Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!
When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.
A/N: Some language and references to darker themes in the chapter, but nothing overtly vulgar. You have been warned!
Muse Music: All We'd Ever Need and Wanted You More by Lady Antebellum.
Thanks to my wonderful readers, followers and reviewers and too my exceptionally patient Lady Beta artemiskat who got to listen to me "squee like a fangirl" over this one! Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Happy Reading!
-Frayed One
Chapter Five: The Skeletons in the Basement
Nathaniel was still fuming from his earlier encounter with Elissa when he made it to the throne room, happy to walk in and see that he had somehow managed to arrive there ahead of the crowd. It gave him a bit more time to attempt to wrangle his raging emotions back to a manageable level before the rest of his new family arrived, something he desperately needed.
He'd been a fool to come back, he knew that now – not that it mattered. He was bound by blood to this life he had chosen in a fit of pique and the only way out was with his death. Elissa had tried to warn him, standing there in the dead end road of a long gone village repeatedly attempting to dissuade him from the path he'd been resolutely set to follow. He should have listened to her. He should have just walked away. Instead he was stuck here in this nightmare where everywhere he looked he only saw her face, in the present or in a memory. It didn't matter. She was omnipresent and he couldn't escape from her. He never would.
He started to pace in his frustration, flexing his arms in his new armor. Elissa had been right about that too. It was leagues beyond the quality of his old armor and fit him perfectly, as though it had been tailored specifically to fit his body. As he paced, he realized that the armor still smelled faintly of the lilac oil she'd always worn, meaning she'd carried it around with her for some time before giving it to him. The combined notions only added to the already tempestuous swirl of emotions within him. It was a constant battle between the urge to kiss her and the equally distinct urge to punch her right in her perfect little nose.
It was at that exact moment that the very object of his obsession decided to come barreling into the room, flipping angrily through her newest stack of correspondence and flopping into the distinctly uncomfortable chair that sat up on the dais. Assuming that she simply didn't notice him there, Nathaniel allowed himself to fade into the shadows – content to simply sit and observe her for awhile.
She was every bit as beautiful as the last time he'd seen her, a little rougher around the edges and more firmly bound in muscle, but still that same pretty girl that had dropped out of a tree and stolen his heart. She toyed with a loose curl, wrapping it around her finger and then letting it slide away as she chewed her lip – the familiar motion sending a pang of tenderness through his heart when it brought him memories of another time.
"Come on out, Nathaniel." Elissa said when it became obvious that he'd lurk there all day given the chance. "Like I said, we've things to accomplish. Can't have you hovering about in the shadows all day, though – your skills of concealment are impressive. I'll give you that."
"If you didn't see me, then how did you know I was here?" Nathaniel asked, moving slowly out of the shadows to where she was sitting – annoyed when she still didn't look up at him.
"I can track the taint in your blood. It's faint, but it's there. Just another ability you'll figure out how to use eventually as you adjust." Elissa explained, flipping open what he guessed was her journal and scribbling something down frantically inside it. "Also, I can smell you. Leather, the oil you use on your bow, and something earthy that's always just kind of been you. Some things don't change no matter how much time passes…"
She lost the rest of that thought, finally looking up at him and hearing the catch in her own breath before she could prevent it from happening. She'd known the armor would fit him. Riordan had it commissioned from some of the drake scale she'd collected before his untimely death, and as the man had turned out to be far more similar to Nathaniel's current build than she'd ever have imagined, it had been natural to hand it over. It had not occurred to Elissa just how well it could fit him, or how attractive the deep blue of it would be against his pale skin and dark hair.
Nathaniel had seen the slow pass of her eyes over his body. He'd watched the brief flash of desire bloom to life within the depths of those green eyes before she managed to control it and shove it back down beneath her mask of neutrality. He didn't even try to fight down the victorious smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth in response to it – the knowledge that he still managed to get under her skin just as much as she got under his in spite of the facade she presented to the contrary. He was about to point it out, but the thought died on his lips when the rest of their group trailed noisily into the room breaking the tension and ending whatever moment they might have had.
"Are you two playing nicely?" Anders quipped, smirking though he was honestly concerned that they could turn violent again at any moment.
"For the moment." Elissa sighed, snapping her journal shut with a sigh and stuffing it into her pack where it sat beside the chair.
Swiftrunner laughed as he leaned against the back edge of the chair, draping his arm around the back and allowing his fingers to trace random patterns against the leather of her shoulder. Nathaniel glared at him, which – judging from the grin he received in response, was exactly what the man had been going for.
"If you're going to touch me inappropriately, at least make it worth the effort it takes me to chastise you." Elissa insisted, looking up at Swiftrunner and attempting to diffuse whatever it was passing between him and Nathaniel before it got out of hand. "At least Zevran used to massage my poor aching muscles before he groped me."
"And, once again, I'm left jealous of this Zevran fellow and I don't even know the bloke." Anders muttered, shaking his head and sharing a laugh with Swiftrunner who cleared his throat and stood up straight.
"Yes, yes… more entertainment at Elissa's expense. I'm here all day." Elissa chuckled, rolling her eyes and standing to shoulder her pack. "Now come along. We're off to clean out the darkspawn in the dungeons."
"I'm sorry. I thought I just heard you say dungeons." Anders chuckled, waiting for the punch line that never came. "Wait… you're serious… there's a dungeon here?" Elissa just shrugged, and so Anders turned to Nathaniel for verification, having finally pulled enough information out of a drunken Oghren to discover that Vigil's Keep had once been Nathaniel's home. "Your home has a dungeon?"
"It's hardly my home anymore…" Nathaniel responded, gritting his teeth in frustration that Elissa hadn't simply answered the question instead of leaving him to deal with it. "But yes, Father kept a proper dungeon in case it was necessary to keep order in the Arling."
"Rendon kept a dungeon because he enjoyed torturing and imprisoning people for his own amusement." Elissa interjected, looking back and accepting the hateful glare Nathaniel gave her in response to that comment. "Think what you want, Nathaniel, but your father built a doorway off of his bedroom that led down into the torture chambers underneath Denerim Castle. I'd imagine it was so he could pop down for a little nightcap before he went to sleep at the end of his long days of attempting to kill me."
"That's sick!" Anders spat, his forehead wrinkling in disgust as he turned back to look at Nathaniel, which only infuriated the man more.
"You've no proof of that!" Nathaniel yelled, taking a couple of paces forward in his anger before Swiftrunner cut off any direct route to Elissa.
