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“There seemed to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.”
Oscar Wilde
The Anderfels are—inhospitable, torturous, fucking ugly—and Amell is in love. It’s arid and hot at the peak of the day, and blistering cold in the nights. It’s the kind of cold that lends itself well to solitude and to memory. When she closes her eyes, she hears Leliana and Zevran bickering. Hears them both turn their focus to Alistair. So she tries to keep her eyes open.
The people, however, she understands. They don’t hide anything. They’re easy. She feels easy too, each morning when she gets up and sees the Lady carved into the cliffs. She doesn’t look angelic or supplicant—she looks angry. She’s ready to defend. That is the part of the Chant that calls to her now, in all its violence and splendor. There is a savage beauty to the whole place, something she always wanted people to say about her.
She has a lot of time for thoughts like this, though she wishes she didn’t, lying in the small cot in her rented room. There are no real inns here. People are solitary. They claw things down for themselves. The room is in the back annex of a home, and the family it belongs to is what passes for hospitable here. The daughter reminds her of Morrigan; the mother, of what Morrigan could be, now. Sad to say, she may never know. And it does sadden her, now that time has healed them all a little.
She makes her own breakfast before anyone else in the family gets up. They don’t keep pets here, but there’s a cat that won’t leave the house alone. She never thought she liked cats much, thought the mabari smell that lingered on her clothes would put them off, but they seemed to follow her. In the Circle, at the Keep. She misses her dog, she thinks suddenly, staring into the cat’s eyes, both of them blinking slowly in turns. Misses having that love.
“The Widow Durst wanted you to stop by. Said she had a chore for you.” She tries not to flinch as she whirls around to look at Mistress Bleecker. “Best be going soon, she’s not a patient woman.”
“You're up early.” The woman fixes a stare on her, and she flushes. No use stating facts here. There’s no sense of that subtlety from back home. She never thought it was a subtle place, Ferelden, but she didn’t know anything back then. Too much time spent with nobles she had no business being with. A life in the Circle before it, and all its carefully chosen words.
“And so are you. There’s lots of washing to be done. You’ll help me with it.” Amell nods. For all their blunt words, the Bleeckers merely blinked when she revealed the truth of her magic to them, for her spells did make their business of wash work much easier.
“Yes ma’am. I’ll be off now.”
“Wait,” she says. Amell is left to wait as she retrieves her items. She comes back with a basket and an envelope. “Take these to her,” she says, passing over the basket, full with washed linens. “And bring me the payment. And this is for you,” she finishes, like an afterthought, offering the envelope.
The moment she takes it, she knows it’s something big, from the feel of the paper and the gold embossment. It’s stamped with a sword and blazing eye, something she’s only seen in her history books—the symbol of the Inquisition.
“When did this arrive?” she asks. Mistress Bleecker has already left.
She locks the door tight behind her. The Widow Durst lives a mile away, and though she might normally bring a book with her, one of the few indulgences she lets herself keep, she can’t today. It was a night of remembering again, and her eyes are still gritty with sleep. So she busies herself with the sights she’s seen over and over, the dark rock and orange sand and the twisting path carved through them.
She’s greeted with a flurry of Ander from which she can barely pick up it’s you. The other thing about Widow Durst is that she refuses to speak in Common. Amell never thought she would have a reason to speak anything but, and the woman’s quick tongue never fails to set her and her clumsy ears scrambling.
“Hello ma’am. Mistress Bleecker told me you wanted to see me,” she stutters out. Months of studying the language, and she’s still tripping over it. The woman almost softens, but she’s probably imagining it. She does continue at a much slower pace.
“There is a den of them down the way. They keep coming to my home. I want you to clear them out.” She doesn’t know the exact name the woman gives her, but it’s evident that it is some sort of animal. “I will give you two sovereigns. Any more, and I may as well do it myself.”
From the prize, she can tell it’s a bad idea. They fend off darkspawn like rats here, and the woman doesn’t hesitate; Amell searches her for any sign of weakness, any hesitation she can prey on as a bargaining chip. Not a one: this should be her second clue that the task is not easy, but she’s gotten worse at staying out of trouble.
Her discomfort must be evident because the widow smiles. “You have the magic,” she says, brushing her hand against Amell’s. “I do not."
She’s shown a sketch from a book. Short snouts and scraggly whiskers. She’s not seen anything like them from her own rough knowledge of Fereldan animals. And it’s rough indeed. Maker, the first time she saw a druffalo out in the woods was a bad one. All she’s done to animals in a long time has been to put them down. Again, that wave of longing twists through her.
