+ a false bottom, sunrise at the windmill
He looked up as she approached, wariness on his face before he schooled it away.
“Got something for you,” Emma said.
The ornate leather belt lay across Emma's palms like in offering. Wolves embossed in the leather, silver threading through like morning mist. The buckle itself was just solid, functional. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with vanity.
His eyes dropped to the belt. Something shifted in his expression—nostalgic.
“That's...” he took it in. “That's nice.”
“It's an upgrade.” She held it out. “To hold against what's coming tonight.”
This new belt would replace the first piece she'd ever handed him, back at Ostagar. When the stakes felt manageable. He'd worn it every day since.
Alistair took the new belt. “You've been gearing me up.”
“You're my tank,” Emma said flatly. “If you go down, we all do.”
“Right.” His voice was careful. “Tactical.”
She nodded. Emma by now had replaced his pauldrons, his gauntlets, his boots. Piece by piece, she'd been armoring him. Making him harder to kill.
Alistair unbuckled the old belt slowly. The leather was worn soft where it had rested against his hips, darkened with sweat and road dust. He hesitated before setting it aside.
“The wolves are a nice touch,” he said, threading the new belt through his armor. “Very ferocious.”
“They hunt in packs,” Emma said. “Seemed appropriate.”
“Thank you.”
She turned and left. More fortifications to see to, no doubt.
Owen's forge was cold when Emma found him, hunched over a cup that smelled like poison, layered in residue from being filled several times already. The stench hit her before she crossed the threshold. She suppressed an expression of disgust.
“Murdock needs you to repair the militia's armor,” Emma said without preamble.
Owen didn't look up. “Does he now.”
“They'll defend you better if they're not worried about their straps breaking.”
“They'll die regardless.” He took another drink. “Just slower.”
Emma dragged a stool across the floor and sat. The forge was a gutted thing, ash scattered across the floor like dirty snow. “Your daughter's in the castle.”
That got his attention. His head jerked up, eyes red-rimmed and desperate. “You've seen her?”
“No. But if we live through the night, I'll go in. I'll look for her.”
“Will you.” It wasn't a question. His voice was flat, hopeless. “Murdock said the same damned thing and I didn't believe him either.”
“I'm not Murdock.”
“No.” Owen set his cup down hard. “You're something else entirely, aren't you? A mage. A Grey Warden. Someone who actually might—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “I want a promise. Promise me you'll look for her. That you'll bring her back if you can.”
“What's stopping me from lying to you?” she asked Owen.
“Nothing besides your conscience.” His voice cracked. “You got one of them?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Then I'll take what I can get and leave the rest to the Maker's grace.”
He was drunk, but not a fool. Did he not just ask her to lie, to give him hope? He knew the truth.
“I promise you. I'll find her.”
Owen's shoulders sagged. “I'll accept that. It's something to hope for, at least.”
He rekindled the forge with shaking hands. “I've got a lot to do now,” he said to no one in particular. “So you'll have to excuse me.”
Emma left him to it. The sound of the bellows followed them out onto the landing above the lake.
Sten waited. Emma felt his shadow before she saw him, the Qunari looming at the entrance like a disapproving monument.
“Is this a promise we will not keep?” Sten spoke squarely.
Owen looked up, startled. “What's this?”
“I said nothing to you, human.”
“We'll keep it if we can,” she said quietly.
“And if we cannot?”
“Then I'll have lied to a desperate man to get him to do his job. Would you prefer I let him drink himself to death?”
“I would prefer we speak truth.”
“Truth doesn't forge armor.”
Mother Hannah's quarters in the chantry were sparse, ascetic. A single window let in weak afternoon light that did nothing to warm the stone.
“Ser Perth needs holy protection for the knights,” Emma said, sighing.
The Revered Mother's expression didn't change. “I have done all I can for them. I pray for them each night and seek the Maker's forgiveness for their sins before they face their deaths. What Ser Perth seeks is not in my power to give.”
“Can't you just bless them?”
“I can pray with them and give them my blessing.” Mother Hannah's voice was patient, practiced. “But Ser Perth wants me to call upon the Maker to shield them from evil.”
