My life is a pool which can only hold
One star and a glimpse of blue.
But the blue and the little lamp of gold
Are you, dear heart,
Are you.
―My Life is a Bowl, May Riley Smith

—

"Did you hear?"

"Gods, who hasn't? Tevinter slavers, right here in Kirkwall. In the palace, of all things!"

"Tch, that foreign lordling the princess married. I told you no good would come of it."

"My Ned said he saw the Tevinter lord himself as he got out of that black carriage and went into the castle, right before they sealed the doors. Said he was thin as fishbones and he wore grey silk. Big staff, too, taller than his own self."

"Twenty dead, I heard. All Vints."

"I heard thirty-three, and that Starkhaven sergeant got his leg cut off."

"Forty, it were, and not his leg but his arm. But none of ours aside from him."

"Course not. Who'd dare say otherwise? And even that foreign prince, come out with no more than scrapes. Heard he might have a sister too, from some scrawls they found in those black coaches."

"I heard he went right up to the fire at the end, when she burned the Vint slaver alive. Not a drop of fear in his face."

"His wife's fire, though, yeah? Who'd be afraid of his own wife?"

Laughter. "That's rich, coming from you! Look out, Mary's at the door!"

"Shove off, louts. Besides, it were his old master come calling for him anyway. Guess the princess likes him enough to fight to keep him."

"More than that. I heard they were fair stuck together after, wouldn't let go even bleeding all over. My Ned was one of the medics who got in right after the doors opened again, you know. He helped them both up to their rooms himself after, on account of the prince not being able to walk right."

This was new information. "He was, was he? And you've been sitting on this all afternoon? Ah, just look at her. Smug as a cat, you are."

"Wouldn't let me get in edgewise, would you? Anyway, he helped stitch up the prince himself in the worst places, while they were waiting for that royal healer to finish with the hurt in the hall. He said even when the prince was flat on his back for the stitches the princess sat beside him the whole time, talking nonsense to keep him distracted."

"No! So he knows, then, does he? If those marks go all over?"

"Aye, he knows."

"And?"

"And it's time you kept your long nose pointed to your own business, I think. Mary will indeed come to that door soon enough, and gods keep you if she catches you gossiping over my ale again."

Jeers, boos. "All that and short shrift? What, protecting that foreign-born slave-prince?"

"Aye, I will, same as the princess did for him, for what's good enough for her is good enough for me. My Ned was with them for hours, and he said at the end of it he was sure the prince loves her more than his own life. He'd do anything to keep her safe, anything in his power and more, and it near killed him to have her hurt on his account. It's a dangerous love, Ned said, though the princess seemed strong enough to bear it."

"Oh, go on, listen to you."

"In this establishment you will indeed, and no mistake. He's one of ours now, wherever he came from. So you can keep your nosy wonders to yourself, my lad, for you've got what you'll get from me and nothing more."

"Agh, when you say it like that…"

"No fun these days, you are."

"Get on, get out of here. Don't give me that look, I'll have Mary on you by tomorrow. Say good night, you layabouts, don't be churlish."

"Night, Norah."

"Evening, Norah."

"Good night."

—

The stars had risen by the time Fenris woke again. Hawke lay beside him in their bed, curled on her right side; her left shoulder was heavily bandaged, white wrapping visible even in the dim starlight, and her cheek had begun to bleed again in her sleep. He rose quietly, limped to the washbasin on its lovely carved stand, and returned with a wet cloth. She roused when he sat alongside her, roused again at the touch of the cold cloth to her cheek. "Fenris?"

"I'm here," he said, voice low. The blood gave easily, yielded the pale skin beneath.

She hummed, leaned into his hand. "What time is it?"

"Late." He leaned back enough to glance at the stars through the open balcony windows. "Early."

"Mm." She stretched beneath the covers as he lit tapers set in wrought brass. The heavy damask's gilt thread caught the candleflame and glinted. "Breeze feels good."

"You're a little feverish," he admitted, and pressed the cloth to her cheek again. "Anders said to expect it, especially with the fire you held. How do you feel?"

"Fine. Tired."

"Should I call Orana?"

"Fenris," Hawke said, and as she looked up the candlelight settled comfortably in her eyes. She reached up and slid her fingers to the nape of his neck. "I'm fine," she said again, and then she drew him down until she could kiss him. "Please don't fuss. Tell me what's wrong."

"I hardly know," he said against her mouth, and kissed her again, but when he pulled away she let him go.

He set the cloth aside and settled back against the headboard, Hawke's head at his hip, and looked out again towards the starry sky. Their rooms were finer than any he'd ever had, furnished beautifully with carved red wood and worked iron and rich, embroidered cloth. The heavy layered curtains at the balcony, bound in gold braid and framing moonlight, were by themselves worth as much as a fine horse.

Only this morning he had been pleased with the craftsmanship, noting for the hundredth time the fine fixtures of a drawer, the rich polished stain of the headboard. Now it all seemed hollow, worthless. "My sister may yet live. Danarius is dead. Yet it doesn't feel…" He shook his head. "I'm sorry. This isn't the time to burden you with this."

"No?" She sat up with some effort, though she declined his assisting hand, and rested her chin on his shoulder. "When would you prefer to discuss it, then? Over canapes? Breakfast with my brother? At next month's open session, perhaps, if we can keep Tevinter out of it? I can promise with some good authority that they don't usually end in murder."

