The Stolen Throne

Maric looked up at him, his eyes narrowed. The lightning flashed again outside the window, lighting Maric’s face and making plain his suffering. “On her way,” he repeated. “Then that’s why you . . .”

“I needed to know. And so did you.”

Maric shook his head in disbelief. He looked as if he were about to vomit. “I . . . what am I supposed to do with this? I can’t just—”

“You are a king,” Loghain said harshly. “You will need to make a decision.”

The two of them stood there in uncomfortable silence. Maric leaned against a wall, folded over with his hands on his knees as if preparing to become sick. Loghain looked at him from across the room, keeping himself cold and reminding himself that this was necessary.

The candle on the table guttered dangerously as the sound of rain increased outside. The winds were blowing in from the ocean, and bringing with them a freezing storm that would chill the entire coast before morning. The seasons were changing. By the end of the month, there would be snow again. Either the rebels acted before winter settled in or they would be able to do nothing until spring.

So they waited.

It did not take long. The door to the study creaked open, and Katriel quietly entered from the dark hallway outside, having maneuvered carefully past snoring soldiers. She was in traveling leathers and drenched from the rain, her blond curls clinging to her pale skin. Her long cloak dripped onto the floor.

Katriel paused, immediately becoming aware that something was amiss. The tension in the room was palpable. Her green eyes flicked from Loghain on one side of the room, glaring at her, and Maric on the other, standing up straight now and looking pale and ill. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, her expression deliberately neutral.

“My prince, are you well?” she asked. “I would have thought—” She glanced back at Loghain suspiciously. “—you might be asleep. It is very late.”

Loghain said nothing. Maric walked toward her, his emotions playing across his face. He was tortured by his torn loyalties; even Loghain could see that. Maric took Katriel by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. She seemed passive, almost resigned, and did not flinch away from him.

“You went to Denerim,” he stated. It was not a question.

She did not look away. “Then you know.”

“What do I know?”

Grief filled her, or was it shame? Tears streamed down Katriel’s wet face, and she would have pulled away if Maric did not hold her there. She sagged as if the strength had drained out of her, but still she did not look away from Maric’s fierce gaze. “I tried to tell you, my prince,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “I tried to tell you that I wasn’t who you thought I was, but you wouldn’t listen. . . .”

Maric’s mouth thinned as he clenched his jaw, and his grip on her small shoulders became visibly tighter. There was seething fury in his eyes. “I am listening now,” he said, each word enunciated carefully.

Her eyes swam red with tears. They said to him: Don’t make me do this, Maric. It doesn’t have to be this way. And he ignored them, answering with tears of his own. Loghain looked on gravely and did not interfere.

“I am a bard,” she said reluctantly. “A spy. From Orlais.” When Maric did not respond, she continued. “I was brought here by Severan, the King’s mage, to find you, to bring you to him, but—”

“And what of West Hill?” Maric asked, almost too quietly to hear.

Katriel shrank as he towered over her, crying pitifully, but still she did not look away from him. “It was me.” She nodded.

Maric let her go. He released her shoulders almost gingerly and stepped away, sick horror on his face as he looked at her. It was true. All of it was true. Maric turned from her and looked toward Loghain, twisted up with agony and tears freely streaming down his cheeks.

“You were right,” Maric muttered. “I have been a fool.”

“I’m so sorry,” Loghain told him gravely. He meant every word.

“No, you’re not,” Maric gasped. But there was no venom in his words. He turned away from Loghain and made to walk away, his gaze falling on Katriel again. She stood there, vulnerable and shaking, crying as his gaze went from horror to disgust, and then calmed to icy rage.

“Get out,” he spat at her.

She flinched at his words, but did not move. Her eyes were hollow and hopeless.

“Get out,” he growled, more forcefully. Slowly Maric drew his dragonbone longsword from its scabbard, the glowing runes overpowering the faint candlelight and filling the entire room with an icy blue tint. He held the deadly sword before him in an overt threat. His whole body shook with a seething rage.

Ignoring the sword between them, her anguished eyes fixed solely on Maric, Katriel began to slowly walk toward him. “You said you didn’t care who I was before, or what I had done.”