Alistair shifted beside Emma. “Well, can't you just tell him the Maker will watch over him? Morale is a powerful thing, you know.”
“You mean you want me to let them think the Maker protects them in a real sense?” The Revered Mother's tone sharpened. “I will not lie to them like that.”
Emma felt the words forming before she fully understood them. “But if they think it helps them—”
Leliana made a small sound of protest.
Emma kept going, voice level. “—That's protection.” Arguably real.
Mother Hannah's hands clasped together, knuckles white. “It just seems like trickery.”
“Not if it works.”
The silence stretched. Mother Hannah's gaze moved between them—the Wardens. One an ex-templar, another a Circle mage. Accompanied by a woman who carried herself like a lay sister. Three people who should have known better.
“Very well,” she said finally. “If it keeps them alive, I will do what I must.” She moved to a locked chest, producing a velvet pouch. “I have a number of silver-cast holy symbols. Tell Ser Perth that wearing them will confer the Maker's protection.”
The pouch settled heavy in Emma’s palm.
“Now please,” Mother Hannah said, voice carefully empty. “Let me tend to these poor folk.”
They left in silence. Outside, Leliana finally spoke.
“Must we do this? The faith that will protect these men must come from their hearts, surely.”
“Their hearts wanted silver,” she said.
The amulets clinked softly in the pouch.
Ser Perth accepted the holy symbols with reverence that made Emma's stomach turn.
“Mother Hannah has seen sense at last,” he said, holding one of the silver medallions up to the light. “These are blessed by the Maker himself, not the work of mages.”
Emma bit back the obvious response. The symbols were silver. Expensive. Well-made. Something to make the knights fight harder, or clutch while dying. Regardless, they'd believe they could survive. That had value. Didn't it?
She didn't like it; But she didn't owe them truth.
“I do not approve of magery and such,” Ser Perth continued, apparently oblivious to the mage standing directly in front of him. “But the symbols of the Chantry are holy and righteous.”
These men were more fools than Owen, taking for granted her magic that would more literally help them in the coming battle.
“Right,” Emma said flatly. “Very righteous.”
Alistair's face was divided by a warning look, a smirk, and something else. She quickly looked away.
“We'll hold the windmill,” Ser Perth declared. “With the Maker's protection, we cannot fail.”
As the sun set, Redcliffe village hummed with anxious preparation. Ser Perth's knights pinning emblems to armor straps. Murdock's voice cutting through the evening air, trying to organize fishers and farmers into something resembling a defensive line. The smell of fish mingled with wood smoke.
Emma sat by the campfire in Redcliffe’s makeshift staging area. Close enough for warmth, far enough for shadow, between the militia’s supply tent and the chantry’s edge. Her legs stretched out, boots crossed at the ankle. The empty velvet pouch still in her hands. Muffin curled against her hip, nose twitching in his nap.
She told Owen she'd find his daughter. She'd given Ser Perth his amulets.
The worst part was knowing it worked. The militia would fight better. The knights would hold longer. Owen would survive the night because he had something to live for, even if that something was built on her bullshit.
Duncan had done the same thing to her. Given her a role she never asked for, made it necessity, made her complicit.
She'd also done real things. Owen's equipment was real. So were the mercenaries she bullied to join the fight. The spy. Even the bartender. Lloyd was no fighter. Why? Because he was a prick, that's why.
And she'd equipped Alistair piece by piece, armoring him against a world that wanted him dead. Against himself, sometimes.
It felt good. But how is weaponizing a person better than weaponizing belief and empty promises?
The amulets would help. The promises might hold. The suit might keep Alistair alive. Long enough to stand in front of her.
Emma sat on the windmill steps, pressing a field dressing to her forehead with one hand. The wound had closed cleanly under her hands, but the jelly inside her skull remained scrambled.
Alistair approached from the direction of the barricades, armor caked in layers she didn't want to identify. He stopped a careful distance away, close enough to speak without shouting.
“Murdock's organizing the cleanup,” he said. “Ser Perth wants to burn the corpses before noon. Smart. The smell's already...”
He trailed off. She nodded once.
“How's your head?”
“Better.”
He sat across from her, in silence.
