“She still loves you.”
Maric turned away, distressed and shaking his head in exasperation. He turned back and started to say something, but then thought better of it, regret playing across his face. He looked up at Loghain accusingly. An awkward silence developed, neither of them knowing quite what to say next. Lightning flared once again outside in the night sky.
“You want to know why I love Katriel?” Maric spoke with a clipped, furious tone. “She sees me as a man. This gorgeous creature, an elf, she looks at me and she doesn’t see the son of the Rebel Queen. She doesn’t see me as awkward Maric, or the fellow who can’t quite stay in his saddle or hold a sword.”
“You aren’t any of those things any longer, Maric. . . .”
“When I went to her rescue, she didn’t doubt that I could save her. When she came to me in my tent that night, she wanted me. Me.” He held out his hands to Loghain as if pleading with him to understand. “No one . . . no one’s ever looked at me like that. Certainly not Rowan.” He looked pained thinking of her, his eyes drifting off. “I . . . I know she loves me. But when she looks at me, she sees Maric. She sees the boy she grew up with. When Katriel looks at me, she sees a man. She sees a prince.”
Loghain frowned. “A lot of people see that. A lot of women, too.” He snorted. “You must see the way they look at you, Maric. You can’t be that big an idiot.”
“Katriel is special. Have you ever seen someone like her? She’s saved us, she guided us down in the Deep Roads, she’s fought at our side.” Maric pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, shaking his head. “Why can’t you see that? I don’t know that she’ll be my Qnueen, but would that be so wrong?”
“She’s an elf. Do you think your people would accept an elven queen?”
“Maybe they’ll have to.”
“Maric, be serious.”
“I am serious!” Maric stormed about the study, his ire building. “Why is everyone so set on telling me what decisions I have to make? How am I ever going to be a king if I don’t make any of my own decisions?”
“You think this is a kingly decision, do you?”
“Why not?” Maric asked acidly. “Suddenly you’re an expert on being a king?” Then he immediately regretted his words, holding up his hands. “Wait, I didn’t—”
“You’re going to need to make some hard decisions, Maric,” Loghain interrupted, his icy blue eyes narrowing. “Ones you’ve been avoiding. You have an enemy to defeat, and while I may not know much about being a king, I do know what it takes to win a fight. The question is, do you want to win or not?”
Maric said nothing, glaring at Loghain incredulously.
Loghain nodded slowly. “I see.” Part of him didn’t want to continue. He felt his heart constricting, and wondered how it was that he had come to this point. A few years ago he had been content to let his father lead the outlaws. His own decisions didn’t affect anyone outside of himself, and he preferred it that way. Then Maric brought him into this world, and into the rebel army. Now with Arl Rendorn dead, there was no one else; the rebels lived or died based on everything they did. If they didn’t make the right decisions now, the Orlesians won. The usurper won.
“Then there is something you must know,” he said reluctantly.
“Not about Katriel, I hope.”
“I had her followed.” Loghain got up from the table and paced to the far side of the room. He felt uneasy. “She didn’t go to Amaranthine, Maric. She went north. To Denerim.”
Maric’s eyes narrowed. “You had her followed?”
“Not easily. Maric, she went to the palace.”
It took a moment for the implication to sink in. Loghain could see the connections being formed, even as Maric shook his head in denial. “No, it can’t be true,” he protested. “What are you saying?”
“Think about it, Maric,” Loghain insisted. “Who could have destroyed us so completely at West Hill? After all the efforts we made to prevent the nobles here from getting word out, who could have arranged the trap so neatly? Who had your trust?”
“But . . .”
“Why did Arl Byron never mention such a skilled spy? He told us about others, Maric, and then he conveniently died, along with everyone in his command. Anyone who could have confirmed who she was.”
Maric held up a hand, incensed. “Maker’s breath, Loghain! We already went over this. Katriel saved our lives. If she’d wanted to kill me, don’t you think she could have done that?”
“Maybe that wasn’t her mission, Maric.” Loghain stepped toward Maric, keeping his eyes level and his gaze hard. “Maybe her mission was merely to get into your confidence. Which she has done. And now she went to Denerim, to the royal palace. Why? Why do you think she would do that?”
The question hung in the air. Maric reeled from Loghain, looking anguished and sickened all at once. Outside lightning flashed, followed shortly by a peal of thunder.
“You don’t know,” Maric protested. He was grasping at straws, now. “She could have a reason, she could . . . It doesn’t have to be what you think.”
“Then ask her,” Loghain said. “She’s on her way here now.”
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. . . .”