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*
In the mouth of Ser Rodolphe, who was Nathaniel’s first cousin once removed on his mother’s side, the name of Prince Sebastian Vael had sounded like a waste of breath.
The first thing the ageing chevalier had done upon Nathaniel’s arrival had been giving him a cursory tour of the house, then of the entire court and all its fixtures. He’d sat Nathaniel at a desk that reminded him of the one in his father’s study: so large and heavy it appeared, that it must have been built in the very chamber, never to be removed but by the ruin of the entire keep. Then the large man had opened a great book in front of him, letting the studs of its solid binding slam down against the wood.
Nathaniel had reached Starkhaven having already learnt by heart two lineages: the Howes’, which was his own household, and the Verleys’, which was his mother’s and Ser Rodolphe’s.
This new master to whom he was to be squired took it upon himself to impart to him knowledge of a third and, for as long as Nathaniel would live there, the most important one: that of the Vaels. The book’s first creaking pages had flaunted their heraldry, their crimson circle, where three black wolves swirled around a pure white chalice.
The bloodline had extended from it, red and branched across the pages.
Ser Rodolphe had shared anecdotes for the most famous of the names. This one had been married to a relative of Asha Campana; this one had commanded the Ruby Drakes and distinguished herself in the Fourth Blight; this had become the Lady Seeker of the Maker’s Chantry.
On the then-ruling family, Nathaniel remembered his caustic comments and his brief exalted praises.
Marcellian Vael, the grandfather, fit better on a pewter than on a throne, and had done well to retire in the Chantry. His son Fernand ruled well, granitic in mood and face, and in his wife Meghan he had found his match. Then there were Corbinian, the heir, and Marcellian who bore his grandfather’s name and yet, warrior-born, was cut entirely from a different and more martial cloth; and Sebastian, who was the youngest, and whose name came with a twist of Rodolphe’s mouth, half hidden by his full grey-streaked beard.
A little rascal in the making, good for nothing, an afterthought.
For a long time, Nathaniel had even believed him.
*
The bow was Nathaniel’s respite.
Had Ser Rodolphe ever tried to shoot one, he wouldn’t have thought it a coward’s way to fight. He’d have known the terrible burn that it put in the back muscles, the mind-numbing amount of perseverance that it took to learn a basic, simple, repeatable sort of shoot.
There was a trick to it, Bram had said, when he’d taken pity on Nathaniel’s sullen mood and had shown him the art of the drawing of a bow. You don't let go of the string, was the trick; you simply no longer hold it . You relax your hand, let it flow back, let your fingers uncurl smoothly away. Bram, who was one of Ser Rodolphe’s watchmen, had smiled in that mild-mannered way of his. You cannot be faster than the string, cannot beat it at its game, nor make it respond to orders. It's neither a horse nor a sword.
In his less kind, most frustrated moments, Nathaniel simply thought that Ser Rodolphe had tried to shoot and had discovered himself not very good at it.
The royal palace of the Vaels had one of the largest training grounds in the city, and the shooting ranges were one of the newest additions, courtesy of the retired Prince Marcellian. It was there that Nathaniel often cloistered himself, before dawn.
The sunrise of a crisp spring morning was a beauty that he’d come to appreciate despite himself. It had a quiet glory. The first time he met Sebastian Vael outside of courtly functions was one such morning. A distant halo, grey and pale, shrouded the rim of the wall. Then the first careful beams jumped over the edge and cut a straight pink line across the dummies and targets, and the whole range stilled half in darkness, half in light.
When the entire field glowed freshly from sunup, Nathaniel retrieved all his arrows to begin the draining, tiring walk back to the Verley estate. Not tiring or draining because the way was harsh or long; rather, because no matter which drills were in store for him once back, he would never have loved them as much as his three-fingered glove or the spine of an arrow. The repetitive shortcomings of things one doesn't love are harder to forgive.
It was under the colonnade that enclosed the range’s outside perimeter that he came face to face with the youngest of the ruling family.
“Face to face”, however, may have been a misnomer.
