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Somewhere behind them, the militia dragged water-logged corpses into piles. The scraping sound carried across the empty square. The sky lightened to ash-grey.
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 windmill loomed over them, its blades slowly rotating against the afternoon sky. Emma took in the structure—wood grafted onto stone, like everything in Ferelden.
Morrigan hadn’t bothered to descend from her perch on the mill’s upper platform, allowing the nobility to perform their crisis below while she catalogued exits.
Teagan stood before the mill, arms crossed in his fancy doublet. No armor. Staring at the castle across the lake, where ships floated idle and useless.
“Odd how quiet the castle looks from here,” Teagan said finally. “You’d think there was nobody inside at all.”
The quiet was a problem. Redcliffe Castle should be teeming—servants, guards, dogs. Instead: nothing.
Teagan seemed reluctant to continue, but—
“I shouldn’t delay things further.” He turned to face them properly. “I had a plan—to enter the castle after the village was secure. There’s a secret passage here, in the mill. Accessible only to my family.”
“Convenient,” Emma said.
Alistair bit back a comment about how every noble family had a secret passage. It was like they competed: Oh, your ancestral home has a hidden tunnel? Well, ours has TWO. And a murder hole.
“Perhaps I should have gone in earlier, but I couldn’t leave the villagers—”
Bann Teagan stopped mid-sentence. His face went slack with shock.
A woman and a man in mail emerged from the hill behind them. Her gown was mud-stained but unmistakably expensive. Arlessa Isolde.
Emma hated her on sight. All aristocratic panic, weaponized fragility, the kind of woman who’d learned to cry on command. With a very real reason to cry, besides. She gripped Teagan’s sleeve instantly, desperately.
“Teagan!” She rushed forward, clutching at his arm. “Thank the Maker you yet live!”
“I don’t have much time to explain,” Isolde continued, breathless. “I slipped away from the castle as soon as I saw the battle was over. I must return quickly.” Her eyes darted between them, settling on Teagan. “I need you to return with me. Alone.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Emma asked.
Isolde poorly masked her offense with confusion. “What? I… who is this woman, Teagan?”
Alistair sighed. Loud enough to be pointed.
“You remember me, Lady Isolde, don’t you?”
Her face passed through recognition, then disgust, then a brittle attempt at composure that failed to stick.
“Alistair? Of all the—why are you here?”
Some things never change.
“They’re Grey Wardens, Isolde,” Teagan said quickly. “I owe them my life.”
“Pardon me, I…” Isolde smoothed her skirts with trembling hands. The fabric was wrecked. “I would exchange pleasantries, but considering the circumstances…”
“Please, Lady Isolde.” Alistair stepped forward, carefully neutral. “We had no idea anyone was alive in the castle. We need answers.”
Isolde’s eyes flicked to Emma, then back to him, looking like she’d bitten something sour.
“I don’t know what is safe to tell,” she hesitated. “There’s a terrible evil within the castle. The dead waken and hunt the living. The mage responsible was caught, but still it continues.”
“And Connor…” Her voice cracked. “Connor is going mad. He’s seen so much death. He won’t flee the castle.”
Connor. Right. The son who belonged.
She was gripping both of Teagan’s hands now. “You must help him. You’re his uncle. You could reason with him. I don’t know what to do.”
“Tell me about this mage,” Emma said.
Isolde’s head snapped toward her. For a moment, her fragility hardened to something cold and calculating.
“He’s an infiltrator. One of the castle staff. We discovered he was poisoning my husband. That’s why Eamon fell ill.”
“Eamon was poisoned?” Teagan’s voice rose.
“He claims an agent of Teyrn Loghain hired him.” She released Teagan’s hands, stepping back. “He may be lying. I cannot say.”
Of course. Loghain again. As if the man weren’t already haunting every corner of Ferelden.
“But Eamon’s alive?” Alistair asked.
“Yes. Kept alive by…” She hesitated, choosing every word like picking through broken glass. “Something the mage unleashed.”
“So far it allows Eamon, Connor, and myself to live. Once it was done with the castle, it struck the village. It wants us to live, but I don’t know why.”
From above, Morrigan shifted. Alistair caught the witch, hopping forward slightly, as a bird. Suddenly very interested in Isolde’s word choice.
“It allowed me to come for you,” Isolde said to Teagan, “because I begged. Because I said Connor needed help.”
“You’re not telling us everything,” Emma said. Alistair suppressed a smirk.
Isolde drew herself up, offense crackling through her posture like lightning through a rod. “I beg your pardon! That’s a rather impertinent accusation!”
“Not if it’s true.”
“An evil I cannot fathom holds my son and husband hostage!” Isolde’s voice climbed toward hysteria. “I came for help! What more do you want from me?”
“The truth,” Emma said.
Isolde turned away, back to Teagan.
“I don’t have much time. What if it thinks I’m betraying it? It could kill Connor.” Her voice dropped to a plea. “Please come back with me. Must I beg?”
“It’s in control,” Emma warned the Bann.
“A demon, likely,” Alistair agreed.
Teagan’s face had gone carefully blank. The look of a man making a decision he already regretted.
“The king is dead,” Teagan said quietly. “We need my brother more than ever. I’ll return to the castle with you, Isolde.”