She gathers her supplies and sets out for the cave an hour later, using her staff to clear the path as she goes.
A sharp pain at her ankle leads her to look down, where a small one, the runt of its litter, she’s sure, is clinging to her foot. It’s almost cute as it releases its bite, leaving two adorable puncture wounds behind.
The wound begins to itch where it bit her. She reaches out with her magic, but any affinity she had for healing left her long ago. There is poison in her blood, and it must run its course. Some dark energy that is inseparable from her own blood.
She stops and makes camp. Her head is getting very heavy now, and there’s an itchy sensation clawing up her throat.
She falls asleep there, just inside the mouth of the cave, feeling the absence of that weight like a phantom pain. She’s visited by half baked memories of old women and deals made with demons, of sickening milky vials of blood, of choices over and over. She thinks she sees Wynne’s funeral, or at least what she imagines of it. She got word in a letter. She is beginning to hate letters. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had brought the others on this trip, Nathaniel or Sigrun, one other face and body in this cold wasteland with her. Then she wonders if anyone should see her like this, Warden-Commander of Ferelden lying in a pool of rodent gore because the blood got to her. Best to keep some things to yourself.
So there, on the cold rock in a hot desert, Amell does the most dangerous thing someone like her can: she begins to dream.
She wanders through the halls of the Denerim Palace like she owns them. Warden Commander Amell on her regular visit to the king, who remains open to her.
She wonders if they tell tales about her. She invents enough for any of them: the icy witch who sips on others’ lives and eats her lovers when she’s done; a Warden’s stamina and appetite but the demeanor of a frigid bitch. She has traveled a long way from the wide-eyed girl who tripped into the Order.
She’s not good at stealth and trickery, and it would feel wrong to approach Alistair like that today, no matter how romantic it may seem to her. Not today. Today is for goodbye. The herald announces her presence as the carved doors swing open.
The king rises from his throne when he sees her, already two steps down the dais by the time she comes to rest in front of him. She nearly forgets to kneel; no one ever remarks on their informality anymore. She’s grown careless.
“Warden-Commander Amell,” he says, extending a hand to brush the crown of her head. There’s irony in that somewhere, she’s sure: crowns and kings and mages. But she’s tired.
“Your Majesty.” His hand pulls away, and she returns to her full height, freshly humbled. “I would like to request a private audience.”
“Do I have anything?” He directs this to the attendant on his left. A formality. It has been years, and still she knows he will make time. The woman shakes her head, as expected. When the room clears, he seems to slump back into another version of himself, as expected. He must get dizzy, she thinks, rotating between so many shades of the self. It’s like a sickness. He steps down the stairs of the dais towards her.
“What brings you here?” She takes in his smile, his easy posture, this last moment before she changes the rules of the game.
“I’m searching for a cure, Alistair.”
He stills. In his eyes, she can see the hope—that maybe this will change things, that maybe it will only be her magic and her birth that stand in their way. She does not have it in her to shatter this hope, not when he’s standing right there.
“Why?”
She blinks. “What do you mean, why?”
He shakes his head. “I mean, what makes you think that there is a cure? What… What leads do you have?”
He sounds interested, truly interested as opposed to the veneer of professionalism she’s so used to him throwing between them, that it truly saddens her to say, “I can’t say yet. We have to keep this in the Wardens for now.” As much as she hates the way his gaze cools, they must be worse for him, these constant reminders that there are things they cannot share with each other, and that their lives are no longer halves of the same whole, and have not been for some time now.
“Well, when do you leave?”
“As soon as I can, preferably. Tomorrow, the day after.” The longer she delays, the worse it will be.
“Then spend one night here,” he murmurs. His hand is on her shoulder, his thumb at the base of her neck. A gesture that, from afar, to some guard peering in through the window, would read as fraternal. Except for that lingering thumb. Her pulse skitters under his touch, and at the thought of sneaking into his chambers at night like some forgotten adolescence. It is an offer she has been made over and over through the years, an offer she has long stopped taking. For one horrible moment, she is tempted to deny it.
“Yes,” she sighs. He seems to bloom from within.
Amell hardly tastes the meal they share that evening, anticipation settling heavy in her stomach. A bann sits to her right and a farmer to her left, and she eats a plate of rice grain by grain, operating only on instinct. When they all leave, she remains in the castle, lying in her bed and counting down the quiet hours of the night. Finally, she slips out of her room and slinks through the halls to his, somewhere between an intruder and a guest.
