The Stolen Throne

13

It took most of the next day to backtrack to the column Katriel had mentioned, and they found what she called the seal there. It was open. The four of them stood in the rain, staring at what would have easily been mistaken for a cave opening in the rocky hillside from a distance, and yet up close it contained the remains of what had once been an impressive pair of octagonal steel doors.

They were decorated with geometric patterns; thick, solid grooves carved into the steel that might once have formed words or pictures. Now they were too covered in brown lichen and thick piles of rust to be decipherable as anything. One of the doors hung off its great hinges, the elements literally eating away at it. The way inside was clear save for a mound of rocks and dirt at the entrance, looking as if the debris had been spewed from the great orifice.

It wasn’t until they got closer, stepping carefully among the wet and uneven rocks, that they realized the mound was mostly made of bones. Old bones, encrusted in earth and mud and mostly buried.

“Hard to say what they were,” Maric observed, picking among the bone pieces with faint disgust. “Might be human.”

“More important, they’re not new,” Loghain pointed out. “That’s a good sign.”

Katriel poked her head warily into the cave. “I agree. If any creature other than bats has used this cave recently, they haven’t left a trace. All I see is guano.”

“Charming.” Rowan rolled her eyes.

Katriel glanced at Rowan. “There are many legends of travelers going missing in these hills. We should still be careful, as such legends often have some truth in them.”

“Duly noted,” Loghain commented, ushering everyone inside.

They set up camp just inside the cave opening, the four of them going to work on making as many torches as they could by tearing up strips of the tent fabric. Katriel mentioned that she had no idea how long they would be down there. There would be no hunting for food, she cautioned, and no way to know if there was fresh water.

Loghain had them fill up as many bottles and flasks as they could. He then took stock of their meager food supplies, laying out dried strips of meat on the rock as he listened to the rhythm of rain pounding on the rocks outside. Rowan sat beside him, wearing her full set of gleaming armor again.

“This is a foolish thing you agreed to, you know that,” she whispered grimly.

“Perhaps.”

“Do you actually believe we should trust her?”

“No.” Loghain glanced farther down the cave, where Katriel and Maric were clearing rocks. “But that does not mean she is lying about this.” Rowan seemed unconvinced, and Loghain attempted a reassuring smile. “We will go in as far as we can. If it proves unsuitable, then we return.”

“And what if we can’t? Return, I mean.”

He went back to his count, his face grim. “Then we die.”

It was not long before they managed to find a way down. Parts of the cavern were nearly blocked, as if there had been an effort long ago to seal it up with rocks. Whether that had been to keep something below from getting out or something above from getting in was impossible to tell. Either way, it was possible to squeeze by most of these piles with only a little effort.

Otherwise the passages were largely regular and flat, having long ago been smoothed by dwarven craftsmen. They might even have been beautiful once, but now they were coated in thick dust, moss, and a great deal of bat guano. There was evidence of graffiti near the beginning, crude drawings left by those who had inhabited the early section of the cave and left a reminder of their presence, but these disappeared as the passage dropped off sharply.

They traveled in silence, the tension growing as the faint light vanished completely to be replaced by a stuffy gloom. Dust floated in the still air, giving a faint corona to their torches, and Loghain expressed concern that air might become limited. Katriel explained that dwarves used ingenious ducts to keep the Deep Roads supplied, but who knew if such things were even working still?

It would certainly explain why no one had seen darkspawn on the surface in so many centuries, if they had all suffocated down there in the still shadows. That idea brought little cheer with it.

After several hours, they reached what might have been some kind of way station or checkpoint built into the passage. Perhaps it was intended as a fort, and certainly the building would have been defensible had its walls still been intact. Katriel pointed out where a gateway might once have closed off the passage entirely to traffic, but whatever had been there had been demolished. Littering the halls were a great number of rusted mining carts, loose sacks near faded away to nothing . . . and ancient bones. Old webs clotted with dust hung from the ceiling and gave them the feeling that they were walking into a graveyard. Nothing moved here. No bats were this deep, and though it seemed as if someone had looted the remains of the way station long ago, there was nobody there now.

“Was there a battle here?” Rowan asked, examining the bones. No one could answer her. Most of the bones were barely distinguishable as belonging to humans or dwarves or even elves. A few of them were very definitely none of those things.

After that came the steps—wide steps that seemed to lead down forever into darkness. They had to be careful, as many of the steps were cracked and brittle and likely to give way under their weight. . . . Indeed, many had already done so. Occasionally they needed to use the steel rails that lay in the middle of the hall for purchase, rails that once must have been used to carry the metal carts.

The old webs covered everything now. Mostly they were clotted with dust, nearly unrecognizable lumps of gray hanging like sacks from the walls and ceiling, but occasionally Loghain would point out new webs and even little spiders that scuttled away from the torchlight. He was reassured by the sight, he said. Spiders meant insects. They meant life.

