Second-Born

To you, my second-born, I grant this gift:
In your heart shall burn
An unquenchable flame

~Threnodies 5:7

"This is unwise, Maric," Loghain said, and as usual, Maric didn't listen.

"Isolde believes the rumors about the boy," Maric said. "She means to send him to the monastery as soon as he's old enough, which will be by Wintersend. I'd like to see him at least once before he's lost to me for good," Maric told his old friend as he mounted his dappled gray gelding. "I don't want yet another regret weighing me down." He averted his eyes from Loghain's critical stare. If there was one thing the two had known in the many years they'd been friends, it was regret.

"You make choices that mystify the mind, Maric," Loghain said at last, in his voice made hard by years of commanding troops across battlefields. "But alas, you are the one who's king here, not me. Be off and be assured matters will be taken care of here in Denerim."

"I never doubted they would be, old friend," Maric said. "May the Maker watch over you, Loghain Mac Tir."

"And over you, Maric Theirin."

Maric trotted his horse into the yard where a contingent of hand-picked knights waited, along with his son, Cailan. The boy made a dashing figure on his ruddy brown bay horse, sitting as easily in the saddle as if he were at table. He must have gotten that from his mother; Maker knew Maric couldn't ride a horse that well at Cailan's age. They rode through the gates and out into the palace courtyard, then through the streets of Denerim in the quiet morning. Some women were out hanging the wash, while others brought pails of milk into modest homes. They paused to bow to the King and the Prince as they passed, and Maric offered nods and smiles of acknowledgement. Cailan watched his father and imitated him, at which Maric was inwardly pleased. The smell of wood smoke tainted the otherwise crisp early winter morning, and for a time the only sound was that of hooves on the packed road.

"Father, why must we go to Redcliffe again?" Cailan asked, trotting his horse up alongside Maric. His black fur-lined cloak framed his fair features. His cheeks were red with the cold and his jaw clenched to keep from chattering. Maric smiled. The boy had grown up in the comfort of a palace, so different from his own upbringing in nomadic rebel camps.

"I have family business to attend to," he told his son, and it wasn't entirely a lie. Arl Eamon of Redcliffe was his brother-in-law, and the Arling was a major hub on the southern tip of Lake Calenhad.

"Why doesn't Uncle Eamon ever come to Denerim for family business? Why must we always go there, especially in the winter?" A sharp look silenced Cailan, but only for a moment. "If we're to continue making these trips, you should have the weapons master teach me proper sword technique," he said, daring a furtive glance at his father.

Maric sighed and didn't answer that right away. Cailan had been on him for some time now about this. How to explain to an eager fourteen-year-old boy his reasons for delaying proper weapons training? When he was Cailan's age he could wield a sword and shield, and shoot a bow at a stationary target. But all that was done out of necessity. It was war then. Ferelden had known peace for almost twenty years. In some way Maric supposed he wanted to preserve his son's innocence. But in his teenaged way, Cailan thought his father was holding him back. "Maybe after the Wintersend festival," he said at last. That placated Cailan, and for the next hours they rode quietly, making occasional small talk.

The trip from Denerim to Redcliffe took several days, and a snowstorm delayed them for one of those days. Maric and Cailan shared a large tent while soldiers patrolled the perimeter and kept a fire stoked and sheltered from the driving snow as best they could. Maric used the time to instruct his son in Fereldan history and the Chant of Light, topics that had been drilled into Cailan for years. Indeed, the boy could recall verses of the Chant before he'd even learned to write his letters. Cailan was bored by this review lesson, but it was important for a future king to be well-versed in both the history and religion of his people. And Cailan didn't realize it now, maybe he never would, but these moments of a father teaching a son were times Maric hadn't had growing up. He didn't recall much about his own father. His mother was murdered when he was eighteen, and he'd had to learn to be a king by trial and error. Cailan would thank him someday.