"Believe it or don't." Elissa shrugged, blinking slowly and calmly and knowing that Nathaniel had been in that Castle even longer than she had, whether he was admitting it yet or not. "I can take you there and show it to you when next we're in Denerim if seeing it will make you feel better."
He could see her trying to read him, searching for something in his reaction – though he didn't know what it was. Eventually, she must have been satisfied with whatever it was she found, because she turned away and led them down the long stairs into his father's dungeon.
"You don't always wear robes, do you?" Nathaniel asked, desperate for some sort of distraction to keep him from focusing on the constant flirtation between Elissa and Swiftrunner up ahead. The mage always seemed willing to engage in pithy conversation with Elissa, so he figured it was worth a shot.
"Not when I'm naked I don't." Anders replied, winking at him and smiling when it made him cringe in response.
"I didn't mean ever, I simply meant…" Nathaniel sighed then, wondering when it had become the routine of everyone to try to have a laugh at his expense. "When you run from the Circle, wouldn't the robes make you easy to spot?"
"So does the I'm a mage! sign around my neck." Anders replied, seeing that the man was simply attempting to make friendly conversation but not ready to trust him yet. He upset Elissa and Anders liked Elissa, which made them natural enemies as far as he was concerned. "I like to make it easy for the Templars. It's difficult to go through life that stupid and easily manipulated."
"Ah, so that's how it's going to be…" Nathaniel sniffed, following the mage's eyes up to Elissa's back and reading clearly the silent message that her friends were not his.
"That's how it's going to be." Anders replied, watching the archer nod sadly and hold up his hands in surrender, backing away in silence. He felt bad for a moment, but only a moment – trotting forward to catch up with the dwarf and refocusing himself on more interesting conversation.
How do you inspire such loyalty so quickly? Nathaniel wondered, watching the other three men joking with or near her as though they didn't have a care in the world, and feeling profoundly alone.
"Well, here we are…" Elissa said, bringing the group to a stop just inside the entry room at the end of the long series of tunnels leading down beneath the earth. "I had no idea how deep The Keep actually went…" Her eyes passed over the walls and the unsettling collection of Avaar statues with a hint of disgust and Nathaniel tried not to let it bother him. "It looks like the walls down here haven't been properly maintained in centuries."
"I suspect it takes a lot of work to maintain a creepy underground torture palace." Anders quipped, and Elissa chuckled for a moment before catching the venom in Nathaniel's eyes. She stifled her laughter and did her best to pull her mirth back under control.
"That crazy dwarf's explosives didn't do us any favors…" Elissa continued, looking anxiously at the supports and the streams of dirt falling down between them as though they might collapse on them at any moment.
"This may be how the darkspawn got in without being detected." Swiftrunner grumbled, looking up at her from the nearby bodies he was inspecting near the entry door.
"Everyone I've spoken to says no one saw them approach on the surface, so it makes sense that they'd come in from below… it happened back at the Tower of Ishal." Elissa noted, a brief flicker of shadow passing across her face at that memory that was quickly subverted as she turned to question Nathaniel. "Have you any idea how far down these sub levels go?"
"None." Nathaniel shrugged. "The Keep's been here since the barbarians, or that's what Father used to say. I've only been down here a few times myself and that was against his wishes so I didn't exactly get the guided tour. Any guess you have on what lies at the bottom is as good as mine."
"Hey, is that a dog?" Anders piped up suddenly, starting to dash forward before Elissa managed to catch him across the stomach with her arm.
"That's a mabari, and it's wounded." Elissa explained, the words meaning nothing to Anders who had never seen a warhound before. "That means stay back and give me a second to calm it first lest it rip out your throat."
"What's to keep it from ripping out your throat then?" Anders asked, watching her move slowly toward the creature, kneeling down to the floor in front of it and reaching out her hands so that it could sniff them at its own leisure.
"Nothing I suppose… though I used to have one." Elissa smiled, stroking the dog's great head tenderly when it accepted her presence and laid its snout against her knee. "Gladius. I miss that dog. Gave him to some dwarven merchant friends of mine. Sandal just adored him."
"Gladius?" Nathaniel snorted, drawing a glare out of her that quieted his laughter as quickly as it started.
"Fergus named him if you must know. He claimed it was a manly dog that needed a manly name... though it turned out to be a girl." Elissa explained, inspecting the dog for wounds and finding that aside from a few small cuts here and there he was mostly unharmed. The taint flowing through his blood might get him in the end unless they could find the proper herbs to treat it with. "There's a note here… from… oh, Nathaniel…" Her hand came up to cover her mouth, eyes gone wide as she brought them up to his.
"What?" Nathaniel replied, rushing forward in a panic at what could possibly be written on that paper to have her so concerned for him that she'd actually show the emotion to him and an entire room of people. "This is from, Adria! She was… she was like a mother to me." He said, swallowing hard as he watched her stand.
"I remember…" Elissa replied, turning back to the door and trying to sense something from within. It was distant, but there, and Elissa sighed in relief with the realization that in time she would be able to track these new darkspawn as well as she had the others.
"We have to save her, Elissa." Nathaniel demanded, shaking the parchment at her as though she'd forgotten. He'd long since forgotten what Anders had said about her groping the walls in an attempt to sense the creatures beyond them so to him it looked as though she'd simply gone back to her inspection of the integrity of the lower levels of the keep.
"I don't intend to leave her down here without at least attempting to if that's what you're insinuating!" Elissa snipped, glaring up at him through narrowed eyes. "But you need to prepare yourself for the eventuality that there may be nothing left to save."
"If she's dead, she's dead. I've seen enough to be able to deal with that." Nathaniel retorted, even more infuriated that she would coddle him like a child.
"There are worse things than death, Nathaniel…" Elissa said, her eyes haunted as she held his for a moment longer, finally turning and pressing through the long descending hallway ahead. "Much worse things…"
Swiftrunner and Anders fell in behind her, but Nathaniel grabbed the plate metal of Oghren's shoulder before he could disappear down the corridor himself.
"What did she mean there are worse things?" Nathaniel asked, knowing that the dwarf had spent enough time in Elissa's company to have some idea of the horrors he'd just seen flash behind the green of her eyes.
"The spawn aren't kind to the women folk they… capture…" Oghren responded, holding Nathaniel's eyes for only a second before whatever he remembered forced him to take another long pull from his hip flask. "You want information beyond that, you ask the Commander herself."
Nathaniel nodded, releasing the dwarf and watching him trudge down the darkening hallway, even more shaken at what could possibly be bad enough to upset them both. When he caught up to the group at the bottom, Elissa was standing with her forehead against the closed door, a palm on either side of the archway.
