Chapter 36: Shadows of the Qun
The salt wind off the Waking Sea bit through the oiled wool of Kerr’s travel cloak, carrying with it the stink of fish, tar, and a darker, copper-rich scent that needed no name. The docks of Kirkwall were a graveyard of splintered timber and scattered crates, the lanterns casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to cling to the stains on the cobblestones. Amid the wreckage, standing with a stillness that defied the chaotic surroundings, was Sten.
He was taller, broader, if that were possible, his horned helmet a stark silhouette against the bruised dawn sky. His reports were always like the man himself: unadorned, solid, and brutally complete. Kerr listened, his hands clasped behind his back, as Sten explained the shipwreck, the loss of the Tome of Koslun, the subsequent siege upon the city, the murder of the Viscount, and the tangled conspiracy orchestrated by a Chantry sister. He detailed the Arishok’s descent into madness, the challenge issued, and its conclusion in the duel with Garrett Hawke.
“Hawke fought with honor,” Sten stated, his voice a low rumble. “The Arishok was defeated in single combat. The bas was fair.”
Kerr absorbed it all, the political catastrophe laid bare. He gave a single, slow nod. “And the Qunari now answer to you.”
“They do. The position is… accepted.” There was no pride in Sten’s tone, only fact. A heavy duty, another chain of command.
Kerr stepped forward, extending a hand. Sten looked at it for a moment, then clasped Kerr’s forearm in the warrior’s grip, their eyes meeting. Respect, forged in the deep roads and the heat of a Blight, passed between them without a word. “Safe journey, Arishok. Par Vollen is fortunate.”
“Ferelden remains… interesting.” With that, Sten turned, barking a command in Qunlat. The remaining Qunari, a solemn, wounded column, fell into formation behind him, their footsteps echoing hollowly as they marched toward the waiting dreadnought, leaving Kirkwall to its bleeding.
The Hanged Man was a burst of raucous noise and thick, smoky air, a desperate celebration in a city that had just stopped screaming. Kerr shouldered his way through the crowd, his height cutting a path. He spotted the flicker of a feathered bandana first.
“Well, well,” Isabela purred, leaning against a scarred pillar with a tankard in hand. A familiar, devil-may-care smile played on her lips. “If it isn’t the Hero of Ferelden. Come to check on little old me? I’m touched. Though I heard you’re more of a king these days. Does that mean I have to curtsy, or just—”
“Shut up, Isabela.”
The words were calm, flat, and absolute. They cut through her tease like a razor. Her smile froze, then faded.
Kerr didn’t raise his voice. He simply looked at her, and the years of hard rulership, the weight of the crown Anora had helped him forge, were suddenly present in the room. “Look outside. The streets are littered with dead bodies.Men, women, children. They’re stacking them like firewood because you were too much of a coward to return a stolen book. Hawke had to clean up your mess. Don’t speak to me like I’m still the horny young Warden you met in a palace corridor.”
Isabela’s bravado flickered. She pushed off the pillar, her chin lifting defensively. “That’s not fair. You don’t know what it was like.”
“I know I was beheading dragons, bludgeoning ogres, and slaying Archdemons while you were hustling cards in a Denerim whorehouse.” He held her gaze until she looked away, a flush creeping up her neck. “The scale is different, Isabela. The consequences are real. Remember it.”
A man emerged from the press of bodies—tall, dark-haired, with a weariness in his eyes that Kerr recognized instantly. It was the look of someone who had made the terrible choices. Garrett Hawke gave a short, respectful nod. “Your Majesty. I didn’t expect… thank you for coming.”
“Hawke.” Kerr’s demeanor shifted, the intensity softening into something akin to professional respect. He pulled out a chair at a corner table, the wood groaning under his frame. “Sit. You have my thanks. And the thanks of a kingdom that very nearly had a Qunari capital on its doorstep.”
Hawke sat, running a hand through his hair. He shot a complex look at Isabela, who lingered a few paces back, arms crossed. “She did come back,” Hawke said, his voice low. “In the end. It doesn’t bring back the Viscount or the others, but… she came back.”
