Work Text:
Of all the upheavals she’d suffered in the past months, this one hit the hardest.
He didn’t look up at her approach. In fact, he shrank further in on himself. She didn’t ever remember seeing him look so small. Looking at him only increased the pain that had stabbed at her heart from the moment she’d heard his confession.
Standing outside his cell, she waited for him to acknowledge her presence, but he didn’t speak, didn’t look up. Finally, she lost patience.
“You know, this whole time I’ve been afraid I was gonna fuck this up. I mean, here you were, this great and noble man. A Grey Warden. Fightin’ the good fight and all, and what was I? Just a Duster. A crook. A dirty killer. Nobody worth a damn. Eventually you’d figger it out, everyone would, and then where’d I be, ‘cause ta have what I’ve had and then lose it’d be worse than never havin’ it at all.” She laughed, a sharp outburst with no real humor in it. “And all along you were worse than me. At least when I did my killin’ I was honest ‘bout it.”
She strode forward, grasping the bars, as he sat too far away for her to reach him.
“Was it all a lie, then? You said the pretty words, charmed yer way inna my bed so’s you could betray me too? Run off with whatever you learned ‘bout the Inquisition and sell it to the highest bidder?”
“No!” She’d finally gotten a reaction out of him. Blackwall rose from the rough bench, almost staggering to the bars. “Don’t you ever believe that.” He wrapped his hands around hers where they gripped the bars, and now she could see the tears glistening in his eyes. “I’d never do that to you.”
“Wouldn’t ya? How can I believe anything you say? I don’t even know who you are.”
His grip tightened, almost to the point of pain over hers, and then he let go, hands dropping to his sides.
“I’m a man who made a mistake.” He stepped away again, falling back onto the cot, which groaned underneath him, or was that his exhalation of despair? Or hers? “There’s no excusing what I did. I tried to make up for it when I realized people were still dying because of me. Didn’t think you’d come after me.”
“What, you were gonna go off and die and leave me with no explanation? Not even a note? ‘Sorry, Zaryn. I’m a lyin’ bastard what murdered women and children. You’ll be better off wi’out me’?”
He didn’t answer, and she cursed him for it.
“So what happened to the real Blackwall?” she asked to break the silence that followed. “Did ya kill him too?”
He told her, and she thought about swearing at him again, but instead, she turned and left.
Cullen was waiting for her when she emerged. He avoided her eyes as he handed her Leliana’s report. When he told her not to blame herself she tried to laughed but it came out sounding more like a sob.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Let him rot, she thought. And then, let him hang. She didn't say either thought out loud.
When Cullen suggested that they didn’t have to leave Blackwall, or Thom, or Rainier, or whatever they should call him now, to his fate, she stared at him, silent, until he began to fidget under her gaze.
“So what I’m hearin’ is you suggestin’ we use the resources an’ influence of the Inquisition to get a murderer outta prison because he’s my lover?” she asked at last.
“No!” Cullen said. “I mean, not because of that. What he did to the men under his command was unacceptable.” He scowled, disapproval covering him like the cloak he always wore. “He betrayed their trust. Betrayed ours. I despise him for it. And yet,” and Cullen paused, brow furrowing. “He fought as a Warden. Joined the Inquisition. Gave his blood for our cause.” Cullen’s voice had changed as he continued speaking, to something that almost sounded like respect. “And the moment he shakes off his past, he turns around and owns up to it. Why?”
She’d known what she would do even before Cullen had finished speaking. She’d known before she’d walked into the jail.
“Have ‘em release him to us for judgment,” she said. She couldn’t tell whether or not Cullen approved, and she didn’t care.
“Stone take him, and give me my sense back in trade,” she muttered to herself as she stomped up the stairs.
Rainier. Thom Rainier. Was there any part of the man to whom she’d given her heart that wasn’t a lie?
She left him in the jail beneath Skyhold for a week after their return. It took that long for Stroud to make his way back to the keep from Orlais. Once he’d arrived she sent for him, not giving him a chance to shake the dust of the road from his heels.
At the question she asked, he stared at her, face blank, and then nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “I can do that.”
Three days later she called Thom Rainier to the main hall for judgement. It nearly killed her, to see him cross the hall with his shoulders bowed and head down. He wouldn’t meet her eyes as Josephine read out his crimes.
“What becomes of me now?” he asked, and she had an answer.
“Warden Stroud. This man wished to become a Warden, so much so that he took the name of one and pretended to be him for years. What do you say to this?”
“I say he should attempt the Joining,” Stroud said. “If he is still willing.”
He was.
He took the cup Stroud had prepared, raising it to his lips before draining it. As Zaryn watched, not wanting to see but unable to look away, his eyes glazed over, a while film coating them, before he dropped the goblet and collapsed to the ground, convulsions seizing him.
She grasped the arms of her throne hard enough that the wood creaked beneath her hands as he stilled, waiting with her heart in her throat. Stroud knelt and felt for the pulse at the side of his neck. “He lives,” Stroud said at last, and a sob of relief escaped her throat. It took her a few breaths before she could find her voice to pronounce the rest of his sentence. It helped that he wasn’t conscious to hear it.
“Then when he awakes,” she said, voice strengthening with each word, “he will return with you to Val Gamord. He will fight with his fellow Wardens to protect the city against the darkspawn attacks,” she said. The room was silent as she stood and left, not looking back. She would not see Blackwall before he left, as she was due to leave for the Emerald Graves at dawn.
It was better this way, she tried to convince herself. She’d almost managed to do so by the time the sun colored the horizon the next morning.