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The start of spring should be a hopeful thing. The closing of winter, the emergence of new growth, the lengthening of days. Anora remembers a faint sense of dread, a vague memory of her youngest years when the season meant her father would be leaving to spend the summer in Denerim; that feeling had dissipated as she’d gotten older, when he’d finally started letting her join him.
It returns now though, a dark curdling in her belly.
Reports of darkspawn have been increasing throughout the past months, beginning with a sighting by a hunter during the last dregs of summer. Winter had emboldened the monsters, and they’d started encroaching on farmland. The Chasind were leaving the Korcari Wilds in droves, travelling north in search of safety. The Warden-Commander had come to Denerim not long after Wintersend with his reports and his treaties, seeking an audience with Cailan.
A Blight in Ferelden. Anora can barely believe it.
She stands beside a window that looks out over the castle courtyard, bustling with soldiers as Cailan prepares to ride out to Ostagar, looking out at the dawn sky. The early sun dyes the sky red, the clouds streaking scarlet. The sight isn’t reassuring; her mother had always said that a red dawn was a bad omen.
She shakes her head, trying to shrug off the chill that runs up her spine. She shouldn’t dwell on old superstitions. Cailan will be accompanied by Grey Wardens, as well as his soldiers. And above all of them, he will be with her father.
She draws her cloak close and makes her way down the stairs, out into the great hall, and towards the door that opens up to the courtyard. Outside, the morning breeze is cold and damp on her face, carrying the scent of the river. There’s no sign of Cailan but she spots her father on the other side of the courtyard.
The soldiers part as she passes them, some dipping their heads in a bow of respect. Loghain is tending to his horse but his squire sees Anora approaching and clears his throat.
“Queen Anora, my lord.”
Loghain turns to her, inclining his head. “I should have expected that you’d come down.”
He returns his attention to his horse, checking that he has all of his equipment. It’s what he’s done all of Anora’s life, despite having stablehands and a squire who could do it for him. She looks at the young man.
“If I could speak with my father alone?”
He looks to Loghain, who only nods, before he bows and vanishes into the throng of soldiers. Finally, Loghain gives Anora his full attention.
“You have more important things to do than this,” he says but his tone is warm.
Anora raises any eyebrow. “My father and my husband ride off to fight monsters and you think saying goodbye isn’t important?” She glances around the courtyard. “This doesn’t seem like enough soldiers.”
“The Wardens are already at Ostagar,” Loghain says. He loops his horse’s reins over its head. “And Teyrn Cousland will join us with Arl Howe and their soldiers.”
Anora frowns. “Isn’t Eamon closer?”
“Eamon’s a politician, not a soldier,” Loghain says. He scowls. “And Cailan is difficult enough to manage around Wardens, I don’t need his uncle making it harder.”
Anora steps back as he mounts, biting her tongue. She knows that Cailan and her father have been arguing; Cailan always avoids her after he’s come to blows with Loghain, and she’s spent most of her evening meals alone these past few weeks. She wants to press her father for more information but he’s been preoccupied as of late; this is the first time they’ve had a conversation in days.
“Anora!”
She turns when she hears her name and sees Cailan approaching, a bright gleaming figure. He looks relaxed, perhaps too relaxed considering what he will be facing. When he reaches her, he cups her cheek, his gloved thumb stroking a line across her cheekbone.
“Come to make sure I leave?” he asks, teasing.
“As if the Wardens could ever keep you away,” Anora says. She steps away from him, back towards her father, and folds her hands in front of her. “It will certainly be quiet without you.”
“I’ll come back,” he says, “and your father.” He offers Loghain a smile, slightly sheepish. “He always comes back.”
Loghain clears his throat. “Cailan, we can’t delay any longer if we are to get to South Reach before nightfall.”
“Of course,” Cailan says. He takes hold of Anora’s hand and brings it to his lips, brushing a light kiss against her knuckles. He glances up at her with a smile and Anora feels a swell of fondness well up in her chest. “I’ll see you soon.”
She watches him go, winding through the gathered soldiers to find his own horse. Once he’s out of sight, she sighs, looks up at the sky and sees the red has faded, turning to pink as the sun rises. Despite her cloak, a shiver runs up her back.
“Look out for him for me,” she says, “I do want to have both of you come back.”
Loghain doesn’t say anything. Puzzled, Anora turns to look up at him to see that he’s also staring after Cailan, his brow drawn into a frown and his mouth set in a firm line. It seems that Loghain, at least, has not completely set aside their argument.
