69. A Friend's Mistakes

Jowan had been trying not to let Kazar out of his sight for too long. A large part of it was survival instinct, as most of the current castle inhabitants would have been happy to throw Jowan back into his cell, or, even better, off the arling's eponymous cliff. The young elf certainly provided him a modicum of protection from the rest of them, but there was more to it than that.

They had been friends, once: practically brothers. Jowan wasn't sure what they were now, but a bond of twelve years could not so easily be broken. There was proof enough in the fact that the notoriously volatile Kazar Surana hadn't killed him on sight when they had crossed paths again.

Then again, perhaps that leniency was more because of Kazar himself than because of their bond. Something in the elf had… changed, though it was difficult for Jowan to place what, exactly, that change was. He was still temperamental, cocky, and cynical, but there was something different, too: something deeper.

Like now. Back at the Tower, when Kazar was upset, he would take it out on the nearest inanimate object and go into a stormy fury that would take Jowan hours to coax him down from. But now… he simply disappeared. No flung spells. No cornering innocents and letting them have the sharp edge of his tongue. Just… ducking out away from everyone and finding a quiet place to brood.

That was how Jowan found him up on the battlements, after a good three hours of searching the castle. Kazar had stormed off after dinner, when he and Alistair had very nearly attacked one another in an ongoing argument about the necessity of Lady Isolde's death. Jowan had spent most of the meal sunk low in his chair, trying not to call attention to himself.

Usually, when Kazar stormed off, Jowan just had to follow the trail of scorch marks and crying apprentices to find him again. This new Kazar was less destructive. It was both encouraging and unsettling.

In any case, he managed to find Kazar up on the top of the castle's walls, leaning on the balustrade while he looked out over Lake Calenhad. His posture was contemplative, and that was another shock in itself. Kazar didn't contemplate. Anything. He just did things, and then looked annoyed when older mages (that was, all of them) chided him for not thinking.

Again, it was a development that was both encouraging and unsettling. What had happened to his young friend to change him like this?

Well, other than being betrayed by a blood mage best friend. And being nearly killed at a rout at Ostagar. And killing a mother to save a child.

Stupid question, actually.

"Do you think you can see the Tower from here, on sunny days?" Kazar asked as Jowan approached.

Jowan stopped respectfully just outside Kazar's immediate blast range, turning idly to glance over the lake. It was night, thus far too dark to see anything, of course. The stars were pretty, though. "No, it's too far. I've looked."

Kazar's laugh was more of a snort. "It's ridiculous, isn't it? Even when we're free of the Tower, our lives still revolve around it. People from it keep popping into my life, despite my wishes for the opposite, and you went and poisoned a guy just to get back in."

"It was just the one time, and yet no one lets it go," Jowan joked lightly, though it wasn't really a joking matter, what with the arl still being sick.

Kazar laughed anyway. "Tell me about it. Try traveling with Amell sometime… I helped one maleficar escape, and she forever after treats me like a naughty little brother she has to teach better."

"Well, rest assured the maleficar is very grateful."

"Yeah, he better be." The smirk Kazar slanted at him in the starlight was wry, but also a little fond, and Jowan was glad he had one person who wouldn't be happier to see him hanged. "I think he can repay me by acting as my human shield between me and her for… oh, say, the next year or so."

Jowan's heart sank, because of course Kazar didn't know. He never talked to Teagan, so he wouldn't. "Kazar, I'm not going with you to Denerim."

The elf scoffed. "You really think I'm letting you slip away again?"

"Bann Teagan has demanded that I remain here until Arl Eamon either wakes up or dies. In either case, my fate will be decided then."

Kazar turned fully to face him, looking at him quizzically. "And you're just going to take that? Stand here and let yourself be caged again?"

Jowan sighed. "I'm… tired of running. I knew the consequences of my actions would catch up to me someday. I'm sick of trying to avoid them."

Kazar looked at him long and hard, the blankness in his expression making Jowan's stomach twist. Kazar didn't do blank. Then, the elf scoffed again and turned away. "Sure, run from me and Lily, but Maker forbid Teagan should ask you to sit and stay. Betraying him would just be wrong."

"I'm sorry," Jowan said. Again. Still heartfelt. And pained, what with the mention of Lily.

Kazar didn't look at him. "Why did you do it, Jowan?"

"I told you… I panicked. With Greagoir and Irving, and Lily going to be sent to Aeonar-"

"Not that." It wasn't a snap. It was an earnest question, asked with a sidelong glance. "What made you strike the deal in the first place?"

Jowan's world spun, because he'd never expected anyone to ask him that, especially not Kazar. He leaned against the battlements to steady himself, looking up at the stars while he thought about how best to explain it. Or whether to explain it at all. "It wasn't my choice, originally."

Kazar snorted, disbelieving. "To learn it, you made a deal with a demon. That's not the sort of thing you can just blunder into."

