Chapter 3 - A Daughter's Duty

Alone for the first time that day, Arual made her way toward the royal apartments licking the remnants of a sweet cake from her lips. And for the first time that day, what it might mean to be in charge of the castle began to settle on her shoulders.

Teyrn Cousland ran Highever like a well-oiled machine—each person had a place within the machine, knew it, and knew how to perform their duties. Even the teyrn's children had a place within the machine. Arual had always understood her place in that machine. Now, her place and the place of so many others, would be changing. Everything would be different now. She wasn't sure she was ready for it.

For the first time that day…she felt small.

Perhaps that was why the royal apartments came as such a comfort. Tapestries depicting the history of castle Cousland and her family softened the hewn stone of the castle walls. The shields of her ancestors adorned columns alongside paintings of her family dating back generations. Everywhere she looked there was a vivid and living history. Here, she was surrounded by family, and stories, and love. Here, she could rest her head from the duties of her station—taking off the mantle of the heiress and the daughter of the teyrn, to become simply Arual.

"Is there really going to be a war, papa?" Arual heard her nephew ask as she moved into her brother's solar. "Will you bring me a sword?"

Fergus Cousland knelt beside his son and ruffled Oren's hair. 

"You'll get the mightiest one I can find," he promised with a crooked grin. "I'll be back before you know it."

Fergus Cousland looked as though he could have been the second coming of his father. He had the same broad frame, the same barreled chest, and square jaw. Like Arual and Eleanor, though, he had the same chestnut hair, the same hazel eyes, the same freckles on his nose. Unlike the teyrn, Fergus was not dressed for war, but in the casual garb of a man looking forward to an evening with his family.

As it should be, Arual thought.

"I wish victory was indeed so certain," said the woman at his side. "My heart is…disquiet."

Oriana, wife to Fergus and mother to Oren, was a beauty from Anitva. Her golden hair was plaited into an intricate series of knots that worked to frame her milk-white complexion and large blue eyes.

"Don't frighten the boy, love. I speak the truth," Fergus said, getting to his feet and pulling his wife in for a one-armed hug.

"No darkspawn could harm Fergus!" Arual chuckled as she came further into the room.

"Auntie!" Oren giggled, running up to her. Arual laughed and held both hands behind her back in a familiar game of theirs. Oren considered her shoulders and elbows with a thoughtful expression. Arual pretended not to be oblivious to the twitching of her left arm until Oren pointed to it, and she produced one of the sweet rolls she'd swiped from the kitchen.

Oriana tutted and shook her head as Arual stood and licked the honey from her fingers and Oren spoiled his dinner.

"He is as mortal as anyone," the Antivan beauty asserted, "despite his refusal to believe…"

"Now, love… No need to be so grim."

Arual inclined her head to the side, her expression warming even as her brows knit in worry. 

"You will be missed, brother," she admitted. 

"If it's any consolation, I'm sure I'll freeze in the southern rain and be completely jealous of you up here, warm and safe."

"I am positively thrilled that you might be so miserable, husband," Oriana said, rolling her eyes. Fergus laughed and pulled his wife even closer. She eyed him sidelong, her mouth stretching into a reluctant smile.

"Do you really think the war will be over so quickly?" Arual asked.

"Word from the south is that the battles have gone well," Fergus said, sounding serious for the first time that night. "There's no evidence that this is a true Blight—just a large raid."

"Could that be true?" Oriana gasped, hopeful.

"I'll see for myself soon enough. Pray for me, love, and I'll be back within a month or two."

Oriana placed a milk-colored hand over Fergus's heart, rested her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. Fergus placed his hand over his wife's and moved his head to breathe in the scent of her golden hair. Despite Fergus's boasting, both their expressions were full of disquiet and longing. And who could blame them? The darkspawn were the thing of nightmares. Even if the reports from the south were true and it merely was a large raid, the battles ahead would be still be harrowing. And Oriana was right. Fergus was as mortal as any man. He may be hurt. Killed.

