When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Wardens

Once inside Howe's bedroom, they scattered, quickly and efficiently ransacking the room. Una didn't care if Howe knew someone had been there; she didn't even care if he knew it was her.

In a chest near Howe's large bed she found something she hadn't expected: papers bearing the seal of the Grey Wardens. Frowning, she flipped through the sheaf of them, but they were all encrypted, and Duncan hadn't managed to pass on any codebooks before he did. Nor had they had found any codebooks in his belongings when they went back to Ostagar, so either he kept all the codes in his head or there was a Warden stronghold they didn't know about. Either way, what were Warden papers doing in Rendon Howe's bedroom? She tucked them carefully away to show to Alistair later.

The others had finished tossing the room. Wynne had a book she thought looked interesting and Zev had found an amulet, but there was nothing to tell them about Howe's plans for Anora or how to break down the magical barrier holding her in that guest room.

"There is a door there," Zev said, pointing to a part of the wall that looked just like all the rest of the wall to Una. "Perhaps more answers lie behind it?"

"Let's find out."

They waited, more or less patiently, as Zev probed around the edges of what he insisted was a door until he found the release mechanism, and disabled the trap that was attached to it.

"Well done, Zev."

"Ah, thank you, beautiful one. It is a pleasure to perform these tasks for you."

"I thought we'd gone beyond meaningless flattery," Una remarked as she moved past him into a chilly stone hallway.

"Old habits die hard." Courteously, he let Wynne precede him.

Una paused at the end of the hallway. She could hear breathing around the corner. One guard, at least, possibly two. She held up two fingers so the others would know what she had concluded, and turned the corner.

A guard who had been dozing against the wall jumped up, giving a shout of surprise. He moved toward her, which brought him in front of a cell built into the chamber. A muscular arm furred with dark hair slid between the bars and wrapped itself around the guard's neck before he could even draw his weapon. He was dragged back against the bars, gurgling as the life was choked out of him.

Even as the body was sliding to the ground, that same arm was detaching the mass of keys from the belt and drawing them into the cell.

Una could feel a tingling in her blood, almost as if darkspawn were present. Or Alistair! But that arm was too slim and the hair too dark to be Alistair, even if it were possible for him to have been captured in the time since she'd left Eamon's.

"Introduce yourself, brother Warden." The voice that came from the cell was husky and deep and Orlesian in accent.

"Sister Warden," Una corrected.

"Really? How very interesting. Ah! Perhaps you are the recruit Duncan was so very eager to acquire. From Highever?"

"He must have written to you about me." It was strange carrying on a conversation with a voice whose body she couldn't see, but from the disappearance of the guard's body and the clanks and thuds that came from the cell, the Grey Warden was dressing himself. "Do you know about ... Ostagar?"

"Yes." The Warden cleared his throat, but his voice was still thick with grief when he spoke. "We could feel it, we Wardens, the loss of a great number of our brothers. Someday we will have to speak about how it is that you were spared."

"Someday we will have to speak about a great many things," Una snapped, not liking the implication of censure. "For example, about how it is that two junior Wardens have been left to fight the Blight alone by the rest of the Wardens of Thedas."

"You have our apologies for that."

"I would rather have had your blades and your counsel."

"Ah, Duncan was correct. You are a spirited—and beautiful—addition to our ranks." The Warden finally made his appearance, bowing courteously to Una and her companions. He was thin and pale and dirty from his incarceration, but it was clear that when he was in good condition he was a beautiful addition to the ranks himself. Long dark hair, twinkling eyes full of fun, and a face that was the definition of 'ruggedly handsome'. Una was glad her heart was fully committed elsewhere, because this man looked dangerous—and irresistible. He went on, "I am Riordan, of Jader."

"Una. Of Ferelden," she added pointedly.

"You should know that we did try, but we were turned back at the borders of the country."

"How is that possible?" Una asked. "You were called to us before the battle of Ostagar; there wasn't time, and there weren't men enough to close off the entire border afterward, not firmly enough to keep out the Wardens."

"We were tasked by the Empress to go to Ferelden's aid with her chevaliers. When they could not cross ..." Riordan left the sentence there, shrugging eloquently.

"So the Wardens chose to obey the Orlesian empress rather than go to the aid of their own people against the Blight?" Zev asked.

"So much for neutrality." Una glared at Riordan.

"It is difficult to fight a Blight without the cooperation of the populace," Riordan said. He smiled, but it no longer looked charming to Una's eyes.

"And you know that from your vast Blight-fighting experience, do you?"

"Una." Wynne's voice was a gentle reminder that they didn't have all day.

"I don't have time for this right now. Meet me at Arl Eamon Guerrin's estate later this afternoon," she told Riordan.

He seemed surprised at his abrupt dismissal, then laughed. "With any luck, I can talk my way into a bath before I see you again. How refreshing that will be!"

Una nodded at him and continued past him toward the stairs that led farther down, almost certainly into more dungeons.

"I doubt that bath will be taken alone," Zev remarked with some amusement.

"Looks like he knows what to do with the ladies," Oghren agreed.

"With the gentlemen as well, I imagine." Wynne chuckled when they all turned to stare at her. "You don't imagine the mages' tower is a place one can retain any amount of innocence, do you?"

"Oh, Wynne, how I would love to nestle on your magical bosom and have you tell me all your tales," Zev said wistfully.

"What he said," Oghren grunted.

"If the three of you would mind getting back to business?" Una appreciated their attempt to lighten the mood, but her stomach was tied in knots at the prospect of descending these stairs and finding Howe at the bottom of them. The only way to keep from throwing up, she decided, was to keep moving. She'd worry about this Riordan and the rest of the Wardens and what his presence might mean later.

Halfway down the stairs, however, it occurred to her to wonder what Alistair's reaction would be to seeing a real Warden walk through the door of Eamon's. What an incredible error that had been—she'd be lucky if Alistair didn't tell Riordan absolutely everything and lay the whole of Ferelden in his lap to boot. And she had no idea how much of Riordan's too-smooth story and his equally too-smooth self to trust. "Damn," she whispered softly.

Zev gave her an inquiring look, but she waved him off, concentrating instead on negotiating the dark narrow stairs and not hitting her head on the rather low ceiling. There was nothing to be done about Alistair and Riordan right now. The best thing she could do would be to hurry up this task, get Anora out, hopefully slaughter Rendon Howe like the dirty dog he was, and get back to Alistair to resolve that situation.