He’s left the door ajar. There’s something indescribably tender about the idea. She shuts the door behind her gently once she’s inside.
“You came,” he says. It startles her, this notion that there was ever a chance she wouldn’t, and she turns back to him.
“I came,” she echoes. He beckons her closer, and she comes to sit by him on the bed, the mattress sinking further under her weight.
“So you can’t tell me your leads, and you can’t tell me exactly where you’re going. What can you tell me?”
She taps her foot against his; he nudges hers back. “I wish you could come?”
“I meant, tell me something I don’t know,” he teases, and she has to smile.
As ridiculous as it sounds, it all seemed simpler back then. There was a clear threat, and a clear enemy, and in the meantime, all they had to do was survive. She’s been surviving for so long she’s forgotten how to live, while the world has grown more complex around them.
He lays her out on the bed and peels her clothes away slowly, gently, layer by layer until she’s open to him, vest and blouse hanging limply off her shoulders. He brushes a thumb along her collarbone, and she shivers.
“You too,” she rasps, closing her eyes. To catch her breath. He pushes her hair back behind her ear.
“As my lady wishes.” Years will pass, and she will always come back here, to soft words and empty promises. He guides her hands to his shirt, and she unlaces it by feel, slow, cautious. She relishes in the feel of soft cotton and silken thread, the last glimpse of luxury she will see for a while. Amell feels dampness on her cheeks.
“Open your eyes,” he murmurs. She does, glancing up at him through a thin film of tears. His brow is furrowed, a wary smile on his lips.
“It’s just… it’s you,” she says. “I don’t know why we can’t let each other go.”
“I’ll be honest, I don’t particularly want to.” He kisses the tears from her cheeks. Her breath catches in her throat. She tugs him close, skin to skin, his heart beating across from hers. The clothes brush against her skin as he presses her into the bed.
She keeps her eyes open when he pushes into her, his hips tight against hers. She doesn’t have to say a word for him to shift the angle deeper, the two of them working towards some well-traveled memory. One hand he keeps planted next to her head, the other presses into her hip.
She comes with a soft sigh, legs tangled up with his, whispering Alistair and please and all the words that can be mistaken for love, to the well-trained ear.
“You can’t keep me here,” she mumbles after. It’s meant to be a joke, but she’s so tired.
“I know,” he murmurs back. “But I won’t stop trying.” Perhaps realizing that this is far too earnest for a woman on a faithless errand, he clears his throat. “So we’re leaving in the morning? I forgot to pack.”
Amell traces the line of his brow, right where his crown would rest.
She dreams of the moment she will return to Denerim, perhaps wearing a fine dress, or perhaps wearing her traveling clothes and a hood, sneaking in. She has not heard news of Eamon in years—perhaps he is dead, perhaps he stands by her king’s side as shrewd and cunning as always. There is no love lost between her and Eamon. He hates her for taking Alistair’s attention and heart, always suspicious of her motives, of her capacity to accidentally ruin Ferelden. In turn, she will never forgive him for forcing her hand in this, for leaving Alistair to the dogs and bringing him to the throne when he became useful. It was years before she accepted her own fault in it.
She will tell him with a joke, maybe. She wonders if Alistair still jokes. But she will tell him with humor, and he will laugh and maybe even kiss her again. She did not think she would miss his kisses, back when she first left. But it was impossible to replicate him, though she has tried.
Perhaps he will finally have a queen by his side. She could give them children, if she finds this cure.
In one dream, he is alone. In the end, he is not fully alone, surrounded by guards. In the end, Eamon is with him. Teagan, his faceless queen, even dead King Cailan in one of them.
“Hello, love,” he whispers into her hair. One moment, she was across the room, the next, she was here, in his arms, his body bending around hers like it hasn’t been five years.
“Your Majesty.” She curtsies, feeling somewhat ungainly in her breeches. Robes for 18 years. Perhaps she will never be used to it. He regards her like a ghost, before placing his hand at the curve of her shoulder. In the corner of the room, there is a wide mirror. She closes her eyes against the reflection.
She dreams of marching into Denerim and demanding an audience.
Would Alistair have her kneel? She loses herself in this detail over and over, for it changes everything to follow. She doesn’t think he would, she decides. His mistake. She could request 40 soldiers, 20 mages—the whole of Kinloch Hold to join the Wardens. A cook, an armorer—but they would never. No one trusts a Warden.
