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Chapter Text

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—Everything is lost. Haven is gone. Half of our number is dead. Including

How can I write her name, given what I was thinking about her in the scant minutes she had left to live?

And she looked me in the eyes when I had already lost all hope, and silently asked me, begged me, for one final shred to take with her into death.

Andraste. It was already lost. I had none to offer. Just like Chester, hoping for someone to hold his hand. I had nothing left.

The only thing I offered her was suicide. She took it.

I killed her. I killed her.

Words are torn from my mouth and my hand by this anguish and these wretched gales as we are blasted by storms on the mountainside. Screams echo in the canyon as people are blown from their feet. We are trapped here. I cannot escape these thoughts.

She should not have died. She should not have been left behind.

What must have been going through her mind as she stood alone before that beast and that demon of a man who attacked us?

They have abandoned me here.

I wish I could have spared her that. If there was any other way, I would have done it. I hope, somehow that she knows this.

‘Hope’?! Now? Where were you before?!

What did he say to her, as she spent her life and bought us time?

I pray, at the very least, that it was over quickly. Whatever he had planned to do to her, I pray the mountain took her before it happened. I pray that she is past her pain.

I can’t stop thinking that she’s alive, writhing in his grasp. Maker. How can I—

It is unbelievably frigid. The paths are buried. I couldn’t get back to Haven if I tried.

By Andraste’s mercy, let it be over for her. We will endure the paltry trials her sacrifice has brought us.

I am so sorry.

So, so sorry.

Chapter Text

—Sometimes things look better in the light of day. This morning, all is bruises, bloody wounds, and the footprints we leave no matter how hard Leliana’s team works at covering our tracks. My hands are frostbitten. One of the healers that escaped the flames worked on me for a while. They ache but the feeling is back in them now. She said to keep my fingers moving. So, I write while we wait for the wounded to be stabilized.

About a hundred live. Her team is alive: Lady Cassandra, Solas, Varric, and the others. Chancellor Roderick is dead. So are dozens of others.

So much of what happened defies description. I cannot relate it in its entirety, but I feel as though I must try so that it is documented in the event that we do not survive our crossing. We could be tracked down and killed, or easily die of exposure if we cannot find adequate shelter. If a storm kicks up, we’re done.

In the event that this document is discovered by Leliana’s or of my soldiers returning to Haven to find it destroyed, the matter is this:

Yesterday evening, there was a noise at the gates. The birds had gone silent. I remember that very clearly. They had been so cowed by the Breach that, since its closure, their song was immediately so bright and joyful. It felt like a blessing, to walk the woods back down to Haven, heralded by sparrows. Something was wrong.

I quit my cabin to find members of the recently returned watch guard racing up the hill toward me. They reported that a large, bannerless military force was a mere half-league behind them, bearing on toward Haven. The force was so huge, it continued past the valley and around the mountain. Thousands.

I sent a runner to the bell tower to sound the alarm. Upon the hill near the Chantry, I could already see them, a thunder of footsteps bearing along the north passage.

I sent soldiers to bar the gates and told the captains of the combat mage and archer units to climb the roofs and bell tower. Others scaled scaffolding or wood piles to get a better vantage point for combat over the wall.

Let me be upfront: our dozen tired mages and handful of archers could no more defend against that force than a mouse could destroy an eagle. There was simply no chance. All they could do was test the mettle of the enemy’s front line.

Other swordsmen I sent to bar the avenue of approach at Haven’s outskirts. It wasn’t walled, and our attackers seemingly did not fear coming in by the wilds.

I ran down toward the Herald and Cassandra, who had been alerted by the alarm. If there’s one thing I was glad of in that whole wretched day, it’s that I did not have to convince a single person in Haven that we were to fight.

Though the gates were barred and braced, a knock and a voice issued from the other side. The person, a civilian by watch reports, was witnessed taking down a group of long patrols from the enemy we were about to face.

The civilian, a boy, was about nineteen, sickly, and grossly unnerving. Cole was his name. He had somehow sneaked past Leliana’s scouts and avoided my patrols. He said he had come to warn us of the attack, but by then it was like a river spilling over its banks. It could not be missed.

I looked upon the enemy long patrolmen that had been brought down at our gates. They did not look human. Beneath their heavy armour, their huge bodies were pale, as if they were terribly ill but they bore huge muscle mass, not unlike a Qunari. Worst of all, their helms appeared similar to the Templar full siege mask, grafted with an ugly central horn.

I assumed it was Tevinter coming in retaliation for Alexius. Perhaps a fellow magister outside of Josephine’s social network that took his or her personal guard up to demand his freedom. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine what they were.

“The Templars come to kill you,” said Cole, giving voice to a notion that I would tear the world apart rather than to accept.

“Templars?!” I shouted. “Is this the Order’s response to our talks with the Mages? Attacking blindly?” Their leadership has been acting aggressively, stupidly, selfishly, but surely, surely they would not march upon the village of Haven because they were angry.

Templars should know better!

Yet, how many times had I thought those exact words?

Cole was pleading with the Herald. “The Elder One. You took his mages.” He gestured toward a rise in the opposition’s avenue of approach.

A man stood atop a lookout point, clearly directing his men our way. A familiar face. My former roommate and longtime superior. The addict of Kirkwall. Raleigh Samson.

But my shock did not last. There was something rising to stand next to Samson. Something that kept enough of the shape of a man so that one could not mistake it for an animal, but not by much. At first I thought it a Sylvain or some sort of a trick of the low light and marching torches. No, this creature was eight feet tall, and lyrium grew out of his skull like flames from a match. It looked just as the Herald described the stuff in Redcliffe, using the body as fuel. But this was not a human. Not a Qunari. This was some sickening other, a creature warped by unnatural tides.

The Elder One walked among his army without armour. For all our training, he behaved as though nothing as paltry as an arrow or a sword could trouble him.

In my pocket, I could feel Bran’s lucky coin, the circle noticeably worn from the journeys it had accompanied me on.

Haven is not and never was a site of war. It has walls to ward off bandits and ne’er do wells, but it is not equipped to rebuff a full-scale assault. I have had to plan in the meantime. What the village couldn’t do, the valley could.

No one, not a Templar, not a Free Marcher, not even an Elder One, should attack a Fereldan in the Frostbacks.

The open village square supported trebuchets in some number, and ballast was easy to come by this high in the peaks. I’d been sending my soldiers to mark the snowpack density since we arrived—misplaced by a peak and lost amongst the vacant paths. We had that one great storm that caused such havoc in camp. We dug ourselves out, but snow never really melts this high. It was almost begging to come down, wiping out the army and cutting off their line of approach.

And our line of escape. But that was never really a question. A problem for another day, should we earn it.

The setting sun and the moon both seemed to go dark, or some massive storm cloud overtook them both at once.

Before, I complained that I had remained in Ferelden for the Blight but never saw a single Darkspawn. Idiot boy, why would I lament that?

Yesterday, I saw what I had missed. I saw the impossible. A scant ten years after its finish, another Archdemon has come.

It descended on Haven, exhaled, and blew the place to splinters.

At first, I could not comprehend what I was witnessing. An unfathomably large, airborne object hurtled towards us. The mind revolts against the sight of a being that huge in relation to itself. I could not recognize it as something alive, but rather as a force of nature, an island, a dark sun or a new moon, falling to earth as violently as a new war, but no less celestial than a star.

Dimly, I thought it resembled a dragon. I thought it a Fereldan Frostback, disturbed from its nest by the rumbling of the army’s march. I hadn’t anticipated that it could be a combatant in the fight we were now in. How could an Archdemon be here, so soon after the Fifth Blight? And why would it come for us at exactly this moment?

I began shouting for the civilian members to pull back, just as advance troops breached the tree line across the lake. This was a defensive battle, suddenly, at our very doorstep.

The Archdemon swooped overhead. All of us reflexively tossed ourselves to the ground to avoid its massive bulk. The sight of it breeds panic. It is as though a mountain or a castle has taken to the air. It should be impossible.

It was spouting something reflective and red, almost but not quite fire. The hot downdraft from its wings pulled the air out of my lungs and flattened us with a bone-crushing force straight into the ground. All except one of us.

Leliana stood in the middle of the path, under no cover, her eyes wide and her face white. Leliana is brave and quick—rather, she personifies both of those words—but in that moment, she was paralyzed by terror.

Whatever hell I have faced in life, it was never this. This was Leliana’s personal nightmare, come back to her when, by all rights, she should be safe from it. Of all people that have ever existed, she is the one that deserved to be absolved from this until the end of her days.

I yanked her off the path and crushed up against the reinforced outcropping a the foot of the Chantry. My armour took the brunt of the wave of heat blasting from the demon’s unhinged mouth. It was like molten metal forking to the ground like lightning, only sparking true fires when it hit something that could burn. It came to land in the town square, gazing back at us with a baleful, eternal eye.

Only then did Leliana scream. A delayed, desperate, horrified shriek that I never would have thought her capable of producing. I still have reduced hearing in my right ear from the volume. Breathlessly, she turned to me. Her eyes were flickering in their sockets.

