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At the age of two years old, Anora was somehow the least troublesome and most exasperating charge Lora had ever had. The child wasn’t prone to climbing or running into the street or any of the dozen other ways the nursemaid had nearly lost children before, but she was stubborn.

“I won’t,” Anora said, staring up at her with her chubby arms crossed angrily across her chest.

“It’s time for bed,” Lora said, wearily. It was an hour past the child’s bedtime, in fact, her return from a council meeting with her mother having been delayed. She was always at her worst after those meetings, where she stored up all of the brattiness a two-year-old could muster by behaving herself until she left, and then immediately concentrating it all into the space of an hour or two.

“I want a story,” Anora said, her high baby girl voice fiercer than it had any right to be.

Lora sighed. It was, rightfully, too late for a story, but… well, Anora always fell asleep without fuss during them.

“What story would you like to hear?” she asked, deciding that she had no desire to be badgered by a tiny child any later than it had already gone.

“The one where I was born,” Anora said, matter-of-factly. She settled back onto her bed, watching Lora with just a hint of excitement.

Lora sighed, and then pulled together the part of her that told stories in the way that little children enjoyed. She smiled at Anora.

“Very well. You were born at the end of Haring, on the tail of the worst blizzard anyone had seen in these parts since memory could recall. The storm was so bad that the roofs of some of the houses in the Sawdust Quarter collapsed. Even though she had a new baby, and the midwife was very upset and insisted that she shouldn’t, your mother got up the next day, wrapped you in your swaddling and put you in a sling at her breast, and called for a horse.

“The midwife wasn’t entirely wrong, though, and by the time your mother got to the castle courtyard, she changed her mind and called for a sledge instead. The midwife was still following her, very upset, and begging your mother not to go. Your mother said, and I shall never forget this:

“‘Mistress Brielle, there are several houses still in danger of collapse, one of which I understands houses a young mother. If I do not see to it, there is no guarantee her neighbors will be able to keep her, and perhaps she and her baby will die in the next storm. My daughter will be well enough in her warm clothes and protected by my cloak, and I am not so delicate as to die from a little exercise.’

“And so she rode into the city in a sledge, with you at her breast, to do her duty to the best of her abilities. And that is how the first words you came to hear were of repair, rebuilding and support. One day you will offer them back to the people of Gwaren, as their beloved teryna and leader.”

Anora was, thankfully, fast asleep by the time Lora finished her story, her tiny fists curled by her mouth.

Lora pulled a blanket carefully up over the sleeping toddler with a soft sigh of relief, and then made her way to her own bed.

***

11th Cloudreach, Dragon Seven

Dearest,

I’ve included a parcel of reports from the terynir, and I marked the sections regarding our militia because I know you won’t care much for the rest. Please let me know if you have any concerns in that regard. The houses in the city are in good repair, and Ser Ashleigh routed the band of Chasind cutting trees without a permit in the southern woods, so we are very well. I will be meeting with the Guildmasters next week to discuss the tariffs for the coming trading season.

We are well, though Anora and I miss you sorely. We understand that you are needed on the border, and we both hope that you return to us soon. She is up to her usual antics, worse I think because of your absence. Yesterday one of the stableboys tried, from what I can gather, to shoo her out of the stables. She kicked him in the ankle and knocked him into the mud. I had to send her to her room, of course--the boy was perfectly justified--but, oh, Loghain, her face. She looked just like you did that time you had to defend us from raiders on our way home from Milltown.

She’s a terror, but she learns well. She understood when I explained why she had been wrong, and she apologized very prettily to the boy after. She’ll be a strong teryna, when the time comes.

Don’t worry for us overmuch here. You know the odds are slim that Orlais will send their fleet so far into dangerous waters, and slimmer still that they might do so without being caught by our own navy out of Highever or Denerim. And if they do beat the odds, I have made our castle walls strong. We will be safe.

All my love,

Celia

***

“Lora told me you were out here, staring forlornly at a hoop instead of your studies, but I didn’t believe her,” Anora’s mother said, looking down at her daughter with amusement and a touch of exasperation.

“I’m good at all my studies,” Anora replied, more dismissive than a six-year-old had any right to be.

“And what does that have to do with roll-the-hoop?” her mother asked, smiling and sitting beside her daughter.

“I am not good at roll-the-hoop,” Anora said, sounding very put out indeed. “Noreen beats me every time we have dinner with her family so you can discuss docks.”

“Noreen is ten, and a foot taller than you,” her mother pointed out, not unkindly. Anora crossed her arms and glared at the hoop, obviously not convinced that this should make a difference. Celia sighed, used to her daughter’s moods and aware that Anora would not care that Noreen had an advantage when it came to winning. In any case, her daughter’s insistence that she be the best at every single thing she attempted could not continue.

She enveloped her daughter’s small, warm hand in her own.

“Let’s go walk the ramparts?” she asked, and Anora, with a slightly suspicious look, nodded. She kept hold of Anora’s hand as they climbed the newly-repaired stairs to Gwaren Castle’s ramparts. At the top, she looked calmly out over the city of her birth, Anora stretching to her toes to see the view between two crenelations.

“It’s not very pretty, Gwaren,” Anora said, quietly. “I like the forest side better.”

“Hmm,” Celia opined. For a moment, mother and daughter looked over the city in silence.

“What kind of jobs do the people in Gwaren have, Anora?” she asked, after a time. Anora scowled up at her.

“You know what kind of jobs they have, mama, we go to the city almost every day.”

“Anora, I asked you a question,” Celia repeated, gently, and Anora sighed.

“Lots of jobs. Most of the people in the Sawdust Quarter work at the sawmills, but a few work as carpenters. The ones in the merchant’s quarter all trade the timber to people who live in other places, once it’s been milled. Then there’s the people who go out into the forests to cut down logs all summer, but come back and winter in the Bachelor’s Quarter. Plus there’s people who do lots of other things, like the washing and sewing and baking and people like grocers and midwives and stuff,” Anora sounded suitably proud as she added the last, and Celia smiled down at her. The first part, about the workers in different quarters of the city, was a recitation Celia herself had included in Anora’s education. The latter part, though, Anora had mostly picked up from their various outings into the city of Gwaren. A city could not be governed from within the walls of a castle, or so Celia had always felt, and she looked back out at the city to keep her daughter from picking up on the pride on her eyes. Anora tended towards vanity, and it was not a trait Celia wished to encourage.

“And why do people have so many different kinds of jobs? Why doesn’t everyone just do whatever needs to be done that day?”

This was not a question that she had asked before, and Anora spent some time considering.

“Well, bread needs baking every day, but if everyone baked bread every day then there would be too much of it,” Anora finally offered, confused.

“A good answer,” Celia agreed, “Can you think of any other reasons?”

For a long time, Anora considered. A gull swooped overhead, farther inland than they usually came, screeching merrily as it dove towards the garbage waiting to be carted away from the castle.

“I don’t know, mama,” Anora said finally, and Celia turned when she heard the embarrassment in her daughter’s voice. Anora did not like to be caught unprepared. She knelt down in front of her daughter, clasping both of her small hands, and smiled.

“It’s alright, darling. Think about it--why do I have you practice your lessons so much? Why does papa have you practice with your wooden sword so often?”

“Because the more I practice something, the better I will be it,” Anora recited, her small brows creasing in a frown. “Mama--”

“That’s right,” Celia said, her interruption gentle but firm. “The more you practice doing something, the better you will be at it. So, if someone has only one or two jobs, and they do those jobs over and over and over again, they would be better at them than if they just did a lot of different jobs occasionally, right?”

Anora considered this, too.

“Yes,” she finally said, her brow crinkling further with confusion instead of irritation.

“And so, it is better for everyone if each individual person has a unique job, or couple of jobs, rather than everyone trying to manage everything for themselves.”

“Ooookaaaaay…” Anora said, still visibly confused.

“Then how do people end up with those jobs?”

“Because their parents did them first,” Anora answered, promptly.

Celia smiled. It wasn’t incorrect, but it wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for, either.

“Sometimes children are apprenticed to people who are not their parents and learn a new trade. What about them?”

“Maybe they’re not good at what their parents do?” Anora hazarded, and Celia smiled, pleased.

“Exactly. People have different talents, Anora. It’s okay to have a talent at one thing, and not another. I myself am excellent at whittling a whistle from a block of wood, but I’m afraid my sewing is abysmal.”

Anora watched her, curiously, for a while longer. “You mean about me not being as good at roll-the-hoop as Noreen,” she concluded, finally.

“Yes, I do mean that,” Celia said, still smiling as she reached out to brush a stray bit of hair back behind her daughter’s ear. It was wispy yet, but had the promise of becoming as unruly as her own, given a few years. “More importantly, Gwaren will someday be yours. You must understand that different people have different talents, and you must be aware of your own talents and shortcomings, and above all, you must know how to leverage those talents to the benefit of all.”

“Leverage?” Anora said, her nose wrinkling in a way that suggested she was utterly dismayed to encounter a word she didn’t already know. Celia grinned and tapped her nose, causing her precocious daughter to scowl.

“Use to your benefit,” Celia elaborated, and Anora’s face smoothed out as she considered this.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Anora said, finally.

“Don’t worry, precious girl,” Celia said, reaching out to smooth Anora’s hair once more. “Watch tomorrow, when we go into town for the meeting between the Loggers’ Guild and the Miller’s Guild. If you pay close attention, you’ll see how I leverage their talents and skills against one another.”

“What if I don’t?” Anora asked, looking more troubled still, “What if I don’t have a talent for it?”

Celia gathered her daughter into her arms. One day she would be too big for this, and in the fall she would leave with her father for Denerim, not to return until the following summer. Celia did not doubt that sending Anora to the capital with the father she adored was the right decision, but her heart ached at the thought of sending her little girl away.

“That’s the secret, Anora,” she said into her daughter’s hair, squeezing her a little more tightly than she normally might have. “You can be talented at something, but you can also learn to be good at anything, if only you try hard enough.”

She squeezed one more time, and then allowed her daughter to squirm away, smiling at the look of utter annoyance that graced her daughter’s tiny, lovely face.

“Now, what do you say we practice some roll-the-hoop down in the yard? I happen to remember some tricks from when I was a girl that Noreen can’t hope to compete with.”

***

17th Solace, Tenth Year in the Dragon Age

Sister,

Unseasonably early winter, lots of snow, the journey to Denerim was miserable. You needn’t visit me here if this weather continues, especially with your boy still so young.

I had high hopes for the Landsmeet this year, but King Maric did not even show his face! They say he’s been strange since her Majesty (Maker rest her soul) passed, but to not even make an appearance at a Landsmeet! Unthinkable!

Teryn Loghain did not quite dare to sit on the King’s throne, but it was very clear he was running things. If rumors are to be believed, he makes many of the decisions these days, and his Majesty is only seldom seen. A dismal state of affairs, to be sure, though since I will be staying in the capital until I find a husband, I am sure I will be in a position to provide you with a more informed view on matters later.

It must be said of the teryn that he at least seems to be bringing more order into the court. He’s got the guards back into shape (I, of course, know nothing of their state before my arrival, but Bann Theodosia assures me they were quite slovenly), and rumor has it that Teryna Eleanor herself will be coming to take charge of the prince’s upbringing. He brought his daughter to court with him this time as well, doubtless to be a playmate for the poor boy. She’s a pretty thing, six or seven I think, with golden hair that might have been lovely if it hadn’t looked like a pack of Orlesian hounds braided it for her. She’s a bit wild, running about the palace and tracking mud everywhere, and she asks the strangest questions for such a small girl. She asked me if the silk in my red gown came from Antiva or Rivain, of all things, and then which merchant prince I had sourced it from! The teryn will have his hands full with her in a few years. I suspect she will do splendidly at court if she remains as much of a spitfire as she is now. I quite like her.

Before you ask about Teryna Eleanor, which I know you will because you are a dreadful gossip, she hasn’t arrived yet and I don’t even know for sure that it is true she will be coming. It is unusual for such a high-ranking woman to be placed in charge of a prince’s education, but with his mother dead, and if the rumors about Teryna Eleanor and her mother-in-law are to be believed… well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough. I assure you I’ll write to you the moment I know anything and you can be the first to tell all of West Hills the news.

All my best to you, your husband, and little Seamus (give him a kiss from his favorite aunt!),

Sive Mac Niall

***

Teryna Eleanor did not wait for Anora’s permission to enter after tapping lightly on the door.

“I’m going into town to meet with some of the ships’ captains who pilot Highever’s Fleet,” she said, raising her eyebrows when she saw that Anora was still in bed. “Your father had suggested that you might like to come along and hear what they have to say about trade with the Free Marches, but I see that you’ve decided to sleep in today.”

From her position in the bed, Anora glared at her. Eleanor stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Is something the matter, Anora?” she asked, concerned now.

“No,” Anora said, the vicious bite in her tone betraying the lie. She was a talented liar, normally, and Eleanor grew even more concerned.

She had learned very quickly upon her arrival in Denerim years ago how to deal with Anora when she was in a mood.

“If I have to get your father, I will, but he’s meeting with King Maric and Arl Eamon regarding a potential treaty with Orlais, and I assure you that neither of us want to find out what he will be like if he is pulled away and the Arl is able to convince his Majesty to sign the treaty.”

Anora’s response was appropriately horrified, as she jerked to a sitting position, clutching her blankets around her waist with pale hands.

“You wouldn’t,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the teryna. Eleanor smiled blithely at her.

“I absolutely would. You know that your father has instructed me to approach him immediately with any concerns regarding you. You are his greatest priority.”

Slowly, and scowling viciously, Anora shifted her blankets farther down, revealing a bloodstain on her nightgown.

“Ah,” Eleanor said, succinctly. “Your mother, I assume, explained?”

“She explained, but I won’t. I won’t be a grown-up,” Anora barked. Eleanor sighed.

“Well then,” she said, and she strode over to pull the cord that would summon a servant. Anora looked horrified.

“It’s going to happen more than once,” Eleanor said, wryly, “whether you want to be a woman or not. You may as well get used to it. I wasn’t particularly thrilled either, but it’s not so bad.”