"Can you sense anything this time?" Anders asked, looking at her quizzically.
"It's becoming easier…" Elissa replied, her eyes still closed though Nathaniel could make out the motion of them beneath her lids – as though she were searching through the darkness. "I can also hear them moving in there if you'd shut up." She opened her eyes then, smiling sweetly at the man though the irritation in her words could not be missed.
"Well pardon me for asking questions!" Anders snipped, folding his arms and making a face at her as she turned back to the group.
"Alright. I'm still learning to read these things so I can't give you an exact number but there are a lot of darkspawn in that room, all drones, one Emissary." Elissa pulled out her swords as she talked, turning her attention up to Nathaniel. "You're the only one who doesn't know my rule at this point, so I'm going to tell you now in the hopes that I don't have to repeat myself again. Casters first – always casters first. If it's got a staff and it's standing, put it down – am I clear?" Nathaniel nodded, a bit excited at the anticipation of fighting and to see Elissa shifting into a role he'd never seen before. "Aside from that, I know you were an exceptional archer in our youth and I can only assume you've gotten better in the years we spent apart so stay back, and keep them off my pretty mage."
"Is that all I am to you?" Anders huffed, though he was doing a horrible time of suppressing his smile. "Just a hard body in a pretty dress?"
Elissa rolled her eyes, looking up to meet Swiftrunner's over Oghren's head and finally pushing open the door when whatever was communicated between the two was done. Oghren barreled in, charging directly toward the Emissary and swatting at anything he passed along the way dragging them in his wake.
Elissa and Swiftrunner had divided upon entering the door, both disappearing in a puff of shadow smoke and popping up further inside the room – Swiftrunner taking down a Hurlock with a brutal twist of his neck and Elissa finishing off the Emissary as her sword came straight through the middle of his chest from behind.
After that it seemed to be just a symphony of chaos. It was clear that the dwarf and the other rogue had fought with Elissa before. They seemed able to easily predict and respond to one another's movements and rarely communicated more than a cryptic word or hand gesture in battle. Nathaniel did the best he could to keep up with them, but Elissa was so fast that he found himself getting arrows off with only enough time to hit the target she was already dropping.
It became a competition for him after that, trying to see if he could get a shot off that would drop a target before she got to it. He pushed himself harder and harder, eventually becoming so focused on trying to beat her that he didn't see the last target drop too soon. The look of horror on his face was matched only by the one on her own when she tipped her head up to see his arrow coming directly at her. That look was matched by the one of surprise when she flicked her hand up and caught it within her palm just before it hit its mark.
"Well that's a handy trick… I didn't know you could do that." Anders said, glaring at Nathaniel as he made his way over to Elissa and noting that both Oghren and Swiftrunner seemed especially critical of the man at this point.
"Neither did I…" Elissa replied, strolling leisurely over to Nathaniel with his arrow in hand and wondering if this was another result of the constant changes brewing within her as a result of Avernus' concoction. "Apparently fear for one's life produces exceptional results at times."
"So you've never done that before?" Anders asked, looking to Swiftrunner and Oghren who shrugged to indicate that if she had they'd never seen it.
"Plucked an arrow out of the air? No." Elissa replied, coming to a stop in front of Nathaniel who simply stood there – equal parts stunned by what she'd just done and horrified by what she might do to him for having taken what certainly appeared to be a shot at her. "I believe this belongs to you…" she said, running her thumb along the sharp edge of his arrow point as she tried to read his eyes. "Now, do you want to explain to me why you thought it a good idea to take a shot at me?"
"I know you have every reason not to believe me, but I really wasn't trying to." Nathaniel replied, realizing that sounded weak even to his own ears.
All eyes in the room had shifted onto this conversation and Nathaniel quickly realized that much depended on his ability to convince these people that he had no intentions of killing Elissa anymore. These men were all incredibly loyal to her, even Anders who hadn't known her for very long. If they suspected he was a threat, he had no doubt they would see to it that he disappeared – with or without her directive to do so.
"Have I tried to kill you, Nathaniel? Either directly or indirectly?" Elissa asked, watching something flash behind his steel grey eyes that made her alter her words just a little. "In the literal sense."
"No." Nathaniel replied, jaw tensing slightly.
"Then do me a favor…" Elissa said, taking his hand and placing his arrow into it, "be a bit more careful doing whatever it is you were doing…" She turned and walked back to the center of the room. "I suspect it wouldn't have been me coming after you had that arrow hit its mark. It might do you some good to remember that." The answering glares from the rest of the group made it clear he had his work cut out for him to be accepted among them now. "Now, that way goes further down, where do these doors go?" She indicated the ones on either side of the room.
"That one's the wine cellar." Nathaniel said, tilting his head at the first door as he tossed the arrow back into his quiver. "The other one has always been full of books and papers, mostly family records I think – though who knows what's in there now."
"I usually prefer the ale, but perhaps we should check out the wine cellar just to make sure there aren't any creepy crawlies lurking in there." Oghren said, already starting to move over to the door.
"Fine, Oghren… let's make sure the alcohol is safe from evil." Elissa said, rolling her eyes but doing nothing to stop him as he opened the door.
The room was small and so not everyone went inside. Swiftrunner stayed up in the central chamber while Elissa lingered just inside the door and Nathaniel just outside of it. He watched her stoop down to pick up what appeared to him to be a torn scrap of parchment, a flicker of anger flowing across her face as her eyes scanned the words on it.
"What is it?" Nathaniel asked, but seeing the look from the corner of her eye he knew she wouldn't tell him.
"Nothing." Elissa replied, shoving it into her pack unceremoniously. "Come on then! If you want to come back down later and drink straight from the tap I don't care but we've more ground to cover at the moment."
"We can probably skip the records room then… who cares about dusty old books anyway." Anders huffed, pretending to be put off as Elissa shoved him up the ramp.
"Dusty old books can be far more helpful than you realize." Elissa said, seeing a slight shadow of emotion pass across Nathaniel's face at the memory of how much she'd always been a reader, but pretending to ignore it. "Besides, there are darkspawn in there."
"What? Just hanging out?" Anders looked surprised. "They have to have heard us up here. What's keeping them from just coming up to say hello? Don't tell me they're reading as well as talking now!"
"They probably just assume we don't know they're there." Elissa said with a shrug and a laugh as she reached for the door. "Like I said, whatever's been done to these creatures to make them harder to track is intentional. It's entirely possible they think we don't know how to sense them yet."
She pressed the door open quickly, expecting bodies to come pouring out of the room, but there was nothing.
"Looks like you were wrong." Nathaniel quipped, lowering his bow.
