AN: This chapter is a brief departure from the current events of the story. I want to take you back in time to revisit the events from chapter 1 - the night Sebastian was exiled - but told from Corbinian's perspective. The purpose is to reveal the full set of events of that night to the reader, and to spend some time with Corbinian, who will be mostly absent from here on out; but don't worry, there will be more chapters where Beenie will visit us again in similar fashion, because his story is not yet complete.

Thank you so much to JadeSelket for the reviews :) I love reading them! Thanks also to analect - I thank you often, but you deserve it.

This chapter is the last from Part I.

9:23 Dragon, Summer

Oh, Maker, my head is killing me. Stop, stop…. I think I'm talking though I could be mumbling. Someone or something is poking me and, through very dry eyes and a hangover the size of the Amaranthine Ocean, I look up to see a pair of Royal Guards. Hugh and Keis, I think their names are. Oh, Maker, please make them stop yelling.

Now they're carrying me – great, this is going to scramble my already-tender stomach and without fail I heave but nothing comes up. I have a vague memory of vomiting earlier just before I had to sit down. I think Sammie and Sebastian were there, and then the memory punches me in the face as I recall a few still images, like several paintings of a single scene: one moment followed by another a few seconds later, and then another. Sebastian had his hands all over her and I clench my jaw impulsively, almost too hard because the jolt resonates through my skull, making me dizzy. The next image is of Sammie trying to pull away, and then Sebastian is yelling, at least my memory tells me there is yelling, but I can't quite – oh the pounding, oh my stomach.

Hugh and Keis aren't being unkind to me, but I'm no child. I've just turned sixteen and I am as tall and strong as any Vael and I do my best to try and walk on my own, but I can't even form coherent words.

They deposit me on the floor of the main hallway of the Royal Palace. It's a curious place to put me, because I don't know what will happen if my parents see me, let alone the Prince of Starkhaven, my uncle. And then Sebastian is set down next to me. Like a gift. Perhaps "set" isn't the right way to describe it, as he is sort of slumped down, holding a cloth to his lip and now it hits me. She bit him. This bastard had his hands all over her and she was trying to get away and he wouldn't let her go and so she bit him. Ha! That's my girl. Well, okay, she's not my girl. At least not yet. I even told Sebastian this a few months ago while we were in the practice yard. I told him pointedly, even.

I said, Samantha Mayweather is the girl for me.

He laughed and said, She's more like a sister. We've known for her so long.

I said, No, not her. She's the one.

For one, she's beautiful. Delicate. Honestly, when people look at her, they don't look away. While she may not possess especially striking features like Arianna Marziano's high cheekbones or Flora Harimann's sultry eyes, she's still hands-down the most beautiful girl I've ever known. And then she opens her mouth to talk and I swear I've never heard a girl with such a tongue. I can't imagine ending up with some of these vapid idiots who talk of nothing but clothes and hair and flowers. What a waste. But, let's be honest, I'd also like to know what she looks like underneath all those clothes.

I am remembering this conversation as I'm sitting—well, okay, I'm slumped against the wall—next to Sebastian and I can honestly say that I now know what murderous intent feels like because I'm so mad at him, not just for what he did to a girl, but for what he did to my girl. I know it's not necessarily proper to talk of girls as belongings or possessions, but I am fairly certain that the Maker put her on this world for me.

Anyway, the sun must have risen while we were sitting here, because light is streaming through the windows that the servants are now opening and Sebastian winces just like I do.

Now, I should say that Sebastian is my best friend. While technically my cousin, he's always been my brother more than my actual brother and I've been his brother more than his own brothers and we both know this. This is probably why no one expects to find me punching him in the face, least of all me, but here I am. Punching him in the face. I am so angry, all I can see are his hands all over Samantha Mayweather.

But he's Sebastian Vael and he's built like me, inside and out, and so he fights back. He gets in a good hook to my ribs and I feel a crack and then a jolt of searing pain shoots down my right leg, and then I think I repeat her name through my teeth or something because he looks up at me and says her name back. And then I say, How you could do that to her? and then I grab him and hit him good, right on the nose and now it's his turn to crack as a gush of blood erupts and just starts pouring down his shirt, which I have to say, used to be nicer than mine.