“Love makes us do stupid things,” Kerr said, signaling for a bottle of whiskey. Two glasses appeared. “And clever ones. It doesn’t erase the accounting.” He poured a generous measure of amber liquid and pushed a glass toward Hawke. “I need to replace the heads of state that were slain. I need to see this city rebuilt before it collapses into outright anarchy. The Chantry is headless here, the Viscount’s seat is empty, and the templars are leaderless. It’s a powder keg.”
Hawke took the whiskey, knocked it back with a practiced ease. “The Champion of Kirkwall,” he said, the title sounding like a curse. “It’s a pretty title they give you before they ask you to do the impossible.”
“Titles often are.” Kerr sipped his own drink, the peat smoke and heat a familiar comfort. “You have influence here. I have authority from Ferelden. We have a mutual problem: stability. I can appoint a provisional Viscount, but they’ll need local support to avoid being stabbed in a month. You need a functional crown to back you, or you’re just a man with a nice sword and a mounting pile of complaints.”
“What are you thinking?” Hawke asked, leaning forward.
“The Chantry sister. Petrice. She’s dead?”
“Very.”
“Good. Simplifies one mess. I’ll have Denerim send a new Grand Cleric—someone pragmatic, not a fanatic. For the Viscount, I need a name. Someone the merchants won’t immediately despise, who the common people haven’t been taught to hate.”
Hawke was silent for a long moment, staring into his empty glass. “There’s a man. Seneschal Bran. He served the Viscount for years. He’s competent. Bureaucratic. Boring as yesterday’s bread. Which might be exactly what’s needed.”
Kerr nodded slowly. “Boring I can work with. I’ll meet him.” He refilled both their glasses. “The templars are trickier. With the Knight-Commander dead…”
“They’re restless.Scared. Meredith kept them on a tight leash. That leash is gone.”
“Then we give them a new one. Carefully.” Kerr sat back, the plan crystallizing. “I’ll announce the appointments tomorrow from the Keep. Your presence would… legitimize them. To the people.”
Hawke gave a dry, humorless laugh. “So I go from cleaning up the Qunari mess to propping up the royal one.”
“Welcome to politics,” Kerr said, a ghost of his old mischief touching his eyes, though it was tempered now, hardened. “It’s just another kind of battlefield. The weapons are words, and the corpses are reputations.” He glanced over at Isabela, who was now pretending intense interest in a game of wicked grace across the room. “Keep your friends close, Hawke. And your conscience closer. You’ll need both.”
He finished his whiskey, the glass clicking softly on the table. The momentum was his now, the path forward sketched in the damp rings left on the wood. Kirkwall held its breath outside, broken and waiting. Tomorrow, they would begin the long, unglamorous work of putting it back together.
“Get some rest,” Kerr said, rising to his full, imposing height. “Dawn comes early for kings and champions.”
He turned for the door, the crowd parting for him once more, the weight of the city—and the ghost of its dead—settling onto his shoulders alongside the weight of his own crown. There were letters to write to Anora, orders to draft, alliances to cement. The board was set, and the pieces, battered as they were, were finally in his hand.
He had cards to play.
The Ferelden Embassy in Kirkwall was a modest, defiantly sturdy stone building that smelled of beeswax and wet wool. Sunlight strained through high, narrow windows, illuminating motes of dust dancing above a scarred oak table laden with breakfast: dark bread, goat cheese, and a pot of strong, bitter tea. Varric Tethras was already holding court, his hands weaving a story in the air as Aveline, her red hair a severe knot, listened with arms crossed.
“And then I said, ‘Messere, if your pride is worth more than your ships, I’ve got a lovely bridge in Lowtown to sell you,’” Varric finished, grinning.
“You’re a menace,” Aveline stated, though a faint smile touched her lips.
