My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  And after Adamant, after she displayed her true colors, the Inquisitor was unlikely to have anything to do with her. She was impressed the Commander wasn't sent to shoo her out of Skyhold after their meeting. Perhaps one of them convinced the Inquisitor she could still be useful, and then they'd cut her loose after the Warden army was defeated, or even keep her around for Corypheus. Either way, her life was nothing but a blank slate after and that terrified her.

  Throwing on a fake smile, Lana patted Cullen's hand. "I will think upon it," she promised. "For now, I should find a warm mug of tea. It'll help with my throat."

  "I can brew one up in my office," Cullen grinned, rising off the bench. Their hands still clasped, he helped her to rise, taking most of her weight. One day this was all going to bite her in the ass, but for now, there was now.

  Chapter Ninteen

  The Calling

  To Lana's surprise, the Inquisitor invited her to sit in on their meetings to plan Adamant's invasion. Over the course of a few days, she shared what she knew of the fortress, the fighting techniques of wardens, and anything else she thought would be helpful. The first time her stomach churned with the guilt still bubbling inside, but the elf only nodded appropriately and asked for the occasional clarification. Otherwise, he drew no attention to the mess she landed them all in. It seemed as if the best way for her to get on his good side was to colossally fuck up. Then again, perhaps it reminded him that she was far from this lauded hero out of legend. She was making it up as best as he, and often stumbled along the way.

  When not providing research to the advisers, she enjoyed her free time with the commander. At first she passed it off as teaching his people how to defend from certain warden mage attacks most wouldn't see outside the deep roads. And then to spend a few hours after that alone together in his loft discussing techniques wasn't beyond the pale. It wasn't until she was trying to think of an excuse to weasel out of Hawke's bar crawl (which involved crawling to every table in the lone tavern and having to take a shot), that Lana realized she had no reason to lie. Admitting she intended to bed Cullen got her a thumbs up before Hawke ran out the door herself. Even while preparing for war, life seemed gentler than she thought possible, as long as she ignored the screams from her throat waking her in the middle of the night or the whispers gaining traction in the back of her mind.

  Day five of preparing and they were almost ready to move on Adamant. Josephine had sent letters to every ally the Inquisitor built up in his time, and Leliana planted a few choice spies near the warden ranks thanks to Lana's intel.

  "How many are we looking at inside?" the Inquisitor asked, his palms splayed out across the map. Parchment covered every inch, most written in a code that was then translated below in Leliana's neat hand.

  "They can't get me an exact number," the Spymaster answered. She lifted up her wine glass and took a sip, rattling the other's empty glasses. The day grew long, sunlight fracturing through the orange leaves outside the window. Hours were lost scrutinizing the translated reports, everyone on edge as their time to march grew closer.

  "It is a wonder you got anyone in at all," the Inquisitor spoke, then he turned to Lana.

  She shrugged, "Wardens have always relied upon support outside our ranks. If everyone who worked for us risked the joining we'd be broken before we began." Lana fiddled with the scarf knotted around her neck. A loan from Leliana, it was to hide away the bruises and keep her from any unwanted questions. It also made her feel like a right pillock for even needing it, but the sentiment was kind.

  "How much more can they get to us?" Cullen asked. He stood across from her, his eyes hunting across the map as if he could spot Corypheus hiding away in thedas. But on occasion he'd break from his duty and softly smile at her. Even the spine of steel could melt.

  "That I cannot say," Leliana answered. "We get at best one raven from each of them. Any more and they risk revealing themselves."

  Lana shook her head and swiped through the piles of vellum. "They won't get near Clarel regardless. Anyone new's put through..."

  "A gauntlet of trials?" Josephine asked, her punctuated eyes darting to their warden.

  "The whipping kind, or the tickle and fun one? Unless you like both, I guess," Hawke spoke up. No one questioned why the Champion was there. Even though she had little to add to the conversations, she was welcome. Distracting, but in that entertaining Hawke way.

  "No," Lana sighed, massaging her temples, "I was going to say that there's a hierarchy. Reaching to the top requires years of service, a devotion that's rewarded with more trust. Which also means you're privy to more warden secrets."

