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“I don’t see how me marrying the King of Ferelden is going to help things, Vivienne,” Evelyn pronounces, clutching at her goblet of mead as though it were a lifeline.
The Divine Victoria, sitting across from them both, looks faintly despairing. “I know you never wanted a political marriage,” Cassandra says. “I didn’t either.” She had confessed as much back in Skyhold.
“Be as that may,” Vivienne says. “It’s a sensible solution for a difficult conundrum, and you would be wise to seriously consider it.”
“There isn’t even an Inquisition anymore!” Evelyn adds.
Leliana sighs. “That is true, but you remain significant in your own right, and that is dangerous—for you, for all of us.” She shakes her head. “Mostly for you.”
She’s on the road to Denerim within the month.
*
Evelyn has spent the last several years travelling light. Her escape from the Circle at Ostwick had been in the dead of night, her way made safe by a cousin in the Templars who gave her a bag of copper pieces and a heavy cloak, and told her to hide out in the woods until the screaming stopped. From there, she’d snuck back home long enough to pilfer some easily-traded jewellery from her mother’s third-best case, a pair of solid boots, and a number of foodstuffs in the kitchen that looked as though they might survive a long journey.
It had been several months of unpleasant bivouacing in rough country and occasional, furtive trips into small villages, where her fancy Ostwick accent and well-made clothing tended to make the locals suspicious. And then there was the Conclave, and the Divine, and magic from beyond the Fade, and an awful lot of running and screaming and murder—at least she’d developed well-past her teacher’s assessment of her as a “barely competent young mage”.
And now there is this: her, a cart, a pony, an honour guard made up of six former Inquisition members, now upstanding pillars of the mercenary community, Leliana and her knives, and a dog, travelling slowly and without any notable death through the Ferelden countryside towards the capital.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Evelyn asks.
“No,” Leliana says. “Alistair is a very dear friend of mine and you’re very strong-willed.”
Evelyn stares at her. The former Inquisition soldier riding alongside her stifles a laugh. “Thank you, Leliana,” she says.
“You’re very welcome,” Leliana replies.
*
Denerim is dirty and chaotic, and it smells of dog. Fereldens and their dogs—her mother had warned her older sister against marrying a Ferelden noble with a lovely estate near the Storm Coast in her late teens, on the grounds that she’d spend her entire life with drool on her skirts and shed fur beneath her feet. Evelyn had only been home because being a Bann got her father certain privileges, like having his temperamental mage daughter home for the holy days, and she’d barely been paying attention to the conversation around her, too busy thinking about how the house guard looked relaxed and as though they weren’t ready to spring into action at the slightest sudden movement, but the talk of dogs had gotten her attention.
“Dogs?” she’d asked, and a cousin had launched into a long-winded description of the efficacy of modern cross-breeding programmes.
Evelyn has forgotten most of the details of that conversation, but two things from that day she does remember: one, the King of Ferelden is fond of dogs, and two, mabari are the size of wolves and can bite through an adult’s thighbone.
There are a lot of mabari roaming the marketplace. Most of them seem to have owners, trotting alongside or slightly behind some young maiden or middle-aged merchant, and some appear to be off on their own adventures, carrying sticks in their mouths or sitting patiently outside the butcher’s stall, in the hope she’ll throw them some meat.
“The elven enclave used to be through those gates,” Leliana says. “A bit of it is still there, but most of it was destroyed during the fighting here, and a lot of the community took the chance to get out of Denerim. Alistair offered them land to the east, or homes elsewhere in the city.” She sounds sad.
“The enclave was a nice one?” Evelyn asks. She’s surprised: most enclaves are rough, cheap places, full of strange angles and awkward buildings.
“No,” Leliana says, and refuses to be drawn any further. “Alistair’s spymaster will tell you all you need to know, once you’re the Queen of Ferelden; but bad things happened to the elves in this city.”
Evelyn nods her head. That’s true of most places.
They travel on through the city, the houses getting larger and more finely decorated as they move towards the palace. There’s not that many people watching them—Evelyn had wanted to get to meet Alistair for the third time with as little fuss as possible, and Leliana and Josephine had conspired to make it so.
