My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  He extended a hand out and said, "No one's allowed to enter unless they've already got clearance."

  "Clearance?" Cade snickered, "Listen here, boy. I'm the blighted Royal Commander and there ain't a scrap of this land I'm not allowed on."

  "Uh," he squeaked, glancing over his shoulder as if someone more superior would back him up.

  Growling, Cade shoved his arm into the kid's side. The boy skidded away, unable to stop the man peering around the place. Chairs sat clustered around a fire, but no one sat in them. He wouldn't be there, they'd have him somewhere secure -- the biggest bedroom, of course. Hauling up the stairs two at a time, Cade counted his steps. He spotted the fancy pants giant glass window outside which had to be for the master bedroom.

  Right smack dab in the middle of the lodge, so servants could scuttle from one end of the place back to it lickety split. This had to be it. Grabbing onto his scabbard, he closed his fist and drew out the sword to silence the sound. No one else roamed the hall, a lucky break. Get in, and finish this quick. He'd find a good story later.

  Drawing the blade tight to his chest, Cade pressed an ear to the door. Voices broke through the wood: one unknown, one annoyingly familiar, and the last one right beside him. That cursed woman, how in the Maker's name did she wind up here? Then again, perhaps it was the Maker's own grace that led her here, to allow Cade to finish this all.

  More of the inane chatter erupted behind the door, when Cade grabbed onto the door's latch and yanked it forward. Shoving with his shoulder, he caught glimpses of the participants in the room but his real prize barely stepped away before he grabbed onto those bird-like arms and drew his steel to her elfy neck.

  Silence clattered through the room as Cade kicked a foot against the door. Some tiny servant stood back in the shadows, a hood drawn over the head, but she wasn't important. No, all his focus was upon the man sitting up in bed.

  Alistair.

  That penurious, addlepated bastard was still alive. Sure, he looked like shit, his skin drawn and sallow but somehow he was still breathing. And Cade had a pretty good idea he knew why.

  "Commander, what do you think you're doing?" the bastard asked.

  "What I should have done months ago. What any right thinking Ferelden would have done a year into your reign. What is right for the good of this country and its future," Cade snarled. The elf tried to worm out of his grip, but he drew the blade tighter to her neck and she froze. He expected to find a puddle of piss curling down her boots -- they weren't a very hearty stock.

  He expected to see fear in the King's eyes, but all the man could manage was to loo disappointed as he sighed, "You did it. For the love of the Maker, Cade. Why? I trusted you, put my security in your hands. My kid's."

  Cade sneered. He'd worked on the plan for nearly a year. Threaten the King's life with some easily dispatched assassins who would never finish the job, let Brunt get close, learn his movements and ferret out the quickest and easiest way to dispatch him. Finding the pointless street scum to put the blame on was easy, and there'd even been a few convenient people in those frilly ambassadors he could point the finger at if the King ever grew a brain. But no, all that work, all that planning down the drain because of her.

  Because of that knife-eared bitch in heat. She stumbled into it on accident, forcing Cade to have to take out the assassin himself with his crossbow. Which turned the Zea Dogs, who were tired of their own taking a fire nap, on him. Fearing one of them would talk, Cade had to secure his future. It was a pity about the mage, having a maleficarum in his back pocket had done wonders over the years for his career. But that fucking rock chewer was circling the dogs ever closer and he had to clean house.

  Then imagine his luck when the prickly little elf goes and changes her mind. Flight of fancy lets him slot in what he'd been hoping for for months.

  "You were supposed to die," Cade hissed, glaring at the impotent King confined to his bed.

  The disappointment fled in an instant and the man folded his arms up. "Turns out I'm harder to kill than you thought. Maybe try two assassins in bodyguard clothing next time."

  "Bitch born, rabbit fucking pissant!" Cade cursed, his words drawing a dark anger to the King's face. Good, let him feel worthless before he cut him down. "You're a disgrace to this country. To your people, who you turn your back on for...for them! First it was mages, but that wasn't enough. Because fearing constant abomination attacks isn't enough for Ferelden, no, now you're letting the elf savages take whatever they want."