The door opened, and Kerr ducked his frame through the doorway, the morning light cutting across the tired planes of his face. “Sorry I’m late. Seneschal Bran believes in comprehensive morning briefings. The man could detail the grain content of a rat’s breakfast.”
“King-Cousland! Join the revelry.” Varric gestured to an empty chair. “You’ve met the Guard-Captain. The anxious one trying to hide in the corner is Merrill.”
The elven woman started, blinking large, green eyes. “I’m not anxious. I’m observing the… structural integrity of your masonry. It’s very solid.”
“And the broody one giving the wall the silent treatment is Fenris,” Varric added.
Fenris merely shifted his gaze from the stone to Kerr, a slow, appraising look that took in the man’s size, his weapons, his crown-less head. He gave a single, shallow nod. Acknowledgement, not deference.
Kerr grabbed a chair, its legs scraping against the flagstones. He tore a chunk of bread, his movements efficient. “We haven’t much time. I sail on the evening tide. The provisional appointments will hold, if you,” he looked at Aveline and Varric, “keep the pressure even. No favors, no exceptions. Boring stability. That’s the mission.”
Aveline nodded. “The Guard will back Bran. But the templars…”
“Are a splintering board. I’ve named Carver as interim Knight-Captain.”
Varric choked on his tea. “Hawke’s little brother? Sunshine, that’s either a stroke of genius or you’ve just tossed a lit match into a powder magazine.”
“He’s a templar. He’s not an idiot. And he’s from here. He knows the players.” Kerr took a long swallow of tea. “It’s a stopgap. But it’s ours. Now. The other pieces.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping into a more casual, familiar register. “When I get back to Denerim, Anora will have the Bannorn chewing the furniture over the Kirkwall expenses. I’ll need something to trade them. Good news from the Free Marches. Profitable news.”
Varric’s eyes glinted. “I might know a few merchants who’d prefer a straight deal with a Ferelden crown to the usual Cutthroat politics. I’ll have names sent to your seneschal.”
“Good.” Kerr’s eyes swept the table. The question had been hovering since he’d stepped off the dock. He aimed for casual and missed. “So. Where’s Anders holed up? I need to see him before I go. Drag him out of whatever closet he’s practicing martyrdom in.”
The silence was instant and total.
It wasn’t just an absence of sound; it was a physical presence, thick and cold. Merrill looked down at her hands. Fenris’s jaw tightened, the lyrium brands across his skin seeming to gleam faintly. Varric’s storytelling animation drained away, leaving his face uncharacteristically still. Aveline’s posture went from rigid to statuesque.
The silence told him everything.
Kerr looked at Varric. “Varric.”
Varric exhaled, a slow, weary sound. “He’s gone, Kerr.”
“Gone where.”
“Just… gone.” Varric wouldn’t meet his eyes. “After the Chantry. After the rebellion really caught fire. He walked away. No one’s seen him.”
Kerr processed the words. The Chantry.The rebellion. The finality in Varric’s tone. The image formed, awful and complete: the towering flame, the collapsing stone, the act of a man who had decided there were no cards left to play but one. He felt a familiar, dull thrum in his own blood, a whisper that was both memory and warning.
“Right,” Kerr said, his voice remarkably even. He set his bread down, uneaten. The plans for treaties and trade, the political scaffolding, it all suddenly seemed like distant noise.
He looked around the table, at their grief and their guilt, a shared burden they hadn’t asked for. “It’s alright,” he said, and it wasn’t a dismissal, but an absolution. He pushed back from the table, the chair groaning in relief.
“You don’t have to…” Merrill began, her voice small.
“I do.” Kerr stood, his head nearly brushing a low beam. He felt the call then, not as a sound, but as a pull in his veins, a compass point only Wardens could feel. A tether of taint and darkness. “We’re linked.By the blood. By the Calling. He can’t hide from that.”
He moved toward the door, the momentum of the morning shifting, narrowing to a single, dark path. The fate of cities and thrones would have to wait.
“Tell Hawke the board is his. I’ve got to go find a lost Warden.”