Chapter 41: Fragile Serenity
Dawn was a pale, watery gold bleeding through the high windows. It found Anora sitting in the wide cushioned chair by the hearth, a blanket pooled around her hips. One hand rested on the pronounced swell of her stomach, the other held a piece of toast she seemed to have forgotten. Her gaze was fixed on the middle distance, somewhere beyond the tapestry depicting the Battle of River Dane.
The room smelled of lavender, ash, and the faint, ever-present scent of milk. A tiny sock, discarded, lay over the foot of the armed bear statue in the corner.
Kerr watched her from the bed. She was beautiful like this, in the quiet. Her hair, that sleek silver-blonde, was braided loosely over one shoulder. The fierce intelligence was still there in the set of her mouth, but it was softened by a profound, physical exhaustion. Three pregnancies in just over three years. A set of twins first, then the triplets eighteen months later, and now this one, not yet six months along but already making its presence known. Six children under four, another on the way. The arithmetic of it still stunned him, a relentless biological campaign she had undertaken with the same strategic focus she applied to trade tariffs.
He swung his legs out of bed, the stone floor cold under his feet. He pulled on his breeches and padded over, the sword leaning by the wall a familiar silhouette. He didn’t pick it up. Its work these days was limited to the practice yard, a distraction for the restless energy that thrummed through him. His real duty was here, in this room, in the nurseries down the hall, in the warren of the palace where tiny, ruling voices shouted for apples or wooden horses.
He knelt beside her chair, his large frame folding easily. He placed a hand over hers on her stomach. A moment later, a firm, rolling push pressed against both their palms. He grinned, the mischievous glint in his eye tempered by something deeper, awed.
Anora blinked, coming back from wherever her thoughts had taken her. She looked down at their joined hands, then at him. A faint, tired smile touched her lips.
She snorted, a very un-queenly sound, and took a bite of her cold toast. “They’re built for ensuring I never sleep again, is what they are. Elissa was up three times with colic. Cailan decided sunrise was an appropriate hour to reenact the Dane with his porridge bowl.” She said their names—their children’s names—with a weariness that couldn’t mask the fierce, protective love beneath. “The wet nurse is with the babies. I should go down.”
“They’re fed. They’re clean. They’re breathing. Sit for five more minutes.” His hand moved from her stomach to the nape of her neck, his thumb working at the tight muscle there. She closed her eyes, leaning into the pressure with a soft sigh.
“I can’t. The Bann of West Hill is arriving before noon to complain about his grain allotment.Again. And I need to review the intelligence from the Frostback Basin. The reports of templar desertions are…”
“Later,” he said, his voice firm. This was his role now, as vital as any battlefield command. To pull her back, to be the anchor in the storm of diapers and diplomacy. He was good at it. He surprised himself with how good he was at it. The charming flirt had found his purpose in the quiet chaos of a kingdom built not just on treaties, but on the squall of newborns.
A soft knock at the door interrupted them. Anora’s eyes opened, the Queen’s mask snapping back into place with a speed that still unnerved him. “Enter.”
A young page, Ser Pounce clutched tightly in one chubby fist, toddled in ahead of the beleaguered nursemaid. The little boy made a beeline for Kerr, raising his arms. “Up!”
Kerr laughed, a rich, warm sound in the quiet room, and hoisted his son onto his hip. The boy immediately began patting his father’s stubbled cheek. The nursemaid curtsied, holding out a sealed letter on a silver tray. “Your Majesties. This came by swift rider from the northern road. Marked with Chantry seals.”
Anora took it, her brow furrowing. The parchment was thick, expensive. The wax was the stark white of the Divine, imprinted with the sword of mercy. She broke the seal with a thumbnail, her eyes scanning the lines. Kerr watched the color drain from her face, the subtle tightening around her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked, shifting his son to his other hip.
She didn’t answer at first. She read it again, then a third time. Finally, she let the parchment fall to her lap. She looked at Kerr, and in her eyes, he saw the distant, gathering storm.
“It’s from Leliana. The Left Hand.” Her voice was flat, controlled. “The Divine is calling a Conclave. In the Temple of Sacred Ashes. She invites all mage and templar leaders to a summit. To put an end to the rebellion.”