By the time they reached the bottom of the steps, they had been traveling for many hours. Rowan expressed nervousness that they seemed mostly to be going down rather than heading in any particular direction. Maric, however, was just glad that they had seen no darkspawn. They cleared away a section of the road in order to make a camp, though Loghain insisted they keep the fire small. There was no telling how much air was down in the tunnels, or what might be attracted to the light if they kept a blaze going for too long.

It was a discomforting thought, and that first night, none of them truly slept. They took turns keeping watch with a single lit torch, staring into the shadows that danced around the camp. In truth, anyone could have crept up on them. With the dust in the air and the dim light, anyone keeping watch couldn’t see more than ten feet. But having someone on guard made them feel better, and it let the others close their eyes while trying to pretend that many miles of rock weren’t pressing down on them overhead.

If anything, the silence was the worst. It lay heavy, like a shroud, broken only by the sound of labored breathing and the faint scratching sounds of feet moving on stone. When the group stood still, sometimes they could hear the faintest clicking sounds off in the blackness. The clicks came and went, and none of them could identify what the sounds might be. They kept their weapons out after that, but no attack manifested.

For two days, they traveled in this way, heading farther and farther underground. They stopped regularly to rest and get their bearings, and this allowed Katriel the opportunity to attend to Maric’s bandages. She worried about infection, particularly with his head wound, but after a time declared that the poultices were working. He was healing nicely. Maric declared that it was about time something good happened.

The fact that they were traveling on a road became more evident. Even with the general sense of decay, they could see the regular stone columns along the walls and statues of grim dwarven figures barely discernible for all the wear. There were deep grooves along the bottom of the walls, which Katriel claimed would once have channeled lava. That same lava would have been collected in pools along the walls for light. Loghain asked where the lava came from, but she didn’t know. It might have been magic, though the dwarves didn’t use any. Wherever it might have come from, there was none now. There was only the dust and the quiet gloom.

The first intersection of passages they reached had great runes carved into the walls, and after clearing away as much dust and debris as they could, they waited while Katriel studied them closely with torch in hand.

“It’s definitely dwarven,” she muttered. She tapped on one rune that was repeated several times. “See this one? It has two parts: gwah and ren. ‘Salt’ and ‘pool.’ ”

“Gwaren?” Maric leaned forward, his head close over Katriel’s shoulder as he studied the rune for himself. She blinked nervously, but he didn’t notice. “That must be it, right? The dwarven outpost has the same name.”

“I believe it’s pointing down the right-hand passage.” Katriel looked up at Maric with a frown. “But I can’t be certain.”

“Better your guess than mine.” Maric grinned.

Rowan and Loghain traded leery glances, but they could do little but trust the elven woman’s knowledge. Loghain had long ago given up on his sense of direction.

Less than a day later—though their estimate of how much time was passing was becoming increasingly inaccurate the longer they were surrounded by constant darkness—they encountered a thaig, a cavern where the dwarves had built a settlement. There was a large amount of debris and rocks at its entrance, perhaps due to some kind of cave-in, and it required hours of labor to clear a passage. Once through, they stood at the edges of a place no dwarf had likely touched in living memory.

The flickering light of their torches didn’t reach very far into the thaig, but what they did see evoked a memory of grand stone buildings rising high up toward the upper reaches of the cavern. The walkways between these buildings had once been lined with giant columns carved with lines upon lines of runes. Now most of these things were collapsed and in ruin, jagged stone skeletons covered in massive webs.

Here the webs were everywhere. They hung from building to wall like gentle gauze, and as the cavern rose, the webs seemed to get thicker and thicker until the torchlight couldn’t penetrate them any longer. It was as if the webs kept this place cocooned, suspended out of time in darkness and quiet.

“Careful,” Loghain warned softly, moving his torch so as not to light the webs. Such a blaze would have spread quickly into the upper reaches of the thaig, and likely brought all of it raining down upon their heads.

“Do you feel it?” Rowan asked, stepping uncertainly forward amid the uneven debris. She touched her cheek and looked around with concern. The others opened up their eyes wide, feeling the same thing she did: a gentle brush on their cheeks, the slightest sense of movement in the dust-choked air.

“It’s air,” Maric breathed. “There’s air flowing here.”

He was right. Air was coming from somewhere high up, and if they looked carefully, they could see the faint glowing webs waving ever so slightly overhead. Perhaps there was a sort of hole leading up to the surface. The dwarves must have had chimneys of some kind, or perhaps these were the ducts that Katriel had mentioned.

There were also sounds. As the four of them stood there, the distant clicking became more prominent. It started and stopped, but it was definitely there. After hearing little else but their own movement, such alien sounds were very easy to notice.

Katriel blanched, her fear made noticeable by her agitated glances up into the darkness despite her effort to conceal it. “What . . . what are those sounds? Rocks?”

Nobody answered her. Even she didn’t really believe it.

