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Loghain never wanted this throne.
Maric seemed perfectly suited to it. Naturally so—almost as though the Maker Himself had set the crown upon his brow and commanded him to rule long and justly. The throne, however, rejected Loghain with every fiber of its wooden soul. The armrests were too low, the back flat and uncomfortable, and no number of cushions could soften its rigid base.
Perhaps because Loghain was not of royal blood.
When Maric took Denerim, he dragged this heavy oak throne of his forebears out of the palace vaults—an ugly, primitive thing in Orlesian eyes. He had it scrubbed of dust and cobwebs, re-waxed, and its dried, brittle spines replaced. The queen’s throne had suffered worse. After a brief inner struggle, Maric surrendered and commissioned a new one for Rowan. She ordered it to be smaller and more modest than the king’s—though in reality, it never was.
After all, Fereldan queens were always more influential and more powerful than their kings.
Until the final day she could still stand, Rowan ruled the nation, while Maric whined of boredom by day and reveled by night, sneaking out of the palace chambers. Anora dutifully followed in Rowan’s footsteps, and Cailan played at being a king-strategist, preparing to sell Ferelden to the Orlesians through a marriage to Celene.
As a father, Loghain should have shuddered at the image of his daughter now: barefoot, bareheaded, filthy, curled tightly in the dark on a patch of stale straw… Yet still refusing to renounce her claim to the throne. But as king, he clenched his teeth and said nothing, persuaded by her that it was only a matter of weeks before Anora would wish to see sunlight again. The new queen was not as gentle or merciful as the last ones.
Still, she was just as influential—and just as strong—as her king.
She delays the council, as always arriving when it suits her. Lords and ladies murmur, casting reproachful glances at the king, who froze in silent fury. Time drags on.
Then the Wolfess of Highever enters the throne room, and the hall falls silent.
Many have already learned her temper, and the royal court has become an obedient, sycophantic herd. Queen Máiréad is no keeper of the peace, but a maiden of war. She tolerates neither disrespect toward herself nor toward the king. She does not hide behind castle walls and spends nearly all her time in military camps. She slew the Archdemon—and now it seems as though dragon’s blood has replaced her own. Yet only someone like this could unite the realm and save it from annihilation.
She wears light armor, adorned with the Couslands’ laurel and the Mac Tir wyvern. A silverite blade rests in its scabbard, and her favored dagger is close at hand.
“At court, you should be wearing a dress,” Loghain says quietly when Máiréad takes her seat beside him—upon her absurd little throne, which is in truth larger than his own. “Observe the proprieties.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll have to personally strip that armor from you.”
She laughs just as softly. “Tempting, Your Majesty.”
Loghain gives nothing away, but he enjoys the playful note that slips through her usual cold reserve. His queen is young, beautiful, and insatiable—both on the battlefield and behind the bedroom doors. She has magnificent black hair, braided in the Highever fashion, with carved rings and ribbons, crowned by a thin circlet of gold. Her eyes are wise and feral, truly wolfish. And she bears more scars than he can count in the rare nights they are granted.
One by one, the vassals voice their concerns—those that have plagued the crown for many long months. Bannorn unrest is spreading. The siege of rebellious Redcliffe grinds on at great cost. Teagan has refused to acknowledge the new king and still sends letters demanding a confession to Eamon’s murder. The royal scribes reply with practiced indifference, parchment after parchment, assuring him that after a lengthy illness, the arl’s health simply failed.
And in truth, no one murdered Eamon. He himself poured the poison down his own throat. Máiréad merely stood nearby, vividly detailing what would happen to his wife and son if he continued to sow discord among the nobility. Could that truly be called murder?
The Wolfess of Highever listens with sympathetic poise to the arls and banns, never interrupting her husband or inserting herself into the discussion. When it suits her, she is impeccable in courtly manners. For a fleeting moment, it is even easy to believe she is a benevolent lady—rather than a warrior who brings death in her wake.
Strangely enough, Loghain feels calmer when she is at his side. As though a true northern she-wolf lay beside his throne, compelling the lords to speak more politely, more carefully. One wrong move—and she would not merely nip off your fingers like a mabari loyal to its master. She would fasten on your throat and worry it, ignoring any command until her hunger was sated.
Instead of costly carpets, a river of blood leads to their thrones—and both of them were willing to spill it.
