My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  His jaw twitched back and forth while he chewed through her rant, choking on her damning words. It was one thing to have strangers call him on his faults, but when she did it every barb dug deep into his flesh. "You think I'm happy about this? About any of this? For Andraste's sake, I wanted to...I hoped to."

  "I know what you hoped to do, Alistair. To free yourself of any duty, any requirements placed upon your head. You wanted to run as far from leadership as you could get!" Just like you were doing, she damned herself in her head. The similarity only fueled her anger, reminding her of everything she gave up in her life for him, for his whims. Damn her too! "You...we could have worked together, but no, no it all has to be about you, about your noble sacrifice for someone's cause. I never get any fucking say in it, like I'm, I don't matter. To you, to anyone. I'm just supposed to be happy you even glanced my way!"

  "What am I supposed to do, Lanny?" his eyes snapped up from his sulk, anger finally threading away his pout. "What can I do? Tell me. You're good at that. You love telling people what to do, what to think, what to notice, what to eat."

  She growled deep into her chest, her shoulders bunching as she burrowed her head deeper into her neck. "You begged me to come along, drug me from the wardens and offered me...gave me a...let me even think that I. I could have-- Ahh!" Lana tipped her head back and screamed, her voice cracking through the muggy Seheron air as she let eight years of pain thunder through her. Eight years of watching from the sidelines as he flirted with the noble ladies auditioning to be his wife or mistress. Eight years of him smiling serenely at her, telling her she was the most amazing woman he knew, and then taking another mage to his bed. Eight years of him giving her hope that maybe, maybe she'd have a chance again.

  No more. A cruel laugh gurgled in her throat, and she faced her shoes, snickering at the idiocy of it all. Surrounded by pirates on one side, the other by qunari, all while she cursed at the king of Ferelden. That's what her life led to. From a little girl raised on a farm in the Free Marches, cursed with magic and bundled off to a circle, to whatever demented torture this was. Returning to the circles sounded better with every passing day and even that was no longer an option because of, because she dared to trust someone she never should have.

  "Wh...?" Alistair looked spooked, as if he expected her head to snap up and find she'd become possessed by a demon. "What's funny?"

  Her soft chuckle grew into a greater laugh, strangling her smoke burned vocal chords as tears traced a path through her soot stained cheeks. "You almost had me, almost convinced me that it was, that you'd changed. I foolishly thought, believed even if Maric was gone you'd-you'd," Lana's laugh died and her lips trembled. She swiped the heels of her palms across her eyes to blot away the tears. "Keep me. But of course not, why would it change? Eight years, eight Maker damned years and it's still the same all over again. Why is it so easy for you to give me up? What do I keep doing to make me worthless?"

  "Lanny, I..."

  "I know, you're sorry, as if that'll fix everything. Slap a sorry poultice on it, that'll cure a broken heart a treat," she screeched through the pain dropping on her chest and raising her voice higher as the emotion built up. It throbbed inside her brain, heartache threatening to burst from her ears.

  Alistair shook his head, and mumbled, "I was going to say I love you."

  "I don't care," Lana cut back with, causing the king to whip his head up. He blinked rapidly, and for the first time she saw the start of tears burning in his eyes. It didn't happen the entire time she yelled at him, nor the first time he broke her heart, but somehow her truth was enough to shake a few free. "What you do and do not love has no bearing upon my life any longer, king of Ferelden. You had a chance, two chances, and you-you ruined the only fucking good thing in your life."

  She expected him to scoff at that, to come back angrier against it, but Alistair crumbled - whatever backbone he bore slipping away. His eyes drooped downwards, the browns watering to a simpering, pathetic turn. He whispered to the ground, "Tell me what you want, please. I'll do it. I'll always do it."

