Love, love, love says Percy.
And run as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.
Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

I Ask My Dog Percy How I Should Live My Life, Mary Oliver

part three

Surely, Sebastian thought, he lived in a waking dream.

For half a year he had exchanged letters with the crown princess of Kirkwall. Then she had died, and Fenris had died with her, and there could be no light left in the world. He had mourned them with all the dead of his family, had fought with his advisors and his council and with his own need for vengeance. Let Kirkwall rattle and rage on their mountain; he had overnight gone cold as marble, and not even the threat of war could stir his heart.

They had held funerals for Hanley and Linnea and Petra and the others: grand, solemn ceremonies with priests and a holy choir. His ministers had suggested an empty pyre for the captain, a gold bier for the princess of Kirkwall. He had refused, not because he had believed them alive but because he was not ready for grief, and as long as they were not dead he could pretend his selfishness was hope.

And yet—here the princess stood at the top of the white stairs down to their feasting hall, a living woman dressed in blue and gold, shining pins in her hair and jeweled rings on her warm hand when she laid it on his arm. The blue samite matched her eyes; her skin had been scrubbed ruthlessly clean, her hair combed until it shone, her nails filed smooth once more. And Fenris stood at his shoulder, living too, redressed in the white Starkhaven surcoat, his green eyes so like forest moss gone grave and glad. His face was lined with months' hard living, and he went very still when Lady Flora brayed with sudden laughter at the end of the hall, but he was alive. Alive! His heart sang with joy.

They went down together to the head table, laid with yellow runners embroidered with white cups. Platters were heaped with fish-and-egg pie, with boar and hare, pheasant and dace. Red wine stood at every place; at the princess's had been set also a second, smaller glass of Kirkwall mead. The crowd cheered thrice before turning to their own tables, broad smiles on every face; Hawke thanked them graciously, her head inclined, but her hand trembled as she touched the mead.

"How beautiful you look, my lady," Sebastian said to her tenderly, hidden under the rising conversations around them. "And how very tired."

"Less tired, my lord," she said, "and more adrift. Yesterday we ate hardtack and slept on stone. Today my feet are dry for the first time in more than three months, and tonight I sleep on feathers by a fire. If the world can change so much in one day, what might happen tomorrow?"

"Only joy, surely," Sebastian said. He saw as she ate that she still wore his pewter ring, and he could not stop the clench of his heart. "You kept the ring, my lady."

She glanced down as if startled, and her eyes softened. "Yes," she said, and looked up at him. "I could not bear to give it away. Even when we had no coin and precious little food. It was a reminder, perhaps, of better days. Or a promise of them."

"Your Highness!" It was a high, lilting voice; Hawke's hands caught at her throat.

"Lady Merrill!"

The lady hurried to the princess's chair and flung her arms around her. There was a general gasp from the hall, some unkind titters, but Hawke's knuckles were white on the lady Merrill's back, and when they parted Merrill knelt beside her, and Hawke cupped her face in both hands. "You're alive," Merrill said, tears in her eyes. "I knew you would be. Oh, and you, Captain—"

This embrace was met with markedly less enthusiasm, but the lady Merrill was dauntless. Soon she had been seated in the place to Hawke's left, displacing one of Sebastian's minor barons; the man descended to the lower tables with a scowl and Sebastian could not bring himself to care. "And you," said the princess warmly. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you. How did you get away? Where did you go?"

And so the tale unfolded in the hours over dinner. The first part of the account, Merrill's part, Sebastian knew already; the princess herself filled in the missing pieces of their ambush, their survival, and the long journey north. Fenris made some small comments here and there, but mostly remained silent. Sebastian was not surprised; near a decade of friendship had taught him Fenris was laconic at best when troubled, and irascible at his worst, and he could think of little more harrowing than the last few months.

In his turn Sebastian told them of what had passed in Starkhaven in their absence, while the rest of his courtiers danced with each other in merry celebration. He described Lady Merrill's lonely return on the captain's horse, both worn ragged by the speed of their travel, and the shock and anger that had thundered through the council at her news. He relayed the baron Hanley's letter after his nephew's body had been delivered, after he himself had been found hanging by his servants. He told them of Druvond's mysterious death in the prisons beneath the castle: poisoned without food or water, a dead man smiling in the corner of his cell.