“Is it real?” she asked. “Do you see it, too?”

Her hands were like brambles snarled hopelessly through my coat. I recognized it all. The nightmares I have, the waking up screaming…what Uldred is to me, this thing is to Leliana. She needed to know if she had finally gone mad.

“It’s real,” I told her. “I don’t know how, but it has come back!” I would need to hear it too, were I her.

Hostile soldiers were pouring across the lake. Though we had buried the mountain paths, hundreds had made it through. The soldiers scrambled to reinforce the gates.

Times like these, I remind myself to do battle using my eyes rather than my hands. A stiff lesson for someone who has spent so long fighting with swords. But my role was Commander now, and the only thing standing between us and ruin was organization.

We were being attacked via our only angles of egress; troops had blocked off retreat from either side. In addition, we were facing an assault from the air. The trebuchets would be our best offence, but they would be slow and clumsy against aerial targets that fast.

Everyone weathers hardships. Each person sees something that remains, that haunts them until the final closing of their eyes. I have seen many horrors, both grand and subtle, that follow me like ghosts wherever I go. But, seeing the glint of armour in the distance, the dark impression of the Sword of Mercy shimmering between the trees is one of the most deeply affecting blows I have ever endured.

The Templars have represented a series of things to me: abused, well-meaning people needing help and guidance, a clan, a family in which I was a core member, a source of security and friendship, a mythical order of noble, holy folk whose ranks I could only ever aspire to join. Now, they were coming, hunting, racing to kill me, kill all of us.

I shouted to my soldiers to close the Chantry so that Josephine, her diplomatic envoy, and the chantry’s sisters would be safe from the crossfire. I called to my lieutenants to take their men to choke points along the Temple path. Then I remember shouting, “Down! Down!” as an unbelievable jet of heat spiralled out of the sky, searing three cabins and incinerating half a dozen horses and people at once.

I remember her team running past me. Geared and prepared for combat, they ran to help those trapped by the fire and to assist those crossing swords with the Templars.

The minutes were chaotic; I had to retreat high enough on the central rise to see the swell of our unlucky tide.

The Templars have undergone a change. Trained in physical arts, most Knights are athletic, muscular. But the army that came through was noticeably larger than the average Knight. Not just more muscled, but taller. I was taken aback at the size of our opponents, appearing more like ogres than like actual men. Then I saw the crystals.

Red lyrium erupting from their joints and strategic places in their armour, around their necks and knuckles. She had said red lyrium had been trained to grow out of flesh in Alexius’s future.

An army of Knights steeped in red. Powerful, unhinged, and burning up with fury, they were the wolves at our door.

Lyr. I. um.

And…

I had heard Cassandra say that she had been doing well. A capable combatant that had taken down, or helped take down dozens of opponents. Even so, I had not expected to see what I saw.

She is  She was

What I saw was magnificence. If such a word has ever been applied to any individual anywhere in time, the time is now, and the word is unassailable. She was…

Was.

Was.

Quinna.

Quinna strikes with her array of magic at an unbelievable rate of speed. Faster than any mage I’ve ever witnessed. She lashed out with chain lightning, striking whole groups of metal-clad Templars, their crystals vibrating and flashing with the arcing current. When a combatant came close, she’d seal him with ice. She did not fear them, and their blood ran easily, as though pulled from a river. For that moment, she was untouchable. It was glorious. For one final time, she was beautiful she was godlike.

And she was a killer. Like me.

Flames had trapped several people inside burning outbuildings. Her team went to save who they could, though the gates were minutes away from collapsing. I had time to grab two things from my cabin as I raced for safety. I took this journal, the quill and ink set to its spine. In the moment, I wanted to protect it from prying eyes rather than keep it for its utility. If we were overrun, I would not wish it to fall into the hands of our enemy. I’ve said too much. Not about the Inquisition; I know better than to write down all my specifics in one place like this. Even so, I have no wish for the enemy to know about me. I think of Samson or some Venatori stranger reading through its pages, chuckling at my confessions like a feeding hyena. No. This is for me. No one else.

I’d burn it, first.

That said, though I hadn’t anticipated writing in it ever again, I wished to have it with me, as if my own thoughts contained herein could somehow protect my physical body or absolve my immortal soul upon its release. I do not know exactly why I brought it. I am glad of it now.

The second thing I took…

It was my lyrium case. It hangs from my belt now, hidden in the folds of my coat. I’m ashamed to say it. Of all the things that should matter to me, this one should matter least. But I snapped it up from my trunk. When it was time, I did not hesitate.

No, I… This place is for the truth.

The lyrium was the first thing I selected. The journal was second.

I realize now that I didn’t bring Mia’s latest letter, the one I put off reading properly. I could have tucked it in the pages of this journal and carried it with no added weight. I didn’t think of it until now. It is certainly lost now to the flames and the ice. I will never know what, exactly, it said. Nor will it be the first letter to be lost.

Arrows smashed through my windows. Glass scattered over the ground, glinting red like lyrium from Archdemon fire.

When the gates came down, the infantry fought bravely but were quickly overwhelmed. Leliana sent her winged messengers off into the sky. Some were killed by arrows and cursed dragon’s breath. I do not know if she was calling for help; her spies could have taken a few opponents out from the enemies’ flanks before being discovered and killed. Truly, I think she wished to save the lives of her birds. There was no escape for the rest of us. In her last hour, she saved what and whom she could. I admire her for that.

Teams loaded the trebuchets and hurled massive waves of ice down into the valley, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of the opposition behind the front lines and closing the pass with unfathomable amounts of cold, crushing snow.

In minutes, I called the retreat. Her team ran to conduct a sweep for survivors. I called them back, but they could not hear me over the din.

Better our last stand be in our fullest strength than to be divided and killed for too much undefended ground.

In the Chantry, I madly thought of ways to prolong what was left of our lives. We readied the mages and those who could shoot and stationed them at the rear and in the alcoves next to the main hall. They would have line of sight on their side, at least for the first little while. The able-bodied elders and the children I sent down into the catacombs. The wounded or very old who would need assistance on the stairs I ordered moved into storage areas or in the alcoves behind the archers, where there was at last something to protect them from those wild, electric flames. I sent my strongest soldiers to hold the door. The well-armoured. The sword-users.

I was one of them.

That is always the question. Conventional wisdom says a commander cannot lead with an arrow through his skull. I was better off in the alcove with a line of retreat to the catacombs. I had promised Leliana to protect Josephine. And I would, with my life.

It’s just that my life would not grant her much time, anymore.

I ordered a barricade set up in the centre of the main hall, apple crates and ale barrels to act as a shield against a legion. From here, Thistle Formation. Barrier mages would stand in the middle to heal and cast protective magic on the soldiers at the main doors, and the lightly armoured swordsmen or dagger adepts would protect the mages from all four sides for as long as possible. Here, I too would stand, watching the flow and calling the point of retreat. We’d head to the right alcove, then to the stairs, and finally to the basement where there was nowhere to run.

Of course, the real dangers wasn’t the doors. It was the roof. The Archdemon could—and would—tear it away or burn it more easily than the legion could fight past my swordsmen. Then everyone on the main floor would be burned or crushed. There was no defense against that.

Until then…

It had been a long time since my sword had tasted blood.

To die in a place like this would tell a story. How many times have I come across old rooms behind false walls, half a dozen skeletons with swords thrust into each other’s rib cages, or a desiccated husk next to a magic tome, turned to a page reading “attempt at your own risk”?

People may speak of the failure in Kinloch and of the bitter, mixed success in Kirkwall, but this battle would be written in our bones. Future generations would see where we stood our ground, where we were overwhelmed, and where we fell.

Killed by a demon, after all.

My grave-marker would be my lion collar. A pity it would not survive the fire.

And neither would the ‘future generations’ I assumed so much about. They would fall to this same legion soon enough.

Somewhat recovered from the sight of the Archdemon, Leliana cast me a glance as she readied her longbow in an alcove. It wasn’t “goodbye”. It was, “so, here we are.”

Just so, my friend.

Rescues trickled into the Chantry. Seggrit, Flissa, and a few others. The odd boy, Cole, hovered over the injured, though he did not seem to be a healer. He carried a dagger. He should be at the centre barricade, but I did not speak to him. He was listening to the bleeding Chancellor Roderick with an intensity that only comes from hearing a soul’s last words.

I thought, I must not fall until later. Seeing a Commander die always has a demoralizing affect on the remaining soldiers. I would save them from that sight.

My place of death should be the catacombs.

The Chantry door creaked open and Lysette entered, hurt but alive.

I will go down fighting, but where the others cannot see me fall.

An ungodly dragon screech shook the Chantry.

There will be no hope for the unarmed, but if there is anything yet humane in these Red Templars, they will do their work quickly and not revel in their victory with torture and rape.

The trickle of rescues coming through the entrance had slowed.

The veterans knew we were beaten. The civilians could not yet tell, but the waiting frightened them. The soldiers were moving too quickly to be fearful. Cassandra and Quinna might be dead. Their end, my end, could come so quickly, here. Today was not the day I’d thought I’d breathe my last.