He's holding his nose and he says, Do what? What are you talking about?

That's when I realize that he really doesn't know. He can't remember that he essentially forced himself on a girl – my girl – and was rejected, and then blacked it all out in a drunken stupor. This multiplies my rage. I swear, if I had my sword in my hands at this moment, I really think that I would run him through. As it is, my fists begin flying again and the next thing I know there are more people involved in our fight, but they are trying to break us apart and—my arms still swinging—I am pulled off of Sebastian. Rather violently, in fact. But my own level of violence is escalating quickly and they have to restrain me, which is to say that I deserve what I get.

We are separated. I am thrown into my room and in the hours that follow, a parade of people come through. First my father who yells at me like I have never been yelled at before, which is to say, that I actually have never been yelled at before, because I am royalty and mostly I go unnoticed until it's time to show me off. Like a steer. It's a new experience. Then my mother comes in and she is so disappointed in me. At least she says so, but her voice actually sounds bored. Then the prince, and his is the worst because he mostly just stares at me. I swear that man could give speeches with just his eyes.

I know that I sound glib, but in between bouts of wanting to kill Sebastian and being treated for what I am told are broken ribs, I am actually scared out of my head. I've never been in trouble before. I have my studies and my duties but I can get away with a lot in Starkhaven simply because I have the name Vael. Guards keep my secrets. Maids wash my dirty laundry. Elven servants who just want nothing more than to be able to feed their families are paid off. I know it's not honorable, but I never much cared. Until now, honor didn't concern me as much as getting what I wanted.

It takes several days before the Prince of Starkhaven, Sebastian's father, calls us before him. He says that he intended to call us sooner, but he was so mad, he didn't trust himself not to make some rash decision, which is impressive because exile is seen by many as rash. Which is what he tells Sebastian he is thinking about doing. He says that he had been thinking about it for a while.

I have known Sebastian since I was two, and we've been in trouble fairly regularly ever since, but I have never seen him afraid, the way he is now. Even under those black eyes that I have given him, he can't hide that he is as scared as me, and then Sebastian's father asks us to explain ourselves.

Sebastian's explanation causes me to question whether or not I can maintain control of myself in front of the Prince of Starkhaven. He essentially apologizes for what he has been told he has done: jumping in the fountain of Andraste, public drunkenness, and running away from guards. He says it was foolish and indiscreet. When it's my turn, I explode. I yell at Sebastian. In front of the prince. In front of the princess. In front of Sebastian's brothers and their wives and my parents and Goran, too. About what he did to Samantha. To my Samantha. I think I actually say that. I call him no different than a rapist, for if she had not been able to fight him off, then he likely wouldn't have stopped. And then I scream at myself for my own inability to protect her. I am infinitely more cruel to myself than everyone else has been.

For some reason, no one interrupts to calm me down. They let me rail against him and myself but they're listening. Perhaps for the first time ever. And as I look at them, and they look at me, I start thinking about how they want to exile Sebastian from Starkhaven, from our home. It hits me that they are considering this punishment for me as well. My mind starts to race. I have a million thoughts at once. I see a million different paths and a million different lives. I know that I can follow a single point or a thousand roads. I can run away no matter what the prince says, to the wilds or some far away land. Remake myself, become a hero or a thief. But I'm standing here, and the prince is looking at me and I swear, all I can think about is Sammie.

I can be a million different things, I say, but I would be nothing without her.

I swear, I had no idea I was such a romantic.

While I am only sixteen and a year older than Samantha, everyone understands that this is a very serious admittance. We're like swans, the Vaels. When we mate, it's for life.

And then out of nowhere, I get this crazy idea and I volunteer to take the Oath of Starkhaven as proof of my vow to make things right, and it's then that the prince's expression changes. I can't tell to what, almost appraising, I think. My parents, too. Everyone in the room. And Sebastian. It's like all the punches I gave him earlier were nothing compared to what I just said. He finally sees how he has offended her. And me. His brother. And I am left, my fists shaking at my sides and my face red with rage.