It would have been more correct to say, “face to nape and bent back”. Prince Sebastian stood with a hand pressed to the white stone wall and was rather plainly trying not to throw up.
The dark auburn hair had escaped its neat combing some time during the night and fell forward on his cheeks and forehead, and something indefinable made his splendid gold-lined outfit look dishevelled. Perhaps it was the opened top buttons of his collar, or the way the belt lay on his hips askew, or even the wet stain on the tip of his boots, as if he’d plunged them into a puddle. And that was the dignified option.
Prince Sebastian looked up with wide and watery blue eyes.
If Ser Rodolphe’s evident distaste for Sebastian Vael’s proclivities, not to speak of the disapproval of his actual family, hadn’t at all taken root in him, Nathaniel would have perhaps walked by the young man’s side at once. He realised that much, later on. The honest truth, in the moment, was another.
It was that he stared at the half-drunk youngest son of a demanding family and saw his little brother. At once he resented Sebastian's freedom, then forgave his predicament. And perhaps there was little to resent and even less to forgive.
Thomas, Nathaniel's younger brother, had thrown up on the boots of Fergus Cousland the first time he'd been allowed to drink, one Wintersend of a few years ago. Ever since, he'd drunk with largesse, as if the number of mugs one could swallow, or the size of the ram leg he could eat on his own, bore him more honour than the family crest. Indeed, as if the honour of the crest depended on the extravagance of his youthful fun. Mother was indulgent about it — Nathaniel suspected that it reminded her of the riches of her estranged family, of her dowry. And he also suspected that Father, deep down, under his sterner moods, approved. It made the Howes look wealthy, noble.
But it was Nathaniel, and sometimes Delilah, who comforted Thomas' next-morning regrets. Sometimes that's the only reason you don't riot against the unfairness of a double standard: the sad grip of a boy breaking in cold sweats over his excesses, the grip on your arm, and you are his brother.
It wasn't the only reason for him, of course. He loved his father. Even as he'd delivered him in the hands of Ser Rodolphe.
Prince Sebastian, just then, uttered some throwaway monosyllable and drew himself up as straight as his obvious nausea allowed him. Nathaniel blinked.
« Do you need a hand? », he asked.
« Don't mind me », said Sebastian, his quick smile at once sheepish and charming, « just trying to find a way to get into my chambers. »
« I could suggest the front door. »
The Prince's laugh was weak, almost drawn out of him against his will. His hand punctuated it with a movement that ended on his stomach, pressing down on it, both stubborn and pained. « That's funny. »
Then he stumbled forward. He looked unsure of whether he wanted to gather about himself as much dignity as he could muster or to show that it didn't matter. But the obvious effort was such that it forced Nathaniel to make a sudden decision. It led him to hold the Prince by his elbow and help him forward. His quiver clattered on his back, but soon he and the Prince both found a good balance.
Nathaniel turned to look into the noble waste of Sebastian's tan face, only to find him looking back. He seemed astonished. He was drunk, one could tell from the heavy and tired eyes, or had just crossed past the threshold of drunkenness into that of the cold sweats. Then Sebastian said, « Thank you », with such an earnest surprise that Nathaniel was sorry for every judging thought that had gone through his head.
« No problem », he answered, and that was a lie. He would be late back to the Verley estate.
Leading him down the colonnade and towards the main body of the palace, he listened to the prince's slightly laboured breath. Up above, gleaming under the soft sun rays, an angular golden frame ran around the otherwise unassuming shape of a back door, which Nathaniel knew would lead to the palace's garrison. Starkhaven was rich, and it was rich enough that even the guards' entrance was gilded up.
That door opened. It should have come as no surprise, as it was dawn, and the first daily rotation was about to begin. Or, more likely, was just finishing.
Nathaniel's back stiffened as the guards came out. Even Sebastian, perhaps sensing the creeping feeling of having just been incriminated that was in Nathaniel, drew himself up and away from the support of his arm. They exchanged a look, involuntarily. There was an alarm in the prince's blue eyes. As if he were no longer sure of having an ally by his side. Well, Nathaniel couldn't fault him for the apprehension.