In the Anderfels, Wardens are as common as anything. She had thought she would be treated as an annoyance by the rest of the populace. If in Ferelden she was a feared and respected martyr, and in Orlais a tempting curiosity, here she would be no more than a pest with considerable strength, much like a templar to a blood mage or a guardsman to a mercenary. But if she’s been treated as annoying, it’s certainly not because of the blue she wears. They have power here. As much as she had at Amaranthine, only any ordinary Warden can claim it.
Tonight, she imagines him chasing her through the halls of the palace, a place she knows far better than she should. Those visits spent exploring, days spent reading in the library and pretending not to advise him on policy, and then nights spent in his bed, or more likely in her guest room so he could do a bit of pretending of his own, pretending that they were just a boy and a girl sneaking out to see each other.
He catches her by the wrist and spins her towards him, pressing her into the floor. Fleeting images: the velvety carpet under her cheek, the bulk of him at her back, around her, his mouth hot on the back of her neck, more experienced until the thought of him with other women makes her want to light the castle’s curtains on fire. Best not to think of that. More confident, maybe. More sure. She relaxes into herself.
This was wasted in their youth, she almost thinks—a Warden’s stamina and they only used it as intended.
In this dream, he pushes into her and holds there; his thighs barely tremble against the outsides of her legs, and she feels full and empty, wrong and right. It has been ten years since the first time he laid his hands on her. He’ll still know how to touch her, know the sacred parts of her body better than any instrument. Back then, the two of them only ever fucked on the ground.
She wakes with the dream in her head, one hand behind her back, and her brow still creased. Her mistake after all.
She tries to push herself up, and she collapses once more against the ground. Her eyes are heavy, her head full of fuzz. It has not passed. Perhaps the worst of it has, though she doesn’t trust herself to know the difference.
She had loved Alistair more than anyone. The thought of sharing him with Anora was intolerable, with a whole kingdom far worse. And yet—
She runs to Amaranthine instead. Amell was always good at running. It was her favorite thing to do back when they were allowed to exercise outside the tower. The templars would watch her with wary eyes as she wove through them, as if they had anything to worry about. She loved the Circle back then, before she knew anything else.
Will she still feel this young if she is cured? Or will her age catch up to her? Maybe this quest is just another attempt to run away.
He keeps her in Amaranthine, that’s another way to put it. Keeps her a short ride from Denerim, never too far in case he needs anything. This is an uncharitable description, she knows, but she’s not feeling very charitable anymore.
It is a bright, sunny day when the King of Ferelden makes his visit to Amaranthine. A line of shining steeds marches into their courtyard, while all around them people kneel and bow. Not Amell. She sees his advisors’ eyes narrow, but she remains standing, her spine straight, the sun striking the planes of her face.
“Your Majesty,” she says. It is the last time she will address him as such today.
Eamon’s eyes wander past her, and he raises his brows. “You’re the Howe son, aren’t you?“
“Warden Nathaniel has been a wonderful addition to our cause,” she starts, but in his eyes, she can already see that Eamon has moved on to other things.
He purses his lips. “It was interesting company you kept then, Commander, and interesting company you keep now.”
“Listen to the Commander, Eamon.” All eyes shift to the king.
It’s all wrong; Eamon’s presence and the bright sunshine and the sense of possibility with which she began this day. It wasn’t supposed to be like this when he saw her. She shouldn’t have to squint when she looks at him. It’s demoralizing, all of it.
“Would you care for a walk, Warden-Commander?” Alistair asks, and against all of her instincts, she thinks, finally. Sighs it into all of her bones.
“Yes. You can see the new improvements we’ve made to the keep.”
“Leave us,” he remarks, and it is done. Nathaniel takes the advisors into the main hall without any disagreement. Despite herself, she is impressed at the authority he carries.
“You’re really growing into that,” she says. He smiles wryly, offering her his arm.
“I’m as surprised as you are.” They make their way further into the Keep’s grounds, past the old groundskeeper’s cottage and toward the mouth of the forest that surrounds them, a far cry from the gardens at Denerim.
“So Arl Eamon is still with you.”
“He has the country’s best interests at heart. How many people can say that and mean it?” She bristles at this, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Still. He always knows just how to make you feel like a child, doesn’t he?”
“Sunita,” he sighs. She looks at him, alarmed. It’s not like Alistair. It’s grown up in a way she doesn’t feel. She feels oddly betrayed, as if he is outgrowing her. He doesn’t continue.
“What?”
“I miss you,” he says. She blinks.
“I miss you too.” He nods, as if it were expected. “It’s—it’s really bad out here, Alistair. I don’t know what I’m doing half of the time.”
