Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Staggering away from him, Alistair's smile froze and he held his hands open. Reiss began to pace back and forth while arguing in her head. Silence decimated the easy atmosphere, dragging his hands down until they dangled limply at his side. "Reiss?"

  His plea of her name froze her in place. Screwing her eyes up tight, she spat out quickly, "I thought I was pregnant."

  Nary a peep echoed from Alistair at her revelation. Popping open an eye, she watched him standing stock still staring at her. "But I'm not. It was my illness, the healer seemed to think it could be a pregnancy but it wasn't. Yet I took the test because I wasn't certain and I keep thinking that...that I should, um...we."

  A soft chuckle broke from Alistair and he fluffed up his hair, "Is that all? It's no problem."

  "What?!" she rounded on him, every anxiety induced second honing her anger to a diamond edge. "What do you mean no problem? A child would be...it's not as if it'd be your body carrying it. Or, I mean, we'd be stuck together forever because of a baby and..."

  Alistair frowned at her last sentence, his eyes flaring, "Would it be so bad to be stuck with me like that?"

  "No," Reiss shouted, a strange certainty gripping her tongue, before she backed down to a whimper, "I don't know. I mean, we barely know each other and a child, with me..." She felt tears trying to burn in her eyes and snapped her lids tight to stop them. "Where would I even go? None of your advisors or chancellors, nor anyone in the alienage would suffer a half-elven bastard."

  "Joke's on them," Alistair whispered to himself. The cavalier attitude rubbed her raw, Reiss shirking back at him. His life wouldn't be little more than inconvenienced to acknowledge another child while hers would be forever changed, perhaps even destroyed and he didn't seem to give one shit for it.

  Reading that something was wrong in the air, Alistair shook his head and tried to scrub his face, "Look, I'm not saying the idea wouldn't be a problem in the abstract way. I just mean it's not an issue because if you did get pregnant it wouldn't be because of me."

  "What?!" growled out of Reiss' throat. Was he really saying that it was even worse than she feared? That he'd abandon her, refuse to claim the child of his own in order to avoid the stigma of having little bastards running around? He'd turn his back on one of his own children, no doubt sentencing him or her to a life on the streets? Raw fire licked up her throat, the rage bursting with an unquenchable fear at the heart. She thought he was better than that.

  "That isn't..." he slapped his hands together and began to pace back and forth. "I didn't mean it like that. It's that, look..." Alistair worried his fingers through his hair and in a broken voice whispered, "I can't have children."

  "You have two," she sneered, "one of whom is barely four months on the ground."

  At that Alistair reared back, her truth striking him hard. Was he really under the delusion that he could make himself sterile at will? Or was he once again refusing any responsibility without flat out admitting it? Maker, were there other women who'd birthed his bastards that he turned away? Reiss felt as if someone kept yanking fresh rugs out from under her.

  Drifting away from her burning eyes, Alistair pinched into the bridge of his nose and began to sway as if he was trying to console himself. "They are my kids," he said, his words punctuated by slow breaths, "but..." Alistair swallowed deep, but didn't look at her. "I am incapable of creating children and have been for years and years. It's part of being a Grey Warden."

  No. That couldn't be right. He...it was a trick, or... Reiss' sneering paused at the stricken look marring his cheeks. They dangled off his cheekbones like wet sheets on the line, a frown dragging them further downward. "I don't understand. Are you telling me the princess and prince are not yours?"

  "They are my children!" he shouted at the air, his hand smacking into the palm to emphasize it. Reiss felt her body want to cower, but she held her place. She had to. "Heart and soul mine. Heirs to the throne, carry the name..." His thunder rolled away and he wilted a moment, "just not the same blood."

  "The Brother," Reiss meant to whisper to herself, but the King snorted once at it. People were quick to notice the Queen's affections for a certain man almost always in her circle, and the rumors grew more rampant after Cailan opened those big blue eyes of his. Blue eyes that neither the King nor Queen possessed, but the friendly Brother always at Beatrice's side shared with her newest babe. "Cailan I can see, but your daughter..."

