Chapter Text
“You’re really leaving me.”
Kahrin hung her head, letting out a hard breath until it ended in a groan. “Don’t make it sound like that.”
“Like what? A breakup?” Anders looked hurt, in way she did not like seeing on his face, but a way that could not be helped. She was leaving, and he was not entirely wrong. “Because that’s what it feels like.”
“We can’t break up. There was nothing to break.”
He sucked in air over his teeth and turned away, keeping his voice hushed lest they wake Elyssa. “How can you say that?”
How could she say that? They’d been living together for three years, and on the run for most of it. Staying ahead of the Wardens that might be looking for her. For them. Their little tower had been a haven for a time, a perfect place for them to piece their little family together, the three of them. And then the four of them, once Justice had made himself known. But that had lasted weeks, barely scratching the surface of their time together.
Anders had not lied to her about Justice, and she’d already known a little, but there was something about seeing it that mere words did not convey. Until then, it had been easy to fall into bed with an old lover, the father of her child. Until then they’d been blissful, thinking that the blood between them was enough to build upon. When it wasn’t enough, the settled into a routine. Friends with a child, and sometimes friends who worked out their physical needs together. It had never been romantic, even in the early days of their reunion.
“You know this isn’t working,” she said honestly. Perhaps too bluntly. Their problems went beyond Justice. Beyond the marriage they’d destroyed together. Beyond what happened in Kirkwall.
“Why? Because we fight?”
“No.” She smiled, trying to find a gentle way to say what she knew she needed to say. “I don’t love you. Not like that.” His face crumpled, and she added, “You don’t love me, either.”
“It’s been three years, Kahrin.” Anders threw his hands up and turned his back to her. “Don’t tell me what I feel.”
Kahrin sighed. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you love me like that. That you feel half of what you felt for Mirei.” Mirei and Sebastian, but she didn’t dare say the S-word in front of him. In front of Justice.
He tried to meet her eyes, lips rolled against his teeth. She could see plainly on his face that he wanted to argue. He had an argument for everything, always, because he was brilliant, for sure, but this was one he couldn’t win. Because he didn’t want to.
“You can’t keep bringing that up. It’s over.”
“Is it? Because I can’t be your Mirei substitute.” Oh, she’d tried. She thought, for Elyssa’s sake, they needed to try. The raw truth was that they just were not good together as more than bedmates, and forcing it did not help. Sleeping together did not repair what words wounded. Even after they agreed they were better off just friends. “Besides, you know this isn’t about you.”
He wanted to argue about that, too, but they both heard the song that was driving them half mad, fraying their nerves. Making their fights louder and longer. “You’re using the Calling against me?”
“I’m not against you, Anders, why can’t you understand that?” She began stuffing more things into her pack. “If I was, I would just go. I wouldn’t have made arrangements for you.”
“Arrangements. I’m perfectly capable of—“
“You’re the most wanted fugitive on Thedas.” It was another hard truth, one he’d thrown at her a time or two, so she considered it fair game. “Nathaniel is going to help you two stay hidden.”
“I’m not a child,” he grumbled.
“No, but she is,” she said with a jerk of her chin at their sleeping daughter. “And you’re dying. We both are if I can’t stop it.”
“Stop it? How are you going to stop our Calling, Kahrin?”
“I don’t know yet, but I have a few leads.”
That caught him. If nothing else, Anders’ brilliance was the direct result of his being as curious as a cat. “What leads?”
It was her turn to bite her lip now. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
Kahrin sighed. “There’s a mage at Soldier’s Peak,” she said quietly. “We met him during the Blight. He’s old, Anders, older than he should be.” When he narrowed his eyes, questioning, she answered him. “Yes, with blood magic.”
“How is blood magic your first idea?”
“I don’t know!” She threw her arms up. “Because the Joining is basically blood magic.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “Because I don’t know where else to look. If Avernus is still alive, if he’s still doing his work, he might be able to buy us more time.”
“Not the way you’re thinking of it.” He crossed his arms and watched her, wary. “Nothing good will come of blood magic, Kahrin. It’s against the Maker.”
“So are we.” She laughed, frantic energy rushing through her. “We took the Taint into ourselves. We drank blood of the terrors created by human folly.” He knew the Chant better than she did, but she’d spent a lot of years utterly alone, thinking about this very thing.
“You need me for this,” Anders tried. “I have experience and knowledge. I can help you.”
Kahrin heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of one of the small chairs in what made up the kitchen of their rented room. “No. Someone has to stay with Elyssa.” She looked up, examining his brown eyes as if looking for answers. When she found none she said, “She knows you better. She’ll be better with you.”
“I’m too much of a fugitive to come with you, but not too much to take care of our daughter.”