“Should we go back?” Rowan whispered.

Maric shook his head. “There’s no way around that we saw. It’s either forward or it’s all the way back.”

There was really no discussion to be had. Loghain moved forward, sword held cautiously in front of him as he stared nervously up into the webs above. “If we need to, we’ll have to burn them.”

Maric stepped closely behind him. “Wouldn’t that be worse?”

“I said if we need to.”

They proceeded slowly, keeping their backs toward each other and blades out. Each step was carefully placed among the rubble, and they made not a single sound. They barely breathed. Each of them slowly waved their flickering torches in the air before them, trying to discern anything in the dark ruins. But all they saw was ruined archways and stone columns and more rubble. The shadows danced mockingly in the silence.

They crept through what appeared to be a long causeway, cracked and crumbled between the towering walls of gutted buildings. One of the walls still had faded chips of colored paint, turquoise and red and the remnants of what might have been a face. The eyes were the only part of the face still discernible, eyes that stared out at them in mute surprise.

Loghain stopped, and Maric almost bumped into him from behind. They were at the feet of an enormous statue, a giant warrior that reached up hundreds of feet into the air and could very well have been holding up the ceiling of the cavern. It was tarnished, and the details were lost in the shadows, but it was easily the largest thing he had ever seen in his life. It looked almost as if it had been made from pure marble.

“Maker’s breath,” Maric breathed, staring up at it.

The others turned, and Katriel walked up to the feet of the statue, her eyes wide. “Don’t touch it,” Loghain cautioned her, but she ignored him. The statue appeared to rest on a great square column, itself covered in dusty runes.

Katriel held the torch in front of the runes and swept some of the dust off with her hands. “This . . . I think this is a Paragon,” she whispered.

“A what?” Maric asked.

“A Paragon. They are dwarves that achieve legendary status among their people. The greatest of their warriors, the founders of the houses.” She brushed off more of the dust, enraptured by what she was unveiling. “I think this one was a smith.”

“Wonderful, it’s a dwarven smith,” Rowan muttered. “Can we keep moving?”

The elf shot a glare with her green eyes. “A Paragon isn’t just anyone. They were the greatest dwarves that ever lived. The dwarves revere them as gods. This—” She stared up at the expanse of the statue above her. “—is something the dwarves would pay a great deal to know about.”

“Then let’s tell them about it. Later,” Rowan insisted.

Loghain nodded. “We need to see if there’s a way through.”

Reluctantly Katriel nodded. She stepped back from the statue’s base, taking one last sad look and shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Only Maric saw the single strand of thick, glistening thread that dangled behind her. He was already leaping forward as she was suddenly jerked up into the darkness.

“Katriel!” Maric shouted, grabbing on to the elf’s legs as his sword fell to the ground. She screamed in terror, and while Maric’s weight pulled her back down, they both dangled above the ground precariously.

Excited clicking sounds suddenly erupted up in the dark webs above, as well as all around them. They echoed and circled, and many shadows began to move just at the very edges of their torchlight.

“Loghain!” Maric shouted again, his legs kicking wildly. “Help me!”

Loghain moved quickly, reaching up and grabbing one of Maric’s legs as it swung by his head. He yanked down hard. Katriel screamed again as a loud chittering erupted from high above, and with a wet snap, both she and Maric came crashing down to the ground.

“There!” Rowan shouted as something ran into view. Her eyes went wide as she realized it was a giant spider, easily as large as herself. It was a thing of dark bristles and many wet eyes, a great and swollen abdomen rearing up behind it. Its hairy legs moved with startling speed as it scuttled to one side, nervous of either Rowan’s sword or her fiery torch.

Loghain was already leaping back to his feet, spinning about to face more quick shadows that sped past out of sight. Rowan’s spider emitted several loud clicks and rushed toward her, two forelegs raised and dripping fangs bared.

“Rowan!” he shouted in warning.

The spider batted her sword aside with one of its forelegs, almost succeeding in tearing it from her gauntlets. It lunged forward with its fangs, hissing, and she succeeded in interposing her arm. The weight of the spider carried her back as its fangs tried repeatedly to pierce the metal of her armor. They didn’t, and black venom coursed along its surface, leaving a sizzling, smoking trail.

Rowan grunted with the effort of keeping herself from being toppled, and she pushed back with her arm. The spider chattered in anger and tried to leap off her, but her sword swiftly chopped into the side of its head. White ichor spurted from the wound. The spider squealed, vaulting up into the air and smashing into a far wall. It spun about madly, almost seeming as if it was trying to get away from its injury.

Another giant spider dropped down from above, nearly landing on Loghain. He leaped out of the way, spinning about at the last instant and slicing at the creature’s forearm. It deflected the blow, turning its head to stare down at Katriel right next to it with its many pairs of glittering black eyes. She screamed in terror.