*
At the Palace, she’s met by what seems like half the staff, standing in the grand entry way and watching their future Queen walk towards them in her dusty travelling clothes and sensible footwear. She’s escorted to a set of chambers that she’s told will be hers until the wedding, and left to freshen up in the presence of a quiet human maid named Clarisse and a mabari puppy that is as yet nameless.
“A present from the King,” the Royal Chamberlain announces, before explaining that Clarisse would show her how to feed and care for the pup, and excusing himself.
“You’ll want to rest before dinner, Inquisi—milady,” Clarisse says. “Would you like me to have a bath drawn for you?”
“Um,” Evelyn says. “No, I can do that myself.” She’s mostly a storm mage, but she has basic skills at summoning water and fire, at least enough to skip making the servants carry buckets and buckets of water one at a time up several flights of stairs.
Clarisse watches the entire process with fascination. “I’ve never seen a mage do anything like this with magic before, milady,” she says. “Can you adjust the temperature very easily?”
“I’m better at warming it up than cooling it down,” Evelyn says. “And it’s not a good idea to tinker with it while I’m in the bath.”
Clarisse’s eyes widen.
Evelyn shakes her head. “Nothing terrible happened—I just got a little frozen, but the head of the Circle had me right within a couple of days. Learned my lesson, though!”
Clarisse gasps. “That must have been terrible!” she says.
“Magic can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Evelyn says. She thinks for a minute. “And if you do,” she adds.
Clarisse nods. “I’ll lay out your clothes, milady,” she says, leaving Evelyn alone with a perfectly-steaming bath and a bar of softly-scented soap.
*
To Evelyn’s surprise, the dining room she’s shown to isn’t the grand hall. It isn’t even a smaller, more comfortable room, like the one her family used to eat at in her childhood. Instead, it’s a tiny room in the lower floor of one of the towers, with three tall windows that look out upon Denerim and a small, round table set for two. The King is already there, standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back. He has a nice ass.
“Your Majesty, Lady Evelyn Trevelyan, former Inquisitor of the Chantry,” the Royal Chancellor announces, ushering Evelyn in and shutting the door behind her.
Alistair turns around. “Er—” he says, at exactly the same time as Evelyn dips into a slightly awkward curtsy dimly remembered from her nursery days.
“Your Majesty,” Evelyn says, standing up.
Alistair stares at her. “I can’t believe you’re willing to marry me,” he says, before blushing as red as a rose and dropping into one of the chairs. He stands straight up again, gesturing for her to sit, and she does.
The meal is awkward. For a king, Alistair is remarkably shy, loath to talk about himself and self-effacing when she asks about the troubles of a decade ago. “That was mostly the Warden running things,” he says. “I just did what I was told.”
“Until you became king?” she asks.
He looks rueful. “Well,” he says.
*
The wedding is arranged for six weeks after her arrival in Denerim. Leliana settles into palace life with the air of someone who has been here before, and many of Alistair’s old friends start to arrive, including the Warden—a tall elf named Theron with a salt-and-pepper beard and a pair of knives at his belt—and his lover, an assassin called Zevran. They corner Evelyn in the library and speak to her of Alistair’s kindness and inherent goodness, and she calmly attaches, in three swift movements, a switchblade to the prosthetic Dagna had built her and announces that she has no reason to be unkind to someone who has treated her—thus far—so well.
Theron seems to approve of her after that, and he takes her on a walk to the new enclave to speak to the elven leaders of the city. She wishes Sera was here; Theron is not a city elf, and she rather suspects Sera would have been better at talking to these people, or at least less vaguely patronising.
Sera, however, isn’t coming—or at least, that’s what the note she sent through the Jennies said. Evelyn strongly suspects that Sera will turn up on the day, flinging herself through a window acrobatically and attracting the attention of the many armed people present at a royal wedding, and she’s looking forward to it. She misses Sera, misses her total contempt for the aristocracy and the institutions of power, as well as her deft hand with a bow. She knows Leliana is beyond competent, but she’s never fought with her, and nothing can beat the bone-deep trust a soldier has for someone who has fought by their side.
*
The conversation with Theron and Morrigan about exactly how a former Grey Warden can assist in the conception of a child is deeply uncomfortable. Morrigan’s son is roaming the city somewhere, Morrigan having sent him off with two guardsmen and orders to stay out of trouble, and pulled Evelyn into a room with Theron to talk things through. “You’ll need an heir,” Morrigan says, in her usual slightly dismissive way. “I have a spell.”