How many last words will be uttered here tonight? What would mine—

For a moment, all that could be heard through the stone arches were whispers. I was glad, suddenly, that this rarely-trod Chantry did not have the stained-glass windows of Redcliffe or Kirkwall. They would be impossible to barricade or defend at this stage. In battle, those windows would be a liability, but in times of peace—

I stood at the back of the Chantry, with its blue rug laid out like a giant dead tongue through a pillar-fanged mouth. There were no stained-glass windows here, but my mind's eye could see them all the same. Not in Redcliffe. In Kirkwall.

It came on with gut-dropping surety, something that would have made me break out in a cold sweat, had I not already been doing so, and would have made my mouth go dry, were it not like ash. I only had minutes left to live, an hour if I was very fortunate, and in the dying of my light, I began to see the answer with perfect clarity, this thing that had nipped at me for months. Why I dream the dreams I dream.

Chapter Text

—I ran, searching for ballast to fill the empty crates for our barricades, helping the infirm down into the basement. Organizing every set of hands, picking up every scrap of information, answering every question, seeing every fault, hearing every danger as it drove closer, closer, closer…

Our end could come so quickly here, raging flames tearing through our chantry, as they had once torn through—

I walked into the Kirkwall Chantry for the first time about two years before I was made Knight-Captain. Bedecked with gold statues and high ceilings, it was grand compared to Honnleath, more stately even than Denerim. Yet in its grandeur was a certain coldness, an aloof ambivalence in its white walls and candles, placed impeccably as if with a ruler. There were no oak beams growing fragrant with the warmth of the sun to remind me of home. There was no kindness here.

I was glad.

For those first few years in Kirkwall, I could hardly sleep. The nightmares were ferocious. To escape them, I took both day and night shifts as often as I could, grabbing short naps when my dorm was empty or in brief snatches while I awaited our weekly cargo delivery or the arrival of our washer women. Sometimes I was denied the second shift. I couldn’t make myself stay awake all night in my dorm with nothing to do, so I walked to the chantry to pray.

I was trying to be alone. I thought I had succeeded. It wasn’t until several weeks had passed that I realized someone was watching me.

The boy who arrived at the gates just as the attack started, Cole, lifted Chancellor Roderick from his chair. Together they limped to the door, unlatching it despite the swordsmen’s protests. Roderick shouted something into the night.

Perhaps to soften the harsh white light, or to add another treasure to its impressive array of adornments, the chantry commissioned a panel of stained glass to be fitted in its rear window to cast light on the main altar. The window was huge, at least ten feet in height and four in width.

The task would have been fit for four or five glass workers under full time employment, but the best glass worker in the Marches said that she preferred to be alone and that she needed to be in the room where the window would eventually hang. The chantry acquiesced, but insisted that its construction occur at night so as not to disturb those who came to worship.

In my near-frantic recitations of The Chant night after night, trying to stay awake, it was weeks before I noticed her.

Quinna, Cassandra, Iron Bull, and Sera came running into the chantry. They, and a few more stragglers, were yet alive.

“Herald, our position is not good,” I said, keeping my voice low. “That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us.”

“I’ve seen an Archdemon,” Cole said, hovering over Roderick. “I was in the Fade, but it looked like that.”

What nonsense was this?

“I don’t care what it looks like. Its cut a path for that army. They’ll kill everyone in Haven.” I couldn’t care less what the stranger thought, but he said something that I had only a cursory moment to wonder about since the fall of the Conclave.

“The Elder one doesn’t care about the village. He only wants the Herald.”

There always seems to be consequences for powerful magic. This was no exception. Perhaps if we could slow the assault under the guise of negotiation, buy more time…

I looked to Quinna.

She looked back at me. I knew that she knew.

I could not find a better solution. I could not hold back an army and an Archdemon with a few swordsmen and one old building.

I’m not magic. Like you.

“Leave me, leave me, leave me…”

I must have said those words a thousand times under those lofty, dispassionate carvings of golden Andraste. Thinking I was alone and unheard, I gave into rambling and woe. I first noticed a quiet clicking, a repeating noise at the edge of my senses. I thought it was a sputtering candle or the wind rolling against the main doors at first.

My eyes ached with fatigue but I staggered to my feet. Not the wind. A rat. Chewing carpets or something toward the rear of the chantry. Rats were menaces at home, tearing open burlap sacks and digging through our fall seeds and dried goods, causing havoc. I drew my sword.

I mounted the stairs, careful to cushion my steps so it wouldn’t hear me.

What I saw at the top of the stairs was a woman facing the windows, alone before a massive work bench. Covered in thin white scars, her deft fingers measured and traced small tiles of varying shades of grey. As she lifted them, their colour caught in the moonlight. The grey became deep ocean blue, emerald green, stormy violet. The colours reflected ghostly haloes in her straight blonde hair.

“Hello?” I asked, more shocked to see her than she was to hear me. The tremor in my voice would have embarrassed my childhood self, let alone the twenty-one year old man I was.

She looked over her shoulder to me with one eye still on her work. On her forehead, the sunburst brand.

It wasn’t shock in Quinna’s eyes. It was not outlandish to consider that this dark lord had come to take the novel magic in her hand for himself. He would not be reasonable about it, but it was the one act we could undertake that might have any effect on the outcome of our battle here.

It is one thing to understand it logically. It is quite another to feel the earth fall out from under you, to know that your one and only life is ending.

Quinna’s eyes met mine again. For the first time, I could see that she was afraid.

For some weeks, I was able to claim two shifts again and I did not enter the main chantry except to attend the Chant in the daylight.

Around then I received an exasperated reprimand from my lieutenant that I was working too much. I argued but ultimately accepted the ‘time off’ and returned to the chantry after the other Knights had gone to sleep. I hoped that the Tranquil woman working upstairs was finished and had moved on, but she was still there when I arrived. It felt awkward to say nothing to her, so I said hello and began to explain why I continued to come to pray after everyone else had gone home. Why a man would repeatedly linger in the chantry while she worked without a guard or a chaperone.

“I just mean to pray,” I said, hardly believing my own words, as true as they were. Why not pray in the morning along with the others? “Sometimes I read.” I did, when my eyes could handle the strain of the low light. “I am Knight Cullen,” I said, realizing I should have started with that. I bowed slightly. “I will not trouble you further.”

“You do not trouble me,” she said, with that flat tone the Tranquils have. She did not take her eyes off of her tiles. Some were square, others were diamond-shaped, others, triangles, circles, and arrowheads.

“That glass is stunning,” I told her. Though she had only filled in a few lines of colour nearest the frame so far, I meant it. The Gallows didn’t have much colour, given that the Templars couldn’t own anything and the mages could keep only a very limited number of personal possessions. It was a relief to see something bright, especially so deep in the night.

Régine turned to me stoically. “This is nothing.” Her brand was at least ten years old, though she could not have been much older than I was. “When it is finished, it will be beautiful.”

Most other artists would draw their design and slide their chosen tiles in to match it, and then simply fit the pieces of the image inside the frame with soft lead. Not Régine. She studied the window anew for every piece, observing the way the light from the moon struck the window each day. I was stunned to see, in her mountain of green glass, for instance, forty or fifty slight variations of shade. Régine would hold up piece after piece, looking for exactly the right variation of colour, pressing each tile into the binding agent and fitting it into the frame on her workbench, her white hands greying at the fingertips.

It wasn’t until almost half a year in that I realized: it was Andraste on the pyre.

Our death was immanent. Our enemy was unbeatable.

And then, our unlikely saviour: Chancellor Roderick. Half-mad from blood loss, Roderick described a series of passages below the Chantry.

Before I barred him from the village, he had spent his dayspraying and wandering through storage areas, until Divine Justinia asked for more ink or tea to be sent up. As a man, he was not eligible to join with the Chantry’s representation. Yet, he cared enough to stay, with nothing to do but wait to be needed.

For a while, I was not able to visit the Chantry at night. I filled in for sick Templars when Yauling Fever shook the ranks. Then, I was sent with a group of other Templars to track down two apostates who were spotted en route to Wycome. I was away for weeks. The apostates were a father and son. The boy was possessed, and it had gone on for so long that the demon’s corruption had begun to rot through the boy’s skin. Filth and corruption sloughed off in chunks as broad as sovereigns, leaving a sick trail, eaten and scattered by crows. It was horrible.

When the business was done and I returned to the Chantry, I had a black eye and a piercing wound to my wrist. Hating the world and mages especially, I was furious when I was denied the double shift that week. My mind did not like the quiet at the best of times, less so now that I ceaselessly saw the young boy’s body convulsing with my sword driven through his neck and clavicle, his father screaming in utter agony at my left.

All I could do to console myself was look forward to seeing how Régine’s work had progressed. Maybe she would show me how to cut a piece of glass the right way. I could spend a bit of time working with my hands, trying not to think.

I hadn’t expected to be horrified by what I saw.

My mind raced. Quinna was the most important member of the Inquisition. I had always maintained that, even when the others saw her as just a means to an end. But was her life more important than the entirety of the organization? There were diplomats, spies, and soldiers operating outside of Haven that would survive this attack, but if she was the sole survivor, she would have no way of reaching them. And they would be unable to reach each other. Without a central, organized body, the Inquisition would collapse.