  "Last I checked, all of 'them' were Ferelden same as you and me," the little boy in a man's body spat out, his credulous eyes narrowing.

  Cade shifted his stance, tightening his fingers around the elf's arm to stop her from moving. Whatever hidden weapon she thought she could pull wasn't going to happen. One flick of his wrist and she was dead.

  "They're outsiders, disease carrying mongrels who'll destroy us from the inside out. Ferelden's rotting away with the rats and robes free to roam wherever they want. I'm taking back my country, even if I have to kill you to do it."

  He expected the King to squirm, or begin screaming for help, but no, the man only groaned and tipped his head down. "You're dead set on this?"

  Why wasn't he panicking? He should be beside himself with terror, he was going to die. Cade glanced around the room, trying to spot any hidden soldiers but it was nothing aside from the tiny woman. The only threat in the room was him.

  "I'm going to slit this one's throat, and while you watch your knife-eared play thing bleed out on the floor I'll finish what Brunt started," Cade growled, spittle splattering against the back of the bitch's hair. "After that, it's quite easy for me to say your elven lover went berserk, killed you, and I -- in trying to stop her -- had to finish her off. I'll be the hero, able to guide the next Queen of Ferelden on the proper path where humans are all that matter."

  The man curled his limp fist on the blanket, his fingernails scratching against it as a sneer fought against that always loopy smile. Lifting his head, Alistair stared dead set into Cade's eyes. There was no fear there, but a hatred flickered. Cade flexed his bicep, prepared to draw the first blood the second the King opened his mouth to scream.

  "Please," the man begged, barely a whimper in the voice, "let's not kill anyone."

  "Ha," Cade chuckled mirthlessly, "that's no longer for you to decide, milord."

  "Oh," he shook his head, "I wasn't talking to you."

  "Wha..." Even as Cade's mind began to wonder just what the tiny woman was doing in the room, his arm moved to draw the sword against the whore's throat but it froze. His entire body locked up, as if under one giant cramp. As if knowing Cade couldn't slit her throat, the elf wiggled out from under the blade. Shaking his muscles by sheer willpower, Cade threw off the cursed magic holding him in place.

  He was about to swing when a rabbit punch knocked into his nose. "Fuck!" he cried, another following the punch, and then a third that finally shattered the bridge. Blood gushed down his cheeks, but he had the blade. Ignoring the pain, Cade drew his arm back, about to bifurcate that fucking elf once and for all.

  Freezing cold wrapped around his bicep, then traveled and splintered like a frozen river up to the wrist. His arm froze in place, the ice thickening against him like a storm from the heart of winter. Whipping his head, he watched the little mage aiming both her hands at him. She'd lost the hood, revealing a stomach dropping familiar face.

  "You!" Cade screamed at her. The damn woman didn't even acknowledge him, just kept spraying more ice until it coated his entire lower body. He couldn't move an inch, the sword stuck to his fingers that were locked in a block of ice. "You're supposed to be dead," he shrieked, refusing to believe he could fail.

  Her, the fucking Hero of Ferelden, shrugged and stopped her spray of magic. "Oops. I guess you miscalculated about all those filthy robes stumbling around fucking things up."

  The elf snatched onto his hand and without care ripped the sword from his frozen fingers. Ice crac
ked away, pulling layers of skin with. Blood oozed off his hand, but it couldn't melt the unholy power the mage encased him in. Examining the blade a moment, the elf drew it tight to Cade's throat. Those inhuman eyes glared death into his as she twisted the edge nearer and nearer to his jugular.

  "Reiss," the King shouted from his bed. "We need him alive."

  Snarling, the good elf walked back on her leash. She twisted the sword down and turned to the King when suddenly, spinning in place she landed a punch hard as stone against Cade's jaw. Encased in the ice, his head couldn't snap back and the force echoed from the impact site all the way to the back of his brain.

  With a shrug, the elf folded her arms and said, "I didn't kill him."