“It wasn’t a terrible night,” Theron adds, looking at Morrigan fondly. To the best of Evelyn’s knowledge, Morrigan and Theron hardly ever see each other, and Theron has no input into the raising of his son, but they seem friendly enough and Evelyn, if nothing else, trusts Morrigan to be smart enough not to put a former Inquisitor and future Queen of Ferelden in any significant danger.
“Tell me about it,” Evelyn says.
*
She takes her notes with her to speak to Alistair that night, and if she thought her conversation with Theron and Morrigan was uncomfortable, it’s nothing compared to what takes place that evening.
Alistair, it transpires, is still a virgin.
“But how,” Evelyn demands, and Alistair looks faintly irritated.
“In the usual way, I expect,” he says, and sighs. “There wasn’t a lot of opportunity when I was in the Templars, and I’ve been warned off raising expectations since I became king.”
She still doesn’t know what to think. “We are going to have no idea what we’re doing,” she says eventually.
Alistair spits out his mouthful of lamb. It leaves a bit of fat in his beard. “You too?” he exclaims. “How?”
She glares at him. “In the usual way, I expect,” she throws back at him, and he blinks twice before smiling ruefully.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” he says. “I just thought all the Circles were—”
“A hotbed of casual sex and free love? For most of us it was, I think. But my father is a Bann; my mother warned me against raising expectations. And then after I became Inquisitor...” She’s not embarrassed by it, and it’s actually quite comforting to know they’re going to be equally ignorant.
Alistair sighs. “Perhaps Leliana will have a book,” he says.
Evelyn stares at him. “We’ll have better luck with the Divine,” she says. “I’ll write to her.”
Alistair splutters, so she explains. “She’s very fond of love stories, our Blessed Divine.”
“You’re teasing me,” Alistair says, sounding surprised but not displeased.
She shakes her head. “Not at all. It’s a secret. But Varric does make sure to send her all his latest works.”
“I would never have guessed,” he says, and they move onto lighter topics—gossip about their friends—having agreed that Morrigan’s spellwork would indeed be useful for the acquisition of an heir and a spare.
*
The rest of the Inquisition—the core group, at least—arrives in Denerim one or two at a time, Iron Bull with the Chargers in a procession that inexplicably involves a trumpet, and Dorian turning up a day later in full Tevinter Imperium regalia, complete with four bodyguards and a wagon full of silks. “The guards are naturally just for show,” he tells her.
Evelyn takes his hands. “Of course they are.” They grin at each other, and she takes his arm to escort him to his chambers. She finds out later that his and Iron Bull’s reunion had shaken the walls.
Blackwall sends a lovely note and a hand-carved replica of Skyhold; she’s utterly unsurprised by his absence, and not at all concerned by it. Solas of course is off somewhere plotting genocide, and Sera is, according to Leliana’s network, exactly where a person might expect her to be if she wanted to get to the wedding with not a moment to spare. Cullen arrives with two mabari of his own, whom Evelyn introduces to her own small puppy, now named Felicity.
Varric and Cole turn up just as she’s begun to despair of them, dragging along Dagna and a small entourage of Kirkwall nobility—apparently, that’s how Varric travels now, when he leaves his city. Dagna’s very pleased to be there, and Alistair’s whole face lightens when he sees her. “You made it to the Circle, Evelyn tells me,” he says.
“You remember me!” Dagna exclaims. “Um, your Majesty.”
Alistair smiles at her. He’s quick to smile, Evelyn has learnt, and slow to anger. “Of course!” Dagna chatters at him all the way up the grand staircase and into the Palace, and Evelyn follows, letting Cole talk softly of the journey across the sea.
*
The wedding celebration begins the day the Divine Victoria arrives. Alistair, Evelyn is frankly stunned to discover, turns into a stammering schoolboy when confronted with Cassandra in all her finery; and Vivienne quickly reduces him to blushes and awkward silence. He’s a competent and well-liked monarch, but of course Evelyn has heard the stories of how he came to the throne, and he’s told her himself that he has little experience with women, so perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised.