And she had done the bulk of her work. She had closed the Breach. It was possible she was no longer pivotal to the Inquisition itself. The rifts, I’m told, can be sealed by other means if absolutely necessary. Assuming they hadn’t already fallen closed with the Breach.

Shewas, perhaps, nothing more than a gifted soldier. One life compared to many.

There was only one logical call that I could make.

Régine’s art was not yet complete but what I saw shook me to my bones. In the foreground, Andraste, dressed in white while a flare of yellow flames burned behind her. I was surprised to see that Régine had chosen green tiles for parts of the flame. It framed The Prophet like an eerie, otherworldly glow. Not unlike the light cast from the Breach, almost a decade later.

And up in the corners, taunting her, were two twisted shapes, seething with evil intent: Desire, and Pride.

I have sent people to their deaths before. It is always awful and I always second guess it in the weeks and months that follow.

I have learned one must never try to bright side the person who is about to die. Do not pat their back and tell them they’ll be fine. They have earned their chance to make their peace, at least in their own mind. It’s the way I’d want to go. It’s the way I felt right then.

I had to offer her something, some slim hope in exchange for this final chance she was giving us. If there was no way to live, then death it was. There can be hope in that, too.

“They’ll load the trebuchets,” I said, of my few remaining foot soldiers. “Keep the Elder One’s attention until we’re above the tree line. If we are to have a chance, if you are to have a chance, let that thing hear you.”

For one blessed moment, I could help her transform. Not into a mere herald of divinity, but as a god in her own right. It would cost her everything, but she could be one with death and snow and ice, as her cold magic willed her to be. She could, with one move, destroy an army.

In our history, there was only one being that had managed that. We call Him Maker.

I felt the urge again. Quickly I turned away.

I still saw Desire’s sick visions when I closed my eyes. I could hear Uldred’s words in my ear if my mind had a moment to conjure it. Both had pummelled me horribly in Ferelden. Desire impersonated Holly over and over, and Pride dug his claws so deep into my mind it felt as though I might never heal.

At that time, I was still so raw that seeing their taunting, snarling likeness rendered so perfectly, I thought that my reality was a lie. I had been walking in a daze of insomnia and delirium, covering up the fact that I was still in Kinloch, suffocating in that accursed prison, trying to keep from going mad. How could I know if I was here, or living in a demonic delusion?

“Here,” the demons seemed to say, “is the proof that you sill belong to us.”

“It’s left, here,” Roderick said, gesturing weakly with his left hand as Cole bore him by his right.

The dungeons below the chantry were extended by a set of stairs, which were hardly more than creaking shelves on the edge of a dank storage pit. But beneath these stairs was an arch through which a person could pass. The rock was rough-hewn, and the air was bitterly cold from never having felt the warmth of the sun.

Roderick was unsteady, but the boy supported him without complaint. The two of them navigated the stairs and strode rapidly over the frost-pocked ground. Above, we could hear a massive rumbling. The sound of beating wings.

I remember biting back a scream. I could feel acid rising in my throat as I stared at the demons. Though, I’ll note with some gladness, I didn’t back away. Absorbed in her work, and I suppose, lacking the particular method through which to feel concern or alarm, Régine gave me the merest glance, but continued fitting glass pieces into a crowd of elves, all weeping at Andraste’s death.

I watched the demons. Aside from the flicker of the candles, they were unmoving. Beyond their spiteful appearance, they posed no threat. Still, I had gone weak in the knees. Was I really here? I hadn’t felt real, I hadn’t felt likemyself since the day screams began to ring through the halls of the Hold, and—

“Régine,” I said, my voice shaking badly enough to make vomit threaten at the back of my neck. “Have you seen demons like these before? B-because you got the colours so…so p-perfectly…”

For the first time, I saw her scarred hands stop their work, hovering over a heap of magenta glass.

“They are why I am here,” she said. “I was never possessed, but I was…drawn in by them. I do not remember why.”

I shuddered. Régine certainly hadn’t been in Ferelden when Kinloch fell, but she had been stalked by these same beasts.

I looked at her surreptitiously, at her perfectly straight blonde hair, expression cool as she worked on the elves and their unbearable grief at the sight of Andraste’s burning body, reducing them to geometry, to shapes and shades, and nothing more.

We emerged onto a windswept mountainside, far from Haven. A stream of evacuees followed after us as we made for the tree line where we could find cover. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder. The attacking army peppered the area around the village like ash cast from a deep pipe. Haven was burning. Quinna hadn’t buried it yet. Either she was still waiting, or she had been prevented from reaching the trebuchet. From saving herself.

I could make out the massive bulk of the Archdemon circling in the main square, but that was all I could make out between the flames.

I looked away, seeing the last of the evacuees barrel out of the catacombs.

I turned to Leliana. “That’s the last!”

At her signal, her man lit the pitch upon his arrow.

“Régine,” I asked, staring at the blank hole where Andraste’s anguished body would soon be bound. “Why did you put Pride and Desire here? And why did you make the fire green?”

The archer’s arrow flared with hot orange and red flame, smoke fast and black from pitch. The archer shot over the dark spruce boughs and into the darkening sky, the arrow a comet flying high into the air.

We could be tracked by this. We had to get as much distance as we could.

In snow up to our knees, we ran. And then, there was rumbling. Deafening. I could feel it in my throat and down into my chest, through everything.

“It isn’t green,” Régine replied. “It is flax yellow with a chartreuse lowlight and a spring grass gloss.”

“Yes, but why? Fire isn’t typically like that.” I was shaking, taking quick, harried glimpses at Pride’s evil face.

Régine looked at me with vapid dismissal. “You do not understand colour theory.”

I looked back. We were already closed in by trees.

Then, huge clouds of stinging, powdered ice billowed through the woods behind us in a deafening hiss. Remnants of an avalanche.

She’d done it. She pulled it off.

For a moment, I was glad. And then I remembered what it meant. I exhaled, taking with me that one final thing that we might have in common, that one last breath.

“No, I don’t know colour theory. It’s not a thing that Templars learn.” I felt abashed, like this knowledge was something every other rube had picked up by now.

My knuckles were white.

“Tell me. What does it mean?”

So much crushing snow. Yet, there in the silence came the lungs-deep whooshing of something huge at flight nearby.

No time to think. All I can allow myself is a single pang of sadness.

As the rumbling ceased and the wing beats faded, I had space for a prayer: that she had stopped breathing and that her torment had come to an end.

It was all that I had.

Chapter Text

—We are underdressed and unprepared. In short, we are devastated.

And frightened.

And furious.

We are exhausted, having fought and fled for hours, but no rest or peace has come. And there is no end in sight.

Leliana’s birds have survived in great enough number that we were able to contact a few of her scouts and some of my patrols in the valley. Corypheus’s men have blocked the main paths, but the scouts have managed to sneak a few groups through. The arrival of these external teams meant we have gained supplies. Camping equipment, some medicine. Not enough for all of us, but enough for some. We’ve set up the tents for the injured and redistributed food and cold weather gear.

It has been one long night and one very long day. Winds lash the ridge though the sky is clear. Now that it is calm and we have heard a few scattered reports from the surrounding area, it seems that Corypheus has withdrawn while the bulk of his support is buried under the avalanche. The rest block the paths. They are no doubt killing civilians, but we cannot intervene against that now. One of Leliana’s spies saw a well-armed patrol of Red Templars walking through the trees at the bottom of the valley. They are hunting for us, certainly. The scouts are trying to lure them away.

The healers have asked to light a fire. It is a risk, but it will be harder to see in the daylight and no patrols have been sighted near us so far. I have signed off on it until gloaming.

Now, we take stock.

Many of us have suffered frostbite, especially to the feet and hands (like me). Elf ears are especially vulnerable, and cold injuries are widespread amongst the Sisters and other laypeople who were dressed primarily for work indoors.

My experience in supplementing with my mother and father has been useful here. I told those those proficient with survival skills how to forage for rock tripe amongst the many boulders at this altitude. Though we cannot cook it, chewing it will relieve a growling stomach. Somewhat. We were able to find dry grass and moss for stuffing in shoes and gloves for added insulation, but it is a losing game.

Those with minor injuries have grown worse for lack of adequate care over the course of our retreat. Currently, Leliana’s men are building lean-tos from spruce boughs to protect the able-bodied. We dare not leave a more obvious footprint by making more robust shelters. And there isn’t time: every few hours, we hear the Archdemon on the wing. We are in dense forest so it has not found us yet, but it is combing the area, looking for us.

If it finds us, all it need do is exhale.

Simply put, we will not last long. We’ve suffered deaths since leaving Haven. The corpses will draw predators. I see eyes in the spaces between the trees. The Archdemon is far from the only thing that stalks us.

We have no choice but to leave the dead behind. Right now, we are pressing the bodies into the ice and kicking snow over them. It is the best that we can do. Even so, the wolves will be at them before long.

We must go, but we are in disagreement as to how, and to where.