Kerr let out a low whistle. The mage-templar war had been a bloody scar across Thedas for years, a conflict that had simmered and flared but never boiled over entirely into Ferelden. Not yet. Their own Circle in Kinloch Hold was tense but, so far, quiet. “A Conclave. That’s… big. Risky.”
“It’s a gambit,” Anora corrected, picking up the letter again. Her mind was clearly racing, calculating angles he couldn’t yet see. “Justinia is desperate. Or brilliant.Or both. She’s gathering every stick of dynamite in Thedas under one roof and hoping no one lights a match.” She tapped the parchment against her palm. “Leliana requests… no, she strongly advises… that Ferelden send a representative. An observer with royal authority. To bear witness, and to safeguard our interests should the talks… progress.”
“We should send someone. Bann Teagan, perhaps. Or Eamon.”
Anora shook her head slowly. The early morning light caught the silver in her hair, making it look like a helm. “No. This is too pivotal. If this Conclave succeeds, it reshapes the world. If it fails…” She met his gaze. “The blast radius will incinerate our borders. We cannot be mere observers, Kerr. We must be players.”
A cold knot formed in his gut. He knew that tone. He knew that look. “Anora.”
“They will listen to a Queen. To a King-Consort. To the people who drove out the Orlesians and held this damned country together with spit and wire. Our voice carries weight the Banns do not.”
“You’re six months pregnant,” he said, his voice low. The child in his arms babbled, oblivious.
“I am aware of the contents of my own body,” she snapped, then immediately pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’m sorry.I am. But don’t you see? This is the moment. This is the pivot. We stay here, we mind the children and the grain reports, and we let the fate of every mage and templar—and by extension, every kingdom—be decided without us. We become reactive. We wait for the fallout to land on our fields.” She stood up, the blanket falling away. The royal dress she wore was already let out at the seams, accommodating her shape. She looked like a general surveying a map. “Or we go. We ensure Ferelden’s stability is part of the discussion from the very beginning.”
Kerr set their son down. The boy wandered off to investigate a dust mote dancing in a sunbeam. He stepped close to Anora, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. “The mountain passes are treacherous this time of year. The travel alone…”
“Is a problem we can solve. With guards.With healers. With a comfortable litter and a month of careful travel.” She placed her hands over his. Her fingers were cold. “I need you with me. Not just as my husband. I need your shield, your sense of the field. I need you to watch my back while I watch the politics.”
He searched her face. The pragmatism was there, the fierce protectiveness of Ferelden. But beneath it, he saw something else: the sharp, ambitious hunger of Anora Mac Tir, who had fought for a throne and knew that to keep it, you sometimes had to leave it. You had to march to the heart of the crisis.
The memory of the previous night—a different kind of hunger, a different kind of exhaustion—felt like a lifetime ago. That was the foundation. This, now, was the fortress they had built upon it.
He sighed, the sound a surrender to inevitability. He pulled her into him, careful of her stomach, and rested his chin on top of her head. He smelled lavender and worry. “When do we leave?”
She relaxed against him, just a fraction. “We’ll need two weeks to prepare. To establish the regency. She pulled back, her gaze sharpening. “We’ll need to review every agent’s report from Orlais and the Free Marches. I want to know what every Grand Cleric is having for breakfast. And we need to decide what we’re willing to trade, and what we are not.”
He nodded, the weight of it settling on him. Not the weight of a sword, but of a decision that would ripple through their children’s lives. “Okay.”
She cupped his face, her touch surprisingly tender. “This is how we protect them, Kerr. Not just with walls and guards.With foresight. With a seat at the table.”
Outside, the palace was beginning to stir. A distant clatter from the kitchens, the call of a guard changing watch. The morning light grew stronger, illuminating the dust in the air, the forgotten toy, the stark white letter on the floor.
The quiet was over. The world, with all its violent, complicated problems, had just knocked on their door. And they were going out to meet it.
Kerr, also brilliant in his own way, had another idea. He tells his lady wife he will head to the circle to seek out Irving and Dagna. He had freed the tower and prevented the right of annulment. He would need them to return the favor. He didn’t fear magic, but he respected it. Not being imbued with the gift himself, he would need the armorers of Orzamar to develop ways to defend it. Dagna was gifted in runecraft, and could imbue armors and weapons with magic properties, both offensive and defensive. He would need all of it for the trials to come, for he was foreseeing a new nightmare.