It’s been remarkably easy to reconcile the faithful and peerless Divine Victoria with the Cassandra of the battlefield, the Cassandra who reads romance novels and fights tirelessly for justice. She sees the good humour behind the prayer for wisdom and fortitude the Divine gives the dining hall, and is pleased when Cassandra invites her into her chambers that very evening to talk with her and her most trusted advisors.
“You do not seem unhappy,” the Divine remarks.
“I’m not,” Evelyn says, tasting the words in her mouth. “He’s—nice. Just as Leliana said.”
“He is a good man,” Leliana says. “I would not have arranged this if he were not.”
Evelyn looks at her. “What would you have done instead?”
Leliana shrugs. “Who can tell?”
Vivienne smiles at her. “You would ever have been welcome in my Circle, dearest,” she says. Evelyn can see, though, why that wasn’t suggested in the first place: far too awkward, for a former Inquisitor to chafe under somebody else’s rule. Far easier to arrange for her to rule alongside someone else.
*
Her wedding day dawns bright, but with an ominous line of grey cloud banked far off to the east. The winds are blowing something fierce, and she watches the trees sway as Clarisse tightens the lacings on her prosthetic and Felicity scratches at her feet.
“I’ll take you for a walk later,” Evelyn informs the beast, who she has grown remarkably fond of lately, and Felicity hears the “walk” and fails to understand the “later”. Thus the Palace occupants are treated to the sight of their future queen wandering the gardens on the morning of her wedding day, half-dressed in her finery, with a part-grown mabari pup racing back and forth between lady and garden beds.
She runs into Alistair on her way back to her rooms. Felicity has used all her energy, and is dolefully snuffling behind her, bits of leaf and flower stuck in her fur like a garland. “Um,” Evelyn says. Everyone knows it is a piece of bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the ceremony.
Alistair squeaks. A footman, trained all his life to silence, stifles a laugh and manages to contain his expression within two beats of Evelyn’s heart, and all is looking salvageable until Leliana enters the hall and bursts out into surprised, high laughter. “Oh, Alistair,” Leliana says. “I’ll take you back to your rooms.”
“I know where my rooms are,” Alistair retorts, sounding slightly sulky. Evelyn has noticed how the people who knew Alistair before his kingship treat him, and she is grateful for it. She thinks Alistair is grateful too.
It takes her six hours, in the end, to dress. It is worth it when Alistair flushes at the altar, standing before the Divine Victoria.
*
Her Royal Highness, Queen Evelyn of Ferelden, is escorted to the bedchamber of her king by a posse of smirking friends. The night is still young, it being long-standing tradition for the bride and groom to leave the wedding reception before anyone might get too inebriated to perform to anybody else’s satisfaction, and she rather suspects that their friends are going to take over the State dining room and gossip until morning.
When the door opens, she sees that Alistair has already arrived in the company of Thoran, Morrigan, Leliana, and the Iron Bull. Thoran is grinning and holding up a large piece of paper, which—from the little she can see of it—contains a crude drawing of a female figure and a series of arrows. The Iron Bull is looming, Leliana is patting Alistair on the shoulder, and Morrigan is saying something in low, careful tones while gesturing towards the sign. Alistair looks bewildered, overwhelmed, and faintly annoyed.
“I can come back later,” Evelyn informs the room. “I am quite happy to spend more time amongst friends, should you wish to monopolise my husband’s attention.”
Vivienne sighs happily behind her. The months and years of training—to use language, to twist it to one’s will, the way one takes magic and bends it—have been worth it. The Iron Bull raises one great eyebrow and nods at her, ushering the others out. “You’ll be fine,” he says, clapping her on the shoulder as he passes.
She steps forward and the door shuts behind her.
*
Taking off her clothes in front of others is something that Evelyn is long used to, first in the nursery of her family’s halls, then at the Circle, where she never once slept in a private room, and then in Skyhold, where she had any number of assistants to help her bathe and dress.
It is quite different, somehow, to slowly pull out the pins and unwind the ribbons from her hair in front of her husband and king. She does it carefully, mostly because Dagna’s prosthetics, while amazing, are not quite as nimble as her fingers once were, but it is not enough to prevent her from getting quite stuck. “Um,” she says. “Could you help me?”