Maneuvering Anora at her most stubborn took a bit of manhandling, but finally the girl was seated on the edge of her bed, glaring balefully up at Eleanor.

Another tap on the door, and the servant Eleanor had summoned entered.

“Please fetch some moon rags and have a hot bath drawn for Lady Anora. I will also need a courier to send word to my associates at The Pickled Heron that I will be an hour late, perhaps two, along with my apologies. The delay is unavoidable.”

The servant nodded politely and shut the door.

Eleanor sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, nudging Anora so that she could reach her hair better.

Eleanor began to braid efficiently, while the servants bustled in with a tub and hot water. By the time the bath was ready, Anora’s hair had been plaited into the two neat braids she usually wore.

“You’re a bit young to pin it up, though it is traditional,” she said, as the last of the servants left and she bustled Anora into the bath.

“Then everyone would know,” Anora said, her voice somewhere between horrified and disgusted. Eleanor suppressed a smile, remembering her own outraged horror when womanhood had come upon her, and settled by the side of the tub with her skirts spread neatly around her.

“I am sure your mother’s explanation about what would happen, physically, was more than adequate,” Eleanor said, waiting for Anora’s nod before she continued. “Your mother is as gracious a woman as I have ever met, and very talented at managing Gwaren’s affairs, but there are things she may not have told you that will apply to you, the daughter of a teryn, in ways that they would not applied to her as a daughter of a cabinetmaker. There is, of course, the matter of childbearing and heirs, but there will be much more to it than that for you. Women are more respected in Ferelden than they are in some parts of Thedas, but even here we are relegated to one of two roles. We may be warriors, or we may be mothers, whether we have borne children or are only expected to in the near future, but we cannot be both.”

“You fought in the rebellion, and you have children, so aren’t you both?,” Anora asked, looking at Eleanor as if she could glean the answer through visual study alone. At least her stubborn fury seemed to be fading.

“Yes and no. I could still probably outshoot most of the men in the palace,” Eleanor said, amiably, “and I led some of the most successful raids against the Orlesian navy during the rebellion. I was second only to my father, Maker grant him rest, as a captain of Ferelden ships. And yet, here you find me, responsible for the welfare of you and his Highness, rather than captaining our budding navy or leading trade delegations. Women, even noblewomen, married or otherwise, fight all the time, but we must pretend that we do not. Once we marry--and, often, for women with large dowries and promises of power, long before--men will insist on defining our value by the children we might produce for them.”

“That’s stupid,” Anora said, matter-of-factly. “Women in Gwaren used to fight all the time, all sorts of fights. Sometimes there were raiders and sometimes they fought each other when they were in their cups. They didn’t care if they had children or not.”

“It is rather silly,” Eleanor agreed, trailing a hand through the warm water of the bath. “Has anyone told you why I came here to take charge of his Highness’ education, and by extension your own?”

Anora looked away, which told Eleanor all she needed to know.

“They said it was strange that such a high-ranking lady would do to it, and that it was because you were fighting with your mother-in-law.”

Eleanor sighed.

“I’m afraid that they’re not wrong. I love my husband, very much, but we married quite young and our son was born very soon after. I was… my father raised me to be a raider, not a noblewoman, and I had to learn the hard way that my value as a wife would lay in my ability to produce children, to some people.”

She sat back, giving Anora a once-over as the girl carefully avoided her gaze.

“When Fergus was still very young, I joined my husband and several banns on a hunting expedition. There was an accident, and I took a wound to the stomach. I nearly did not survive, and the healer told me afterwards that it might affect my ability to bear children. We had Fergus so easily… and then, after the accident, years passed without any more pregnancies. After the first year, my mother-in-law became… very vicious. She blamed me for having taken the ‘risk’ of going hunting, blamed me for our inability to have more children, never mind that we already had an heir. She told me I was worthless, more than once, because of it. Our fights got worse and worse, and Bryce… my husband could hardly send his mother away from her home, but he could not curb her harsh words, either. When it became clear that the king was not going to appoint anyone to see to his son’s education after the passing of his wife, I took the chance and reached out, offering my services. I left my husband and my little boy, just a year older than you were then, behind. I came here to the palace, all because I felt as if I had no worth and could find no other escape from that… that despair.”

Eleanor realized, startled, that she was crying. Hastily, she wiped at her eyes, knowing Anora watched her every movement.

“I am sorry,” she said, after a long pause. “That was perhaps more than you needed to hear. I do not want you to be frightened. I only want you to understand what this means for you. It is a blessing, but for women like us, it is also a great burden.”

Anora’s gaze was steady, and curious.

“What about your daughter?” she asked. Eleanor closed her eyes and sighed.

“I learned the hard way that the problem seems to lie with my husband, and not I,” she said, succinctly. Let the girl assume what she would. “Fortunately, my mother-in-law is no longer with us, and my daughter will not have to suffer her torments while she grows up.”

Anora hummed, seeming to understand.

“What… what I wanted to say,” Eleanor said slowly, taking her time to gather her words, “is simply this: there will be many who will determine your worth, for the rest of your life, based on the value they place on your womb. Do not listen to them; your worth is defined by things far greater than that. Learn to play them using their expectations and their perceptions, but do not ever mistake them as having merit.”

Pleased with her words, Eleanor nodded to herself.

“Now, let’s get you out of that bath, and I will explain how to use the moon rags to stem the flow of blood so that you can go about your everyday life. You should also bathe daily while it is upon you. And… we will wait a few years, I think, before we begin pinning your hair and dressing you in long skirts. I will write to your mother and request her approval. There is no reason for Ferelden to begin pinning their expectations on your womb any sooner than they must.”

Anora’s small, grateful smile made the words and the tears worth it.

***

3rd Bloomingtide, 17th Year of the Dragon Age

Your Ladyship, Teryna Celia Mac Tir,

I am writing to you to inform you of the abysmal behavior of your daughter. Although I understand that she was very close with Teryna Eleanor, who was previously in charge of her education before she returned to Highever, that is no excuse for such blatant disregard for those who have only her well-being in mind!

Would you believe that, shortly after my arrival, I discovered that she has already flowered! And there she was, running around with her hair in pigtails and short skirts as if she was still a child. Of course I put a stop to it at once, insisting that she wear dresses of an appropriate length and pin her hair up, as befits a woman who has reached adulthood. She screamed at me, insisting that she would not! And she had the gall to claim that your ladyship and Teryna Eleanor had agreed that she should not until she was at least fifteen, an obvious lie, for no mother would deny her daughter the chance to enter the world as a woman at the earliest possible opportunity! I can only assume that she has somehow managed to conceal this from both your ladyship and Teryna Eleanor, out of some childish desire to remain unprohibited in her activities.

When I departed for the evening, your daughter shredded the lower half of the gowns I had procured for her, and tied them into a rope which she used to escape from her window. Quite aside from the danger of such an act, even if she is only a single story above the ground, I am sure you have already heard that she was then absent for two days before the palace guard finally found her in an inn near the Market District. Anything might have happened to her!

His majesty has kindly lent my lordship the use of one of the young prince’s guards, who are much more practiced at preventing escape attempts than I, and yet she has been thwarted in additional attempts at escape twice so far! I can only imagine that your gracious ladyship will be appalled with this behavior, and will wish to write immediately to inform your daughter that she was reform her ways. Her behavior is intolerable, I am sure you will agree!

Imogen Smithy

24th Bloomingtide, 17th Year of the Dragon Age

Loghain,

I am sending this letter with a replacement for the governess you procured for our daughter. I know that you anticipate this business with Orlais keeping you in Denerim this summer, but when next you return to Gwaren I can assure you that we will have words about your negligence in hiring that hag to oversee our daughter’s education.

Your loving wife,

Celia

***

“My lady, your father is waiting for you,” a voice called across the practice yard, cutting through the gentle sounds of soldiers removing their armor and tidying up in the water troughs provided for that purpose. Halley wasn’t the only one to look up at the sound of the pretty governess’ voice. There was a reason people competed for this particular slot in the yard, and it certainly wasn’t to face the business end of a greatsword wielded by the teryn’s fifteen-year-old daughter.

Halley’s eyes traveled next to the kid (as they affectionately called her in the barracks, and never to her face. By and large the soldiers in Loghain’s employ preferred their guts tucked snugly inside their bellies). Her eyes, however, were not on her governess or even on her washing-up, but focused on Halley’s breasts, which were probably pretty visible through her linen shirt, soaked with sweat as she was. Her head was tilted ever so slightly, as if she was studying something particularly interesting.

Oh.

“Lady Anora,” the governess called again, and the girl’s eyes snapped away.

“One moment, Gwen,” she called back, and hurried to finish her washing.

Halley kept her eyes on the girl for a moment longer before turning back to her own cleaning up, only to jump half out of her skin when a voice murmured in her ear, “Hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“Shit, don’t do that,” she said, when her heart finally stopped trying to pound itself out of her chest. She turned to face Cauthrien, who wasn’t precisely the type to grin, but sported a small, unrepentant smirk that was as good as.

“I didn’t realize…” she said, jerking her head towards where Anora had finished cleaning up, and was heading back into the palace with her governess.

“I don’t think she has, either,” Cath said, joining Halley at her washing. Their shoulders brushed against one another, and Halley ducked her chin to hide her smile. “I’ve seen her watching you before, though. I don’t imagine it will take her much longer to realize that she’s got a crush, not just distant admiration for your breasts, woman-to-woman.”

Halley snorted inelegantly.

“They’re very nice breasts,” Cath offered, and Halley elbowed her, splashing water onto the soldier who cleaned up next to them. He glared and walked away, leaving the two of them in a fit of giggles.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Cath said, after they were finished washing up and were walking back to the barracks for the more formal armor they would be expected to wear to patrol the palace grounds. “She’s just a kid, she’ll figure it out and then it won’t be us soldiers she’s looking at.”

“Nobles always aim for the bluest blood,” Halley intoned. It was a popular saying amongst soldiers who served at the palace, to remind themselves that any dalliances with the nobility were likely limited in scope and doomed to an unhappy ending.

“Something like that,” Cath agreed.

It was only a mix of bad luck and poor judgement that found them tangled together in a tent halfway to Gwaren a month later, serving to escort the teryn and his daughter back to their home for the summer. A shared tent, practically a private paradise compared to the barracks, proved too much to resist, and so when Lady Anora herself came to rouse them in the morning she found them wrapped in one another and still mostly unclothed.

“Oh,” she said, staring at them with wide eyes. Halley tugged frantically at Cath’s arm. Her lover was way better at these sort of situations than she was.

“M’sleeping,” Cath said, planting a hand firmly in Halley’s face and shoving her away.

“We’re packing up,” Lady Anora said, still watching them with a bizarre sort of fascination. That, at least, snapped Cath to attention. She sat up so quickly that the blankets they had fashioned into a shared bedroll fell around her waist, revealing her own fairly magnificent breasts. Anora did not seem to be able to leave.

“Uh,” Halley said, wisely.

“Go,” Cath said quietly, looking directly at Lady Anora. “Your father will be looking for you. If you have questions, join us at our fire tonight for supper.”

Lady Anora went.

The day passed in a flurry of nerves for Halley. No one much cared if two women loved each other, especially when they were both soldiers, so long as they kept it more or less private. However, as she and Cath were here specifically to keep an eye on Lady Anora and prevent any dalliances, she was not so sure the teryn would look the other way. And she was certain the lady would tell her father--nobles always did. Worse gossips than the washing women in the market district, the lot of them.

Even so, she was surprised when Lady Anora took Cath up on her invitation to join them for dinner that evening.

“I’m not going to tell my father about you or anything,” she said, by way of greeting, as she sat herself across the fire from them, a bowl of stew in her lap. “I don’t care, and I doubt he does either, but better safe than sorry.”

“Good,” Cath answered, before Halley had to.

“I see the two of you often. We practice in the same yard at the palace in Denerim,” Lady Anora continued, as if they could possibly have missed sharing a practice yard with the daughter of the Hero of River Dane.

It was Halley who answered this time. “Yes, my lady.”

“I don’t know your names.” It wasn’t quite a question, and it certainly wasn’t a statement. Halley realized, startled, that the slight fifteen-year-old was issuing a command in much the way her father would have.

“My name is Cauthrien,” Cath answered, blithely. She ate a large spoonful of her stew while Lady Anora waited for her to continue. Halley could practically see her teeth grinding in her skull.

“I’m Halley,” she added, before the situation could escalate too far. Cath had very little patience for nobles who demanded her respect without earning it, and Halley felt certain that her girlfriend’s respect for Loghain would not extend to his daughter by default. “I served in the regulars--ah, the royal infantry, my lady--for three years before I transferred to your father’s service. I’ve been in his employ for about two years now.”

“I came into your father’s employ about four years ago,” Cath said, before taking another large bite of her stew. Halley sighed. Cath was evidently in one of her moods. However, before she could intervene to try and explain, Cath swallowed her stew and continued, “We’ve been together for nearly a year.”

“Oh,” Lady Anora said, tilting her head curiously. “I didn’t know…”

“You never met any spinster ‘sisters’ who didn’t look related at all while you were in Gwaren? No friends who had set out to find their fortune together in Denerim and seemed supremely unconcerned with marrying? It’s not so uncommon as you might think,” Cath interjected. When Lady Anora didn’t immediately answer, she took another bite of her stew.

“What Cath means,” Halley said, trying not to scowl at her lover, “is that there are lots like us, who only enjoy the company of other women. We’re bent, see. Most people don’t mind much, long as you don’t rub it in their faces and you’re not high enough up the tree to be expected to provide heirs or anything.”

She wondered if she should add that Lady Anora might do fine too, set to inherit an estate of her own and unlikely to need a husband for financial stability the way a second or third daughter might. As long as she was discrete and named an heir the landsmeet found acceptable, she was unlikely to face too much trouble.

But the girl, she thought, still didn’t quite understand her own fascination with breasts or the way women’s lips made such fascinating shapes when they spoke and how their hair would curl into mesmerizing shapes against the nape of their neck after a long practice bout. She would, someday, with someone her own age, but… not just yet, Halley thought.