At the very least, he would be gone most of a season—a long time to be away from the comforts of home and the love of his family. How much would little Oren grow while he was away? What little moments of joy would he miss?

Arual lowered her gaze. She didn't want to interrupt perhaps the last moment her brother would have with his family for a long time. But she had a duty, and the longer she delayed, the more dangerous it would be for Fergus and his men leaving the castle in the coming gloom.

"I bring a message," she said quietly. Fergus and Oriana lifted their heads, part of them knowing what Arual was about to say. Oriana's brows were knit, but Fergus set his jaw and stood tall. Though he did not move his arms from around his beloved, he looked every bit the hardened soldier ready for the fight ahead. 

"Father wants you to leave without him," Arual said.

"Then the arl's men are delayed!" Fergus cried, exasperated. "You'd think his men were all walking backwards…" He paused a moment, casting off the soldier and becoming once more the jovial family man. "Well, I better get underway," he chuckled to his wife. "So many darkspawn, so little time!"

Oriana's brows crinkled as she opened her mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head, as though to cast the words from her mind altogether, then looked up at her husband with a warm smile that could not meet her weeping eyes.

"Fare thee well, husband," she said. "I know you'll come back to me."

"Nothing could stop me," Fergus promised. With one arm still firmly around Oriana's waist, he drew her in and kissed her. It was a long kiss, and yet too short for a man who would not see his family for some months. Arual did her best not to stare, though she doubted it would have mattered. Fergus and Oriana had already forgotten about her and everyone else in the castle. This moment was theirs and theirs alone.

"Yuck!" Oren called through a mouthful of sweets. Arual shot him a disapproving glance, but it was too late. The spell had been broken. Fergus pulled away from his wife, only to laugh and ruffle his son's hair. 

"Just wait until you're a man, Oren," he chuckled. "You'll feel very differently, I imagine."

"No, I won't," Oren insisted as he whipped his sticky little hands on his dirty jerkin.

Rather then argue, Fergus lifted Oren into the air to shower him with hugs and kisses and all manner of fatherly affection. Arual slipped from the room quiet as a Chantry mouse. This moment was not for her, and she would not spoil it by standing around as though waiting to be noticed. Her time to say goodbye to Fergus would come later. For now, he was with his family, and that was all that mattered.

The day began to weigh on her. Her muscles ached from the play in the yard with Oren, her neck stiff with tension over the coming battle and the fates that awaited for her brother and father. A hot bath was well in order.

She made for her apartments, planning to order a servant draw her a bath once she got there, but when Arual opened the door to her receiving room, it was not a servant she found, but her mother.

"There you are, darling," sighed the teyrna as she got to her feet. "I want to speak with you."

"What is it, mother?"

The teyrna took Arual by the hand and pulled her down beside her on the bench she'd been waiting on.

"Come here, my dear, and put your hands in mine."

Arual did as she was told. Eleanor's hands were soft and warm and clean around hers—which were neither clean, nor soft. A piece of Arual wondered if her hands had ever been soft.

"Darling," the teyrna began, meeting her daughter's eyes very seriously. When she spoke, it was with a practiced, measured voice, as though testing the waters of an unfamiliar sea.

"You were right. You're not a girl anymore, but a woman grown. A woman I am proud to call my daughter."

She gave Arual's hands a little squeeze. Arual's brows furrowed. Eleanor had always been a loving mother, and did not hesitate to let her children know her true feelings, yet something about this sudden confession felt...off.

"And as a woman, darling," her mother continued quickly, before Arual could interject, "the time has come for you to find a husband."

Arual blinked, visibly taken aback. She might have recoiled if it were not for her mother's hands around her own.

"A...a husband?" she echoed, trying not to let the surprise sound in her voice.

First her father places her in charge of the castle in his absence and now this?