There is nothing delicate or maidenly in her tone. It is firmly shaded on the side of rueful embarrassment, and she is pleased to see Alistair lose his blush and stand immediately.
His fingers are faintly cool in her hair, strong and flexible, and he has her untangled in less than a minute. She thinks—for all that she knows of him—that he does better with firm instructions than with quiet suggestions, or at least in this he will. “Can you get the rest out?”
He looks down at her face and nods.
*
They fall asleep before they can do much more than get a hand on one another’s skin. It was a long day.
*
The morning after their wedding day sees heavy rain pummelling against the long windows of Alistair’s bedchamber. Evelyn wakes early, just as the sky begins to lighten, and is sitting at a small table, drinking tea and reading a novel, when Alistair wakes less than an hour later and sits up in bed.
“We didn’t, uh,” Alistair says, and blushes, looking across the room at her.
Evelyn looks at him. “It’s not a legal marriage until we have.” Nor can the people of Ferelden know that their king failed to bed his queen on their wedding night.
“Er, would now—do you think?”
Evelyn thinks of walking to the door and informing the waiting servants that they should be left alone for several hours. Then she thinks of the look on all their companions’ faces, if the King and Queen of Ferelden don’t appear before company until late in the day, and of the things the Iron Bull and Sera might say to her, either as advice or as teasing.
“Tonight?” she offers in response, and Alistair nods, still blushing faintly.
She dresses warmly that day, in a long robe of a dark red silk velvet brought for her to Denerim by Dorian. Alistair looks at her, when she returns from the dressing room, and nods to himself, going over to one of the small chests lining the walls and bringing out a small box.
He opens it before her. Inside is a string of pearls, spaced by jade and gold beads and as long as her arm. “This might not go with your dress, but,” he says, shrugging.
She lifts one end of the necklace in answer, enjoying the way the pearls shine in the early morning light. “It’s beautiful,” she replies. “And it will go with everything.” The good thing about being a queen is that every ensemble she wears is bound to be thought ravishing; she may as well take advantage of the fact if it will allow her to wear beautiful jewellery at will.
*
Alistair and Evelyn are seated in a receiving chamber when the first of their friends wanders in, visibly hungover, with bloodshot eyes and a hoarse voice. “The celebrations went on very late, your highnesses,” Theron says. “I can only hope yours did, too.”
Alistair coughs. “Oh, yes,” Evelyn says. “We thank you for your sage advice.”
Theron raises an eyebrow. It looks as though it pains him. “You do?”
Evelyn nods. “Indeed,” she replies, hoping against hope that nothing Theron had been advising her husband of was too advanced for people new to the marriage bed.
By the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, she suspects she is out of luck. No mind: he can hardly accuse her of lying, and Alistair has no interest in correcting the story.
*
“Theron tells me you made good use of his gifts,” Leliana tells her, when she’s in the middle of a tiny cake, mid-afternoon in the gardens. Felicity is running around, delighted to have been reunited with her mistress, and the skies have cleared just enough to make the grounds attractive for a short afternoon tea.
Evelyn stares at her, hoping to extract from the quiver of her lips what the right answer is. “Yes,” she says, gamely.
“I was very surprised to hear it,” Leliana adds. “I had not thought it of Alistair.”
Leliana’s way with words is damnable. “He is an eager man,” she says carefully.
Leliana bursts out laughing. “You have not the slightest idea of what I’m talking about!” She is a beautiful woman, but she is especially beautiful when she is happy, and Evelyn is pleased to see it even if it is at her own expense.
“We fell asleep,” Evelyn confesses, and Leliana’s laughter gets even louder.
*
Evelyn finds herself not at all tired by the time she and Alistair make their way to their bedchambers. Hers is next to his—not yet slept in as yet, and decorated in old-fashioned painted silks in colours that do not flatter her in the slightest. She will redecorate, assuming she begins to sleep here regularly at any point.
There is a soft knock on the door between their chambers not five minutes after Clarisse has retired to the dressing chamber where she sleeps. “Evelyn?” Alistair asks, and she goes to open the door.
He is dressed in a woolen robe of unknown and ancient provenance and looking sheepish; his feet are bare. “Come in,” she says.