Lady Anora looked poised to say something, but her father called her back to his fire before she could form the words, requesting her opinion on a missive from Antiva.

“Go on,” Cath said, watching Lady Anora over the rip of her bowl. “If you ever have any questions… you know where we are, most days.”

Mutely, Lady Anora nodded, and fled to her father’s side.

“I think that went rather well,” Halley said, feeling surprisingly pleased with herself. She’d practically inducted a baby bent girl into the fold.

Beside her, Cath smirked. “I give it a month until she figures it out and starts hunting you. You know what she’s like when she wants something. I hope you still think it went well when the teryn disembowels you for debauching his daughter.”

Halley spent longer than she was proud of sputtering with alarm before she was able to return to her stew, lukewarm with the passage of time.

***

28th Firstfall, Twentieth Year of the Dragon Age

Your Grace,

I would like to say that I am enjoying the fine Ferelden weather, but in fact it is, not to put too fine a point on it, cold as the Void here. I have, of course, encountered snow prior to my time here, but in Ferelden it is not like the fine dusting of powdered sugar we occasionally see in Antiva. There is nearly a foot and a half of the stuff on the ground, and even after weeks it has not melted away! The Ferelden ladies wear boots, the most indelicate things you have ever seen if your life, tromping about the palace as if this is all perfectly normal. I cannot decide if I wish you were here to suffer with me, or if I am glad you are safely away in Antiva, where both the weather and the ladies of the court behave in an acceptable manner. However, my feet are constantly very cold, and I find I am tempted to adopt the fashion myself. You must sail to Denerim and take me back with you at once if I succumb.

The talks with King Maric are going well. He does not seem to have been terribly fond of your brother’s predecessor, or overly distressed to be negotiating yet another treaty with our great land. Strangely, much of the negotiation has been with Teryn Loghain and his daughter, a slip of a girl, though rather pretty. She looks very young, but of course she cannot be, for I have seen her best Lord Quirino in a match of wits twice, and at a game of chess once! If we come out the lesser in this trade negotiation, it will be her doing, for she is both very clever and very demanding, all wrapped up in a package of charm and sweet innocence. I think you would like her very much. She would have made an excellent Crow.

Enclosed are the current terms, for your approval (or, indeed, your disapproval, though I do not fancy our chances in getting the girl to allow--yes, allow! her father dotes on her rather--any further concessions). The sooner you make a decision, the sooner I may return to you, and my husband to your arms.

Kisses,

Renalda Eugenia Antonella Trevieso

***

“We should have done this in the first place. You’d be able to walk in a straight line and you wouldn’t look like you came out on the wrong side of a fight with a lady’s palette of eye-powders.”

The whispers woke Lieutenant Dara from her uncomfortable sprawl of a slumber. For a moment, she looked wildly around for the source of the sound, only to realize that it was carrying from the house above her.

She dug a turnip out from under her side, considered it with a deep sigh, and bit in. It sounded like the two who’d come to challenge the giant three days before, and left much the worse for the wear. They’d survived, then.

That was something, she supposed.

There was a loud snort, and then a chuckle.

“If you like, you can tell everyone at home that you defeated it in single-handed combat, and you’ll get all the nonsense about history and glory that you could want. I am going to enjoy finding out what a drunk giant looks like. Are the kegs ready?”

A grunt, and then the sound of scraping, wood against wood. The ground shook ever so slightly as the noise caught the giant’s attention, and it stood and lurched closer. Dara waited with baited breath for one of its feet to plunge through the cellar door, revealing her hiding place.

Instead, she heard a strange sort of splashing, and some extremely pleased-sounding grunts from the giant. She considered creeping closer to the cellar door, in an attempt to peer out and see what in the void was going on. Before she could work up the courage, liquid splashed down through the slats that made up the door, and the smell of strong Ferelden ale wafted through her hiding place.

That cleared absolutely nothing up, until she remembered the girl’s words from earlier, about seeing a giant drunk.

Maker and Andraste, those two idiots were going to get themselves and her killed.

Five hours later, give or take, the giant was still happily slurping away at kegs of ale, and Dara was starting to feel lightheaded herself from the fumes alone.

“I think it’s drunk by now,” the voice from above hissed, “You ready?”

A giggle, just barely masculine in nature, and then some shuffling.

If Dara was going to die because of these two assholes, she was at least going to watch while it happened. She scuttled towards the door, wincing as the ale seeped around her leathers and soaked through the knees of her trousers. She’d be sticky for weeks, probably. There was a knothole in the wood that she could watch out of, and she positioned herself at it just in time to watch a man--a boy, really, couldn’t be more than eighteen--swagger unsteadily out of the house, his expensive plate gleaming in the sun. He shouted something incomprehensible (and more than a little slurred, if Dara was being honest, and she desperately hoped that the idiots weren’t also drunk), and the giant turned to face him, tilting its head curiously.

The boy moved away, and the giant, interested now, lumbered to its feet and followed. The boy began running towards the woods, if his limping half-jog could be called a run. He was lucky that the giant was drunk, because it stumbled awkwardly after him, swaying on its feet and falling down nearly every other step it took. It gave the boy the edge he needed to keep ahead of it, in any case.

Dara judged that the giant was far enough away for her to emerge from her hiding place--she was going to survive this encounter, at least--and stepped out of the root cellar she’d hidden in just in time to collide with a lovely blonde, torch in hand. Unfortunately, she recognized the girl.

“Lady Anora?” she asked, stunned. Anora gave her a spectacularly cool look.

“I’m going to follow behind and light it on fire once we get it far enough that it won’t set the whole farmhold ablaze,” Anora said, after a long pause. “Should have drunk enough alcohol that it’ll be sweating ale, very flamable stuff. Would you like to come along?”

No, Dara most emphatically did not want to get closer to the giant, especially not with the dumbass plan of throwing a torch at it in the hopes that its sweat was alcoholic enough to catch. She also didn’t want to explain to Teryn Loghain that she allowed his daughter to die because she wasn’t stupid enough to go along with Lady Anora’s plan.

She grabbed Lady Anora’s arm. “My lady, absolutely not. We’re going back to Crestwood, and we’ll send word for the king’s soldiers. They can take the giant.”

Lady Anora broke her grip with surprising ease and a smile like ice.

“We could do that, but we’d be leaving a badly injured, slightly drunk prince to fight the giant alone. I’m not feeling particularly treasonous today.”

For a moment, Dara just stared at her.

“Of all the infernal--” she finally growled. “Give me the fucking torch. If the giant doesn’t light right up, I’m going to kill both of you myself.”

Lady Anora’s smile turned pleased, and she offered Dara the torch willingly enough.

“You look faster than me,” she said, by way of explanation. “Wait a moment, I’ll go get my sword. If we have you to light the giant on fire, I might as well bring my own weapon. Just in case.”

The girl darted back into the house and emerged with one of the largest greatswords Dara had ever seen.

She sighed.

Maker’s blood, nobles were such a fucking mess.

The two of them set out across the farmhold’s fields. The prince had disappeared into the trees, but the giant remained visible enough, calmly ripping up trees as it tore drunkenly through the forest after its prey.

It took the better part of an hour before they caught up with the giant and the prince. The prince had somehow tricked the giant into a ravine, and was apparently having some sort of hostile, grunting argument with the beast from the rim of the ravine.

“Sit down before you fall down, idiot,” Lady Anora said, and to Dara’s surprise the prince meekly obeyed. She had heard he was headstrong and disobedient. Then, Dara suspected that there were very few people willing to disobey Lady Anora, and even fewer she couldn’t blackmail into obedience. Dara was here, standing at the rim of a ravine and staring down at a very angry and still rather drunk giant, after all.

Dara fumbled her flint out of her pocket, and lit the torch. The giant rumbled from below, a sound of alarm.

“Burning alive is a terrible way to die,” she mused, peering over the rim.

Lady Anora shrugged beside her.

“Better him than us. Anyway, we already tried fighting him outright and we tried to scare him out into the bog by stampeding the cows, but all that got us was a lot of bruises for His Brilliance over there, and twenty missing cows.”

Dara had wondered where all the cows had gone on their long trek across the fields. She hoped at least some of them wondered back. The freeholder didn’t deserve to lose all of his cows on top of everything else, just because some stupid nobles decided to take everything into their own hands instead of allowing for proper planning.

“Wish I had my bow. Could put it out of its misery first, at least.”

Lady Anora peered down into the ravine, and then unfastened a flask from her belt and opened it. Dara had just enough time to catch a whiff of fine Antivan brandy before Lady Anora upended the flask, pouring its contents on the giant below. It roared out its protest.

“Well?” Lady Anora asked, giving Dara an expectant look.

With a sigh and a quiet prayer to the Maker for forgiveness in harming one of his creatures, even one so brutal and dangerous as this, Dara dropped the torch.

The giant screamed in pain as its face caught fire. Lady Anora turned to leave, and before she quite knew what she had done, Dara found that she had grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her around to face the giant.

“Watch,” she hissed, just in time for the fire to putter out. The giant was still screaming, clutching at his face.

“It should have burned longer,” Anora said, frowning.

Dara had worked up a whole speech about cruelty and nobility not facing the consequences of their actions, but all she could say now was : “I knew that line about it sweating alcohol and catching fire was bullshit.”

“It should have worked,” Lady Anora said, sounding, for the first time, uncertain.

Below, the giant’s bellows sounded terribly, horribly like the sobs of a very large, very miserable child, and it curled horribly around itself, clutching at its head.

“There was a crossbow at the farmhold,” Lady Anora said, very quietly. “I saw it when we were trying to get the kegs of ale through.”

“Go get it,” Dara ordered, through gritted teeth.

“What if he gets out?” Lady Anora asked, frowning at her.

“He’s drunk and in terrible pain. He isn’t going to climb out,” Dara said, her voice rising higher than she intended as she continued, “We could leave him here, of course. Those burns look bad, and he won’t know to care for them. Infection will set in. Give it a week, maybe two, and he’ll die. Or, you could go steal the damned crossbow from some freeholder whose cows you already drove off and whose valuable timber you assisted the giant in destroying, and I could shoot the poor beast through the eye and end its misery quick, the way we should have done in the first place.”

To her surprise, Lady Anora looked… suitably chastened. And young. So young. Maker, how old were these idiot children, anyways?

Dara sighed and scrubbed her face with a dirty hand. The prince was propped up against a tree and, Dara realized with some alarm, either asleep or unconscious.

“I’ve got a couple potions on me, I’ll see to His Highness here while you go,” she said, more quietly this time.

“Next time,” she called, as Lady Anora trotted away and she uncorked the best of her healing potions, “wait for the fucking soldiers so they can do their job, and hopefully leave civilians with a bit more of their property!”

Lady Anora paused, and then threw a particularly rude gesture over her shoulder.

Well.

Nobility was always determined to be noble, and by noble Dara absolutely meant stupid as shit.

***

1st Justinian, Twenty-Third Year of the Dragon Age

Dear Celia,

I’m afraid I’m going to be delayed in Highever for a few weeks. My daughter-in-law has not been herself since the birth of my grandson. Fergus is often away, unable to bear seeing her in this condition, and I believe that that only makes it worse. Bryce and my daughter are quite the opposite, and flutter around her constantly, which is of no help either.

I am sorry to unburden all of this on you--I only wished to say that Highever is a disaster, and I cannot leave right now. My sister and my brother-in-law are arriving in a week, and will keep an eye on things in my absence. Eirann suffered from the Trouble after her own children were born, and she is bringing a midwife who makes a tonic from deathroot that Eirann swears is the only reason she went on living after her Lily was born.

And yet, there I go again. Regardless, you can expect me in Denerim by Solace at the latest. My daughter may accompany me, if she cannot obey orders to leave her sister-in-law alone.

Regards,

Eleanor Cousland

Celia,

I managed to catch the messenger before he left. I have only just heard about your daughter’s adventure in West Hills, which I assume is why you wrote to me from Denerim asking me to visit in the first place.

If you fear that your mother’s heart will prove too tender to murder your own daughter, I will happily strangle her myself.

All my best,

Eleanor Cousland

***

“Your Majesty?” Erlina asked, frowning as she entered the dark bedchamber. A maid should have been by to light the fire and set the candles to burning hours earlier, long before it grew dark enough to require the light of either.

“I will not be requiring your services tonight, thank you Erlina,” her new mistress’ voice came out of the darkness. Erlina judged that she was probably by the window from the sound of it.

She took a step back, intending to obey the order. She did not know the new Ferelden queen terribly well yet, and did not wish to overstep her bounds too quickly. She had a handful of months, yet, to find a way into the queen’s confidence before her mistress in Orlais began demanding more valuable reports.

“Wait,” Queen Anora said, and she paused, hand on the door latch.

“Come and sit for a while, Erlina. I should like to talk to you.”

Obediently, Erlina turned back to face the room. Her eyes had begun to adjust to the very dim light that traveled through the window, and she could just make out the queen’s silhouette against it.

After a brief internal debate as to whether Anora would appreciate her forwardness or not, she asked, “Might I light a candle to see by, your majesty?”

“Please,” the queen acquiesced, and Erlina fumbled for one of the candles she knew was kept in an alcove by the door. It took a few tries to light one of the magical tapers that sat beside it--for the queen’s use, should she need light when a servant was unavailable to fetch a flame from the other room--but soon enough she had a small puddle of light by which to see.

She crept over to the queen’s side, and knelt submissively by her chair. Queen Anora was not a woman who liked to be challenged, Erlina had learned quickly.

“My sources tell me that Grand Duchess Florianne is not a kind mistress,” Queen Anora said, so calmly that Erlina did not immediately realize what her words meant, and was only barely able to prevent herself from visibly flinching when she realized what they did.

“I would not know, your majesty,” she replied, when she judged that she had gathered herself enough for the reply to be smooth and contain just the right amount of confusion to cover up for the pause after the question.