My uncle asks me, Who would you take the Oath for?

I glare at Sebastian and say, I would take the Oath for Starkhaven to protect the Samantha Mayweathers from the Sebastian Vaels.

It's pretty harsh thing to say to a brother.

I think it is these words that sentence him to his fate, because he doesn't protest exile. In a state of shock, I stare at him, but he won't look at me. As his father's secretaries are leading him away, I don't understand what just happened. Why would he just leave like that? Why would he say nothing about his own culpability? He didn't even apologize.

My uncle then says he expects me to honor the Oath of Starkhaven. If I can honor our family name.

My father speaks up and says that we have family in Nevarra City, and I can't help but wonder what the hell he is doing, but then he offers to send me away for a year to live with the Pentaghasts. Now, aside from my aunt who is as wonderful as a summer's day, the Pentaghasts are a rather cold family. They are strict. Punctual? Though many might call them solemn, I prefer humorless. The intention is that a change in my environment will provoke a change in me, and perhaps make me realize what I have here at home. Maybe it will make me appreciate it, and in no small way does Samantha Mayweather figure into this, because I am sure that my impassioned words about her swayed some of the people in the room to believe I have some redeeming qualities.

In a matter of days I am on the road with my father escorting me to Nevarra City.

It's a nice city. A lot like home. Of course, the Pentaghasts could have a palace in the dirtiest shantytown in Ferelden and it would still be luxurious. The only real difference between Nevarra City and Starkhaven are the crypts. The people here bury their dead instead of burn them on a pyre, which is weird. What are they saving all these bodies for anyway? Memories? Respect? All those husks of people just sitting there in some giant mausoleum. It's disturbing and, besides that, it's morbid.

Every day I think about writing a letter to Sammie, but I know that I am not allowed. Even if I could smuggle it out, what am I supposed to say? Wait for me? I know we were friends before, but if I ever make it back, want to be more? My aunt suggests writing poetry to recite when I get back, which is such a ridiculous suggestion that I can't even laugh, which makes me fit right in with this family.

I understand that this opportunity is my last, and I am grateful that everyone here in the Pentaghast family is so invested in my education. I am given lesson upon lesson about history, Chantry doctrine, magic, sword-fighting, and hours and hours of survival skills. The Pentaghasts made their fortune by adventuring, specifically by hunting dragons, and you don't hunt dragons from palaces. You hunt them in the wilderness, in mountain ranges, across oceans and deserts. These skills have been passed down from one generation to the next. I would think about my family and Starkhaven, and Sebastian and Samantha more often if I weren't so immersed in the world.

There is only one enemy to fight out here. It's not the loneliness or the hunger, the exhaustion or the elements. It's the will to go on. I have to find it. I have to keep moving. I am a link in a chain.

My uncles and cousins go for hours without speaking. They listen to the wind and smell the dirt and we are conquerors of nature itself, finding our way with just our bodies and our minds. I find myself out here, which I think is what I was meant to find. I breathe in the air and exhale out my past and I am born again.

It takes ten months for Sebastian to work up the courage to write to me.

He wants to see me. He wants to apologize. In person. He says he hasn't written to Samantha, because he wants my permission, and he intends to apologize profusely. He prays to Andraste for forgiveness every night, he says. He's terribly lonely at the Chantry. He looks for company anywhere he can find it and that includes yet more girls whose names he can't recall. He misses our home. He has dreams of running away from Kirkwall, but he has no money and nowhere to go. He is lost.

It occurs to me why he accepted exile: he is a coward.

He couldn't face Starkhaven knowing what he had done. Ashamed and embarrassed, he couldn't stand in front of everyone, admit his sins, and then promise to make things right. Like I did.

