My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Myra winced at being caught, then laughed. Of course her mother knew. "Let me guess, she wants me to send her one I wrote on the road."

  "If you could, but maybe leave out the darkspawn and templar skills unless you want your mother to pop up out here as your personal bodyguard."

  "Duly noted," Myra nodded her head.

  "Oh," her dad suddenly snapped his fingers, "Nearly forgot, Lunet sent a bunch of books with me for you. Which she ordered me to not look at or read lest I burt into flames on the spot."

  "Aahh," Myra nearly shot up to her feet, wanting to wrest what she knew to be especially dirty books out of her father's hands, but he only shrugged.

  "Jokes on her, I can't even read," he winked before innocently asking, "What's a throbbing member? A cultist that whacked his head really hard?"

  Her jaw fell open, Myra feeling an urge to explain before she slammed it shut and began to laugh. Alistair joined in. Tucking her feet up onto the divan, Myra opened up to her dad and he in turn shared everything with her. By the end they both thought about finding a cake and seeing how hard it would be to set it on fire.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Spud

  She'd easily worn a path into the floor, which was especially impressive as it was made out of stone. Every once in awhile Cailan would look over and sigh. He wouldn't say anything, having nothing to say, but he'd make his presence known as if he was already weary of the whole affair. Rosie clicked her fingers together, trying to hold still, but her body couldn't remain in place and she resumed her pacing. To say the night was frosty would be an understatement. People were civil to her, but nothing more. No one wanted to be too kind to the princess and find themselves on the King's bad side. How many in their caravan had she pressed into silence? How many had ignored their King's orders at Rosamund's whims?

  They were all asking it with quick glances and sighs much like her brother. At least it was no skin off his nose either way. Remain on the road, return home like a collared dog -- he was fine with both. Twisting on her toes, Rosie rammed into a table, scattering a pile of trinkets off of their perch. Most tipped over, glass statues of animals tumbling to the sides, but none shattering.

  "Damn it all!" she cursed herself, reaching over to right up the Arl's or someone else's collectibles.

  While she was trying to get a balancing elephant upright, she heard the door behind her creak open. Her heart thudded into her stomach even before the coughing voice sputtered out, "We need to talk, Rosie."

  Her fingers trembled above the glass menagerie massacre, Rosie sliding back before she ruined that too. Sucking in a breath she turned to face her father. He was red rimmed around the eyes, no doubt having to drink to face up to talking to her. Great. This was even worse than she'd feared.

  "Very well," she tipped her chin up, prepared to fight as strong as she could.

  Alistair glanced around at the girls remaining by their princess' side. "Could you all clear out already? I rather doubt you want to stay."

  "Yes, Sire," each girl shot up to her feet, took a deep curtsy, then scuttled out the door with their heads hanging down. No one wanted to meet his wrathful, regal gaze.

  For a beat, Cailan glanced over at Rosie in sympathy, when their dad sighed, "You too. Unless you had some say in all this mess?"

  Cailan shrugged, "Not particularly."

  "Really?" their father scratched his chin in thought, "Pretty assassin, seemed your type."

  Popping to his feet, Cailan cast a look over at Rosie, "You'd be surprised." His wolfish grin as if he knew something he shouldn't faded when their dad suddenly grabbed his arms around Cailan and tucked him into a hug.

  "I know, I know," Alistair sighed, "but no one's watching and humor me." Cailan gave in, limply patting back to hold his father. When Alistair's grip gave, he stared into Cailan's eyes, "You're okay? You're sure?"

  "Yes, as well as I can be. Rosie's...she's done an okay job so far."

  It was sweet of him to try and stand up for her, but it was doubtful it mattered. Cailan stepped out of his dad's arms and crossed to the door. For a brief moment he looked up at his sister before vanishing out it. Their dad stood turned away, watching where his only son once stood.

  "I'm surprised he let me hug him."

  "He probably wanted to escape quickly to go fall into someone's bed," Rosie added on lightly. Their father laughed at the assessment then raised an eyebrow in agreement.

