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(The first thing you must know is that this never happened.)
He almost left her, right after the Landsmeet.
Eamon had caught him just afterwards--there are things that must be decided immediately--and she had vanished, along with the rest of their companions. After his uncle let Alistair go, he went in search of Kathil. He rehearsed in his head what he was going to say to her. This kingdom’s been too long without an heir. We can’t have children with each other.
You’re a mage, and I might have another civil war on my hands if I marry you.
But when he opened the door to her room, they were all there. Leliana was holding Kathil’s hands in hers, speaking in a low and urgent voice. Zevran leaned against the wall, tattooed face expressionless but his eyes burning with a dangerous light. Sten loomed and glowered. (Could the qunari do anything but loom and glower, he wondered.) Morrigan paced, always uncomfortable within stone walls. Oghren was drinking something that smelled vile.
Of them all, only Wynne’s face offered any hope. She looked at Alistair steadily, but her eyes were soft and, he thought, sympathetic.
All of them turned to him, and he tried not to flinch under the gazes of these people he had traveled with for a year. He took a step forward, then another, and looked at Kathil.
She crossed her arms, the corner of her mouth quirking in a hard line. He’d been drawn to her initially because, well, she was pretty, and she was a mage, and she was there, and beneath her acerbic manner there was something soft and sweet and vulnerable. She would make a tremendous Queen, he caught himself thinking.
I have a duty to the country you just made me King of, my love.
And yet.
Oghren broke the silence with a loud and fragrant belch. “Congratula...congra...con...good job on that.”
It was as if the dwarf had just neatly swung through all the tension in the room with his axe, and there was an audible sigh from all of them. Kathil came forward and threw her arms around him, and without meaning to--without thought--he hugged her, hard. They were both in armor, and hugging made a terrific noise, but for once he didn’t really care.
“That went better than I thought it might,” she said. “Are you all right?”
Not really.
“I think so,” he said. “Except, you know--King. Wow. There’s...some stuff we need to talk about--”
Kathil kissed him, swallowing all of the words that he might have said next.
(She was sitting on a fallen log, still as death except for her hands, which were mending a rip in the sleeve of a shirt. “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just that--Alistair, all my life everything and everyone I’ve ever loved has either left me or betrayed me or both. Forgive me if it takes a while for me to trust that this is going to last.”
And her hands were moving furiously, pulling thread through cloth, drawing torn edges together with many tiny little stitches.)
How exactly did you break up with a woman who froze people solid when she was mad at them? And sometimes, for good measure, set them on fire?
Maybe he should just kiss the girl now, and worry about the rest later.
(The second thing you must know is that there are as many flavors of cowardice as there are souls in the seas of the Fade.)
“I don’t want to die,” she said, quietly. “I really, really don’t. I mean, we might die anyway. We might lose. But if there’s a chance--I don’t want either of us to hesitate if we have a chance to kill the Archdemon.”
Damn Riordan and his last-minute revelations. Damn the darkspawn, and the Blight, and the stupid enormous dragon that was heading towards Denerim even now. Damn Morrigan and her little fangs sunk so deeply into Kathil.
“Let’s do this,” he said. “Before I change my mind.”
Sickness was churning in his gut, and he wondered if he would have done this if he’d managed to leave her three days ago.
(The third thing you must know is that love and resentment can live in the same heart for only a short time before love is swallowed and turned into something much darker.)
The first time she threw something at him, it came as a surprise.
Afterward, he picked up the pieces of the vase that had narrowly missed his head, and wondered where, precisely, he had gone so very wrong.
(The fourth thing you must know is that mortals cling to the familiar with a singular vengeance.)
Things deteriorated rapidly in the months after the coronation. He couldn’t marry Kathil, but her presence at his side meant that there were few enough families who would even consider letting their daughters marry Alistair. It seemed that they were afraid that the Warden-mage might murder whichever girl was unlucky enough to become Princess Consort in her sleep.
On the bad days, he wondered if they had a point.
“Not her,” Kathil said, stabbing at one of the names on the list with a finger. “She’s barely bright enough to walk and breathe at the same time.” She'd forsaken her armor for robes in the last few weeks, the voluminous cloth hiding anything more than just the vaguest suggestion of her form. Her cheekbones were sharper than usual, and he suspected that she was losing weight again, as she did whenever she was troubled. They hadn't shared a bed in almost a month, so he wasn't sure. He'd have to ask Wynne to nag her to eat, since Maker forbid he suggest that she take care of herself.
He sighed, reading the name that Kathil was pointing at. “She’s the best remaining candidate--”
“And do you want the heirs to the throne to all be drooling idiots?” she snapped. “Not that it would be much change, really.”
He just looked at her in silence, hearing the echoes of Morrigan’s blade-edged voice in Kathil’s words. He had learned from experience--painful experience--not to rise to her bait.
He loved her so much it hurt, and there were times like this when he hated her almost as much.
