Chapter 50
"A thousand miles beneath the wheels
Sails against the sky
Swifter than the fall of night
The People are passing by."
—excerpt from Passing By, a Dalish traveling song
Malcolm
When Malcolm and Alistair, dirty and scuffed and not quite sober, stumbled into Marian's house, their noisy clatter had Fergus dashing into the front hall. He took a long moment to study the state of the pair, Alistair held upright by a pleased-looking Isabela and a surly Carver, and then Malcolm, flanked and bolstered by Fenris and a fellow who'd been introduced as Guardsman Donnic. The guard was important for some reason, but Malcolm couldn't, for the life of him, remember why.
Líadan and Marian trailed the others into the house, each able to walk without aid or stumbles. Mostly.
Unable to deduce how the two brothers had gotten into their current state, Fergus asked, "What happened?"
"Alistair happened," said Malcolm.
Alistair, having had far more to drink than Malcolm, could only muster a mumble of a partial defense. Isabela rolled her eyes, and with Carver's help, led Ferelden's wayward king up to his room.
"I'd say it was more the drink and less the brother," Marian said once Fergus had stopped observing Alistair's retreat. "Fairly close to fifty-fifty shared responsibility. Essentially, both were more pissed than either thought, in both ways."
"Also," said Malcolm, since Marian had left out what he believed a key detail that emphatically did not involve himself or Alistair, "Oghren is in jail. We behaved enough to stay out of it, so there's that."
Marian remained unconvinced and sought to assure that Fergus was similarly so. "Aveline took pity on them. That was her way of being nice."
Malcolm started so violently that Donnic's hand nearly let go of his shoulder. "She was being nice? That was nice? She dragged me out of the Hanged Man by my ear!"
Fergus didn't bother hiding his amusement.
"I've seen her hit people being less mouthy than you were," said Donnic. "She's a soft spot for you, Ostagar and all." Before Malcolm could respond to that—Aveline had never once brought up the Battle of Ostagar with him even though they'd both fought in it—Donnic turned to Marian. "You've this well in hand? I've got to get back to the Keep."
Marian waved him off. "Go. Help your lady wife relax. She'll need it, what with who she's dealt with tonight. Maker knows I need it."
Donnic laughed and then took his leave.
"Wait, isn't he—?" Malcolm glanced between the closed front door and Marian. "Is that who he is? I knew he was important but I couldn't remember and, you know what? It still doesn't make sense. He's so calm! Low-key! And she's, well, she's not. She's very Fereldan, now that I think about it, and if that's her being soft on us, then I should be a lot more scared than I am. Yes. The—"
"Go to bed, little brother," said Fergus, his faint smile lingering. "You're rambling and you're not even trying to get to a point."
"I have a point!" Malcolm wasn't sure why he was indignant, but there had to be a reason. "And my point is that… You know what? I think I'm drunk. I didn't think I was before, but now I'm pretty sure that I am."
Marian gave him a fond pat on the shoulder. "You are." Then she looked at Fenris. "You good to bring him to his room? You might have to drag him."
The corner of Fenris' mouth quirked. "I could carry him, if I must."
"You could not," said Malcolm.
"Would you like me to demonstrate?"
"Yes," said Líadan.
At the same time, Malcolm said, "No!"
"I'll go up with you," said Fergus. "I've done this a few times in my life. More than."
Marian hummed in agreement. "Perils of being the elder sibling. I must say, I entirely understand."
"Stop it," said Malcolm. "Stop bonding, both of you." Then he was left to grumpily follow his brother, bumping into Fenris more times than he'd admit, and then possibly using Fenris as a prop to keep him on his feet for most. Líadan walked behind them, Marian right next to her, serving as essentially the same role for Líadan as Fenris was for Malcolm. They were escorted into their room and bade a good night before the door was closed on them.
He frowned at the door. "Did they lock it? I think they locked it. I heard a snick."
Líadan shrugged as she hunted for bedclothes. "If they did, I can pick the lock."
"Can you?" He had no idea why the possibility pleased him so much, but it did.
She gave up on the bedclothes and toppled over onto the bed, face buried in a pillow. "Not right now. Maybe in the morning. I can—" Then her words were replaced with tiny snores.
"Well." Malcolm stared at her for a moment, strangely jealous, and then stretched out next to her. "You do always have the best ideas."
When he woke, it was too early to be rightfully called morning, but his body's desperate need to use the facilities wasn't going to allow him to roll over and go back to sleep. He practically sprinted from the room, belatedly taking note that Marian had left their door unlocked. On his way back, he got distracted by his empty stomach and headed for the kitchen instead. He nearly turned right around once he got there, because he discovered Alistair standing next to the table, a heel of bread in hand and telltale crumbs of cheese scattered across the tabletop below him.
Alistair looked slightly alarmed at Malcolm's appearance. "You're not here for something to eat, are you?"
"Why else would I be here?"
"Um, you got lost? Things like that happen in Kirkwall, and Marian's estate is in Kirkwall." When Malcolm didn't play along, Alistair sighed and shot pained looks at his disappearing bit of bread. "See, this might've been the last of the bread until Orana bakes more for breakfast."
"Seriously? You couldn't have left some to share? What, Wynne dies and suddenly you haven't got any manners?"
Alistair dropped his attempt at friendliness, though he didn't drop his bread. "You act like I cleared out the entire pantry. It wasn't even half a loaf, so no matter who took it, it would've looked like greed. It wasn't. Things always aren't as they appear. You should remember that."
"No, they aren't, are they?" Malcolm wanted it to be a rhetorical question, one he left behind as he walked away and back to bed.
His brother, however, wasn't in on that plan. "Just what do you mean by that?"
"Likely what you think it means. Either the how you appear to care only about the kingdom until your own children are in danger, or how you appear to care about your niece and nephew until you decide protecting them is too much a risk to the kingdom. Or both."
"That isn't—that isn't how it happened."
Malcolm put the idea of sleep aside and returned to the table. "No? Fergus tells me it is, and he's got a cooler head than any of us. If it wasn't what happened, he'd have said so. But he didn't."
"What you said… that isn't how I feel about them. You have to understand."
"I thought I did. But if you feel one way, your actions tell another. You acted to protect the kingdom up until your own children came into the same direct threat as mine. Then you changed your mind, after Líadan and I had nearly lost everything. Everyone. If you had stood up for our family weeks ago, none of this would have happened. No one in the Gallows. No one separated. No one Tranquil. No one dead." And on saying it, Malcolm realized that one of the dead was one of the few people who would've stepped in and stopped the argument before it gained its own momentum. But Wynne had died to save Líadan. Leandra Amell would have put a stop to an argument as well, but she was dead, too. He wasn't sure that Leandra's death could've been avoided as much as Wynne's, but they seemed connected in some way, even if coincidentally.
"You can't say that," said Alistair.
"I just did. Want me to say it again? Because I will." He'd say it over and over until it got through Alistair's thick head.
Alistair let the heel of bread fall to the table. "You can't know how things would've turned out!"
Malcolm ignored the bread and leaned over the table. "If you'd been willing to fight for our family then we never would've had to leave Ferelden. But you didn't. You didn't, and so everyone had to leave—"
"But you would've had to!" Alistair mirrored his movements, his hands flat on the table as he glared across it at his brother. "Ava would still need a teacher and there wasn't one in Ferelden."
He had a bit of a point, but Malcolm didn't want to acknowledge it, not when it would feel like giving ground. Giving ground wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to fight for more, to gain more. So he marched for the door to the garden, knowing he and Alistair would probably get to shouting with how things were going, and there were people asleep in the estate who didn't need to hear the argument. "It wouldn't have needed to be so immediate," Malcolm said once he heard Alistair's heavy footsteps behind him. "We could've had time to plan, time to avoid Kirkwall, to avoid everything that ended up happening." When he noticed Alistair not just catching up and keeping pace, but actively trying to get ahead of him, Malcolm increased his own pace, and they ended up in a small shoving match to be the one out the door first. "Instead, you put the country ahead of your family again—"
"You went along with it!" Alistair grabbed hold of Malcolm's shirt, but Malcolm spun and used the momentum to get through the door.