"There aren't any threats to the throne now, are there?" Cailan asked. He reclined on the sleeping furs, his blond hair falling over a shoulder and the flickering lamplight reflecting in his sky blue eyes.

"Just because we've been at peace doesn't mean there aren't threats, Cailan," Maric told his son. "The king is always under threat. To think he is not is to grow complacent, and that invites chaos and even death." He smiled and moved to douse the lamp. "Sleep, my son. We'll ride forward in the morning."

Cailan sighed and flopped back on the furs and Maric wrapped himself in his own blankets. Outside the wind howled for hours and still the King of Ferelden stared into the dark. Perhaps he was being foolish, as Loghain said; the Teyrn was usually right, and Maric knew he owed Loghain his life many times over. The plain truth of the matter was that there was a threat to the throne. Cailan, snoring lightly across the tent, didn't know, and Maric hoped he never would. Though with that boy, it was hard to tell; he had a quick intelligence he usually hid behind his charming looks.

The greatest threat to the throne wasn't Orlesians, angry about Ferelden's independence. It wasn't Chasind barbarians ready to swoop upon the south of the land. It wasn't even the darkspawn that haunted the Deep Roads beneath the country.

It was a nine year old boy.

Though Maric traveled to Redcliffe often, he rarely saw the boy. At times he wanted to ask Eamon to fetch him, but wasn't sure what reaction that would net from the Arl's young wife, Isolde. Eamon's letters to Maric had confided, in a roundabout way, that Isolde thought the boy was his child. "She grows more jealous with each passing day. She doesn't say so, but I know she's heard the rumors and means to act. Dear brother-in-law, the rumors peg me as the father," Eamon wrote. While Maric had sighed in relief at that, he still felt troubled.

One thing Cailan wouldn't understand, until he actually was king, was how much it meant being indebted to others. If Maric owed Loghain his life, he owed Eamon his reputation.

Of course Loghain had questioned that choice, as well. "You'd send your bastard to live with the brother of your dead wife?" Loghain asked. Even when he was merely incredulous he still sounded angry. "The mother of your child, heir to the throne of Ferelden?" Loghain had rubbed his eyes, then stared at Maric, blinking, as if he was really seeing the man before him. "Maker's breath, man. Have you no decency?"

It stung, but Maric was steadfast. "I can't keep him here in Denerim, and I won't send him to any of those squabbling pests in the Bannorn." He met Loghain's chill gaze. "He may be illegitimate, but he is still my son, and I won't have him sent somewhere to be ill-treated. I can trust Eamon because he's Rowan's brother." The mention of Maric's dead wife brought both men to silence. "There's nothing I can say that will convince you of my choice," Maric said at last. "But I won't leave my son to the unknown."

Cailan was five, nearly six; the child a few months old. Maric had been unable to say no to Fiona, not when she looked at him with her beautiful eyes asking him to take the child. "Let him think I died, let him think I abandoned him. Let him think what he wants, just don't let him know who I really was," the elven mage told him, handing the blue-eyed bundle to Maric while Duncan watched on. Though Maric asked her to stay she shook her head sadly and departed, leaving him with two sons, one of whom had the potential to be the greatest threat to his reign since the Orlesians.

In spite of Loghain's disapproval, Arl Eamon of Redcliffe had taken in the baby, named Alistair. It was risky to write to the King about Alistair's well-being, so Maric satisfied his curiosity with regular trips to Redcliffe. Unfortunately, those trips were rarely as satisfying as he hoped.

He was taking a risk this time, but like he'd told Loghain, he couldn't have yet another regret hanging off of him. He couldn't ask the Arlessa to reconsider her choice to send Alistair away without arousing more curiosity than was necessary. He couldn't take the boy to Denerim without Cailan asking questions, or anyone else with a clever eye noting the resemblance. He couldn't do anything except hope to see his second-born son face to face at least once.