I am already nineteen, she thought. She had known this day would come for most of her life, had been afforded years to steel herself to it, yet now that it was here she felt unsteady. Suddenly, Arual regretted denying her girlhood and the freedom it awarded her earlier in the day.

It's all happening so fast.

"Yes," said the teyrna with a solemn nod. "Your father and I have been in conference with a suitor, one we think would be to your liking."

"You have?" Arual gasped. "So, I am not even to choose my own husband?"

"Arual, you know your father and I would never do that to you," the teyrna said crisply. "But it is a good match. This man is well known to you, and an alliance with his family would been a boon to us all. I…I had hoped it would make you happy."

Arual bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. This was her duty. One that could not be avoided or abdicated.

It doesn't mean I have to like it…

"Who…who is this suitor?" she asked at length. 

"Nathaniel Howe."

A bolt of lightning shot down Arual's spine and down to the tips of her fingers and toes. She reeled back from her mother in wordless shock, wrenching her hands free of the teyrna's grasp and rising to her feet in a single fluid motion. Instinctually, she brought a hand up to cover her mouth and spun away so that her mother could not see her face.

Nathaniel? She flushed. Nathaniel…and me?

Emotions squalled within her—too many and too varied to account for. Some small, logical voice inside her understood why her mother would call that union a boon. The Couslands ruled over the teyrnir of Highever, and the Howes over the neighboring arling of Amaranthine. The families had a somewhat tumultuous history, but had been tentative allies for decades now. If eligible heirs from each family were to marry, it would unite the two forever—unite the Coastlands! It would mean a veritable monopoly on trade along the Waking Sea, a higher seat at court, more power and influence in any landsmeet, the potential to double the number of soldiers under the Cousland banner.

Arual could understand why her parents would want to secure such an alliance. But Nathaniel? The pair had been friends and more for so long, but marriage was so much more than that.

She heard the wooden bench yawn as her mother rose.

"The servants have drawn you a bath, darling," she said neatly. "Why don't you get cleaned up and put on something nice. Then you can catch up with your old friend in the library."

Reticent, the teyrna took her leave, but Arual could hear the words her mother wasn't saying: do your duty. 

Her mother's servants had perfumed Arual's bath with flower petals and salts. She sat still and quiet as the scrubbed the dirt from beneath her fingernails and the combed the tangles from her hair. 

At least I'm getting the bath I wanted, she thought.

By the time they were toweling her off, she was as fragrant as the castle gardens and twice as clean. They clad her in a long dress of Cousland blue and silver with a pattern of laurels around the hem of the skirts, plunging neckline, and bell sleeves. Her chestnut hair was parted into three sections and ornamented with silver clasps to maintain the style while a fourth section was braided and wrapped about her head like a circlet.

They hung ornaments of silver and sapphire from her ears and throat until she looked every bit the heiress she was. Noble, beautiful, wealthy—a prize for any man seeking a wife.

A tempting treat for Nathaniel Howe.

"You are beautiful, my lady," one of her mother's servants said.

Arual was silent.

Before going to the library, Arual made for the gates. If she was to be a bride, she wanted to be the one to deliver the news to her brother.

When she arrived at the gates, she was met with the sounds of triumphant carnyx and drums of war. It seemed the rest of the troops shared her brother's excitement at the prospect of battle. Rows of spearmen, swordsmen, archers, slingers, horsemen, and packs of mabari prepared to march before a compliment of wagons and other carts hauling supplies and servants. The blue and silver laurels of the Cousland banner winked at her from shields, flags, and breastplates alike. Those staying behind wove through the soldiers, tying favors to the arms of their loved ones, sharing final kisses, or throwing flowers before the feet of those preparing to march.

At the head of it all rode Fergus Cousland.