“Father,” she says, and his frown dissolves.
“It’s all right, Anora,” he says. He picks up the reins and turns his horse towards the gates. “We’ll speak more when I return.”
Anora retreats back to the castle as the soldiers file out of the courtyard, Cailan and Loghian riding side by side at the head. She waits until the last soldier leaves and the gates close behind them before she goes back inside, heading up to her quarters. Regardless of what is unfolding in the Korcari Wilds, she still has work to do. She will continue being the steady hand on Ferelden.
Everything else can wait.
As a child, Celia had used to read Anora fairytales.
They all ran together in the end. Mothers die. Fathers go mad. Daughters sleep for a hundred years or bite into poisoned apples or are locked in towers until they are rescued. Loghain had always scoffed at them; Fereldan girls, he told her, didn’t need rescuing. Reality was Queen Rowan and Queen Moira and Anora’s own mother, proud and strong and capable. As she grew into womanhood, she’d always considered herself as measuring up to them.
Under her current circumstances, she finds herself understanding the fairy tale daughters more.
Following the Landsmeet, after losing her crown and almost losing her father, she’d been escorted to Bann Alfstanna’s estate, where a tower room had been prepared for her. It’s better than the tiny cell Arl Howe had locked her in but it’s a cell nevertheless, where all she can do is wait.
The rest of the estate is filled with others who can’t fight the darkspawn, mainly wives and children of nobles, but also those too old or too sick to hold a weapon, along with their servants. The atmosphere is thick with tension and fear, which Anora can feel even despite her isolation from the others as the battle rages outside.
She sits by the window, looking out over the world outside. The walls circling the estate are still burning; pitch and oil had been poured over the battlements earlier and set alight to keep the darkspawn at bay and she can smell the smoke, even with the window shut. Fort Drakon still dominates the skyline, despite an enormous burst of magic that had fractured the stone. The blast had been powerful enough to shake even Alfstanna’s stone walls; Anora had felt it in her bones.
‘My father was up there,’ she thinks, something tightening in her throat. His actions had cost her everything but she can’t bear the idea of losing him too.
The sound of heavy footsteps approaching in the corridor drags her attention back into the room. She casts her gaze about the room for something to defend herself and lands on an iron poker hung beside the cold fireplace. She grabs hold of it and positions herself beside the door, ready to swing.
The sound of something heavy being slammed against the lock, breaking it, makes her flinch. She tightens her grip on the poker as the door opens. Once the gap is wide enough for someone to step through, she swings, putting all her strength behind the blow.
The sound of metal hitting metal makes her ears ring and the impact rattles up her arm. She looks up to see that it’s been blocked by a familiar sword. Loghain takes advantage of her surprise, disarming her quickly with an expert twist of his arm.
“I thought you’d…” she trails off and quickly composes herself, pulling her relief back so anyone following him won’t see. “Is it over?”
He drops his sword and reaches up to tuck a loose lock of hair back from her face but doesn’t come any closer. There’s still blood on his armour, drying dark, but his expression is one of relief.
“Yes, Anora,” he says, “It’s over.”
After the Blight, Anora doesn’t see her father again for a long time.
She returns to Gwaren while Loghain is sent to Orlais to be under the command of their Grey Wardens. Part of her wants to leave with him but she isn’t ready to abandon Ferelden yet - it’s her home and her history and won’t have it look as if Eamon and his new king have pushed her out.
With the weight of the crown lifted from her shoulders and Alistair unwilling to trust her, despite her retaining her title as teyrna of Gwaren, she focusses on the country of her childhood. The Brecilian forest had proven to be an effective barrier against the darkspawn, keeping the Blight at bay, but the civil war had left its mark. Anora sheds the mantle of being her father’s daughter and picks up the torch of being her mother’s, setting out to rebuild the teyrnir. She orders castles to be rebuilt; repairs to the roads and the port; negotiates levies with Highever and trade with the Free Marches. Slowly but surely, Gwaren heals and as the years pass, Anora settles, finding what satisfaction she can but with an ear always turned north for news from Denerim.
And then the sky tears open.
“If my father has deserted, do you really think he’d be so stupid to come here?”
Standing before her throne in Castle Mac Tir’s great hall, Anora stares down a pair of Grey Wardens. They’d appeared before her gates that morning, rain-sodden, and demanded an audience; she’d kept them waiting, dealing with even her pettiest of duties before meeting them.
One of them, an archer, steps forward. “My lady, this was Warden Loghain’s home once—”
“And so obviously the first place anyone would think to look,” Anora interrupts, “I haven’t seen my father in years.”
