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The pyre crackles in the courtyard of the castle. There’s no body there, of course, but Bethany imagines the Queen had wanted the comfort and ritual of burning one all the same. Families do it sometimes when a warden is lost in the deep roads or leaves for their Calling. Bethany’s mother had done the same for Carver once they’d arrived in Kirkwall, even though his bones are still in the hills outside Lothering. Marian had loaned her the money to rent the tiny, ramshackle Fereldan chantry in Lowtown and to pay the chantry sister who had come to Kirkwall on the same boat that had brought them from Highever.
The crowd had been small from the outset—the Grand Cleric of Denerim, nobles numbering so low she could have counted them on one hand, some soldiers and a handful of other wardens who had made the journey from Vigil’s Keep along with her, including Nathaniel Howe—and it’s thinned as the pyre has burned down until only she and the Queen remain. She should leave, give the Queen the solitude to mourn her father alone. But she can’t quite bring herself to. Loghain has been like family to her since just after she’d taken her Joining.
And now, he’s given his life to save her sister, just as their father had once. She thinks sometimes that her family is cursed to doom anyone who becomes entwined in it. Her parents and Carver, Anders, Elthina and Orsino and even Meredith, and now, Loghain. A trail of blood that follows in their wake.
She’s deep enough in her thoughts that she jumps when the Queen breaks the silence.
“Shall we retire inside for a toast?”
Bethany looks around, confident that the question can’t be directed at her. As a Warden-Captain, she doesn’t merit acknowledgment from a monarch. But there is no one else here for the invitation to have been meant for. Her mother would have passed out when she learned of it. She had always liked Queen Anora.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I would be honored.”
The Queen ushers her back into the castle, up a series of narrow staircases that look as if they were built during the Exalted Age, and into her receiving room. This room alone is larger than the apartment where Bethany had lived with her mother, sister, and uncle the first year in Kirkwall. The walls are covered in ornately carved wood paneling. The Queen slips into a green winged chair in front of the fireplace and nods to the smaller chair beside her.
“I haven’t asked your name.”
“Bethany Hawke.”
The Queen raises her eyebrows. “Any relation to the Champion of Kirkwall?”
“My sister.”
“I see.” The Queen studies her. “Your parents must be proud.”
Bethany has found that The Tale of the Champion, like much of Varric’s writing, falls mostly within the purview of those who read little, who only have access to whatever books can be found in the local chantry or tiny village library. She wouldn’t have expected the Queen be familiar with her family’s story beyond Marian’s political involvement. She surely has more important things to worry about.
“They would be, were they still alive.”
“So we are both orphans.”
The Queen’s servant, a dark-haired elven woman, returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She sets them on the end table between their chairs and fills them both.
“I hope you don’t mind Fereldan wine,” the Queen says. “It’s not my preference, but I could hardly toast my father with anything else.”
Bethany catches her meeting immediately. She’d traveled through Orlais with Loghain several times, and each time, he’d been surly and on edge from the moment they entered Jader. Complaining about the indulgence and luxury, and how much of it had come from Ferelden’s lands, Ferelden’s people. He’d never trusted Stroud, and he hadn’t really warmed to her until he’d learned that she’d been born in Lothering and not Kirkwall.
“Thank you, Erlina,” the Queen tells the servant. “You may leave us.”
“Of course, Ma’am,” the servant replies in an accent that’s distinctly Orlesian—she must have been hired after Loghain’s departure—before scurrying from the room.
The Queen picks up one of the glasses and holds it up. “To my father, who lived and died for Ferelden.”
“To Loghain Mac Tir,” Bethany adds. “An honorable warden and a good man.”
The Queen clinks their glasses together with a bitter smile. “It’s rare to hear anyone use those words in relation to him these days.”
Bethany waits for her to take her first sip before doing the same. It’s earthier than the wines she’s tasted from Antiva and Orlais and even Tevinter. It hearkens memories from childhood dinners crowded around the tiny table, her arm bumping Carver’s as they ate with opposite hands.
“He wasn’t what I was prepared for when I learned we were going to be serving together.