To those who remembered, Fergus looked as his father did when he rode against the Orlesian armies and their usurper. On a parapet overlooking the courtyard, Arual's family stood together. Her father's arm was around her mother who dabbed at her eyes with a linen handkerchief. His eyes twinkled with pride, even as his face was set in a stoic mask. Oren stood on tip-toe to peer over the railing, waving madly to the mass of soldiers there while his mother leaned easily over the railing. Oriana tied a strip of fabric around Fergus's bicep—a piece of the bindings from their hand binding ceremony—and kissed him one last time.

Arual waited until the couple had finished their goodbye before approaching. When he saw her, Fergus let out a low, mocking whistle.

"All this for me, dear sister?" he chortled.

Arual rolled her eyes. "Don't flatter yourself. Haven't you heard? I'm to be a bride."

Fergus blinked, visibly taken aback. 

"You?" he laughed. "I feel sorry for the poor fool who's to be your husband."

Arual leaned over the railing and slapped Fergus on the arm, hard. He laughed again and held out his arm to her. She took it. When he smiled, Fergus's eyes were full of warmth.

"Just promise not to hold the wedding until after my return," he said.

Arual smiled and nodded, at a loss for words.

A horn blew, shattering the moment, and brother and sister pulled away from one another. Arual stepped back to stand with her sister-in-law and her nephew. Oren clung to her skirts. She stroked his hair. Together, the five of them watched and waved as Fergus and the others filed out of the castle gates.

At last, the time had come to attend to her final duty of the day.

She refused to sulk as she made her way to the library. She was a Cousland, and Couslands did not balk from battle, nor from duty.

My brother does not run from the darkspawn, Arual thought keenly, and I shall not run from this. If Nathaniel is to be my betrothed, then at least I am to marry a friend and we shall have some chance at happiness together.

It seemed to Arual that she arrived at the library all too soon. By the time she stood before the high oak doors, she had yet to convince herself that she wanted to marry Nathaniel.

It is my duty, she reminded herself. A marriage that will seal countless boons for both our families. It was inevitable that a day like this would come.

All the same, Arual dreaded it.

She took a long breath, steeling herself, and stepped into the library.

Books and scrolls filled wooden shelves that stretched from floors to rafters. Small family heirlooms and decorative trinkets filled the gaps where any literature seemed to be missing. Plush carpets and tapestries of heroic Cousland deeds softened the stone of the floors and walls so that sound could not travel far. It was just the place for secrets and scheming and little truths.

It was a place Arual and Nathaniel would visit often in childhood when the Howes came to visit. Arual could remember the first time Nathaniel stole a kiss from her in the corner behind the books on divinity, the time she'd told him she wanted to be a knight as they poured over an old tome about the Templar order. This place held many memories for them, and soon, it seemed, it would hold another.

Arual made her way toward the back of the library where she knew she would find Nathaniel. She wondered if she would be sent to live in Amaranthine alongside her new husband—far, far away from these old books and fond memories. She passed a desk where Nan used to make her sit and read at all hours of the day, convinced that no truer lessons could be learned than those in books. Arual smiled at the memory of Nan's humorless face as a young Cousland heiress pouted about having to read books on the Mabari while leaning against a young Bran and insisting she already knew precisely how to raise one, thank you very much.

As expected, Arual found Nathaniel in the back of the library, sitting with his back to a small hearth where the light was best for reading, and smiling to himself as he considered the tome in front of him.

"Good book?" Arual asked, clasping her hands behind her back.

Nathaniel looked up. His mouth was open, as though he were about to say something, but balked at the sight of her. He stood suddenly, nearly knocking his chair backwards and into the fire. He caught it, deftly, with one hand while his other slammed the book in front of him closed. 

"My-my lady!" he gasped. "You—er…startled me."

Arual's eyes narrowed. "What have you got there?" she prodded. "You're not reading something naughty, are you?"

Once, when they were children, Arual and Nathaniel had happened across a copy of The Art of Passionate Love by Brother Capria, and had had a laugh at the depictions of lovemaking and detailed illustrations. It had forever been a secret and inside joke between them.