  Alistair didn't speak but he nodded softly.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because it's none of your business," he rose up from glaring at the ground, the thunder ringing in his words. "It's none of anyone's business but mine, and..."

  "Your wife's," Reiss cut back at him with. Sweet Maker, if he really wasn't their father then had he and the Queen ever been together?

  "I won't let anyone hurt my daughter or son," Alistair rose up higher in his shoes, his imposing frame filling the room. It quickly reminded Reiss how much smaller she was in comparison. "Not her future, nor the Maker damn succession to the throne. She is mine, my child, and no one can alter that fact!"

  Reiss let his shout finish ringing in his room, the echo pinging off the swords and shields left to rot upon the walls. After a moment, she pursed her lips and softly nodded her head. Alistair deflated at her agreeing to keep the secret. It wasn't as if she was in some lofted position where anyone would believe her anyway.

  "You should have told me," she whispered. The tremor in her gut was building, threatening to tear apart and spill forth all the demons she kept swallowing back. So many worries Reiss didn't even notice festered inside her.

  "It never mattered before," Alistair resumed pacing. "Before my children, the women didn't...they never asked. They could take care of it themselves if they wanted and I..." Groaning, he scrubbed his face, "I keep forgetting you're not a mage."

  "Do you wish I was?" Reiss couldn't bite down the wobble in her voice.

  "What? No, Maker's sake."

  "A mage, just like all the other mages before, to play with and then cast aside," the tears started and she felt the tarp over her fears tear open. Every worry, every doubt burst through the hole crashing up her throat.

  "That isn't what happened," Alistair jabbed at the air. "I'm not like that. Maker's breath, I thought you knew me better than that."

  "How can I when you won't tell me things? About you? About me? Our future? No," Reiss tried to stem the tears with her hands, the cold metal of the gloves pressing against her cheekbones. "No children, no possibility of marriage, not even letting it out in the open. Nothing but secret meetings behind locked doors and stolen moments. That's the only possibility with you. Forever."

  "What do you want from me?" Alistair shrieked, his voice scratching in agony. "I'm trapped under this damn crown, okay. If I could get out I would, but I can't, ever."

  "You wouldn't even try for the Hero of Ferelden," Reiss shuddered, the woman's words finally bursting to understanding behind her eyes. She would have to fight every day for him, for his attention, for a place in his life, and... A whimper rolled up her throat at the exhaustion from it all.

  Alistair cracked at her words, his anger breaking in half and tumbling away to leave behind a tremble in his lip. "This is different, what we have is different."

  "How?"

  "I'm blighted trying!" Alistair shouted. "Fine, I didn't tell you about the kid thing, I'm sorry. I was too busy thinking of protecting my children first."

  Reiss winced at that, understanding his thinking but unable to shake off the feeling of betrayal festering under her skin. He should have told her, or at least thought of her and offered up ways to combat pregnancy beyond knowing he was sterile.

  "But I don't want to lose you," Alistair grabbed onto her hand and almost dropped to a knee to beg. "It's why I made certain you had a job here, so you'd be close and..."

  "Available."

  "That isn't what I meant," he growled while also groveling, always quick to defend his honor.
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  Reiss shook her head, a million thoughts stinging her mind like hornets. Her heart beat erratically, the blood rushing through her ears while a single though rang in her head. "I...I can't do this. I thought I could, but..."

  "Reiss," he begged, both hands clinging tight to hers while his eyes tried to find her.

  She could see her future with him, the true one without romance's rosy glasses getting in the way. There'd be no certainty, no children, only whispered promises as ethereal as a soap bubble. Even her job depended fully upon the King's whims, Reiss already well aware of the Commander's opinion of her. He still called her Corporal to her face. The second she displeased Alistair, she'd lose everything: her job, her home, him. But this wouldn't even be a home, with every person too afraid to either befriend or despise her. Reiss would be a ghost drifting through the halls, touching no one and nothing save the King.

