Chapter Text
9:24, Ostwick, Free Marches
'You're crazy, Virinea! What will the local nobility say? I am Teyrn! This could easily cost me my position!'
A petite woman whose age was inexorably sliding towards forty, felt a strong desire to cry, pressing her palms to her face, hoping that it was a bad dream, but the verdict of the Grand Enchanter of the Ostwick Circle of Magi, which the already middle-aged Lydia passed on to the Trevelyan family that day, hung over their house like a sword.
'Think about what future awaits her under your order!' she begged, trying for about the twentieth time to reach her stubborn husband. 'Besides, the nobility accepted me when you brought me to Ostwick, Tristan!'
His face softened a little, and he knelt in front of his wife sitting on the bed, took her hands and kissed them tenderly.
'Virinea, my love, this contradicts all my beliefs,' he said quietly. 'It’s not about my career, it’s not about the damned nobility, it’s about my belief that the Circle in the South gives control over the mages. Andraste save me, and all my younger brothers are templars!'
'She will be free there,' Lady Trevelyan objected firmly.
'But you weren’t! You dreamed of escaping from there, which you did, falling in love with me and accepting my marriage proposal. Your father cursed you and your brother silently agreed with him. Are you proposing to let our Margaret, our youngest daughter, go there? She is nine years old, Virineya!'
'Galvard will look after her, Tristan, he is now a magister, took our father’s place after his death. And I...' a shadow ran across her face, recalling the pain and shame that she brought to her family. 'I just had the misfortune of being born without magic in one of the oldest families of Tevinter. An error, a failure of a carefully adjusted system for breeding the best mages of the Empire. My father was ready to howl in horror and nightmare, but nothing could be done about it.'
'You are not a mistake!' He chuckled slightly and pressed his palm to her cheek. 'You are my treasure, the love of my life, and I am very glad that you agreed to become my wife. You are a wonderful mother of our children, and most importantly, you are my closest friend.'
'I love you, Tristan,' she smiled through her tears. 'But I also love our children. In Tevinter Margaret will have a free life, without oppression and sidelong glances.'
He stood up, went to the chest of drawers, on which lay an elegant cigarette case, took out a cigarette from it, and lit it. Virinea waited patiently: she knew that it would not be easy to persuade her husband, but even when crossing the border of the Free Marches more than fifteen years ago, she knew that if one of her future children was destined to become a mage, then she would never give him up to the southern Circle .
***
Nine-year-old Margaret could not sleep a wink. Her whole life collapsed in one day, and the girl was very scared.
She had been noticing for several months that she could create small lights that circled around her room, then she learned to pull a book from a shelf that she could not reach, then put out a candle when her eyes were so close that she did not have the strength to get out of bed.
With her, albeit still childish, mind, she immediately understood that this was magic, but she intended to hide this fact from her family for as long as possible, until her sister Tiffany caught her practicing how to pull a chair towards her that was standing in an inconvenient place, and Margaret had long wanted it to be closer to the window...
'Are you awake?'
Margaret shuddered even from this slight whisper of her mother, who opened the door to her room, and her large black eyes instantly filled with tears.
'No,' she answered in Tevene, which had been spoken in the Trevelyan family ever since the daughter of a famous Tevinter magister settled in this house, and the house was soon filled with the children’s laughter of her and Bann Trevelyan’s children.
'Your father is against,' Virinea said tiredly, coming closer to the bed and sitting down on the very edge. 'I will do everything so that you do not end up in the Ostwick Circle, my girl.'
'But Tevinter is so far away, mother!'
'I know, honey,' she nodded. 'But there you won’t be ashamed of the fact that you were born a mage.'
'What about you?' Margaret sniffled. 'How will I cope without you?'
'You’re strong, Margot, aren’t you? And you will be better there, you will have freedom that Ostwick cannot give you.'
The girl wiped her tears and nodded.
'I won't disappoint you, mom.'