Marian and Carver had returned from Ostagar with a story about Loghain betraying the King and leaving the wardens to die, and not a month later, the Blight had reached Lothering. For years, Bethany had blamed him for that, and at times, she still does. But she’d had no one in the wardens, and he had been the first to make her feel that someone cared about her. He’d taught her to fight with a sword and sat with her at the fire when the taint-fueled nightmares made it impossible for her to sleep. She hadn’t been able to afford to keep hating him. Not when he sometimes felt more like family than Marian did.
“What was he like as a warden?” the Queen asks.
She thinks for a moment. “Single-minded. I’ve never met anyone else so quick to put themselves between another person and a brood of darkspawn. He knew what needed to be done, and he was going to be the one to do it. I sometimes wondered—” She breaks off.
“What?”
“I’m not sure this will be helpful.”
“What?” the Queen presses.
“I sometimes wondered if he was hoping to meet his end.”
It’s a sentiment she’s familiar with. She’d felt it constantly her first few years with the wardens, and even at times before that. The path ahead of her has seemed intolerably long since the moment she was old enough to be aware of her magic, and she had always been followed along it by a shadow constantly reminding her that her family would have been better off if she wasn’t there at all. Through the burning pain of the taint when she’d collapsed in the deep roads on that Maker-forsaken expedition, she’d felt a muddied sense of relief to have finally reached the end of the path, only to find herself at the beginning of a longer, darker one.
“The men who served with him against Orlais say the same of his focus and dedication,” the Queen replies coolly. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t always served him well.”
“He was…” Bethany hesitates, takes a sip of wine. “He had regrets from that time, I think. He never spoke about them, but you could tell. He almost seemed… haunted at times.”
The Queen’s gaze intensifies.
“It seems you were close.”
“Yes Ma’am, he was something of a mentor to me just after my Joining. We remained friends.”
“You may call me Anora.” She sighs. “I am glad that you knew a better part of him than I did. However unfair it feels.”
Bethany has always suspected that Loghain had taken to her partially because he’d missed his own daughter. Everyone should know how to use a sword, he’d told her when she’d first arrived at Vigil’s Keep. Just in case you’re separated from your staff. He’d trained plenty of wardens, but he’d seen something in her. Loneliness maybe, or hopelessness, or fear. So he sat silently with her at meals and offered her his bread pudding on the rare occasions it was served. By the time they’d left the Vigil to help the dwarves clear the passage to Kal’Hirol, she’d counted him as a friend, despite everything.
“I hope it’s not presumptuous of me to say…” She hesitates. “But it always felt a bit like he thought of me as something of a surrogate daughter.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Anora replies. “He wrote me once, and when I didn’t reply, he never wrote again. I suppose he decided that I was lost to him and needed replacing.”
“He was a bit prideful.”
She chuckles darkly. “You could say that.”
“But I think he also felt that he deserved loneliness.”
Bethany had never known him to find dates as most wardens did when they were staying in cities, and he had rarely participated in camaraderie among the others in their unit. That had been something they’d had in common early on. They’d sit on a log removed from the group when the musical instruments came out. Sometimes they enjoyed a companionable silence and sometimes they’d talked. He’d wanted to hear about growing up an apostate, about her time in Kirkwall. He’d even asked about what it had been like to flee the Blight. When they passed through the land that had once been Lothering, he had forgone the usual night at the tavern to visit the site of the house where she’d grown up and the spot where Carver died. He’d let her cry on his shoulder before they walked back to the inn. It had almost been like having a father again, as guilty as that made her feel.
Anora doesn’t respond. She takes another sip of wine.
“I thought about meeting with him at times. I was just never able to find the right words to say to him.” She looks over at Bethany. “What would you say to your parents, had you the opportunity to speak with them again?”
It’s a bold question, but as Queen, it’s her prerogative to ask it.
“I suppose I was tell my father…” She thinks for a moment. “That I know he did his best. And to my mother, I would apologize.”
Anora’s brow furrows. “For what?”
She shrugs, although it occurs to her that the gesture might be too casual in the presence of a queen. She has been invited to use her first name, so it seems the point is moot, at least for the evening.
“For not living up to expectations. She had three children. She should have gotten to see one of us marry. She should have had grandchildren.”