He knew this was coming since they left Lothering. Known it, dreaded it, spent several days hoping maybe a sinkhole would open up and swallow him before they arrived. No such luck.
“I should've told you,” Alistair said finally. “Before we got here. Before any of this.”
Emma lowered the bandage. The blood on it was old, darkening at the edges.
“Yes.”
“I kept thinking there'd be a better time. Or that it wouldn't matter. Or—” He stopped himself. “There's no good excuse.”
She was watching the lake, expression empty.
The lake curled around the cliffs, under them: grey, vast, deeply familiar in a way that made Alistair's chest tight. He spent half his childhood sneaking down to the shore beneath. Skipping stones. Pretending he was anyone else.
“I'm... Maker, Emma. I'm so sorry.”
Pretending didn't work then, either.
“You trusted me with... everything,” Emma said quietly. “The village—” She gestured vaguely at the survivors, the wreckage.
“Everything,” she repeated, frazzled. “but not this...?”
“No, please don't think that. It's not that I didn't trust you. It's...”
“Then why?”
“Anyone who's ever known has treated me differently. I stopped being Alistair and became the bastard prince.” He swallowed. “I liked that you didn't know. That you just... saw me.”
Emma looked at him. He looked down.
“And then after Ostagar, when I should have told you... I don't know, it just seemed like it was too late.”
Emma studied him. The sunlight caught the edge of his pauldron, still smeared with grime. He felt suddenly, acutely exhausted.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why tell me here?”
“Because we're at Redcliffe.” He said it simply. “Because Arl Eamon raised me. Because I couldn't...I just couldn't risk you finding out from someone else.”
“Considerate.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Do you want to be king?”
“No.” No hesitation. No equivocation. “Maker, no. The very idea terrifies me.”
“I need to know something.”
“Anything.”
“When you stepped back—” She met his eyes. “Is it because you're avoiding something?”
“Probably. That's not the only reason.”
She waited. He forced himself not to rush.
“I'm good at fighting. I can hold a line. But planning ahead? I miss things. The obvious things. And the quiet ones.” He shook his head. “You don't.”
She didn’t deny it.
“And yes, maybe part of me is relieved not to carry that weight. But it's not—” He struggled for words. “You're better at it. You are.”
“You'd step in if I couldn't.”
“Of course I would. If you were dead or captured or—” He stopped himself. “Yes. I'd have to. But I'd probably mess it all up. Maker help us, if we had to do it without you.”
His voice got soft. Like it was an actual prayer. She let out a slow breath.
The militia's voices drifted across the square—shouts, laughter, exhaustion.
“I need to know your judgment wasn’t just dodging destiny,” she said.
“Fair,” he said again, quieter this time. “That's... more than fair. I just trust you with this,” he said. “That's why.”
They sat in silence. The sun climbed higher. Somewhere in the village, Leliana was singing—a working song.
Then, he heard Emma take a sharp breath, indignant. Something short of a laugh.
“You trust me to save the world. You just didn't trust me with you.”
“That's—” He stopped. “Yes. That's exactly it.”
“I know.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I heard you the first time.”
More silence. This one felt different. Less careful.
“For what it's worth,” Alistair said, “you put me on the front line last night. You could have pulled me back. Treated me like something fragile.”
“Why would I?”
“Because I'm a—” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Problem. A liability Loghain would love to get his hands on.”
Emma's expression sharpened. “Pulling you back wouldn't keep you out of his hands.”
He exhaled. “Thank you. For not doing that.”
“There's nothing else you're keeping from me?”
“No. Just the prince thing.”
The singing stopped. Someone called for water.
“We should check on them,” Emma said, standing carefully.
He held out his arm to her. She took it without comment.
“Are we... all right?”
She considered that longer than he liked.
“I don't know,” she said. “We are. In the ways that matter most.”
Later, when the bodies were burning, Emma found herself alone by the chantry.
She thought about Lothering.
The inn. The assassins. The decision she'd made in under a minute.
Alistair had objected. Quietly. But he'd backed her anyway. She was so certain. Two threats eliminated before they could report back. Leliana was horrified.
She'd been right. More right than she'd known.