Maric plunged his sword into the side of the spider’s head, gritting his teeth with the effort. The blade glided past its chitinous armor with a wet, crunching sound. The creature’s body shivered, and then it whipped about more quickly than Maric could react, its forelimbs striking him in the shoulder and sending him tumbling back along the ground.

Loghain leaped forward and kicked the giant spider solidly, flipping it over with a horrid squealing sound. Even as it scrambled to right itself, white fluid gushing from its wounded head, Loghain stepped on its thorax to hold it still and thrust his sword down into its body. He twisted the blade around with difficulty as the spider flailed its legs and screeched loudly.

“Maric!” Katriel shouted with concern, scrambling after him. Rowan noticed as well and leaped to the spot where he lay. Even as she did so, another spider raced down the vertical side of a wall toward her. She slashed at it with her sword, causing it to jerk backwards and retreat.

Katriel got to Maric. He shook his head, dazed, and she helped him stand. Then his eyes went wide as he saw something above them. His scream was echoed by hers as a giant spider landed on top of them, its fangs sinking into Katriel’s shoulders.

She jerked away from it, spinning around and stabbing at the spider’s eyes with her dagger. The spider scrambled away instantly, but not before Rowan rushed it from the side and stabbed her sword into its abdomen. Fluids rushed out as it squealed and spun to face her. She spun at the same time, meeting its head with a great swing of her blade. The creature’s head was instantly decapitated, its body spinning and kicking on its own in reaction, ichor splattering everywhere.

“No!” Maric shouted as he saw Katriel collapse, her eyes rolling up into her head. The vicious punctures on her shoulder were already swelling, black tendrils radiating out from it underneath her skin like a dark corruption. Maric scooped her up in his arms before she hit the ground and stared down in horror as she began to spasm uncontrollably. “Loghain! We have to get out of here!”

Gritting his teeth, Loghain yanked his blade out of the dead spider beneath him and leaped off. He snatched up Maric’s sword and a torch that lay on the ground, threatening to extinguish completely. The sword he tossed to Maric, who caught it deftly even in the poor light, and the torch he reached up toward the strands of webs that hung down above him.

It took a moment for the flames to begin to catch, but as they did, they began to spread upward rapidly. Very rapidly. “Brace yourselves!” he bellowed.

The echoes of clicking around them seemed to rise even as the fwoosh! of the flames became a loud roar. The fire fanned out overhead, instantly lighting up the entire area of the ruins. Maric looked around, blinking in the sudden glare, and saw many spidery shapes skittering on the walls. An alarming number of them. One of the giant spiders scrambled down the wall toward Rowan again, and she sliced upward, hacking off part of a forelimb. Screeching, it retreated again, and Rowan backed up toward Maric.

“There!” he cried, pointing at a nearby building that had been revealed by the light. It had a dome of tarnished gold, one of the few ceilings they had seen that had not collapsed.

Rowan moved to help Maric carry Katriel, and they began to race as fast as they could toward the domed building. Loghain dashed after them, covering his head as great gobs of burning webs began to rain down from above. The giant spiders had halted their attack and were fleeing in every direction, their maddening screeches becoming a cacophony that threatened to drown out even the roar of the flames.

The stench of charred foulness threatened to become overwhelming, and along with it came a sudden suction from above. It was as if the air was being pulled upward, only to be replaced a moment later with a thick oily smoke that belched downward toward them. It spread quickly, blocking their vision and choking them with its thickness. It seemed more dust than smoke, coating their faces and arms and reaching like little hands down their throats and into their lungs.

Maric began to cough hoarsely and heard Rowan doing the same, even though he could barely see her right next to him. It was like stumbling through molasses. Rowan collapsed to the ground, taking the unconscious Katriel with her and pulling Maric along. He swore, forcing the inhalation of more of the smog and then gagging. They couldn’t see where they were going anymore.

Something touched Maric’s shoulder, and his first instinct was to swing his sword at it. Whatever had touched him apparently counted on that move, and a hand grabbed at Maric’s wrist to stop him. It was Loghain.

“Come on!” he shouted, his voice raspy from the effort.

Loghain pulled Maric to his feet, and together they collected Rowan and Katriel and began dragging them in the direction of the dome. All they could see in the swirling blackness was the bright aurora of fire that blanketed the cavern roof and the great droppings of flame that rained down. The air continued to be sucked away.

For a moment, Maric wondered if the entire roof of the cavern—with all its masses of webs and spiders along with it—was going to come crashing down on their heads. The searing heat was unbearable, and he was breathing it.

And then he passed out.

When Maric woke up, it was still dark and he was confused. He was lying down on something hard, and someone was wiping his face with a wet, cool cloth. He still couldn’t see anything. How much later was it? Were they still down in the Deep Roads? Was it safe? When he tried to ask a question, all that came out was a dry rasp, and he began to cough explosively, the pain racking his entire body.