  The camaraderie was but a brief flicker in the storm. Groaning, Alistair scrubbed against the stubble on his cheeks. "Rosie..." It was a few more whines and sighs before he continued, "What were you thinking?"

  Her back stiffened, her head snapping up, "Anjali..."

  "I don't care if the assassin you picked up has been perfectly pleasant and saved a box of kittens from a runaway tree. I doubt it, because a-ssassin, but for the love of the Maker, why didn't you tell me?"

  "You know why," Rosie's eyes flared as she stared down her father. "You treat me as if I'm yet a child. As if the most I can handle is sitting in on a simple city meeting, nothing else. No trusting me with matters of the nation, the country I shall once rule."

  "It's not that blighted simple," he groaned, falling right into the center of her pacing track.

  "Why not? Do I not deserve to be informed? Do you not trust me?"

  "I dunno, your lying to me makes that a bit hard to give a hearty thumbs up to," he spat out, his eyes burning in anger that she knew was coated with fear.

  "I never meant to lie," Rosie faded, feeling a sting at the deception. She thought that she'd tell him of it all once she was home and the danger long passed. Then it'd be a laugh, not this mess.

  "Pretty sure, 'I'll send a letter to the King and tell him all about me keeping my own assassin around for fun,' then not doing it counts as a lie. Oh yeah, I talked to the advisors. Which I should be even madder at you about for forcing me to sit in on their blather. They've been building up notes to assault me with for decades!"

  Glaring into the ground, Rosie dug her fingers through her skirts. She should have changed into something less...frilly. No frippery, only business for this meeting. Challenge? Was she really having to square off against her father? All her life he'd been the one saying 'nah, let her have a sword.' 'She can handle this. She's smart enough to do that.' And now, when she needed him most, he thought her as feeble as a newborn kitten?

  "I'm going to send a few ravens on to the palace. Karelle's got procedure to follow to deal with the loss of Avery, we can have some big banquet when you return to Denerim, and the other..."

  "No," it slipped out of her trembling lips at barely a breath, but it halted her father dead.

  "What?" he glared at her, his eldest daughter's shoulders shaking as she whipped her head up at him.

  "No, father, I will not return to Denerim."

  "Listen here, young lady."

  "I am not a child, I am not six years old and have been caught hiding toads inside helmets! I am an adult!"

  He froze and folded his arms. "An adult screaming her lungs off at me."

  "Because of you, because you keep treating me like I'm...as if you have no faith in me. As if you think, or know, that I will fail." Her cursed voice was slipping higher in her anger; she could taste the shrill about to explode.

  Her dad slid back a bit, his head tipped to the ceiling while he tried to find a bit of calm. "It's not about you failing, Spuddy. It's about you dying. It's about you risking your life, the lives of your brother and sister, and not damn well telling me you were doing it!"

  "Because you'd have run right in and taken everything, taken it all over."

  "Damn right I would!" Her dad slammed his hand through the air, striking nothing but his own leg, but the force was enough the slap echoed in the chamber.

  "Because you don't trust me," tears of exhaustion, of frustration, and of grief rose in her eyes.

  Her dad, the man that'd carried her on his shoulders through the streets of every city in Fere
lden, wrapped his arms around her. Rosie didn't uncross her arms, but she let herself fall into him as he patted the back of her head. "Because you're my baby, you all are. And the thought of you... Spudkins, I never want to lose you, any of you."

  It was heartfelt, and it was sincere, but his words dug deep into the festering wound that'd been inside Rosie's soul for far too long. Yanking herself away, she glared at him. "Stop calling me that! Stop acting as if I, or Cailan, or even Myra are toddlers that can put on a silly show for the King before being carted off to bed. We are not children."

  "Yes you damn well are!" her father shouted back. "I don't care how old you get, you have no blighted idea what's out there. What can kill you."

  "I am twenty four. That's four years older than you were when you stopped a Maker damned blight!"

  Her dad scowled deeper, his eyes burning through the air, "That's different."