“I’m sure you’re doing great,” he says. “You saved a country, remember?”
“It’s coming back to me,” she says faintly. Every day, she has to figure out how to recruit more people into the order she never had a choice in joining. Has to watch as they sign their lives away without knowing what they’re giving up. “I don’t know how to be Commander. If anyone else were left, I’d be the worst choice.”
Instead of the comfort she expects, he says, “No one else is left.” Not particularly cruelly, but she feels the sting. They’ve outgrown that, too, then.
The very last bit of humiliation comes right before he leaves, when Eamon pulls her aside and tells her, not unkindly, “Next time, you will kneel for your king.” Amell does not have it in her to respond.
“You put me in the royal quarters. In the adjoining suite,” she rasps. “Do you know what they’re saying about us?”
“Why should it matter? It’s not like we’re giving them any proof of it.”
It’s like she’s already getting her glimpse of what royalty could twist him into—it fills her with a sick sense of anticipation.
The crown almost seems to weigh him down. It’s risky, stealing this moment alone, but Alistair wanted it so badly, and she couldn’t bear to give him up before her time. And she doesn’t have the authority to deny a royal order any longer.
“It was a mistake. I know,” he concedes quickly. “I’ll move you, but—won’t you stay?” he asks, and Sunita feels her heart swell with something dangerous.
“I don’t know if I can.” It’s only the truth.
“There will always be a place for you. As my trusted advisor, any way you wish to serve the crown.”
Despite herself, she laughs. “And besides you, who here trusts me?”
“You put me here,” he pleads, but it isn’t sharp in the way he speaks to Morrigan. With her, recently at least, he has been softer, trying to polish his words and put a shine over her eyes.
“I know. I know what I did.” He was so angry with her in a way he never was before. It changed often, her perception of him. She looked up to him so much in the beginning, her only link to an order that was gone. And then she underestimated him for too long after that. “I want to keep you safe, Alistair, you deserve more than a Warden’s life.”
“I’ll have a Warden’s life either way. Our years are limited, can you blame me for wanting to spend them together?”
“I’m sorry, love—“
“Don’t,” he bites out. “Don’t tell me you love me after making me—“
“I didn’t do anything to you! You think I put you here? You think I had any power? I didn’t have a choice in any of it! Maybe you shouldn’t be on the throne. But I shouldn’t have been a Warden, either. Especially not the way you made me take care of it all.”
During the ceremony, she could not stop looking at the empty throne behind him, all because she was petty, and she wanted him alone, and wanted him alone for the rest of her life. She was ready to ruin a kingdom for it. Warm wetness is rapidly creeping down her cheeks, and she lets the tears fall, ducking her head. They weren’t ever supposed to make it this far.
“Sunita, I won’t be able to do this without you. I love you. Please don’t leave.” She is always going to be weak for him. She looks up at him, and he is crying, too. “All I wanted was you,” he whispers back, broken, unkingly.
And she had left him anyway.
The last time she saw Alistair, he was looking for a wife.
It’s a shame she didn’t see it then, that what she hated in Eamon was what she always admired in the First Enchanter. Perhaps the two of them could have at least been friendly with each other. Instead, he caught her entirely off guard.
The night before the Landsmeet, they come to Eamon’s Denerim estate, their bones ringing with exhaustion. Neither of them quite understand why, but she and Alistair do not leave each other’s sides as they are led through the ornate halls.
She slips into his room, and he holds her tightly on the finely woven sheets. He tucks his face into the curve of her neck, his breath warm against her skin. She can imagine a whole life with Alistair, right then, for just a moment before she loses the image, like finding her reflection in a rippling pond, like the afterimage of a bright flash.
“I can’t do what he wants," he says, and there’s a bitterness in his tone that frightens her. She should do something; she should assuage his fears.
“Are you nervous?” she asks instead. She can’t rehash this another time, she simply won’t be able to take it.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” They laugh a little; Amell should remember this, because it won’t happen again for a long while. But she doesn’t.
“What do you think will happen tomorrow?” he asks. She tries to imagine it. All she has is what the arl has told them: a room full of nobles, a confrontation. There will likely be a duel; Loghain will not give up the nation he claims to love so easily.
“Something big.” The truth is, she does not want to think about it. So she kisses Alistair, wincing when her teeth knock against his. He laughs, nervous, and pulls her down to the luxurious sheets, far better than anything the two of them are used to. After months on the road, the estate has given them the illusion of privacy, the illusion that they are in control of their lives.