  "I thought I was strong enough," she whimpered, wishing her words could make it so. That somehow steel would pour through her spine, shoring her steps to shake off any fears she'd have from Cade, and harden her heart to the loneliness of a life without friends or even acquaintances. She'd survived it before, for years, but that wasn't living. Even with him in her life, Reiss would wither away, only instinct and routine carrying her onward to death.

  She tried to tug her hands out of his, but Alistair seemed frozen, his eyes staring through her. At her movement, he focused anew upon her face and swallowed hard, "Please, please don't do this. Don't leave me. Not now, not after..."

  Tears dripped down her eyes, even as she tried to suck them back into place. Crying wasn't helping, but she couldn't stop. Her heart was banging against its cage, begging to take back everything she said and fall into his arms. But her brain turned away from it, knowing that this was the only answer.

  Alistair's eyes burned red, his skin paling whiter than snow as he watched her grow more set in her decision. "Reiss, I don't want to lose you."

  Her legs wobbled below her, the tremors knocking her about as she tried to mentally distance herself, "I'm certain that in time..."

  "Maker's sake, I love you!" he shouted, a single sob punctuating the sentence.

  "No," her hands slipped out of his, Alistair coming undone from his own confession. "It's not..." She shook away his words, certain that they were nothing more than a desperate cry from a man not getting his way. "I can't do it. I wish I could, but I'm not right for you."

  "Just like that?" he clung to himself while trying to hang on to the threads between them Reiss shredded apart. "After everything I've, everything we..."

  She should say something, explain how the world wouldn't understand, wouldn't ever let them be, but her throat constricted tight. Too many sobs were crowding out her words. Tears welled up, ready to burst free and all Reiss could do was slowly nod her head. Before Alistair could reach out and beg again, let his earnest charms win her over to him until Reiss became a shell of herself, she fled out of his room to her own. The tears burst free from her eyes, already streaming down her cheeks.

  Behind her she heard Alistair collapse to a knee and hiss, "Maker damn it all!"

  Slamming the door behind her, Reiss fumbled for the key in her pocket and for the first time locked it between them. Not because of what he would do, but fearing that her heart would drag her back to him. After testing the latch, the keys scattered from her fingers and she plummeted to her ass. Fingers tried to cover up the tears that may never stop pouring from the wound in her soul. Rocking back and forth, Reiss tried to cling to her single shred of sanity.

  Through the door she could hear Alistair moaning. In a voice to match him, she whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Misery

  People were quick to notice two things about their King: that his bodyguard was no longer hovering close to his elbow, and that asking him about it was liable to get them thrown into the dungeon. Alistair insisted he was only kidding the first time, but no one was willing to test just how far his kidding would stretch before snapping. The throbbing jaw from gritted teeth and eyes that looked as if he spent the night drinking were enough of a hint.

  He tried sleeping that night, but staying in his room so close to her only made him want to rip apart every dummy in the castle with his bare hands. Instead, the King paced up and down through his battlements while dressed in a long white robe he "borrowed" out of a laundry basket when it grew cold. Unbeknownst to Alistair, more than a few whispers grew that night that King Maric was haunting their very halls. Probably looking for revenge for his murder, as all ghost Kings did. Alistair never stopped long enough to hear anything, to see anything, he feared that if he stopped moving he'd start thinking and then crying, and never stop.

  By dawn's light, a few of the servants -- while pumping out the well -- stumbled across their King half jammed inside the stable window while he spoke to the horses. He was a mess, the stubble that gave him more of a cavalier look was brittle as grass after a flash frost, and nearly as white. The bags under his eyes went and bought themselves an entire castle's worth of furniture just to put in storage, and the less said about the hue of his putrid skin the better. A few even threatened to send for a healer which Alistair responded to by saying he'd get changed and maybe shave for once.