The man that was leading the squad was Captain Leland, whose brown face, darker than even the prince's, was a regular sight at court. Even more regular than Ser Rodolphe's.
The guards slowed down as they crossed paths, until both they and the squad halted, following the captain's lead.
« Your Highness », Leland greeted. He was deferential and proper, but judging. Nathaniel could tell, by the way the soldier took in Sebastian's outfit, coiffure, and frankly, his entire self. And though there was no malice in that judgement, there was certainly a weary sort of disappointment.
Then Leland turned to Nathaniel, who did his best to chase away the feeling that this was Ser Rodolphe, or His Royal Highness Prince Fernand himself, by proxy, or his own father. For a horrible moment, all these men coalesced in the captain. Then he recalled that he had nothing for which he ought to justify himself, and that the captain could well go straight into the Void for all it meant to him.
« My Lord », said Leland, tipping his head to Nathaniel. Then, turning to Sebastian again, he asked, « Where are you coming from, your Highness? » He asked delicately, respectfully, but Sebastian blanched slightly nonetheless.
« The training grounds. »
They both turned to Nathaniel, who had spoken.
Nathaniel held their looks with a stern ease. « He was shooting with me. »
Captain Leland held his silence, though in such a way, protracted and sceptical, that he made clear just how much he believed in this answer. Still, it wasn't as if he could baldly contradict him. What was he going to do, bring him in for questioning? The captain's posture sagged faintly. « Very well », he said, relenting. « Have a blessed day. »
He and the squad bowed quickly, and they were gone.
In the solitude, Sebastian suddenly bent, his hands on his knees, and breathed out heavily. « Fuck », he muttered. « Thank Andraste and all the Anointed for putting you on my path. He was going to tell my parents, you know? I could not have borne it today. »
« I bet not », Nathaniel said, and snorted dryly.
The Prince, with the effort of a great breath, made himself stand straight again; the state of his stomach was proving hard on his complexion, which looked oddly ashen about his reddened eyes, the eyes of someone who’s been up too long and sorely needs to put his head on a pillow. « Could you help me to my rooms? », he asked. Then, hurriedly, « I could help you meet my grandfather, some other day. He shot with the bow too. So do I, in fact. Just — not at dawn. »
Ser Rodolphe could be mollified by the news of having gained a meeting with the old Prince Marcellian, who spent his days chanting now that his bony hands failed him for any other task. Nathaniel could have perhaps snatched more, if he’d bothered to tell Leland the truth; or he could have snatched more with the right people.
But he’d been aligned, by an innermost recognition and sympathy, with Sebastian in some irrevocable way.
The prince could not have borne a lecture, he said.
Tell him about it, and all those he did bear.
Adjusting the quiver on his shoulders a second time, Nathaniel reached out to take him by his arm again. « Come. Let’s not have you puke in the corridors. »
Sebastian came along, docile, even though the escaped danger put a certain bravado back into his mannerism; as if the freedom from punishment that he was tasting cured him even of the bodily consequences of his overindulgences and his mistakes.
*
He would not see Sebastian face to face (as it were) again until, one morning at the training grounds, he appeared with a smile that was all smugness and no malice, a combination that made his expression oddly appealing. The sky was dull and pearly and the clouds left no space for atmospheric sunrises; light simply grew with increasing suffusion.
Prince Sebastian was not drunk. He simply showed up, and smiled, and said, « I thought you might be here. »
Nathaniel lowered the bow and slowly relaxed the string. The fact that Sebastian was not drunk didn’t mean that he looked like one who’d just gotten out of bed, had freshened himself up, and had gotten ready for healthy early morning training. His eyes were circled, heavy; once again, there was no way to salvage the hair, be it with a comb or a prayer. He seemed very pleased with himself, in some secret way. He moved as if he’d conquered the only thing worth conquering in the world, and all he needed to do was reveal it at a dramatically appropriate moment to get his due applause.