"No, I wasn't. They're in there." Elissa replied, sharing a look with the rest of the party that Nathaniel couldn't understand.
"Shrieks." They all said together, everyone but Nathaniel managing to get their ears covered in time to avoid being stunned.
Nathaniel hadn't known what to expect, and so he hadn't mimicked the motion of the others, resulting in a stun so bad it staggered him. He dropped his bow, trying to shake it off and regain enough focus to at least keep himself safe, but could manage no more than pulling out a single dagger before something was on him and pinning him hard against the wall.
From her spot in the corner, Elissa could see the Shriek that had gone after Nathaniel. It was an Alpha, and had managed to get him pinned between a bookshelf and the doorway before he could do more than pull a single dagger from its sheath. She could feel her heart rate increasing as the fear that she wouldn't make it to him in time rushed up inside her, flipping that internal switch over into berserk mode and sending her shooting in his direction.
Even Anders was familiar enough with her tendency to become frighteningly focused with her fury at this point that he didn't flinch when she cut a quick bloody swath across the room between where she started and where Nathaniel stood. She planted her foot directly in the creature's midsection, sending it flying off up the hallway into the central chamber where she finished it off with several stabs, leaving her swords pinning it to the floor as it bled out while she ran over to inspect Nathaniel.
He was still fidgeting with his ears when she reached him so he could hear nothing she was saying, but Nathaniel could see the fear in her eyes. He'd seen it the moment she came barreling across the room and flung the monster off of him and up the hallway to his left. It left no question that no matter what might have passed between them over the massive span of years in their past, something within her still cared for his well-being. It was as much an injury as it was a comfort, knowing that it did nothing to change where they were now.
"Anders, can you do that thing with the ringing in the ears?" Elissa asked, not knowing what it was called but anxious to have Nathaniel hearing again.
Anders sauntered over, waving his hands around Nathaniel's head for a moment and then stepping away with a smile as the archer clearly responded to the spell, tensing and untensing his jaw to clear the last of the fog from his head.
"Are you alright?" Elissa said, her hands on either side of his face as she inspected him for any signs of injury. The intimacy of that gesture was not lost on anyone in the room.
"I'm fine." Nathaniel responded, allowing her to continue to prod at him until she was satisfied he had come out of things unscathed, at which point she seemed to realize what she was doing – dropping her hands and stepping away from him.
Nathaniel collected his bow, watching as Elissa moved through the room looking at the bookshelves intently, anxious to forget the feeling of his skin underneath her fingertips and the smell of him so close to where she stood.
"Most of these books are just what you thought, family histories – history of The Keep itself…" Elissa noted, trailing her hands along the spines of several volumes. "You can come back down here whenever you want and collect anything you wish to be salvaged." Elissa said, turning back to Nathaniel. "I'll make sure no one touches anything until you have."
Nathaniel nodded, accepting the kindness in that gesture for what it was. The others seemed to think there was nothing else of value and so they had started filtering out, Elissa trailing behind them as Nathaniel continued to inspect the statue of Andraste against the back wall.
"Odd." Elissa said, turning back to watch him from the doorway.
"What's that?" Nathaniel replied, walking around to the right hand side of the statue and looking back at her.
"I wouldn't have taken Rendon for such a devoted Andrastean." Elissa replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
"He wasn't." Nathaniel answered, a flicker of a smile passing over his face as he reached up with his right hand to tilt the torch on the wall and reveal a hidden side chamber.
"Crafty bugger!" Elissa gasped, chuckling as she made her way over to the newly opened room, kneeling down to inspect the contents of the trunk inside it. "Your memory is exceptional, Nathaniel."
"That isn't always a blessing." Nathaniel replied, her eyes flickering up to his when she understood the meaning in those words. She shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze and turned her attention back to the chest. "Anything useful?"
"A few poultices, some old journals of your mother's I believe…" Elissa explained, shuffling stack after stack of things to the side – then sighing as she found what she'd feared she'd find. "Do you really want to know what the rest of this is?"
"Would I have asked if I didn't?" Nathaniel grumbled, shaking his head at her.
"They're prison records, Nathaniel." Elissa explained, opening one of the journals and thumbing through the pages. "Lists of interrogations, of tortures both executed and it would appear… planned."
"They're what?" Nathaniel asked, dropping to the ground beside her and pulling the volume she was currently looking at from her hands. He heard her gasp almost inaudibly a moment later, and looked up to find a mask pure fury on her face as she pulled another book from the bottom. "What? Is that one all about his plans to take over the world?" Nathaniel snorted, rolling his eyes at her.
"No, this one is mine." Elissa said, sitting back hard against the corner and pressing her hand to the front as though she was afraid to open it.
"What do you mean it's yours?" Nathaniel asked, edging closer to her.
"My name is on it, Nathaniel." Elissa replied, her eyes holding his for a moment – pushing his mind to remember the obsessive way he'd heard his father speak of The Warden before he'd known that to be Elissa.
"I don't think you want to read that." Nathaniel said, suddenly horrified of what she might find inside it – and of what that would do to their already fragile relationship.
"I'm sure you're right." Elissa replied, opening it nonetheless and beginning to scan the pages within it – her breathing becoming more and more erratic the longer she read. Eventually tears started to stream from the corners of her eyes, leaving shining trails of clean through the dust and blood on her cheeks.
"Elissa, stop." Nathaniel insisted, his heart breaking to see her cry but having no idea what he could do, if anything, to make it better – aside from getting her to put the journal down. "Don't read any more of it. Just stop."
"Here." Elissa said, snapping it shut and slamming it forward against his chest so hard it threw him back against the wall behind him. She wiped away the evidence of her tears as she stood. "I've gotten all I need out of that. If you still have any doubt about your father… if any part of you still believes I've concocted this entire story just to hurt you, then I suggest you give that a read."
She disappeared after that, out of the side chamber and into the main room, then up the hall into the upper chamber. Nathaniel considered opening the book for a moment, but couldn't bring himself to do it – knowing that whatever had such a profound effect on Elissa was likely to hit him just as hard. Instead, he shoved the leather-bound volume into his own pack and trudged up the hallway behind her.
They moved forward down another long hallway that spiraled even further beneath the earth, this one ending in a room filled with prison cells. The cells lined the walls, each one of them covered with long metal spikes crusted in what was either rust or blood and intended for Maker only knew what.
"Some of these men are still alive." Anders said, starting to dart forward to one of the cells before Elissa stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Those are." Elissa said, indicating the smaller cell on the left. "Those, are not."