And see him was all he did. Alistair was a scrawny boy of nine, shy and uncertain in the presence of his betters. He'd clearly been freshly bathed; his sandy hair was still damp, the skin behind his ears pink from scrubbing, and he bore a strong resemblance to Cailan at that age. He tried not to mumble and he looked to Eamon for approval before answering the King. Maric longed to reach out to the boy, to take him and hold him the way he'd held Cailan when he returned from the Deep Roads and Kinloch Hold. He wanted to talk to the boy and swing him around and hear him laugh.

All he could do was stare down at the nine-year-old threat to his reign and give him the Maker's blessing. Alistair mumbled the correct response. Eamon later confirmed what Maric feared, the boy hadn't learned his letters, but at least he knew the Chant. "He'll learn at the monastery," Isolde said, brushing away Maric's concern. "I'll be glad to be rid of him," she added with a glance at Eamon that told Maric all his brother-in-law had endured the last nine years. "Shall I see to supper?" she then asked, smiling and heading into the kitchens.

"You must forgive her, Maric," Eamon said in a low voice, and Maric realized he was clenching his fists. "She doesn't know; no one does."

"What did you tell everyone?" Maric asked in an equally low voice. He'd had years to ask these questions and hadn't, always counting on having more time. Now that he didn't have it, he felt he had to know everything.

"A serving girl passed in childbirth shortly before you brought Alistair. Her baby died as well, but we kept the boy here in the castle for a time, then hired new nursemaids and told them he was that woman's bastard child." Eamon listened for the click of Isolde's step, and not hearing it, turned back to Maric. "No one knows."

"Thank you for that, Eamon," Maric said. "Truly. I don't know how…" he reached into his leather side pouch, but Eamon held out his hand to stop him.

"You gave Rowan the happiest years of her life," he said. "If this was the only way I could repay you for that, then consider my debt fulfilled. I only wish…" He stopped and Maric knew Isolde was returning.

"Where has Cailan gotten to?" Maric asked loudly, and as she walked in, brushing the honey-brown curls out of her face, Isolde merely shrugged.

"I do not know, but he is lucky to have such an attentive father," she said with a smile. "I hope he realizes how lucky he is."

Maric only nodded and let Isolde take the gesture as she would. He didn't feel like an attentive father right now, nor did he feel like a good man. He felt… pain. Pain he couldn't share with anyone, because no one would understand. It burned in him like an unquenchable flame.

Maric and Cailan left the next day, making it the shortest visit they'd had to Redcliffe yet. Cailan was surprised, but pleasantly so and Maric was pleased with his son's change in disposition. Then Cailan mentioned sparring with Alistair. Maric focused on the road ahead of him and fielded Cailan's questions while trying to ignore the way they stoked the painful fire inside of him. "Cailan," he said suddenly. "When we return to Denerim I'll have Master Wade forge you a proper practice blade, and have Master Durin begin your training. You're right; it is high time you learn skills with a blade." It had the effect of changing the subject and lifting Cailan's spirits, and Maric's son chattered like a forest squirrel through the snowy Bannorn.

"So, Maric, was your business all you'd hoped?" Loghain asked days later when they rode into the palace in Denerim.

"No, Loghain," Maric said, stripping off his heavy travel cloak and kicking off his fur-lined boots. He remembered the sad blue eyes and the way Alistair trembled, wondered what had transpired between his two sons when they were out of his sight. But he couldn't ask either of them anything; Alistair was to be sent away, and Cailan would suspect too much.

Loghain nodded knowingly, but there was none of the usual wry amusement etched on his craggy face. "Well, it's done now, at least."

"Yes, at least it's done," Maric echoed, but he didn't feel like it was even close to finished. He looked around the palace where one son slept, safe and warm and bored by it all. It was all so different from the stables and kennels where his other son slept, cold and always uncertain about what his future would hold. He could give Cailan everything. But he'd given Alistair, his second-born, the only thing he was able to: one glimpse of his father. It would never be enough, and though he'd hoped to allay one more regret, Maric knew he'd only been fooling himself.