#landsmeet

The only real difference this decision makes is that if Alistair is chosen to duel Loghain, Alistair will refuse Loghain's surrender and immediately kill him.

“What are you waiting for?” Alistair’s voice broke through the roar of blood in Mahanon’s ears. “You’re not going to let him live after everything that he’s done? Kill him, already!”

Mahanon hesitated, staring down at the man before him. The fabled General Loghain. The Teyrn. The man who had chased out Orlesian forces from Ferelden and reestablished the royal line. The father of the Queen. His grip on the hilt of his sword trembled as he heard Riordan’s words ringing in his head. Slowly, and knowing that he would not be forgiven, he drew away. “I accept your surrender.”

“What?!” Alistair demanded. A hand gripped back of his gorget and spun him around, and Mahanon found himself face-to-face with his fellow Warden. “After everything that he has done? Are you mad?! What are you thinking?!”

“He will undertake the Joining,” Mahanon said, though the words were heavy on his tongue. He looked up at Alistair and found only rage reflected back at him, but he was not sure to which of them it belonged. “If he dies, your vengeance is sated. If he lives, we have gained a general. We need more Wardens to face the Archdemon.”

“Absolutely not!” Alistair snarled, letting go of him. “This man abandoned our brothers and then blamed us for the deed! He hunted us down like animals! How can we simply forget that? Joining the Wardens is an honor, not a punishment! Name him as a Warden and you will cheapen us all! I will not stand next to him as a brother; I refuse.”

“Loghain is a traitor,” he continued. “We need him like we need to be stabbed in the back. Or have you forgotten how his being a great general didn’t help us last time?”

“So that is it, then?” Mahanon asked. “Is it you or him?”

“Yes. This is not what Duncan died for! This is not the way that he would have chosen! He would have understood; he of all people knew what a great honor it is to be a Warden! It is not the place for traitors or murderers!”

“How quaint,” Mahanon said. “In the eyes of Denerim, I am both of those.”

Alistair blustered. “Don’t twist my words. You know that isn’t what I meant—”

“No, I know exactly what you meant, Alistair!” Mahanon snapped. “You cannot put aside your need for revenge to understand what is really at stake here! Did the Landsmeet mean anything to you? Were you listening? Now is not the time for petty grudges! Now is the time for everyone to make a stand against the Blight. If we do not work together with all the help we can get—regardless of where it is from—we are all going to die!”

“And don’t you speak to me of Duncan,” he continued. “He would be making the same choice were he here right now. You heard him! You knew him best! Grey Wardens are always the ones to do what has to be done! But you can’t! You never have, Alistair! From the very start you have left me to make all of the hard choices! I made the decision at Redcliffe! I spared us from the blood magic! I lost my eye to the werewolves! I solved the inheritance crisis in Orzammar! I found the Ashes of Andraste! And at every turn, where were you?!” He thrust a finger against Alistair’s breastplate with each word.

“You were too busy abdicating responsibility to me to take a damned look at yourself.” Mahanon paused only to draw in a breath. “Nothing I did ever pleased you, Alistair, but you never stepped up to the hard choices. You were content to step aside and blame only me. So, I ask you one more time. Must it be you or him?”

Silence once more. In his peripheral vision he noticed that Loghain had risen to his feet. Zevran and Leliana were circling the teyrn like his own dual shadows, knives at the ready. Alistair stared at Mahanon, red-faced, until he spat his answer as though it were poison.

“Yes. If you let him undergo the Joining, then I walk away. I will take the throne if it is what will bring Loghain to justice.”

Mahanon’s blood immediately went cold. He stood upright. “So be it. Pity that this is the first choice you have made for yourself, Alistair. I thought that you never wished to be king.”

Alistair’s regard was just as chilly. “I thought that you were not going to stab me in the back. Funny how nothing ever turns out like you thought.”

“Funny indeed,” said Mahanon. “When all of this is over, king or otherwise, I hope to never see you again.”

Alistair shoved past him, trying to knock his shoulder, but Mahanon held firm. “Consider the sentiment shared.”

“Get far from me, Alistair.” Mahanon glanced back over his shoulder at his retreating form. “You are a traitor to the Grey Wardens, and the punishment for that is death.”

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