“This is a mistake,” Emma said. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“I cannot let Isolde return alone.” Teagan met her eyes. His jaw was set. “Perhaps I can help Connor. Or Eamon. Perhaps this is a trap.” He glanced at Isolde, then back. “But this is my family. I must try.”
Alistair stepped forward. “Teagan—”
“I have no illusions of dealing with this evil alone.” Teagan cut him off gently. “You, on the other hand, have proven quite formidable.”
He pulled his signet ring from his finger, weighing it in his palm.
“Here’s what I propose: I go in with Isolde. You enter the castle using the secret passage. My ring unlocks the door.” He held it out to Emma. “Perhaps I’ll distract whatever’s inside. Increase your chances of getting in unnoticed.”
Emma didn’t take the ring immediately. She just looked at it.
“I can’t let you do this,” she said. “It’s insane.”
“What choice do either of us have?” Teagan’s smile was thin, tired. “If your business with Eamon is important, you’ll have to go inside to find him.”
“He’s right.” Alistair’s voice was quiet. “Without Arl Eamon, we’ll never get the support we need.”
Teagan pressed the ring into Emma’s palm. His hand lingered a moment too long. His fingers curled around hers, thumb brushing her wrist.
Alistair’s jaw tightened. He felt the spike of irritation before he could stop it. He hated himself for it immediately.
Really? Now? When Teagan was about to walk into a demon-infested castle and probably die? Alistair had no claim on Emma, no excuse. This was exactly what Isolde had done: Seeing threats where there weren’t any. Making everything about herself.
Teagan probably didn’t even notice. He was always like this. Charm without effort. Touches that meant nothing and everything, depending on who you asked.
Emma pulled her hand away and stepped back. Alistair exhaled carefully.
“Ser Perth and his men can watch the castle entrance. If you can open the gates from within, they’ll move in to help.” Teagan mirrored her, also stepping back. “Whatever you do—Eamon is the priority. If you have to, just get him out. Isolde, me, anyone else… we’re expendable.”
Eamon. The man who’d raised him, then sent him away. The man who’d stopped visiting. Stopped pretending to care. Now they were risking everything to save him, and Maker, Alistair wanted to save him. Except–
Emma closed her fingers around the ring.
“I understand,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”
“You’re a good woman.” Teagan’s voice softened. “The Maker smiled on me when He sent you to Redcliffe.”
She crossed her arms and nodded once.
Leliana stepped forward, unable to contain herself any longer. “We’re just going to send him with that woman? It seems so dangerous!”
Isolde’s head turned sharply. Her eyes raked over Leliana—the road dust, the simple clothes over leather, the lute strapped to her back. Leliana held her ground, chin lifted.
“I can delay no longer.” Teagan clasped Emma’s shoulder briefly. “Allow me to bid you farewell. And good luck.”
He turned toward Isolde. She took his arm immediately, possessive, already pulling him toward the castle path.
They watched them go. Isolde’s skirts swept the ground. Teagan walked very straight, very rigid. A man going to his execution.
“Well,” Alistair said after a moment. “That’s all very concerning, to say the least.”
“’Tis a trap,” Morrigan announced from above. “Obviously.”
“We know it’s a trap,” Emma said.
“And you’re walking into it anyway.” Morrigan descended the ladder with lazy grace. “Shall we begin rescuing kittens from trees?”
Emma turned the ring over in her palm. Teagan’s family crest glinted in the light.
“The noblewoman knows,” Morrigan said.
Leliana looked at her. “Knows what?”
“What’s controlling the castle. What happened to Connor.” Emma explained as she pocketed the ring. “She’s protecting something. Or someone.”
Morrigan’s eyes gleamed. “The boy, most likely. This nobly foolish family shows such suicidal loyalty.”
“And she wears Ferelden fabric with an Orlesian cut,” Leliana added, distressed. “The worst of both worlds.”
Alistair smiled as Emma started toward the mill entrance. The others fell in behind her.
“And the mage?” He asked.
Emma paused at the threshold and looked back at him.
“We’ll deal with whoever it is,” she said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Sure,” Alistair said, sighing. “And here I hoped my mage hunting would be limited to darkspawn.”
Inside, the mill was dark and close. Wooden beams groaned overhead. He watched Emma’s fingers trace the stone as she searched for the door.
Emma found the door easily—small, iron-bound, ancient. She fitted Teagan’s ring into the lock. It turned with a soft click.
Cool air breathed up from below. Stone steps descended into darkness.
“Right,” Alistair said behind her. “Secret passages. My favorite.”
He tried very hard not to think about how many times he’d wished he could go home. Funny how wishes worked. You got what you wanted, just not the way you wanted it.
Home. What a joke. Getting jealous over nothing, like Isolde. Risking his neck for people who’d never cared about him in the first place. But what else was there to do? Walk away? Let Eamon die? Let Redcliffe fall?
No.
Emma summoned a wisp. The stairwell illuminated in pale blue.
“If anyone asks—we were invited,” she said. He could hear the smirk in her voice. And the weariness.
Morrigan’s answering laugh echoed off stone.
“Oh yes. Most cordially.”
They descended.
lines removed, to repurpose