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"So, Connor is the evil of which you spoke."
Isolde Guerrin's wretched Orlesian mouth twisted into a grimace. "No! You should not say such things!"
"I am a mage," Catriona said, evenly, with some difficulty mastering the impulse to slap the other woman senseless. Not that she had been particularly overburdened with sense to begin with, judging by her actions. "And he is an abomination. I speak as I find."
"He... he is not always that way," Isolde protested, miserably. "Sometimes he is my little boy again, just as you saw. Do not... do not call him an abomination, please!"
Catriona had very little pity for her, and scarcely more than that for the boy himself. She'd lost her whole family when she'd been younger than Connor was now, and she had never been stupid enough to bargain with a demon to get them back.
"Why not?" she snapped. "That's exactly what he is. An abomination. A puppet for a demon. Almost everyone in Redcliffe is dead because of him - and because of you - so I hardly see the need to lie to spare your feelings!" Alistair laid a hand on her arm in an attempt to calm her, but she shook him off. He hated Isolde anyway. Why should he care what she said to the ghastly woman? "This, by the way, is exactly why the Chantry takes mages to the Circle. Not because they're cruel and enjoy parting small children from their families - because mages are dangerous."
And Catriona certainly looked dangerous at that moment. That there were no sparks of energy radiating from her form was testament to her excellent self-control, but the rage burning in her eyes was almost as terrifying as mage-fire. "So... do enlighten me, Arlessa Isolde, as to why you thought your desire to keep your precious little boy at home with you outweighed your responsibility to the people of Redcliffe? Do you not understand that nobility comes with duties as well as privileges, you selfish woman?"
Isolde recoiled as if she'd been slapped, but rallied enough to sneer down at Catriona. "Who are you to lecture me thus?" she asked, everything in her demeanour suggesting that she considered a Warden Mage only slightly more worthy of notice than a cockroach in her storage room.
"Who am I?" Anger and pride drove Catriona onwards, ignoring both the pained look on Bann Teagan's face and Alistair's near-frantic arm waving. "My name is Catriona, and I am a Grey Warden, formerly a mage of the Circle." She smirked at Isolde's obvious disdain. "Although... since you seem to believe that the laws do not apply to nobles - or is it only you who may disregard them so casually? - you might be interested to know that, were it not for the fact that I am a mage, it would be you who would have to bow to me." Her grin was sharp and vicious.
"Who would you have me believe that you are, then, Grey Warden?" Isolde might have aimed for her usual haughty tone, but she missed it by quite some margin.
Catriona snorted indelicately. "You don't have to believe anything." As she said it, she realised that she sounded just a little like Flemeth. "But I would imagine that, Orlesian though you are, you would recognise my family name." She thought for a moment of her family, of the last time she had seen them, nine years before. They were all dead now, all of them. Her parents, her beloved sister, her great bear of an older brother. Even the sister-in-law and nephew whom she had never met. "I am Catriona Cousland."
"You are... you are not." The arlessa's protest was reflexive, unintentional, but Catriona saw no reason to rein in her scorn.
"Will you call me a liar, then, my lady?" she asked, and her voice was cold and dangerous. She held Isolde's eyes for a few tense heartbeats, before giving a dry and humourless laugh. "It shouldn't be of any consequence now, though, should it? Whatever I was, I am a Grey Warden, and I have come to save your husband - and your son, too, if I can. That should have been enough for you."
But it hadn't been enough. And it never would be, not just for Isolde in her Orlesian arrogance, but for anyone in Ferelden. A Grey Warden was a traitor to the crown. A mage was an abomination waiting to happen. Run and hide 'til she passes, the Warden Mage!
Catriona knew what her future would hold. She would spend her tragically shortened life saving people who feared and hated everything that she was from evils of their own creation. Facing death for the sake of those who would gladly see her put to the sword. Any sensible person would have fled, but she had not.
A Cousland always does her duty. And she was the last of the line.
"Take me to Connor," she said, after several long moments in which no one spoke at all. "If there is anything I can do for him, it will be done."
For Oren, whom she had never met but who had been too young to die. For Bevin, who had wanted to fight the undead, and for the other children of Redcliffe who had tried to do so and failed. For herself, even: a terrified child of ten, sobbing herself to sleep in a strange, cold, scratchy bed, that first night and so many others thereafter. Not because Connor deserved to be saved, but because it might yet be in her power to save him.
The Arlessa stared at the Grey Warden, her eyes wide and desperate and frightened. Then, incredibly, Connor Guerrin's mother gave a slight bow, and on trembling legs led her son's would-be saviour up the stairs and into the family quarters.
Catriona had seen abominations before. She knew the most likely outcome of this encounter. She could only pray to the Maker that she was wrong.