The Stolen Throne

17

Loghain watched Maric quietly from across the room.

They were all exhausted after the days of battle, finally resulting in Gwaren being successfully defended from the usurper’s attack, but still Maric toiled away at his table, writing letter after letter. How many he had written so far, Loghain could only guess, but three riders had already been sent westward, carrying word into the Bannorn and other parts of the land.

Loghain was fairly certain that word of Maric’s return would spread faster than any horse could, but Maric was determined to make a personal appeal to the Fereldan nobility while there was still time to capitalize on their victory. It had come at a heavy cost, after all. The number of dead within Gwaren had been staggering. The Orlesians had been brutal in their efforts to deal with the uprising, so much so that Maric had felt compelled to turn the army about even though they had been barely in fighting form and had been fleeing for their lives.

Maric felt responsible for those lost lives. Loghain could see that. He had stared at the streets full of dead men and women who had fought against mounted knights only because they believed in him, and Loghain had seen that a part of Maric’s soul had shriveled up right then.

It had been a desperate situation when they had fallen upon the chevaliers in Gwaren only days after having been handed a narrow defeat by them, and luck had played into their hands. The usurper’s men had not considered the possibility that they might come back, and their attention was wholly upon slaughtering the ungrateful populace. Maric had been filled with a righteous fury, and even when the enemy finally routed and fled the field, Loghain had been forced to hold him back from ordering them chased down. The rebel force had been decimated, and was in no shape to go anywhere. It had taken both Loghain and Rowan to convince Maric to stand down. They had to recover, and had many dead to burn.

And that was what they had been doing for days, now. Burning the dead. The air had been filled with acrid smoke that never seemed to go away. Only the Legion didn’t take part in their rites. They grieved for their heavy losses but also seemed satisfied that their men had died in a glorious battle. Nalthur shook Maric’s hand before the remaining dwarves took their dead back into the Deep Roads, promising to return soon. Loghain hoped they didn’t meet their end at the hands of the darkspawn after all. A sobering thought, to think that such creatures had existed beneath their feet for so long, forgotten.

At first Maric had insisted on walking through the streets of what remained of Gwaren, watching the funeral pyres and joining in the prayers said by the few Chantry priests that remained. But the eyes of the people were upon him wherever he went. The way they watched his every move and whispered behind his back, the way they bowed low whenever they spotted him and refused to get up even when he begged them to; their worship disturbed him.

Returned from the dead, they whispered. Sent by the Maker to free them from the yoke of the Orlesians at last. Despite the fact that Maric’s mission had not changed, suddenly it seemed real to them. Suddenly it seemed possible, their loss at West Hill forgotten. And Maric would kill himself to make sure their belief was vindicated.

There were already tales being brought to them of the people stirring in the west, and the usurper clamping down hard—supposedly the palace in Denerim was lined with so many heads, they did not have enough space to keep them all. Yet the patience of the people seemed to be at an end. Their ranks were swelling as fit survivors in Gwaren rushed to join the rebels, and Loghain assumed that would only continue once they left for the west. Ferelden’s champion had braved death itself to come to their aid. So, despite their precarious position, Maric wrote letters in an attempt to fan this blaze as if he could do so purely through will alone.

Perhaps he could.

Loghain walked quietly across the room, mindful of the fact that there were soldiers sleeping in the hall right outside. They had so few tents left, and no energy remaining to erect them. Most of their men collapsed out of exhaustion wherever they could, trying to get what little sleep they might. Most of them were still hungry. Tomorrow would bring only more of the same.

“Maric, we need to talk,” he said gravely.

Maric looked up from his most recent letter, his eyes red and bleary from fatigue. There was a look in them that Loghain didn’t like, a nervous energy that Maric possessed ever since they had emerged from the Deep Roads and seen just how little of their fighting force had made it back to Gwaren.

Outside the rain continued to fall, lightning occasionally flashing across the night sky. It was a welcome deluge, scouring the air clean of the smoke. Except for the single candle on his desk, Maric had no light to write with. Finding a proper lantern might have been difficult, as the chevaliers had sacked the manor almost completely and left it short of everything, so naturally Maric elected to do without. Really, he should have retired to his bedchambers long ago, and Loghain half wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t demand that Maric get some rest.