"What do you mean they're not?" Anders asked, noting that though the men were stumbling about as though they might have shared in Oghren's flask they were most certainly moving.
"Go, get out of here." Elissa said, releasing the three untainted men and sending them running up the long hallway and out of their sight before turning back to deal with the contents of the larger cell. "Those men are tainted, Anders."
"So they're Wardens?" Anders asked, confused by what he was being told but seeing enough in Swiftrunner and Oghren's faces to know that wasn't the answer.
"No, not Wardens – ghouls." Elissa explained, watching the group lumbering about inside.
"That's what you meant when you said there were things worse than death." Nathaniel asked, walking up to fill the space at her other shoulder.
"That's one of the options, yes." Elissa replied, her eyes moving across the shuffling mass of bodies with a heavy sadness. "We need to deal with these before we can move on."
"Deal with them?" Anders asked, watching her eyes move up to his. "Can it not be cured?"
"Not in such an advanced state, no." Elissa responded, looking back to them. "It may have been possible to slow the progression somewhat if we had reached them earlier, but these men are far beyond our ability to help them. The best thing we can do for them now is end it quickly."
"End it? You mean to kill them?" Anders asked, watching the look that Elissa sent to Swiftrunner which he knew meant she required his assistance. The man walked over to her silently. "No, there's got to be another way."
"You could toss a fireball in there if you like, though I suspect the burning will take much longer and be much more painful than if I simply take my friend in there and do what I was going to do originally." Elissa replied, a flash of irritation in her eyes.
"You can be a cold hearted bitch sometimes, you know that?" Anders snapped, and Nathaniel visibly flinched at the balls it took to say something like that right to her face knowing how temperamental she could be.
"What would you have me do, Anders?" Elissa hissed, stepping up to him. "I've just told you I can't cure them. You think I should leave them down here to lumber about in the darkness while their minds are slowly eaten away by the taint?" She watched her barbs hitting home, one after another, eating into his self-righteous resolve like a cancer. "They'd eventually start to starve, feeding on one another, dying slowly in the massive rotting piles of their own filth… would that be easier on your conscience?" He turned away then, shaking in fury but saying nothing more. "If you cannot see that sometimes death is the only gift we can give, then you have a long hard road ahead of you. Now either help or get out of my way."
Anders stormed off after that, back up the long hallway to collect himself. Oghren sat down in a corner to have another drink, and Nathaniel could do nothing more than watch as Elissa and Swiftrunner put down one after another of the men inside the cell until there was nothing left but a pile of bodies.
"Go and collect the mage. If he will not return with you, then escort him back up to The Keep and have Varel look after him until I can address the issue." Elissa instructed Swiftrunner, wiping clean her dagger and joining Nathaniel and Oghren who had both collected in the middle of the room. "What's down there?" Elissa asked, tilting her head in the direction of the side door.
"That's the family crypt." Nathaniel answered, watching something pass behind her eyes once again and raising an eyebrow at her quizzically. She didn't reply, turning her eyes up instead to watch Swiftrunner coming back into the room with Anders in tow.
"Best to clear it out then. I'm getting a vibe from inside." Elissa explained, kneeling down and retrieving her lock picks to make quick work of the latch.
She moved into the large dark room, watching Nathaniel as he drifted around inspecting archway after archway – fingers tracing across the plates that designated the final resting place of his ancestors. Elissa knew that somewhere among them, he would find two sarcophagi that she did not wish to speak of currently, but would no doubt have to.
She heard him draw in a long breath a few moments later, and knew he had discovered at least one of them.
"This is… this is my father…" Nathaniel said, his eyes seeking her out where she wandered near the other end of the curved upper walkway.
"Indeed." Elissa replied, nodding slightly but saying nothing more.
"Is he? Is he actually in here?" Nathaniel asked, something within him unable to believe that she would offer the man such a kindness even in death.
"I haven't checked personally, but I suspect he is – being that I specifically instructed the recovery and transfer of his body." Elissa answered, watching several different emotions flicker across Nathaniel's normally stoic face. "Regardless of what you might think of me, Nathaniel – I am not a monster, at least not completely. Thomas has a spot here somewhere as well, though his is empty… His body was not recovered in Denerim, but I received word that he had perished along with a small battalion of your father's men." She continued, watching him anxiously trying to process the knowledge she was giving him. "I haven't been able to bring myself to place anything for Delilah. I guess a part of me isn't ready to accept the fact that I've lost her as well."
They shared a moment then, something giving way between them with the knowledge that in spite of the hatred Elissa held for his father and his brother, even now after they were both long gone, some part of her had cared for him enough to at least attempt to bury them properly. That moment was lost just as fast when Elissa saw the door slamming shut from the corner of her eye, rushing over to catch it but arriving a second too late to do anything other than find it locked and unpickable behind them.
"Who touched what!" Elissa hissed, glaring around the room until she found Anders looking sheepish at the very end of the walkway beyond Nathaniel.
"I might have fidgeted with that statue." Anders replied, tucking his hands behind his back nervously – as though he was a scolded child.
"Nice, well… we're locked in for the moment. Apparently Nathaniel's father felt it necessary to booby trap the family crypt." Elissa snorted, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and proceeding down the stairs to the lower portion of the room to attempt to find a way out. As soon as her foot hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs, skeletons began to assemble themselves out of the dusty corners of the room, lumbering to life and staggering forward all around them.
They were taken by surprise so there was no time to organize themselves, to orchestrate a proper strategy. All they could do was fight off the eagerly progressing attackers as well as they possibly could. Again, Elissa and those who had fought with her for some time already, were familiar enough with the walking dead to know how to properly dispose of them – while Anders and Nathaniel found themselves struggling against enemies that just wouldn't die.
"The heads!" Elissa yelled out, finally downing enough of her own to take the time to notice how difficult the pair was finding their fight on the upper level. "You have to destroy the heads, or at least take them off the body. They'll just keep coming otherwise."
Once that fact was known, the rest of the room was easily cleared, Elissa picking up the skull of the final skeleton and throwing it as hard as she could up to shatter against Rendon Howe's final resting place.
"Raising the bloody dead in the basement, Rendon? Really!" Elissa yelled, glaring up at the sarcophagus as though he could answer her.
"He's dead, Elissa." Nathaniel said, shouldering his bow and looking at her in irritation. "I suspect any answers about it you might have gotten died with him."
"I know he's dead, Nathaniel. I killed him." Elissa responded, smirking when he glared in response. "I'm equally certain that he's watching us from wherever he's gone and having a good laugh at our expense right about now." She kicked one of the nearby piles of remains in frustration. "Right then, just for that we're looting the bodies! Let's see how you like that you twisted ruddy fuck."