He stumbled into the garden, his brother right behind him, but he'd won whatever race that'd been. "I'm not the King, you ass!" As he recovered his balance, he continued his tirade, even as he hunted around for where Marian kept her practice weapons. "I'm not your general, I'm not your chancellor, I'm not even an advisor. I'm not anything except your brother, which makes my children your niece and your nephew, and my wife your sister-in-law. Your family, in case you were confused about how that works."
"Is that supposed to be a jab about how I was raised?" The hurt at the idea caused Alistair to sound aggressive, his tone challenging instead of merely defensive.
"No! Of course it—" Malcolm pointed at his brother, irritated that Alistair had almost turned it around, and irritated that he would think Malcolm would take a dig at how Alistair had been denied a family as a child. "Don't you make this about me! This is about you and how you were willing to let the Chantry take your niece and nephew. Don't stand there and tell me you weren't. You were. I was there. Fergus was there. Líadan was there. Nuala was there. All of us, we all saw you hesitate. We all heard how you didn't reassure your niece that the templars wouldn't take her. No. You were considering letting them take her for the good of the country, whatever that means. When you hesitated, we saw the truth for what it was." Malcolm faced Alistair as he walked backward to where Marian had a pile of various junked weapons, old and dull and long past deadly or useful, that she'd collected over the years and never bothered to fix, sell, or trash.
"We couldn't fight the Chantry." But Alistair didn't say it like he was trying to convince him; he said it like one would to a dull child who couldn't grasp a simple lesson.
Malcolm scoffed and then kicked over the pile of discarded weapons, wanting a shield to accompany the sword he'd already picked up. "And, what, now we can? Weeks later, our martial readiness has had such a dramatic turnaround? Or did something happen to people incredibly close to you, people whom you'd do anything for, people worth fighting for even if the fight might seem hopeless? Because fighting itself gives enough hope that maybe it'll work? Because suddenly this organization with a rather checkered history was now legally able to take your children from you and you found that you could never let that happen while you were living and breathing?" His own breathing became difficult as his chest tightened at the memory, of the abject fear that he wouldn't be able to protect his children. He covered it up by grabbing the first shield he came across and stepping away as he brought it to cover his upper body. "I'm betting it's the second thing," he said once he'd regained some feeling of security. "Your sons—my nephews—turn out to be mages and it's all different. Now we can fight the Chantry, and now we know how far your idea of family goes. That is to say, not far. Not far enough."
Alistair picked up a rusted and beaten shield, and then a dull sword similar to his brother's followed Malcolm back into a clearer area of the blue hue of first light had warmed into sunrise, but neither of them had warmed to each other, only to the weapons they held. "That isn't what—"
Malcolm wasn't going to let him keep denying it. "Is it? Would you like me to remind you who it was who didn't unequivocally say they'd keep Ava from the Chantry? I recall saying I'd do anything. Líadan said the same. Fergus, too. And you? Oh, right. Not you. You, you had to be restrained by a person who knows what family is."
"You didn't give me time to think!" Angry and without purpose, Alistair lashed out with his sword.
"It shouldn't have required thought!" Malcolm parried Alistair's swing, then opened his guard with his shield enough to attempt a riposte, but Alistair jumped away before it could land. Unwilling to let his brother retreat in physical distance as much as verbal, Malcolm advanced a step for each one Alistair retreated. He couldn't see how Alistair could react to an immediate threat to family in any way that would require forethought. It was instinctive. And, as Fergus had brought up, had Malcolm been there to step between Howe's men and Oren during the massacre all those years ago, he would have. He would've done it instantly, driven by instinct alone, to protect his nephew. Because that's what you did.
Alistair growled and met Malcolm's advance, lunging forward with his shield when he noticed that Malcolm hadn't kept his own as far in front of him as necessary. "You have no idea what it's like!" Malcolm barely brought his shield around in time to ward off Alistair's blow, and the lateness sent him momentarily spinning and stumbling backwards. Alistair closed the distance. "You don't. Being king and being a person at the same time, you just don't know. The things I do and decide aren't only about the safety of our family." He lunged again with the same move, but Malcolm managed to recover in time. Their shields crashed into each other, sending both of them a few steps backward. "They're about the safety of Ferelden, too. And keeping Ferelden safe also means keeping our family safe. I can't just defy the Chantry because I want to for my niece, not when it means putting the entire country at risk."
They'd both resumed guard positions, shields up, eyes barely over them, swords over the tops, tips pointed at their opponent, keeping the distance between them exactly the same as they circled 'round and 'round. "But you'll do it if it's your child, no question," said Malcolm. "Was it all talk, every reassurance you gave? Every oath you swore? Your promise that you wouldn't let my family be separated for a moment more than it had to? That you'd fight for them and so would Ferelden, once the army had enough time to be ready?" Malcolm let out a harsh laugh. "The army got ready right sodding fast once you found out about your boys, though. Almost like it wasn't ready, but that part didn't matter. What mattered was the fighting. Suddenly, all things were possible, all the things that weren't possible for my family merely weeks before."
"I didn't understand," said Alistair.
He sounded so sincere that Malcolm straightened to get a better look at him. His efforts were rewarded with a sound blow to his shield that nearly sent him to the ground. "You didn't understand." Malcolm pushed himself forward and lunged as he spoke, turning his forced, sloppy retreat into an attack of his own.
"I thought I did. I really did." Alistair attempted to explain his thoughts, words coming out in short bursts as their blades and shields met each other increasingly faster and more often. Neither of them gained advantage over the other, yet both kept on, determined to win. "I thought I understood doing what you could to keep them from the Circle, but what I didn't understand was doing anything you possibly could to keep them out. Absolutely anything. That was the part I didn't get until I saw Dane and Callum playing a game with a wisp. That's when I understood how much we stood to lose. That's when I understood that it had to be stopped right away."
"It was too late. People died." When that didn't make Alistair cringe or flinch or react in the slightest, Malcolm twisted the knife of guilt a bit more. "Wynne died. Because you waited."
Alistair's next blow hit Malcolm's shield especially hard, the vibrations shivering through his arm. "Or maybe she died because you let her."
"What?" Malcolm had meant to get under his brother's skin, to have him feel some of what he'd felt over the past weeks, but he'd jabbed too deep. "What do you mean by that?" No one had let Wynne die. Had they? No.
"I meant exactly what I said." Alistair ended each word with a swing, his actions tight and quick, enough to send Malcolm into a faster retreat, even jumping back a couple times. "You let her die."
"I did not! No one did. What she did was her choice. Hers." Malcolm stopped retreating and held his sword out, fully extended, daring Alistair to attack.
"There had to be another way!" Alistair made a few half-hearted feints at Malcolm's blade, but none committed enough to make Malcolm bite. "Did you even bother to argue? Did you even try to come up with another solution? Or did you just jump at the first one?" He growled at his brother's unwillingness to engage, and then made a wide cut at Malcolm with his sword before spinning and lashing out with his shield instead.
Malcolm saw Alistair's foot plant to pivot his body, and was able to turn out of the way of both weapons. The moves left Malcolm in the middle of the garden and Alistair slashing and cursing at a hedge. Had it been a friendly sparring session, Malcolm would've doubled over laughing. This time, it wasn't, and so he readied himself as he defended the painful decisions from only a few days before—decisions Alistair hadn't been present to make, and if Alistair had made the right decisions weeks before, decisions that never would have come into being. "Of course we tried to come up with other things! I suggested other things, and so did everyone else, but Wynne told us that her way was best, and you know how that works with her."
"Did you stop to think that she might be wrong?" Alistair viciously hacked through a section of the hedge and started for Malcolm again. "That she was wrong?"
"Yes? Honestly, who wouldn't? But Morrigan said—"
Circling outside Malcolm's attack range allowed Alistair to throw both arms out as he scoffed. "Morrigan? Morrigan said? So that made it all better? Because they were such good friends?"