But this discussion could not wait any longer.

“Talk?” Maric asked, blinking in confusion.

Loghain sat on the edge of the table, crossing his arms as he considered his words. “About Katriel.”

Maric snorted, waving his hand angrily. “This again?” He picked up his quill to return to his writing. “I thought we settled this in the Deep Roads. I don’t want to discuss it any more.”

Loghain moved the parchment away from Maric. In response, Maric looked up at him in irritation. “Nevertheless, we’re going to,” Loghain stated evenly.

“So it appears.”

“Maric, what are you doing?”

Now the other brow joined the first, and Maric looked surprised. “What am I doing about what?”

Loghain sighed heavily, and rubbed his forehead in agitation. “You love her. I understand that, better than you think. But why? How is it that this woman, who showed up out of nowhere, can have you wrapped around her finger?”

Maric looked vaguely offended. “Is it so wrong that I love her?”

“Do you intend to make her your Queen?”

“Maybe.” Maric looked away, avoiding Loghain’s eyes. “What does it matter, anyhow? Who knows if I’ll ever sit on the throne? Does it always have to be about the future?”

Loghain scowled, and glared at Maric until he reluctantly looked back. The fact that he could barely meet Loghain’s gaze said plenty. “Arl Rendorn is dead.” The words came out reluctantly, but Loghain said them anyway. “Rowan has no reason to keep your betrothal. Are you truly going to let her get away?”

Maric looked down. “She’s already gotten away,” he said gravely. “Do you think I don’t know?” The words hung between them until Maric looked back up, and their eyes met. Of course he knew, Loghain thought bitterly. How could he not?

Loghain put a hand on Maric’s shoulder. “Go after her, Maric.”

Maric angrily jumped up from his chair, sending it skittering back along the floor, and stormed away from Loghain. When he looked back, his face was frustrated and contemptuous. “How can you ask me that?” he demanded. “How can you ask me that?”

“She is your Queen,” Loghain stated firmly. “I have always known that.”

“My Queen,” he said the words distastefully. “How long ago was that decided for us? I don’t know that’s something she even wanted.”

“She still loves you.”

Maric turned away, distressed and shaking his head in exasperation. He turned back and started to say something, but then thought better of it, regret playing across his face. He looked up at Loghain accusingly. An awkward silence developed, neither of them knowing quite what to say next. Lightning flared once again outside in the night sky.

“You want to know why I love Katriel?” Maric spoke with a clipped, furious tone. “She sees me as a man. This gorgeous creature, an elf, she looks at me and she doesn’t see the son of the Rebel Queen. She doesn’t see me as awkward Maric, or the fellow who can’t quite stay in his saddle or hold a sword.”

“You aren’t any of those things any longer, Maric. . . .”

“When I went to her rescue, she didn’t doubt that I could save her. When she came to me in my tent that night, she wanted me. Me.” He held out his hands to Loghain as if pleading with him to understand. “No one . . . no one’s ever looked at me like that. Certainly not Rowan.” He looked pained thinking of her, his eyes drifting off. “I . . . I know she loves me. But when she looks at me, she sees Maric. She sees the boy she grew up with. When Katriel looks at me, she sees a man. She sees a prince.”

Loghain frowned. “A lot of people see that. A lot of women, too.” He snorted. “You must see the way they look at you, Maric. You can’t be that big an idiot.”

“Katriel is special. Have you ever seen someone like her? She’s saved us, she guided us down in the Deep Roads, she’s fought at our side.” Maric pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, shaking his head. “Why can’t you see that? I don’t know that she’ll be my Qnueen, but would that be so wrong?”

“She’s an elf. Do you think your people would accept an elven queen?”

“Maybe they’ll have to.”

“Maric, be serious.”

“I am serious!” Maric stormed about the study, his ire building. “Why is everyone so set on telling me what decisions I have to make? How am I ever going to be a king if I don’t make any of my own decisions?”

“You think this is a kingly decision, do you?”