  "Such as..." the Inquisitor began.

  Lana shrugged, "The void if I know. When I began the only warden secrets I knew involved darkspawn blood, how to kill an archdemon, and an insatiable hunger at the strangest of times. After Loghain destroyed the Wardens in Ferelden, what secrets or documents they had vanished either into fires or were sold off for his war. Whatever Clarel's sitting on could be...I wish I knew more."

  "Understood," the Inquisitor said curtly, but his steel eyes sympathized for a moment. He accepted her answer for what it was, the truth.

  Josephine jotted a few lines down, then she paused her quill. "How do you kill an archdemon anyway?"

  Blinking rapidly from the question, Lana shuffled the parchment back into a random order. It was Hawke who spoke up. "With a big sword!" Every eye in the room spun to her and a collective groan broke. "With two swords? Three? Am I getting close?"

  Blaring as if beyond Skyhold, a noise rattled against the walls, but it was just on the cusp of hearing. Every battle hardened person twisted their head around trying to make sense of it, but it was the diplomat who spoke up, "Was that a horn?"

  As if in response to Josephine's question, the door to the war room flew open and a dwarven soldier of the Inquisition stepped inside. A few 'begging your pardons' and 'please forgive me's' slipped from her mouth when a man stepped in behind her. He blanched at the faux pas of breaking into a meeting and tried to slip away, but then those sparkling blue eyes caught sight of Lana.

  "Teagan!" she cried. Age came for him leaving wear lines down his cheeks and a white to almost clear streak in his red hair, but he lit up from her smile, the man she met in Redcliffe's chantry returning. With eyes upon her, he stepped around the dwarf. Without any pretense, Lana clapped her arms around him for a friendly hug.

  "My lady," he responded, that warm grin of his lighting his cheeks as he patted her on the back.

  "You are the only one I let get away with that, you know," Lana snickered, slipping away from the hug. "Maker's breath, how are you? Redcliffe, I heard about..."

  "Ah," he gritted his teeth and gazed down. "Yes, the mage situation. Things are returning to normal in the village. Murdock yet asks of you." Lana shook her head at the mayor's mention. The last time they met he proceeded to drink the tiny mage under the table, then later insisted she in fact won despite her raging headache and empty stomach. "And," Teagan glanced over at the Inquisitor, "we are grateful for your assistance in the matter, even if..."

  "We understand, Arl Teagan," the Inquisitor spoke tipping his head.

  Lana rolled her shoulders from the politics vibrating in the air. It was one thing to play the "I am so thankful for you daring to deign me attention" game, but this was Teagan. If there was any Arl or Bann in thedas she could speak candidly with, it was him. Catching his attention, she asked the question everyone wanted to pose, "What brings you here?"

  The smile in his eyes evaporated as he turned to Lana, guilt stretching back his cheeks. She shook her head, struggling to understand how Teagen could possibly harm her when she felt him. Most wardens registered as little more than a lighter version of darkspawn that awakened the taint in her blood. Maybe it was the fact they were the only two wardens for over a year, or because she took in the taint when he was around, but she knew that twinge prickling up her neck hair. Knew it more intimately than the back of her hand.r />
  Before she could speak a word, the door opened wider behind Teagan and the last person she ever wanted to see stepped back into her life. "Hey, sorry about the horn. New guy, he's really excited about blowing it every chance he has. Might have spooked a few of those giant nug things you have. Where did you get 'em, anyway? Catalog?" Alistair. A year did little to change him. Perhaps a bit more of life clung to the side of his eyes and around his midsection, but he still sparkled with an orneriness she once found charming. Lana slid backwards away from him, a sneer gnarling up her face.

  "King Alistair!" Josephine shrieked. Every plan she had for the day was thrown completely out the window by this surprise. The diplomat rounded through her records, as if she could find any mention of his visit. But he was unaware of the drama he just caused her -- either didn't care or most likely was beyond it. His amused eyes dipped through the crowd.