A hand pushed down on him to keep him from sitting up, and he heard Rowan’s calming voice urging him to lie still. “Don’t move yet, Maric. I’m going to give you something to drink, but you need to drink it slowly.” A vial was put to his lips, and in it was blissfully cool water. He wanted to gorge himself as he realized just how much of that inky dust still coated his throat, but Rowan pulled the vial away before he could tilt it forcefully. Even so, he began gagging on the water until finally he turned over and forcefully expelled a huge amount of vile blackness from within him.

It came out in waves, leaving him weak and shivering. Rowan sighed and put the vial to his mouth again, letting him have a real draft this time. “That . . . could have gone better,” she muttered. “But at least it’s out.”

The water felt good going down, and Maric lay back, feeling the coolness reach the deeper parts of him. Then he opened his eyes, alarmed. “Is Katriel—?”

“Stable, but she hasn’t woken yet,” Rowan answered, annoyance creeping into her voice. “Loghain was able to suck most of the poison out. Lucky that she had wormroot in her pack, or that wouldn’t have been enough.”

There were clicking sounds in the background, differing from the clicking of the spiders, however. It sounded like rocks being smacked together, and after a moment, Maric realized that was exactly what it was. He saw some sparks in the darkness, followed soon afterwards by a gentle flame spreading.

“Do you think that’s wise?” Rowan asked.

“There’s been no sign of spiders,” Loghain commented from above the tiny flame, “and we’re starting to get fresh air again. I think the worst is over.”

Loghain was blowing on the flames to urge them to spread, and they did. The near-rotted pieces of wood he had piled crackled and popped as they caught fire, but as the flames got higher, they pushed back the shadows, and Maric could see again at last.

They were inside the building, the dome barely visible high overhead. It was gutted, full of piles of rubble and stone that might have been crumbled walls or furniture that had fallen to dust. He could see long terraced steps that led down into the lower, center part of the chamber directly under the dome. Had this been a forum once? A theater? Maric had heard once that the dwarves held fighting matches called “provings,” matches where warriors battled for honor and glory. Perhaps this had been a proving ground? It didn’t seem large enough.

Katriel lay nearby, her shoulder bandaged. She was nearly coated with black dust, turning her blond curls oily and dark, though someone had clearly taken pains to wipe her face. They were all coated with the same dust, he noticed, and it seemed to be layered unevenly over any part of the room that was near the gaps in the walls or the windows. Outside it looked far worse, like a sea of blackness with dust hovering in the air like a cloud.

The quiet was near absolute, almost muffled like on the first day after a snowfall. All Maric could hear was the sound of trickling water somewhere nearby. He couldn’t place it due to the echo, but it was very clear.

“There is water in here, believe it or not,” Loghain commented. He seemed satisfied at the size of the fire and sat back, wiping the smears of soot on his face once again. “There is a large basin in the back,” he pointed toward an area on the far side of the room where the wall was more crumbled than elsewhere, “that seems to generate fresh water on its own. It was turned over, and had made a creek.”

“Magic, obviously,” Rowan offered. “But it’s fresh. Too bad we can’t take it with us.”

“How long has it been?” Maric croaked, pulling himself up to a seated position. Rowan reached out a hand to steady him, but relented when she realized he was fine. “How did we get here?”

“I was able to drag you in before it really started coming down.” Loghain grunted. “And then I passed out. I don’t know for how long. It’s impossible to tell time down here.”

“Those spiders could come back.” Rowan shivered.

“Yes, they could.” He turned away from the fire and faced Maric, his expression serious. “We shouldn’t stay here too long. If there’s a way to get back onto the road to Gwaren, we should find it. Soon. We’ll need to carry Katriel if we have to.”

“Or we could leave her,” Rowan said quietly, looking at no one.

“Rowan!” Maric said, shocked.

She glanced at Loghain, who grimaced and looked distinctly uncomfortable. But he did not turn away. Maric looked from one to the other, saw the way they were sitting together, facing him, a united front. They had been discussing this. While he had been unconscious, they had talked about leaving Katriel.

“Are you actually serious?” he asked, his shock slowly giving way to outrage. “Leave her? Because she’s injured?”

“No, it’s not that,” Rowan said firmly. She held up a hand to stop Loghain from joining in. He frowned but complied. “Maric, we don’t think it’s wise to trust her.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re saying there’s a lot of things that don’t add up. You can’t say that this is the same woman who we found screaming for help in Gwaren.”

Loghain nodded. “I was willing to accept her as a messenger, even one of Arl Byron’s agents . . . but these skills she’s shown, the knowledge she possesses. This is no simple elven servant, Maric.”

Maric stiffened, feeling his anger growing. “And even if she isn’t, why is this a bad thing?”

“Maric . . . ,” Loghain said uneasily.

“She came to my defense,” Maric insisted, “when she could just as easily have helped those soldiers kill us. She’s offered her knowledge freely, when she could just as easily have led us into the usurper’s hands.” His eyes narrowed. “What is it, exactly, that you think she’s done?”