Leliana thinks we ought to try to break past the blockades take our chances against Corypheus’s men. I disagree.

Those Templars…

I have never seen such unnatural strength or before, smashing through gates, walls, and soldiers, like nothing. If we make our presence known, a second attack will begin. It will not end until neutralization. And we do not have the numbers to neutralize them.

We need to risk the mountains and head into Orlais. One main drawback: we have no maps of this area. Yes, our success depends on the terrain. And the weather. And where exactly our enemy forces have dispersed. It depends on elements that we do not know, cannot predict, and do not control. Conversely, our ability to thwart an Archdemon is too negligible to consider. Our chances against the Templars is slightly better, but not by much.

My purpose was and continues to be the defense of the Inquisition. Fighting will end in our deaths. So we must take our chances in the peaks. We must find a source of food along the way and places to shelter to survive the cold. Yes, some of us may die. But if that Archdemon finds us, we are all dead. If the Red Templars find us, we are all dead. No question.

Lady Montilyet has asked us to remain right where we are while she uses a crow to write some noble family in Val Chevin to collect us.

I can hardly express the depth of my objection. We are sixty people against white snow. We’re obvious in the daylight, and fires are even more apparent at night. We cannot wait here that long. If the Archdemon doesn’t find us, the Red Templars will. If they somehow do not, the storms and the cold will do us in. Any one of us that survives all of that will be done in by the need of their own stomach. Josephine is terrified, and for all of her education, she has never had to scrape dirt from yesterday’s bushmeat in order to see tomorrow.

That said, diplomat or beggar, all of us are beyond tired, miserable, freezing, starving, hurt, and worn out by grief for the deaths that we have witnessed. It makes us either weak or unreasonable. We cannot afford to crack, but some of us have already started to.

Leliana…

Perhaps it is related to the cataclysmic effect the Archdemon had on her when it first came within her sight, but I have never seen her so angry. She will drag out every complaint like a showpiece and criticize everything and everyone. She called an elderly Chantry Sister a ‘useless c____’. I will not write the word. She made Josephine cry twice. The worst of her vitriol, though, she seems to save for me.

“Josie, that’s foolish,” she’d said, seemingly in agreement with me. “We can’t just stay here and rely on the good will of a miser like Jeanne de Coulanges. Between you and the Commander’s brilliant suggestions, we’ll be dead within the hour.”

I was in no mood. “You’d be wise to walk back that remark,” I snapped. “Unless you are looking to strike off on your own.” I was trying to put in a word of defense to Lady Montilyet. It did not work.

“Oh, Cullen, stop! What an awful thing to say!” Josephine’s eyes were glassy with tears.

“Yes, do stop,” Leliana cut in. “For your own good. Without me, we wouldn’t have a single tent for the injured or the tinder to light our fire. We would have no idea where the enemy is. And you still act like my spies didn’t save all of your lives.”

“They didn’t,” I growled. “We are still very much in danger, and unless you can get word to the Hinterlands camp so we can get a decent map—”

“Your soldiers are your job, not mine,” she said. “Not that you can reach your own men without my crows.”

“Someone has to have their hand on the till,” I retorted. “If you think you can sneak us—all of us!—off of this plateau safely without any of us being seen or killed, be my guest, Lady Nightingale. Prove me wrong.”

“It’s better than blindly wandering off in the general direction of the Dales!” Her cheeks were hot, as if she was preparing to turn this into a massive row. I had no wish to burn the time or the energy, but Maker’s sake.

Josephine composed herself. “We are only one peak away from Haven.”

“I know, and that’s a very, very big problem! Our enemies are close and we’ll be visible from all directions of we leave this spot.” It was the only thing I felt much of anything about.

“If we stay here, I know I can get help. Say what you will about Jeanne, but Lady Eteri Rucarré—”

“Tea and pleasantries will not get us out of this!”

“You always act as though that’s what she’s proposing!” Leliana cut back in. “You’re like a drunk talking nonsense.”

“Oh, that is ridiculous—”

“Yes! This is ridiculous! Cassandra should have known better.”

Andraste. Some weapons can be wielded by friends to much greater affect than by any enemy.

I can see now that this wasn’t really her. It was tyranny borne of terror, and I recognize that well enough. Though, such treatment is not something I will accept, no matter what we had all been through.

The Inquisition very nearly ended here with the Nightingale and I coming to blows.

“Leliana, how can you say that?!” Josephine cried. That made the Left Hand pause long enough for me to wrestle up the last vestiges of propriety that I had. I wished to tell her to go to hell, but we had all just crawled collectively out of it. I gave her what I assumed to be a fearsome glare and left the discussion.

My actions were less than constructive, but she was absolutely out of line. I did not have the will to nudge and cajole her back to decency, nor was I about to accept being the whipping boy after this mess. Defending a wooden village against an Archdemon with an army and the element of surprise was impossible. Even the defences in Denerim were simply brushed aside under the same conditions during the Blight. And the capital had time to plan! I had no Drakon Tower, no ballistas. Haven was doomed even before we—

I dare not think of it any further. I must devote what little energy I have left to thwarting the fate that might befall us now.

But I was supposed to protect us there. It was my purpose to keep us safe. When tested, I was completely unable to live up to my end; the adversity massively outstripped any defences I could mount. People I

we respected and cared about were crushed as a result. Many innocent lives were lost. Because I could not anticipate—

Stop.

Ice fog is rolling in. We can use it to our advantage and put some ground between us and these monsters. If Leliana and Josephine would just listen to me, we could push through to, if not a safe destination, a less dangerous area than the one we are now in. We have to try.

Chapter Text

—I can’t believe she’s not here with us. I do not know how to put it aside.

Night is falling. The able-bodied soldiers have gone to collect wood. We will have three fires to help keep everyone warm. It will be imperative that we are not seen from the air. The trees will break the smoke plume somewhat, but it is a dire risk. It’s simply too cold to do anything else. Bitter wind plummets down upon us. I fear this means a storm is on its way. This liminal phase is lethal enough. The air will kill us if it can.

What did he say to her? What did he do to her? She did what she did for all of us. Yet fate saw her suffer alone.

I stand on the outskirts of camp. Everything aches. It’s the limited, muscle-deep reminder of a long uphill run. It is not lyrium. It will pass.

It has been a very long time since I’ve taken up a watch post. There aren’t enough sentries for two shifts. I look for signs of the Archdemon. Things seem quiet, aside from unsettling creaks from the woods around us. The only thing I see is the cloud mass swirling where the Breach once was. A sickly green glow still radiates from within the storm’s recessed eye.

I had to look into her eyes and ask her to stay. She didn’t say it, but she knew what I was asking of her. I recognized that second, that sickening dread, like falling. I could see the shock in her face. Maker.

Maker.

“Maker’s sake, what does it mean?” I asked Régine, shivering slightly in my armour. Her rendering of Pride and Desire were so perfect, as if she had enchanted them to have life as they were pressed inside a prison of glass.

Slowly, Régine placed her tools back down on the bench. She walked away from me, around the huge window frame laid horizontally on her workspace. When she arrived at the top of the window, she looked down at her demonic creations. She ran a hand over them, making the creatures fall dark under the shadow of her palm.

“Demons can sometimes take other forms. Desire is particularly adept at changing her shape.”

I knew that. I didn’t want to remember all this again, to recall all the shapes that Desire and Pride command, but I had to hear the point. It took a force of will like an avalanche not to turn my back and quit the place.

Régine continued. “Demons have singular ‘true’ forms. Pride is larger than men, more powerful, more muscular. Desire appears as a beautiful nude woman.”

I flushed, adding to my discomfort. The lack of witnesses, the silent, lonely halls around this woman and I, came keenly to the fore.

“Demons do not choose these forms, just as we do not choose ours. The Maker made us to look the way we do. But what gives the demons their form? It is not their will and it is not the Maker, but mankind.”

She paused to trace her fingertip over Pride’s ugly face. There was almost a tenderness in the way she did this, a fascination. Instantly I thought of violence. Slicing through everything and everyone until I was alone, finally alone—

“Pride: when a person’s self-image becomes entangled in their actions. It is so large because Pride is never satisfied. It casts a shadow over everything it can, looming like a thunderhead and striking with unstoppable power from on high.”

I know.

“Pride is sapient, cunning and relentless, holding red fire and blue ice to form a bolt of violet lightning when it chooses. Just as we have imagined ourselves as rulers, capable of conquering the heavens. We take power at the expense of others, claiming places above criticism and beyond reproach. The place of kings. Of gods. What colour would suit him more than kingly purple? There could be no other hue.

“And Desire…”

She ran her hands over Desire’s flawless face and her… womanly attributes.

Again I felt that this place was not for me, that I should leave and forget it all, like a nightmare.

“Desire is made to be looked upon—but by whom? She looks as she does because men desire sex with women so strongly, it utterly drowns the pull of every other want. At least, that is how mankind imagines the abstraction. Perhaps women have seen men’s heterosexual desires so frequently, they perceive desire itself as something born from a man’s eye. Desire happens in men to women, in its strongest form.”

…I know that, too.