Elissa headed over to the nearest sarcophagus after that – digging about inside and retrieving anything useful. Swiftrunner and Oghren had snapped to work immediately after she stopped talking, having no problem with salvaging useful items from those who would no longer need them. Anders hesitated for a moment, standing closer than the rest of them to the obscenely angry archer – but eventually even he shrugged his shoulders and dug in.
"Oi!" Elissa called out, popping her head up and catching Nathaniel's attention.
"Yes, Commander?" Nathaniel hissed from where he was planted in front of his father's resting spot.
"Key." Elissa answered, tossing something shiny in his direction and turning away – simply assuming he would catch it and know what to do.
"Yes, it is." Nathaniel replied, waiting for her to explain what he was to do with it.
"Stop sulking and try it in the bloody door!" Elissa snapped, hands on her hips as she glared at him and watched to make sure he was doing exactly as she instructed.
"Whatever this goes to, it isn't the main door." Nathaniel replied, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring back down at her.
"Well, look at it. Does it say anything, is there any detail that you can make out that might tell you where it does go?" Elissa continued, her brow wrinkling in frustration that he was making her spell everything out like a sullen child.
"It says… Kiveal." Nathaniel said, rubbing away the dirt on the spine of the key to reveal a series of letters.
"I've a keyhole up here." Anders offered, tapping the wall at the top left end of the pathway. "But it's labeled Haakon."
Elissa nodded to Swiftrunner who seemed to know without her saying a word that she wanted him to check the other end, dashing up there and shaking his head.
"This one's Korth." Swiftrunner explained, leaning against the wall.
"That leaves you, and you." Elissa said, spinning on her heels and striding over to inspect the keyholes on either side of the door at the back of the room. "I've got The Lady… and, Kiveal!" She turned back to Nathaniel, who tossed the key back down to her – listening as she turned it in the latch – definitely unlocking something though nothing in the room changed in response. "Looks like we'll have to find the other three to figure out where that goes. Did no one else find keys?"
Elissa looked around the room, watching as each one of them shook their heads to indicate they had not.
"So, what? We're just stuck down here?" Anders asked, eyes wide as Elissa made her way back up to the upper walkway with Oghren.
"Until we figure out how to undo whatever it is you did to lock that door, yes." Elissa answered, walking over and looking at Nathaniel long enough to get him to understand she wanted him to move aside so she could inspect the door itself.
"I could just burn the door." Anders offered, moving over to her and trying not to make it obvious how massive an effect the idea of being trapped anywhere was having on him. He'd spent one too many days locked away in the solitary cells of the Circle Tower and the very idea of anything like that happening again made his skin crawl.
"It's mostly metal so that's not going to work." Elissa explained, looking over to Nathaniel for help, as she'd run out of ideas. "Suggestions?"
He didn't say anything, just brushed past her to the statue on the other side of the room and looked at it.
"What exactly did you do to the other one?" Nathaniel asked, looking to Anders who blushed and looked at the floor.
"Oh, Anders…" Elissa said, unable to stop herself from laughing as she made her way past him and the others coming to stand beside Nathaniel who simply looked at her in confusion as she reached out and placed her hands on the statue's breasts, pressing in lightly.
"What are you…" Nathaniel asked, trailing off when the door popped open behind them – sending everyone but Anders into laughter.
She let go, turning to shuffle the group back up out of the room – patting Anders on the back as they went.
"I'm going to have to find you a lady friend, aren't I?" Elissa asked him, struggling to contain her laughter and not embarrass him further.
"I have some suggestions." Anders replied, winking at her as she moved away from him and down the next long hallway.
"I know she said that the taint would increase our appetites, but groping a statue seems a bit extreme, don't you think?" Nathaniel said, drawing a glare from the mage.
"It was your father that set up that trigger, you know." Anders responded, watching the barb hit home. "Are you sure you really want to discuss how many times those statues have been groped?"
"Point taken." Nathaniel replied, clearing his throat and falling in behind the man as they entered the root cellar at the end of their latest hallway.
When Nathaniel walked into the room, he could see a group of bodies shuffling about beyond the human barrier that Elissa, Swiftrunner, and Oghren had created.
"Don't come any closer." Elissa whispered, holding a palm against his chest to stop him and looking at him from the corner of her eye. "They haven't noticed us yet."
"That's Adria." Nathaniel responded, noting the single female figure in the group.
"It is… and it isn't." Elissa responded, forcing Nathaniel to look down at her for verification.
"No, you're wrong. She's stronger than that." Nathaniel insisted, refusing to believe the woman lost like those poor men trapped in the cells up above. "Adria! Adria, it's Nathaniel!" He called out, attempting to push past them. Swiftrunner held him fast for a moment, earning a glare until Elissa communicated something with a gesture that resulted in his release.
As he moved forward, the group turned – and though he could recognize the features on the face of his former nanny, he could also see her skin was riddled with sores and disease and her eyes were dead and empty. She opened her mouth, and Nathaniel thought for a moment that she might speak – but instead she just shrieked and rushed forward with the rest of the decrepit creatures, taking a swipe at his face and forcing him to backpedal to avoid her increasingly frantic attempts to get at him.
He could hear the sounds of fighting erupting in the room around him, but had focus for nothing but the woman scrabbling in front of him – trying repeatedly to find purchase somewhere on him with her teeth or nails. He couldn't speak or do much of anything other than keep her far enough away from him that she couldn't actually do anything to bring him harm. A moment later he saw a hand snake up and snatch her back by the top of her head, followed by a blade from the other side that sliced quickly across her throat.
"Adria!" Nathaniel called out weakly, reaching forward for a moment before the body crumpled to the floor at his feet revealing Elissa standing where she had just been. "What did you do?" He hissed, grabbing her angrily by her shoulders and shaking her hard. "You didn't even try to save her!"
"She was beyond saving, Nathaniel. I explained that to you before. I told you to prepare yourself." Elissa answered, giving looks to the rest of the group that stopped them from separating the pair as she knew Nathaniel was no real threat to her. "What I did was offer her a mercy you seemed content to deny her. You should be thanking me."
"Mercy? You think that was a mercy?" Nathaniel sneered, leaning in closer to her face – so close the tip of his nose actually did graze against hers. "Anders is right. You are a cold hearted bitch. The Elissa I knew would never have been so cruel."