Kathil seemed to realize that she’d stepped over a line, and the expression on her face slammed shut. She didn’t say anything more, just shoved her chair back, rose, and walked out of the room.
The throne comes first.
He uncapped the inkwell and reached for his pen, ready to write an answer to Eamon, who had finally found a bann’s daughter who might suit.
(The fifth thing you must know is that some battle wounds are invisible, and many of those never heal.)
She didn’t come to the wedding.
She was supposed to, she had a place in the honor guard reserved for her and her dog Lorn. But on the day of the ceremony, she didn’t show up. Alistair was busy; though he thought about going after her, his betrothed was touchy enough on the subject of Kathil already. Showing too much interest, today of all days--even Alistair knew that would be disrespectful to poor Gala.
So he got dressed, and went and got married, and then there was a party that lasted far into the night. After a while, Alistair almost forgot about Kathil, stopped looking for her to wade through the crowd towards him. Wynne congratulated him, smiling brightly. He got the feeling that she hadn’t really approved of the shenanigans that had been going on in the palace over the last four months.
When are you going to understand that a Fereldan King cannot act like this? she’d asked him. Even Cailan attempted to be discreet about his liaisons.
Tonight belonged to the new Princess Consort, and he tried not to wonder where Kathil was, what she was up to, what grudges she was nursing. For someone who had disliked Morrigan as much as she did, Kathil seemed to become more like her with every passing day.
And yet, could he blame her? The Blight had left deep wounds on all of them that it was going to take some time to heal. Besides, it was too hard to imagine doing this without her support, running a country--actually running a country, not leaving it to someone else like his ill-fated brother had.
Kathil would be all right. She’d heal. They all would. And in the meantime, he would take care of his country the best way he knew how.
Mid-morning the next day, Oghren came to find him.
The dwarf’s face was ashen under his beard. “You--y’have to come see--” He stopped, and shook his head.
Alistair had been slouching in his chair, putting off dealing with messages, but now he straightened. “What?” he asked. “Oghren, you look about thirty different kinds of hung over.”
“Just come on.” Oghren made a growling noise, deep in his chest. “It’s the Warden.”
It’s the Warden.
That was never a good thing to hear, especially not from Oghren. “Where?”
“Her room. Wynne sent me t’find you.”
He’d seen the inside of Kathil’s room often enough, and his feet unerringly took him there. Things around him were taking on a sickly hue; dread twisted in him.
When he arrived, Wynne met him at the door. The mage had gone fragile in the last few months, her skin almost translucent. She was no longer the tough old bird who’d accompanied them to the Archdemon.
Her hands were shaking, Alistair noticed, and the dread redoubled its gnawing on his heart.
“She’s awake,” Wynne said. “She doesn’t want to see you--”
He tried to push past the mage. “If there’s something wrong, I need to see her.”
Wynne’s hand was on his shoulder, fingers digging into his flesh. “Alistair.” There was steel and ice in her tone. “I sent Oghren before Kathil woke, because there was a chance we might lose her. She is awake now, and I think she will live."
“What happened?” he asked.
Wynne’s jaw firmed, her grip on his shoulder redoubled. “Oghren and I came to see if she wanted breakfast--I was willing to call yesterday a sulk, but really, you cannot let that girl stew in her own juices very long. She didn’t answer her door, but it wasn’t barred. I went in, and--found her.”
Had she tried to commit suicide? Alistair tried to imagine her slitting her wrists, but couldn’t figure it. She just didn’t seem the type. Then again, six months ago he’d have sworn that she wouldn’t ever throw things at his head in a rage, either. “What happened?” he repeated.
Wynne’s shoulders sagged slightly. “She lost a child, Alistair. I’m sorry.”
She lost a child.
He must have looked as stunned as he felt, because Wynne’s eyes were sympathetic, now. “She was unconscious when I found her, and had been for some time. I sent Oghren to get you and started working on her. I only managed to rouse her a moment ago.” Wynne shook her head. “She insists that she doesn’t want to see you.”
“Why?” he managed. “I mean--I'm partially responsible--”
And I should be there for her. I want to be there for her.
The door of her room opened to reveal Kathil, her hand on her warhound’s back. Her skin was sallow and pale; bruise-black rings under her eyes made her look as if she were wearing some kind of macabre mask. She wore a robe that looked too big for her, as if she were a child borrowing an adult’s clothing. Yet it was hers. He recognized the embroidery on the collar.
She simply seemed to have shrunk. Diminished.
“Because you have more to think about than just me,” she said. Her voice was rough, nearly croaking. He’d seen her injured and in pain before; this was somehow beyond any of that, almost like just after the Archdemon when the worst of her wounds seemed to have been to her soul. He wasn’t quite sure how she was managing to be upright. “This was terrible timing, on my part.”