He would need all of it for the trials to come, for he was foreseeing a new nightmare.
He kept his arms around her, his voice dropping to a murmur meant only for her ears. “We go to the Conclave. You play the Grand Game. But I have a condition, Anora. A plan of my own.”
She tilted her head back to look at him, her expression wary but alert. “Go on.”
“Before we travel to the mountains, I head to Kinloch Hold.” He felt her stiffen slightly. “I freed that tower. I prevented the Right of Annulment. That’s a debt. I’m calling it in.”
“From Irving? He’s an appeaser, Kerr. A politician in robes.”
“From Irving, yes. For access. But more from Dagna.” His mind was moving now, pieces clicking into place with a clarity that felt like drawing a blade. “She’s not just a runecrafter. She’s a genius. The kind that sees the world in layers we can’t.”
Anora pulled away fully, turning to face him. The morning light cut across her cheekbone. “You want magical defenses.”
“I respect what I don’t understand,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “We’re walking into a room full of raw power and shattered tempers. Politics won’t stop a fireball if someone panics. Steel might not either. I need armor that can. Weapons that can.” He gestured vaguely, frustration edging his words. “You’ll have your spies and your compromises. I’ll have my own arsenal. Dagna’s work… it’s not just magic. It’s a science. She can imbue a shield to dissipate force, a blade to cut through spells. I’ve seen her notes. It’s possible.”
She was silent for a long moment, her gaze analytical, weighing not just the idea but him. “You’d go alone? To the Circle?”
To the Circle?”
“Not alone. I’ll take a handful of the old crew. The ones who know how to be quiet.” He folded his arms, the muscles in his shoulders tightening. “But I’m not going as King-Consort. I’m going as the man who stormed that tower. The Hero of Ferelden calling in a favor. It’s a different face, Anora. It gets a different answer.”
She arched a brow, a sarcastic twist to her mouth. “Kerr, you are approximately half-ogre. You could stand in an empty field and get noticed. The ‘quiet approach’ left your repertoire around the time you stopped fitting into normal-sized trousers.”
A slow grin spread across his face, the mischievous glint returning. It was the look he got right before doing something stupid and brilliant. “I snuck into Castle Denerim. I killed Arl Howe and every soldier between the dungeon and your father’s throne room. I freed you.” He took a step closer, his voice dropping. “No one noticed me until I wanted them to.”
The memory washed over her, vivid and sudden: the dungeon’s damp chill, the despair, then the door swinging open to reveal not a rescuer, but a wraith coated in blood and shadow, his eyes the only warm thing in the darkness. Her guarded heart, a fortress of political calculation, had felt that warmth like a crack in stone, letting in a dangerous, vital light. A real smile, soft and private, touched her lips now.
“That’s true,” she conceded, her tone shifting. “You were a ghost. Right up until you blitzed Cauthrien and her entire squad in the palace vestibule. Then you were rather conspicuously a hurricane.”
He shrugged, the motion easy. “Cauthrien never knew when to turn down a fight.”
“And you did?” Anora shook her head, a laugh caught in her throat. She closed the distance between them. She didn’t reach up. She simply stepped into him and jumped, trusting him to catch her, her hands finding his shoulders.
He caught her effortlessly, his hands sliding under her thighs to support her weight, her pregnant belly pressed between them. Her face was level with his. “Neither did you,” she whispered, her breath warm against his lips.
She kissed him, hard and brief, a punctuation mark. Then she pushed back, and he set her down gently. “Go. Be a ghost. Get your magic toys.” She smoothed her dress, the Queen reassembling herself around the core of the wife. “Just don’t linger. We have a Conclave to prepare for.”
He kissed her once more, a firm press that tasted of resolve and cold toast. He didn’t say goodbye. He never did. He turned, grabbed his worn leather jerkin from the bedpost, and shrugged it on over his bare shoulders.
At the door, he paused. The page was now trying to wear the coal scuttle as a helmet. “Watch your mother,” Kerr said to the boy, his voice soft.
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving Anora in the suddenly-too-quiet room with the scent of sandalwood, lavender, and the lingering imprint of his hands on her skin.
She grabs his shirt and holds it to her face, taking in the comfort of his familiar scent.