“You’re all she has if anything happens to me.”
“The same could be said of you,” he pointed out.
Arguing was getting them nowhere. Kahrin stood and crossed the room to him. “There was a time you were all my responsibility. I was your commander.”
“But you’re not anymore.” He drew her to him in a hug. No matter how they fought, they couldn’t stay mad at one another, and she went easily, wrapping her arms around his scrawny chest. How much of it was the toll of being on the run for literal years, and how much was Justice? The Taint? There was no way to tell, and with the Calling in their minds, there was less and less time to find out. “You don’t have to solve every Grey Warden problem.”
“I have to solve this one. I owe it to you. I owe it to—“ She stopped, looking out the window.
He knew what she didn’t say. “You’re going to say Alistair.”
“What of it?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “When will you drop that torch? He exiled you, took our child. You say we don’t work, but you’ll go back to him?”
“You don’t understand.” She pulled away from him and stood up to her full height, all five feet of it. “The Blight changes you.”
“So does being exiled by your husband.”
Kahrin flinched like she’d been slapped. That stung, for how true it was. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to feel ill toward Alistair. She was counting on him feeling the same. “It’s been been ten years, Anders.”
“Isn’t he about to remarry? Let him go.”
Kahrin shook her head and fiddled with the ring on her right hand. “It’s not like that. I want him to have more time with whatever new wife he chooses. I need to help make sure he has it. This could be happening to him, too.” Kahrin looked out the window of their room. “I have to go back to Denerim.” She looked to Anders, who looked hurt, like he always did when she made a decision. This decision. To leave him behind and go to Denerim. In reality it was a choice she’d only made twice, but it was weird all the same. “He needs to know what I’m doing.”
Anders grasped her shoulders with light fingers, his voice heavy with worry. Whether it was born of love, friendship, or fear for what their daughter stood to lose, she was not sure. “He could have you executed for breaking your exile.”
Kahrin shook her head. She knew that to be true, and trusted it more than she trusted anything else. “He won’t. We’re each other’s only hope.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am.” Even if she wasn’t, she’d never admit it.
#
“I will not waste words telling you not to go,” Nathaniel said as he tucked Kahrin’s hair into the hood of her heavy cloak.
“Good.” She smiled tight, lips hiding her teeth. “We wouldn’t want that. Your time is too precious to waste.” She swatted at his busy hands as they fussed with something invisible on her shoulder.
“I wish you would reconsider. Come with us.”
“Nate,” she said softly to stymie his offer. She moved on as if he’d not spoken. “You need to stay on the move. I’ll send word when I can.” She leaned up and left a kiss on his cheek. “Protect them as I would.”
“You have my word.” He would keep it. Nathaniel was always good for his word, especially to her. Maybe his temper got the best of him as it did her at times, but he always tried his best by her, even when she did not listen. Nathaniel’s love for her was one she returned in-kind. Friends like him were once in a lifetime.
She pressed a purse of coin into his hand. “It’s not much, but it should help.”
“Kahrin.” He tried to give it back but she stepped out of his reach. “You need this more than I do.”
“Don’t stay in one place too long. Don’t look for me.” With that done, she only had her goodbyes to say.
Anders and Elyssa waited for her by the door to the little safehouse Nate had set up for them. They would stay there until it didn’t make sense anymore, then they would move on. She didn’t know where, and didn’t want to know. It was safer if she was ignorant.
She crossed first to Anders, letting him draw her into a kiss that would likely be their last. No, perhaps they did not love one another, not in the way they needed to in order to stay together, but she shared love so easily for people. The love she felt for Anders, the gratitude she had for the part of him that gave her Elyssa would never dull.
“Be careful out there,” he told her.
She nodded, squeezing his hand, then crouched down in front of Elyssa. “Hey, Lil Nip,” she said, borrowing Anders’ nickname for her. “This isn’t goodbye.”
Elyssa’s face was hard to read, her eyes welling with tears but her mouth in a firm line. She’d seen too much life in ten years. “It feels like it. Will I see you again?”
Kahrin’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she pressed her brow to Elyssa’s. “I hope so.” She wasn’t going to make promises she could not keep. “Be good for Papa and Uncle Nate.” She fussed with Elyssa’s cloak. “You remember the story?”
“I’m Hilde. These are my Papas.”
“That’s right. Zeke and Devin.” Kahrin squeezed the girl in her arms, waiting for one of them to cry. Neither of them spent their tears, and Kahrin stood up and brushed herself off.
“Maker watch over you,” she said to the three of them. From atop her horse, she waved before turning about, resisting the urge to look back. If she did, she might not make it back to the road, might not make it South, and she had to move on, for all of them.