“Why not?” Maric asked acidly. “Suddenly you’re an expert on being a king?” Then he immediately regretted his words, holding up his hands. “Wait, I didn’t—”

“You’re going to need to make some hard decisions, Maric,” Loghain interrupted, his icy blue eyes narrowing. “Ones you’ve been avoiding. You have an enemy to defeat, and while I may not know much about being a king, I do know what it takes to win a fight. The question is, do you want to win or not?”

Maric said nothing, glaring at Loghain incredulously.

Loghain nodded slowly. “I see.” Part of him didn’t want to continue. He felt his heart constricting, and wondered how it was that he had come to this point. A few years ago he had been content to let his father lead the outlaws. His own decisions didn’t affect anyone outside of himself, and he preferred it that way. Then Maric brought him into this world, and into the rebel army. Now with Arl Rendorn dead, there was no one else; the rebels lived or died based on everything they did. If they didn’t make the right decisions now, the Orlesians won. The usurper won.

“Then there is something you must know,” he said reluctantly.

“Not about Katriel, I hope.”

“I had her followed.” Loghain got up from the table and paced to the far side of the room. He felt uneasy. “She didn’t go to Amaranthine, Maric. She went north. To Denerim.”

Maric’s eyes narrowed. “You had her followed?”

“Not easily. Maric, she went to the palace.”

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. Loghain could see the connections being formed, even as Maric shook his head in denial. “No, it can’t be true,” he protested. “What are you saying?”

“Think about it, Maric,” Loghain insisted. “Who could have destroyed us so completely at West Hill? After all the efforts we made to prevent the nobles here from getting word out, who could have arranged the trap so neatly? Who had your trust?”

“But . . .”

“Why did Arl Byron never mention such a skilled spy? He told us about others, Maric, and then he conveniently died, along with everyone in his command. Anyone who could have confirmed who she was.”

Maric held up a hand, incensed. “Maker’s breath, Loghain! We already went over this. Katriel saved our lives. If she’d wanted to kill me, don’t you think she could have done that?”

“Maybe that wasn’t her mission, Maric.” Loghain stepped toward Maric, keeping his eyes level and his gaze hard. “Maybe her mission was merely to get into your confidence. Which she has done. And now she went to Denerim, to the royal palace. Why? Why do you think she would do that?”

The question hung in the air. Maric reeled from Loghain, looking anguished and sickened all at once. Outside lightning flashed, followed shortly by a peal of thunder.

“You don’t know,” Maric protested. He was grasping at straws, now. “She could have a reason, she could . . . It doesn’t have to be what you think.”

“Then ask her,” Loghain said. “She’s on her way here now.”

Maric looked up at him, his eyes narrowed. The lightning flashed again outside the window, lighting Maric’s face and making plain his suffering. “On her way,” he repeated. “Then that’s why you . . .”

“I needed to know. And so did you.”

Maric shook his head in disbelief. He looked as if he were about to vomit. “I . . . what am I supposed to do with this? I can’t just—”

“You are a king,” Loghain said harshly. “You will need to make a decision.”

The two of them stood there in uncomfortable silence. Maric leaned against a wall, folded over with his hands on his knees as if preparing to become sick. Loghain looked at him from across the room, keeping himself cold and reminding himself that this was necessary.

The candle on the table guttered dangerously as the sound of rain increased outside. The winds were blowing in from the ocean, and bringing with them a freezing storm that would chill the entire coast before morning. The seasons were changing. By the end of the month, there would be snow again. Either the rebels acted before winter settled in or they would be able to do nothing until spring.

So they waited.

It did not take long. The door to the study creaked open, and Katriel quietly entered from the dark hallway outside, having maneuvered carefully past snoring soldiers. She was in traveling leathers and drenched from the rain, her blond curls clinging to her pale skin. Her long cloak dripped onto the floor.

Katriel paused, immediately becoming aware that something was amiss. The tension in the room was palpable. Her green eyes flicked from Loghain on one side of the room, glaring at her, and Maric on the other, standing up straight now and looking pale and ill. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, her expression deliberately neutral.

“My prince, are you well?” she asked. “I would have thought—” She glanced back at Loghain suspiciously. “—you might be asleep. It is very late.”

Loghain said nothing. Maric walked toward her, his emotions playing across his face. He was tortured by his torn loyalties; even Loghain could see that. Maric took Katriel by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. She seemed passive, almost resigned, and did not flinch away from him.