Emma stared at the chantry's doors, at the scorch marks where fire had licked stone, at the village that had survived because she'd made a slow accumulation of decisions she couldn't take back, justified by outcomes she'd never fully understand.
The amulet rolled into her palm, surprisingly heavy. Andraste's symbol, stamped in ceramic. Worn smooth at the edges. Cracked and repaired with care. Safely hidden.
Everything else in this office had been ransacked—papers scattered, shelves overturned.
She knew it immediately.
I tore it off and threw it at the wall. Shattered it.
She remembered Alistair's voice, as he walked along the highway, describing a ten-year-old's rage at being sent away.
And the vision repeated: Ser Perth's knights clutching their silver amulets at the windmill, eyes bright with faith.
The amulet was warm from her grip. It was the same symbol. This one was just older, a different material, a different mold. Broken and repaired.
The Maker is absent was the whole point of the Chantry. And yet the lie worked anyway.
Practical. Efficient. The knights had fought better, lived through the night. Results she couldn't argue with. She'd signed off on it without hesitation.
Except it did bother her. Had been bothering her for close to a day now, in the exhausted half-conscious moments between combat and collapse when her mind wouldn't settle.
Half of them died to the Revenant in the castle courtyard, less than 24 hours later. But before then, they defended the village. She'd helped make that happen. That meant something.
And here in her hand: an object that mattered because someone decided it did. Repaired by a man who'd taken in a child that wasn't his, kept a secret that could have destroyed a kingdom.
Emma stared at it and felt the last of her plausible deniability collapse.
She was worried. Not only about herself. Or the mission.
It had nothing to do with tactics or marching order and everything to do with the sick twist in her chest when she thought about what would happen if people found out. When they started looking at him the way those knights had looked at their stupid amulets.
Alistair had a type of story people like to believe in. A story that would make them braver, more loyal, more compliant.
Ferelden would eventually want him to mean something, and none of it had anything to do with who he actually was or what he wanted or what he was good at.
She didn't want them to have him.
Which was how she knew she was completely fucked.
Alistair was checking the perimeter, his boots echoing down the stone corridor. She heard him long before she saw him, clanking through the castle, impossible to ignore.
“Find anything?”
She should just give it to him. Stop making it complicated.
But it was complicated. And now she was holding proof that Alistair—pragmatic, self-deprecating Alistair who joked about everything—carried his own desperate need to believe, that he'd mattered to someone, that the abandonment wasn't inevitable or deserved.
Emma closed her fist around the amulet. Her throat felt tight.
“Em?” He approached her, concerned.
“I found this.”
Her voice was carefully neutral. The same tone she used for an inventory assessment or debrief. It sounded wrong even to her own ears.
He stopped mid-step. Stared at her palm.
“This... this is my mother's amulet. It has to be.” His voice cracked slightly. “But why isn't it broken? Where did you find it?”
She should say something like congratulations, probably. Something that acknowledged what this meant to him without—
“It was in the false bottom of his desk.”
“Oh.” He blinked. “The arl's desk?”
The vision would come back. She knew that already. The amulets would haunt her again. She'd lie awake, wondering.
“Yes.”
“I thought it was gone. I was so angry, I just—” He turned it over, examining the repair work with something close to reverence. “He kept it. He fixed it and kept it all this time. I don't understand, why would he do that?”
“Maybe he meant to give it back to you.”
Alistair was quiet for a long moment.
“Maybe he did. He might even have brought it with him one of those times he came to see me at the monastery... not that I would have given him a chance, as belligerent as I was to him.”
He looked up at her, open and hurting and grateful all at once.
“Thank you. I mean it. I... thought I'd lost this to my own stupidity.”
“I'll need to talk to him about this,” Alistair continued, quieter. “If he recovers from his... when he recovers, that is. I wish I'd had this a long time ago.”
His face sharpened suddenly, looking at her.
“Did you remember me mentioning it? Wow. I'm more used to people not really listening when I go on about things.”
“Sorry?” Emma's voice was flat. “Did you say something?”
“Ho, ho, ho.” He made an obscene gesture, grinning. “See this gesture I'm making? Can you hear that?”
She felt herself smiling.
Alistair had already tucked the amulet inside his armor, close to his chest.