  Leliana bowed her head, the Inquisitor did the same. Hawke snickered and waved madly as if he couldn't see her towering in the back. Only Cullen saluted, his fist colliding into his chest, "Your highness." Lana almost jumped from how loud his words rang out. She didn't realize she'd nearly backed into him to try and escape.

  "You can call me Alistair. Please. Highness sounds like I should be walking around on stilts. Which I did try once despite everyone insisting I'd break something. But the stables are all fixed now." Alistair ruffled up his hair while Teagan rolled his eyes. It seemed the king wasn't exaggerating.

  "My...uh, King, or," Josephine struggled with a way to obey his wishes while also maintaining the respect he was nobly due. "I did not have any mention of your arrival and I wonder if--"

  "What are you doing here?!" Lana spat, the knot upon her tongue falling free. Her body tightened like a drawn string about to loose a rain of arrows upon him.

  He grinned wide, but she knew that false smile, the one he slapped on when someone bit deep into him. A massive grin so he wouldn't let on to the injury. "It's a funny thing. See, my uncle here. That'd be Teagan, for those who don't know him. He gets a letter from the Inquisition asking for some trebuchets and anything else we can lend to the cause. All well in good, I know how that whole building an army from nothing goes. But then down at the bottom there's a note mentioning how you have the great and mighty Hero of Ferelden serving on your side. And I found myself wondering what is it that's got the Inquisition snapping up not just the free mages but our own home grown one as well."

  Crossing her arms across her chest, Lana instinctively cracked into the fade, almost casting a barrier around herself. Cullen's fingers glancing across her back broke the spell, but she continued to glower at the king waving this letter around as proof he belonged here. The Inquisitor read through it, his fingernail digging against the official wax seal. "Who would have sent this?"

  "I am afraid it was me," Josephine admitted, her eyes cast down but confusion knotting up her brow.

  "Oh Josie," Leliana sighed.

  "It seemed prudent. If we wished Ferelden's investment then they should be aware their own was working with us for a common goal. What? What have I missed?" she jabbed at the air with her quill, demanding an answer to a misstep she didn't understand. Leliana leaned towards her and whispered in her ear. Despite trying to maintain the secrecy, everyone in the room had to know what was up from the way the Spymaster pointed first at Lana, then the king.

  After Leliana slipped away, Josephine panicked, her fingers rifling through her papers hoping she could find an answer to this mess stashed away inside. "Oh dear, Andraste's... I didn't realize. This is..."

  Lana stepped away from them all, her vision winnowing down to a tunnel until all she could see was the man who broke her. Despite towering above her, Alistair shrank from her glare and he wouldn't meet her eyes. "You shouldn't be here," she spat at him.

  "I'd say that's for me to decide," he came back with, and Lana blinked from the teeth.

  "Leave us," she ordered. Then she groaned realizing her mistake. Sheepishly turning back to the real power, she added a "please."

  The Inquisitor's eyes sliced through her, but he only tipped his head and accepted her word. "Very well." Josephine continued to panic, attempting to fix her mistake any way possible, but the Inquisitor showed her a mercy, "How about you guide Arl Teagan around, madam ambassador? I believe your nephew, your other nephew, is studying in the library at the moment."

  "Yes, it would be wonderful to see Conner again," Teagan said. Josephine gestured away from the rising tension snapping in the air out the door. Before Teagan followed, he shot a solitary pitying glance in Lana's direction. She nearly missed it, the anger burning away her peripheral vision. Slowly the others filtered out. Cullen paused for only a moment, his eyes trying to ask Lana a question, but she was too busy glaring at the intruder to respond. Neither Lana nor Alistair moved an inch nor spoke a word until the door shut behind them.

  Even still, she waited, watching him pick at his fingers and shrug under the padded splint mail. Why he was in that and not the official Ferelden armor was... And why was she even wondering?

  "Why are you here?" she finally spoke, the venom softer but her bite no less powerful.

  Alistair's head whipped up at her, a guilt in his eye, "I thought we already went over that. Letter from your...was she Antivan? Maker, don't tell me she's a crow too."