"I didn't approach the demon, all right? It found me." Jowan sighed. "Look, things between Lily and me were just starting to get serious, right? So I was restless, worried that we'd be caught, and that made my defenses in the Fade weaker than normal. So the demon came to me one night when I was dreaming and tried to… you know… break in."

Kazar's head whipped around. "You almost became an abomination? You never mentioned anything about that!" He sounded hurt at not being told, and that made Jowan feel even more guilty for what came next.

The blood mage swallowed. Well, Kazar hadn't torn him apart for the other thing, so maybe Jowan would survive this one. Besides, the elf had a right to know… better he be warned, for everyone's sakes. "I couldn't fight him… he was far too strong. But I managed to talk him out of it. He was a Pride Demon, and as he was knocking me about the Fade, he mumbled about how I was weak, but he supposed I'd do. So I… told him that I knew of a much stronger mage, one more befitting of such a strong demon." Kazar had gone very still. "He was delighted, of course. He pressed me for more information, and… offered to teach me blood magic—to get me to my Harrowing—if I told him. And if I didn't, he said he'd take me over anyway and find this mage himself. So… I made the deal. I had to; it was either that or die." Jowan fell quiet, rubbing the back of his hand as he waited Kazar's reaction.

Kazar was… quiet as he stared out over the lake. "He was right at the entrance of my Harrowing, like he was waiting for me. Like he knew…" Kazar made a choked noise, then whipped his head around to glare fire at Jowan. "You sicced a Pride Demon on me?!"

Jowan tried to swallow. "I panicked…"

"You panicked?! How is it that you panicking always ends up with me cleaning up your messes?! By the Veil, Jowan, you've got to be the worst friend ever!" Kazar paced along the battlements, his hands waving furiously and occasionally emitting sparks. "Damn it, Jowan, he found me. He was there at my Harrowing, pretending to be a previously killed apprentice! Do you have any idea how lucky it is he didn't make a move in on me right then?!"

"If anyone could have defeated him, I figured it was you."

"Bullshit!" Kazar whirled on him, fire flaring up his arms. He stuck a flaming finger at Jowan. "You panicked, so you went and saved your own skin, just like you always do! And now a Greater Pride Demon has apparently staked a claim on my soul, because you went and ran your mouth in your fear!"

Jowan paled. "Staked a claim…?"

Kazar threw his hands in the air and spun away. "I'm like a demon buffet, apparently, but Mouse—the demon you sent me, thank you again for that—is apparently so powerful that no others want to challenge him."

"You… how could you possibly know that?" Jowan's world tilted as realization of something Kazar had said earlier hit him. Slowly, he asked, "And how did you know that you need to make a deal with a demon to learn blood magic?"

Kazar went still and the magic around his hands dissipated into nothing. He was still turned away, so Jowan was left staring at his back in the starlight, panic clawing at his insides. The ritual. Connor's demon.

"Kazar, tell me you didn't. Please, tell me you didn't."

Kazar spun back, eyes blazing. "You're going to lecture me? You?" But it wasn't a denial, and something in Jowan broke.

Jowan sagged against the balustrade. This was all his fault somehow… everything was always somehow his fault. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You'll never be free of it, now. It follows you everywhere, like whispers in the back of your mind, begging you to let the demons in."

"You think I haven't noticed? I can fight off a couple more nightmares. Not everyone is as weak as you," Kazar snapped, and Jowan winced, suddenly wondering whether the Pride Demon didn't have a foothold in the younger mage already.

"It's not about strength… I thought you knew this. You were strong enough without it… why would you need to even make the deal?"

"You think this is easy, being a Grey Warden?" Now Kazar was spiraling up into frantic and upset. "Knowing I'm going to have to face an archdemon at some point, on top of the entire fucking horde?" Lightning spun around the elf, wild and distressed. "Marnan keeps saying that I'm going to be the lynchpin that turns the entire damned Blight… do you have any idea how much fucking pressure that is?! I'm a barely Harrowed mage, not Andraste!"

The elf spun out toward the lake and let loose the energy that had been building up, and it launched through the air with a deafening crack of thunder, and the flash of lightning lit up the night for one blinding second.

Jowan blinked, clearing his vision to see Kazar panting and leaning against the battlements, staring back out in the direction of the Circle Tower. They stared in silence for a while, two paces apart.

Then, Kazar said, "Don't tell anybody." It wasn't quite a plea, but it was close enough to add a whole new layer of worry to this already rather stressful situation.

"I… won't."

Kazar looked at him sharply, then nodded. He slumped down to the ground with a sigh, and Jowan wanted to do nothing but sit next to him and try to give any comfort he could.

But whatever they'd used to have, it had never been comforting, and this thing they were now was far too fragile to tread new territory. So he stood a silent vigil while Kazar sat in the darkness, the weight of the world on his very small shoulders.

And that, too—Kazar being pulled into the Wardens—was all Jowan's fault. Perhaps it would be better to be dragged off to Aeonar than to have to repay his only friend for all the wrong he'd done him. But even that, he knew, was the coward's way out.

Jowan was so sick of being the coward.