Bethany had attended many weddings with her family in the tiny Lothering chantry as a child. Once they arrived home from the wedding banquet, their mother would sit her and Marian down in front of the fire and tell them about her own wedding day, and then she’d move on to what theirs would be like, the food she was going to serve, the things she’d been saving for each of them to wear. Marian had always ended up on her stomach watching a bug or drawing with her finger in the dirt on the floor, and eventually, their mother had given up and focused solely on Bethany.
If she hadn’t joined the wardens, she probably would have ended up married to some young lord, raising a child or two in one of the manors in Hightown. She’s not certain whether that would have been an improvement on the life she’s living or whether it would have left the road in front of her feeling even longer. She’s long since accepted that she’d never had any hope of a happy ending.
Anora leans toward her and rests her chin on her fist. “Something we have in common. I’m certain my parents had other ideas about how my life would turn out when they betrothed me to Cailan.”
“Well, they couldn’t have known he would die so young.”
Anora laughs bitterly. “That’s an ironic way to put it.”
“A battle with the horde would have ended in heavy losses no matter what,” Bethany points out. “There’s no way of knowing whether his death was preventable.”
If there is one thing life as a warden has taught her, it’s that darkspawn in large numbers are difficult to stop, and they devour everything in their path. Lothering might not have survived even had Loghain served the King faithfully.
“No, I suppose not,” Anora agrees. “But I’m being ungenerous. There are many things my parents had no way of knowing when they made the arrangement. I’m sure they thought they were doing what was best for me. And I could have done much worse than Cailan. He treated me well, and he made me Queen. I never cared about the affairs. That wasn’t the nature of our relationship.”
There’s an implication there; one that Bethany would normally act on. But she’s not sure if she should read into it. Anora is beautiful with her sharp features and intense eyes, but it’s a risky endeavor, picking up women outside an establishment dedicated to that purpose, and a misstep with the Queen could be detrimental. The wardens don’t report to anyone other than the First Warden, but that doesn’t mean creating friction with a monarch isn’t frowned upon. If the Warden-Commander is feeling uncharitable, he could send her into the deep roads for months, just to keep her out of sight while it all blows over.
“There was a prince in the Free Marches who took interest in me once,” she replies cautiously. “I’m sure a union between the two of us would have felt similarly.”
She hadn’t known Sebastian well before she’d been conscripted into the wardens, but he had always been there when she returned. He’d kept in touch more regularly than anyone other than her mother, even after she’d broken the news that his efforts to woo her were misdirected. She’s always suspected that if she’d married a man, it would have been him. He would have been good to her, and his status as a prince probably would have protected her from the templars. That alone would have been more than she could have hoped for, growing up in Lothering with both powers and feelings she was afraid to understand. But Sebastian would have wanted someone who loved him, and she couldn’t have given him that. And she wouldn’t have wanted to bring a child into the world, knowing that it might be born a mage. She never would have been able to outrun her twin curses. Not really.
Anora studies her for a moment. Bethany can see the gears in her head turning like the inner workings of a clock. She sets down her glass and leaves her empty hand on the end table. An invitation.
Bethany finishes what’s in her own glass and sets it down. She leaves her hand there, fingers only just out of reach of Anora’s. She watches Anora watching her.
“Did my father know?” she asks, her voice just audible over the crackling of the fire.
Bethany can tell by the rawness in her tone that they’ve entered new territory. Like unearthing an undiscovered thaig, she sounds apprehensive and less guarded than she was before, but there’s an edge that sounds almost excited.
“Yes. There’s not—there’s no expectation of discretion among the wardens. Most carry on affairs openly.”
The very first encounter she’d ever had with a woman had been in an inn in Amaranthine. She and Loghain been halfway through their ales discussing—she can’t remember, probably some annoyance about one of the other wardens or what had changed since the last time they’d been there—and she’d noticed a woman across the room, tall with an Antivan accent and a throaty laugh that she’d been able to hear from where they were sitting. Don’t worry about me, he’d grunted, the way he always did. Go talk to her if that’s what you want. She’d been so embarrassed to have been caught staring that she’d choked on her ale, but she’d felt like she hadn’t had much of a choice after being called out so directly.