“You went to Denerim,” he stated. It was not a question.

She did not look away. “Then you know.”

“What do I know?”

Grief filled her, or was it shame? Tears streamed down Katriel’s wet face, and she would have pulled away if Maric did not hold her there. She sagged as if the strength had drained out of her, but still she did not look away from Maric’s fierce gaze. “I tried to tell you, my prince,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “I tried to tell you that I wasn’t who you thought I was, but you wouldn’t listen. . . .”

Maric’s mouth thinned as he clenched his jaw, and his grip on her small shoulders became visibly tighter. There was seething fury in his eyes. “I am listening now,” he said, each word enunciated carefully.

Her eyes swam red with tears. They said to him: Don’t make me do this, Maric. It doesn’t have to be this way. And he ignored them, answering with tears of his own. Loghain looked on gravely and did not interfere.

“I am a bard,” she said reluctantly. “A spy. From Orlais.” When Maric did not respond, she continued. “I was brought here by Severan, the King’s mage, to find you, to bring you to him, but—”

“And what of West Hill?” Maric asked, almost too quietly to hear.

Katriel shrank as he towered over her, crying pitifully, but still she did not look away from him. “It was me.” She nodded.

Maric let her go. He released her shoulders almost gingerly and stepped away, sick horror on his face as he looked at her. It was true. All of it was true. Maric turned from her and looked toward Loghain, twisted up with agony and tears freely streaming down his cheeks.

“You were right,” Maric muttered. “I have been a fool.”

“I’m so sorry,” Loghain told him gravely. He meant every word.

“No, you’re not,” Maric gasped. But there was no venom in his words. He turned away from Loghain and made to walk away, his gaze falling on Katriel again. She stood there, vulnerable and shaking, crying as his gaze went from horror to disgust, and then calmed to icy rage.

“Get out,” he spat at her.

She flinched at his words, but did not move. Her eyes were hollow and hopeless.

“Get out,” he growled, more forcefully. Slowly Maric drew his dragonbone longsword from its scabbard, the glowing runes overpowering the faint candlelight and filling the entire room with an icy blue tint. He held the deadly sword before him in an overt threat. His whole body shook with a seething rage.

Ignoring the sword between them, her anguished eyes fixed solely on Maric, Katriel began to slowly walk toward him. “You said you didn’t care who I was before, or what I had done.”

Maric went cold, his eyes narrowing as he backed away from her. “I trusted you, I . . . believed in you. I was willing to throw it all away.” His voice broke, and he gulped back a surge of grief-stricken tears. “And for what?”

Katriel nodded and continued to walk toward him. “If you believe nothing else, my prince,” she whispered calmly, “you must believe that I love you.”

“Must I?” He raised the sword sharply to bar her way. “You dare.” He set his jaw firmly, refusing to retreat any farther.

She stepped forward again, her eyes solemnly fixed upon him. Letting out a scream of blind rage, Maric rushed toward Katriel with his blade raised high. The runes pulsated as he halted in front of her, sword poised over his head. She didn’t flinch, didn’t retreat, didn’t attempt to stop his swing. She merely stared at him, tears coursing down her cheeks. He lowered the blade to his side, his knuckles white as his hands shook.

He couldn’t stand to look at her, but couldn’t look away.

Katriel closed the last distance between them to gently touch Maric’s face. She said nothing. His whole body began to shake violently. With a cry of anguish and rage he threw off her hand and suddenly ran her through. His sword barely made a sound as it cleanly passed through leather and then flesh. Katriel gasped, clutching at Maric’s shoulders as he embraced her, her blood gushing out over the sword’s hilt and his hand that held it.

Maric stared down at her, his hateful expression dissolving into disbelief and horror. The moment stood suspended and still, Maric exhaling in a burst as he realized what he had done.

Katriel gasped again, and this time bright blood rushed out of her mouth, spilling down over her chin. She looked at Maric with eyes wide, tears flowing freely, and she slowly collapsed as the strength ran out of her. Maric caught her, still not letting go of his sword.

He looked over to Loghain. “Help me! We have to help her!”