« Well, hello. Where are you coming from? »
Sebastian laughed in a strangely measured way, which was both princely and knowing. And Nathaniel knew exactly where he had come from. Perhaps not the specific place, but he knew that it involved sheets and wet dark places. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
But the prince dodged his look and turned to walk away, towards the bow stands. He picked one out and tested the height next to his own, then put the recurve bow between his legs, secured the lower limb against his shin and, with a palm pressed on the upper limb, bent it and strung it. There was such ease in this display that Nathaniel was forced to recognise his own surprise.
« It doesn’t matter », Sebastian answered aloud. « Her name is between me and the Maker. »
« I agree. »
That made the prince chuckle again. Then he picked up a full quiver and threw it over his shoulder, coming to stand in front to the next dummy over. « It seems that we are doomed to meet when you’ve just woken up and I’m about to go to sleep », he said. Then plucked an arrow and lifted it. « All right. Let me tune this baby. »
They’d seen each other in the palace, and even at Chantry functions when the entire ruling family sat on the pews, but they hadn’t met , per se, or spoken much. Nathaniel was guiltily grateful for this distance. He didn’t particularly wish to discover what Ser Rodolphe would have had to say about strengthening this one specific acquaintance. Nothing approving, surely, let alone kind.
Time spent with Prince Sebastian was time wasted. He’d not heard that from Ser Rodolphe. He had, it seemed to him now, absorbed it from an unknown source, such that he might as well have heard it carried by a censorious breeze.
But now Sebastian shot, and Nathaniel almost missed the entire thing. He did it so quickly that you’d doubt he had taken aim at all.
He blinked. « That’s — not bad at all. »
The prince was already walking the length of the training ground to check his shot, and how straight the angle of the arrow. « Thank you », he half-shouted, pulling the arrow out of the straw dummy.
« Who taught you? »
« Grandfather did », Sebastian answered, and he smiled in returning, a smile which was now softer and more earnest, and made him look painfully young. « This is quite well-tuned, actually », he commented then, to himself.
Nathaniel lifted his own bow again, pulling the string, the burn between his shoulders flaring in his already tired muscles. He welcomed it. « I appreciate the maintenance and the variety of poundage », he replied, as if he were making small talk. And he was. He was twisting his stomach into a knot trying to make small talk, and not think of grandfathers.
He stared at the tip of his arrow, with the dummy slightly blurred far ahead, and tilted it upwards, correcting for its trajectory. He shot and the thud of the arrow hitting the target relaxed him. He didn’t think the prince would judge him for a poor performance; he didn’t think the prince had the right to judge anything about him. But he still couldn’t have endured the failure, not in front of Sebastian’s very bright blue eyes, even, or perhaps especially, when wearied down by his nocturnal achievements.
But Sebastian whistled. « You’re good », he said. « Who taught you ? »
« One of Ser Rodolphe’s guardsmen. His name is Bram. »
« He must be a very good teacher. »
Nathaniel slid another arrow out of the quiver and threw the prince a glance. There was no trace of double-meaning or mockery in his smooth voice, but Nathaniel needed to see it, see that it was, somehow, a comment made entirely in earnest.
« He is patient », he said, « which is nearly the same thing. »
« A needed quality, for someone who stands around watching empty courtyards all day! »
Sebastian picked out an arrow of his own and again, nocked it and loosed it with impressive fastness, settling into the exact same position as the first time. He did appear as if he weren’t aiming at all, but the ease of his posture told Nathaniel that he had practised, hard and often, and it told him that his aiming was by now so instinctive not to require pause and calculation.
Bram’s opinion on such aiming had been a shrug; the guardsman had declared that, beyond a certain distance, instinct couldn’t carry an arrow straight. That you’d become imprecise and would need to learn how to correct that gap, via your pointing or the sliding of your fingers on the string.
He watched tiredness gather in Sebastian’s stance, his shoulders dropping low.
« Your grandfather must have been a very good teacher too », he ventured.