  Lana spun around and snatched up her staff - the only constant companion she had in this world, then turned back to face him. Raising her voice loud enough so all the interlopers with straining ears could hear, she told him the truth, "Stay out of my life. It means so little to you, it should be easy to accomplish." Smoothing down her robes, she turned away from him for what she thought would be the last time. Alistair didn't speak up, didn't try to pull her back or beg for more forgiveness. The only hint that he even heard her was a solitary sob floating on the sea winds, and then silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Wake Up

  9:44 Anderfels

  The templar should have hit him - smashed apart his jaw, knocked his brains against the floor and put him out of his misery. Damn the fade, damn it and all those damn demons and their damn deamony damning tricks! Alistair lurked at the back of the group, their saucy Qunari leading the pack as if she already knew where to go, while Cullen... Maker, how was he still going? How did he manage to yank himself out of that razor wire trap and not even show a glint of pain across his face? He mooned more over taking the lyrium than whatever the fade did to him.

  Alistair gripped tighter to his stomach, trying to pry apart the splint mail with his fingernails as if that would make him feel better. Somehow remove not just the image of Lanny and their children from his brain, but the serenity it filled in his heart. He never realized how much he wanted that until it was gone. But that wasn't a possibility, had never been one, would never be. Why not wish for edible candy clouds and the ability to fly while you're at it, Alistair? It's far more likely you'll sprout wings.

  The others eyed up the walls as they continued to climb higher into the fortress. By a small miracle of the Maker, the water finally receded, leaving their ankles sopping but free to dry in the dead air. It stank the further they continued, like dried skin stretched in preparation for the tanner with chunks of gristle still attached, and the sharp bite of magic. Every time he went to lick his teeth, he feared it would spark back at him from the growing hum in the air. The templar had to feel it, especially with his own veins glowing bright, but Cullen didn't respond. He'd barely said a word since dissolving the wards, that sword's edge focus back. It unnerved Alistair how quickly the templar swung from a bubbling panic to honed certainty with a single drink. He'd only brought the one vial as a half hearted joke anyway, as if the Anderfels wouldn't use proper coin for trade. Now he regretted not bringing more, worried how the templar would react when his ration wore off.

  Walking under a half broken archway, Alistair screwed his eyes up from a strange green light permeating the room. He blinked a few more times, trying to chase away the white dots across his vision when the truth of the room came into focus. It was grand by tunnel standards, with massive columns propping up a stone dome undulating green energy across it. No, not a dome, there was a big metal ball hanging off the ceiling, dented as if the sculptor couldn't be bothered to smooth it out. That was weird. "Have you ever...?" Alistair began, breaking his silence as he walked towards the others.

  Cullen stood deeper in the room, his body rigid as he gazed outward at the wall. With his eyes on the giant hanging ball, Alistair didn't see what fascinated Cullen until he ran into the man's shoulder. The templar whipped back, pure focus across his face, and Alistair's eyes slid away from the slightly scary man to the alcoves dug three feet deep into the walls. It wasn't the multitude of them that startled him, nor the green barrier slapped across each one hissing in magic. No, what nearly sent him scampering out the door was the fact every single one was filled with a dead body. A good thirty bodies circled the room, their skin stretched taut against prodding bones, lips receded away from teeth revealing white gums. Their eyes were shut tight, for which he was grateful. He didn't want to stare into the depthless void of rotted away eyeballs inside those mummified skulls.

  Placing a hand against the wall, Alistair leane
d closer to the barrier trying to understand who and what this once was. Human, probably, though the ears were shriveled mushrooms on the side of the head. The clothing was the same across every alcove, worn and faded robes without a stitch of any ornamentation. They all looked like monks; ordinary, mummified monks resting almost upright behind the most powerful magic he'd ever tasted. While interesting, this wasn't getting them any closer to Lanny. He began to turn away, when the mummy's paper wasp-nest chest rattled.

  "Merciful Andraste!" Alistair shrieked, leaping back, "They're alive!"

  "Don't be..." Cullen began, then he caught another body heaving the dust from its leathered skin as it too took in a breath. "Holy Maker, what is this?"

  "That's what I was gonna shriek about," Alistair continued.

  "How can they be alive? They, this is..." the templar looked freaked, beyond terrified as he whipped his head around at the other mummies that weren't quite dead. The whites of his eyes glowed in the haunting green light as he glared into each alcove, scrounging through the bent and twisted faces.