It was as eager as he had yet seen the princess, even when the evening grew very dark and dancers withdrew exhausted to their beds, and the lamplighters began to douse the torches for the night. She asked keen, insightful questions of their investigation; she offered thoughts of her own regarding Tevinter which he had not yet considered. They did not dive too deeply into the guards' treachery—Fenris grimaced at its every mention, and they were still at table besides—and when she finished describing the pirate woman who had sailed them the last part of their way Sebastian sat back in his chair in amazement.

"Incredible," he said at last, as Lady Hawke wetted her lips with wine and folded her napkin in her lap. The servants had cleared away all the settings at the high table except for theirs, had put out all the candles but those at their elbow. He had forgotten how dark the great hall could be at night. "Perilous is not a strong enough word. Truly, Andraste blessed your steps with wisdom."

"The captain's more than mine," the princess said lightly. "But my lord, I see suddenly the hour and will beg your patience; I am eager to send word to my family."

"Rylen has already sent our fastest horses with word to Kirkwall. But of course you wish to write to them yourself." He stood and offered her his arm. She took it, leaning more heavily against him than she had before, and Fenris fell into place at their backs as they walked through the silent, sleeping palace to her rooms. Merrill came with them at first; then at the first corner she smiled and flitted away into shadow.

The princess was very quiet. Her letters had been lively, half-thoughts distracted by her own witticisms, brimming with colorful stories of her family and her daily activities. But now her eyes were grieved, and she did not smile easily, but—fool, Sebastian thought, and covered the sharp shake of his head with a smile of his own. Impossible to imagine the difficulty of the journey. She had been safe less than a day. He himself was, after all, half a stranger. This could not be rushed.

They passed through the upper gallery, the white marble statues of his forebears lining either side in dignified state. His great-uncle Corwen glared down from his frame on the wall, flanked by his wife Eunice and niece Martia. His mother's face was gentler than her relatives, her eyes fond as he walked with Lady Hawke beneath her. The palace had gone still, its rich colors faded to a moonlit grey; he heard nothing but their footfalls.

"Here, my lady," he said at last, and led her to the west hall. Not the queen's own rooms, not yet, but these were nearly as fine, meant for heads of state and dignitaries Starkhaven wished to impress. He opened the outer door for her and the waiting-women inside rose to their feet. They had built a fire in welcome, had laid tisanes and sweetmeats on a low table; from one of the far rooms he could smell orange-blossom and rosemary.

"Orana will be your maid," Sebastian said, and a slight woman with flaxen hair bound atop her head dropped a curtsey. "Lady Merrill lives two doors further down, if she can ever be persuaded to sleep indoors, anyway. If you have need of anything at all, please send Orana, or come to me directly. I am only at the other end of the hall past the intersection."

"You are kind, my lord," she said, and she smiled. It was faint with fatigue, and yet his heart skipped forward a beat or two. "Good night, Prince Sebastian. Captain."

Fenris jolted, but when Sebastian looked his face was steady. "Your Highness."

She withdrew into her chambers and closed the door. He stood together with Fenris a moment outside in silence; then Sebastian laid his hand on Fenris's shoulder. "Go to bed yourself, brother," he said gently, "if you still know the way. This day was no less long for you."

He did not know what he expected. A rueful smile, perhaps, or some familiar mocking incivility; instead Fenris only bowed and turned away, his eyes distant and unreadable as the night-black river. He watched him go, perplexed, but Fenris's counsel could be neither forced nor hurried; he would have to be patient, and the trouble would out itself eventually. Time needed for them both, then. Easy enough.

Sebastian breathed a prayer for quick healing, touched the emblem of Andraste at his throat. They had returned to him. After all this time, impossible to believe, when death by rights should have claimed them a thousand times.

He wanted to shout, to kiss Fenris on both cheeks, to dance with Hawke in the great hall and be married the day after. But he could wait—he was honored to wait. How fortunate he had been given the chance!

Fenris threw himself out one of the side doors into the palace yard, panting for cool night air. He was not strong enough—he could not do this.

He gulped for each breath. A guardswoman at the door came forward in concern and he waved her away. The air came more cleanly—he put his hand over his eyes—he willed his heart to slow, to stop its painful pounding.

He had known this would happen. Every step he had taken on the road to Kirkwall and back again had been designed for this end alone. There had been no dissemblance, no hedging, no half-promises; he had sworn an oath and he had fulfilled it. Nothing more.

His feet led him to the stables. The ostler there knew him, greeted him warmly after his absence, and led him to a stall at the end of the line. She gave him an apple and a fistful of carrots and withdrew.