Loghain, however, remained where he was. His expression was grim as Maric and Katriel continued their slow descent to the floor, but he made no move to approach them. Maric’s expression of horror only grew as he realized Katriel was already dead, her lifeless eyes still staring into his.

He began to shake. Convulsively he let go of the longsword and scrambled away from her on the floor. Blood was already beginning to pool beneath her, and she folded forward like a limp doll. As her body covered the blade’s bright runes, the room sank into shadow.

Maric shook his head. He lifted his hands and saw that they were covered in blood, dark and black in the dim light, and he stared at them as if he could not quite comprehend what he had done.

The door shook as someone pounded on it. Several voices could be heard outside, and the muffled voice of a soldier asking if all was well could be heard.

“Everything is fine!” Loghain shouted. Not waiting for a response, he crossed the floor toward where Maric sat. He put a hand on Maric’s shoulder, and Maric looked up at him with wide, bleary eyes. “Stop,” he said. His tone was firm. “She betrayed you, Maric. She betrayed all of us. This is justice.”

“Justice,” Maric repeated hollowly.

Loghain nodded grimly. “Justice that a king must dispense, whether it pleases him to or not.” Maric looked away, but Loghain shook his shoulder roughly. “Maric! Think of the days to come. How much justice will you need to hand out, when you sit on that throne? The Orlesians have dug their fingers in deep, and you will need to pry them out!”

Maric looked dazed. He shook his head slowly. “You and Rowan both told me what she was, and I refused to listen. I should not be King. I am a fool.”

Loghain slapped Maric, hard.

The ringing sound of the blow hung in the air, and Maric stared at Loghain in shocked disbelief. Loghain crouched down, his face close to Maric’s and his eyes intensely ablaze. “There was a man,” he whispered in a bitter voice, “a commander among the Orlesians who sacked our farmhold. He told his men to take whatever they liked, and then laughed at our anger. He found it amusing.”

Maric looked about to speak, but Loghain held up a hand. “He said that we needed to be taught a lesson. They held us there, me and my father, and made us watch as he raped my mother.” He shuddered. “Her screams were . . . they are burned into my mind. My father raged like an animal, and they knocked him out. But I watched it all.”

Loghain’s voice became hoarse and he swallowed hard. “The commander killed her when he was done. Slit her throat and then told me that the next time we forgot our taxes it would be death for us all. When my father awoke he cried over her body, but it was worse when he saw me standing there. He left and was gone for three days. I didn’t know until he returned that he had followed after the Orlesians and had killed the commander in his sleep.”

“That was why we had to flee,” Loghain sighed. He closed his eyes for a long moment and Maric simply stared at him silently. “He was a wanted murderer. He thought he had failed her, failed me, but not for one moment did I ever think that what he did to that Orlesian bastard wasn’t justice.” He gestured to Katriel’s slumped corpse. “Tell me, Maric, that her treachery didn’t call out for blood.”

“You wanted this,” Maric realized, his voice quiet.

Loghain looked him in the eyes, unrepentant. “I wanted you to see the truth. You told me you wanted to win this war. This is how it must be. The alternative is to be done in by treachery just as your mother was.”

Maric looked at him reproachfully but said nothing. Absently he wiped his hands on the floor, and uneasily got to his feet. Loghain stood and watched him, but Maric only turned and stared helplessly at Katriel’s body. It remained slumped where it was, a great red stain on her back where the sword pierced her, and a pool of blackness around her.

He looked sickened. “I . . . I need to be alone.”

Maric stumbled to the door leading to his bedchamber and quietly went inside, shutting the door behind him. Loghain watched him go. Outside, lightning flashed again and lit up the darkness.

Rowan stood at her window, restlessly watching the lightning.

The patter of rain against the stone eased her nerves, but it couldn’t make her want to sleep. Her muscles ached from the days of marching and fighting, and while her wounds were healing nicely, they itched under their bandages and threatened to drive her mad. She assumed that Wilhelm would want to see to her injuries personally at some point, but she almost wished he wouldn’t. Some scars are deserved.

When the knock came at her door, she didn’t respond at first. The chill wind blew in through the open window and tugged at her nightgown, and the lightning flashed again. She felt the rumble of thunder that followed in her chest, and for just a moment it filled up the emptiness. It felt good. It felt right.