“I don’t know that she’s done anything,” Loghain said truthfully. “All I know is that she makes me uneasy.”

Rowan took a deep breath. “Consider that you may not be very objective about her, Maric,” she stated evenly.

Maric paused, taken aback. And then he saw the hurt pride in Rowan’s eyes. She was trying to hide it, but it was obvious even to him that she wanted to be anywhere other than here.

She knows, he realized. It made sense now. The day before they had embarked at Gwaren, the way she had looked at him so expectantly, and when he had asked her about it, she had stormed off. The anger. The slap.

“Oh,” he muttered, his anger quickly dissolving. He had practiced a hundred times how to tell Rowan about Katriel, and it figured that when it happened, it would be like none of those times. He had wanted to tell her. He had wanted to say that Katriel made him feel capable, he didn’t have to prove anything to her. But how would that sound? It wasn’t that he felt the need to prove himself to Rowan, exactly. She had known him as a child, she knew his every fault and his every mistake better than he did. He loved Rowan, it was simply . . . different.

Part of him had hoped that Rowan would understand. As teenagers, they had both complained bitterly about their parents’ arrangement, had secretly laughed at the idea that they would someday be married. Surely she didn’t . . .

But she did, didn’t she? As Rowan stared at him, it occurred to him that she had not complained about their betrothal for many years. And he couldn’t claim ignorance, not really. If he truly didn’t know how she felt, it wouldn’t have been so difficult to tell her about Katriel, would it?

“Rowan,” he said gravely. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

“I know.”

“Tell her what?” Loghain asked, looking as if he had swallowed something sour. He looked from Maric to Rowan and back . . . and then his face became still. Very slowly, he turned and looked at Rowan, his eyes pained. “Ah,” was all he said.

“I don’t know what to say,” Maric pleaded quietly. “I never thought . . . I mean, we never talked about this, not for years. We were always at war, I didn’t think—”

“Stop,” Rowan said calmly. “This isn’t the place to talk about it.”

“But . . .”

Her eyes met Maric’s. “Just tell me one thing: Did it continue? Past that first night?”

Maric felt helpless. He had never wanted to hurt Rowan, but it had already been done. There was nothing he could say to make it better. “Yes,” he said helplessly.

Rowan nodded slowly. Loghain turned and looked at Maric in surprise. “Maker’s breath, man! Do you love her?”

Maric flinched. Far better for Loghain to have taken a knife and stabbed it into his back. Rowan stared down at the ground, but Maric knew she was listening intently. He took a deep breath and exhaled raggedly. “Yes,” he said, “I think I do.”

Even if Rowan had expected the answer, Maric could tell it still hurt her. She avoided looking at him, her face hard as stone. He felt cruel. Loghain stared at him in disbelief.

Maric took a deep breath.

“I’ll end it,” he said quietly. He looked up at Rowan, his jaw set and his expression firm. “I never wanted to hurt you, Rowan. I should have known better. You are important to me, you have to know that. If this is how you feel, then I’ll end it. Katriel and I are through.”

There was a long and awkward pause. The silence in the caverns loomed larger, and for a moment Maric wished for the sound of wind, the cries of birds far overhead, even the clicking sounds of the spiders. Anything but the wall of silence.

Finally Rowan looked at him, her expression hard. “No. That’s not what I want.”

“But—”

“What I want,” she insisted icily, “is for you to listen to what we’re saying. How do you explain these inconsistencies about Katriel?”

Maric sighed. He stared at Rowan, wanting to talk about anything else, but she was determined. “She’s an elf,” he stated helplessly, “and she’s an extraordinary woman, one with skills that we should be thankful for. She saved all of our lives, if you’ve forgotten.” He stopped and looked at the two of them reproachfully. “And even if I agreed with these suspicions of yours, do you really think I could just leave her down here? Nobody deserves that fate.”

Loghain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should question her, then, see if she—”

“No. Enough, both of you.”

Loghain and Rowan exchanged looks again, reluctantly nodding. They didn’t like it, but they clearly hadn’t been all that committed to just leaving Katriel behind, either. Maric wasn’t certain why they thought he might agree to it. The thought of leaving anyone down in this spider-infested blackness made his skin crawl.

“Rowan,” Maric began, “maybe we should talk, go and—”

She stood up quickly, brushing the black soot off her armored legs. “There’s no need,” she said coldly. “I get it. You love her. I just wish you had told me. I could have released you from any obligation you might have felt.”

There was nothing Maric could say to that. She collected the pack, pointedly ignoring him. “I’m going to try to wash up a bit. Excuse me.” Without looking back, she marched off to the dark recesses in the back of the chamber.

Loghain shot Maric a look that had “you are an idiot” written all over it. “Take care of the fire. Give us a shout if Katriel wakes up.” Then he followed after Rowan.