"Good evening," Fenris murmured, and Lethendralis stamped and whickered at his voice. "I did not think to see you again, my friend."

The gelding looked no worse for the long journey. Fenris ran his hand along the white stripe on his nose, up into his forelock, and down again. Lethendralis nosed him gently, pushed his head against his chest, and blew out a sharp breath. He held out the apple. His horse ate it from his hand, his lips brushing over his palm.

"You have been very brave." The gelding ate the next three proffered carrots in a row; the fourth dropped to the hay, but instead of pursuing it Lethendralis dropped his great noble head over Fenris's shoulder and was still. Fenris wove his fingers into the horse's thick black mane and shut his eyes. "I am glad to see you again as well."

Lethendralis snorted, and the bells along his bridle rang silver in the dark. Fenris did not leave for the night until the moon had begun to fade in the cloudy sky.

The ease with which his routine resumed surprised him. He rose with dawn and drilled his men; he bathed, dressed again, and went to join Sebastian on the terrace for breakfast. New facets revealed themselves here and there—the bright flash in Hawke's eyes at his arrival each morning, the leap of his own heart before he forced it down—but they swiftly became only another glint in his day, a stone with many edges smoothed and polished by repetition.

For most of his hours he took reports, discovering what had changed in his months of absence and what had not. He rode out on Lethendralis now and again to see postings on the wall, to speak to his guards and reassure them of his flesh-and-blood return; more than once he made a point to go down to the outer wall and meet the soldiers there, their eyes wide and worshipful as he noted their names, their faces. Druvond had triumphed because Fenris had not bothered to know him, had not realized he could be bought. Murena, too. He had seen her skill with the bow and had not once thought of the way she kept flatterers beside her rather than friends, the way her laughter wounded instead of invited. He could not allow such a failure to happen again, not with Hawke in the city at last. He would learn to know his guards once more; they would come to know him in turn. He could not become their confidant, but he could make them better than strangers.

His glimpses of Hawke without Sebastian's company were rare. He saw her sometimes in the palace halls, dressed in Starkhaven gowns of gold and blue and orange and pale cream that made her look pale and slender. Gone were the strong reds and blacks of Kirkwall, banished to the mountain's memory. Orana was with her often, a light, watchful shadow; and with her also were usually between three and seven Starkhaven noblewomen, depending on the time of day, circling around her like vultures over desert bones.

He heard her, once, on one of the great half-circle balconies that overlooked the palace orchards. He himself was only passing through, listening to a report from Donnic about some petty theft from the castle's wineries, when he heard Hawke laugh.

It was not the sound he knew from her; it was hard instead, like a wall, and he stopped despite himself at the corner just before the balcony stretched out above the trees.

Hawke stood there with four other women, leaning back on her hands on the beautifully carved balustrade. She wore pale blue and was framed well by stone and purple wisteria, the sunny sky dotted with clouds behind her. Merrill was not there, presumably out in the woods by herself. The noblewomen had arrayed themselves around her like the points of a compass, or, Fenris thought, the bars of a cage.

"You can't possibly be serious, Your Highness," Lady Flora was saying. Prince Goran's widow, she wore the name Vael like a crown. "Really! It's all too, too fantastic."

"Oh, yes," said Hawke lightly. "Truly, you'd never believe the wild occupations one turns to on the mountain in winter."

Lady Flora tittered, a little fall of shining bells, and touched her fingers to Hawke's wrist in presumptuous intimacy. "Gold epaulets! On a dog!"

"He had been knighted, Lady Flora. What else could be done?"

"And did he swear fealty? Was he granted a chain with the Kirkwall dragon?" She laughed again at some imagined scene of her own, and one or two of the women laughed with her. "Did he ride out with you on hunts? Did he honor the fox's line or did he chop it before it ran?"

"Alas, Lady Flora, our mountain foxes run their routes unscathed. Our horses come too dear to be spared for hunting, and with the shale they'd likely turn an ankle besides. We used him instead for killing rock thrushes, which have lovely red wings and brain themselves on our windows each spring looking for worms."

Lady Flora, who wore red carnelians on every finger, only laughed again and leaned towards the princess. "How quaint! How utterly charming!"

"Kirkwall is known for its charm, Lady Flora."