"They respected each other, even if they weren't on the best of terms, and not once has Morrigan expressed a wish for Wynne to die. What she did express was that Wynne wasn't feeble of mind, knew what the consequences of her decisions would be, and yet had still chosen the course she had. It wasn't anyone's place to tell Wynne what to do."
"I would have." Alistair's voice had dropped in volume, somehow better reflecting the confidence he had in his own hypothetical actions.
It hurt somehow, in a way Malcolm couldn't place, that Alistair would say that. He would've preferred another arm-numbing blow than hearing what he thought he was hearing. "Would you? You would've been able to look Líadan in the eye—and remember, they weren't the eyes you'd seen when you last saw her in Denerim, when they brimmed with life—and accept that she stay Tranquil?" His question brought everything back, the only difference the addition of Alistair, but it was the Alistair who'd made the kingly decision to not stand up to the Chantry at first, and so his presence wasn't a small comfort within a largely horrible situation. Instead, it was yet another thing that turned it horrible.
"Wynne would be alive."
Yet, that truth hurt, too. They could have stopped Wynne, albeit against her will. They could have insisted, over and over again, that they find and use another way, even if it risked Líadan suffering permanent damage, or Líadan never waking from the walking death of Tranquility. What kept the guilt from eating him alive was that Wynne had chosen to help. Wynne had chosen to heal. Wynne had been able to choose how to end her life, and she'd chosen to do what practically defined her life—heal. It was a choice Anders had never been given, even though before Justice and Vengeance, he'd been much like Wynne. A healer. Malcolm had witnessed both of their ends, and it was clear which was the preferable of the two. But the outcome wasn't something Alistair would get. It wasn't something he'd understand because he hadn't seen any of it. He only had his own imagination, and it only went so far, and apparently it stopped at the idea of Wynne dying for any reason, even if to save someone else from the arms of death.
Malcolm kept Alistair in sight as his brother moved around him, matching Alistair's turns, unwilling to let their distance close, and unwilling to let it grow. He'd been more in control than Alistair so far, but the forming revelation that Alistair found the reality of Líadan being Tranquil and then dead something to be acceptable stoked the fires of Malcolm's temper, as the truth of Wynne's death had Alistair's own rage. "Líadan would be Tranquil! She'd be Tranquil for who knows how long and possibly forever, except not forever because she made it more than clear that if she ever became Tranquil that she would rather die than stay like that. It's different when you're looking straight at the outcome you dreaded most, now made manifest. She was dead, Alistair. There was no… she… You have no idea!" He couldn't properly get the torment across. He couldn't put words to a memory he could scarcely bring himself to touch. The inability to do so, to get his brother to understand what he was proposing, even in hypothetical terms, twisted into frustration escalating into something beyond.
"But there were other solutions! They just would've taken—"
In the back of his mind, in the part where the instinctive swordsman dwelled, the instinct honed from weeks of practice without much else to do, Malcolm noticed that Alistair had straightened out of his guard, that his feet had gone flat against the ground. In the front of his mind, where the love for his wife dwelled, he noticed an upwelling of rage at Alistair's blind, insistent statements that hurt every time they were spoken, and then he didn't notice anything, having launched a physical attack of his own. He advanced before leaping at his brother, driving forward with his shield to collide with Alistair's hastily drawn-up one, the great crash filling their ears and the impact sending Alistair staggering back on his heels, entirely off-balance. Malcolm followed it up with another before smacking Alistair's shield away entirely. Either Alistair's surprise at the depth of Malcolm's anger or at his brother's vastly improved technique left him open as he tried to recover, and Malcolm's hand gripping his sword swung out and hit Alistair on his chin.
Alistair went tumbling backwards, his sword arm wheeling to keep him upright, and then landed flat on his back.
Malcolm stayed where he'd ended his punch, having barely caught himself in time to not stab his brother with a dull, rusty sword, and wondered why he didn't feel any better. He'd wanted to put Alistair on his ass for weeks, month, sodding years, and here he'd finally done it and he was still mad, not even a flicker of triumph. When he spoke, the loudness of the shouting had fled, leaving a quietness in place that was far more disturbing. "Maybe, maybe not," he said as Alistair put his shield between himself and his brother before he started getting to his feet. "Maybe the solutions would be gone. Rhys might be dead or his mind feeble. We had no idea when Emrys would show up. Could've been months, for all we knew. No one was going to risk Cianán or Ava going into the Fade to try to ask spirits for help. Anders—Justice—whoever he'd been, they were dead and gone, too. Replaced by a nasty demon called Vengeance, but we'd killed that particular unpleasantness that afternoon. And Maker knows if we'd ever be able to reach Leliana, much less ask her if we could please borrow some of those ashes she stole from the temple."
Halfway to his feet, Alistair gave Malcolm a startled look.
"Yes," said Malcolm, "she did take some of Andraste's ashes while we weren't looking. Morrigan witnessed it."
Alistair finished straightening and then scowled. "And, of course, Morrigan never bothered telling anyone."
"Why would she?" How could Alistair have traveled in Morrigan's company for as long as they had, and yet not understand one of the most basic aspects of the woman? Morrigan never gave anyone information unless it was absolutely necessary. "How was it truly any business of ours? We had what we needed, and Leliana's bit of thievery had no impact on us. As soon as it did, she told us. Not before."
"Told you, you mean." Alistair managed to sound petulant about it.
"You weren't there. She would have if you were." And still, Malcolm wasn't sure if Alistair being there would've been better or worse.
"Look, Morrigan and her secrecy aside, you still had all those solutions. Wynne didn't need to die."
For that, Malcolm took a crack at Alistair's shield with his own before Alistair had gotten a chance to ready himself. The blow propelled the shield into Alistair's forehead, sending him staggering again, an angry red line across the bridge of his nose, and Malcolm thought he might've caught sight of a bit of blood from one of his nostrils before Alistair managed to bring his shield up again. Still, he didn't feel any triumph. He didn't feel like he'd won. "You aren't speaking from a position of knowing, of experiencing, all the truths that went into her choice. Wynne and I had witnessed what it's like for someone to be cured of Tranquility after they'd been Tranquil for too long. You think Líadan's recovery has been difficult? At least she's having one. Pharamond, he never recovered. When the templars declared that he be made Tranquil again, he was relieved, because they'd already rejected his multiple requests for death. He wanted to be Tranquil, that's how bad it was. Either way, both were preferable to him over remaining as he was, cured of Tranquility and suffering because of it."
"So you don't put her through the rite again and you don't let her die. Eventually, she'd have gotten better and Wynne would be alive."
Malcolm swung wildly, but this time Alistair was able to meet him, and they bounced off each other as Malcolm shouted again. "You have no idea what you're talking about! There was no getting better! He suffered. Every moment, he was tormented by every emotion that'd been locked up while he'd been Tranquil. They came out all at once, were felt all at once, an uncontrollable, volatile mix that no living person should ever have to endure. It's enough to wish for death. Wynne knew that. I knew that. You don't. Not firsthand."
"There were other ways! Other ways!"
He knocked Alistair's shield aside and went for a cut to his flank, but Alistair parried him and twisted back and away. Malcolm didn't pursue, not when he wanted a more satisfying victory, whatever form it would take that he couldn't seem to find. "Not for Wynne there weren't. What she did was her choice." He paused in his stalking down of his brother and tilted his head to the side. "Want to know why she agreed to the whole mission to the Western Approach in the first place?"
Alistair narrowed his eyes, though he didn't drop his guard. "Why?"
"Because she was a healer, that's why." He saw the question in Alistair's eyes before he asked it, so he kept going before it could be. "That's who she was. She was a healer, like Anders, and you saw what Anders became when he couldn't heal anymore. There are two things that healers can't fix: Tranquility and death. She was presented with an opportunity to learn what once couldn't be done, to stave off an inevitable death she could see a long way coming if the condition wasn't remedied. She made a choice to heal, and she healed. You're taking that away from her."