“Let us not be coy with each other,” Queen Anora said, and to Erlina’s surprise she sounded… tired. “I know that you were sold in the underground slave market in Orlais when you were ten years old, and that the grand duchess purchased you and had you trained for a bard and a lady’s maid. I know that you have successfully infiltrated the households of two of her major rivals in the time since, ruining one and assassinating the other. I also know that you have attempted to escape no less than three times, the last shortly after the inexplicable death of Marquise Estienne Bonfils. My sources also suggest that you may have been the one who encouraged the grand duchess’ former lover to arrange a quiet death for her, though they could find no conclusive proof.”

Erlina bowed her head.

She hoped that it would be quick, a knife through one of the life-giving veins, or a swift sword through the neck. But even if Queen Anora proved less than merciful, even if her death was drawn-out and painful, at the end she would finally be free.

“Nothing to say? Very well. I will set forth my terms, and you may respond favorably or otherwise. I do not believe you wish to remain under the thumb of the grand duchess. I will review your reports before they are sent. You will include no information of any import without my express permission. You will include certain details, falsified and otherwise, upon my request. At the end of the year, I will send word to your ‘sister’ in Val Royeaux stating that you have been discovered to be a spy, and executed for treason. You may leave my service at that time with solid references, should you wish it, or you may remain. Should you choose to remain, it will be in no other capacity than as my maid. You will not continue to spy on me, or to provide reports on my activities and behavior to anyone. Do we have an accord?”

“Your--your majesty…” Erlina said, staring at the floor as if it might open up and explain the opportunity Queen Anora was offering her.

“If you’re going to try and explain that you’re not a spy, please don’t. I’m very tired.”

“I---”

Erlina looked up, surprised to see that Queen Anora was looking not at her, but out over the city. It was very late, most lights except for the taverns extinguished as Denerim’s inhabitants went to sleep. The light from the city had dimmed just enough that she could see some of the greater stars, shining quietly down.

Erlina’s heart made the decision before her mind had a chance to intervene and offer any more cowardly solution.

“I am a spy, your majesty. I am sorry--I was not given a choice in the matter. My sister is real enough--the grand duchess had her taken shortly after my first escape attempt, and they keep her as collateral.”

Queen Anora hummed understandingly.

“I will… of course I accept the terms of your offer. I have no choice. But your majesty… there is more that I can offer you than just a means to lay a false trail for the grand duchess.”

The last words were spoken in almost a whisper.

“Please,” Erlina said, quietly desperate. She shifted into the deepest bow, one a slave might give to a particularly unpleasant, demanding mistress. The carpet of the queen’s quarters was surprisingly soft against her forehead. “If you can get my sister away from her, find her a position somewhere safe and far away, I will serve you as I served her. I can be your spy, your assassin, whatever you need of me. I will never disobey or try to run away, I swear it.”

“Goodness,” Queen Anora, “I wish that I had known. I’ve already taken the liberty of having a trusted agent secure your sister’s freedom. She’s likely sailing across the Waking Sea right now, headed to Wycome to assume a position as assistant to a well-respected hairdresser there. The Grand Duchess has been convinced that she fled with the help of a lover and is headed for Montsimmard, all entirely unrelated to you. She will likely assume that you still believe your sister captive, and that your loyalty is thus still hers to command.”

Erlina stared up at her, disbelieving.

Queen Anora peered back down, considering in equal measure.

“Hm,” the queen said, finally. “Your sister may, of course, be accidentally discovered, should you prove disloyal to me. I will have a year of your service, and then you have my word that she will be safe, from the grand duchess and from any… accidental slips of information, in my own ranks.”

After a pause, she added, “That will be all, Erlina.”

But the hand she laid on Erlina’s trembling shoulder was gentle, and when she squeezed, it was comforting. It took longer than perhaps it should have for Erlina to pull away, rise to her feet, and pad silently out of the room.

At the door, she paused.

“Thank you, your majesty,” she whispered, before letting the door fall shut behind her. As the latch clicked close, she fancied she was shutting a door on the life the queen had just freed her from.

***

30th Drakonis, Dragon Twenty-Seven

Dearest Daughter,

I wish I had known. I understand why your father pushed for the marriage, and I understand why you thought you needed to see it through, but… oh, my darling girl, you could have done it as his advisor. Cailan has listened to your every word since you both were children. I wish you had told me sooner after the marriage, when I might have stepped in and… oh, I don’t know. Perhaps there was nothing I could have done. Perhaps you are right, and this was the only course before us.

And yet, the thought of you in a marriage that brings you no satisfaction breaks my heart.

Don’t crumple the page like that, darling. I know that you find great fulfillment in the well-being of your kingdom, in the knowledge that your subjects are well-ruled. There is too much of your father and I in you, and we raised you to know your duty too well. I am not much for prayer, for I believe that if there is a Maker he would have us take action before spouting meaningless words to chantry candles that have no ears, but… I pray that you find a way to be happy, to love. If you cannot have that, my heart, I pray that this land you rule brings you joy, that they give you the thanks you deserve for all the good I know you will do for them. My heart swells with pride whenever I think how you looked at your wedding, so lovely, bearing the crown of Ferelden as if you were born to it. The daughter of a cabinet-maker and a soldier. I am so glad I got to see you, adored by your people, loved already. I have heard nothing but praise and adoration for you, even here in far-away Gwaren. Your father and I… we are overjoyed to have you as our daughter, Anora.

But I wish that I could see you, just once, with the spark of love in your eyes.

Oh, do not mind the words of a foolish old woman.

If Arlessa Isolde continues to give you trouble on the matter of an heir, please remind her of her husband’s bastard, all prettied up in the chantry and set to be a templar but still a bastard, and healthier than her boy as well. I intend to visit you at court this summer, once this winter cough goes away (I am doing much better already), and if she and Eamon still pose a threat at that time I will take care of them myself. You know how I enjoy taking assholes down a peg or two. I may convince Eleanor to join me, in fact. She’s as good with words as she is with a bow.

Be safe and be well, my love. You are worth more than any of them can imagine.

All my love,

Mama

***

Noirin couldn’t quite make up her mind regarding whether she liked the queen or not. The woman was as lovely as any of the mages in the Circle, and treated her maid--an elf--well enough that she had clearly earned the maid’s loyalty. She had, by all accounts, ruled Ferelden in place of her husband for the five years that she had held the throne.

She had also, having been rescued by Noirin, turned around and claimed that they were kidnapping her. Noirin had seen enough dungeons in her life, and could have gone without seeing Fort Drakon’s as well.

Which is how Noirin came to find herself tapping politely on the queen’s door.

The queen’s maid opened the door, just wide enough to frame her pretty face.

“Yes?” she asked, in her thick Orlesian accent.

Noirin scowled at her.

“May I speak to Queen Anora,” she asked, voice as flat and uncompromising as she could make it. She hoped it came across the way she intended--a command, and not a question.

Unfortunately it didn’t seem to work. The maid watched her for a moment, and then said, “One moment,” and shut the door. Noirin scowled harder, and considered setting the door on fire.

Maker’s breath, but she was tired. She didn’t have time for this bullshit.

She was about to turn around and go seek out Morrigan, and maybe she’d suggest Ferelden put Alistair on the throne after all just to spite Anora, when the door opened.

“She’ll see you,” the maid said, and Noirin did her best to sooth her expression into something at least less obviously hostile before she stepped into the room.

“Warden,” Queen Anora greeted, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Though the queen was clearly dressed for bed, in a delicate chemise and dressing gown and with her long hair plaited down her back, she was sitting at her desk. A tall candle, newly-lit by the look of it, made it clear that the queen did not intend on sleeping any time soon.

There was an ink splotch on the sleeve of her dressing gown, Noirin noted with surprise.

“Your majesty,” she said, and if it came out a bit stiffly, well… she’d been raised in the Circle, she didn’t have much practice with royalty.

“Please, sit,” the queen said, gesturing to a chair nearby.

Noirin sat, and realized with slowly dawning horror that she didn’t actually know what to say. She wasn’t any good at this sort of thing. Morrigan would at least have had something cutting to say, to break the silence.

The queen, perhaps, sensed this.

“I apologized, earlier, for giving you over to Ser Cauthrien. Truly I am glad that you are fine.”

“Why did you do it?” Noirin blurted, which was not sophisticated or particularly politic, to her chagrin.

Queen Anora chose to answer her regardless.

“I have known Ser Cauthrien since I was a child. Even without the archers--who would have shot you and your friends full of arrows faster than they could blink, by the way--she is a very skilled warrior. More importantly, she has been my father’s most faithful adherent for the better part of fifteen years, but he is… he has often been a poor judge of character, and he seldom confides his plans in her. I thought that if I could just get her to help me leave, then she would happily escort me in safety to wherever I wished to go in the city. I was right,” Queen Anora finished, sounding just a little smug.

Noirin watched her.

“They say it was really you who ruled Ferelden, all the time Cailan was on the throne,” she ventured. She didn’t manage to make this a question, either, but once again Queen Anora seemed to understand.

“My husband cared a great deal for the glory and pomp of ruling, and very little for the day-to-day matters that must be attended to lest the kingdom fall apart. I had a hand in the ruling of Ferelden long before I married Cailan, however. King Maric was prone to long fits of melancholy, and many of his duties fell to my father. I began scribing for him when I was still very young, and then found myself responding in his place with the decisions I knew he would make, and then sometimes making my own. At first he reviewed them all, and sometimes explained why my ideas wouldn’t work, but eventually I shared fully in his work.”

“And you married Cailan,” Noirin asked, testing.

“I would have preferred to remain on as his advisor,” Queen Anora said, with a casualness that shocked Noirin. Surely… “However, immediately following his father’s death, Orlais began offering their noblest daughters as possible brides for him. Cailan was… easily influenced. My father and I knew that we could not risk giving Orlais that kind of access to him, but Cailan was intrigued by the idea. In the end I got him to agree to marry me, instead. It was preferable to seeing one of Empress Celene’s puppets on the throne beside him.”

Queen Anora shrugged, as if this was all nothing.

“Didn’t you love him?” Noirin asked, her brow furrowing.

Queen Anora looked away.

“I did, after… after a manner. We grew up together. He was… he was my best friend.”

Ah. Noirin knows that pause, that skittish glance to the side, very well. It was one she often used herself, in the Circle, when asked questions about her romantic life.

“I see,” she said, quietly, because she did see. She knew too well what it was like to sell a part of yourself in order to save the greater whole.

“It is quite late,” the queen said, and Noirin glanced at the candle, which had burned down visibly. The queen likely had many things to do, and Noirin should return to Morrigan and to sleep.

“Of course,” she agreed, and rose to leave.

She paused by the door, however, and without turning to face the queen, she asked, “Did you think… before you married him, did you think you would come to love him, to… enjoy it? Or did you already know?”

She was answered by silence. She reached out to open the door, and-- “I… I knew, but I suppose I thought… I suppose I thought I could enjoy him, too.”

Noirin nods and ducks through the door, closing it gently behind her.

Anora will make a good queen for Ferelden. She already has.

***

19th Cloudreach, Thirty-First Year in the Dragon Age

To Her Royal Majesty, Queen Anora Mac Tir Theirin of Ferelden:

I believe that you have had correspondence with Viscount Dumar, and have been made aware of the situation in Kirkwall regarding Ferelden refugees. Allow me to be brief, then; your people are starving in the streets of the poorest parts of this city, and ensuring that many of our own starve with them. They are farmers, not city workers, and those who do find work in the mines often do not return. The number of children who are presented to us as mages and prove to have no magical talent is astonishing, and worse, brings with it the risk that we may fail to notice a true mage and bring them to task.

You must demand that your people return home. Kirkwall is not a place for refugees, no matter what aid you send to assist them. You have a navy. Send us the ships and we will see your refugees board them. They do not belong here.

Regards,

Meredith Stannard, Knight Commander of the Order of Knights Templar, Kirkwall

***

“Ser Adelind,” the queen said, and Adelind tore her gaze from the woman in the doorway of the small cabin. She seemed so much smaller, without all her armor.

“Please take the men and set up camp. Somewhere that won’t trample any crops, mind.”

“Your majesty,” Adelind protested, “It’s not--”

“I will be perfectly safe with Ser Cauthrien. I have known her since I was a child,” the queen said, firmly, all without turning to even look at Adelind. Adelind ought the urge to grind her teeth. As if she didn’t know that, as if she hadn’t served the queen for the last three years, as if...

“I cannot leave you alone with a deserter,” she insisted. She had admired Ser Cauthrien very much, when Adelind was new to Gwaren’s service and placed under the new knight’s command. She’d have gone right on admiring her, through Loghain’s betrayal and the Blight and the landsmeet and beyond, if only Cauthrien hadn’t abandoned her post and fled the capital.

At this, the queen did turn to look at her, raising one delicate eyebrow in a stubborn expression Adelind had grown only too familiar with.

“Let her do your job, your majesty,” Cauthrien said, and she sounded so… tired. For her part, Adelind did her best to look stern and steadfast instead of tired and annoyed.

“You could give me your sword so I could guard myself,” the queen said, eyeing the two-hander on Adelind’s back, and that was just… the queen was trained as a child, of course, but she’d stopped practicing when she was crowned. She wasn’t half-bad back in the day, by all accounts, but Adelind wasn’t about to test that theory in the middle of an abandoned freehold in the Bannorn. Not even with Cath--Cauthrien.

Behind the queen, Cauthrien rolled her eyes.

“Your guard dog can come in with us or we can talk out here,” she said, crossing her arms, and that seemed to make up Queen Anora’s mind.

“Oh very well,” she said, and Adelind was surprised that she didn’t even sound annoyed. “After you, Ser Adelind.”

Adelind poked her head into the cabin. It was small, and sparsely furnished. A corner of the roof was in bad need of new thatch, and it had flooded at some point in the recent past.

There was not, however, anything that might present a danger to her queen, so long as Cauthrien did not take one of the fire pokers to her.

Adelind was moderately confident she could defend against a fire poker, if it came to that.

“Your majesty,” she murmured, stepping aside to allow the queen to enter. The queen did, picking up her skirts more delicately than the rough hut called for.

Cauthrien busied herself stoking the fire while the queen peered around the room. Upon deciding that there was nowhere else fit to sit, the queen settled herself onto the bed and watched Cauthrien work. Finally, she seemed satisfied, and straightened. Casually, Cauthrien leaned against the table before turning to look at the queen.