“That lusty, bruised pink we associate with love, with erectile tissue and orgasmic actions more plentiful and fulfilling than reality provides. Desire is pleasurable, unabashed, and giving. She offers herself freely. More freely than mortals. She never demurs, never has scruples, nor a headache. But think of it. Desire should beget a world without complication, where we want for nothing. Desire is an idea. A state. An ideal. Yet, to imagine it as an individual, we imagine the core of desire itself as a woman’s body—and her womanhood at the core of it all. Of all the things in this world, of all the things ever wanted by man or beast or plant, a woman’s dark pink sex is the peak of it all. She offers it so utterly, her flesh is stained with the projection of our whims. And yet, fashioned of our own lust, we named her ‘desire’ and not ‘generosity’.”

I had broken out in a cold sweat. I had never heard a Tranquil speak like this. I had never heard anyone speak like this. My heart thumped with foreboding. She could not have made me writhe any more without a knife in my guts.

Régine gazed back up at Pride again. “They are a fascinating combination. Pride and Desire.”

I know.

“Greed and abundance, in their own way. Pink and purple. In the right shades, in the right light, and in the right formation, their coupling gives a sense of virgin, chivalric love: a noble knight offering his chaste devotion to a great or royal lady. Or natural fertility: a springtime of irises and apple blossoms. But strangely, what man most closely associates this combination with is impending death.”

“Not black?” I cut in, my voice hoarse. “Or red?”

“No. Black is doom—the void—and red is high blood—fury. Together, black and red are murder. Perhaps this combination is warranted in certain facets of Andraste’s story, but not this one. Pink and purple mean an inevitable, creeping demise. It represents the most painful, fearful moment of dying, rather than becoming an inert corpse. No, these colours mean a death that is ever-coming, impossible to escape.”

The pink walls of the arcane prison. The swollen purple flesh of my dead friends, mashed and growing when all life had been crushed out of them, squeezed into spirals up the walls, stinking and passively bearing witness as I was ground to nothing. The walls of my tomb were made of light, casting a magenta pallor on every surface, my own fingers, white-knuckled, holding onto nothing, knowing that it was coming, that unending darkness just past the edge of my dwindling will. I had hardly shrugged off the incident. I could see it with my open eyes—

I KNOW.

I would have thrown up had I anything in my stomach. It fit so perfectly. The creeping, inevitable death. It is what I felt for a solid year: that my fate in Kinloch Hold had never left me. It had only been extended, drawn out so long I could no longer feel it approaching. And everyone else, every civilian, mage, and fellow Knight at my side went about their days as if they couldn’t feel it too, as if they didn’t know that it was coming for them. I was the only one that knew .

Régine touched Andraste’s face, or rather the empty space where it would be built in glass. A faceless prisoner, already in flames.

I had marvelled at the beauty of this artwork for months, but I wanted to hurl it to the ground and smash it until nothing was left.

Régine’s fingers, calloused from years of pressing the edges of glass tile, traced the boundary of Andraste’s form. “Do you believe in the Prophet, as all Templars should?” She spoke like a normal Tranquil, but it seemed unlike the way she had spoken before. Telling me of the demons had caused a change in her. Or perhaps the change had happened in me.

“Of course I believe,” I rasped.

”I was a believer too. Before.”

‘Before’?

I thought of Herbert and his insistence that he be made Tranquil. Until he saw what it took.

Is faith truly nothing more than an emotion, like sadness or fear?

Régine reached into her piles of loose glass, selecting one at a time until she had a handful of those she liked.

“The Prophet was murdered. First by her husband, then by the Archon. They will have their own space in other windows in other chantry halls. This piece is not about them. It’s about truth.”

I wiped sweat away from my face. Was I really here? Where was Chester? Where was Knight-Commander Gregoir?

Was that funeral incense I smelt, or did the scent of death still cling to me alone?

“What truly killed Andraste was Maferath’s compulsion to own both her and the recognition she had achieved. It was his desire for her flesh and her power that led to her death. How fragile the knightly devotion for a beloved lady can be, if the man has been touched by pride.”

Régine walked away from her bench and toward the clear window at the back of the building, where her work was bound to be mounted one day. Squares of clear moonlight shone onto the floor. I followed her, but her intensity unnerved me. I half-expected her to howl with demonic energy and launch herself toward me. I stood three paces away, resisting my sword, panting in a terror I did not fully understand.

“But that is the story of Andraste,” the woman continued, shuffling the glass in her hands. “Her death occurred. Pride and Desire did their damage, whether by their own individual influence or through the imperfections in Maferath’s heart alone. That is what I am bidden to show. But in my rendering, I will say that their influence was countered, in the end. That it was burned away.”

She held up a pink shard of glass. Like her description of Desire. Like the prison walls that restrained me, choked me, broke me—

“All those thoughts, all those complications, can instantly disappear.”

How can a Tranquil woman anticipate my thoughts so accurately?

Régine took a green shard, lay it over top of the pink, and held both into the neutral moonlight. Looking through them both at the same time, I was amazed to see that the colour was neutralized. Only a slight grey cast remained in the glass as the light shone through it. I stepped closer to get a better look. Régine shuffled the other two shards in her hand.

“You were right. Green flames do not typically result from an executioner’s fire. But it undoes Desire perfectly.”

She held the remaining two pieces out to me, the purple and the yellow tiles. I hesitated. I could not bear another trap, some new trick. But I had to see it for myself.

I came forward, accepted the shards, each one a diamond shape like Pride’s own eyes. I held them up to the light, like she had done. As before, the two colours balanced. Pride’s sick, inhuman, violet gaze was gone. Cancelled out by the colour of— Goldenlillies. I realized that is what I could smell. Not incense, and certainly not decay. It was a simple chantry decoration: clusters of local flowers that grew in perfusion in the lowlands. And in my hands, nothing but blameless, clear glass.

“Colour theory,” Régine said again, her voice as emotionless as the clear glass. “It means flame purifies Desire and undoes Pride, along with that creeping death the two of them create. As for Andraste, though she faces the most brutal, perverse, and selfish impulses of our world and is sentenced to death by many eager souls, she rises above it. She comes home to the heavens where she was wrought.”

“As ash,” I said.

I don’t know what came over me. I have never, even since my break with the Chantry, seen fit to question, much less mock, the Holy Lady and her ultimate gift. Her influence, her actions, are the only truly holy things about the Chantry at all. Yet, my assertions were not met with resistance.

“Yes, as ash,” Régine remarked immediately. “Because there is more to us than our earthly bodies.”

I remembered Herbert. The black smoke streaming from his forehead, the brand a rainbow of sparkling colour as it destroyed his mind.

“When they made you Tranquil, Régine, what colour was your brand?”

Was it rainbow too? Or was it pink and purple? That same creeping death coming for you as it had come for me?

The woman continued to stand, looking through shards of coloured glass, rendered clear by their proximity.

I could take my soldiers and strike west for the Dales, with or without the rest of the Inquisition. At least those that put their faith in me would be saved from a freezing death. Splitting up might save a few lives if the Archdemon discovers us anyway. It can’t kill small clusters as easily as it can annihilate one large group.

But I know that if we leave, we abandon our fellows at the worst possible time in the worst possible place. They are defenceless without us. And there will be no coming back. We bury everyone, and the Inquisition with them.

She looked to me for help, and my only advice was to bury herself.

Make thyself a grave. Die faster.

There was fire, but it would do nothing to purify.

I was relieved from my post. Now I stalk the edge of camp, too furious to return to Leliana and Lady Montilyet, too conflicted by the strictures of my position to walk away.

I look out into the forest past the edge of the firelight. There is halla lichen hanging from the trees. I can find us a few things. Cloudberries, perhaps, or a little elfroot. Something.

We must make it through these woods. We could make it through the pass before dark if we hurry. But to where? An exposed plateau, an ambush in a ravine? We might be better of if we stay. I don’t know. All the answers I thought I had are gone.

“Burned away.”

You were so sweet to me in Haven. You told me you had seen a year into a terrible future, and seemed so shocked that I had tried to save you. You didn’t know how much hope you gave me, even though in the year you saw, I failed you. As I did again two days ago.

Is there no world in which I do not fail you?!

And in that future you saw in Redcliffe, the one that was so bleak? I would rather that than this. At least you would still be here.

“So you mean the colours destroy Pride and Desire?” I asked Régine.

If this was true, even if only as a metaphor, I was hungry to know. But Régine revolted at my question. She drew back her lips into a snarl, gritting her teeth. I have never seen a Tranquil do such a thing, before or since.

“No!” She flung a hand up to her head, as if she could still feel a needle there.

Beneath the grey hurricane’s eye, in the jagged void of swaying forest, green as new life, as eternity itself, in a darkness with no end.

Spark between my eyes.

There is nothing to be seen. Not in the dusty, grey spruce. Not anymore. I know that. And yet…

“Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir would have run away so fast his boots would have been hanging in midair. He’s not half of you. The Royal Army had been crushed. There was no sign or word from us. Alexius and his master were trying with all their might to kill you. And you still…”

“Of course I was,” I said softly.

Salt upon my lips.

Where else would I be, if not looking for you?

