When Fate Summons (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Promises

Anawyn awoke to darkness, and felt momentarily disoriented. There was something missing, she thought groggily, sitting up. In the dark, she listened, but all she could hear were the sounds of Orzammar, somewhere in the distance—did this city never sleep?—and she felt strange. It took her a few minutes, but she finally realized that it was the absence of feeling that seemed so odd. She could no longer feel Cybele's presence near her. The thought sent her into a panic, and she jumped up. As she did so, she heard the scrape of a match and a tiny light flared, glowing brighter as someone set the match to a sconce in the wall.

She looked around in shock. This was not the room in the White Bronto she'd gone to sleep in, and Granny and Cybele were nowhere to be seen. This was a lovely, opulent room with costly velvet hanging on the walls and a soft, thick rug at her feet.

Looking toward the light, Anawyn saw a female dwarf, who bowed immediately when she saw Anawyn looking at her. "Princess," she said. "It is an honor to have you here in Orzammar."

"Princess?" Anawyn said slowly. "I'm sorry, you must have the wrong person. I'm just ..." She broke off, remembering that she wasn't supposed to admit to her true identity.

The dwarf woman smiled. "If you will wait here, Princess, I will go and fetch the King. He has been waiting most anxiously for you to awaken." She left the room, leaving Anawyn standing next to the bed with her mouth hanging open.

The King? Was her father here in Orzammar? Her heart leaped in her chest before she realized that of course the woman must have been talking about the King of Orzammar, Uncle Gorim. Still, it was comforting to think she'd be seeing any familiar face. Anawyn sat down on the bed to wait.

Before long, the door opened again, and a red-headed dwarf with a pronounced limp came in. "Anawyn!" he said, holding his arms out to her.

"Uncle Gorim!" She clung to him, the first tie to home she'd seen since she ran away. Strictly speaking, she'd only met him once before, a couple of years ago at the opening of the dwarven kingdom of Kal'Hirol that lay beneath Amaranthine. Anawyn's mother had taken it back from the darkspawn with the help of Anders and Oghren and Nathaniel Howe, long ago when Anawyn was just a baby. "How—Where--?" She had so many questions, she stumbled over her tongue trying to get them out.

"How did I know you were here?" Anawyn nodded, and Gorim smiled. He gestured her toward a pair of chairs, making sure she was sitting before he took his own seat. "I've known you were missing for some time," he said. "As soon as your parents started looking for you, messengers came to me from Kal'Hirol—"

"My parents are looking for me? Both of them, together?" Anawyn couldn't believe her parents had put their differences aside to look for her. She had suspected for some time that Granny's story about her mother sending her for training was less than the truth. It was a relief to know she'd been right, and that her mother was behind her.

Gorim's eyes rested kindly on the girl before him. "They are together. Along with your friend's mother, and several of the Grey Wardens."

"Cybele's mother, too? Does she know my parents?"

"Does she—?" Gorim cut himself off. He had some conjectures of his own on the parentage of the other girl, but knew nothing officially. And if Thora had never told her daughter about the witch, he certainly wasn't going to be the one to explain any of it. He knew better. "She does," he said simply.

"But how did you know I was here? In Orzammar?"

"I make it my business to know what's happening in my kingdom," Gorim said. "You don't rule Orzammar effectively unless your network of informants is the best the Stone has to offer. And you are well-known here. As the daughter of our only living Paragon, I would say most dwarves know who you are. There are drawings of you in the Shaperate."