"Absolutely not!"

Bann Teagan had been warned to expect resistance, but he was unprepared for the virulence of Elissa's resolve against the proposal he'd been sent to convey.

"I'm merely the messenger, Your Grace," he replied, cautiously, mindful that the Teyrna of Gwaren was reportedly as good with a blade today as she'd been ten years ago at the Siege of Denerim. "The Queen asks only that you consider the benefits of…the arrangement."

"The arrangement?" she scoffed, going to the window. She peered out to the courtyard, where Alistair and their son, Duncan, were swordfighting with sticks. Alistair showed the boy how to thrust and parry, and then collapsed exaggeratedly onto the ground from mock mortal mounds. Elissa smiled.

Teagan continued carefully, "Your son and the Queen's daughter would seem to be of an appropriate age to—"

"Teagan, unless you're about to say 'share toys,' I suggest you stop right there," she warned, without taking her eyes off her boy.

The boy was a singular miracle; Grey Wardens were not exactly known for their fertility. When Elissa had found herself with child at Weisshaupt, no one had been more surprised than she. Some of their fellow wardens had theorized that it was because she and Alistair were both wardens, both bearing the taint, that such a thing was possible; it was a thought that shook Elissa to her core, that their child might be marred by his parents' taint. More than one warden at Weisshaupt had urged Elissa and Alistair to consider "ending it." Instead, they were married, and returned to Ferelden, hoping for the best.

But the boy had been born healthy, and grown into the strong and gleeful four-year-old now before her. In darker moments, Elissa wondered whether his conception didn't have something to do with the results of the mage Avernus's research at Wardens' Keep, or, more distressingly, the ritual with Morrigan. But over the years she had learned to count her blessings, and now refused to dwell on it.

Anora couldn't have been happy with the news, Elissa knew. After all, the boy was Maric's grandchild, something that Anora was supposed to have had. The prevailing wisdom of the Bannorn was that news of the Teyrna's pregnancy had spurred the widowed queen to finally take a new husband, quickly settling on Bann Sighurd's son, Oswyn, to secure a royal line of her own. Like most of Anora's endeavors, it met with an almost disturbingly efficient success: a royal princess born within the year.

Elissa, for her part, had tried to be tactful. She'd invited none of the Bannorn to her son's naming ceremony save for his Uncle Fergus. She'd never taken Duncan to Denerim, nor did she plan to. Elissa, Teyrna of Gwaren, and her husband Alistair had sworn their loyalty to Queen Anora, and they meant to stand by it.

Only now, the queen was asking for too much. The queen was asking for their son.