“It would have been more appropriate to send just the soldiers to arrest me. I hardly warrant your personal presence,” Cauthrien said, dryly. Adelind thought she might be on the verge of smiling, which she could hardly fathom Cauthrien doing, when suddenly her face sobered horribly.

“For what it’s worth, I am… I am sorrier than I can say, about your father. Your majesty.”

“It is… what is done is done,” Queen Anora said, and Adelind realized with a start that the queen sounded regretful. Of course she regretted the death of her father, of course, and yet Adelind had never thought…

The queen seemed to gather herself, and straightened on the bed.

“And while your arrest would indeed not have warranted my personal attention, my request that you return to Denerim as captain of my Royal Guard certainly does.”

“Your majesty?” Cauthrien asks, and it is the first time Adelind has ever heard her sound uncertain. There is steel in the spine of their queen, steel and guile all bound up in a casing of gold.

Adelind was unspeakably proud that she was their queen.

“I would like you to return to Denerim with me as Captain of my Guard,” Queen Anora repeated, and… that was definitely a small smile, quirking up the corner of her lip. “There will be a small title to accompany it, as is appropriate, though Bann Cauthrien certainly doesn’t have the ring of Ser Cauthrien.”

“Your majesty, I am a traitor. Your father ordered me to prevent the Warden from entering the landsmeet. I… I allowed her to pass, and now he is dead,” Cauthrien said, staring at the queen with wide eyes. Adelind had seen more expressions on her face in ten minutes than in the two years she served directly below her.

“Yes,” Queen Anora said, and the little smile vanished. Adelind thought it was a shame. Queen Anora worked far too hard, and smiled far too seldom. Then, to her surprise, the queen stood and moved to the fireside, within arms reach of Cauthrien. Adelind could no longer see her face, but she laced her hands behind her her and straightened her shoulders like a soldier.

“You allowed the Warden to enter the landsmeet, and my father died. And I… I stood before the landsmeet and declared him a traitor, responsible for my husband’s death. I allowed the Warden to slaughter him, when he had only ever tried to protect me. We are neither of us innocent in the matter of his death.”

Adelind shifted on her feet, frowning at Cauthrien when the woman turned to look at her. She had served the queen for many years, and never allowed one of Anora’s secrets to pass her lips. She certainly wasn’t about to start now.

Cauthrien must have been satisfied by what she saw, because she looked away.

“You know he discovered that Cailan was going to set you aside and forge an alliance with Orlais after all,” Cauthrien said, finally. “It was thought that… it was thought that he might have even been planning to marry Celene herself, sell Ferelden off to Orlais like so much property.”

Adelind could just make out Cauthrien’s profile in the firelight, the bitter twist of her lips.

“I know,” Queen Anora said, with a glance of her own over her shoulder at Adelind. “I don’t believe he ever intended Cailan to survive Ostagar. If it had been anywhere else--Nevarra, maybe, or one of the Marcher cities--if it had been anywhere else in Thedas, I might have been able to talk my father around, but even I could not countenance such an alliance with Orlais.”

They were quiet, for a time, bathed in firelight.

Finally: “So, will you return as my Captain of the Guard, or will I be forced to promote Ser Brian?” the queen asked, voice light and deliberately carefree.

Cauthrien did not answer right away.

“If you make me beg, I will be very displeased,” Queen Anora added.

Cauthrien sighed deeply. “All right. I’ll be your Captain of the Guard. I still think you should arrest me, your majesty.”

“Not on your life,” the queen said, and she reached out and squeezed Cauthrien’s shoulder.

“Cath,” she said, and Adelind looked away, not sure what to make of the new and alarming expression on her queen’s face. “Thank you.”

***

[In cipher]

26 Wintermarch, Dragon 34

They weren’t exaggerating about Kirkwall. Qunari everywhere, can’t step without tripping on a blood mage or a templar abusing his powers, bodies dead of hunger or greed just left sitting on the streets in the worst parts of town. I’m told I didn’t even see the very worst, somewhere called Darktown (and isn’t that cute?)

Qunari haven’t given any sign of invading anything, yet, but they have to be here for a reason. Kirkwall would be a good port to capture early on, give them a means to get supplies to a lot of places a lot quicker. I’d say it wouldn’t hurt to bolster their guard with some of our own soldiers, only I think it would. There’s this batty templar here, seems to think she runs things, and I don’t want to give her access to any more soldiers than she already has. I vote we stay out of this business for now.

Rumor has Grey Wardens in the area. Haven’t managed to get in front of them yet, so I don’t know if the Bastard is with them. Don’t want him making alliances over here, that’s for certain.

That’s all I’ve got. Make sure HRM is sleeping at least occasionally, and eating regularly. She’ll forget those sort of mundane human things if you don’t keep an eye on her. But you probably already know that, I guess? Was she like this when she was a kid?

Say hello to her from me, or whatever.

***

Eschive managed to find herself within speaking distance of Queen Anora within a week of arriving in Ferelden. It had, of course, taken no small amount of maneuvering, a good bit of coin in bribes, and the theft of an invitation to a feast being thrown by the Arl of Denerim, but she had managed it all.

Eschive was very good at the Game. She chose to believe that Empress Celene had sent her as ambassador to Ferelden for that reason, and not because of the scandal with Dame Mariot.

“Her Imperial Majesty was quite surprised when she learned you had named an heir so soon,” Eschive said as she moved up to stand beside the queen, the better to catch her off guard. Ferelden was strangely informal about such things; in Orlais, Eschive would never have been permitted to get so close to the Empress. It made the Game so much easier.

“Was she?” Queen Anora responded nonchalantly. She did not take her eyes from the dancers parading up and down the space they had made by shoving tables together against the walls.

Barbaric.

“Of course, if it is true that your womb is shriveled, then it does make a sort of sense. Thegirl is a good choice, if you cannot have children of your own.”

Eschive did not smirk, she hoped. She had practiced keeping her face still all the way on the ship from Orlais, since Queen Anora did not permit masks in her court.

“Goodness, I had thought Orlais would have more important matters to attend to than the state of my womb,” the queen remarked, smiling at a woman who dipped out of the whirling crowd of dancers to curtsey to her. She still had not so much as looked at Eschive, which Eschive found annoying.

She was well worth looking at, in anyone’s estimation.

“Her Imperial Majesty is only concerned for the well-being of a neighbor,” Eschive trilled, in her most saccharine voice, “They do say that a barren womb makes for a barren country, do they not?”

“It surprises me that your empress should show such sentiment, as she has no children of her own to set against my lack,” Queen Anora said, and she was still perfectly, utterly calm. Content, even. It was infuriating.

“My empress has not yet married,” Eschive said, “but it is certain that she will give whomever she chooses many children. Her family does not run to barrenness. She has not been tried and proven wanting, as you have.”

The queen turned as if to check for something, and then finally shifted to face Eschive. Eschive grinned at her, all teeth.

“I have little doubt that your empress has fucked a man at least as many times as I have, ambassador, or has the quality of your bards become so poor that you had not heard my husband spent most of his nights in the Pearl?”

Eschive gasped with shocked delight. Oh, when she spread this gossip!

“Of course, all of Ferelden already knows that. It is a fact that presents little danger to me, now. That is not the case, I suspect, for your own Empress should her affair with her elven maid be discovered. But perhaps the people of your empire would like to know nonetheless?”

Eschive’s gasp was real this time, and she hoped she did not appear too wide-eyed. There had been rumors, of course, but the queen sounded so terribly certain, and… well, the people of Ferelden were not known for playing the Game, but Eschive had heard, and dismissed, rumors of Anora’s cleverness for years.

And Eschive was horribly out of favor with Gaspard’s crowd. She could not afford for the empress to fall from grace. She had played the Game a long time, and she knew when she was beaten, even if unwittingly by a dog-queen in the midst of her dog-court.

She scowled.

“Did you have something else to say, Comtess Eschive?” Queen Anora asked, ever so sweetly. “Perhaps regarding the color, or maybe texture, of my womb? The topic seems to interest you so, though I’m afraid I haven’t any lovers we might gossip out.”

“No, your majesty. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”

Eschive curtsied, and backed away. She’d have to come up with a better way to get at the queen of Ferelden, next time.

***

Stop leaving these notes where anyone might find them. In fact, stop leaving notes altogether! I know that you think you can get anything if you simply sink your teeth in and hold on for long enough, but that is just not true. It can’t happen.

Stop.

--C

***

Cath wasn’t sure what she expected when she went to check on Anora, on one of Erlina’s rare evenings off. Without her maid, Anora had a tendency to stay up reading and answering missives into the small hours, and then Erlina scolded Cauthrien as she tried to fix the bags under Anora’s eyes the following morning.

And... Cath didn’t want the queen to work herself to death, whatever else she might want.

“Your majesty,” she said, swinging the door open into a dark and quiet room. “What--?”

“Cath?” Anora’s voice came from the darkness, followed by the sound of ruffling fabric. Anora came into the light of the door after only a moment, clad in a nightdress, her golden hair ruffled from sleep.

“You were--sleeping,” Cath said, baffled in the face of this sleepy, muted version of the queen. Anora smiled at her, the expression soft around the edges in a way that Cath had never seen before and it was… it was…

“Would know if you joined me,” Anora said, sounding happily bleary, and Cath nearly slammed the door in her haste to shut it. Anyone could be walking by, might hear Anora’s words.

Anora used the opportunity to sneak up on her and rest her hands on Cath’s hips.

“Anora,” she said, scowling because Anora knew that spot in particular was a sweet one. She had fucking asked Halley, who was a dirty goddamned traitor.

Anora sighed and pulled back, looking more awake now.

“I keep hoping that if I surprise you enough, you’ll give in,” Anora said wryly, before padding back to her bed. Cath could just make it out, in the scant light from the room’s windows.

Anora smiled and patted the bed next to her, and even knowing it was a bad idea, Cath obeyed the wordless command.

This close, she could feel the heat of Anora’s body, smell her subtle lavender perfume, and Cath ached. It was stupid, a foolish notion she could ill-afford to entertain. It was also much, much worse than that.

“You’ve let your hair get a bit long,” Anora said from beside her, reaching up to stroke her fingers through the strands where they were tied in a tail at the base of Cath’s skull. Cath allowed herself just a moment, a moment, to savor the feel of it.

“Your majesty--”

Beside her, Anora sighed and withdrew her hand.

“Why not?” she asked, and she sounded as sulky as the child she had been when Cath had first met her. It seemed so long ago, now.

“Your-- Anora…”

“If you’ll tell me why not, I’ll stop,” Anora insisted, moving closer. “You keep saying it can’t happen, that we can’t be together, but you never give me a reason why.”

“You can’t afford to stake your reputation on a dalliance, and I--” Cath said, cutting herself off when she realized what she was saying. Maker--

“Is that what you think?” Anora asked, in that peculiar tone of voice that meant she couldn’t decide whether to be angry, or scandalized, or amused. “Andraste’s ass, Cath, of course I can’t afford that kind of risk on a dalliance. That isn’t what this is.”

Cath stared, frozen, as Anora moved, flipping herself so that she straddled Cath’s lap and holding Cath’s narrow, scarred face in her hands. The look in her eyes, the gentleness of her fingers… as if she thought Cath was something precious.

“I-- I don’t know,” Cath mumbled, struggling to find words in the face of that expression.

“Oh, Cath,” she said, leaning forward so that their foreheads pressed together. “You tease me all the time about being like a mabari when I get my teeth into something I want. You don’t seem to have followed that to its logical conclusion, though--I keep what I want.”

“Why would you want me?” Cath asked, feeling every bit as stupid and slow and lurching as the village children had teased her for being, all those years ago.

“Does it matter?” Anora said, her breath ghosting gently against Cath’s lips. “I like your smile, I like knowing that you don’t smile for many people, but that I am one of the few who can draw it out of you. I like the way you boss the recruits around, but never bully them. I like that you check up on me sometimes even when Erlina’s here, just in case I’m not taking proper care of myself. I like that you give coins to orphan beggars on the street, even though you know they’re on the take and they just give the coin to whomever has control of their little gang that week. I like that you stand up to me, and I like that the way you stand up to me never bothers me the way it does with some people. I like that you never do it unless I deserve it. I like…”

Anora drew back, smirking, and pressed a kiss to Cath’s brow. “I like the way you look at me, like I’m something precious. Before, people have always looked at me as if I’m valuable. You’re different.”

It sounded an awful lot like… an emotion, a stupid one, one that would be dangerous for them both.

“Anora…”

Anora huffed and sat back, sliding off Cath’s lap in a way that left her suddenly cold, and sad.

Anora wouldn’t meet her eyes as she said, “Cailan came to me here, when we married. I suppose I thought… I knew that I liked women, yes, but I suppose I thought I’d enjoy a man as well. It wasn’t bad, but it was never… well.”

She sighed heavily, and shifted so that her shoulder butted against Cath’s arm. Against her better judgement, Cath shifted as well, so that she could wrap her arm around Anora.

“I’ll… I’ll say this now,” Anora said, hesitantly, “because if you say no again, I’ll… I will stop, I promise. But before I do, I just want you to know that I, that I want you. I want you to be the one thing that I get to keep, the one thing that I haven’t given up for Ferelden. I… oh, fucking… I love you.”

It fell between them, the weight of the words heavy in the air, and Cath briefly forgeot how to breathe.

“Oh,” she said, because she’d thought those words a thousand times herself, when she caught herself staring at the queen hunched over her papers or sitting at the head of a feast looking politely bored, or… oh, so many times.

She loved the stupid, fiery woman in front of her, loved the way she demanded the world shape itself around her, loved her fierce devotion to her country, her cleverness, her beauty.

Slowly, she slid her fingers up into Anora’s sleep-mussed hair.

“This will come back to hurt us,” she whispered, leaning in as Anora turned to meet her.

“Worth it,” Anora whispered against her lips, “Every damned second.”