The door opened, hesitantly at first, and then he walked in. She didn’t need to ask who it was. Taking a deep breath, she turned and watched Loghain as he closed the door behind him. His grim expression said a lot.

“You told him,” she said.

He nodded. “I did.”

“And? What did he say? What did she say?”

Loghain seemed uncertain, pausing for a moment to choose his words carefully. She didn’t particularly care for that idea and arched a severe brow at him, prompting him to hold up a hand. “Katriel is dead,” was all he said.

“What!” Rowan’s eyes widened in shock. “She didn’t return? Did the usurper—?”

“Maric killed her.”

Rowan stopped short, stunned. She stared at Loghain and he stared back at her, his icy blue eyes unswerving. Certain things began to fall into place, and her heart went cold. “You told Maric everything, didn’t you?” When he didn’t respond, she marched up toward him angrily. “You told him that Severan has put out a price on her head now, that she must have—”

“It doesn’t change anything,” he stated firmly.

She shook her head in disbelief. Loghain was all ice and sharp corners now, staring at her like a man whom she didn’t even know. She tried to imagine what must have happened, what Maric must have done. She couldn’t picture it. “Loghain,” she could barely get the words out, “what if she really loved him? All this time we thought she was just using him, we thought she could hurt him—what if we were wrong?”

“We weren’t wrong.” Loghain’s look was intense, and he set his jaw stubbornly. “She did hurt him. We thought she was a spy and we were right. We thought that she had been responsible for West Hill and we were right.”

Rowan took a step back from him, horrified. “She saved his life! She saved our lives! Maric loved her! How could you do this to him?” Then she realized the part she had played in this. It was her scouts who had spotted Katriel sneaking away. She had conspired with Loghain to have her followed, had kept the information from Maric to prove that her suspicions were correct, and they had been. But Katriel had surprised her, too. Even so, she had let Loghain go to confront Maric alone. Despite everything that had happened, the thought that Maric might forgive her, that Maric might choose her . . .

“How could I do this to him?” she breathed, sickened.

Loghain strode toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging in. “It is done,” he snapped. He stared down at her, his face steel, and for a moment she was reminded of the moment at West Hill. She had rushed to him to make the decision she could not, and he had made it. They had abandoned their men and run to do what they felt they had to.

“Rowan,” he began, his voice filled with anguish, but then he banished it completely. “It is done, and it can go one of two ways now,” he stated. “Either Maric wallows in self-pity and is no use to anybody or he realizes that being a king and being a man are not always the same thing.”

“And why do you come to me, then? It’s done, as you said.”

“I cannot reach him now,” he said evenly.

It took a moment for her to realize what he was suggesting. “But I can,” she finished for him. She stepped away from Loghain, her eyes narrowing at him, and he let her go.

“You are still his Queen.” His voice could not hide the ache when he said the words, try though he might to hide it.

Tears came unbidden to her eyes. Grimacing, she folded her arms and stared challengingly at Loghain. “And if I do not wish to be his Queen?”

“Then be Ferelden’s Queen.

She hated those eyes that bored into her relentlessly. She hated his arrogance, that he assumed he knew what it meant to be a king and what it meant to be a man, as if he knew anything of either. She hated his strength, the strength in those hands that had held her in utter darkness beneath the earth.

And most of all she hated the fact that he was right.

Rowan rushed at Loghain to pound her fist angrily into his chest, but he grabbed her wrist. She tried to punch him with her other hand and he grabbed that, too, and then she struggled with him and burst into furious tears. He just held her wrists, stoic and unmoving.

She never cried. She hated crying. She had cried once when her mother had died. She had cried a second time when her two younger brothers had been shipped off to the Free Marches to be kept safe from the war. Both times her father had stared at her, so mortified by her tears and so clearly incapable of assuaging her grief, she had sworn that she would never cry again. She would be strong for her father, instead.

She had also cried once in the shadows of the Deep Roads, she remembered. And it had been Loghain who had comforted her. Rowan stopped struggling and she rested her forehead on Loghain’s chest, her body racked with sobs. Then she looked up at him and saw that he was crying, too. They drew together, about to kiss . . .