"But—"
He strode closer, yet Alistair refused to give ground. Malcolm was beyond caring. "You weren't there, you great big ass. You keep talking like this and I'm going to start assuming that you prefer Líadan dead."
Alistair's shield dipped slightly as his eyes widened, and he finally ceded a step. "No! No, that isn't—I want them both alive!"
"You think I don't? You think Líadan doesn't? You think Cáel and Ava don't? But however much we wished—wish—that was possible, it wasn't reality. It isn't reality. Going on like you are makes you seem resentful of the person who did live. Are you? You say you want them both alive, but since that couldn't happen, do you believe the wrong person lived?"
"No!"
"Then how about you sodding listen to me? We were all forced to make a choice, and Wynne made that choice, Alistair. We can scream and cry and be angry, or we can accept her choice and be grateful for the last hurt she managed to heal."
Alistair stopped his retreat, but not as a signal of a renewed attack. Instead, his sword drooped as his fingers relaxed, and his eyes got soft and distant. "That sounded like her."
"I know. She said something like that to me during the Blight, about being a Grey Warden."
"You did do a lot of screaming and crying back then. Also the angry. Mostly the angry." Some of Alistair's usual lightness, his friendliness and affability, had slipped back in, returning him to the brother Malcolm recognized and trusted. "You were a very angry person."
"I was." Back then, if in a fit of rage, had he managed to knock Alistair off his feet, he would have reveled in the victory. But now, he'd managed to do it, and could have done it again, yet the first hadn't felt like a victory, so he hadn't bothered with the second. It wasn't about the anger, as much of it as there was. It was about getting Alistair to understand why the anger was there in the first place, so that sort of thing never happened again.
Alistair nodded. "And you're not anymore. Not like you were." It seemed Alistair did understand, more than he had before. His eyes flicked over toward the house. "And neither is Líadan."
As they considered the house and the people inside, the door to the garden opened and Ava burst through, bread in one hand and a sizable hunk of cheese in the other. She halted on seeing her father and her uncle standing there holding rusty shields and swords. Her brow furrowed. "Were you fighting?"
"Of course not," said Alistair.
"Yes," Malcolm said at the same time, and then glared at his brother for blatantly lying to a child.
Alistair at least had the grace to look sheepish. "Maybe we were a little, but I think we've gotten past that part."
Still holding the cheese, she motioned toward their hands. "With real weapons? You aren't supposed to spar with real ones." She turned very serious. "They could actually hurt you. You could lose an arm. Maybe an eye, if you got hit in the face."
"That would be unfortunate," said Alistair. "I've been told I have pretty eyes."
"If it was Isabela who told you, that wasn't what she meant," Malcolm said, drawing confused looks from both Alistair and Ava, but he wasn't about to explain. Avoiding their unspoken questions, he tossed his sword down and the dented shield after it. The fight had fled him after having arrived at some sort of accord, or at least having realized that beating his brother in a sparring match wasn't what it was about. There was also the matter of not wanting his daughter hurt or confused on seeing her father and her uncle fighting for real. It had already been a close enough thing in Denerim, and that'd been before she and Líadan and Cáel had been forced to leave the city, far before everything went to shit, as things tended to do in Kirkwall.
Ava extended her hand toward Alistair. "Orana gave me extra cheese. Want some?"
And with that, the rift between uncle and niece appeared to be mended. Malcolm shook his head as he fought a laugh. Only among Theirins could cheese be the proverbial olive branch, offered in earnest.
"So," Alistair said as he accepted Ava's gift, "did you come out here to escape, or was there a reason?"
"Oh! Merrill's here. She brought Ser Pounce. I wanted you to meet him."
Alistair frowned. "Ser Pounce? That's a strange name."
"You'll soon see why," Malcolm said as he kicked the rusty weapons back onto the pile where he'd found them.
Ava twirled and started for the house as quickly as she'd left it. "Come on!" she said over her shoulder when she realized that they weren't following as quickly as she wanted. The two men exchanged shrugs and did as she asked.
Inside, they were led straight to the kitchens, where Ariane was only a few steps away from Merrill, who stood next to the table. Ser Pounce had perched himself on Merrill's shoulder. Líadan was in front of them, arms folded tightly over her chest as she glanced at the floor more than she looked at her clanmate. Her discomfort and sadness were battering waves, and Malcolm was impressed at how effortlessly Merrill weathered them, standing as close as she was. Once they heard what Merrill was saying, the reason for Líadan's melancholy became clear: she was leaving Kirkwall this morning, likely after she finished here.
"The other hunters already left at dawn," Merrill said. "I have to follow." She motioned toward a quiet Ariane. "But, we'll see you in Highever in a month. I think a month? I can't remember exactly how long it takes to get there. It's been so long since I've been to Ferelden, and we always went a lot farther south."
"You're right," said Ariane, even as she gave Ava, Malcolm, and Alistair nod in greeting. "About a month, as long as we aren't delayed. We'll see each other again soon enough."
"You don't have to fret over me," Líadan said after a moment spent with the other two women staring at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to break down. "I'm fine."
"You are such a shit liar," said Ariane.
"Lethallan!" said Merrill, truly affronted.
Ariane was unbothered. "It's true. We all know it."
"Well, yes, but you don't have to say it so… you don't have to use it like a bludgeon."
"No, I don't have to."
"And, sometimes, you're a terrible friend," Líadan said, but as subdued as the comment was, the dryness of it was unmistakable. A good sign. "But you're still a friend. I'll be fine, I promise." Then she smiled over at Malcolm and Ava and possibly Alistair, but Malcolm couldn't quite tell. "Having family around helps."
Ser Pounce leapt from Merrill's shoulders to the Líadan's, rubbed his face against her cheek, and then jumped gracefully onto the table before he trotted across it to Alistair. "A cat!" Alistair said as he scooped him up. He sounded absolutely delighted, which Malcolm thought wrong since he was supposed to be a dog person because he was king of a dog country.
"You never sound that happy when you meet a mabari," said Malcolm. Had they not just mostly-sort-of-resolved an argument, he would've left his tone grumpy, but it was definitely more the time for lighthearted teasing rather than something that could be taken as judgmental.
Alistair raised his eyebrows. "Because I don't see cats nearly as much as I do dogs? Except that one time in the Denerim Market, when there was a whole army of cats that stared at us and meowed."
Malcolm frowned, easily recalling the rather disturbing memory. His recollection of it, however, wasn't nearly as traumatizing as Alistair was making his out to be. "That wasn't an army of cats. There were nine."
"Still. It was creepy."
Marian sighed and gestured toward Alistair. "Merrill, meet the apparent King of Ferelden."
"I've met him before," said Merrill. "He wasn't a king then."
As Marian stared at Merrill, her question of and you never thought to mention it?! showing plainly on her face, Alistair steered the conversation elsewhere. "And I was better for it," he said to Merrill.
Merrill peered closely at Alistair's forehead. "What happened there? Did you walk into a beam?"
Alistair shot her a puzzled look as his head went to right above the bridge of his nose, where he had a bright red bruising line from where his shield had hit him. He winced when he touched it and then quickly pulled his hand away. "No beam. Just… you know what? Let's just not talk about it." He moved the elbow cradling the purring cat. "He's yours?"
"Yes!" She smiled and moved on from Alistair's injury remarkably easily. "His name is Ser Pounce-a-Lot."
"Is he a real knight?" Alistair studied the cat with more than a little awe at the prospect.
"No," said Merrill, sounding as terribly disappointed over it as she had each time she'd answered that very same question before, "that's just his name. Anders named him."
"That does sound like Anders." Alistair's look switched from wonder to calculating. "I bet I could knight him."
"Anders?" asked Malcolm, because knighting a dead Anders somehow seemed a better prospect than Alistair actually knighting a sodding cat. Not being human, dwarven, or elven aside, a mabari should be first, not a sodding cat. "Posthumously would work, I suppose."