Sebastian smiled, looking at the dummy. « The best archer I’ve known. » He turned to Nathaniel and added, « Tell me, is there a reason why there’s no one here? Did you book the entire shooting ground? »
Nathaniel nocked his arrow, without pulling the string, and stared back. « No. I think it has more to do with the fact that it’s dawn. »
The prince snorted. « Right, that’s fair enough. We’re the weird ones, then. »
Nathaniel smiled, wryly. « For different reasons, I suppose. »
Sabastian kept his smile, and shot again, in that gliding and fast manner of his. « Indeed », he said, as if bemused. He even invited Nathaniel, later, when he was so tired that his shots began losing both energy and accuracy, to join him in his carousing one of these evenings. Nathaniel would have refused even without the shadow of his chevalier master looming over his opportunities for entertainment and respite; but the offer to see Prince Marcellian was renewed after his no, thank you .
He accepted again, then watched Sebastian nearly totter away, exhausted from his doubled exertions, towards the palace’s garrison entrance. The prince could barely string a witty sentence together, by the end of it, and it seemed to Nathaniel that he’d done it on purpose. That he’d worn himself out beyond consciousness and thought.
*
The old Prince Marcellian had passed down the shape of his nose and angle of his jaw down to his descendants. He was a thin man, though it was hard to say whether age was the cause of that thinness or if, perhaps, he’d been slender even in the prime of his years. His hair had long turned white and the lines on his face were deep yet placid, much like his hands were knobby — rested in his lap, one held by the other, as if he’d never used them for anything other than a prayer.
In the main nave, a female voice chanted relentlessly. It was a single tone, which barely crimped from verse to verse, and echoed with a beautiful trick of singing waves between columns. From the side chapel, where Sebastian had led Nathaniel for the meeting, the chanter could not be seen. It was as if the canticle were held inside it, like the waves in a shell.
Sebastian had sat down on the pew opposite his grandfather, throwing an arm over the backrest and crossing his legs. Nathaniel had joined him, but had bowed first.
« A Howe, hm? », Marcellian said, appraising him with curiously neutral eyes. « Poor me, I’m still surprised that you would be squired to a chevalier. How times change. But you’re half Orlesian yourself, aren’t you? »
Nathaniel, though still, intimately bristled. « My mother is. Me, only a quarter, your Highness. »
« Oh, do away with all that. I’m merely a brother now. »
And perhaps he was indeed no more than that, wrapped in the dark robe of the chantry, the embroidery of a sunburst collaring him richly like a chest piece. But Nathaniel had been raised not to assume or disrespect; nor did he know what Marcellian would count an insult and what he might dismiss with a smile. He merely nodded.
« Nathaniel is a very good archer », Sebastian interjected, and it sounded like he was trying to justify why he’d disturb his grandfather with a visit to begin with.
« I see. » The old man smiled. The lines on his upper lip, like grooves in a summer field, stretched and almost disappeared. « Has Rodolphe Verley become a good shot while I wasn’t looking? »
Hardly , Nathaniel thought, but said, « He did not teach me personally. He rather disapproves, in fact. »
« Ah, but you keep carrying on? » His eyes slid keenly to his grandson. « It seems you found a worthy friend, my boy. »
Sebastian raised his chin as the same time as he drew his shoulders closer to his body, and in the moment of his surprise, which you could pick out in his widening eyes, he betrayed both a sense of offence and one of shame. Nathaniel could tell that it was offence, and that it was shame. He felt them both himself, for reasons hard to chart, and Sebastian deserved neither. Nathaniel deserved neither.
« I haven’t besmirched his reputation in the slightest », Sebastian defended himself, and perhaps defended them both. « We met in the shooting grounds. »
Marcellian chuckled like an old hen. « Come, that is not what I mean. » He looked back at Nathaniel. « Well, it seems that your parents sent you over to toughen you up a little. At your age, that isn’t always a bad thing. » His voice shifted, became monotonous with quoting. « I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure. What you have created, no one can tear asunder. »
Nathaniel glanced at Sebastian, who gently provided, « Trials, first prayer, tenth stanza. »
« Just so », Marcellian said, approvingly. « My boy, you should invite your friend to one of those patrols you join with the guard. I think not even good Rodolphe would protest to the endeavour. And testing your hand in the field would do you good, Lord Nathaniel. It’s one of Sebastian’s more honourable activities and he does it so little publicity. It’s a guardsman’s job, yes, not a prince’s , but the Maker always looks kindly on those who keep His peace. Don’t you think? »
The old prince made it hard to disagree with him at all, be it due to his delicate but faintly cheering inflection or his venerable age. It was a technique that granted him power in conversation, and perhaps that he had developed during his ruling days — nonetheless, Nathaniel couldn’t spare himself the thought that, perhaps, Marcellian was no more than an old man, and perhaps even old men who’ve chosen a holy path of contemplation sometimes simply want to chatter.