…cursed be he who must decide which way to go.

“Of course I was.”

Quinna, of course I would stay. Even if it was suicide. If I could have saved you, of course I would have, of course I would have…

What spirit begets the demon of lies?

Régine’s face contorted with fury, with grief and with pity.

“This is more than the affairs of mere demons. They killed her mortal body. Her husband, the father of her children, used that body to build his lineage, and then he sentenced it to die! Archon Hessarian, the most powerful man in the world, put her to the sword and called it mercy, instead of summoning the rain like the mage he was! They used her. Murdered her. Burned her. Stabbed her. Rejected her. But she overcame it all. Now do you understand? The hand of the Creator lifted her up. Mortal pains left behind, ashes or not. She was still Andraste. After all the times they killed her and everything they had done to her and taken from her, she could not be erased. She was still whole.”

Spark of green light.

I felt it and saw it, both at once. Between the trees. Within my soul.

It is no longer a spark. It is sustained. It is swaying, past the trunks and boughs, like light and shadow, layers of death and life together. Swaying.

In exhaustion.

“That creeping, inevitable death we all face. She ascended beyond it, and death itself was diminished. Like it was nothing. For all of us.”

I don’t need this life. I need the one thing that I never got to—

She defeated death itself.

Her eyes. One more time.

Hallucinating. Again.

She could not be alive. We all saw the mountain fall. We all knew what it meant. Who we lost—

I ran. I ran anyway, past the watch and the trees, toward her as she collapsed in the snow. I shouted to the camp, words I can’t recall, could hardly make sense of. I hurtled through the drifts and the cutting wind. I thrust my arms beneath her, bearing her out of icy death. As I touched her, I knew I had gone mad. Given over to the illusions completely.

Or was it a dream..? A spell..?

Time stopped, as utterly and as clearly as the sun, as unassailably as anything else I had ever known. The wind froze. The snowflakes would not melt upon our skin. We were untouchable, invisible, indivisible, unknown.

I stared in dazed disbelief at the frozen ghost in my arms, ice in her hair, crystals on her eyelashes, blood on her skin. She looked back. Her head dropped against my neck.

“Cullen…”

Her warm breath traced a valley along my jaw.

Not a memory. Not a hallucination. Not a dream.

And then?

There it was.

That familiar thing.

That mighty serenity. That

Goldenlily.

Imagined in my lyrium box.

Adornment brought to the Kirkwall chantry.

Flowers that a Marcher elf used to fragrance her hair.

Am I dreaming, still?

That unshakable calm enveloped me, in a place where even time itself could not touch me.

It was always her, wasn’t it?

Goldenlily, from the holy heart of me, when I still knew who I was, when I remembered steadiness. When I knew how to love.

That place that was lost. Taken away. Destroyed.

Still here.

Her green hand glowing in the snow.

‘She diminished death.’

And she did not go gently.

I stood, drawn by fate and light. And she was in my arms. At last.

I raised her up and brought her home.

Chapter Text

—I stand on the rim of firelight across from the healer’s tent. I don’t know the name for what it is I feel.

On the outside, I am motionless, numb. On the inside, I am on my knees, lifting a broken woman out of the snow. Time has not moved on. I have not left. I still feel her breath—my name—slice along the edge of my jaw, formless as smoke and sharp as a sword.

Once, I had been proud of it, what it represented. Today, my coat served a different purpose. I could feel her shaking, as I’m sure she could feel the same of me. Wrapping her in it, I felt I could share something of myself when it was needed.

Now it is not. The healers gave it back to me as soon as they had marshalled enough blankets for her. I cannot bring myself to put it on.

It is so cold, I can no longer feel anything of this world. I am a ghost, in mind, in body.

I clutch my coat in my fist. I see the fur stroking the backs of my knuckles in the wind. The red flanks sink in the snow.

I haven’t let her out of my sight, though the healers moved her to a lean-to where I can scarcely see. I will not deny them privacy, but I cannot shake the feeling that she’ll disappear if I take her survival for granted for a single second. I cannot believe that she is alive. And I cannot bear the thought of her dying now, after all this.

Three healers worked on her for much of the evening. That worried me. I knew she was tired and cold, but she seemed to be uninjured. The healers discovered a bad blow to her head, fracturing her skull. The extreme cold of the past day reduced the swelling and the damage it caused, keeping her alive. If this incident had happened in the summer, she would have died on her way to us.

How awful, to survive by the grace of the frost, sustaining her and killing her at once.

The healers worked in tandem for hours, slowly encouraging the broken bones to seal while painstakingly drawing just enough blood away from the brain within. Another healer, a non-mage, has been warming her extremities, sometimes with massage, other times with melted snow, warmed over the fire.

Everyone in camp has come to cross the circle of firelight to look upon our returned Herald with a mixture of wonder and pity. Everyone knew she had stayed behind, sacrificing her—

Damn.

I am not the only one who is stunned to see her breathing. I shall leave it at that.

Many of those who were fortunate enough to have a blanket offered them to the healers for the Herald’s use. They stacked four extras on her before they turned the rest away. It’s no good to let the entire camp shiver, but the act of respect is sobering. Many of those with blankets only had them because they were wounded themselves.

I carried her through the snow. I am drowning in a fog of green and yellow.

She beat death! It is impossible!

I can’t breathe. I don’t care.

Whose death did she destroy?

The Archdemon came for all of us. The same way that Pride once came for me.

She absolved us of that fate. Absolved me.

Yet, there is more to death than a still heart. More to us than ash. What did Corypheus do to her? How many deaths did she die? Maker, what happened?

And here I stand, bereft.

They’ve worked on her for hours. She has not moved or spoken. Not since she whispered my name.

I still feel it on my skin. I trace my fingers along their path, as if I could caress her words with my hand.

Nothing feels real. I don’t feel real.

And I do not like it. Our circumstances are too dire for me to steep in grim meditations on the philosophy of mortality. I am too far from the fire to feel its warmth. I am too far from the lean-to to see if she will survive. I can no longer remain in between.

Leliana, Lady Cassandra, and Lady Montilyet are standing by the cargo brontos brought by Josephine’s Orzammar traders. I approach my compatriots. They eyed me grimly. They already knew what I was going to tell them.

“If Corypheus destroyed Haven to get the magic from her hand, he clearly didn’t get what he wanted. He will strike again. He is likely pursuing us right now. If—if she could find us, on foot and with a fractured skull, Corypheus or his scouts will be able to. We need to keep moving.” I slipped my arms through the coat. The fur settled against my throat. I remembered that this was given to me as a mark of high station; I am only permitted to wear it because I have some skill in knowing what to do in times of trouble.

I have never wanted to wrench it off so badly in my life. It is nothing but a lie.

But I have to do something to restrain my mind from the unfathomable things I’d seen. An Archdemon. The Templars, warped and deranged by lyrium—lyrium always sinking its fangs ever deeper into everything we are.

“We cannot move her,” Lady Montilyet said, softly. “It will kill her.”

“The healers have made great progress,” Leliana cut in. “Soon we will be able to continue on. But I see your point, Commander. We might have done well against the disorganized stragglers in the aftermath of the avalanche, but if an Archdemon pursues Quinna…”

All of us went silent for a spell. Death could come from any direction, and it would be sudden when it did.

Perhaps she has not neutralized death after all.

“My scouts have made an observation,” Leliana continued. “A little under a day’s march from here is a Deep Roads entrance.”

“Absolutely not,” I said.

Leliana scowled. “It will provide shelter and cover for all of us until we are certain that the Archdemon has gone. It is a long way to Orzammar but—”

“It is a death trap,” I said. “Corypheus’s men could be stalking the Deep Roads too. And with an Archdemon about, the darkspawn will be drawn to the surface. It would be suicide to head that way. We’d never survive.”

Josephine seemed to agree with me. “We don’t have the supplies to make it to Orzammar. All of our injured will…”

Leliana rolled her eyes in irritation. “The Deep Roads are endless. They’ll allow all of us to take shelter without being seen. I acknowledge that it is a risk, but I must insist we find shelter immediately. My spies indicate a gathering cloud bank in the west. There could be a blizzard that will wipe all of us out unless we find cover.”

“Then we build some,” I said. “Or we find normal caves to wait out the storm. Not the Deep Roads. That’s madness.”

“I hate to repeat myself,” said Josephine. “But our wounded will die if we wait out a blizzard in lean-tos and caves—even if we are lucky enough to find them.” She shivered. Her coat was thin, too. “We can’t manage severe cold and high winds for long. Any of us.”

I knew I was also frozen stiff, but I somehow could not feel it. “We take down trees,” I said. Our best two engineers made it out alive. “If we have to, we can build at least a barrier.” We had no tools, but maybe we could find a way.

Leliana looked me up and down.“All that activity and noise? Your engineers will bring that Archdemon right down on our heads.”

Asking two combat engineers to save the entire Inquisition with no tools was clearly asking too much. “What would you have me tell them?” I snarled. “This isn’t what we asked them to do.”

Cassandra glared and gestured toward the edges of the cloud bank growing near the peaks. “We cannot simply ignore this. We must find a way.”