  "Lanny?" the King glanced over at his pet mage. She held a hand out to him and together Alistair rose to his feet. It might have been almost impressive if he weren't wearing fuzzy duck shaped slippers. That was the man that outsmarted Cade, the man that caught him. Maker's breath, he'd rather they killed him now.

  "I don't get it," Alistair sighed, shaking his head. The mage clung to him as support while the elf stood ready to cut Cade down should the need arise. "You had years to dethrone me. I've been sitting on the blighted thing for over sixteen. Why now?"

  "We thought we could enact change through the next generation, but no, you couldn't even get that right," Cade hissed, all feeling in his body lost to the cold. His eyes darted over to the mage that was still spinning her fingers, making certain the ice wouldn't break.

  "You..." Alistair gulped, his tiny brain catching on, "you're saying I had to die because I spent time with my children? I was teaching them how to like people."

  "How to like the wrong people!"

  "He said we," the elf spoke up. Fuck her and those fucking ears that heard everything. All elves were just little spidery spies. "That means there are others out there, others involved in this."

  "Which is why we put on this little farce for you, Cade," Alistair smiled. "See, Reiss here, that degenerate and other words I should scrub your mouth out with soap for using, she figured it out. Figured you out. And we knew you'd be watching and wondering. Couldn't kill you, no. There'd be questions, and I'm certain you have a few friends waiting in the guards who are itching to try their hand at a revolution."

  Shuffling on his legs, the man leaned so close to Cade, the King's breath was the only warmth across his body, "But no one will care, no one will rise up. You tried to kill a King, that's really high on the naughty list. And, most of all, this is the part that's really gonna sting, you were defeated by an elf."

  Cade sucked in his saliva about to spit it in Alistair's face, but as the loogie flew past his lips that fucking magicer froze it midflight. Splattering onto the ground, it exploded in ice crystals without even touching the man.

  "Commander Cullen, you can come in now," Alistair called. The door Cade was certain no one was standing behind flew open. He couldn't see the man, but he knew that voice growling as a hand grabbed onto him.

  "About time, took you forever to give the signal. If something had happened," Cullen lectured the King even while trying to yank Cade's frozen arm back. The robe waved her fingers and the ice melted. Before Cade could even think to wrench it away, manacles slapped onto him, each one binding him tighter and tighter to the inevitable headsman's axe.

  "You think I'll tell you anything? You can't break me," Cade cursed. "You'll get nothing from me."

  The mage waved her fingers around, fire dancing on the tips as a demonic grin took hold. "You'd be surprised what a robe can do, especially one that's walked inside the fade."

  "Get him out of here," Alistair jerked his chin. Without any fanfare for who Cade was, or what he nearly accomplished, two men snatched up his manacled arms and dragged him out of the room.

  The next time he saw the sunlight, it'd be with his eyes staring up out of a basket.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Want

  Everything hurt.

  A good 99.99999% of that was a blade perforating his organs and slicing him up like the family hog for Satinalia dinner. But while Alistair watched Cade being dragged away a tiny part of him stung. It was probably the oncoming shit storm of dealing with this mess, but maybe some of it was regret at losing another person he once thought of as a friend. Having exhausted what little energy he had in scooting across the floor, Alistair began to sag. Lanny moved to catch him, but it was Reiss who beat her to it. Her arm slipped around his back. She used the still sore but not as broken one to steady him but put no pressure on it.

  For a breath, Alistair stared deep into her eyes, his hands dangling limply at his sides but yearning to cup her cheek. She blinked and turned her head away, staring daggers out the door while Lanny gripped tight to her cane.

  After making certain that Cade was on a well guarded carriage ride to the dungeon cells in Redcliffe castle, that templar rounded up the stairs and dashed into the room. He didn't even glance over at Alistair, his eyes fully on Lanny. First curling a hand around her back, he brushed his lips over her forehead and seemed to melt in her presence.

  "Thank the Maker you're okay," he gasped. In the grand scheme of things it seemed that Reiss was in the most danger, then Alistair, and if Cade had time he'd probably go after Lanny. But of course, the templar was only concerned for his wife. Alistair didn't blame him an inch for it.

