The Stolen Throne

“Bah! You’re the one who dragged him along. Now that he’s here, he may as well just come.” He turned on his heel and stomped off. “If it’ll get me back to a fire any faster, I’m all for it.”

The young man stared at the ground, uncomfortable and shamefaced. “I . . . don’t have anything valuable.” And then he added: “To repay you, I mean.”

To steal was what he’d really meant. But it was hard to be offended when he and Dannon were indeed thieves, after all. “It certainly doesn’t look that way, does it?”

There wasn’t much else the blond man could say. He nodded lamely.

Loghain motioned his head toward Dannon, who was already long gone. “We’d better catch up to him then, before he manages to fall in a hole somewhere.” He stepped forward and extended a hand. “You can call me Loghain.”

The blond man hesitated a fraction before taking Loghain’s hand and shaking it. “Hyram.”

It was a lie, of course. Loghain wondered for a moment if he would regret doing this. His gut had never been wrong before, but there was always a first time. Still, the die had been cast. Nodding to Hyram, he turned, and the two left the forest together.

2

When Maric awoke, he was certain he was back at the rebel camp, the victim of some terrible nightmare brought on by bad stew. Surely his mother was about to sweep into his room, reprimanding him for sleeping so late. But even as he felt a wave of palpable relief, he knew it wasn’t true. The blanket covering him was threadbare and moldy-smelling, the room around him tiny and unfamiliar. Cuts and bruises suffered the previous night were announcing their presence. Slowly he began to remember everything.

Several times during the trek, the one called Loghain had become certain they were being followed. It vexed the big fellow, Dannon, when Loghain insisted on taking lengthy detours off their route. Maric didn’t begrudge the extra caution, but by the time they reached the foothills, his legs had been ready to give out. They had spent two hours trudging in the dark, frozen to the core, with barely a word exchanged among the three of them. He only dimly remembered reaching the camp itself and being surprised by the number of filthy tents scattered amid the rocks and bush. He had expected maybe a handful of outlaws, but here was an entire community hidden in the cliffs. He remembered a blur of suspicious eyes and whispered accusations greeting him. By then, Maric no longer cared whether they decided to lock him up or cook him for dinner. The sleep he needed desperately had at some point reached up and claimed him.

A gentle sound of splashing drew Maric into the present. He made the mistake of opening his eyes to bright afternoon sunlight shining through a small window, making him wince. His vision was blurry, and his head throbbed with an insistent and unpleasant pounding. Blinking, his eyes adjusted enough to see, but there wasn’t much to look at. He remembered one permanent structure in the camp, a tiny log hut that couldn’t have consisted of more than a single room, and he assumed this was it. The furnishings were sparse: the rickety bed he occupied, a single table, and a few piles of what looked like dirty rags. The only adornment was a wood carving hung above his bed: a blazing sun within a circle. A holy symbol.

Maric flexed his shoulders, trying to cope with the pain. In the back of his mind, he registered the surprising fact that underneath the blanket he was wearing little more than his smallclothes.

“Did I wake you?” a voice came from beside his bed. He craned his neck and realized that a woman had been kneeling next to him the entire time, soaking a rag in a bowl of water. “I apologize. I am trying to be as gentle as I can.” She sounded matronly and kind, and she wore red vestments that marked her as a priest of the Chantry. He’d had few opportunities to step into a proper house of worship since the Chantry had come down in favor of the usurper long ago, but Mother had still insisted on his education in such matters. He believed in the Maker and honored the sacrifice of His first wife and prophet, Andraste, as any other Fereldan might. Maric certainly knew a priest when he saw one. What was she doing here in a camp of outlaws?

“Your . . . Reverence?” His voice came out as a hoarse croak, and he coughed, intensifying the pounding in his head. He groaned out loud and laid his head back down to stop the spinning room from making him nauseated.

The woman chuckled ruefully. “Oh, dear me, no. Nothing so grand as that.” Maric now saw her more clearly. Age had weathered her, but gracefully. Her blond curls had given way to gray, and her weary eyes were heavily lined. It was easy enough to see the beauty she had no doubt once been, long ago. Aside from the vestments, she wore a gold medallion emblazoned with the image of Andraste’s cross and its wreath of holy flame. She noticed his gaze and smiled. “My days within the Chantry hierarchy are long behind me, I’m afraid.”