I Am Yours

Chapter 6

In the early days of their journey, as Naia adjusted to the new and unfamiliar weight on her shoulders, she learned that the only way she could stop thinking about everything that depended on her was to focus on the others—to help them where she could, even if she could only listen. Keeping her eye on their worries and fears helped her ignore her own.

She learned many surprising things about her companions. Serene Wynne was living on borrowed time. Leliana had been an assassin, and had survived torture and the cruelest sort of betrayal. Sten, for all his stoicism, carried guilt and shame with every step. Even Morrigan had her scars, largely left by her mother's strange upbringing.

It was strange, though, to see herself reflected in their eyes. Wynne saw a girl in need of mentoring and the occasional lecture. Sten saw a leader, though his respect came slowly and had been hard-won. Morrigan saw ... well, Naia wasn't sure what Morrigan saw, but it apparently made the sorceress sneer a lot. Alistair and Leliana looked at her and saw a friend—and a hero. That second part was disconcerting, since the more choices Naia made, the more lives she took, the less heroic she felt.

The only person who seemed to really see her was Zevran.

Months after accepting him into their group, Naia still found the assassin a puzzle. He flirted with everyone shamelessly but provided startlingly good advice when things turned serious. He tried very hard to seem frivolous, but he had a gift for seeing straight through to a person's core. He bragged cheerfully about a gruesome past—especially when Wynne tried to lecture him on his lack of morals—but when he told stories about the Crows, they seldom ended with him taking a life.

She teased him about that, once, after he told a story about falling naked into a river during a mission gone amusingly wrong. "You never seem to kill anyone in these stories. I'm starting to think you weren't a very good assassin."

He winked at her. "Ah, my Warden. I fear my tales of skill and success are not fit for such lovely ears."

"Try me," she said wryly. "Come on. Tell me—wait, I know. Tell me about the contract you had before mine. Your last mission for the Crows."

His face went still, all humor gone. "I—that is not a pleasant story, Grey Warden. I would prefer to keep it to myself."

Naia forced herself to change the subject. Zevran's evasion had more than piqued her curiosity, but she understood the wish to keep painful things private.

The more they talked, the more she came to like him. And the more she liked him, the brighter that spark of attraction burned. She'd had a handful of affairs in the alienage; they had been enjoyable enough, but always a bit fumbling and awkward, and—given the lack of privacy in most alienage homes—over quickly.

She suspected things would be different with Zevran. Very different.

Then came the night outside Denerim, when she'd come within half a second of kissing him. She had only stopped herself when she felt the alcohol begin to flood her limbs and brain. Not even a Grey Warden could drink a full cup of whiskey in under thirty minutes without consequences, it seemed, and she didn't want to embarrass herself. She managed to make it back to her tent before collapsing in a heap on top of her blankets, utterly unconscious.

She slept fitfully, and dreamed of the Archdemon.

She woke the next morning with a headache to go with the lingering terror of her dreams. After drinking most of her canteen of water and splashing the rest of it across her face, she emerged from her tent to find Zevran sitting no more than ten paces away, nonchalantly sharpening his left-hand dagger for the day ahead.

"Good morning, my Warden. I would ask how you are feeling, but I suspect I know." He grinned at her, taking in the way she shielded her eyes from the morning sun, wincing at the light.