lost to the unexpected show of affection and the way her soft and pliable lips brushed passionately against his as his tongue gliding softly across hers. He was only a man after all, and the sudden act of intimacy had left him with only his base instincts in control as his mind scrambled to make sense of this sudden development.

Elissa broke the kiss just as suddenly as she had begun it and pulled him into a gentle embrace.

"What in the name of Andraste's holy unmentionables was that about?" he whispered angrily in her ear as he hesitantly wrapped his arms about her, his wits returning to him in a rush.

"Solidifying my position," she replied tartly, her breath tickling his ear, "Lesson the second, my King: time is your enemy; it gives your opponent far too many opportunities to topple you."

When she pulled back to face the crowd her expression was one of a young woman hopelessly in love. It was a good act, better than he'd seen in a while, but Alistair knew better, and he made his face a clone of hers as the two pretended for all of the world that they cared for naught but each other.

Had the Maker himself been watching, even he would have bought the farce.