  Lana crossed her arms deeper across her chest and glowered.

  "Fine," he sighed, "I was worried. A year, no word, no letters, not even an assassin or two so I know you care. Nothing, you just up and vanish. So do all the other wardens in the Vigil leaving me with a whole lot of fun questions at court to answer. I thought you were...working through some things."

  Lana snorted at the insinuation in his voice, as if he played no part in those things.

  "But when even Leliana had no idea where you were I got concerned. Scared. Tried to have people look into it, though that went nowhere. Then you pop up here with this little heretical group stowing away in the mountains. I had to know if you were okay," his head swung down and he knocked his hands together in a nervous energy.

  "For fuck's sake, Alistair. What gives you the right to care?"

  He shrugged, "You are technically my citizen."

  "I am a grey warden, which makes me no one's citizen. As you damn well know," she hissed while kneading her fingers against her forehead. His downtrodden eyes whimpered against a dampened frown, the overall effect making her wish to slap it all off him. "Do not act as if I am punishing you. It was your choice. It's always been your choice, never mine."

  "Lanny," he sighed, finally facing her down. He bore the same eyes after they found the missing king. Not the romanticized version in the fade, but the shattered, gaunt, withered body drained of nearly all life. Their last hope snatched away before they even began. The raw pain broken inside of Alistair was almost enough to catch her. "I know it went badly. I, as you eloquently put it, 'fucked up the only good thing in my life.'"

  She rolled her eyes at her hubris. In her defense she'd been beyond reproach at the time, nearly spitting fire in anger. Still, it wasn't the truth. He had much to return to: a throne, a family. All she had was an empty Keep and a broken future.

  "I'm not here for...that," Alistair continued. "To try and, Andraste, you more than balled me out. I had pirates, honest to the Maker pirates, patting me on the back and offering a tattooed shoulder to cry on. You scared them that badly."

  "Get to the point, Alistair," she sighed, wishing she didn't have to be here anymore.

  "I wanna know why you're going to attack wardens. No political bullshit, no prancing around it with frilly ribbons and big words. Just the truth."

  Lana threw down her shoulders and glared into his face. "Because they're creating a demon army."

  "Shit. Really?" His eyes widened in shock. The man who still trusted the wardens, viewed them as the good guys, whipped his head around in disbelief. She sneered but nodded her head. "Why?"

  Tapping her head, Lana sighed, "I ass
ume you hear it as well." He grimaced, his fingers gripping so tight together his knuckles whitened from the strain. "So is every single warden in Orlais, Ferelden, perhaps all of thedas for all I know. It's spooked them into thinking they're all going to die. And Clarel has dreams of ending all the blights before that. She intends to play with blood magic to do it, to create a demon army to destroy the Old Gods."

  That drew a sneer to his face. He may have never fully taken the vows, but a thread of the templar yet remained inside. Alistair shook his head from the mention of blood magic. "Why is slitting the throat, full malifecarum always the first bar everyone grabs for? What happened to diplomacy? Or baring that, dropping a great big rock on their heads?"

  Lana twisted away from him, her back banging against the war table. It shuddered from her and the little fort placed to mark Denerim tipped over. She reached to put it back up, but paused. She'd done enough already for it, for them, for him. "You need to leave," she whispered. He yanked his hands from his eyes and shook his head, some smartass remark building in his head. Lana interceded, her voice returning to the sweet worry of old, the one she used on him before he broke her heart. "For the Maker's sake, Alistair. Whatever Corypheus, or his tevinter blood mage is doing, the taint is...get as far away from it as you can. Please."

  "And what about you?" Alistair jabbed a finger in the air like he held his sword in his hand.

  "What about me?"

  "You think I'm going to let you remain in his path?"

  Lana reared back. "Let? You'd let me?!"

  "Poor choice of words, but you know what I mean. I..."

  "No," she snapped her head in a vehement disagreement, "No, I don't know what you mean. I don't know why you think you'd have any standing to walk in here and pull me away from what little I have left in this world. Again!"