***

2nd Guardian, Year Forty-Two in the Dragon Age

Dear Vicente,

I do not care if some chantry sisters have holed up in the arse-end of Ferelden and declared themselves the second Inquisition, you will get on a ship and get your arse back to Rivain where you belong. We’re blissfully free of rifts spewing demons and holes in the sky and all that bullshit here, and I want you safe where you belong.

I also do not care if Ferelden calls to you, particularly its lovely queen, and don’t think I don’t know you have dreams of tupping that. For one, that’s never going to happen. For second, that’s never going to happen. For three, THAT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, no matter how many fucking demons you kill or how big your biceps get.

I’m sure she’s just as clever and wily and all that as they claim, but you’re the Rivaini-born son of a disgraced Antivan noble who wasn’t even of high rank anyways, you’re so far from the list of people she would consider marrying that your name is, is, is SOMETHING. Andraste’s arse, Vic, there’s dreams and then there’s bullshit, and you’re on the bullshit side of things. The bullshit side of things where there’s rumors she’s in love with one of her guards, a lady she made bann of something or some such, and whether they’re true or not you aren’t going to get the chance to fuck the queen of Ferelden.

Should be some coin with this letter, if it gets to you honest. If not, you’ll have to use your own coin, but either way you’re going to get on a ship and be back here by Cloudreach, or so help me. If I have to come to Ferelden and get you, I assure you that you will regret it for the rest of your life.

Your loving sister always,

Zuriña

***

The letter had been a very politely-worded and loving command, and Moira had no illusions to the contrary. Come to Denerim and bring my heir with you. Still, Moira always enjoyed Denerim, and it made a nice change from the never-ending rain and tall cliffs and crashing waves of Highever.

Her daughter was less enthused, dressed for the occasion in a very fine little gown that the queen had selected herself for this occasion. Eleanor had already managed to get dust on it.

Moira bent to brush it off.

“Why do we have to meet the queen?” Eleanor asked, a familiar whine in her voice. Moira resolved to keep a close eye on her daughter during the feast; that tone meant trouble for sure.

“Unless the queen has a baby of her own, you’re going to be queen after her,” she explained, not for the first time, and sighed with relief when she finally got the gown to at least look clean. It was too fine a gown for a child, really, but she supposed Anora would not know that. As far as Moira was aware, the queen had spent very little time around children since she had been one herself.

Still, the queen’s reasoning was sound.

Guards greeted them at the palace gate with polite smiles and friendly words. More than a few curious glances were directed at her daughter, who returned them with frank interest. She had begun training with the sword only last year.

“Please, Eleanor, behave yourself,” she begged, one last entreaty before the guards guided them into the palace. The queen waited for them there, very splendid in the grand arched entrance dressed in cloth-of-gold, with her golden hair swept back from her face and her golden crown perched neatly atop it.

Anora always had known how to stage a scene.

“Welcome, Teryna Moira, Lady Eleanor,” Anora greeted, smiling. The remainder of the introductions were brief, though carefully staged and likely observed by more people than were immediately visible.

The queen would want everyone to know that her heir had arrived. Only long and dedicated practice kept a scowl from creeping onto Moira’s face.

Eventually, Anora guided them into the palace and through its twisting, familiar halls to a study that had once belonged to her father. Moira was surprised; she had expected Anora to use the larger, grander study that had belonged to her husband and his father before him.

Anora seated herself behind the desk, looking calmly at Moira and her daughter. Eleanor was doing an admirable job of trying not to fidget, at least.

“I understand Eleanor is expecting a sibling?” Anora asked, and Moira managed--just--not to bring her hand to her stomach. She had dressed very carefully this morning, but perhaps she should have expected this.

“Am not,” Eleanor said in her surliest voice.

“Hush,” Moira reprimanded, “Remember what we talked about.” To Anora, she said, “Your Majesty’s intelligence network has always been impeccable.”

“Nearly so,” Anora agreed amiably. “I would like to give your daughter the title of teryna of Gwaren, to better elevate her status.”

Once again, Moira was caught completely off-guard, and hated that she hadn’t had the foresight to use her own sources of information to better prepare herself.

“Why now?” she asked, when she felt that she had enough of a grip on herself to sound calm.

“When she was your only heir for Highever, I could not in good conscience give her Gwaren as well. The Bannorn would revolt over giving the two largest terynirs to the future queen, after all. But now…” Anora smiled, invitingly. Moira sighed.

“It’s early yet. The child may not make it, your Majesty.”

“What child?” Eleanor asked, tugging at her sleeve, and Moira hushed her once again.

Anora looked disapproving now.

“Moira, keeping children in the dark is not… how will she learn? Has she done well under the governess I sent for her?”

Moira tried not to grit her teeth. All those years ago, she had been grateful to Anora, for securing her a marriage to the widowed teryn of Highever. Though she was descended from the Theirin line herself, the family had fallen in the generations since her great-great uncle had held Ferelden’s throne. It had seemed an incredibly lucky match, at the time.

Now Moira wondered if Anora had been planning to unite that old Theirin line with one of the oldest, most well-respected families in Ferelden all along. The perfect heir, better even than one she could provide herself.

“She is my daughter. I will decide what is fit for her to know, and when,” she finally said, and her anger was more audible in her words than was wise, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it.

“Of course,” Anora said, but her brow wrinkled in the way it did when she was troubled, as it had since they were teenagers together in the palace.

For one moment, Moira thought that might be all.

“But you must understand, she is my heir. It is my responsibility to ensure that she is ruler fit to inherit this kingdom. I confess, I have… concerns, regarding the state of her education.”

“She is six years old,” Moira said. Her daughter tugged away, and Moira realized that she had gripped her small arm in one hand, too tightly.

“Yes,” the queen replied, “and yet she spends just an hour a day with the governess, and the rest of her time running quite wild. I think it’s good that she plays with the castle children, but Moira, I’m told she still can’t read.”

“She’s six,” Moira repeated, somewhere between desperate and furious, “I wasn’t expected to read until I was nine! And the governess you sent is trying to teach her her numbers! She’s so young, Anora, you can’t believe that so much time spent in study is good for her!”

Anora watched her, chewing slightly at her lip. It was an old habit, and one Moira hadn’t seen surface since the two of them were thirteen.

“Oh, Moira…” Anora sighed, and looked away. When she turned to face Moira again, her face was hard. “Perhaps it would be better if Eleanor were to wait outside, with one of my guards.”

Dread coiled in the pit of Moira’s belly.

“Of course, your majesty,” she said, quietly. Anora pulled at a rope near her desk, and the door opened.

“Your Majesty?” the guard asked.

“Could you perhaps take Lady Eleanor into the hall? I believe you might interest her with some of your drills,” Anora said.

“Of course, your Majesty,” the guard said, very politely, and directed her attention to Eleanor.

“My lady,” she said, with a far kinder and more teasing smile than Moira would have expected. “Would you like to spar with me? I believe we have a practice sword in your size around here somewhere.”

Eleanor looked at Moira, eyes large and begging for permission.

“Go with the guard, my darling,” Moira said, very quietly.

“I am sorry,” Anora said, once the door had closed behind them. “I wish that it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps it would be best for us all if Eleanor stayed in the capital with me. You could return to Highever, focus on Fergus and your new child. Eleanor can travel to Gwaren in the summer, spend time learning about the governance of the terynir with my seneschal there. In the fall you can return, and the two of you can spend time together.”

“You want me to leave my daughter here and just, just… forget about her?” Moira asked, forgetting herself entirely, “Anora, you cannot possibly ask that of me!”

“I don’t do it lightly,” Anora said, and she did look pained, as if she had any inkling of what she was asking in this. As if she could even begin to fathom what it would mean to ask Moira to give up her child.

“But you will do it,” Moira said. She felt… the fear and anger had all drained out of her, and she felt nothing, a great void. Regret, perhaps, but for what she couldn’t say.

“Please, Anora,” she said, one last plea that she knew Anora would not accept.

Anora reached over her desk and place a hand on the fingers Moira had not realized were gripping the edge of the wood.

“Spring and fall, every year,” Anora said, “Come to Denerim, spend time with her. Fergus as well, if he can be spared, and the babe. I do not… it is not my wish to take Eleanor away from her family. But she must be away from you, sometimes. She must learn to be herself, and more than that--she must learn how to be a queen.”

“Cailan--” Moira began, and perhaps the previous plea had not been her last, but--

“Cailan was alternately ignored and sheltered, and he never learned to rule Ferelden. I had to do it for him, and it is lucky indeed that my mother raised me to govern, even if she never thought I would oversee more than my own terynir.”

“She’s my daughter,” Moira said, shutting her eyes. She realized, startled, that she was crying.

“And she will be your queen one day, Maker willing,” Anora said, still sounding so… so utterly calm.

“Please, Moira,” Moira opened her eyes as Anora offered her a handkerchief, a plain one of the variety she had always carried around when they were children. Anora valued appearances, but she valued utility even more. Something about the simple gesture, and the plain linen handkerchief, calmed Moira.

Spring and fall, every year.

So much less than she wanted, but more than the queen had to offer.

Slowly, she dried the tears from her eyes.

“Now,” Anora said, and though her tone was cheerful she was not smiling. “I’ll have Erlina bring us tea, and we can talk while you gather yourself.”

Anora’s eyes were full of sympathy, and Moira hated her in that moment.

***

29 Solas, Dragon 46

29th of Solas, 46th Year of the Dragon

Dear Mama,

We’re back from Gwaren! I hoped you and daddy would all ready already be in the capitol capital, but her m Majesty says there was a lot of rain this year so you can’t come yet. I hope Shay isn’t too scared. If there is a storm while you visit he can come sleep with me so he won’t bescared. I amn’t I’m not scared of storms! There were alot a lot when I lived at Highever with you and daddy.

This summer I learned a lot about trees again. Sinashal Senashal Seneschal Branden said that the stripes inside of trees are because of how old they are. If there are more stripes the tree is older! Most of the trees are older than me, he said. This is importent important because some people care what the stripes look like when they get the wood I think. Queen Anora couldn’t come to Gwaren with me, but she wrote to me lots about trees. She also wrote alot a lot about boats and countries but that wasn’t as interesting.

I had to go to lots of boring things where people talked again, just like last year and the year before that. It’s okay though because I got to see so many trees! I like the trees better than all the talking people. Queen Anora says that I will get used to it eventully eventually and that she didn’t like them too when she was nine.

That is enouf enough words now, I only had to write a page.

Love,

Eleanor Cousland

***

Alfstanna, on the whole, would really have preferred to be at home in Waking Sea with her dogs and her fire and a whole lot of peace and quiet.

“Does she think depriving us of sleep will force us to come to a decision sooner?” a woman asked from somewhere behind her. Alfstanna seemed to have landed herself in the thick of nobles reporting to the palace, summoned urgently in the middle of the night by the queen. No reason had been given.

She shuffled into the hall behind a man who had not even bothered to change from his nightclothes or tie his dressing down.

The queen was already present, seated in her great throne at the head of the room. She was dressed impeccably, her hair arranged and her hands folded elegantly across the silken lap of her gown.

She’d had rather more notice than the rest of them, of course, Alfstanna thought, holding the picture of her nice warm bed longingly in her head.

Finally, it seemed that the last of the summoned nobles had arrived, because two guards closed the great doors and the queen stood.

The room well abruptly silent, more quiet than Alfstanna had ever before heard it.

“Lords and ladies,” the queen greeted, with a slight, delicate incline of her head. “I am sorry to have disturbed your sleep, but I’m afraid there is a matter that urgently requires your attention.”

She paused for a moment. None of those present dared, Alfstanna assumed, to voice dissent or ask a question, because the hall remained silent.

“This landsmeet has dragged on regarding the matter of wages paid to elves, in addition to the length and terms of their contracts. With so few remaining in the alienages of Ferelden, those of you who have servants who remain wish to stop other nobility from poaching them. Furthermore, the alienage has demanded an increase in wages and more favorable contracts. You have refused to concede to a single of their demands.

“Tonight, Hahren Shianni was found murdered.”

This queen paused again. Murmurs rose in the room, a steady hum, but still no one gathered the courage to speak before the assembly. Alfstanna thought it was a shame; she had rather liked the outspoken elf, with her insistence that the spoiled city nobles wanted slaves and not servants. Her demands had been perfectly reasonable, as far as Alfstanna was concerned, and she regretted that she had not been more outspoken in that sentiment.

Too little, too late.

“Nothing to say?” the queen asked.

Bann Owen, Shianni’s most outspoken opponent, looked like he might speak, but Queen Anora did not give him the chance.

“Very well. You will now listen to the proposal I put forward, and then you will ratify it, because there are more important things that require the attention of Ferelden than a handful of banns who cannot keep their own households in order and do not treat their staff as they should.

“Item one: I move to abolish the statute placed upon the alienages of Ferelden stating that its residence cannot set their own wages, and must accept or decline work without notice of what they will be paid.

“Item two: Contracts must be presented to elves and other hired staff before they are signed. If the servant does not know how to read, they are to be permitted to take the contract to someone of their choosing to have it read to them. The sisters of the Denerim chantry have already promised their services to those who are willing. They may then choose to request that changes be made to the terms of said contract, or refuse to sign it altogether.”

Angry murmuring had risen again, to a volume that competed with the queen’s words.

“Silence,” she said, and though she did not shout, her words cut through the crowd. They obeyed immediately. It was a neat trick, and one Alfstanna thought she must have learned from her father.

“The third item is not truly one that requires ratification, merely something I wish to make clear to each and every one of you. Hahren Shianni’s murder will be investigated, and the one behind it will face the full consequences of murdering a political power in Ferelden if they are convicted at trial. Murders of elves in the alienage have too long gone under punished, when they have been punished at all. They are my people as well, and they will receive the justice they deserve. Do I make myself clear?”

“She can’t just--” a woman by Alfstanna said. Young, a girl really, probably didn’t even remember the Blight, likely newcome into her inheritance. Couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“We will all remain here until the motion is ratified,” Queen Anora said pleasantly, cutting of the Bann of Northshore before he could finish his own protest, louder than the woman beside Alfstanna.