"Is that why you came back?" Elissa asked, suddenly realizing something while he stood there so unguarded in front of her. "You think there's something here to salvage? Something worth saving?" He started to back away, unable to face her anymore but she wouldn't let up. "The girl you're looking for bled out on the floor of the larder next to her father years ago, Nathaniel – or maybe up on the ramparts of that castle years before that when you walked away bound for the Free Marches never to be seen again." He turned back then, hearing the pained tone of her words as she rattled them off one after another. "Little Lissa Cousland is gone. Dead and buried many times over. That's the grave you saw, so if that's what you came back for… then…"
"Then what?" Nathaniel hissed, voice breaking but forcing her to say it.
"Then I'm sorry, but she's gone." Elissa finished; watching the subtle shift of something within his eyes show that he was now shutting anything else he may have been feeling somewhere deep down inside. "The sooner you realize that, the better things will be for us all."
He turned on his heel, unable to stand being in the same space with her for any longer.
"Let him go." Elissa said, reaching out her arm to stop Swiftrunner from pursuing him. "He needs to walk it off; he's been through a lot today. I know him – he won't go far."
She turned the group then, ushering them silently back up the path they'd walked to get down there – knowing that they'd make no further progress today between the cave in and the high running emotions.
"You two were more than friends." Anders asked, drawing the distressed looking woman out of her thoughts with a jolt of surprise that made it obvious she'd forgotten he was even there.
"Nathaniel and I once loved each other very much." Elissa answered, seeing no reason to continue to hide anything from the man as he'd learned enough today to puzzle most of it out.
"What happened?" Anders asked, not knowing why but feeling as though he had to do something to try to ease her burden regardless of how callous she could treat them, how callous she had treated him earlier in the day.
"His father happened." Elissa replied, sighing as she tucked her hands behind her and tried to shake off all the emotions coursing through her. "Sent Nathaniel away to separate us, slaughtered my family, came after me…"
"And then you killed him…" Anders finished, collecting enough of the earlier discussion to complete the thought so she didn't have to.
"And then I killed him. Now… here we are… together again." Elissa laughed then. It was either that or cry and she didn't feel comfortable enough to do that with the mage just yet.
"Do you think he will ever forgive you?" Anders asked, thinking it was probably just as good to ask if she'd ever forgive him as clearly this was a two way street between them.
"I hope so, but… I'm starting to doubt it." Elissa responded, the sadness falling heavier on her as she realized the truth of it. "I don't know that I would be able to forgive him were our circumstances reversed – though I like to think that I would be able to separate him from things that were beyond his control. Of course… I'm not doing a very good job of doing that either, now am I?"
"It can't be easy." Anders said, drawing a quick glance from her before she turned her eyes forward again. "I imagine when you look at him you see his father no matter how hard you try not to."
"When I look at Nathaniel I see a great many things, though his father is among them." Elissa answered, thinking that the real problem for her wasn't that she saw Rendon when she looked at his face – but rather she saw the man who had irreparably broken her heart. "I think I've talked enough for today." She said then, effectively ending the conversation. "But, thank you for letting me… I hadn't realized how much I needed someone to vent to now that Alistair is gone."
"My ears are always open to beautiful ladies…" Anders replied with a wink, drawing a soft laugh from her before she let him move ahead of her – drifting back to speak with Sergeant Maverlies and Voldrick before following them up to The Keep.
Nathaniel had tried to go to sleep, but found himself unable to get there. After storming off in the dungeons, he'd gone back to his old bedroom, reclaiming it as Elissa had suggested and reading through the damning piece of his father's history that bore Elissa's name.
The things he read there made him sick. He felt warped on every possible level just for having read them and it was even worse because he knew that Elissa had read them too. Suddenly it all just became more than he could take. He had to talk to her. It wasn't going to make anything better, but at least it would mean they'd started to clear the air.
It didn't occur to him that it was the middle of the night and she was probably sleeping until she responded to his insistent pounding at her door.
"What? What's going on?" Elissa muttered, her eyes wild and glancing around fearfully as she held her sword at the ready after yanking open the door. He'd clearly woken her, her hair was tousled from sleep and she stood there in only a threadbare blue shirt that was far too big for her. It fell off of her shoulder revealing parts of her upper chest and all of her legs. "Are we under attack again?"
"N-No… We're not under attack…" Nathaniel sputtered, taken a bit off guard by the intense rush of desire at seeing that much of her skin after so long apart with only his dreams of her to go by. "I-I… I just wanted to talk to you."
"It's the middle of the night, Nathaniel." Elissa whined, dropping her sword arm and starting to close the door. "Whatever it is can wait until morning when I've gotten some sleep and am decidedly less likely to kill you simply because I lack the patience for anything else."
"This can't wait." Nathaniel insisted, shoving his arm out and stopping the progress of the door – watching her spin back to him and suddenly recognizing something about what she was wearing. "Is that my shirt?"
"What?" Elissa gasped, the minute widening of her eyes missed by anyone but Nathaniel who could still read her after all these years. "No. I've had it forever." She crossed her arms over her chest as though she could somehow disguise it. "Ugh… fine." She stepped to the side, allowing him to enter her room – and watching him flinch for a moment when he saw Swiftrunner stand up from the chair by her bed and exit the room before she shut the door behind them.
"You don't think it's creepy that he watches you sleep?" Nathaniel asked, watching Elissa's brow furrow in response as she flopped down on the bed and tried to straighten her hair with a yawn.
"He doesn't watch me sleep, he sleeps himself I'd suspect – though I don't watch him either so I've no way of knowing." Elissa responded, tucking her legs under herself and waiting for him to settle himself into the chair that Swiftrunner had just vacated.
"So… you're intimate with your bodyguard?" Nathaniel asked, eyes narrowing on her before he could control the action.
"He's not my bodyguard. He's a friend who has always chosen to watch after me and apparently he doesn't trust that I'm safe here so he's decided to sleep in my uncomfortable chair rather than leave me alone." Elissa responded, not directly answering his question. "If you came here to start in on me again, you can just leave… otherwise, get to the point. It's late and I'm tired and long out of patience for your games."
Nathaniel shifted in the chair, unhappy that she'd dodged his question but knowing that if he pressed the issue he'd only get himself kicked out and have nothing to show for his efforts aside from an exceptionally pissed off Warden-Commander in the morning.
"I… read my father's journal." Nathaniel said, watching something pass behind her eyes.
"And what? You decided to come over here and wake me to discuss the finer points of my planned abduction, rape, and torture?" Elissa retorted, watching him flinch at her words though everyone one of them had been right at his fingertips moments before – written in his father's hand. "I certainly don't believe you came over here to admit you finally believe I was right about him all along."