After, she lies awake while he drifts off to sleep, wound tight, naked, vulnerable, and thinks that there will be a time she will have to leave him behind, and she prays for one of two things: strength or a very good excuse.
Alistair’s hands shake when he touches her.
He’s hesitant and shy, and Amell wants to be touched and to feel like more than a blade of grass floating on the wind. She wants bodies pressed tight to each other and to be short of breath, like she’s been her whole life. She wants more, wants to want. Alistair brushes a hand along her hip, and she thinks she will scream. She can’t put it into words, but she has the feeling; she carries it in her mind and her chest and her gut.
She takes her own hands and presses them tight to his arms. Clumsy, but decisive. He glances down at this, then back to her face, as if he’ll miss something big when he’s not looking.
“Like this,” she says, briefly placing his hand to the side as she slips her fingers between her legs, a practiced motion. His mouth is still slightly open as he watches, and her face goes hot.
“This is what you do?” he asks softly. Quickly, she nods.
“And you can… go inside. If you want.” It’s strange work, guiding his hands to do what she knows, but Alistair goes willingly, an eager learner. She’s too worried about her turn to have many complaints.
“Oh,” he breathes as she squeezes around his fingers. “And I’m supposed to…”
She laughs then, nervous. “I can’t really believe it’ll fit, either.” He works his fingers in, out, and she finds herself staring somewhere over his shoulder. She moves his thumb to her clit and he presses hard, a few firm swipes before she’s coming and Alistair inhales sharply, breath shuddering out of her as she meets his eyes.
“Good?” he asks, voice barely a whisper. She nods, her mouth dry at the love in his eyes. And it’s all for her.
She’s still breathing hard when he guides himself into her, slow and drawn out and cautious. It hurts a little, but she sighs in relief when he’s inside her, that current of want washing over her, keeping her loose-limbed and full. She presses her open mouth to the curve of his jaw, the salt tang of his skin against her tongue. She can’t get close enough; the stones under the tent press into her back.
“I’m so lucky,” he murmurs, rolling his hips against hers. “I’m so lucky I met you.” Amell can’t say anything; the words have been crushed out of her, so she kisses him, bold and sharp and full of wishes, and she hopes that he understands.
His lips are a little dry, and his chest is solid, and she can feel his breath against her cheek. She blinks sleepily, her hair messy.
She wants a life of this. Warm and sleepy and boring. Arguing over dishes and dinner. Alistair’s arm slung over her stomach, heavy and relaxed. She used to have trouble sleeping with weight, but now, she finds she can’t sleep without it.
Recently, Amell has found herself wondering if she would be better off had she never heard of Jowan’s plan, if she had never become a Grey Warden. She would be dead, most likely, but she would be ignorant before it. And perhaps happy. She’s been talking to Wynne and thinking of sacrifice, and it’s left her feeling wrong. Wardens live to sacrifice. So do mages.
She watches him breathe lightly in sleep. The light catches his hair and he looks… different. Shiny and clean. Like a king’s son. There’s a hollow in her chest. There are many ways to sacrifice.
“Do you regret it?”
The cool air and sweating walls remind her of the Circle, and she suddenly feels like she is back at her Harrowing. In those terms, it makes sense. Of course, safe passage will be given in exchange for secrets. It surprises her still how comfortable she has grown with everything the Circle warned her off of.
She doesn’t like thinking of Jowan much. Even now, she doesn’t know whether she had done the right thing. There hadn’t seemed like there was a right thing to do at all, but if she thinks about it, she betrayed Jowan. She doesn’t like the kind of person that makes her.
“I… do regret it,” she says quietly. “But I don’t know if I would do it differently. Would there be a point?”
“Up to you,” the Guardian says. “But thank you, Warden.” Her heart thumps as the others give their answers, and it goes on as they inch into the next room, and when she sees him there, she wonders how angry the Maker would be with her for vomiting in the middle of his sacred temple.
The nerve of him, to ask for her surety of thought, her decision. Even now, she thinks, he has no backbone. She doesn’t know if she was shocked more that day by the blood magic, or by the fact that Jowan had run—that he hadn’t just stood there, paralyzed by indecision, the way he lived most of his life.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say about me,” he pouts, and she starts.
“I didn’t say anything,” she says, quite stupidly. She may have a sword strapped to her hip, but she is still a mage, and she should know how spirits work, that this is just another case of forces beyond her ken prying into her mind.
“I’m giving you forgiveness, and you don’t even want it.” And this is it, this is her way out. But it doesn’t mean anything. She still sold him out; that was the sin. And she would do it again. She hates it about herself, her stupid excuse for a moral compass. She would sell him out to preserve their cage and to save her own skin. She can’t say anything before this Jowan-thing presses an amulet into her palm and shimmers out of view.