“I’m sure my staff can see about getting you food, but I’m afraid you’ll all have to sleep on the floor.”

“You can’t just--”

The girl beside Alfstanna had found her bravery. Alfstanna was impressed in spite of herself.

“I can, in fact,” the queen said, her tone almost… sweet. “It is a right of the standing king or queen of Ferelden, one that you agreed to when you swore fealty to me. Both Queen Moira the First and King Roland called upon it to end stalemates in the landsmeet. I am merely doing the same.”

She smiled at them all.

“I have sat on this throne for eighteen years, and beside it for six years before that. Surely you all know that I will hold to this.”

With a neat gesture that drew every eye in the room, she unfolded her hands, placed them on the arms of her throne, and stood gracefully. Alfstanna envied her the fluid motion; her joints ached too much these days to move so easily.

“My aides will be by the doors, awaiting your signatures. The guards have orders to allow each of you to leave after verifying that you have signed. I do hope you all have a pleasant night.”

Queen Anora smiled at them all, still stunning, and stepped down from her throne. She walked through the hall, so silent that Alfstanna almost imagined she could hear the silk of the queen’s gown rustle.

At the doors, Queen Anora met an eager-looking aide, who immediately offered her a pen and held out a thick sheet of parchment. The queen signed her name with a flourish visible even to Alfstanna’s eyes, not as good as they had once been, and the guards bowed her out of the room.

Alfstanna sighed, gently moved the flabbergasted girl who had spoken up earlier out of her way, and made her way to add her name to the list.

Queen Anora might have had the courtesy to let those in favor sign beforehand. Good nights of sleep didn’t come so easily, these days, and Alfstanna would happily have saved herself the trouble.

***

22nd Cloudreach, Dragon 49

Husband,

I understand that business keeps you in Highever this spring, but surely Shay could be spared for a visit? He’s only nine, and I am sure he misses his sister as much as she misses him. I thought Eleanor might cry when I told her I was not sure he would make it, and you know how little our daughter likes to cry.

We are well here in Denerim. I am glad that Eleanor is so happy here--I feared she would hate her lessons, the responsibilities her Majesty has given her, but Fergus… I believe she is thriving on all this. You would start to lecture me on how like your sister and your mother she is, were you here with us. Perhaps you’re right--Anora commented on it to me last week, as well, after Eleanor finished reciting her lessons. I think it pleases the queen a great deal, that our daughter takes after your mother so. I had forgotten that they were close when Anora was young.

I confess; it has been a melancholy week here. This week has seen the anniversary of the death of both her parents. I had forgotten that Loghain died so close the date of his wife’s passing. And I suppose I had not thought… I did not think it would pain her so, after all these years. She spent much of the week in her suite, though she and her guard went hunting on Wednesday. I have had my differences with Anora in the years since she brought our daughter to live with her in Denerim, but… we were friends once, when we were girls. It breaks my heart to believe that she is so alone now, to have the memory of that vivid, headstrong girl who tackled me into palace fountain on more than one occasion. It breaks my heart to fear that our bright, loving Eleanor might be the same, one day. I never wanted a crown for her, for any of us. I never thought she’d have to wear one, not even when Anora declared Eleanor her heir. Not even when she took our Eleanor away from us, not really.

I should have known all those years ago, though, shouldn’t I? When she told me that if I wanted, she could arranged my marriage to the handsome young Teryn of Highever, widowed in the Blight. She planned it even then, didn’t she? Your family’s name married to my thinly royal blood, and a child who would have the support of all Ferelden to sit on our throne. Even as a girl, Anora planned more moves ahead than I would have believed were in the game.

Oh, Fergus, what will we do? Surely, surely we can find a way for Eleanor to be happy in spite of the throne she is destined for?

And yet I am afraid that that very throne is what gives her the happiness she has now.

Regards,

Your Wife
Moira Cousland

***

It was funny, Eleanor thought, that the elements of the landsmeet who frequently opposed the queen’s measures bitched so frequently about her “two faces”, and yet had only ever seen the one.

They were only ever allowed to see Anora’s court face, lovely and poised and always pleasantly calm under her silver hair. She donned it for her enemies, for ambassadors and visiting dignitaries, for paupers begging alms. It was finely lined, brushed gently by the weight of the queen’s twenty-odd years on the throne, and startlingly lovely.

It was a strong face, used to wielding power with grace.

Probably, it was the face of a woman who never did things like run off with Denerim’s Red Jenny to burn an arl’s stash of unfair service contracts dated before the queen’s reforms and judged by the landsmeet to therefore be valid. Queen Anora had probably been a perfectly behaved young adult, though… Eleanor smiled. Probably never an obedient one.

“I am speaking. Are you listening?” the queen asked, jolting Eleanor back into the present.

“Yes, your majesty,” she replied, in what she hoped was a suitably meek tone. This was the queen’s other face, the one that wore all her years and her battles in the smile lines at the corners of her eyes and the frowns etched around her lips. Her eyes, however, shone brighter and fiercer than she allowed herself at any other time.

“Eleanor. I will invite every last one of Bann Hale’s sons to the Wintersend ball if you do not give me your undivided attention now.”

By the fire, Ser Cauthrien snorted inelegantly. Eleanor attempted to look more attentive. From the way the queen’s eyes narrowed, she was not sure she was entirely successful.

“You’re damn fucking lucky that no one eligible to witness before the landsmeet saw you scaling Arl Daxen’s wall, using his mistress’ rose trellis as a ladder, and luckier still that his servants are willing to swear before all Ferelden that it was some other dark-haired girl they saw lighting fire to the arl’s office.”

“The servants were the ones who tipped us off,” Eleanor pointed out, and knew immediately from Anora’s face that it had been a mistake to say it.

“Us? I see,” the queen said, one eyebrow drawn up to its full height.

“I didn’t mean-- I’m not one of them,” Eleanor scrambled to explain. “I just, you know, I was helping one of them out.”

The last thing she needed was for the queen to ban her forays into the city.

“By attending the arl’s party with one of them pretending to be your dear friend and guest? Or perhaps you are referring to how you helped smuggle enough rum to burn down a palace into the arl’s office, and then used it to light the entire room on fire? Or, perhaps the only help you are referring to is when you drew the guards’ attention, allowing them to escape cleanly and getting yourself captured in the process?”

Well, it hadn’t been one of Eleanor’s finer moments, that was for sure.

When it became clear that the queen was waiting for an answer, Eleanor offered a soft, “That’s about the sum of it, yes.”

The queen’s mouth twitched up at the corner, a familiar sign that she was trying not to smile at Eleanor’s antics.

“I understand that a number of elven servants are now free to pursue contracts under the fair terms the landsmeet passed. Is that so?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Eleanor answered.

“Well, that’s something good come out of all this fuss, at least. Maker’s balls, girl, if you’d just managed to not get caught.”

“Everyone but the arl believed my story about getting lost looking for the wine cellar,” Eleanor said, and she just managed to keep from sounding sulky. The queen would pounce on that quicker than a mabari given a bone.

“Everyone else was aware that even if you’re a little shit, you’re the heir to the throne, and made the decision not to tangle with Anora over this,” Ser Cauthrien injected, flipping the page of the report she was probably only pretending to read.

And, well, that did make a lot more sense. Eleanor had never been known particularly for her skill at dissembling, though she was luckily popular enough at court.

Eleanor sighed.

“What’s my punishment to be, then?” she asked, timidly. This could go on for a while, and she had no desire to hear the queen and her captain of the guard list all of her shortcomings.

The queen watched her thoughtfully.

“Ser Cauthrien, do you have room for her in the morning guard rotations for, say, a month?”

“I can make room, your majesty,” Ser Cauthrien answered, far too much amusement coloring her tone. Eleanor scowled. She hated morning rotations.

“That’s settled, then. You’ll report to Ser Cauthrien an hour before dawn every day for the next month and join her guards on patrols. If I hear you’re skipping or failing to fulfill your duty to the fullest, you’ll get another month for every complaint lodged.”

Eleanor scowled down at her lap, trying not to show just how annoyed she was.

“That will be all, Eleanor,” the queen hinted, and Eleanor stood to leave without looking at her.

As the door swung shut behind her, she thought she heard Ser Cauthrien say, “She’s a good one, the lass,” and the queen answer, “I know. She’ll be a great--”

The door closed with the soft click of the latch, and Eleanor set off down the hall. It was already late, and she’d probably best get some sleep now if she was going to report for morning duty on the morrow.

***

Ninth Frumentum, Sixtieth Year of the Dragon Age

My Dearest Despoina,

I am sorry to report that Ferelden still smells like wet dog, just as you described to me all those years ago. It really is quite pervasive. I suppose my nose will just have to suffer in the name of scholarship and study.

I have not yet had an audience with the queen, though I have attended two Ferelden “feasts”. They are held, I gather, instead of balls, and they have them with little enough occasion. My host attempted to explain the local holiday for which the second of these feasts was held, but as far as I can gather it is some pagan holiday from before the days of Andraste, which the dog lords still honor with every bit of pomp and circumstance paid to the holidays of the faithful--indeed, I believe that feast was even grander than the first, which was of course the Funalis celebration. Since they burn their dead, it is I suppose not surprising that they do not have parades for the dead, especially as there is no Grand Necropolis to parade to, but neither do they gather in their homes and light the candle to show the souls of their loved ones the day home, as is proper. Instead they meet in large groups in halls or manors and celebrate with ale and music and a giant fire, which they claim will send the spirits away in fear. It practically defies the purpose of Funalis! I tell you, there is so little logic to their celebrations that I cannot begin to make a study of it.

It is well enough, then, that I am here in an attempt to gather the details of their queen’s life and not the mishmash of their culture. If I can ever meet with her to speak of it, of course. Her seneschal has made me welcome enough, and given me access to the official records regarding her reign and the ‘Landsmeets’ she has led, the judgements she has made, and so on. It is all very valuable information, but it would be so much more valuable if only I could meet with her to discuss the hows and whys of what she has done in Ferelden.

This country has seen change during her reign like that of no other queen or king since the reign of Calenhad himself! It has become a haven for mages and elves alike, those who have chosen to stay out of that foolishness in the west. Indeed, many have left our own College of Magi to come and reside in Ferelden, and there is talk that a third Circle will be opened outside of Denerim itself, another haven of magical learning and preparation. I know all that has been done, but I want to know why she did it!

I did find the opportunity to speak to her briefly at the second feast. Knowing that she would not have a tomb as we Nevarrans do, I asked how the construction of her funeral monument was going. The look she gave me, Des! You’d think I’d murdered one of their godforsaken hounds.

In any case, I continue to seek an audience with her. I have no doubt that with time, my efforts will be successful.

All my love,

Nikoleta Xenia Cassandra Brandt, Senior Enchanter of the Cumberland College of Magi

***

It wasn’t too many women, Ailbhe thought, that got to see three royal weddings and survive a Blight. She could’ve done without the Blight, mind, but the weddings were always a damn fine sight.

Queen Rowan’d been a fine thing, done out in a white silk gown that wasn’t as fine as it might’ve been if the royal coffers had been a bit fuller. She hadn’t been in love, neither, Ailbhe saw those sorts of things, but she’d been happy, and she’d loved her people, and she’d been beautiful on her white horse with her dark hair flowing down her back.

Queen Anora, too, all in cloth of gold with her head held up high. Proud, and not as kind as Rowan had looked, but… suited to the role. The boy, King Cailan, had looked at her with unadulterated fascination, and even then old Ailbhe had known they wouldn’t end happy.

Hadn’t expected it to be at poor young Loghain’s hands, though.

She’d seen the queen often enough since then, when she rode out into the city on feast days. Beautiful, even as her youth left her behind and came to be replaced with a sense of deep power and grace. Always dressed fine as anything, always putting on a flawless show, but Ailbhe had seen her give coins to children when she thought no one was looking, had even seen her reach over to fix the flower wreath in a young elvish bride’s hair one Wintersend. Ailbhe’d liked her enough as a young bride, but she’d liked her better then.

Young Eleanor, though… now there was a royal bride in love. Pretty as a Rivaini peach, all decked out in scarlet and white and offering her groom a wide, open smile of the sort that only someone very young and very in love could offer. Queen Anora, too, was smiling, far more than she had at her own wedding--a smile of pride, if Ailbhe was any judge, and a soft sort of affection for the young bride.

She had a bit of power, did old Ailbhe. Didn’t use it often, didn’t want to end up in the Circle where someone like her was bound to end up cut off from herself, with that sun on her forehead. Hadn’t used it, at Queen Rowan’s wedding or at Queen Anora’s.

“Happy blessings to the newlyweds,” she called as they passed her, putting a bit of power into her voice and throwing a flower she’d picked up on the way there. The bride didn’t seem to notice, nor her groom who was focused so intently on her, but perhaps Queen Anora heard, and understood, because she turned to look at Ailbhe.

Ailbhe smiled, knowing that it was a grotesque mockery of the smile she had worn as a lovely young woman, but the queen smiled back and nodded her head.

Ailbhe’d swear to her dying day, no matter how absurd it sounded, that the queen had mouthed ‘thank you’ to her that day.

***

Twenty-Ninth Kingsway, Sixty-Fifth Year of the Dragon

Most Holy Divine Victoria,

Your Perfection’s concerns over the simple, unimportant affairs of our humble chantries is very generous but unnecessary. It would be a dreadful matter if the ‘smell of wet dog’ you so disdained the last time we spoke were to rub off on you, should you visit us. I should hate for Your Perfection to offend the noses of Val Royeaux’ finest when you deign to visit them for your little favors.

As to the matter of your concern, I can assure Your Perfection that we have the mages well in hand here, and I see no need for the measures to oversee our templars that you have suggested. At present they are working quite well with our mages thanks in large part to policies passed into law by her majesty, Queen Anora. I have attached copies of reports regarding the governance of the Ferelden Circles going back ten years for your purview, should you wish additional information on the results of the reforms she instituted. Indeed, I might be so bold as to suggest that you consider some of these reforms for the Circles elsewhere--though the mages of Southern Thedas have flourished under your rule, there is much murmuring regarding bitterness among the templars, and I would so hate to see that relationship dissolve again, and so soon.