  "How? How am I in anyway different from you? You were younger, you had no one to help you..."

  "Exactly!" he shrieked, tears burning in his eyes. "For the love of the Maker, Rosie, those were not good days. Every one of 'em I went to bed thinking I may not see the sunrise, and every morning thinking I may not see my bed again. That was the hardest year of my life."

  Shaking his head fast, he picked up her pacing trail, one hand tugging up his hair while those brown eyes snapped back decades. She knew her father and company spent some time during the Blight dealing with an atrocity that occurred in this castle in Redcliffe. The way her father kept peering in terror at the walls, was he thinking back to that?

  "Yes, I had no one..." he paused, a laugh snickering in his throat, "almost no one, but I never want that for you, for any of you. To head into battle alone, thinking no one cares, there's no one waiting back for you is..." Alistair's thought died and he ran his tongue over his lips to try and wet away the cracked skin. Whatever momentum he had faded, "It's not fun. Not at all. You don't want to do it."

  "Then support me, dad!" Rosie shrieked, her emotions somehow amplifying from her father's. "Trust me. Trust me to be able to handle this stuff."

  "We're not talking an Arl pissed off because you flipped over his pickle wagon," her dad began, confusing Rosie. She didn't remember that one ever happening. "These are assassins, trained killers, who are coming for you."

  "You've dealt with assassins before," she began, trying to think back to her list of flimsy excuses she thought to use to save herself.

  "Right, and nearly died. Very, very nearly died," her dad shuddered. He wasn't entirely the same after that attack, his body slowing quickly from exertion, though he always put up a good front.

  Rosie slapped a hand into her thigh, getting exhausted with her father's stubbornness, "Because of Cade, because of a man you let get close to you."

  "And who have you let get close to you, Rosamund? What do you know of her?" he leaned closer to her, the King easily looming over the short girl.

  A noise like a whimper and a scream caught in Rosie's throat. She trusted Anjali with her life. But so had her father with Cade, the ex Commander of the troops in Denerim -- right until the man tried to have him killed. And why do you trust her? Has she given any reason? Is it the fact she saved your life or...is there another reason, Rosamund? A reason you won't even admit to yourself?

  "I know she is my best hope to stopping this assassin. If they intend to cause a war by destabilizing the throne, they are just as likely to kill you too, dad. I...I can't let you risk yourself."

  Something in that made her father snort as if she was all of six again, grabbing her warrior daddy's hand and insisting she'd protect him from the nasty darkspawn. But time had changed the tables. While he waited back at the castle safe, she was out in the field plucking real life darkspawn from this world. She wasn't a meek child anymore. Why couldn't he see that?

  "Rosie," he sighed, shaking his head, "it's over. Come home, there's no reason you can't try again next year."

  It wasn't the commanding 'do what I say or you'll be dropped into a timeout' voice that caught her but a softly pleading one. She almost wanted to give in, to race back to her room at home, to focus only on silly dithering things and forget politics for a few years. Live a life of leisure, before she had to sit on the throne.

  Her eyes hardened and she plucked up her skirt in her hands, digging in tight. "Rosie..." her father groaned.

  "No, I am finishing this, father."

  "Maker's breath!"

  "We will appear weak if we abandon this tour, it will leave our allies wondering..."

  "Sod the allies, sod the damn crown, sod the whole country as far as I care," he waved his hands through the air as if trying to damn them all. "I am not losing you!" He tried to grab her hands to get one to break away from the skirt she had hoisted up in preparation of walking out, but she wouldn't let go.

  "Take them, take everyone with you back to Denerim. I will finish this on my own if I must," sliding past her father, the princess' shoes beat hard into the floor as if she was trying to get it to submit to her will.

  "Rosie..." he groaned, twisting around like a mechanical doll -- each part whipping over quickly to match with a gear. "Don't do this. Come home."

  Yanking open the door, she stood framed by the candlelight of the castle halls, "Do whatever you wish, father. Return the caravan home, remain here in Redcliffe. But I shall see my duties through to the end." With a snarl, she threw her skirts down and slammed the door shut. She didn't run away, even if she wanted to, but slowly walked from her room and her father.