She tries not to stutter, keeping her face turned away from the others as she asks for a minute. Her face swims before her in the rippling silver. It doesn’t last long, for she soon sees Alistair lunging towards her with his unwavering sword, and also at her right, eyes blown wide in shock.
“I didn’t mean it,” he says later. “What I said.” They’re standing at the edge of the ravine; Leliana and Zevran have gone to scout along the crack running through the earth, and when they come back, they will expect a plan. They always seem to have these discussions when there is no time, the weight of their words passed back and forth in the spare minutes that line a day.
“That wasn’t you,” she says slowly, for perhaps even now, she does not believe it.
“It feels like it was,” he says guiltily. Maybe he’s apologizing for the thought and not the words themselves. “But Sunita—I’d never hurt you.”
There’s no other way. They’ll have to stand on the plates and trust each other. She resists the urge to peer over the edge again. It’s a long way down.
She smiles, girlish and warm. “I know, Alistair.”
The important part goes unsaid: never on purpose.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I still like you, even if you’re a prince.”
“So it’s a point against me, then?”
“Yes. Because you should be King of Ferelden, and instead you’re here, stinking up camp with your socks—“ She tosses one across the stream to him without looking, focused on the unsettling stain at the hem of her pants.
“Sunita?”
“Hmm?” She turns back to him. He’s fiddling with something in his pockets.
“Could you come here for a moment?” He sounds so hesitant that she does without comment, setting the trousers in a pool of fabric on the rocks.
He draws out a rose, fragile and hardy, cupped between his hands. Alistair’s fingers brush hers, and a warmth spreads through her.
“How long have you had that?” she asks, feeling quite far from herself.
“Since Lothering.” Her heart skitters in her chest.
“And how long have you… wanted to give it to me?” she asks awkwardly.
He considers this. “I couldn’t really say. But I… I wanted to tell you…” He takes a deep breath then, shuddering. “What a rare and wonderful thing you are, amidst all this darkness.”
Even if Amell weren’t in love with him by now, she would be. It’s like she’s living in a daydream; he’s saying the most beautiful things, just for her. The only things she’s ever had to call her own were from her Harrowing—but she had to sell the staff, she ruined the robes back in Lothering, and she never really looks at the silver ring she always wears. But she has Alistair now—and Alistair has her.
Gently, he brushes his mouth against hers. Amell’s heart leaps into her throat, cold and quickly beating. She leans in further and deepens the kiss, trying to remember it all: the softness of his lips, the warmth underneath his skin, the way he sighs against her mouth when she tugs at his hair. Though she has been told again and again that sentimentality is a waste, she will never give up the memory of this kiss.
When he pulls away, he is blushing deeply. This is incredibly romantic to her.
“Thank you,” she says. Then she bites her tongue. Thank you?
A pleased smirk begins to twist at his mouth. “You’re… welcome?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she rushes to explain.
“I know what you meant,” he says. Simple, plain. Warm. The flush is beginning to lighten across his cheeks. And she believes him. That’s always been the problem.
She sits on the edge of the dock, Carroll having left long ago to go back to the tower.
“We were friends, almost,” she whispers. “How could he say those things? They weren’t abominations at all.”
“He had it out for them, typical Templar.” There’s a layer of discomfort to his words that won’t become clear to her until later.
“No, obviously he wasn’t in his right mind. How could he have been? It’s just… difficult, seeing what happened.”
She has quite a bit of trouble reconciling her memories, especially around the Circle. Things seem to slip away from her, names, faces. The feelings remain, and she uses them to guide her.
“Certainly an understatement. I’d say you’re handling it like a champion.” She closes her eyes. “It’s not true, what he said,” Alistair adds suddenly. “You’re not an abomination.”
In this moment, she is suddenly furious with Alistair. She thinks he will never understand what it is like to carry two very different truths inside of you. To know that she tried to be good, she never even dabbled in blood magic, and in the story, she would never be part of the destruction that came to Kinloch. But that she could, that she will always hold that possibility inside of her.
“I know that.” If she was the Amell currently curled up in the mouth of a cave, she would snap at him. Search for some way to rip and to tear. But now, she only says it quietly, still shy of her fellow Warden and searching for some sort of camaraderie anywhere she can get it. “The point is, he would never have said that two months ago. So either something truly awful happened, something you and I will never know the full extent of, and which I could be capable of. Or, he, and many others, secretly always thought this about all mages and only just managed to conceal it. And either way, I don’t like what that says about… I don’t know, I guess him. Maybe me.”