I don't know what he's expecting from me. Absolution? Understanding? Of course, I am angry, but he is my brother more than my own brother. Brothers fight and I am certain that this will not be our last. I am also certain that things will change eventually, and perhaps given time, Sebastian will find what the natural world has given me, and that is to say, a sense of self.

I receive and write letters regularly to my father and mother, the only ones with whom I am allowed correspondence. The letters describe what they are hearing from the Pentaghasts about me, news of Starkhaven and the world, and the various things they expect from me when I return. That is, they are hopeful that the prince will allow me to return. They pray for me. They ask me if I am praying for myself, but I don't have to anymore. I am going to be all right.

Sometimes Goran writes to me. His letters are really short. It's sort of infuriating, because he's not as dim as everyone thinks.

Samantha never writes to me. I guess I was hoping that she would find a way, but it's more likely that she doesn't even know where I am. I swear to myself that I will do things right when I get back. I will talk to Sammie. I will ask her father if I may see her formally. I will treat her with kindness and respect. I will never lay a hand on her without her permission. I will be a gentleman. Well, okay, let's be honest, I can still be as crass as I always am, because she's as wicked as me and I love that. I wonder if she's seeing anyone, and I wonder if my year-long absence will change things. I think that I think too much about Samantha. I decide that it doesn't matter if anyone is interested in her. I'm a Vael and defeat doesn't run in my family.

I am now proud of my name for different reasons.

I used to loathe it, really, and Sebastian and I bonded over the shared frustration. People fawned over us like being royalty is some grand thing, but we always felt that while everyone else had the choice to make their own destinies, we did not. There is some truth to this. Sebastian's brothers—one of whom will likely be prince one day—are not given the choice. Sebastian liked to joke that his parents had "the heir and the spare" and there wasn't much left for him. Imagine what's left for cousins. Sometime during my adolescence, it was decided that I would lead the standing army of swordsmen and Sebastian, with his impressive skill with the bow, would lead the archery regiments; our skills demanded to protect the freedoms that we were never granted and the titles that we had come to loathe.

But to have the choice – that's all we wanted. I suppose that's what we rebelled against all those years. We were wild like a pair of tomcats; sneaking out of our homes, drinking, whoring, fighting, and generally stamping out anything good about our family name. We thought our family full of hypocrites, fascists, and liars. We were reckless, but we didn't care about our own safety, seeing the end of our lives occurring at a fixed point in just a few years' time when we were supposed to live up the family's expectations by assuming these roles.

Now, I understand in retrospect how ungrateful I was for what I had.

There is more freedom in my name that I once gave credit. I had the freedom to behave like a tomcat for one but, for another, I actually do have the freedom to choose my own destiny. I'm strong, an excellent fighter, and I've always enjoyed practice and getting better, and apparently I have a gift with words which will encourage men to follow my lead. I always had the freedom to be whoever I wanted to be, and I wasted so many years thinking that they were trying to define me, but that's cowardice. I choose who I am.

That night in front of everyone, I chose Samantha and Starkhaven. Sebastian was incapable of making any choice at all, which now that I think about it, is not all that surprising. He's never been decisive.

The prince finally arrives to see me. I am as nervous as an apostate in a room full of Templars, because I know that his visit will decide my fate. Will I get to go home? Will I be exiled forever like Sebastian?

We end up talking for hours. I've never really talked to him before, probably because I wasn't old enough. He tells me that he hears good things about me, not only from my parents but from the Pentaghasts as well. He tells me that he was very impressed when I volunteered to take the Oath of Starkhaven, which is a pretty old tradition and he was surprised that I even knew about it. I tell him that I still want to take it and I truly mean that. He instructs me to write a letter of apology to the Garritys for my behavior on their property that night, and I will dish it up gladly. Apologies of this sort are always for the receiver of such a note, and so I know that I will have to write a grandiose letter. It may be a pile of garbage in its embellishments, but if anything is clear from this past year, it's that I truly regret everything that happened that night.

Then he tells me that I can come home which brings both relief and elation – home! He has big plans for me, though. He still wants me to embrace my responsibility to our home and earn the title of Captain of the Royal Army, and I am grateful to be given the opportunity. This isn't a title or position that is given to just anyone, and again I feel ashamed of how selfishly I behaved.