  Alistair shrugged, "You did sense blood magic, and this isn't beyond the pale for them. But..." Why was it bothering the templar? He'd had to have seen this kind of thing before, perhaps worse in Kirkwall and... "Shit. Oh, shitting shit. Where's Lanny?!" He joined in the hunt through the faces, trying to fight down the panic clawing up his throat. No, no, not after all this, after the heartache, the jawache, the miles, the long nights, they were not going to find her turned into one of those- one of those... Maker, no.

  "The phylactery," Alistair gestured to Cullen, but the man's broken eyes widened and he shook his head.

  "It's gone dark again. I can't get a sense any longer. I, I don't know if, if...what if we're too late?" The taut string he'd been running on snapped and Cullen dropped to his knees, a groan cracking through his lips. Whatever wall he built for himself after the fade, the fight, maybe even from the day he set out must have crumbled, dragging the man with. Honor tried to nudge her head against him, but the man was beyond her, beyond reaching as he crashed deep into the empty void.

  No! Alistair stomped his foot like a child; he refused to give up. Even if he had to scour every desiccated face buried behind thick green glass he was going to find Lanny. Digging his fingers into his forehead, Alistair struggled to think, to find an answer, when he heard it gnawing at the back of his head. The song that'd been barely a tickle before was growing stronger, knocking from the base of his skull up through his teeth because... Oh, Maker.

  "These are wardens," he moaned. And every one of them was still tied to the archdemon, to the calling, all of them knotted together in... "Of course!" he slapped himself in the forehead for being an idiot. Alistair dropped a hand to the fallen templar. At first, he batted it away, wanting to wallow in his misery, but Alistair wasn't about to give up. "Come on, I know how we can find her."

  "How?" Cullen staggered to his feet, not accepting the hand offered to him.

  Alistair tapped his head, "I'm gonna follow my nose." Like all grey wardens, he could kinda tell the difference between wardens and darkspawn - the former a gentle symphony in the distance, the latter like climbing inside the bass drum. He couldn't really tell the variances to associate between different wardens, all save one. "Not here," he barely paid attention to the surroundings as he zipped through a doorway into another room similarly stuffed with the dried out husks of wardens.

  Cullen groaned at more of the same, even Aqun sighed in consternation, while Alistair waved his hand around, listening with his mind. "No, not here either. This way..." He could hear it -- it wasn't loud, not the way it should be, but it sang to him, through him, every part of him knew it. Running past another two chambers also circled with the preserved mummies, Alistair chased after what he heard in his heart. With each step the singing grew louder through his soul, driving him further and further towards it, until they stepped into the largest chamber of them all.

  While the others were impressive -- your salons, or foyers, or vestibules -- this was where the real shit happened. It was the grand ballroom to the quaint drawing rooms of before. No giant metal balls hung from the ceiling, but a griffin statue stood proud in the middle of all - its wings extended as if it turned to stone mid-flight. Shit, given what ancient magisters were capable of, perhaps that's what happened and it had once been a real griffin. The others gawped at the grandeur of another time pristinely preserved away from grave robbers, while Alistair pried apart his forehead, his lips tasting the song. Spinning on his heels, he raced towards a single alcove directly across from the griffin statue.

  He didn't tell Cullen what he felt in his gut, but the templar kept close to him, both men coming to a dead standstill at the end of their quest -- Lanny resting peacefully upon the standing altar. She wasn't a mummy, though her cheeks were sucked in more than he remembered, her hair dull and listless, her body fragile under thick robes, tattered and filthy with black mud. If they'd taken any longer there may have been nothing to find.

  "Maker, blessed Maker, I..." Cullen stumbled for words, his hands skimming across the impenetrable barrier.

  "She doesn't look good," the words slipped from Alistair's mouth. He didn't want to say them, didn't want to think them, but it was the truth - Lanny looked near death. The templar's ragged eyes turned to him, bloodshot around the edges as if he'd popped a vessel while holding every tear at bay. "What do we do now?"