"My father… was obviously disturbed. Something must have happened to him after I was sent away…" Nathaniel began, watching Elissa stand up suddenly and knowing he'd chosen his words poorly.
"Andraste's tits! You really don't believe it? You've looked right at it and you still think I'm making it all up?" Elissa paced frantically, shoving her fingers up into her hair and pulling at it as her temper rose. "The first of those entries was written when I was fourteen, Nathaniel! I was a child, and he was planning it even then. Did you look at the dates or were you content to simply allow yourself to believe that the man wasn't capable of it?"
"I-I… hadn't noticed the dates." Nathaniel admitted, swallowing down the urge to be sick at the very idea that his father had thought such things about Elissa at such a young age. "I guess I was too distracted by the subject matter to look at them."
"Well I suggest you go back and look at them before you come in here to give me another list of things you think should excuse his behavior." Elissa hissed, turning back to him with a glare. "He planned it all, Nathaniel. From the time we were children. We played right into his hands – falling for each other like we did."
"You can't honestly believe he intended for us to fall in love, Elissa." Nathaniel snorted, crossing his arms and leveling his own glare in her direction. "He wouldn't have fought so hard to separate us if that had been in his plans."
"I don't think he intended for us to fall in love. I think he used it to manipulate us and cause us to suffer as much as he could manage." Elissa answered, her body starting to tremble in anger as she thought of just how much the man continued to damage her even now when he lay rotting miles beneath her feet.
"You're probably right about that." Nathaniel admitted, watching something switch off in her head with those words, causing her to fall back limp against the bed staring up at the ceiling as though it could offer some comfort to her wounded mind.
She got up a few minutes later, going over to dig through a stack of something on his father's massive old desk. She returned, flopping down on the bed in front of him, her bare knee brushing against the thin linen covering his own as she pressed a stack of letters into his hand.
"Those belonged to Delilah." Elissa said, watching his eyes flicker up to hers in surprise. "She'd been writing them for years, to you, to me. She was trying to warn us what was coming – but they were never sent." She saw the same thing register in his mind that had registered in hers when she'd read them hours before, that his father had likely killed her to keep his secret from being revealed. "I thought you might want to have them."
"I-I…" Nathaniel struggled to find the words to thank her for saving them.
"There's also this." Elissa continued, pulling a long beautifully crafted bow from behind her back and laying it across his lap.
"Is this what I think it is?" Nathaniel asked, eyes flickering up to hers in astonishment as he laid down the letters on her bedside table to pick it up, running his fingers along the smooth wood. "It is! That's the Howe crest burned into the wood right there. This is my grandfather's bow!"
"I thought it might be." Elissa replied, returning his soft smile when he looked up at her – lost in a long gone memory of a time when he'd spoken to her of how much he'd wanted it and how his father had resolutely refused to give it to him.
"I… where did you even find this?" Nathaniel asked, completely shaken by how generous she was being to him after everything he'd said to make her act otherwise.
"It was in the crypt in one of the sarcophagi I looted." Elissa snickered, watching Nathaniel return the chuckle in spite of himself. "Speaking of which, I made arrangements to have Adria's ashes placed there if that's to your liking."
"Her ashes?" Nathaniel asked, eyebrow raising.
"She was tainted. She had to be burned." Elissa explained, waiting for an argument but thankful when he responded with only calm acceptance.
"I see." Nathaniel replied, looking back down at the bow with a smile. "Father would never have approved of having her put there."
"Yes, well… I'm in charge now and I do. Besides, I'm not doing it for your father." Elissa said, watching as Nathaniel lifted his face up to hers – searching her eyes and finding exactly what he was looking for because she allowed it. "I'll just take the fact that Rendon will be spitting mad down there beside her as an extra added bonus." They laughed then, sad but genuine, taking some modicum of comfort in the fact that no matter how damaged they were – they shared in at least some of their scarring.
"How did we get here?" Nathaniel asked, shaking his head and leaning back against the chair.
"I came here to sleep, you came barging in about twenty minutes ago to wake me up and yell at me." Elissa responded sarcastically.
"That's not what I meant…" Nathaniel replied, listening to her laughter stop as she looked up to meet his eyes and read the intensity of the emotions there.
Suddenly the heat from her skin seemed to amplify itself, pulsing through the thin linen of his pants leg and burning his skin. He leaned forward, reaching out to brush the edge of her bare knee with his index finger, no more than a ghost of sensation as he made his way up to her hand where it lay at the edge of the frayed blue material of her tunic. He heard the rapid intake of her breath at the sensation of his hands touching her skin, and it shot a hot pulse of desire right to his pelvis.
"You should go." Elissa whispered, bringing his eyes up to hers where he could easily see the desire there swirling heavy among the other emotions.
"I probably should." Nathaniel answered, leaning in closer to her, brushing his other hand against the bare skin of her other knee.
"I'm going to marry him, Nathaniel." Elissa said then, watching something register behind the stormy grey of his eyes – so familiar and yet so foreign to her.
"Are you?" Nathaniel asked, searching her again and watching her hide everything she may have been feeling or thinking in that moment back behind her walls.
She patted his hand softly, turning to stand and go over to open the door – making it obvious it was time for him to go. He cleared his throat and collected the things she'd given him, following past her then turning back once more.
"That is my shirt." Nathaniel said, smirking at her as she attempted to close the door – watching her huff in frustration before taking him by surprise again.
"Fine. Yes. This is your shirt, are you happy!" Elissa snipped, tugging the offending garment over her head so fast Nathaniel didn't have time to see anything but a quick flash of skin and half of what might have been a tattoo before he was hit in the face with the fabric. "Come along, Dastan!" She yelled, and Nathaniel dropped the fabric off his head just in time to watch Swiftrunner walk past him, offering an exceptionally rude gesture to him as he shut the door in his face.
Back in his room, Nathaniel lay in his bed still seeking and not finding sleep. She might have insisted on her intentions to marry the King, but everything else about the last half hour of his life made Nathaniel believe Elissa still had feelings for him.
She'd reacted to his touch just as much as he'd reacted to hers, though she'd stopped him from pushing them any further beyond their newly established boundaries. He wasn't sure how to proceed from there, lying in his childhood bed holding a shirt that had belonged to him ten years ago and smelling the waves of Elissa pouring off of it.
Obviously there were no easy answers. Neither of them had forgiven anything, simply accepted some of it was beyond their ability to change it. And, as she said, she was going to marry the King.
He eventually accepted that whatever the answers were, they weren't going to come to him tonight, and so he flipped his newly reacquired shirt over his head and went to sleep dreaming of the girl he was still very much in love with.