  Charles did his best, but there wasn't much saving a man who had his heart crushed inside his chest. It was rather impressive Alistair was even upright. His mind kept tricking over the stupidest thing it could find. From the hours of 2 in the morning until four or whenever the Sister's sang, he kept trying to remember the exact lyrics to a bawdy dwarven pub tune Oghren tried to teach him. It was in dwarven, which Alistair didn't know, and apparently full of double entendres. The task took nearly all of his brain power and he dug elbows into it, doing his best to not think of...

  A vase of daises sat perched upon the table beside the window. How did he not see them when he walked in? Alistair plucked up one of the flowers, its yellow color fading to a dull red-orange as time came for them. His fingers dusted over the fragile petals, stricken by the urge to rip each one off the stem, but...

  Returning the flower back to its vase, he groaned, his head falling to his chest. His hollow, ransacked, stomped and spat on chest. It'd never hurt this bad before, not with the other mages. Most of them either drifted away, a few were legendary shouting matches with Alistair trying to come up with even more outlandish things to finally get her to go away. But with each he'd feel a moment of loss, a pang of regret, and then move on after drinking heavy for a night.

  All he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and never come out. But he couldn't do that, because there was an entire country wanting his attention and a full castle that knew nothing about how badly he fell for his bodyguard. He had to finish this, the right way. She'd blindsided him yesterday, leaving Alistair stuttering in his room alone and trying to scrape his brains off the floor. After adjusting the knots along his biceps, he nodded to the broken man in the mirror. Just one more talk. Despite his best efforts to drown it out, hope circled his legs like the minnows in a stream. Maybe if they were lucky, food would fall from the sky. And maybe, if he was lucky, Reiss would realize that she didn't want to turn her back on him, on everything he offered to her.

  Alistair was never lucky.

  Raising his fist, he got one solid knock on their shared door before it crumpled against the wood. Maker's sake, what was he doing? How could he do this? He was going to just waltz in there and let her go with his heart as if it was a matter of signing off on some paperwork. Shouldn't he fight or at least argue that she was wrong, that he deserved another chance to...to do what? What did he even do wrong?

  When the latch drew across the door, Alistair leaped backwards. It opened a sliver, revealing one of Reiss' eyes, bloodshot and hunting through him.

  Every resolve inside his body died a quick death. "I...we need to talk."

  He anticipated an argument, for her to state that she'd finished what she
had to and slam the door in his face, but she nodded her head and slowly drew the door back. Alistair stood in his room, warily eyeing up the one refuge that they'd been free to hold each other, to talk to each other, to be with each other. Its once welcoming warmth warped to a sickness knotting his stomach with visions of what could have been.

  "You can come in," Reiss' voice scratched across his ears, the words barely forming through the gravel.

  Like a skittish rabbit, Alistair slunk into the room they shared. He noticed the bed looked as if no one had slept in it, a pile of blankets strewn across the ground instead. "I...I'm setting out for the Hinterlands today."

  "Right," Reiss grimaced, "I forgot."

  "If you..." He couldn't look at her. He was so mad at her for breaking his heart he wanted to rage and growl, but seeing her in pain overrode all that anger and he just wanted to comfort her. As if he could ever hope to do it again. Shaking off the thought, Alistair gripped his hands tight to his back and tried to stand up higher, "If you intend to leave then you will have to go through Karelle."

  She didn't look at him, her eyes burning a hole through the ugly braided rug. At first her head shook, as if she was about to disagree with his words, but a breath pushed a single, "Okay," through her lips.

  Andraste, he'd never get to kiss those lips again.

  "She will walk you through untangling any remaining...ties you have and will handle any remaining pay necessary." Maker, every word stung him like he was breathing in fire. Alistair didn't cry, he never did when he was with people. But alone, when no one could hear or see, he collapsed into a heap groaning on the floor. Black and blue bruises coated his bony kneecaps, which Charles was kind enough to not mention.

  Reiss nodded, perhaps she'd already made arrangements with Karelle and was on her way out. It was doubtful he could add anything to her life anymore aside from a lingering grief. After a moment, she lifted her head and those summery eyes he wanted to lose himself forever in focused upon him. "I..."