"Hawke."

"Fenris," she parroted, and kissed his shoulder's curve. Her fine-spun nightshirt was thin; bereft of the covers, she shivered, and he wrapped his arm around her. "It's good he's dead."

"Yes."

"You thought you would feel gladder."

"Yes," he said, surprised, but her eyes on his were soft. He followed the thought in frustration. "Satisfied, perhaps. Fulfilled. Ten years I spent wanting to see the life leave him, and now that I have, I don't..."

"What do you feel?"

"Empty," he admitted, and sighed. "For many years he provided my only purpose. He was my master first; then he became my enemy. But even then, he was—" He groped for the words.

"He still commanded your attention," Hawke offered. "Your focus, your time. Even it was only to be sure he remained at a safe distance."

"Yes. Even in the safety of Sebastian's court, the fear never fully left. Hadriana had come and died and after that, he knew where I was. I knew he would never let me go."

"And then you had to leave the palace to go fetch some foreign princess home again for your prince to marry. Gods, how difficult that must have been. You could have hardly known then I was worth all the trouble."

He laughed, just as she meant him to. "I could not let Starkhaven become a cage. Sebastian offered to send another in my place, but I insisted. Our purpose—your presence—should have been deterrent enough."

"Depending on whom you ask, my presence is excellent deterrent."

He snorted. "So too should have been the risk of war. And yet he came regardless."

"I would risk war for you," Hawke said, only half in jest.

"I want no such thing."

"A battle, then. A polite skirmish. One of those games where children make little wooden boats float on the river and smash them into each other with sticks."

"Hawke," Fenris said in warning, and she laughed, but he shook his head. "Regardless, he is dead. It is over. And I…" A decade of flight pressed against his heart and his throat grew tight. He swallowed. "I'm not sure where the road leads now."

"Well," Hawke said, and slid her fingers between his in his lap, toying with the fine red band knotted around his wrist. "I can think of a few places. Fair warning, I'm present at all of them."

Fenris smiled despite himself. "Is that so?"

"Oh, yes. They also—another fair warning—mostly all lead to you staying here on this mountain with me, though I admit that's a little more negotiable."

"Somehow, Hawke, I imagine I will endure." He let the teasing fall away, and his voice dropped with it. "You know I have no wish to leave."

"Fenris," she said suddenly, and this one was more uncertain, "do you think you're—I'm hesitant even to suggest it."

"You? Unlikely."

"Mourning? Not like that," she added swiftly at his reflexive outrage. "Not for him, gods! But of that part of your life, the part he left behind. The running, I mean. The fear."

"Neither of those is worth mourning."

"Maybe not, but they were all you knew for so long. They were as much a part of you as…" She ran her thumb over the markings along his forefinger. "Perhaps not. Just thinking out loud."

He forced himself to consider it. She was unsure, and that alone demanded thought before he spoke; moreover, he couldn't deny the suggestion stood on its own merit, even if only in some small part. "Perhaps you're right," he said at last. "Does it matter?"

"I don't know. Maybe it doesn't." Hawke moved closer, kissed his jaw just below his ear. "It helps make sense of the shape of the grief a little better, I suppose. The kind of room it has to make for itself before it learns to grow smaller. Time helps, with grief."

"And you would of course prefer it if I spent such time here, with you."

"Ah, you're catching on." She let her lips slide to the hollow of his throat, and Fenris shuddered. "Don't run off on me now, lover."

"I doubt I'll be running anywhere for some while yet," he griped, but Hawke smiled against his neck, and he could not sustain the temper. "Hawke…"

"How serious you sound all of a sudden."

"If you had not been there…" He looked down at the place where their fingers met, searching for solid ground. "If you had not been so strong against him, I'm not sure I could have been either. Even after all this time, there was a moment at the start—a moment where I thought—it might be best if I—if after all—"

She did not cry, but her knuckles went white where they gripped his. "I'm glad I was there, then. To stand by you when you needed it." She drew up his hand and kissed the back of his wrist, his knuckles, the tips of his fingers. "Very glad."

"You did more than that."

"Mm."

But that was not good enough. He pulled away, caught her chin in forefinger and thumb until he could see her eyes. Blue eyes, warm with candlelight, still creased with sleep; she looked at him as if she loved him, and his heart clenched. "If there is a future to be had, Hawke, I will walk into it gladly at your side."

Color rushed to stain her throat and cheeks, but her voice was level. "That's a promise of some great weight, oh husband mine. Are you sure you're quite ready to make it?"

"I swore oaths to you at a stone altar before several priests. Before your family. You may remember the considerable paperwork. Were those not enough?"

"This is an oath by moonlight. Much more holy."

He smiled. "It doesn't matter where I swear it, or who hears it apart from you. I am yours, Hawke."

Her breath caught, as it always did, and her eyes gleamed with tears as she looked up to him. "I will never, never—" she kissed the corner of his mouth "—never tire of hearing you say that, Fenris."

He brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. The stitches caught and scratched; the skin alongside was smooth, a little overwarm. "I am with you wherever you go. Do not doubt it."

She laughed, ever-so-slightly damp. "Crown and all?"

"Yes," he breathed, and he kissed her as she drew her arms around him, and the balcony curtains rustled only a little as a soft breeze wandered through, moonlit and cool, gentle off the high mountain.