  Bowing his head, Cullen placed both hands against the barrier. His body snapped rigid as he touched it, waves of dispelling emanating off him, but that damn green barrier stayed in place. It didn't even wobble from his attempt, and the templar's power was so great it nearly knocked Alistair backwards. Cullen's eyes opened for a moment and he softened from the view of Lanny asleep on the reclined altar like in those old fairytales. Gritting his teeth, the templar tried again, pouring more of his power and the lyrium into his spell.

  "I don't think that's going to..." Alistair tried, waves of nausea washing over him. Andraste's dimpled buttcheeks, whatever he was doing was having an affect on him as well, but not doing a damn thing against the barrier. "Something's not right," Alistair mused, sliding back. "Something we're missing." There were the big glowing balls, which was weird, and could be causing the barriers, but then why weren't any in here? The room was blank save the griffin statue to remind everyone it was full of wardens; stupid, not-dead wardens.

  "Do you have any ideas...?" Alistair turned to ask their qunari guide. She'd been quiet, standing stock still as her eyes hunted across the undead wardens, then trailed along the ceiling, as if she knew what to look for. It wasn't her interest in wainscoting that caught Alistair, but the way her hands folded into her sleeves, reaching for something hidden up them. He knew what came after that.

  Aqun's eyes zeroed in on the templar with his back fully turned to her, all his concentration on trying to free Lanny. There was little time to plan, only react. Unable to draw his sword, Alistair shouted something incoherent and rushed at Cullen. The man spotted him coming out of the corner of his eye and moved to turn, but not fast enough to see the glint of a dagger Aqun lunged for his kidneys, or liver, or whatever soft spot she'd stab to goo.

  Against all sense of self preservation, Alistair knocked into Cullen, throwing the templar back against the wall out of range. He took the slash of the knife across his shoulder and arm. "Maker, damn it!" Alistair screamed, "I just cleaned this!" Blood trickled through the wound across his upper arm, the splintmail doing most of the work to bounce it free.

  Roaring, Aqun sliced wide, driving her dagger to finish him off while Alistair fumbled for his sword. Luckily, she forgot about the plucky little mabari that leapt off the ground and dug teeth deep into the qunari's tender hand flesh. Cursing in Qunlat, the blade scattered from Aqun's hand but Honor held tight, shaking her head to pierce her teeth deeper into bleeding skin. Unable to reach another weapon, the qunari kicked wildly against the dog's ribs, the last connecting. Honor whimpered, her teeth rel
easing in pain, and Aqun whipped her arm sending the mabari flying across the ground.

  Her hand looked like moldy venison, blood oozing from a dozen bite marks, but the qunari only glared and moved to unsheathe her spear. Alistair swallowed against those creepy blue eyes sizing him up. He tried to reach for his own sword, but for some reason his hand wouldn't obey. It screamed in agony at the wound still bleeding down his shoulder. While his fingers nudged against the leather hilt, knocking it up and then losing their grip, he faced down death from Aqun's spear driving through his skull. Yanking her arm back, the qunari roared, when a sword smashed towards her side. She rolled to avoid it, almost missing Cullen rising from his shove.

  Pressing his attack, the templar slammed his shield towards Aqun's arm, but she dodged quickly away - her spear giving her the greater reach. And yet, even with that she couldn't hope to get past his shield. They found themselves at a strange stalemate.

  "Let me guess," Alistair hissed, gritting his teeth as he pressed his hand against his wound to try and stem the blood, "you're ben-ha--"

  "I am ben-hassrath," Aqun declared.

  "Of fucking course you are," he groaned. He was never going to hear the end of it from the templar now.

  The templar didn't back down from his stance, only cast a sidelong glare at Alistair to drive his being right home. Cullen aimed a glower at the turncoat qunari, "What does the Qun care for this place?"

  "Why would they even know of it?" Alistair came back with.

  "Foolish bas, you know nothing of your own world. Of what you leave waiting in the fringes, like forgotten gatlock barrels to explode when you are caught unawares," Aqun whipped her head from one to the other, her spear following. If he could get his damn hand to work, maybe Alistair could flank her and finish this. But no, it had to get grumpy all of a sudden.