When Sebastian and he left, they walked slowly down the side nave. The outer wall of the cathedral of Starkhaven was lined by chapels, like the one in which they’d met Marcellian. Each housed a statue of Andraste, many housed altars and urns set in nooks in the curving wall. Nathaniel quizzed himself quietly on the noble banners that hung in those chapels. To check if he recognised each and every one of them.
The chanter’s song washed over them and enforced silence.
It was Sebastian who broke it first. « He promised he would give me his bow, one day », he said.
He said it like an apology. As if Nathaniel might have found their meeting boring, or as if he were sorry that his grandfather had not treated him any better than the rest of the Vaels. Or perhaps that was merely Nathaniel’s impression, and an unfair one. Mercellian had been kinder. Marginally. The bar was not high.
« I’m glad for you », he replied, and heard the sharpness in his voice that he hadn’t wanted to put there.
There was a bow, somewhere in the basements of Vigil’s Keep, a bow that he knew belonged to his paternal grandfather. The man who’d been hanged for treason during the war to liberate Ferelden. He was a coward, and he got what he deserved , according to his father, who had said so with a voice like a whiplash. Nathaniel had never asked anything more about Tarleton Howe.
He exhaled and turned to the prince, who also walked now watching the chapels. « What was that about the patrols, by the way? », he asked.
« Ah, we get slavers here on occasion. Down by the port and in the lower levels of the city, not to mention your basic brigands in the hills. I lead our soldiers to root them out, sometimes. » Sebastian glanced at him, perking up again. « Why, would you like to join me? »
« That would be… nice, yes. If Ser Rodolphe allows it. »
« I see how it is. No to a night out, but yes to the patrols? »
« What can I say », Nathaniel paused, for effect, « I suppose I like sticking arrows in people more than my dick. »
Sebastian covered his mouth, stifling a wheeze. He composed himself with a furtive glance askance, towards imaginary onlookers. « Please. We’re in the chantry. »
Nathaniel smiled faintly. « I’m sure the Maker has heard worse. »
(Ser Rodolphe didn’t allow it, though Nathaniel valiantly made his case. It was a guardsman’s job, but he’d have taken it over yet another jousting drill, which was no more than precursor to tending to Rodolphe’s horse. When the refusal came, it wasn’t as if Nathaniel felt any surprise whatsoever. He did feel a little spark of anger, however. It was good to know that he still had that in him.)
*
One morning, so early that the sky was still slate blue and the city of Starkhaven seemed to have freshly risen, watery and wet, from the Minanter river, Nathaniel found Sebastian already in the training grounds, silent and still.
It was true that he picked the time before the guard rotation, and before most sensible nobles would exit their houses, so that he would have the field all for himself. Most mornings, that was the case. The prince, that day, sat on the floor by the weapon racks, his back to the wall and his legs bent, with his elbows on his knees. He’d joined his gloved hands together, tight like buckle holding armour together, and stared straight ahead.
The agreement of habit had been broken by this very early visit. Its extraordinary nature was already plain in its strangeness, even before Nathaniel, coming closer, could see Sebastian’s face.
Sebastian turned slightly to him, and Nathaniel could almost flatter himself into thinking that he was being waited for.
The blue eyes were swollen red, humid in the torch gleam. The kind of eyes, intense and yet vulnerable, that aren’t supposed to find a public.
« They’re sending me away », Sebastian stated, without so much as a greeting.
Nathaniel took a step forward, angling his head so he wasn’t merely staring down at him. « Who is sending you away? », he asked, because it was the only possible follow-up question, even though the answer could be easily intuited. There weren’t many people in Starkhaven who could send one of its princes much anywhere.