He had never asked for the details of her trysts as the other wardens did to each other, and Bethany had never had any desire to share them, but from that day forward, he had always politely waved her off when she spotted someone she wanted to spend the rest of the night with. After a lifetime spent wanting to look at women but dreading the way it would make her feel, there had been something freeing about the way he’d treated it so unremarkably.
“And he didn’t mind?” Anora raises her eyebrows. “Interesting. Of course, I suppose he didn’t catch you with an Orlesian elf. I do like to make things as hard for myself as possible.”
Bethany’s eyes flit towards the door. The servant had been an Orlesian elf, but perhaps it’s a coincidence.
Marian had been caught once too, in the barn. There had never been any mistaking where her interests lied, and Bethany isn’t sure their parents had even been surprised. Marian had shrugged it off, as she does anything, but Bethany had had nightmares about it. It had been enough to convince her this was one path she couldn’t follow her sister down. It’s not that she even thinks her parents would have disapproved—Marian had always been allowed to pursue her trysts undisturbed—but there would have been disappointment, and she’d always felt she owed it to her family to make up for the sacrifices they’d made to keep her from the templars’ notice. Sacrifices she hadn’t deserved. The clear air between her and Loghain had given her a glimpse of what it might have been like to be part of a family without the shadow of guilt that always loomed, impenetrable, between her and her parents and siblings.
“He was always very… pragmatic about it. Like I said, it was normal in the wardens.”
“He and I barely spoke for a week afterwards.” Anora sips her wine and looks into the fire. “Things between us were never quite the same after that. I find myself wishing I’d had the man you knew as a father.”
Bethany almost points out that Anora could have, had she returned his letter, but she bites her tongue. It wasn’t only the wardens at Ostagar he betrayed, Bethany reminds herself. Anora had nearly been deposed because of his treason. She’s right that the man she knew, the man who’d left Marian and Carver to die and allowed the Blight to spread north while he played King, hadn’t been the same man who’d patted her awkwardly on the back as she cried into her armor in the hills outside Lothering.
“I suppose contrition suited him,” she answers instead.
“It’s a shame that’s what it took.”
Anora reaches for the wine bottle to pour them each another glass, but instead of replacing her hand on the table, she rests it on top of Bethany’s. A zip of lightning shoots up her arm. Anora’s hand is more calloused than she’d expected from a queen, but it’s warm, and the weight of it is reassuring.
“Shall we change the subject? Perhaps something that will set a less dour mood.”
Anora is looking at her intently, even hungrily. There have been no rumors about her that Bethany has heard, so she must be careful about selecting partners. Bethany’s status as a warden protects her from both political power plays and concerns about being discovered, but perhaps Anora doesn’t often have the opportunity.
“Of course. What did you have in mind?”
“You must have stories, as a warden.” At the look on her face, Anora rushes to add, “Not of darkspawn. I meant stories of a more personal nature.”
She’s drawing circles on the back of Bethany’s hand with her index finger.
“You want to hear about other women I’ve bedded.”
“Yes.” Her voice is firm. Her eyes are dark.
Bethany reaches for her wine glass with her free hand. Pulling the other hand away could be interpreted as a rebuke, and that is emphatically not what she wants.
She’s always admired how comfortable Isabela is recounting her past escapades, but even after years of being a warden, even after multiple stints at Weisshaupt, where it’s sometimes difficult to enter a storage room without coming across three or four people fucking, Bethany has never been so comfortable discussing it. She tries, especially with Isabela, who is always excited to hear all about what she’s been doing and to whom, but the embarrassment is always there, staring at her with a face that always looks disconcertingly like her mother’s.
“Just one.”
Anora must have noticed her face going red. But Bethany can hear the plea in her voice. Anora doesn’t do this often, she realizes. She wants to live vicariously through her experience.
“Alright.”
She thinks for a moment. There had been a Tevinter woman who had wanted to go all night, but she doubts that story is likely to endear her to the Queen. There had been one time with—but it feels wrong to recounting the details of that relationship as if it was a particularly interesting journey through the deep roads.
“There was this woman I met at Weisshaupt. There are always people from all over the place at Weisshaupt, and most of them want to drink and fuck as much as possible, so it’s never hard to find a lay. Anyway, this woman was from Kirkwall.”
“Had you met her before?” Anora asks over the top of her wine glass.
