*I KNOW WHAT YOU DESIRE.* The skeleton lifted both its hands now and the greenish glow in the room intensified. Duncan felt it affecting him, draining his energy. He stumbled to one knee, his head suddenly full of cotton like he had just woken up from a deep sleep. On the dais, Genevieve and Utha also stumbled to their knees. Kell dropped his bow, wavering, and Hafter whined in confusion. *I LURED YOU HERE WITH THE PROMISE OF THAT DESIRE, AND YOU CAME. AT LAST I SHALL BE FREE OF THE DARKNESS.*
It was all Duncan could do to keep from collapsing to the ground. Sweat beaded his forehead and he dropped both his daggers. His vision swam. He saw Maric trying valiantly to pull himself along the ground toward the skeleton, gritting his teeth with effort. Utha fell, unconscious, and Genevieve was not far behind her.
Dismay filled Duncan as he saw something rise up out of the skeleton, like gossamer wisps of smoke that lifted up from its bones and swam across the air to sink into Fiona.
The elf threw back her head and let out a horrible, keening wail. Her entire body tensed, her hands flying out at her sides. Her skin became a pale white, and then began to change. It bulged, and twisted. Her body grew, and took on a hideous form, her head becoming something gnarled and fanged even as she shrieked in torment.
And then the transformation was done. A demonic abomination now stood where Fiona once had, a thing of rent flesh and claws, its gender no longer even apparent. The thing’s eyes glowed with menace, and it regarded Duncan with amusement. It waved a hand at him.
*SLEEP.*
The world became grey and fuzzy, and the ground rushed up to greet him. He slept. Despite every fiber of his being fighting against it, still he slept.
They all did.
12
Sunshine poured through an open window, the yellow silk curtains ruffling gently in the breeze. It took Maric a moment to realize he was in the palace at Denerim. He inhaled deeply, amazed at how wonderful that air smelled, how warm the feeling of sun on his bare skin was. It was so easy to forget about these simple pleasures when you were miles underground in the Deep Roads… .
The Deep Roads. The thought rankled, and suddenly he wondered why he was at the palace at all. Shouldn’t he be with the Grey Wardens? The memory slipped away like quicksilver the more he tried to focus on it. Had he been dreaming?
He was in his own bed in the royal chambers, wearing only crisp linen sheets and not heavy silverite plate armor. The mahogany vanity that had been a gift from the Antivan royal family dominated the wall. His grandfather’s dwarven-made spectacles sat on the small desk, retrieved at great expense from an Orlesian nobleman in Nevarra, and next to them was the cumbersome tome on King Calenhad that he had been slowly making his way through for the last year. He had no talent for reading, and the scholar’s language was dense enough to make the effort difficult. Maric was stubborn, however.
He was where he was supposed to be. Why did he think he had traveled off on some adventure, chasing after an ancient order that didn’t even exist in Ferelden any longer? The entire idea was ludicrous.
Someone shifted in the bed next to him and he froze. Rowan was dead. There shouldn’t be anyone—
“Maric?” came a muffled, sleepy voice.
Panic gripped him, and his heart began beating rapidly. He stared with wide eyes as the woman lifted her head from her pillows. The honeyed curls were just as he remembered them, tousled and not quite covering her elven ears. Wide emerald eyes blinked at him as she smiled. “You’re a strange one to look at me so,” she chuckled. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Katriel. It was Katriel, the elven spy he had killed eight years before.
“I … don’t know,” he choked. “Maybe I did.”
She made a moue and reached up with one hand, brushing his hair away from his eyes. The gesture was like something out of his distant memory, and yet so strikingly familiar. He took her hand and held it firmly against his cheek. She even smelled the same. How had he forgotten that? Tears welled up in his eyes.
“Oh, Maric,” she said, her concern suddenly real. “You did have a bad dream! Oh, my darling man. Always the sensitive one, tsk.”
He held her hand to his face a moment longer, frightened that if he let it go she would slip away. But finally he fought down his tears and looked at her. “How did you get here? I don’t understand.”
“I came to bed after you were asleep. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I mean, what about Rowan?”
Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Rowan is in Gwaren with Loghain, as she should be. We do not expect them to arrive in Denerim until tomorrow. Have you lost track of the day?”
“Expect them?” He rubbed his head, confused. “But … Rowan is dead.”
Katriel sat up in the bed now, the sheets falling away and revealing her nubile body and pale skin as he remembered them. She hugged him close, sighing sadly. “Is that the dream you had? Oh, Maric. Don’t you remember? She was very sick, yes, and we were so frightened, but Loghain pulled her through it.”
“Loghain pulled her through it,” he repeated. An empty place in his heart ached, making its presence felt. He remembered it only too well.
“You know what he’s like.” She frowned, brushing his hair aside again. “There she was, wasting away and hovering near death, and the bastard was yelling at her, shouting that he would storm the Fade itself to retrieve her if she died. You were so angry at him.”
He couldn’t respond. He gulped, and his throat felt tight and dry. She cupped his cheek in her hand and looking at him warmly. Once he could have drowned in those emerald eyes. “I was proud of you. I never liked that bastard, and I don’t know why you put up with him. Still, he held Rowan’s hand for days, refusing to sleep or eat. They say his will was so strong she could not refuse it, and she survived.”
“Is that all it took?” he croaked quietly.
“Shhhhh,” she purred, leaning in close and planting a soft kiss on his lips. He felt numb and didn’t respond. “Don’t let it bother you so. Your queen is here, my love. Will you not let me help you forget that terrible dream?”
Maric allowed himself to be pulled down on top of her. She kissed him again, and this time he responded, slowly at first but then with more vigor. The feeling was so real, so potent, he couldn’t deny it.
How often had he wished for just this very thing? The opportunity to go back and undo what had been done, to make it right. This was as it should have been. It would be so simple just to allow it to happen. Deep down he knew that here it would be possible to forget that he had ever murdered this woman, that he had ever married Rowan and then watched her die while his best friend became colder and colder with each passing year. Here, being a king would not be a chore, and as he looked into Katriel’s eyes beneath him and saw her crooked grin, he found it so very tempting.
But there was another elf. Almost unbidden, the memory surfaced of Fiona, taken over by the demon and transformed into an abomination. Her agonized screams still rang in his ears, and even though that other lifetime slipped through his fingers like a half-remembered dream, that part tugged insistently at his conscience.
He had made Fiona a promise.
“I can’t,” he whispered, disengaging from Katriel. He moved over to his side of the bed and got out as she stared at him in confusion, clutching the sheets to her chest.