“Why does it have anything to do with you?”
“Because—I don’t know, it just feels like it does. I mean, is it even worth it to—try to change how they think? Does it matter how many good works I do?”
And Alistair only says, quietly, “I think it does.”
When she left with the Wardens, she had caught Cullen’s eyes on the way out. And he had looked surprised and a bit sad, but then, she thinks—he had smiled. A real smile, happy for her, and it’s that detail that always needles her, and why she tries not to think about Kinloch if she can avoid it.
Dark, darkness. A voice. A horrible voice, twisting its way into her mind. Eyes. Sharp teeth. Darkness. She can’t move. She’s sluggish, nauseous. Darkness. It’s only going to get worse. There’s nothing she can do.
While you sleep, Grey Warden, we only grow stronger. More powerful. A little slip of a thing you are, what will you do?
She jolts awake, her heart galloping. Something’s crawling up her ankle, and she yanks her foot away.
“It’s okay!” The other Warden, Alistair, appears in her view. She blinks. It’s his hand on her ankle, shaking her awake. “It’s okay.”
“That was…”
His voice softens. “It happened to me too. I’ve never known anything like it. But you’ll get used to it.”
I don’t want to, she thinks. For one short, unbearable moment, she is full of nothing but bitterness.
“And your dreams are also… there was a dragon? There are dragons?”
He narrows his eyes before understanding dawns in them. “The archdemon. He speaks to us. Because of the taint in our blood.” It’s a story. It would be a wonderful story, if only it weren’t real.
Amell breathes out through her nose, short and sharp, almost a laugh. She pulls herself up, letting her hands twist through the dirt, letting it work under her nails.
“Did you really want to be a Warden?”
“Yes.” There’s a firmness in his voice that surprises her. And then it is gone. A fleeting thing. “Who wouldn’t want this? Cursed blood, a price on your head, and nightmares? Can’t think of anything better. I hope you’re not having second thoughts.”
“Oh, I’m past second thoughts. I’m somewhere on my fifth thoughts now.” He laughs. She feels like she’s won something.
“Here. You’re probably thirsty.” He tosses her the water skin, which sloshes uncomfortably as she takes it. As she drinks, she has the fleeting thought that her lips are touching the same spot his have. It’s almost romantic, because the other option is for it to be gross. But she lets it go, because she has been fed a steady diet of romance since she was old enough to read, and nothing to prove that it is real.
Was it the moment the tower burned? The moment Loghain turned back? When she left him in Denerim, when he kept her in Amaranthine, when she put him on the throne? Theirs is a bond that comes from being the only people alive after the world has ended, from ten years of love put aside for friendship. But when did it all go wrong, she wonders; she has to know. Was there ever a moment when there was hope?
Alistair, she thinks. A stately name, a storybook name. She still thinks of herself as the princess. He will be tall, she thinks, and he is. He is strong, she imagines, and he is. He is picking a fight with a mage when he shouldn’t be—a little flippant, a little sarcastic. Flaws are a good thing, to children like them.
He turns to her, the sun glinting off his hair, his armor, his sword. “You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”
She never had a chance.
Amell wakes up with her heart in her throat. There’s a cool sensation rushing through her throat, a sweet taste in her mouth. She swallows once, twice, casting about in her bag for her water skin. There’s a chill damp in the air now; she feels like she’s breathing through water, and yet not a drop to drink.
Her hand brushes against something, and she jolts. The paper, the softest thing she’s felt in years. The letter. She wants to cry a little when she touches it, unused to comfort.
The Inquisitor has written hesitantly, like perhaps she was awed. It makes Amell a little prideful and a little endeared towards her. She wants help. Amell’s help. Her help with the Wardens, who are acting strangely. She knows little of it. She hasn’t written back, even now. What would she say? I am searching for a cure, Leliana. If there is any hope of it, I must, for Ferelden. And for myself and for Alistair, as you know I’ve been practicing being selfish, just like you told me.
There is something about this letter: how the envelope is covered in dirt from all corners of Thedas while the paper is untouched by any hands but the Inquisitor’s; how the handwriting slants to the right like any good Circle mage’s does; how the ink pools at the end of every stroke like the words were thought over and over.
Lying back against the cold cave floor, she pulls the letter to her chest and begins to compose her reply in her mind.
I wish to see my king again, she thinks. It will be the truest thing on the page.