"No, the cat!" Alistair rubbed his nose in the cat's fur. "You'd like to be a real knight, now wouldn't you? Yes, you would!" Then Alistair put one of his large hands on the cat's head, and before Malcolm could rush across the room to stop him, Alistair was saying the words that would bestow a knighthood. "In the name of Calenhad the Great, here in the sight of the Maker, I declare you a Knight of Ferelden." He grinned and ruffled the fur between the cat's ears. "Pounce and serve your land, Ser Pounce-a-Lot!"
The groans from the majority of the people in the room nearly drowned out the squeals of glee from Merrill and Ava. Malcolm resisted the urge to give his daughter a stern look when he heard her clapping, but just because he thought Alistair had done something phenomenally stupid didn't mean he had to crush the happiness he'd granted a little girl who sorely needed it.
"What's happened in here?" Fergus asked as he came through the door, barely audible over the grumbles and continuing groans from all but a select few.
"He knighted the sodding cat," said Malcolm.
Cáel, who'd walked in behind Fergus, tilted his head and directed a doubtful look first toward Malcolm and then Alistair. "You didn't really. Did you?"
"He did!" said Ava.
Cáel narrowed his eyes. "Did you ask him to?"
From Cáel's tone, Malcolm realized he'd managed to raise one of his childen right, anyway. "No," he said before Ava answered. "And that makes it worse. Unprompted by anyone else, he knighted a cat."
"Thank you! I never thought he'd be a real knight!" Merrill said to Alistair as he returned her cat. "I have to go show Hawke. You'll have to come with me to tell her, because she'd never believe me, otherwise." She headed out of the room, cat in one arm, and the hand of the other arm pulling Alistair behind her.
"Because he's a cat," Malcolm said under his breath, but Líadan elbowed him good for it. "A cat," he repeated to her, in case she hadn't really thought it through. "What if he'd knighted Revas?"
She'd been about to object until he'd asked, and then gave him a nod of acknowledgement. "All right, you've got a point. However, since she's a mabari, I think it would've been slightly less absurd." Líadan glanced down at the dog in question. "What do you think? Should we ask Alistair to knight you?"
Revas growled low in her throat.
Fergus, close enough to have heard the exchange, laughed. Then his eyes flicked over to the door Alistair and Merrill had gone through as he asked Malcolm, "You get that fight out of your system?"
"Mostly. He gets it now. I don't think there's much more we can ask or expect."
"Maybe you," said Líadan. "I still want my turn."
"Get him whenever you want," said Fergus. "As long as you're still coming to Highever."
Cáel jumped into the air at hearing the mention. "We're going to Highever? Really?" Then, fully attentive, he took a seat at the table, near Líadan.
She put a hand on his shoulder. "That's the plan. We'll stay at least until after your cousin is born. Then we'll think about when we'll go back to Denerim."
With that, Cáel's brightness dimmed. "We'll have to go back, though. Uncle Alistair and Aunt Anora are going to have to teach me all the things they've been teaching Dane."
"It isn't the end of the world," said Alistair, which startled Malcolm, because he had no idea Alistair had been close enough to hear, much less that he'd been listening. Maker, how much had he heard? Not that he couldn't not know Líadan was as angry—or possibly more—at him as Malcolm was. "What's got you thinking being a king is?"
Cáel rested his chin on the tabletop. "You've said you never wanted to be king. Papa said he never wants your job, either. And he didn't want me to have it, so it must be terrible."
In retrospect, Malcolm realized that he probably shouldn't have made the prospect of being a monarch seem as awful as he had. To Cáel, becoming king had apparently turned into some sort of death sentence, and it explained much about his countenance over the past couple of days—he thought he was condemned.
"Some of it is," said Alistair, not hiding the partial truth, but then going ahead and not hiding the rest of the truth. "Most of it honestly isn't. I whine about it a lot, but it's primarily for show. Usually. It isn't so bad. Look, you and I will have a chat about it sometime, if you want. Well, we'll have to, obviously, but you know what I mean. I think. Right?"
"Can Aunt Anora teach me to not talk like you?"
Alistair staggered, as if struck by a blow from an ogre. "You wound me, Ser Cáel. Insinuating that I'm not well-spoken, as you did."
"I think he outright said it," said Fergus, who then glanced down at Cáel. "You'll have to work at it pretty hard, if you want to be eloquent. It's a strong Theirin trait, and you, nephew, show signs of having it already."
Cáel groaned.
Alistair lightly clapped him on the shoulder. "Cheer up, lad. The really important part is that the Landsmeet approves of us. They've weathered the babbling for two generations already, which means they can handle a third, if it comes to it."
"When we get to Highever, I'll ask Meghan to help you. We need to get you started on eloquence sooner rather than later," said Fergus.
His uncle's words caused dismay in Cáel, but not for the current, light-hearted reason. "Does that mean we aren't leaving soon? Because I'd like to leave soon. Really soon, preferably." He glanced over at Merrill and Ariane. "As soon as them, which looks like today."
"No," said Líadan, nearly as upset over it as her son. "Not today."
Merrill's concerned gaze shifted between Líadan and Cáel, and then settled on Líadan. "Walk us outside, lethallan?"
Líadan nodded, gave Cáel a final squeeze on the shoulder, and then trailed after her friends as they headed for the door. No one left behind in the kitchen was the least bit comforted.
"I wish they could stay longer," said Fergus.
"Me, too," said Ava. "I like them."
"You're all getting melancholy. Time to go outside." Fergus made a show of shooing everyone in the room back out the door to the garden. "All of us, including me." He pointed at Revas, who kept glancing at where Líadan had gone. "You too, mutt. You're nearly as bad as the rest of them."
After Revas huffed at Fergus, she trotted past him and barked at the children ahead of her. Once outside, Ava and Cáel clamored for Alistair to tell them stories. Rather, act out stories, because Alistair was incapable of telling a story, especially ones involving fighting dragons, without acting out key scenes. The children loved this aspect of Alistair's storytelling, because it meant they got to playact dragons and Wardens and evil witches. They begged for the story about killing the Archdemon, which first got an answer of "I spent most of that battle bleeding," followed by pleas for the real story.
"That is the real story," said Malcolm, vaguely entertaining the idea of telling Cáel about the time they'd fought—and had mistakenly assumed killed—his grandmother while she'd been shapeshifted into a dragon. It probably wasn't a good idea, unsure which element of the story might freak the kid out more. Malcolm wasn't even sure which thing freaked him out more and he was a grown man.
Cáel's lips drew into a pout. "The bards tell a better story."
"That's because they're bards. It's their job to take boring stories of dragon-killing and make something exciting out of it," said Alistair.
"What about that time the dragon set your hair on fire?" Fergus asked Malcolm.
Malcolm grimaced. Thus far, he'd managed to keep that particular tale from gracing his children's ears. Honestly, he'd rather tell the Flemeth-dragon story. Leave it to one of his brothers to change that little fact. "I thought we agreed never to repeat that story?" Before Fergus could answer, and before Ava and Cáel could drag the story from him, Malcolm pointed at Alistair. "You know where this is going. Pretend to be a dragon so these two can pretend to be Wardens or Nevarran dragon-hunters or whatever they want to be so they can hunt you down and slay you."
"I don't see why I have to be slain," said Alistair.
"Penance, Your Majesty," said Fergus. "Get to penancing."
"Is that even a word?"
"It is now."
With pretend swords raised high, Cáel and Ava dashed toward Alistair before he'd let out a single roar. Alistair's eyes widened and he bolted, running behind tree after tree, keeping each trunk between himself and rather eager children. He managed to dodge them for a few minutes before they wised up. Then Cáel flanked him while Ava drew his attention, and the two of them converged on their uncle at the same time, sending him crashing to the grass. As they crowed about their victory, Alistair looked over at Malcolm, who'd done nothing more than chuckle.
"That's it?" Alistair asked from the grass.
"A seven-year-old and a six-year-old just knocked the King of Ferelden on his ass," said Malcolm. "I'll take it."
Alistair raised his eyebrows and slowly pushed himself off the ground. "That went easier than I thought, even with you two bloodthirsty mongrels." The two supposed mongrels in question only smiled at their uncle.