  Behind her, she heard her father spit out, "Damn it, Spud," before everything went quiet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Trust

  By the time Rosie made it out onto the terrace she wanted to scream, to tip her head back to the unforgiving stars and howl about every unfair matter in her life. There was a growing list so it might take some time. But she knew better, everyone was on edge as the two royal highnesses seemed to be duking it out verbally. The air tingled with fear that it could turn to the physical.

  During dinner she thought she overheard some talk of civil war and Rosie nearly snorted out her soup. As mad as she was at her father, she'd never...she'd never stop loving him. The devotion of the Theirin children to their dad was often confounding to many of the upper crust parents who'd ask how the silly Alistair accomplished such a feat. Loyalty was almost impossible to come across for them from spawn they barely stomached. It was often worth it to watch their faces drop when he said love, and being there to clean up his kid's shit and/or vomit at 2 in the morning after they'd been sick.

  Why wouldn't he listen? He used to be so great at listening to her, but... She went away to Kirkwall for a three month trip abroad. It was meant to teach her how to present herself not as a lady, but a head of state. Rosie was so proud of how good she got at keeping herself level headed, when she returned home she managed to maintain the greeting to her parents as a simple, "Hello, Mother. Hello, Father. Pleasure."

  Her dad didn't look at her quite the same after that. Sure, he didn't stop caring, often finding ways to yank her out of schooling along with her brother to get up to mischief in the Denerim market. But it was different. Maybe he saw too much of himself in her, too much of her future and his...

  Rosamund groaned loudly, her head tipped to the stars. "They say royalty can't look at their children because all they see is their own death."

  "Here I assumed it was due to all the inbreeding."

  She whipped her head to find the voice, not meaning to speak her inner thoughts aloud. Sliding out of the shadows emerged Anjali, a hand wrapped around the wound on her arm. She didn't make a fuss about it, but Rosie could tell it had to sting by how often she kept favoring the injury.

  "Not that I think..." Anjali blinked a moment in Rosie's eyes. Barely a flicker of torchlight lit up from down below, requiring both women to stand rather close to see each other. "I mean, there's no way the Ferelden crown suffers the same as Nevarra."
/>   "Oh?" Rosie placed a hand on her hip, her lips lifting in a curious smirk, "You seem rather certain of that."

  Bright white teeth cut through the dim shadows of the night like the moon's embrace, "I am, because you are far too beautiful for your parents to be related."

  "Good call," Rosie said, her hands flattening over her stomach to cut off the flutters. "My father, actually, he has no living relatives."

  "None?" Anjali bunched her eyebrows in surprise. The one with the scar almost tipped far enough over for the gash to run parallel. She wanted to dip the tip of her pinkie through it, to feel the dark hairs cup against her skin, but that was uncalled for.

  Unaware of Rosie's silly thoughts, the assassin bumped her hip into the railing, "Here I thought royalty pushed out as many kids as they could to keep their hooks in the crown and all."

  "It's..." Rosie knew it all, the old civil war, the Orlesian occupation. How King Maric only produced two sons and lost the legitimate one during the blight while her father had the job land upon him. Maker was there a lot of history to Ferelden regardless of how the rest of thedas treated them like some nobody. "A long story."

  Anjali's beautiful head bobbed as if she expected as such, her eyes turning out to gaze towards the village of Redcliffe itself. A few lights sparkled out of the trees, most near the tavern and one beside the chantry. How many of the villagers were awake, wondering about both the King and Princess in their neck of the woods? How many were already gossiping about the great row they watched? Maker, her poise tutor would have whacked her knuckles bloody for that.

  "Shall I be..." Anjali began, her nose twitching to match the thought, "I'm wondering if I'm going to be run out of town, or find my neck stretched, or get real cozy with a gibbet. It's not so bad if you think to bring a book."

  Rosie sputtered out a laugh at the idea, then sighed, "No."