  "I was on pins and needles outside that door, not knowing if you'd have time to send for assistance or if he'd do something to..."

  "Cullen," she lay her fingers against his cheek and gently patted it, "I'm fine. I can take care of myself."

  "I know, but it won't stop me from worrying."

  Lanny smiled at that, "Fair enough."

  Trying to roll his eyes away from the two about to mack on each other while professing their unending love, which seemed to happen on the hour, Alistair's eyes wandered over to the woman still keeping him upright. She was staring past him watching the two love birds, but when she felt his attention Reiss blushed and Alistair dropped his head to the ground.

  "Sorry to tell you this, Lanny, but I'm going to have to borrow your templar for a little bit," Alistair said, doing his best to fight through the awkward mist rising up through the floorboards before it went toxic and turned all their skin inside out.

  "Oh?" she broke away from him, a quirk to her eyebrow.

  "For standing up against Cade, he'll have to head to Denerim for the trial. It'll be tough going to convince people the Commander of the royal guards was behind this but..."

  Lanny nodded, already onto his same trail, "If it comes from the Commander of the Inquisition, then they'll have to believe it."

  "I don't know if it's wise," the stick in the mud began, his fingers curling over Lana's hand pinned tight to his chest.

  Alistair shrugged, "I need a witness, someone with great standing. Teagan can offer some support but if it's not you, then..." He waved his exhausted hand at Lanny. The Hero of Ferelden would certainly sway minds in an instant but it'd also raise a bunch of questions like: How was she alive? Did the King know she was alive? Why was she alive? and What's for dinner? Landsmeet meetings were notorious for taking hours and also having rather decent spreads.

  For once Cullen actually listened to him. He curled a hand over Lanny's erupting locks and nodded his head. "Of course, I'll testify or whatever you need."

  "Well, that was easier than I feared," Alistair admitted. He never thought the templar would agree to anything he asked for on principle alone. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to return to bed before I pass out on the floor."

  He'd woken in fits and spurts over the past few days, always with Lanny clucking her tongue and trying to jam some other Maker awful concoction down his throat. That Alistair wasn't surprised by, but the presence sitting on the other side of his bed -- often silent -- was a big question he yet had the courage to ask.

  With her hands full of the King, Reiss guided him to bed. She hadn't been in charge of physically dragging
him around, what with her own arm being cracked open as Lanny explained in her graphic and fascinated detail. Reiss didn't say much, about her biggest speech to him involved her theory on why Brunt up and went rabid. And even if she was capable to touching him, Reiss seemed to shy away from it. No, the special honor of lifting up Alistair's exhausted body to change clothes and do other bodily things went to his least favorite person in all of thedas. It seemed to be the kind of fitting punishment the Maker dreamed up for both of them.

  As Alistair's ass fell to the bed, Reiss released him and slid back. She kept flinching her hand, no doubt in pain after the punch she landed on Cade's jaw. But she didn't complain about it and he wasn't certain if he should point out noticing or not. Lanny was stretched to her limits already with him, Reiss' shattered arm, and that one servant who accidentally ingested deadly berries. It'd been a rather interesting few days of what he could remember.

  "We should leave you to rest," Lanny said, her head dipping down. Her eyes glanced over both Alistair and Reiss, but it was the templar's hand that she picked up. Tugging it around her back, Lanny let him guide her out the door. While she closed it, the latch didn't take and they could both overhear the pair of them standing outside.

  Lanny sighed, "'Make sure she doesn't kill herself?'"

  "What?" Cullen responded.

  "You know that's not how healing magic works. One can't transfer all their life force to someone, it requires a spirit's assistance and...there is no draining of someone else's health to heal."

  Alistair shifted in his bed, knowing that voice. That was Lanny's petulant tone about to shift into 'why can't you trust me' mode. He'd been privy to it more times than he cared to think about during the Blight, and a few times after. The smart thing to do was apologize immensely and then change the subject, too bad the templar was an idiot.

  "I also know that you will do anything within your power to save someone," Cullen hissed, "especially him."