"Don't get too cozy," came Líadan's voice from just beyond the doorway. She had a bow in hand, a few arrows jammed tip-down into the ground at her feet—when had she done that?—and made a show of nocking an arrow. "It's my turn. You're good at dodging, aren't you?"
Malcolm wasn't sure if she was joking or not. In fact, she seemed alarmingly serious, especially when she drew the bow.
He wasn't the only unsure one. "Mamae! You wouldn't!" said Ava.
"She might," said Cáel. "Maybe." His look slid toward Alistair. "It depends on what Uncle Alistair did."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, nephew," said Alistair.
"He sounded very confident to me," said Cianán as he wandered through the door, Morrigan behind him, her eyebrow cocked in amusement at Alistair's plight.
"Maker give me strength," Alistair said under his breath.
"If I have heard correctly, which I believe I have, Líadan would be well within her rights to loose all her arrows and more in your general direction," Morrigan said to Alistair as she stepped fully into the garden.
Right behind Morrigan strode Nuala. "She would."
"How big of an audience are we going to have?" asked a sweating Alistair.
"No!" Marian's shout originated from somewhere in the house, and she practically ran through the door to stand between Líadan and Alistair. "No fights to the death! Or blood. Preferably no blood, either. Veil's thin as it is, and we don't want to risk tearing it. Also, Mother would be displeased about blood being spilled in her garden, especially royal blood, and her ghost would make her displeasure known, likely uncomfortably. And," she said as she pointed at each of them in turn, "I am very angry at all of you for making me be the one to stop a fight, because I really like a good fight. Maker frown on you all." When no one looked to let go of the idea of violence, not when Líadan still had her bow half-drawn and the others making no move to disperse, Marian sighed. "Don't make me get Aveline. Because I'll get her. And you all know how she gets when she's summoned anywhere to force everyone to behave. Punchy. She gets punchy with that shield of hers and, Maker, it hurts when it hits you. But I won't hesitate to fetch her. I won't. And then I'll be even more mad."
Líadan glared again at Alistair, and then sighed. "Fine." Slowly, very slowly, she lowered her bow. Then she slipped the formerly nocked arrow into her quiver before gathering up the rest that she'd prepared.
"Were you really going to shoot him?" Marian asked.
"I hadn't decided."
Marian considered her for a moment. "Have I mentioned that you scare me sometimes?"
Alistair muttered, "She scares me most of the time," but no one acknowledged his comment.
"No, you haven't," Líadan said to Marian. "Why?"
"You remind me of me. And that's scary. Or I'm scary. Or both. Varric says I'm scary."
"Varric says you single-handedly killed three dragons."
Marian rolled her eyes. "It was one dragon and a passel of dragonlings, and I fought them with six, no, seven other people."
"His story was better," said Nuala.
"As tall tales often are," said Morrigan.
Líadan jumped, as if she'd forgotten the other woman's presence. "Are you leaving today, as well?"
"I…" Morrigan paused and she took stock of her friend. "No. Not today."
After a sigh of relief as slight as a whisper, Líadan gave Morrigan a curt nod.
Even so, Malcolm found himself trading a concerned look with Morrigan over how Líadan failed at hiding the troubled nature of her thoughts after having just made her farewells to Merrill and Ariane—her clanmates. Ariane, Malcolm figured, and likely the Ra'asiel as a whole, were as much Líadan's clan as the Mahariel had been. Saying goodbye to family wasn't an easy task, even when you were entirely well. And Líadan wasn't, and to help her, he needed to speak with her, or perhaps even Morrigan.
Yet, once the day got into full swing, neither Malcolm nor Morrigan were given the chance to speak with Líadan in depth once the day got into full swing. Oghren returned, escorted by a slightly less annoyed Aveline, an Aveline who shot warning glares at Malcolm and Alistair as soon as she'd stepped through the threshold of the door. On his part, Oghren seemed none the worse for wear after his night in a cell. In fact, he seemed to have enjoyed it, which Malcolm decided was particularly disturbing. With increasingly excruciating detail, Oghren began to regale them with his story about his night in Kirkwall's jail, but he was blessedly interrupted by the arrival of Cullen, Gratian, Hildur, and several Wardens.
Orana, with wary looks toward Oghren, asked exactly how many people she would be expected to serve breakfast.
"Everyone," said Marian.
"It won't be the fastest, coming out," she said after a fearful appraisal of the household's guests.
"Don't worry, someone'll tie down the Wardens."
"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Orana said quietly as she headed back.
"She's seen Wardens eat before, right?" asked Cáel.
Now Marian appeared uncertain. "Not this many, I don't think."
"We ate before we took the ferry over," said Cullen. "No need to worry about us. Well, Gratian and myself. I can't speak for the Warden-Commander."
Hildur broke away from her not-very-surreptitious assessment of Malcolm and Alistair to smile at Marian. "Oh, I'll eat, but I can be civilized and wait until everyone else has."
"She means this'll be our second breakfast," said Sigrun.
Marian ushered them toward the dining room and Gratian volunteered information as they filed in and found seats. "I'm not sure if anyone else has had the chance to tell you, but the majority of my mages have decided to leave to join the mages in Orzammar. A few expressed a preference for Kinloch Hold, if Ferelden's Circle is agreeable. And a small contingent of mages, those born and raised within this city's walls, wishes to remain here."
"They sound like my mother," Marian said. "They should leave while the leaving is good, unlike her." A thread of hurt wrapped around Marian's advice, couching it in a tone more sorrow than warning.
If Gratian caught the shift in her mood, he didn't indicate it. "I'll not force them."
"Nor will I," said Cullen. "Those days of the order are over, at least the order as it is under my supervision."
"Embracing the role of Knight-Commander, are you?" The feigned humor touched Marian's eyes only a little, but it helped shift the conversation back to planning the rest of what needed to be done to bring order to Kirkwall. What most concerned Malcolm was when he and his family could return to Ferelden, to Highever, and shed the weight still on their shoulders from the past weeks' events. Not much else mattered to him. The rest, in his opinion, would sort itself out.
By evening, those staying at the Amell estate had congregated in the garden, taking the opportunity to enjoy a rare balmy winter night. Yet more work awaited them all in the early morning, and people were faster to turn down extra wine and drift way than other nights. Even the children had no complaints when their bedtime was declared. While not happily following Nuala into the house, they went without more than a token protest. Which, for Cáel and Ava, was the equivalent to gladly going to bed.
"It's been hard on them," Líadan said after they'd gone. "But they're doing better than I'd hoped."
It was true, and Malcolm was as relieved about it as Líadan sounded. It also meant that he could focus more on Líadan now, since their children seemed to be projects in waiting. He wouldn't be able to help them until they were ready, and it didn't seem to be a moment to be coming up anytime soon. "And you?" he asked, skipping the subject entirely.
"I hadn't dared to hope at all, when it came to me. Not with…" She trailed off and gestured around them with her hand. "Not with everything so volatile. Not with me so volatile." What she didn't say out loud, not in so many words, was that the volatility lurked within, ready as before to upset any delicate balance she could establish. "Merrill and Ariane leaving didn't help."
He almost took a step in retreat at the shock of her admitting it. Was it the volatility? Or was it a newfound honesty? Then he realized it didn't really matter what caused it, just that it was there, plain and bare. "I didn't think it would. You've had to make a lot of farewells lately. But if they've let the city and you aren't following, then Emrys will be gone, too." He glanced down at her. She was watching the shadowed hedges instead of looking over at him, but he looked all the same. "Did you even say goodbye to him?"
Her hands came together behind her back. "In my own way."
The face of the smaller of Thedas' two moons crept above the garden's wall, stealing Malcolm's attention for a brief moment, and causing him to smile a little when he noticed it caught Líadan's attention, too. Then he asked, "Did he say goodbye to you?"
"In his own way."
"Oh," he said, not bothering to hide his dry annoyance when he noticed Líadan's slight smirk, "you mean you didn't."