Hawke was angry. Fenris could not blame her. Lady Flora had not even felt the reprimand, thoughtlessly chattering now about the impending wedding and who might attend with only six weeks' notice. The duchess Tayglen had noticed, though, Fenris thought, and Lady Elegant, her eyes dropping to the trees below and her lips gone tight. And Orana at the rail, white-faced with anger on Hawke's behalf, though it swept away like water into bland disinterest an instant later.

He stepped around the corner. Hawke saw him between the women; for an instant she smiled, open and real, and then Lady Flora turned and saw him too.

"Captain Fenris!" she said gaily. "How well you look back in white. You've met—oh, of course you have, how silly of me. Come and tell us all about everything. Come tell us about the attack on the carriage. Her Highness refuses to speak of it except to claim it was unpleasant."

"Impossible," Hawke said before he could answer. She was not smiling now. "Look, Sergeant Donnic is with him. We've interrupted his duties."

"Oh, no, surely the captain would rather talk to us than his sergeant. Terrible, uninteresting—"

"And just as likely to commandeer us into his office if we stay. I can see it in his glare. Come, please—let's go down to the fountain instead and see the swans."

She met his eyes. She had saved him, had prevented him from saving her. He was more useful to her against a horde of Tevinter soldiers than Lady Flora. His sword could not cut the rushing memory of Petra falling, of the carriage in orange flame; he had no shield at all against Lady Flora's tinkling laughter.

"Your Highness," he said instead, and stepped back with Donnic to let her pass. Her hand with the pewter ring clenched at her side; then it fell loose again, and she and the women turned the corner into the shadow of the palace.

She found him that night at the stables. He had not heard her approach; he was sitting at the door of Lethendralis's stall, idly polishing one of his gauntlets, when a slim grey shadow broke the moonlight. He looked up, startled, and met Hawke's blue eyes.

"Hawke," he said thoughtlessly, pushing to his feet; then he glanced down the narrow hay-lined stable to the ostler's office. But it was dark, the candles put out, and there was no movement in the window. "Your Highness. You should not have come."

She was dressed in grey trousers and a red tunic, belted at the waist, and soft-soled leather boots. "I know," she said, and smiled as if she could not stop it. "I came to give you this."

She held out a stripe of gold. His cup and chain restored, polished once again to gleaming yellow. She let it drop into his palm, and it pooled there with cool moonlight. He looked at it and said, "You could have sent this with your maid."

"Yes," Hawke agreed.

"You should go back."

"Yes."

He slipped the chain over his head. The weight was unfamiliar, the metal cold; he tucked the cup into his collar out of sight. "Lady Flora…she doesn't understand. Sebastian thinks he must protect her."

"If Lady Flora ever had two thoughts in her head together, they'd complain about the crowding."

He laughed. "You were kind to her today. You did not have to be."

"There's precious little sport in hunting a gannet that's been staked to the dirt."

"Lady Elegant understood, for all she said nothing. She has been part of the court for many years." Fenris took Lethendralis's head in his hand, stroking idly down the forelock as the horse gave sleepy protest. "A valuable ally, perhaps."

"She is more like Sebastian than Flora, I think. Her heart is wiser. If only she'd had the courtesy to be born two aunts further away, then—"

Hawke fell abruptly silent. The gelding tossed his head; Hawke ran her hand over his forelock, along his great black cheek, down his neck to his shoulder.

"Good lad," she said quietly to the horse. "Taking care of your master when I can't."

Fenris flinched. His hand paused on the horse's forehead at the same moment Hawke restarted her caress; their fingers met.

Her eyes flew to his. He had to withdraw—had to move away immediately—he could not, horsehair rough and warm on his palm, Hawke's fingertips lightly caught between his own.

To stay was folly. To leave was impossible. The moonlight stretched between them, thin as a gossamer spiderweb and just as ready to break beneath an errant dewdrop. Her face was pale, glowing.

The ostler's voice came sleepily from the other end of the stable. "Captain?"

Lethendralis tossed his head; their hands fell and the moment broke. "All is well," Fenris called roughly. He spun on his heel, dragging down a gulp or two of cool night air; then to Hawke he said, "Do not come here again without your maid."

She had hidden her face in the shadows of the stall; he could not see her eyes. "Yes," she said, her voice low and flat, and when the ostler had gone she made her way out the stable's other end. He watched long enough to see her flit behind a wall of topiaries, then dart up a long sloped batter wall he himself had taken during the castle's siege. She disappeared into a second-floor window, and then his eyes burned and the window vanished, and he turned away.