« My parents. They’re sending me to Kirkwall under Captain Leland’s supervision. »
« To Kirkwall. And what for? »
« Oh, they’ve committed me to the Chantry. So I stop shaming them and being so selfish. They commissioned me a suit of armour, as soon as that’s done, off I go. My eldest brother even said, and I quote, about time. » His expression creased, and it was a subtle change, but dejected in the details. « I had no idea he harboured such… vitriol for me. »
Nathaniel wondered what would have happened, had Thomas been the one to be shipped here, for Ser Rodolphe to toughen up . Would he have borne it? Would have he been sent back, because his father had spoiled him too much for discipline to take root in him? Nathaniel didn’t know — but he did know that he wouldn’t ever have wounded Thomas the way Corbinian Vael did with Sebastian. Even in envy, even in frustration. That wasn’t him; he had to believe that that couldn’t be him.
« I… see. » He sighed, then reached down, grabbing Sebastian’s forearm. « Come, stand up. There’s no point in turning your arse square by sitting there. »
That gained a weak snort out of the prince. He stood, too; in fact, he felt rather pliable and swaying in Nathaniel’s grip, who cast him a critical glance.
« Are you drunk? »
« A little », Sebastian replied, with a flare of punctured pride. He gestured sharply, while Nathaniel endeavoured to take him inside one of the service rooms. « Is it so terrible? Am I doing harm to anyone? », he asked, with force behind each word and pause. A tirade was boiling up and coming out of him, regurgitated like food and drinks he could no longer keep down, fouled in him. « They’ve got an heir, they’ve got a spare in Marcel, what harm does it make if I enjoy myself? If I — take my pleasure where I can? Does it harm you if I’m a little drunk? If anything, I keep the economy of our taverns going! »
Nathaniel sat him at one of the polished wood tables inside the side room. Only a solitary torch burnt here, and the sky’s vague glow coming in from the high windows fell on more weapon racks and on many instruments, for sharpening, fixing, and patching up. Sebastian dropped on the bench, heavier and more ungraceful than Nathaniel had seen him even in their first meeting.
He took a white handkerchief out of his dark doublet, opened it up, and pressed it against Sebastian’s forehead.
Sebastian first removed the square of cloth, then accepted that it was stuck in his hand, as if it had no owner, and used it to pat his own cheeks and nape. That got him going again, and his voice vibrated with an angry dampness, like tears. « I haven’t left bastards anywhere. That I know of — but if it were the case, it would have come out by now. Don’t you think? I haven’t even broken hearts if I could help it! They complain about all these girls I apparently seduce into debauchery, but did I harm them ? They never seem to be complaining, are they now? Where is the pain there? If for that one brief moment we’re both happy and having fun, where is the problem? If Andraste had wanted me to stop — if She’d wanted me to stop, by now She’d have given me a sign to do so! »
After the little screed, he panted out, straightening, attempting to regain control of his mood.
Nathaniel looked on. « After the third hangover headache, I’d have taken it as sign enough. »
« That is just — »
« It’s plain to see, at least to me, that it’s harming you . »
Sebastian stared at him as if stunned; then his mouth contorted into something sad and bitter that sat wrongly on his otherwise curiously open, youthful face. « So it is all for my own good? Locked away in a cell to waste my youth, that’s for my betterment and salvation? », he challenged. « It certainly didn’t feel like it, when Mother spoke to me. »
Nathaniel opened his mouth to give voice to an empty brain. He closed it and looked away, towards the racks where more bows sat unstrung, towards the barred windows and the cold glow of the blue hour. He sighed and moved to sit on the bench, next to the prince, who now bent heavily forward, with his elbows on his knees and staring at the handkerchief.