I ask about Sebastian, but he tells me that his third son isn't ready to come home and isn't sure if he will ever be. He's still willing to give Sebastian a second chance! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, because he gave me one. All I had to do was ask for it. Part of me feels like writing to Sebastian and telling him, but I know that I won't. For some reason, it makes me angry to know that while he wallows in his misery in Kirkwall, lonely for his family and his home, all he has to do is apologize and ask to come back, and yet he doesn't do that. It's pathetic that he is so unsure of himself that he can't even make the argument.

And then my uncle tells me about Samantha.

I am a Pentaghast in this moment. I am silent. I never look away.

He tells me that she doesn't know where I have been for the last year. No one in Starkhaven knows, as the royal family and everyone with any knowledge has been sworn to secrecy, so that I would be truly disconnected from my home. He said that he intended for no one to know Sebastian's whereabouts either, but Sebastian told a servant or something as he was ushered out of town and within a few hours everyone in Starkhaven knew.

During this year, the prince has followed my Samantha closely. He even assigned someone to watch her and judge her worthiness of a Vael – imagine that! As if she has to work to deserve me and not the other way around. He also tells me that Samantha is the kind of girl who will need protecting because she cannot fight harsh battles on her own. She is a smart girl and a survivor, and while biting the lip of a drunken amorous boy might get her out of a little trouble, she will never be able to fight her way out of something big. Someone else will have to fight for her. I have no trouble with this, obviously I will fight for her but he insists on this point. He also says that if I take the Oath of Starkhaven, I cannot abandon the city to save her. No matter what. It occurs to me now what he is saying.

The Oath of Starkhaven is a pledge of fealty to the safety of the city and all of its citizens. If there should be some disastrous event, like a Blight, a dragon attack, or the Circle Tower explodes, my responsibility is to fight whatever is attacking the city. I am bound by the Oath and my honor to fight until the threat is dead or I am dead. I cannot abandon this cause to serve my individual needs, to save my family, to save myself, and I cannot leave my duty to save Samantha. This is part of the Oath. If I should break the Oath, it is a crime punishable only by death. There are no exceptions.

I tell him that I still want to take the Oath. Starkhaven. Our home. Its safety is equal to hers. These are more important than my life. He is pleased by my answer.

Then he mentions Innley, and I am quite stunned when he tells me that he is now in the Circle. While I'm processing this information – my friend, Innley, a mage – he is telling me how he finds Samantha's family to be of good breeding, but the recent news about her brother being a mage is marginally troublesome. While the curse of magic runs in all families, he says recent studies suggest that curse is stronger in the father than the mother. This is somewhat of a relief I guess, though it feels strange to be talking about this particular subject now and I tell him that I am not even sure she'll have me.

He just smiles.

He tells me how difficult the last year has been for her. How the nobles of Starkhaven have not been especially kind and there have been rumors about what really happened that night between me, Sebastian, and her. Her family combats these rumors and she isn't intimidated by them which suggests again that her family is of good character. He tells me that over the course of the year, when she has been able to speak to my parents and to Goran, she asks about me. She told Goran she missed me. He says that he is impressed that she would stand by me even as the rumors fly about her own reputation.

I can't really put into words what this means to me, but my whole body is alive in this moment. She asks about me! She misses me! The words ring in my ears all the way back to Starkhaven and when I arrive late in the night, there is no ceremony. There is no contingent of guard waiting nor will be there a welcoming-back party. I have paid a penance for my sins, which doesn't deserve a celebration.

The next morning as I am dressing for service, all I can think about is what I am going to say to her when I see her. How much does she remember? How much is proper for me to say? Should I mention Sebastian? Would this embarrass her? Maybe I could try to come up with something clever, something witty, something that will get her attention, but the truth is that I don't need to. I know her and she knows me. Maybe I'll think of something better when I'm in the moment, but it might be as simple as "Well, hello there."