“No, she was from Darktown, which was one of the only places in the city worse than our neighborhood, but that was why we caught each other’s attention. It’s always nice to talk to someone from home.”
Loghain had actually made the introduction. It had been their third night at the fortress after a particularly long slog through the deep roads that had finally spit them out near Kal-Sharok, and the woman had sat down across from him and struck up a conversation despite everything about his demeanor screaming that he didn’t want to make friends. But that particular detail seems likely to spoil the mood, so she keeps it to herself.
“So we found a spot in this storage room that was a floor down from the dining hall. It’s one of the main spots because it’s central but out of the way enough that no one is likely to walk in on you in the middle of it.”
“Why not just take her to your room?” Anora asks.
“It’s all barracks at Weisshaupt unless your rank is high enough,” she answers. “We’d have been fucking on the top bunk.”
Some people do that of course; seldom a week goes by at Weisshaupt when she doesn’t wake in the middle of the night to the sound of springs squeaking and heavy breathing. But that has never been among her interests.
“Well, we get to the storage room, and we’re all over each other, of course, since, you know, we both know that’s what we’re there for. And then, she pulls away and tells me she wants to be upside down.”
Anora raises her eyebrows. “Upside down? During…?”
Bethany nods. “So she goes over to the wall and does a handstand, and I just stand there looking at her because I have no idea what she wants me to do, and eventually, she spreads her legs open,” she can feel her cheeks going red, “and that’s when I got the idea.”
Anora looks incredulous. “Was it good?”
“It was… strange. I was so worried about her falling on her head, it sort of kept me from getting into it.”
“And did she…” Anora makes a circular gesture with her finger, “return the favor?”
Bethany nods, her face growing redder. “That part was fine. Unremarkable. Luckily, she didn’t expect any acrobatics from me.”
She’d sat on the same crate she’s sat on with a dozen other women between her legs, as the woman from Darktown stripped her of her boots and pants and got on her knees.
“She did try to lift me onto her shoulders at one point,” she adds as an afterthought. “But I made her put me down. She was a tiny woman. I don’t know how she thought she was going to hold me like that.”
Anora stifles a laugh as she lifts her glass to her mouth again. Her fingers tickle the back of Bethany’s hand. She’s dying to feel them elsewhere.
“Anyway, I learned later that she’d also fucked my sister.”
That’s the hazard in picking up any woman from Kirkwall. Marian has been prolific enough that it’s always a risk. The two of them generally avoid talking about their sex lives with each other, but that particular woman had been memorable enough that they’d apparently both mentioned her to Isabela, and she’d put two and two together and delighted in embarrassing them both over it.
“You buried the lede.”
“It wasn’t the point of the story. If I’d known when I was with her, it would have killed the mood entirely.”
“Well,” Anora laces her fingers through hers. “You can rest in the knowledge that I have never gone to bed with the Champion of Kirkwall.”
“I know,” Bethany replies, because there is no way she wouldn’t have heard if Marian had ever taken a queen to bed.
“Then shall we go somewhere more comfortable?” She stands and gives Bethany’s hand a tug. “I assure you, I’ve no interest in acrobatics either.”
“What a relief.” Bethany springs from her chair, momentarily embarrassed by her obvious eagerness as she allows herself to be led to the bedroom.
Bethany expects to be turned out the moment it’s over, an unfortunate secret the Queen will take to her grave. She doesn’t expect Anora to roll towards her and lay her head on her shoulders like a lover. Her hand is resting idly between Bethany’s breasts, her fingers still damp. The room is heavy with the smell of sex. She feels warm, but she doesn’t want to push Anora away. Maybe it’s because the funeral has emotions still running high, but it’s been years since she’s felt this wanted. She strokes Anora’s hair and feels her breath against her chest as she sighs.
“How long will you be in Denerim?”
“It’s five day’s walk back to the Vigil,” Bethany replies. “We were planning to leave tomorrow morning.”
Anora sighs again, discontentedly.
“Would it be so out of line if I asked to see you again?”
She turns to her, although her head is angled so Bethany can’t see her face. “Again?”
“It’s just…” Anora trails off. Her fingers fidget on Bethany’s chest. “It’s rare to find a person who understands one so thoroughly. Or at least, it has been for me.” She pauses. “And I’ve had fun.”