#
Kahrin stepped off the ship and put her feet onto Fereldan soil for the first time in ten years. The harbor had changed, of course. It was no longer the one she remembered from childhood. She’d not lain eyes on it since her honeymoon all those years ago. Back when she’d been queen, back when she had tried so hard to keep all the promises she made. To love Alistair the way he deserved, to let Morrigan go.
It was surreal, being back in Highever, everything familiar and not. Even that which had been rebuilt after the Blight was weathered, though maintained well. Snow covered everything in the early morning with only a few people milling about the streets. Kahrin went to a corner she remembered had a bakery, pleased to find there was fresh bread cooling inside. It was enough to slake her Warden’s hunger, just in case the first part of her plan didn’t work.
Butter melted into the soft insides of the bread and warmed her through. She ate while she walked, keeping her head down just in case the years hadn’t changed her as much as it had the teyrnir. The road rose up beneath her feet, her memory taking over and guiding her to the gates of Castle Cousland.
Her heart ached to see it. The stone was different shades of grey where the walls had been rebuilt. Up above the outer wall, wedged in a crenelation along the parapet, was a child who reminded her of Oren.
“State your business,” one of the guards said as they stopped her at the gates.
“I’m here to see Teyrn Cousland,” she said without hesitation.
“Not just anyone can see the teyrn. What’s your business?”
She closed her eyes, breathing deep and hoping to still her temper. They didn’t know her. They were only doing their job. “I will only speak to Teyrn Cousland.”
She was ushered into the gatehouse and questioned at length, but Kahrin held to her word. She did not speak.
“What is the meaning of this,” the man said as he was shown to the gatehouse. “Who in their right mind would—“
“Fergus,” Kahrin said, her voice choking over the syllables.
“Kahrin?” He stepped forward, his eyes wide like he’d seen a ghost. Maybe she was a ghost, for all the years she’d been gone. “Is it really you?”
She nodded, her jaw trembling. “It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?” He waved a hand through the air and seemed to think better of it. Instead, he looked at the group of guards gathered, about a dozen all told, human and elf in equal measure. “On your honor, you speak nothing of what you’ve seen here.”
Kahrin held her breath, waiting to see their response. No one objected. They fisted her hands over their hearts and dipped their heads.
“Come with me,” Fergus said, ushering her out of the gatehouse. He hurried them to the family vault, locking the door behind them. Once they were alone, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from the floor in a crushing hug. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” she joked over the tears that streamed over her cheeks. She touched his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time ever, running her hands over it and comparing it to her memory. Her mind had not held true. She’d forgotten the freckle under his eye, the way the hair of his beard never quite grew back from the accident they’d had as children.
“I see you’ve still got your sense of humor.” He set her down, cupping her face in his hands and studyinig her. He was older now, going grey at the temples, but not so grey that it looked anything but dignified. “You’ve risked much coming here, for both of us. Harboring you could be treason.”
Kahrin rolled her eyes as she wiped the tears away. “Don’t be so dramatic. You house half the king’s army. He’s not going to risk war with you over me.”
“I hope you are right.” They sat at the guard table, Fergus refusing to drop her hand the whole time. “Regardless, why have you come here? Are you in trouble?”
There was no time for her to be vague. “I’m dying.” Before he could ask, she waved her hand to stop him. “It’s a Grey Warden thing that I can’t explain to you, and I don’t know how much time I have.”
“This is what, a goodbye?” He shook his head like he wouldn’t believe it.
“No, nothing like that.” Not exactly, and she let Fergus glean that from her eyes as she held his gaze. Oh, how she’d missed him all these years. Sitting in front of him now felt like it had to be a dream. “How has the king been?”
“You risk his wrath by coming here and that’s what you want to know?” Fergus narrowed his eyes.
“He’s a Grey Warden, too, Fergus, even if he doesn’t wear the uniform anymore.”
“What are you saying?”
Kahrin sprang up from her chair, unable to sit still. “I need to know how his health has been. How has he been?”
“Reclusive,” Fergus said. “I figured it was the matter of having to choose a new wife.”
“His temper?” Kahrin chewed her lip. “Anything at all. I need to know anything out of the ordinary.”
“Kahrin what is this about?” Fergus stood to follow her in her pacing, as if he couldn’t sit still either. “Is the king dying?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said, punctuating it by stamping her foot. “But I need a favor from you, first.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” He crossed his arms and tilted his head, mirroring her own posture.
“You’re the only one I can turn to. The only person with the power to get me what I need right now, more than anything. The only person who can protect me if it goes wrong.”
“What is it you’re asking, Kahrin? What do you need?”
“I need an audience with the king.”