It is very strange at first to be so alone with a man, to be wearing so little and to know exactly what it is they’re going to do. All her information has been doled out in dribs and drabs by friends; Dorian sent several books from Tevinter, and of course the information network in the Circle had been very detailed. Nevertheless, Evelyn doesn’t entirely know what she’s supposed to be doing with her hand or her mouth, and by the way his hands fumble on her hips, she thinks Alistair is also deeply uncertain.
“Show me what you’ve got,” she says, in an attempt to be clever, and he huffs against her cheek.
“Theron used to shout that at the enemy every time we were about to throw ourselves into hopeless battle,” Alistair replies.
She laughs. “We could invite him here to act as encouragement,” she says.
They are both laughing when they kiss, and the night proceeds apace from there.
*
“Do you ride?” he asks her the next morning.
She stares at him. “I am a Trevelyan from Ostwick,” she says. “Of course I ride.”
He rolls his eyes at her. “But do you like to ride?” he asks, and she realises he’s asking whether she would like to go riding with him.
She blushes, sudden, awkward. “Perhaps not this morning,” she replies.
He looks disappointed for a bare moment before realising what she must mean. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, er, shall I call for a—”
“I’m fine,” she says, interrupting him. “I just—would prefer not to sit on a horse today.”
He too is bright red. “Another time?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “Maybe we could walk in the gardens with Felicity this afternoon?” she asks. She is grateful that most of the business of Ferelden has been left to wait—except for actual emergency—for this week while the king and queen get to know each other as husband and wife.
Alistair nods. “I—yes, I’d like that.”
*
They do not go riding for some time, though. The marital bed proves to be too much of an attraction to them both, and her adjustment to it slow enough that it is, in the end, a full fortnight before the prospect of several hours’ hard ride does not fill her with either apprehension or juvenile laughter.
They are attacked by wolves almost the moment they hit the forests outside Denerim. They have guards, of course, but none of them have the instincts of someone who has faced a dragon and lived to tell the tale. Alistair has the head off one of them before Evelyn’s even drawn her staff; she casts chain-lightning on the rest of them as Alistair is leaping off his horse, and the whole thing is over before the greenest of the guards has even drawn his sword.
She knew, intellectually, that Alistair was a fighter; that he’d seen the same kinds of things she has. He’d confessed one evening to having the occasional nightmare, and she’d told him of the ghost sensations she got some days from her missing hand. It’s different seeing it in person, seeing how a decade as a king hasn’t dulled his instincts or left his muscles soft. It’s—astonishingly attractive, really.
By the way he’s staring at her with heated admiration, she thinks he feels the same. They end up fucking against a tree while a circle of guards stand around them, facing out into the forest and whistling folk tunes to drown out their monarchs’ grunts.
*
“I miss fighting dragons,” she confesses into his chest one night after sex.
He shrugs. “I’m sure we can find you one, if you really want,” he says. “Probably not a good idea for us both to go—the succession, you know—but I could spar with you in the courtyard tomorrow morning to make up for it.”
“You’re not in the least like a dragon,” she informs him.
He looks at her, all bright blue eyes and sweaty blonde hair. “Neither are you, but you don’t see me complaining.”
She pokes him in the belly and discovers just how ticklish he is: he curls up on himself, knocking her chin with his jaw. She falls off the bed and the guards rush in to stare at their king, naked and giggling incessantly while their queen wraps a blanket around herself and clutches her hand to her nose, swearing profusely.
“Er,” says Alistair. “Nothing to see here!”
“A small mishap,” Evelyn adds.
There is silence.
“Yes, your majesties,” a guard says eventually. “Of course.” They back out of the room, looking to the last guard as though the fight against laughter will be lost as soon as the door closes.
“Is your nose alright?” Alistair asks, once he’s managed to compose himself.
Evelyn shakes her head. “It’s fine, nothing’s crunching at all.”
*
Being the Queen of Ferelden isn’t anything like being the Inquisitor: for one, she’s not alone at the top. For another, there’s rather less fighting and rather more time spent over the wartable, talking with Alistair and their advisors about where the bandits are coming from and how precisely they should be stopped. She misses being right at the front of the action somewhat—and concentrating entirely on strategy and leaving the tactics to others has been a strange adjustment—but she has other things to do now.
The King of Ferelden is only one of them.