When Nathaniel spoke, he did so cautiously. « No, it might not be for your own good. But none of this is, either. » There was a long silence, and since Sebastian wasn’t answering, he added, « Have you tried to negotiate your options? »
« I tried everything. » He shook his head, the dark red hair fell away from their combing entirely and covered his temples. « They already arranged for travel and for my stay. There isn’t quite any point, now. » A pause; then: « I understand it’s hypocritical of me to complain to you. You’ve been sent here, after all, and for all that you pretend you’re so dutiful, you never seem particularly happy to me. »
Nathaniel raised a brow. « Dutiful. Is that how I look like? »
« Well, yes. »
He straightened his back. « Ser Rodolphe is a good chevalier. After you’ve parried the way he bashes on a shield, you could probably take on a wyvern. He’s very disciplined, too — I’ve never seen him ask of others more than what he’d ask of himself. But trust me when I say, once you’ve spent a week with him, you’ll be praying to be sent to Kirkwall instead. »
Sebastian’s scoff was gentle; he was folding the handkerchief in increasingly smaller squares, then opening it again and starting over. « Try me, please », he said, weakly.
« I guess that what I’m trying to say is, yes, you’re right. It isn’t much easier to be on my side. But it will work out, somehow. I go back to Ferelden to spend Wintersend with my family, next month, and when this squiring situation is over, I’ll be back there permanently. But I like the Free Marches and Starkhaven has grown on me quite a lot, so I think I will be back to visit. I’ll come to Kirkwall too, why not. And I’m a good archer now. It’s not all so bad or, at least, it doesn’t have to be. »
The handkerchief folded again, Sebastian sat up slowly and handed it back. « Thank you », he said, and it might have been for the cloth as much as for Nathaniel’s tentative words of comfort. Comfort that felt lacking for its impossibility to change anything at all, and for that perceived lack it was, Nathaniel knew, all the more sincere.
He put the handkerchief back in his pocket, where it disappeared with a flash of white. Lacking any further practical advice made his inability to help excruciating.
He asked, instead, « Do you love your family? »
« Of course I do », Sebastian answered, hastening to his reply with a hint of outrage.
« Then maybe distance will help you, and it will get better, afterwards. »
That couldn’t pacify Sebastian entirely; he suspected that nothing could. But it got him to breathe out and release his shoulders from their tautness, even though, in the wake of his stronger feelings, he appeared more disheartened than before. His eyelids were heavy and the curve of his mouth devoid of pride and anger both.
Nathaniel reached out for his shoulder and rested his hand on it, giving it a tentative squeeze. Awkward though it might have felt to him, it had the surprising result of making Sebastian lower his eyes and attempt a little smile.
« You should drink some water and go to sleep », Nathaniel said. « We can meet tomorrow and shoot some arrows. We ought to do a proper competition before you go. »
That smile sat gingerly on Sebastian’s face. « We can do that, yes. »
« It’s settled. Now come on », and he grabbed the prince from under his armpit, « let’s get you inside, for a good… morning’s sleep. »
*
Nathaniel had not thought, after the day Sebastian left Starkhaven, that they would meet again any time soon, if perhaps at all. He had thought, in those days that grew so dull and tedious, that Sebastian himself had likely been cloistered away in some countryside chantry when even the cathedral would fail to tame him.
Afterwards, he stopped thinking of Sebastian at all, for which he would have forgiven himself, had he been aware of his forgetfulness. It wasn’t merely the sea that separated him from his days of training with Ser Rodolphe; it was a civil war, a dead family, a dispossessed House name charged with treason, a Blight, a symbolic death and a true rebirth. Rodolphe and Starkhaven were like remembering another life, a youth removed from him in more than mere time.
Then he did come to Kirkwall. He wasn’t certain that he would have left it, though, were it not for Delilah.
It was in the languishing dark of the Deep Roads, arteries of the earth long forgotten, that he met Sebastian again. In the small group that appeared almost entirely out of nowhere, with the surprise effect of an inconceivably welcome swarm of deepstalkers, was the prince in the flesh, with shorter hair, firmly combed, clad in white and gold armour, carrying arrows and bow.
On seeing Nathaniel’s face, after the filth and dust of the fight, Sebastian laughed cheerily.
« When I heard for whom Hawke was supposed to look, I made sure to come along », he said, then was the one to make the introductions.
« It’s been a long time », Nathaniel said in the end.
« Indeed it has been. »
Sebastian smiled.
It was a good smile.