Maric sighed, leaning back on his elbows and wincing as the uneven rocks behind him jutted into his back. At some point, everything had gone wrong. His plan had been a failure, he’d gotten most of his army and Rowan’s father killed, and he’d betrayed Rowan’s trust. Perhaps even Loghain was angry at him now. And he didn’t know if any of it was fixable. Even if they managed to get through these tunnels somehow and reached Gwaren in time, would it be just to see the remnants of the rebel army be crushed once and for all? Did he really want to be present for that?

But why were they taking out their anger on Katriel? He just couldn’t get it. He could understand Rowan, maybe. He had sensed tension between her and Katriel previously, and now it made sense why it had been there. But Loghain? Loghain was normally a sensible man. Why would he express baseless suspicions? Why would he urge Maric to abandon Katriel here? It made no sense that she was here to harm them. She’d had every opportunity to do so—why would she help them first?

He stared into the flickering campfire, slowly becoming mesmerized by the flames as they consumed the wood. The fire was slowly ebbing, and he knew he should tend to it, add some more fuel, but he found he preferred the shadows as they crept closer. He preferred the chill in the air. The thought that there could be spiders crawling closer seemed unreal, somehow.

“You are right,” came a quiet voice nearby.

Maric turned over to see Katriel’s eyes opened. She slowly sat up, her green eyes looking distant and sad. For a moment, she looked around at the ruined chamber, at the dome above and the rubble, satisfying whatever curiosity she felt about their location.

“You’re awake!” he exclaimed, crawling quickly over toward her. He took her hand and helped her move by the fire. “How do you feel? Does it hurt?”

She seemed glad to be near the fire, and turned her head awkwardly to study the large bandage on her shoulder. “It’s throbbing, a bit.” Her tone was unconcerned. She looked back at Maric, her expression nervous. “Did you hear what I said?”

“You said I was right. I don’t hear that very often.”

“I was listening,” she began, staring into the fire glumly. “And you are right. We should not be together.”

“No, don’t listen to me,” he protested.

“You should listen to your friends.” Katriel looked at him, the dim fire shrouding her delicate face in shadows. She spoke with sad resignation. “Why do you defend me, Your High—Maric? You know nothing about me. Yet you keep defending me against your friends, against your countrymen. . . . You need to stop.” She seemed actually concerned, emphatically placing a soft hand atop his. “You need to stop defending me. Please.”

Maric took her hand in his, rubbing it tenderly. He found it amazing how even half covered in soot, she still felt softer than anything he had ever known. He smiled at her ruefully. “I can’t do that. Just because you’re an elf, they can’t say those things about you. I know they’re not true.”

“It is not because I am an elf.”

“A stranger, then. Or a woman. A woman I happen to love.”

The word seemed painful to her, and she turned her head away from him, on the verge of tears. “You really are a fool,” she muttered. “How can you say such a thing to someone you have known such a short time?”

He reached up and gently took her chin in his hand, turning her head back into the light. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, I know you,” he whispered to her. “I may not know what you’ve done or where you’ve been, but I see who you are. I know that you’re a good person, and worthy of love.” He reached up with his thumb and wiped away a tear on her cheek. “How is it that you don’t know that?”

She cast her eyes down and reached up with a hand to remove his hand from her cheek. For a moment it looked as if sobs would overwhelm her, but she choked back more tears. “I am not who I pretend to be,” she confessed.

“Neither am I,” he replied.

Katriel looked up at him, her confusion genuine.

Maric chuckled ruefully. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been pretending to be a prince? To be this man that everyone looks up to? Someone that they’d be willing to fight for? To put on the throne?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Can you imagine if they succeeded? The joke would’ve been on them, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’s better it ended this way.”

Her mouth opened and closed several times as if she meant to speak, but no words came out. Finally she sighed in resignation. “It hasn’t ended,” she said quietly. “There is always something that can be done. Always.”

“See?” He smiled. “This is why I like you so much.”

She smiled back, but it was melancholy. Her strange elven eyes searched his, looking for . . . what? He couldn’t tell. “Maric—” She took a breath. “—you should know—”

“I know,” he cut her off, “everything I need to know. I don’t care who you were. I care who you are now.”

Katriel blinked back new tears, unsure how to respond.

“And I care whether or not you think you could love me.”

She nodded, letting the tears finally come with a sad, bitter laugh. “More than I should. You’ll be the death of me, my prince, I swear it.”

“‘My prince’? I like the sound of that much better than ‘Your Highness.’ ” He reached up and took her chin in his hand again and leaned in closer. “At least when you say it,” he breathed.

And then he kissed her. And she relented at last.

Rowan sat in the dark, at the far end of the chamber. It was well out of sight of the campfire, though the ambient glow still allowed for the faintest bit of light to reach her. She didn’t mind the darkness. She found it comforting, even with the thought that one of the spiders could sneak up on her where she sat. A small part of her welcomed the chance. Let it come.

