Wicked Graces

Chapter Eight

Over the next ten days, Hawke kept busy familiarizing herself with the household staff and servants while aiding in preparations for the coronation. She brought order to it all with surprising alacrity, finding herself grinning quietly each time she realized how proud her mother would be, not just of her rise in station, but by how well she'd fallen in line with her duties. She really did have a knack for making order of absolute chaos; if only she could that with her own life, things would be grand.

As Coronation Day drew nearer, and the city and castle began to bustle with foreign diplomats come to see Starkhaven returned to its former glory, Sebastian refused to negotiate without Kirkwall at the table beside. Even Seneschal Bran would be delighted to see how well she represented the city's interests, inspiring several offers of financial support toward restorations, as well as volunteers to aid in rebuilding the central parts of the city destroyed during the rebellion.

It would take years to see Kirkwall set right again, and though she'd never quite thought the City of Chains her home, she was still its viscountess. People she loved were there, and she would do what she could to give them the peace and prosperity they deserved after the mayhem her actions brought to their lives.

With foreign dignitaries came news of several more mage uprisings throughout Thedas, circles dissolving, Templars abandoning the chantry, fighting in the hills and just beyond the borders of several countries. Everyone was sure a full-scale revolution was on the horizon; Hawke was convinced they were right. Still, the Templars in Starkhaven were steadfast in their watch over the few mages who took sanctuary in the chantry priory. The mages there had given no one cause to believe they intended to join the rebellion, but it worried her nonetheless that there was more going on beneath the city of Starkhaven than anyone dared to imagine. Living in Kirkwall had certainly corrupted her view of things.

At night in bed, Sebastian assured her she had nothing to fear; he would never allow what happened in Kirkwall to happen in his city. At the first sign of trouble, he wouldn't hesitate to rout out the offending mages and put an end to them before things got out of control like they did back in Kirkwall. And he would watch over the Templars, as well, making sure they were fair and just in their treatment of the few mages who did live in Starkhaven.

She trusted him, of course, but she'd grown slowly into her wariness for mages, seen far too much bad come out of something she always believed to be good, and her experiences did very little to persuade her into being more forthright about the child she still fretted over telling him she carried.

Deep down she knew her chances of even giving birth to a mage were fifty-fifty. She either would, or she wouldn't, and it would be years before the child's power manifested and she even knew the difference. Bethany had been a perfectly normal little girl, sweet and kind and full of laughter... until she set her bed sheets on fire in the throes of a bad dream. If they did have a mage, however, it would be up to her and Sebastian to teach their child the difference between right and wrong. Just like Malcolm Hawke taught little Bethany, but their father was a mage. He knew what he was doing... mostly.

Everything kept coming back to her sister, to the things Varric said that afternoon in the chantry. Bethany was everything good, and bright, and beautiful in the world, the very representation of what a mage should be. There was a reason Varric called her Sunshine: Bethany shone.

Much of that was their father's doing. Hawke remembered the lessons Malcolm taught her little sister. She used to make an effort to sit by and watch as he showed his youngest daughter how to channel her energy into a staff he crafted for her with his own two hands from an oak branch he brought back from the Brecilian Forest. She only needed to close her eyes to hear their father's voice calmly praising his little girl for doing exactly as he told her, to feel the guilty twinge of jealousy she'd felt as a child when she worried Daddy loved Bethy best because she was more like him.