"It wasn't necessary. I'll see him again in a month."
And when Emrys left after that meeting, Malcolm doubted there'd be any farewells there, either. While he felt more bothered than she did at the idea—she hardly seemed bothered at all—yet she'd been bothered about Merrill and Ariane having gone. He wanted to uncover the why of it, if only to show her. "If you aren't worried about how long it'll be until you see him again, what's got you so upset about not seeing Merrill and Ariane for the same length of time?"
Her brows drew together, and her eyes skittered way from the small moon and to the few stragglers left in the garden, the most noticeable of whom was Morrigan, who was moving closer. "It's different. They're different." Irritation flashed in her eyes as she focused on him. "Why are you hounding me about this?"
He shrugged, attempting to play it off before he incited her anger. "I was curious."
Her words held enough bite to tell him exactly how closely he teetered on the line. "Feel free to reign in that curiosity."
Malcolm could. He was perfectly capable, through years of practice, at holding in his curiosity. He knew he should move the conversation as far away from Emrys, Merrill, Ariane, and probably everyone and everything Dalish for good measure, but he didn't. "What did he tell you about Andruil?"
To his surprise, she hesitated for only a moment before her eyes darted in Morrigan's direction. "Not here."
Morrigan, who'd observed everything, half-rolled her eyes. "I already know, having asked Emrys myself. He saw fit to answer. I assumed he would have informed you."
"That would require the two of them to speak with each other," said Malcolm, heedless of Líadan's glare. "Effective communication is beyond them."
"Do you want me to tell you or not?" Líadan asked, a warning all its own.
Morrigan let out an amused sound as she left. Before she did, she leveled a meaningful look on Malcolm.
Líadan noticed. "What was that?"
"A warning," he said without forethought. That kind of answer would serve to draw more of Líadan's curiosity, which was what he wanted to avoid in the first place. Before she could launch an interrogation that would go in directions he wasn't quite prepared for, he asked, "You were going to tell me about Andruil?"
She narrowed her eyes as she slowly crossed her arms, which meant she'd be revisiting the subject of Morrigan and warnings after she answered his question to the fullest extent. Then her arms went to her sides and she began to pace, boots soft enough in the grass to allow the stray cricket the quiet to be heard. She threw glares at it as she walked, even though whenever they were in Denerim, hearing crickets pleased her to no end since it was a sound of her childhood. But here she was, throwing nasty glares, as if personally offended by its sounds. Her fit of temper felt strange to Malcolm, mostly because her temper, thus far, had never been directed at the Creators. Maker's breath, what had Emrys said to her?
"Andruil isn't…" Líadan shook her head, putting her first attempt aside. "She wasn't…"
He resisted prompting her. Doing so would only make it worse, for her and for him. Especially him. Maker knew, if she was in a temper over her Creators, there was no telling what she'd do to him for drawing her ire. So, he waited.
Another glare sent the crickets' way, and then she turned to him. "Andruil isn't what we've been led to believe. She wasn't a goddess of the hunt so much as she was a goddess of sacrifice. When prey on Thedas failed to interest her, she went into the Beyond, into the Void, to hunt the Forgotten Ones. Once there, she forgot herself. The Void drove her mad and became a plague to her own lands. She became a plague to the People."
"The Dalish were wrong?" He immediately knew it was the very most wrong thing to say and took a step back, and then another when her face darkened further. Then he realized if he stayed on the same topic, he could turn Líadan's anger onto someone who was emphatically not him. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. Emrys is Dalish. Was he holding out on you or something? How would he even know a vastly different story about Andruil?"
Quick as it had been to deepen, her anger lifted, replaced by bewilderment. "How does he know most of everything he knows?" She shrugged, but it did nothing to remove the troubled doubt heavy on her shoulders. "I don't know. No ones does except him. Maybe he's older than he lets on, older than even Marethari knew. Maybe he isn't. I just don't know. It's strange to think I know my grandfather even less than I'd believed I'd had, which wasn't much to begin with."
"Do you believe him?"
The cricket chirped as she mulled over an answer, but her look toward it no longer held venom. "More likely than not. It's… difficult."
If ever there was an understatement, that was one. The longer they spoke directly about Emrys, the more troubled she became, abandoning anger entirely as well as avoiding eye contact. Malcolm did his best to set it aside, to not take it personally. This, whatever it was, wasn't about him. Not that it wasn't difficult. "What about the rest of the Creators? Did he tell you about them?" Maybe he could rouse her temper again to prevent her developing melancholy from becoming entrenched.
Another shrug. "Not really, no. He offered to tell me in the future, whenever I wanted to know. But after learning about Andruil, I wasn't ready to hear more. He did add something about Mythal." She went on, providing an answer before he could ask. "As Protector and All-Mother, Mythal was the one who stopped Andruil. She drew the mad Andruil into a trap, defeated her, and then stole her knowledge of the Void, allowing Andruil to remember herself."
Malcolm let out a low whistle. "I can see why Emrys was pleased with your choice of Mythal's vallaslin over Andruil's markings."
"As can I." But the relief in her words didn't reach her eyes. "I'm not sure why he didn't voice his objections before I got my first vallaslin. I'd like to have known the truth about Andruil before I had her symbols inscribed on my skin."
Well, that was entirely reasonable. Emrys' previous silence didn't sit well with Malcolm, either, but he'd long ago told himself to give up on trying to comprehend the thoughts that drove Emrys' actions. "Andruil was still a hunter, despite what she hunted being changed," he said out loud, attempting to divine Emrys' meaning anyway. "And you were a hunter then more than the roles you've chosen now, so maybe he thought they fit you." Only once the words had left his mouth and he desperately wanted to snatch from the air and drag them back did he realize exactly what those words would sound like to her.
She stumbled back and quickly tried to cover it up by resuming her pacing, her feet striking out in front of her, a flash of action disguising footsteps that would rather be hesitant. Three quiet circles around the garden encompassed her initial reaction, joined by the sudden silence of the crickets. She drew up short when she noticed, and glared toward where she had before, but now for different reasons. Then the glare turned to a scowl that turned to the hurt she'd been hiding. After she took a few breaths, she looked over at Malcolm. "You think me mad?"
Standing closer to the hedge opposite from Líadan, Malcolm disliked the physical distance between them, distance she'd chosen to put there. Then again, had he been in her place, he would've done the same. "No. What I said, I… I didn't say it right. It's this thing I do, remember?"
Her hurt didn't fade, as he hoped it would. Her gaze turned momentarily inward before she said, "The look on your face when you said it, when you made that comparison, it reminded me of a look you had before." She glanced briefly to the west, toward the Planasene. "When you came into the clearing to see what was going on between us and the human looters." Her eyes narrowed as she stumbled out of the memory. "You'd thought I'd done something mad, hadn't you?"
For an instant, he considered lying, for his own good and hers, but doing so would only make it worse. Far worse. Líadan's trust in herself was tenuous at best. Lying now would destroy the trust between the two of them, a trust she relied on as she rebuilt her own. They stood over a chasm, a rickety rope bridge swinging under them—she only halfway across, he with a single foot on it. He held a knife, and she trusted him not to use it to saw through the ropes that kept her from plummeting to the ground far below. Yet, he'd considered it for too long.
"You had," she said, her voice flat as she acknowledged an unwanted truth, her hands closed in fists at her sides, as if tightly holding on to the rope that wouldn't save her.
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair so he wouldn't have to see the fear of betrayal lurking behind her attempt at stoicism. "No, that isn't what—" He stopped, recognizing that it would be a lie, even if an inadvertent one. "I was afraid. I was afraid that you had."
She straightened, incredulous at his failed attempt at evasion. "You're playing with words. It means what it means even if you try to use other terms. What did you think I'd done? Killed them?" Her mouth moved and nothing came out, as if struck speechless by what she believed he'd thought of her. "You'd think I'd do that, after everything? That my instinct would be to kill those humans outright? Even when I've got a human bondmate? Human children? Human family and friends beyond you and Cáel and Ava?"