She had removed much of the armor on her upper body, each plate unfastened by the sense of touch alone, and now she was dipping a cloth in the stream and wiping it clean. The water from the urn had slowly carved a channel here over the years, a channel full of fresh flowing water that continued on outside the building. It would be impossible to tell how far it went without bringing a torch to see, but there was little point. A torch might only draw trouble.

She didn’t really need to clean her armor, despite the uncomfortable gritty feeling it had now. She had just needed to get away, to be by herself. The tears had been few, but she didn’t want Maric to see them. He didn’t deserve to see them.

She heard Loghain approach before she saw any hint of him in the ambient light. He was being quiet, tentative. Perhaps he didn’t want to disturb her, but intended instead to watch over her and ensure her safety. It would be just like him.

“I hear you,” she complained to the shadows, putting down her wet cloth.

“I’m sorry,” he responded quietly. “I can leave, if you like.”

She thought about it. “No,” she said reluctantly. “It’s all right.”

Loghain came closer, settling beside her on the stream bank. She could just barely make him out in the faint light, enough to see that his expression was grave. He ran his fingers absently through the fresh water, making a slight trickling sound.

“I didn’t know,” he said.

“I didn’t think you did.”

They were both quiet for a time, and she picked up her cloth again, dipping it in the cold stream. Slowly she wiped the front of her breastplate as Loghain watched her in the darkness. Even now she could feel his eyes on her. They made her nervous. “It would be easier,” she sighed, “if I could simply hate him. After what he’s done, I should be able to, shouldn’t I?”

“He’s a hard man to hate.”

“I miss my father,” Rowan said suddenly. “And I miss the way Maric used to be. It was easier to pretend, once. I didn’t even care about the throne like my father did. Maric’s smile made everything worthwhile, and sometimes I could make believe it was just for me.” Her throat caught on the end, and she stopped. Then she realized what she was saying. “But you don’t need to hear this. I’m sorry.”

Loghain ignored her. “You deserve more than pretend, Rowan.”

“Do I?” She felt the tears come, unbidden, and chuckled at their ridiculousness. Here she was, a warrior and commander of men, and yet every time she turned around, she was dismayed to discover that she was as brittle and weak as she feared. “I’m not sure that I do. Maybe I really do hate that poor elf just because she . . . because she’s the one that caught his eye and not me. All those years I thought we were meant to be, and I was just fooling myself.”

He hesitated for a moment. “He could still change his mind.”

“No,” she said quietly, “I don’t think he could. And I don’t think you do, either.” Then she shrugged. “And it shouldn’t matter. At least he’s happy.”

They sat in the silence, and she began to clean her armor once more. Loghain seemed to be considering something, to the point where she could feel him brooding. “Do you blame him?” he reluctantly asked.

“For all this? No.”

“What about for your father?”

She had to think about that. “No.” Then, with more certainty: “No. We knew what we were doing. I think Father would have approved.”

“I blamed him,” Loghain said, so quietly he was almost whispering. “For my father’s death. For being dumped in our lap, for forcing our hand. I wanted to hate him, too; you’re not the only one.” He paused, considering. “But we can’t hate him. And it’s not because we’re weak. It’s because we’re strong. He needs us.”

“He needs you, not me.”

“You’re wrong,” he whispered gently. A hand reached up to brush a lock of her hair away from her face. “And I hope one day he sees that.”

Rowan shivered. She could feel Loghain sitting right next to her, but she couldn’t see him. She hoped that he couldn’t see her, either. She clutched the breastplate closer to her chest. “Th-there’s nothing to see,” she insisted.

“That’s not true.”

She felt the tears come in force, threatening to turn into sobbing, and she turned her face away from him. “It isn’t?” Her voice betrayed her emotion, and she cursed herself silently in dismay.

“One day,” he said bitterly, “he will see what he had all along. He will see a strong warrior, a beautiful woman, someone who is his equal and worthy of his utter devotion, and he will curse himself for being such a fool.” And then his voice became husky. “Trust me.”

With that, Loghain started to silently move away. She quickly turned and reached out with her hand, grabbing his forearm. He froze.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean—”

“Stay.”

He didn’t move.

“I’m not him,” he finally muttered, bitterness in his voice.

She took his hand and brought it slowly up to her face. His fingers cradled her cheek gently, fearfully, almost as if he expected she would vanish into a dream. Then he rushed forward, snatching her up in his arms and kissing her with an urgency that almost overwhelmed her.

He was burning hot in the chill cavern, and when their lips parted, he halted once more, holding her there fearfully, as if they stood on a precipice. Rowan reached up and gently touched his cheek as he had, and was surprised to feel tears there. “I don’t want him,” she whispered, and realized it was true. “I’ve been a fool.”

And then Loghain leaned in and kissed Rowan again, slower this time. He laid her gingerly down on the rocks by a magical stream in a forgotten ruin with darkness all around them, and it was perfect.