The dry words covered a universe of pain, and there was a gap opening between the two of them, a chasm of touch-me-not that he wasn’t sure how to begin to address.
Except that he managed, somehow, to step forward, to take her free hand in his. “I love you,” he said, his heart in his throat. “You know that, right?”
There were so many other questions. Did you know you were pregnant? Were you happy about it? When were you going to tell me? How can I help you?
“I was afraid of that,” she said. She pulled her hand out of his, turned away. “You have a wife, and I’m not her. You should go be with her.”
A moment later, there was a closed door and a child that never was between the two of them, and Alistair was standing on the edge of a cliff, watching hope crumble away into the sea.
(The sixth thing you must know is that the difference between a hero and a villain is where you stand.)
She was gone.
It was only three days after the wedding when Wynne came to Alistair and told him that Kathil was gone. She took a small pack, her sword Spellweaver, her dog, and her Warden’s Oath. All else, she left behind.
She hadn’t come to see him before she left. Had she been afraid that if they talked, she wouldn’t be able to leave? Or had she simply not been able to stomach the idea of facing him and what had been between them?
Whatever the reason--she was gone. And Alistair very much doubted that she was going to come back.
He threw himself into the business of governance with a vengeance. Tried to be kind to his wife, who was a gentle girl with a mischievous streak hidden deep within her. He liked that glint in her eyes she got sometimes. It usually meant someone not him was in trouble.
She never threw things at him, and she was...nice to him. It took him some time to adjust.
And to his surprise, he seemed to be all right at being King. Not great, not yet, but not terrible either. Maybe he wasn’t going to go down in the history books as an embarrassment, after all.
So a year passed. Alistair healed. He could go a few days without thinking about Kathil, now, and though it felt like the hole in him she’d left behind would never heal, it was getting better, slowly.
Then there were rumors. Then--incidents.
Five Templars, spitted on their own blades, the word MERCY painted in blood on a nearby wall. (The Templars had been sent after a child in the village of Greenfell; the child vanished into thin air the same day.) The heads of seven men and two women left neatly on the edge of a fountain in Highever one morning, with FORGIVENESS written on the stones. (Each head was that of a man or woman who had participated in the attack on the Couslands two years ago.)
In Amaranthine, the bann was found dead on Chantry steps, nude, the word HUMILITY carved into her abdomen. (There were rumors about what Bann Esmerelle had been up to; now they would go forever unconfirmed.)
There were more. Few saw the perpetrator and lived to tell the tale; those who did all spoke of a small woman around whom the air itself seemed to bend and twist. And there were other rumors--that a woman matching Kathil’s description had been found in the room that held the Urn of Andraste, curled up asleep at the base of the statue. That Soldier’s Peak was now host to more demons than ever, the entire Dryden clan slaughtered by them.
Then, just as it looked like Alistair was going to have to mobilize the army to track down one too-powerful and extremely angry mage, the murders stopped.
Alistair held his breath for half a year. There were no more incidents. Kathil was not seen again.
(The seventh thing you must know is that one’s sins always, always come home eventually.)
Alistair woke to the scent of an old forest; loamy decay, water on cedar leaves, and a stabbing tang of ozone.
He jerked and shoved himself to a seated position, his Warden senses screaming ghoul before he blinked the sleep from his eyes and realized that the sensation was a little different. Warden, not ghoul. But the Taint was strong, and the poison in his own blood stirred in response, burning.
Beside him, Gala slept still. She was used to the nightmares, to him waking abruptly in the middle of the night. In the spill of moonlight through the slitted window of the bedchamber, a hunched figure crouched at the foot of the bed.
Long, pale hair, lank and matted. Black, black eyes in a face that looked like skin stretched over skull. Something glittered in those eyes, purple sparks that had nothing to do with the moonlight.
“Kathil.”
She just looked at him for a moment, and her mouth pressed into a familiar thin line. “I came to say goodbye.”
“Wait. What. Where have you--”
She raised her finger to her mouth, and out of long habit, Alistair shushed. “We are monsters, you and I,” she said. Her voice was rough as if she had not used it in months. “And monsters have their places in this world. I’m going to find Morrigan and her child.”
Alistair had not even thought about Morrigan in years. He had put her thoroughly out of his mind, as if he could will her to never have existed. The breath exploded out of him. “Why?”
She just gave him a look, something like sorrow bending the sparks in her pupils. “I carry something that belongs to her child. The last remnant of an Old God. The shadow that remembers what it once was. And then--”
The smile that stretched her lips was ghastly.
There will be war, the air itself whispered, and Kathil was gone.
Alistair lay back down and wrapped his cold arms around his wife. Gala murmured in protest but did not wake.
He had almost convinced himself it was a dream by the morning, but there was mud smeared on the foot of the coverlet, and dead, shriveled twigs scattered on the floor where Kathil must have stood for a long time, watching them sleep.
(The last thing you must know is that this never happened.
But it might have.)