. . . and she pulled away from him. He regretfully let her hands go, his gaze searching for hers, but she remained resolved. It was done. Rowan turned away from Loghain and felt the chill wind blowing in through the window keenly. She waited for the thunder, but it didn’t come. Somehow it seemed as if the storm should wash everything away. Wash it all away and start over.

“He’s waiting for you,” Loghain said behind her.

Rowan nodded. “Yes.”

She found Maric in his bedchambers, seated on the edge of his bed. Neither the room nor the bed was truly his, all appropriated from its former Orlesian owner, and thus Maric had never been quite comfortable occupying it. He seemed even less comfortable now, as if shrinking in on himself could somehow remove him further from his surroundings.

The window was shuttered and closed up tight, leaving the air still. A lone lantern sat by the bed and threatened to extinguish as it used up the very last of its oil. Maric slouched and stared off into space, barely acknowledging Rowan when she sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. The silence in the room was deafening.

It took a while for Maric to realize that she was there. When he turned to her, his eyes were sunken with grief. “It’s just as the witch said it would be,” he blurted out. “I thought she was just making no sense, but . . .”

“What witch?” Rowan asked, confused.

He barely heard her, looking off into the shadows again. “You will hurt the ones you love the most,” he quoted, “and become what you hate in order to save what you love.”

Rowan reached up with a hand and brushed his cheek, and he looked back at her again without really seeing her. “Those are just words, Maric,” she said gently.

“There’s more. Much more.”

“It doesn’t matter. Katriel loved you. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

He seemed pained. He closed his eyes, reaching up to cover her hand on his cheek with his own, and it appeared to bring him comfort. There was a time she would have dreamed of this moment. Once she had thought of nothing but running her hands through his beautiful blond hair. Once it had meant everything to her to prove to him that she was what he wanted.

“I don’t know that she loved me at all,” he muttered. “I don’t know anything.”

“I think she did.” She pulled her hand away from his. “We think she went to Denerim to cut ties with Severan, Maric. Whatever it was she was supposed to do, I think she changed her mind.”

He chewed on that idea. “It doesn’t change anything,” he finally said.

“No. It doesn’t.”

Maric looked deep into her eyes. He was so full of pain, she could barely stand it. “She tried to tell me,” he confessed, “and I didn’t listen. I told her I didn’t care what she’d done, but I was a fool. I’ve no business being on that throne.”

“Oh, Maric,” she sighed. “You are a good man. A trusting man.”

“And look where it’s gotten me.”

“Look, indeed.” She summoned a wan smile. “Your people adore you. The men in this army would lay down their lives for you. My father loved you. Loghain—” She stopped short and struggled to continue. “—all of them believe in you, Maric. For good reason.”

“Do you still believe in me?”

“I never stopped,” she said with absolute sincerity. “Never. You’ve come so far. Your mother would be so proud. But you can’t always be a good man, Maric. Your people need more than that.”

Maric seemed hurt by her words, though he said nothing. He hung his head low, weary and exhausted. “I don’t know if I can give it to them,” he breathed. Then he began to cry, his face racked by grief. “I killed Katriel. I put a sword through her. What kind of man does that?”

She wrapped her arms around him, patting his hair and whispering that everything would be fine. Maric cried into her chest, the desperate sobs of a broken man. It was a sound that alarmed her and filled her with incredible sorrow.

And then the lantern gave up at long last, and the room was blanketed in darkness. She continued to hold him, and after a time he quieted and they held each other in the shadows. Rowan lent him her strength, what little of it she had to give. He needed it. Perhaps this was what queens did. Perhaps they held their kings in the darkness deep within their castles and allowed them that moment of weakness they could never show to anyone else. Perhaps they gave strength to their kings because everyone else only took it from them.

Loghain was right. Damn him.

In the hushed darkness, Rowan leaned down and kissed Maric on the lips. He embraced her readily, eager for her forgiveness . . . and she gave it. He seemed so uncertain and hesitant, and that made it easier. His warmth and gentleness made her cry, but she couldn’t let him see that. Tonight, for him, she was strong. Tonight she embraced the role that she had been born for, and while it was like nothing she had ever thought it would be, it was instead the way it had to be.