It would be better -- safer -- if they'd just pretend he didn't make it out of Kinloch. Or Kirkwall. Or died along with their parents. They don't know him. They've gotten along just fine without him for fifteen years.

What Alistair doesn't understand, he thinks, is the way misery and violence come to everyone around him. At least with Alistair it's a given, what with being a Warden. But it wasn't what Cullen thought he'd signed up for. It wasn't what his parents agreed to let him do.

If his siblings have built a life for themselves -- and they have -- the best thing he can do for them is stay away.





Cullen turns his head away from Alistair, and lets out a breath. Alistair's got to let him get up soon, he thinks, and then he can just -- stay busy.