The second Warden scowls. “If you don’t want to play nicely, I’ll remind you that we have treaties requiring cooperation on Warden matters.”
Anora bristles at his tone, chilly and condescending.
“Cooperation during a blight,” she says coldly, “There is no blight.” She pauses. “And I suggest if you wish to invoke those treaties, you take it up in Denerim. I’m sure King Alistair has nothing better to do than march on Gwaren to find one man.”
She makes a pointed look towards the window. The sky outside is swirling green, bleeding light like a wound. The second Warden opens his mouth to argue but his companion stops him, raising one hand in a gesture for silence.
“We’ll return tomorrow,” he says, “Give you some time to think; perhaps some sleep tonight will jog your memory.” He bows, shallow and stiff. “My lady.”
Anora watches them leave, waiting for the heavy doors to shut behind them. She doesn’t move until she hears her guards shout and the portcullis being lowered. Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, she turns on her heel and makes her way to the chapel.
The chapel is empty when she reaches it; it’s too early for evening prayers. Carefully, Anora shuts the main door behind her and crosses the room to reach the smaller priest door behind the altar; cool evening air rushes in when she opens it, sweet with the scent of her mother’s gardens. She glances around the chapel before she pulls back the carpet behind the altar, exposing the small trapdoor set into the floor. It had been here long before her parents had occupied the castle, leading down to a secret tunnel intended for the escape of the ruling family in the event of an attack.
“Father,” she says, breathless as she pulls the trapdoor open. “They’re gone.”
She hears his footsteps before he comes into view, climbing up the small ladder to join her kneeling behind the altar. He looks tired and gaunt, more harried than she ever remembers seeing him, even during the Blight. When he looks at it, it’s almost like she’s being seen by two things: the first, her father, older but familiar; the second is something far away, old and endless and empty. She suppresses a shudder.
“They won’t stay gone,” he says and Anora nods.
“Apparently, I can expect them to return tomorrow.”
“Then I can’t stay long.”
Loghain moves to stand and Anora catches his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.
“What is it you’ve done?” she demands, “Why are they hunting you?” He hesitates and she frowns. “I think you owe me the truth.”
He laughs, a low humourless sound. “I suppose I do.”
He glances at the main doors but they remain shut. He takes hold of Anora’s hands, drawing her up to her feet so they stand eye to eye. Once she’s up, he rests his hands on her shoulders, heavy and grounding.
“There are some things I can’t say,” he says, “Wardens have secrets for a reason, and I wouldn’t want to burden you with them.” He squeezes her shoulders. “Don’t trust the other Wardens. Whatever they were before, they’ve been changed.”
“By who? What?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
He steps away and out through the priest’s door. Anora follows.
“Where will you go?”
“Crestwood,” Loghain says. He looks up at the Breach. “I need to meet someone there.”
“Another Warden?”
“Not at all.”
They lapse into silence then. Anora plucks at her sleeves, unravelling a loose thread. She hates that they’ve become so stilted but a decade apart now stands between, hand in hand with the Blight and whatever it is that made her father a Warden.
“I’ll go now,” Loghain says, “The darkness will make it harder for them to find me.”
Anora nods. Wordlessly, she turns to him and wraps her arms around his waist, burying her face against his shoulder. He makes a small sound of surprise; she hasn’t hugged him like this since she was very small. Regardless, he returns the embrace; Anora sighs and leans into him, wishing for a moment that she was just his little girl again, instead of a woman tired of living through history.
“When this over,” he says, breaking away, “I’ll tell you everything I can.” He touches her face, his glove light against her cheek. Something like regret flits across his face. “I’m sorry, Anora.”
Anora manages a tight smile. “I understand.”
He steps away, slowly at first, and turns; he doesn’t look back. Anora watches as he scales the wall and drops out of view. She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of the roses, and pulls herself together. Overhead, the sky swirls, sick and green; she wonders what meaning her mother would take from that.
Eventually, she goes back into the chapel, shutting the priest door behind her. She kneels down behind the altar and closes the trapdoor, smoothing the carpet back into place. As she goes to stand, something silver beneath the altar catches her eye. She reaches for it and her hand closes over a ring, stamped the Grey Warden griffons. A champion’s ring, a gift from Weisshaupt to those Wardens who survived the Fifth Blight. Only two had been issued, and the other is in Denerim. She holds it close to her chest as she leaves the chapel.
Her father will come back.
He always does.