Dragon Age

a single word to anyone, they had gone to the site where Rowan’s ashes had been placed and they mourned together.

“I remember,” Cailan sighed.

“What your father felt for the elven woman, Katriel, was very different. That does not mean that he did not love your mother, however. Never doubt that he did.”

She remembered when Loghain had found her. She had been living in a small village north of the Wilds then and had heard of a man asking after the outlaws who had been slain years before by the usurper’s men. He had been searching for his father. When Loghain finally spotted her in the hospice, he ran and swept her up in his arms, laughing with a joy that was so unlike anything she had ever seen in him.

And then she had brought Loghain to the place where she had spread his father’s ashes, along with the ashes of so many he had tried to protect. It had taken her such a long time to put them all to rest on that hill. And there in the rain, she had held him like a child as he wept, and she wept with him. He begged her for forgiveness, and she told him he needed none whatsoever.

Gareth would have been proud of his son. She was sure of it.

Cailan closed the book, admiring the detailed embossment on the leather covers, and then he looked up at her quizzically. “Am I going to be the King someday, Mother Ailis?”

“When your father passes, yes. Let us pray that is not soon. I certainly doubt I will be alive to see it.”

“Will I be as good a king as my father?”

She chuckled at that. “You are a Theirin, my dear boy. You’ve the blood of not only Calenhad the Great in you but also Moira the Rebel Queen and Maric the Savior. There is nothing you cannot do if you put your mind to it.”

The boy rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation. “That’s what Father always says. I don’t think I’ll ever be as good a king as he is.”

So much like his father, indeed. Ailis tousled his hair fondly and rose from her chair. “Come, young man. Walk with your old tutor, and let us find your father in the gardens. You can tell him yourself what a fine listener you were today.”

Cailan leaped from his seat, grinning. “Do you think he’ll tell me another story? I want to hear more about the dragons!”

“I think there is time for more stories later. But not today.”

The young prince had to be satisfied with that, so he excitedly raced down the palace hall and was gone in an instant. Shaking her head in amusement, Mother Ailis picked up her cane and slowly began chasing after him.