"Not this time," Nathaniel chuckled. He opened the book and flipped a few pages until he'd found the page he'd been smiling at. He held it up to Arual. In one of the margins was a very rude depiction of Aldous, one of Arual's tutors. A puff of wind was emanating from his rear, and a small line of script beside the bearded old man read I stink!

Snorting laughter erupted from Arual. She covered her mouth, embarrassed as the sound echoed loudly in the quiet library. Instinctively, Arual and Nathaniel looked around the empty library, making certain they were alone the way they did as children.

"He was so mad when he found that," Arual giggled.

"Didn't he want to burn this?"

"I'm lucky father wouldn't let him."

"You're lucky your father didn't sentence you to writing lines as punishment," Nathaniel countered. The two shared a childlike giggle at the memory. It seemed the longer Arual was with Nathaniel, the more of these fond memories she began to recall.

She looked up at him, curious if he felt the same. What she found were his dark eyes—watching her. It was in that moment that she realized how closely they were standing. Nearly touching. She could feel the heat of him emanating through both their clothes. Like holding her hand near a candle flame. Too close, and she might burn…

"Nathaniel?"

"Yes?" he said, his voice low and husky.

A shudder went through Arual at the sound of it. She spun away, as much to put some distance between the two of them as to hide the sudden color rising in her cheeks. It felt as though a swarm of butterflies had been released in her stomach. She cleared her throat uncomfortably and wrung her hands.

"It would seem our parents wish for us to, er..." Arual hesitated, trying to think of a delicate way to say it.

"Want us to...?" Nathaniel prompted.

"Form a union...of sorts."

Arual licked her lips nervously. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes.

"Form a union," Nathaniel echoed. He raised a curious brow. "As in together? As in marriage?"

Arual nodded, unable to speak. Nathaniel's mouth became a thin line as he considered her words. He was no fool. He, too, could see the political and monetary power to be gained by their union—perhaps enough to secure a marriage to the crown for their children or grandchildren. He regarded her for a long time, eyes smoldering.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

Arual began pacing the length of the study. What did she think of it? She and Nathaniel had been friends in childhood. Good friends. It would be a lie to say the thought had not crossed her mind back then. But now?

"Does it matter?" she asked Nathaniel as much as herself. "If our parents have arranged it, then...then it's our duty to...to..."

Arual turned to continue pacing when Nathaniel suddenly appeared before her. He was tall—taller than Arual remembered. He towered over her, covering her in his shadow. His dark eyes glittered in the low light. Arual searched them for some sign of what he was thinking, but he was unreadable.

"Arual…"

It was the first time he'd used her name since they'd been reunited. The sound of it made Arual's heart jump into her throat. She tried to swallow it back down, but it had lodged itself firmly.

"Is that what you want?" Nathaniel asked. His fingertips were on her jaw, then. Gooseflesh pimpled the flesh along Arual's neck and arms. 

"Do you want to marry me?"

His breath was on her lips. Arual felt her knees buckle beneath her. She threw her hands out, steadying herself on the desk behind her. Nathaniel moved with her, his hand sliding up her jawline and into her hair so deftly she was not aware of it until his touch was already upon her.

"What are you doing?" she breathed. Why was her voice quivering?

Wordlessly, he worked a lock of hair away from the rest and began curling it around one long slender finger. Arual shuddered with something that was not wholly innocent.

"Nathaniel…"

"If it were up to you," he went on, his voice low and soft like the tide. "If it wasn't your duty but your choice…would you say yes? Would you marry me?"

Arual's mouth became a thin line. She dropped her gaze and did not answer—which was answer enough.

"I see," Nathaniel said without inflection. Even now, he gave nothing away. Slowly, he receded from her, his touch lingering just beyond the line of decency.

"Good night…my lady," he said, and retreated from the room. Somehow, it felt colder without him.