Anora hoists herself up on her elbow, unashamedly taking in the sight in front of her. Bethany is cold at the loss of contact, but it gives her a better view of Anora as well. There’s a scar on her bicep that looks like it could be an old training injury if, like her, Anora had once been made to learn to use a sword.
“You could make it in three if I loaned you a horse,” she adds. “That would give you another two days before you had to catch up with your fellows.”
She lays her hand on Bethany’s stomach, just low enough that she knows she’s being enticed.
“And what will I tell them about where I’ve been and who gave me the horse?”
“Tell them you’ve befriended a generous noblewoman.” Anora’s eyes glint mischievously when she smiles. “She took you to a smoking lounge near the palace after the funeral and—” she leans in to press a kiss to Bethany’s lips—“seduced you.”
She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t believe that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Bethany sits up and rolls Anora back onto the mattress underneath her. “It’s usually me who approaches them.”
There is nothing quite like the feeling of hovering over top of her, of having been permission to touch her wherever she wants to. Bethany had grown up in a two-room house and slept on a bed of hay with her brother and sister. She’d once hopped puddles of piss in the alleys of Lowtown to buy poultices and cheese from the market. She’s a mage who has never set foot inside a circle. She doesn’t belong in a queen’s bed. That Anora wants her here anyway takes her breath away.
“Are you sure it’s wise?” she asks.
Anora rolls her eyes. “Wise would have been if I’d married some Arl’s son after Cailan died and produced an heir within the year.” She wraps her arms around Bethany’s neck. “I devote my life to Ferelden in all matters except for this. This is mine.”
She should still say no. She should go back to the Vigil with her fellows and do her patrols and take each new crop of wardens on their first expeditions into the deep roads. She should try to adjust to the empty seat across from her at dinner and to spending nights by the fire alone. It would be incredibly selfish to involve the Queen into her trail of blood and sacrifice. She sacrifices enough already.
But tonight, Bethany doesn’t want to worry about waking up early tomorrow to dress and go back to the inn to meet the other wardens for the long walk through the mud on the Pilgrim’s Path. She wants to look forward to lying naked in the sheets with a beautiful woman beside her.
“Alright,” she agrees, although she can already feel the shadow of guilt, that old friend, nestle itself between them.
“Besides.” Anora tightens her grip and pulls Bethany towards her so she can whisper into her ear. “I’m not exactly asking you to marry me. It’s two more nights.”
Bethany lowers herself down to the pillow beside her. The memory of Loghain’s empty pyre feels like it’s from another life. She wraps her arm around the waist of the last woman he will ever introduce her to and inhales the scent of smoke mingled with rosewater in her soft golden hair. Thank the Maker there’s no resemblance between them.
Anora turns toward her. Her hand reaches around Bethany’s side and flattens itself against her back, her fingers tracing a scar just below her shoulder blade from a rusty darkspawn sword. She’d expected to feel self-conscious about the scars littering her body, but the affection in Anora’s touch banishes the thought before it has time to take root. It’s been too long since she’s felt a negative thought slip away.
“Someday, you’ll tell me how you got these.”
“But not tonight,” Bethany replies as she wraps her arm around her.
Someday, her mind echos as she closes her eyes and concentrates on the sound of Anora’s breath and the rise and fall of her back to anchor her to this spot lest she slip into a nightmare. It doesn’t mean anything, she tells herself. It’s only two days. Her father just died.
But selfishly, the suggestion of something more lingers in the back of her mind long after Anora drifts off with an easiness that Bethany hasn’t felt in a decade. Such a relationship would never be accepted, were it known—Anora, the Queen of Ferelden, and Bethany, a warden mage from a farming town in the Hinterlands—and she has never been a person that good things happen to. But this morning, even calling her by her first name had seemed impossible. The thought of being plucked from a life she hadn’t asked for and didn’t want by a Queen who had seen something worth saving in her feels like a story from one of the books in the library at the Vigil.
That’s why she knows it’s impossible. But the thought of it is enough to mix a wisp of excitement into the churning guilt and dread she always feels as she lies down at night. If the possibility grants her a momentary reprieve from her real life and gives her a few nights of restful sleep, she can make that be enough. At least for now.