He did his best to not look away as she stared him down. "I was afraid you had, and afraid for all those reasons you just named. The situation, it… it reminded me of the story you told me about when you and Tamlen came across those three human hunters who'd found the elven ruins. The ones you—"
"Killed. You can say it. The ones we killed."
"The situation at Sundermount reminded me of that one." He'd barely been able to say it back then, much less repeat it now, when there was so much more at stake. "So I was afraid."
She mulled it over, crossing her arms as she did so, hurt mixing with anger so that she could confront her current source of pain. Yet, being able to do so meant she trusted her footing, even on their rickety basis of trust. "Even if I had, would it be so far-fetched to think a human would react the same way? What if someone picked the pockets of a body before their pyre was lit? Or sifted through the ashes for valuables afterward? How would you have reacted if someone had stolen the necklace Wynne wore, the gift her first apprentice had given her, before her ashes were even cold?"
"I wouldn't have killed them." He amended his statement as her eyebrows came slashing down in frustration. "Only because I'd have to chase them and catch them first, and someone would stop me before I could deliver any sort of killing blow." He shook his head. "But I don't have a background that would influence that choice. I don't have a history that could lead someone to believe I'd happily return to it, leaving the present behind." Like Líadan had pointed out before, he was playing with words instead of plainly stating the truth. "I'm not Dalish."
"No, you're not." There was more sadness in her statement than anger, not that Malcolm was sure what he'd been expecting. "You never were. I'm the one who changed the most, because you aren't Dalish, but that didn't stop me from loving you."
Shame nipped at him as he struggled to admit his fears, fears he'd thought smothered, yet somehow drew breath. "I was afraid that you hadn't. I was afraid that the Dalish would win."
"You say that like it's a contest."
"Isn't it? Being Dalish was a frighteningly important part of you that sometimes took up your entire identity. There were times I was afraid that the Dalish were more important than me or even the children, especially when it came to Ava." At seeing Líadan flinch, Malcolm winced internally, knowing he'd caused that pain in bringing up an old, painful truth. "You, you spent a long time afraid that I'd ditch you for Morrigan. Me? There's always been that fear in the back of my mind that you'd ultimately choose the Dalish. When you took the children and left, you were so eager to leave. And despite me knowing it was a ruse, I wondered if it wasn't one after all. That, maybe, once you got there, you'd realize it was where you wanted to be."
Líadan's arms went limp with disbelief. "How?" Her expression had been stripped of all confidence. "How could you even think—" She stopped, a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, realization coming to her even as she posed the question. "Oh, I see. I can see how that…" She paced again, stalking the garden, and even the cricket had only a few chirps to give before it quieted under Líadan's look that dared it to continue. "I was worried," she said, more to the grass than to him. "I was lost in worry about Ava and Cáel both. All I could think about was getting them to safety before—" A sharp inhalation halted her speech, as if her heart had tried to forcibly hold in whatever else she had to say.
As she grappled with it, Malcolm slowly caught on to why she'd been so preoccupied by worry, more so than most other parents in the same situation. Unlike Líadan, most didn't have parents of their own who'd died to keep their child from Chantry hands. "Before the templars came to get them."
"Yes." It was short, her reply a casualty of some sort of war being waged within her. "It still happened, but that was after we traveled with the Dalish. After I'd sat with them in Dalish camps, immersed in what had been my own life as a child, I had the thought that it was what I wanted."
He must have made a surprised noise, because she quickly strode over to him.
"It wasn't." Líadan took one of his hands with one of hers, her touch tentative, as if afraid he'd reject it. When he didn't, her grip strengthened. "I had the Dalish, I had what had once been familiar to me, and I had my children there, experiencing it for themselves. But it wasn't the comfort the younger me had believed it would be, because you, someone she would have never understood, never have even dreamt of, were missing. No one, nothing, could mend your tall, human-shaped absence. There wasn't even a point in trying. The only thing I could do was acknowledge it and try to reassure Cáel and Ava that we'd see you again." She reached out with her free hand to take his other one. "As soon as we reached the Suriel, I was going to send for you, Emrys be damned."
She paused, leaving him room to reply if he wanted, if he could. When it became clear he wouldn't, she tightened her grip on his hands. "The Dalish elf you met in the Brecilian Forest a lifetime ago isn't who I am anymore, and you should know that. You should believe that, even though who I am now was broken only a week ago, and I nearly lost who I was. The first me I looked for afterward, the first me I recovered, wasn't the person I was then." Líadan brought their hands up between them. "She isn't your bondmate. She doesn't have human children. She hasn't yet learned that experiencing life beyond the Dalish clans is something worth doing and she never will. She isn't me, and I'm not going to just let you believe that all the work I did in putting myself back together would be for her. She would have left with the clans today without ever looking back. I didn't. I stayed."
Malcolm was left with no real reply, not when Líadan had tossed aside every fear he'd held. But silence at the right times was a learned behavior for him, something he had to actively try to do. His reeling mind left him without the ability to try, which meant he said something stupid. "But you were upset."
Líadan growled in frustration and let go of his hands to throw hers in the air, her body spinning away from his as she raised her voice. "Of course I was upset! I hadn't seen many of our friends in years and we had to part ways too soon." She spun back around and glared at him. "That doesn't mean I want to go with them, not without you, you big, dumb human."
Having regained some of his equilibrium, he wrenched control of his big mouth so he could fix his misstep. Humor had always worked, and they could use some. He gave her a crooked smile. "I'll take the big, but not the—all right, the objecting to you being upset thing was a little dumb."
She laughed, but it was half-choked with unexpected grief.
But he didn't think they had anything to grieve over since whatever they'd lost, they were slowly but surely picking back up. "I did come around." He moved forward and put his hands on her shoulders, then slowly shifted them upward to cup her face in his hands. "I believe you. I believe you're you, and I don't believe you were broken. Not truly broken." His thumbs brushed gently over her new vallaslin, still slightly tender only a few days out. "It's one of those hunter things, isn't it? Bend, but not break."
"No." She shook her head in short motions, communicating her disagreement, but not hard enough to shake him off. "I did. You don't understand. Meredith, she… they took everything from me. Everything, just for being who I am." She trembled from the effort of holding it all back, clenching her hands into fists to hide the tremor.
He had no idea what to do, because this had suddenly gotten much heavier than he'd ever anticipated.
Then the tears that had quickly filled her eyes to shining had nowhere else to go, and when she blinked, they fell. With them went every wall she'd ever put up, ever brick she'd ever used to protect herself, even from him, all of it crumbling to dust. "They—I couldn't—" She stopped, even as the tears continued, having reached the point where speaking got interrupted by gasps and that seemed weakness enough.
Malcolm still had no idea what to do. He'd known this was coming—everyone had; you would have to be blind not to—but he hadn't thought it would be now. Certainly not while standing in the middle of Marian's garden, with her for the first time entirely unguarded by any of her many walls. She'd always been the most open with him, but there had been walls, even there. He'd respected them, because they were part of who she was, they were something she needed, and prying at the few left would have done no one any good.
Yet, now they were gone, and he was terrified that he'd hurt her more, and she hadn't stopped shaking.
Then he didn't let himself think about it any longer. Instead, he slid one hand to cradle the back of her head and moved the other down to her back as he pulled her close. She allowed him to move her, and then rested her head on his chest as he wrapped both his arms around her. He wasn't shaking, he figured, so she could use him to steady herself. She would quickly regain her balance and her tears would dry up as they always did when things went this far. Then it would be back to normal. Except this was the first time every wall between herself and the world had fallen, and she did not stop like he thought it would, trusting him to momentarily be the wall she couldn't hold up alone anymore.
So he helped, shouldering it for her.
He wasn't sure how long it was until she was done, but he knew she was because she lifted her head, slightly abashed.
But he also knew there was nothing for her to be embarrassed about, because emotions were things and things happened and that was part of being alive. He smiled at her. "You might've left some snot on my shirt. Just saying. Pretty gross."
Her grief gave way to a laugh, no longer tempered with sorrow.