Oh, but I do recall how little you like suggestions, especially from a meek and humble sister such as myself. Allow me, then, to provide not a suggestion but a statement: The Chantry and the Circles in Ferelden are stable, and your interference is not welcomed here, well-intentioned though it may be. I can assure you that if you see to my removal, there are others like me. Her Majesty has no intention of allowing you further control over the Chantry in her country, and I can assure you that she is every bit as dangerous as you.

Leave Ferelden to Ferelden.

Signed with the utmost respect,

Grand Cleric Jocosa

***

Noise in the nursery woke Royse. She looked at Edith, still soundly asleep and snoring lightly, and sighed. Edith would complain and drag her feet all day if woken to tend to the royal babe in the night. Royse would have to speak to someone about that.

She rose, shivering slightly in the cold air, and wrapped herself in her dressing gown before proceeding to the nursery. Though she doubted anything could wake the babe’s mother on this of all nights, it still would not do if the child managed to work up to a squall and disturbed her.

She gently pushed the door to the nursery open, and nearly squeaked with fright when she realized that the room was already occupied. The queen’s guard herself stood by the fire, arms crossed over a thin nightgown, and--of all things!--her sword belted on over it.

Timidly, she pushed the door open a little further.

“She’s very small,” a woman leaning over the crib said, sounding puzzled, “and red. And wrinkly. Is she supposed to look like that?”

The woman straightened, her long silver braid slipping down over one shoulder. She too was dressed in a simple nightgown, and it took a moment before Royse recognized the queen. She only barely managed to stifle her gasp.

“You’re used to seeing them when they’re a bit older,” the captain of the guard drawled, sounding… amused? Royse had only been at the palace for two weeks, and had encountered the woman only briefly outside of her initial interview for the position of royal nursemaid.

“Hmmm,” the queen said, bending back down over the cradle. Royse expected her to pick the infant up, but she made no move to do so.

Apparently, the captain of the guard expected the same thing, because she asked, “Aren’t you going to hold her, love?”

“Maker, no. I’d break her and then I’d have to explain to Eleanor and she might actually work up the courage to gut me,” Anora sounded amused. She did, however, reach out a tentative hand to stroke the babe’s forehead gently. The child’s fussing ceased, and it reached up a tiny hand to the queen.

“Eleanor swears she’s going to name her after you,” the captain of the guard added, and the queen snorted, the most inelegant sound Royse had ever heard her majesty make.

“If she does I’ll pass an edict changing her name, see if I won’t,” the queen said, gently grasping the baby’s fingers in between two of her own. The baby made a sleepy, pleased gurgle. “I’m angling for Moira, after Eleanor’s mother and Cailan’s grandmother. A very proper name for the newest heir to the Ferelden throne.”

“Hmm,” the captain of the guard said, in a tone that didn’t sound precisely like agreement. She straightened herself from where she had been leaning against the wall, pausing to stretch her back a bit with a look that told Royse it must ache something fierce, and made her way over to the queen’s side. To Royse’s surprise, she wrapped an arm around the queen’s waist with a familiarity that spoke of… care, comfort, years of knowing and loving.

Perhaps the queen had never married for more reasons than just keeping the power of the throne in her own hands.

“She should have her own name,” the captain of the guard said, after a moment. “Something that belongs to just her, not a legacy she has to live up to.”

The queen turned her head up to smile at her companion. “I’ll pass that on to Eleanor. I think she’d like that very much. You remember when she tried to insist everyone call her ‘Mildburg’ for a month, because she didn’t want to be known by ‘the name of some grandmother she never even knew’?”

The captain of the guard laughed, but quietly, mindful of the child who seemed to be settling back into sleep.

“Will you pass an edict if she tries to name the future queen of Ferelden Mildburg, love?”

“Oh, no. I’ll let the baby get her own revenge when she’s old enough,” the queen replied, her eyes crinkling at the corners. The captain of the guard dipped down to press a kiss against her lips, and Royse started, suddenly aware of how long she had been eavesdropping. She pressed the door further open, letting it creak. The queen and her guard separated, but not quickly, and Royse could have sworn that the queen winked.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you, Your Majesty, Captain,” she said, doing her best to sound as if she had only just woken. “I heard noise and thought I had better check on the baby.”

“She woke, but she’s sleeping now,” the queen said, offering a smile that seemed more genuine than any Royse had seen her wear before. “Please, don’t let us disturb your rest.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Royse said, and she retreated with a quick curtsey.

It did not escape her notice that she didn’t hear the outer door creak with their leaving, not for a long time.

***

[Scrap of a letter that has been mostly burned away]

any day now. We have no promise that her heir, Lady Eleanor, will be any more receptive to our ideas, but I feel confident that she can be talked around. She hasn’t the steel in her spine that her majesty possesses, from what I have seen of her. Queen Anora is quite old now, and doubtless not long for this world--I think it best we simply bide our time until Eleanor is on the throne, and then we will make our move.

Meanwhile, we move to put Cyna in the seat of Bann Alfstanna, since the woman left no heir. Cyna will

***

“You’ve a meeting with Lloefladd’s faction after breakfast tomorrow,” Aunt Erlina said, “Sorcha, you’ve forgotten the rosewater again.”

Sorcha did her best not to show her dismay as she hurried to retrieve the bottle of rosewater from the other side of the room. The queen liked it brushed into her hair at night, swore it helped her sleep more soundly. Given how little she slept at all, Sorcha supposed that it was very important what sleep she got was very sound.

“No, you can’t put it off any longer, or they’ll get Guiscard’s seat for one of theirs, and you’ll have that much more of the Landsmeet to fight to get any of your measures passed,” Aunt Erlina was saying as Sorcha returned with the rosewater. She carefully sprinkled it onto the brush, and returned to the long, careful strokes she had practiced. Queen Anora’s hair was long and lovely, and a pleasure to brush.

If Sorcha had been anyone but Erlina’s niece, she doubted such a young and inexperienced maid would have been allowed anywhere near it. Queen Anora was surprisingly undemanding, however. The same could not be said of Aunt Erlina.

“Very well,” the queen said, waving a hand. “And after that?”

“Lunch with Eleanor, Elis and Dairine. Dairine has lessons to recite for you; The Ballad of Isulde, I believe, and the multiplication table numbers one through twelve. Teryna Moira is also expected, though we have received word that she has been delayed on the road and may not make it by noon.”

“Something good, at least,” the queen said, grumpily. Sorcha paused in her brushing while the queen shifted, placing a hand on her lower back.

“Shall I send for a hot water bottle, your majesty?” she asked quietly.

“Please,” the queen said, and Sorcha retreated to ring for a servant. Once she had conveyed the queen’s wishes and seen the servant off, she returned to the queen and began to braid the queen’s hair for the evening.

“Cancel the afternoon meeting with the Grand Cleric, with my apologies and assurance that I trust her in that matter,” the queen said.

“Shall I give a reason?”

“Only if you want to explain to her that it’s an anniversary of sorts for me, and that I am tired of arguing back and forth with Val Royeaux so I shall be riding out with the captain of my guard to visit the hunting lodge in Dragon’s Peak half a day early.”

Aunt Erlina sighed.

“I’ll tell her that circumstances forced you to depart early, and convey your sincerest regrets,” she said, scribbling something on the paper.

“Very good,” the queen replied, sounding slightly amused.

The side door creaked open, and Ser Cauthrien entered, looking tired.

“I swear, the fucking recruits get younger and dumber every year,” she said, before anyone could greet her. The queen, to Sorcha’s surprise, laughed.

“You say that every year.”

“It’s true every year. Please remind me that I only have to put up with them for one more day before we depart for Dragon’s Peak and Cahir has to be the one to deal with them?”

Sorcha managed to tie off the end of the braid just in time for the queen to stand and move over to her lover.

“As a matter of fact, we’re leaving tomorrow after lunch,” the queen said, and Sorcha could hear the smile in her voice even if she couldn’t see it. Ser Cauthrien bent to accept the queen’s kiss.

“Is that so?” Ser Cauthrien asked, moving to sit on the bed and rubbing the leg that ached her. Sorcha moved to retrieve the balm she used on it, and presented it wordlessly. Ser Cauthrien smiled at her, and then focused her attention back on the queen.

“I might have arranged for us to leave earlier, but Erlina tells me I cannot miss my morning meeting, and Dairine is going to recite her lessons for me at lunch.”

“You couldn’t miss an occasion to shower Dairine with praise, of course,” Ser Cauthrien teased, gently.

“Of course not. Especially since it drives Eleanor to distraction that I dote on her daughter when I was, she feels, so harsh with her.”

“Hmm,” Ser Cauthrien agreed, and Sorcha realized she was on the edge of sleep. The queen must have come to that realization as well, because she asked, “Will that be all, Erlina?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Sorcha’s aunt said quickly, gathering her papers, “I’ll see you in the morning. Sorcha?”

Sorcha obediently followed her from the room, but not before she heard the queen’s voice murmuring something unintelligible that drew a laugh from Ser Cauthrien.

***

17 Justinian, Dragon 75

Dear Carrol,

Finally got an audience today, though it was Lady Eleanor who judged the cases when I went and not the queen. I’m told she’s summering in Gwaren, the capital being hotter than she cares for, and so Lady Eleanor is seeing to her duties. It was a disappointment, to be sure--I’d hoped to see her once in person before I die--but they say she’ll be returning to celebrate her fifty years on the throne in the fall. I figure Mark and I can get to Denerim for that celebration, don’t you think? Sure to be a party, and might be I’ll get to see her before I die after all.

Anyways, Lady Eleanor judged in our favor. Farmhold’s still ours. Heading home tomorrow, going to take it slow, so I should be back around the start of Solace.

Sincerely,

Brigid

***

“I am not going to tell you a story,” Anora said, looking down at the small passel of children in front of her. Anora felt that one would have been quite enough.

Eleanor, ever resistant to what Anora felt was the correct course of action, had produced six.

“Please, Aunt Anora,” the eldest said, looking at her with beseeching eyes. Anora never had been able to resist Dairine’s begging.

“Perhaps you would like to recite your lessons instead,” she said. Unfortunately, Dairine was as resistant to Anora’s threats as Anora was susceptible to the girl’s brown-eyed charms.

“You could tell us about being queen,” Dairine said, smiling sweetly. “It would be like a lesson!”

Anora sighed, and rearranged the shawl she had draped over her lap. She felt sure that Denerim had not been this cold when she was a child.

Dairine seemed to take this for assent, because she gleefully planted herself on the ground in front of Anora, followed by each of her siblings.

Anora surveyed the lot of them, considering. What stories did she have of her life, that would be appropriate for children? Perhaps she could tell them of the time her husband betrayed her, and how her father had turned traitor himself and left Cailan to his death in an attempt to save his daughter. Or perhaps the tale of how she, herself, had stood against her beloved, loyal father and allowed him to be executed for the grave crime of loving his daughter too well.

Maybe they would care to hear for the long years of arguments, of scheming and plotting and ensuring that Ferelden changed, for the better, even when it meant working against her own nobles. She’d had some of them disgraced, and others ousted from their position, and even a few murdered in their own homes. And, still, she had not achieved everything she might have hoped.

Or perhaps she could tell them a romantic story, of her great love for a woman she could never acknowledge, of years of hiding in plain sight and how she wished, now, that she could have been open. How she wished she could have married her knight, how she wished the world had known of her loss when Cath, beloved Cath, had fought off a wolf only to fall prey to the water sickness the beast carried.

And there was, of course, the more public but far less romantic story of how she had married Cailan to keep Orlais out of his bed, how she had loved him dearly as a brother but never as a man, the long lonely years of hurt and ache on both of their parts before his untimely death.

The tale of the Blight was a popular one, but never one Anora had cared for. She remembered too vividly the stink of rotten flesh the Darkspawn brought with them, the way their black blood poisoned the ground it stained when they fell, the way her ears had ached with the screeching calls of the archdemon. The stench of the city, after, as bodies rotted faster than they could be found and collected, the years of rubble and ruin that even her decades on the throne had not managed to completely repair. No, she would not tell these bright-eyed children of that dark time.

Something earlier than all that, then.

She smiled down at their expectant faces, and began.

“I’ll tell you a story about my mother, and how hard she worked for the people of her terynir. I was born in Haring, on the tail end of a winter storm, but the very next day…”

***

5th Drakonis, 99th Year of the Dragon Age

Dear Mama and Papa,

I’m enjoying Ferelden ever so much! I know that everyone says it smells of wet dog, and maybe it’s only because it’s spring, but really it smells more of wildflowers to me. The grass is greener than anything you ever saw, and the flowers! Oh, mama, the flowers would make even you weep for envy compared to our garden at home.

We visited Gwaren this week. I know that you thought we shouldn’t go so far south, but they say that it’s very lovely and peaceful there, all that forest, and it is. I’m very glad we came. The whole city smells of pine, except by the docks, where it just smells like ocean. And the trees! Oh, you never saw such trees in your life, tall as the spires of Seleny! Lorenza says there are Dalish in the forests, but I haven’t seen any. We’re here for another day, though, so perhaps I will! I would love to see a real Dalish elf, with Vallaslin and everything.

Today we visited Queen Anora’s monument. There’s one in Denerim, too, which I wrote to you of earlier, but Lorenza says that her ashes are in this one and not the one in the palace in Denerim. It’s next to her parents and her captain of the guard. I don’t know if it really looks like her, but it’s very beautiful. I took an etching of the inscription, on the next page of this letter.

We’re about to leave to tour the Gwaren Castle, which was rebuilt by Queen Anora’s parents after the war with Orlais according to Lorenza, but they say that a lot of the original masonry and sculpture remains. It will be an adventure! I say that because I have to stop writing to leave.

All my love,

Estelle

[On an additional page]

Queen Anora Mac Tir

Born 30th of Haring in the Third Year of the Dragon Age

Crowned Queen 1st of Bloomingtide in the Twenty-Fifth Year of the Dragon Age

Died 9th of Justinian in the Seventy-Ninth Year of the Dragon Age

Beloved Golden Queen of Ferelden