History will likely name them tyrants. The aristocracy will brand them usurpers. The peasants will remember hunger and confiscated cattle. And yet they will leave behind a Ferelden made strong, ready to withstand invaders and internal strife alike, no matter how fiercely it resists them. Even if their bodies are thrown to the dogs after death, both would regret only that they did not manage to hang every traitor.
The number of heads on pikes outside the castle continues to grow.
Loghain is sincerely grateful that such a companion has joined him on this difficult path. Queen Máiréad is a northerner to the marrow—loyal, fierce, and relentless. Even if it costs him great effort to rein in the temper of the Wolfess of Highever. Even if the inner circle of advisors sometimes dares to ask whether the king himself fears becoming her prey one day.
He never mentions that their alliance began with a knife pressed to his throat.
It begins with a fractured sense of safety. A draft rushes through the chambers and pulls Loghain out of an anxious half-sleep. The approaching Landsmeet has robbed him of rest, but this—this is something else.
His death is named Lady Máiréad Cousland, and she is straddling him, pressing a costly, heavy dagger to his throat.
A chill crawls down his spine. Before his eyes rises the memory of what remained of Rendon Howe after Lady Máiréad’s visit. On which of the shattered, twisted ribs did he finally stop screaming? This execution, he suspects, would look no more pleasant.
“Was it you who ordered the massacre at Highever?”
In the darkness, wolfish eyes gleam—like a beast judging whether its prey will bolt, just so it can give chase.
“No.”
He was never good at lying, and she accepts the short denial. Loghain took advantage of the situation. But he did not start it.
The blade presses harder nonetheless, carving a bloody line beneath his stubble.
“Eamon and Anora are plotting,” Máiréad says. “They mean to marry Alistair to her. To her,” she repeats, with an emphasis that carries a woman’s deadliest insult. “They will depose you and take the throne. And then they will lose the war. I can’t allow that.”
An unexpected turn. An intriguing one.
“And you think I can do something about this?”
“With my help—yes.”
She loosens her grip just a fraction, and Loghain seizes the moment, knocking the dagger aside. Máiréad lunges for the weapon; Loghain catches her wrists and pins her down, pressing her into the bed.
She struggles, then, after a heartbeat, seems to yield—going slack in his hands, so that the brief clash turns into something resembling a lovers’ embrace.
“The darkspawn horde will reach Denerim soon,” she explains evenly. “A civil war won’t let us muster the strength to stop it in time. We have only one option, my lord regent. At the Landsmeet, I’ll declare that Eamon deceived me into taking part in his intrigues. That he planned to place his bastard on the throne, passing him off as Maric’s son and securing his claim through marriage to the queen. The Landsmeet will, of course, demand trial by combat. All you need to do is kill Alistair. I’ll support your claim to the throne, and you will strengthen your position with a queen from a powerful—this is only a matter of time—family.”
Her chest rises and falls with steady breaths. Máiréad is coldly composed, yet for some reason Loghain is certain that true fire burns in her heart. And, against all sense, he finds that he likes her. Her bluntness most of all, and her particular talent for negotiating at knifepoint.
“And if I betray you?”
“Why would you?” Máiréad smiles slyly, like a serpent. “The nobility won’t support a usurper. Nor a queen tainted by conspiracy in the darkest hours of the Blight. And who knows—perhaps a week later she’s found with her throat cut and a crow’s feather clenched in her fingers…”
So that’s how she got into the castle. An Antivan Crow.
“Not very diplomatic, Lady Cousland.”
“I will be queen,” she snaps fiercely, her smile fading. “My father promised me—and Cailan married Anora. Alistair promised me—and then pledged himself to another. If no one keeps their promises, what choice do I have but to take for myself what I want?”
She bites her lip almost imperceptibly, then, taking advantage of a moment’s freedom, rolls Loghain onto his back again and tightens her grip around his hips. The tip of her loosened braid brushes his bare chest, raising a fine, utterly inappropriate shiver.
Then Máiréad deftly draws a second dagger from the sheath at her calf.
Without so much as wincing, she slices a thin line across her palm and offers him the blade. Loghain, as if enchanted, closes his hand around the edge. Perhaps by morning this will all scatter like a dream. Or perhaps, right now, he is selling his soul to a demon, obediently threading his fingers through a bloodied woman’s hand.
Loghain settles on the latter.
Because Lady Máiréad speaks like a demon, echoing every desire he has ever harbored. And behind her, like a phantom, rises the oak throne of Denerim.
“I will make you king,” she says. “And you will make me queen.”