What did she think I had been doing all along? Where had she been all this time, only to surface now and start making condescending overtures? I could handle it no longer. “And who put you in charge? We need a consensus, or we have nothing.”

Josephine weighed in again. “Please, we must use reason! Without the infrastructure of the Inquisition, we’re hobbled.”

Of course we are! The question is, how do we get it back before a weather event takes us all out, like it nearly did on the peaks yesterday? “Well, it can’t come from nowhere.”

Again, Leliana felt the need to cut off my head. The woman fights me as though bitter words are antivenom. “She didn’t say it could!”

Mother Giselle was speaking to someone behind us. I lowered my voice but it was a challenge. “We haven’t seen the Archdemon since Haven. It could be they are no longer taking to the air.” The reasoning was hardly ironclad, but if a blizzard was definitely coming and was certainly going to kill us all, merely risking being seen by an Archdemon was the better choice. But not by much.

“That’s a ridiculous assumption,” Leliana snapped.

“I think you fail to understand the damage a Fereldan snowstorm can do. With all your temperate springs on the banks of the Waking Sea, or the balmy winters in Halamshiral, you must have forgotten—”

“That blizzards are cold? I’m the one who brought it up in the first place, and you dare call me soft?!”

“The longer we stand here, the fewer choices we have, and the more likely it is that we’re going to…”

There were no walls between us and the rest of the Inquisition. This wasn’t private planning. This was public debate. I refrained from saying the last word. Even so, the sentiment I didn’t say seemed to shake my counterparts. They looked away, and an awkward silence fell over them.

A longhouse, if secret enough, could see the majority of us survive to see tomorrow. And if the lives of the wounded are lost, then unfortunately that is the cost.

And exactly who counts as wounded here?

I tried to imagine her, with a life-threatening injury, trying to survive a blizzard. She was so icy when I picked her up. Never had I felt another living being feel so cold. Not even demon flesh, that unliving tissue, not of this world. Not even then.

I rubbed my jaw.

Josephine kept trying. “Cullen, can your soldiers scout for caves? Or…I don’t know. A hotspring? Something that might preserve us before the storm hits?

“They can scout,” I said. “They are not likely to find.” It was dark. Nocturnal predators would be out. Not to mention the conditions. Trying to find caves at night was ludicrous.

“That will take too long,” Leliana told us. “We already know where the Deep Roads are. We know—”

“Are you expecting to see Alexius’s horrible future come to pass?!” Josephine’s hair was pulled loose from her tidy bun and her nose and eyes were red. “You want to catch a Blight plague and sacrifice yourself so badly?”

Maker, that couldn’t have been what this was about, was it?

The two women looked ready to come to blows.

Even before dreaming of goldenlily, and before taking lyrium, I have been blessed with, if not an unshakeable calm, at least a steady centre at the core of my being. A resolve. It has gotten me through countless struggles, from failed flax crops to the fall of Kirkwall. But watching Leliana and Josephine at odds, the wind ripping us raw, my mind empty of any alternatives…that inner steadiness crumbled.

All I wished for was to return to the snow, where time stopped and I heard a quiet voice say my name. Where, for one moment, I had everything I—

Why did I think that thing about her, in Haven? That unprompted, untoward thing? Why?

I did not comprehend what I was hearing at first. I thought it was the sound of a distant Archdemon, its roars echoing between the peaks. Or the air, whistling down to us and bringing the approaching storm. Or Red Templars, giving deathly battle cries. The singing of steel. Wolves calling their brethren to their prey.

I had said it a hundred times. I had thought it a thousand more. I thought I would know the Hymn anywhere. I forgot it, in my darkest hour, my mind so steeped in despair. But what I heard was not death. It was us.

The camp was singing mournfully, like lost children not crying out to the Maker for help but praying for a better day. Is that not what we are? Is that not who we need, and who may listen?

I was silent at first as the others around me sang. I know the words, the cadence, better than I know the blood in my own veins.

I can’t remember the last time I sang anything, even under my breath.

We should not make noise. But it was right, as no legend or poem has ever been until now. After hundreds of years, desperate war after war after war, the Chantry—or rather, Andraste—wrote what I needed to hear. And what we needed to say.

The dawn will come.

She stands before us now, looking uncertain at our attention. She does not know the words.

Surely she is favoured, if not by the Maker than certainly by Andraste herself. None of us can say what that means, exactly. She exudes something—not the confidence of position or the glow of status and wealth. It’s inexplicable.

At least, it was before. Now we all know what it is.

It is holiness. Believer or not, willing or not, a Dalish mage holds the dawn of Andraste in her very skin.

She looks different than when I…

I still feel the weight of her, the icy pressure of her forehead against my neck.

I was so scared for you. How can a living body survive after being so cold?

I felt…enchanted. It was as though I was back in the Chantry in Haven, inhaling incense and goldenlily. It is not an end to the problems we have, to our fierce winds and unguarded backs. When the Hymn came to an end, silence filled the air, but it wasn’t nothing. It was as though the seas had parted, and our path was there before us on a ray of sunlight.

Chapter Text

— Messages from perimeter scouts have begun to arrive. If there are any enemies nearby, they certainly heard us singing.

“We should move on.” I said. “Before they come for us.”

“And which way will that be?” Leliana asked, clearly hoping I would finally agree with her idea.

The Herald quietly approached, standing to Lady Cassandra’s left.  With the five of us together again, our collective equilibrium seemed to shift.

“How are you?” Josephine always knew how to be kind.

“Better,” she said. She sounded monotone, languid. There was something almost otherworldly about her, as if her feet were floating above the ground. Her eyes were glassy. I suppose if I had just experienced what she had, I would be dazed as well. “How are you all?”

We murmured a few noncommittal responses. I notice that she did not look at me when she asked.

“We have little time, so I will speak no platitudes. I know a place we can go. Permanently. It is only a few days journey from here. The road will be hard but once we’re there, we can set up the way we were—no, better than before. Because it will be ours, not the Chantry’s, or some noble or landlord’s. Ours.”

It is what we need. A noble’s estate, the Deep Roads, and the Dales are too far and too uncontrolled. Moreover, they are all temporary. We need space and well-built structures in an immediate fashion to help us survive the elements right now. We need the same thing to continue the Inquisition in the future. Something large and capable of weathering an attack. One that could do both…

“It sounds too good to be true,” Leliana said, cautiously. I admit I had more or less thought the same thing.

“How do you know of this place?” I asked.

“I am to say, ‘I heard the call’.”

I started. “The call of what?” Surely she meant the Maker. Or Andraste. And not something only a mage could hear. Right?

“Cullen, trust me.”

She looked at me then. I rubbed my jaw.

I know we cannot remain, but a days-long journey in the Frostbacks is dangerous to well-prepared and outfitted groups. It would require a reserve of strength and resources that we didn’t have. Then there was the matter of the blizzard.

“It will work,” she pressed. “It will solve every problem that we have right now.”

“What place is this? How far is it?” Cassandra asked.

The Herald looked from me to Cassandra to Josephine and Leliana, steady but beseeching. “You need to trust me. Please, trust me.”

Leliana was the first to nod, but it was hard for her. I lowered my eyes with a nod, too. Without more details, I could not assess her plan, but she had been chosen—by something—and she seemed certain. What other option did we have?

“Okay,” she said. “I understand there is a blizzard on its way, and we are open to attacks here. It will be hard going in the dark, but we need to leave now. We have to pack up camp as quickly as we can and get out of here.”

With that, she returned to the medical tent to help prepare the wounded to be moved.

I am working hard to quell my concerns.

Later….

We were on the other side of the ridge when it began to snow. The wind was getting fierce when the Herald veered off the heading she was on. Around a bend behind a series of boulders lay a massive, hollow tree trunk, laying with one end slightly raised out of the snow while the other was wedged down somewhat by a landslide so old, moss and fully-grown trees had grown on top of it. There is just enough space for all of us to squeeze inside of it, though we are crammed nearly on top of one another. The brontos are stuck outside. We hastily tied stable blankets around them to help them through the storm, but there is little else we can do.

How she found this in the dark is beyond me.

Right now, my back is curved against the wall of the trunk while layers of scalloped grey mushrooms sprout by my eyes. Wood chips fall rapidly, and the old tree creaks dangerously in the wind. It could fall apart at any time and leave us prone in the blizzard, especially as gales of wind attack it. Yet, it is warmer in here than it was in my cabin most days.

Everything about this feels like a nonsense lyrium dream. Two days ago, every aspect of life was different than this. The things I had been working on, my plans, my routines (such as they were) are all gone. Reality as I knew it is over, but I am still whole enough, and lucky enough, to be alive.

And, apparently, I have become ornamental. I hate it. I am being blindly led. I can answer no questions from my subordinates. I do not know where we are headed or how long it will take. I can only say we will wait out the storm and assess our path in the light of day.

I don’t trust myself to sleep except in short bursts where I stand. I can go for weeks like this if I must, but there needs to be something to focus my mind.

The lyrium kit on my belt feels like a tombstone.

Being crammed in this rotting tube reminds me of my passage to Kirkwall. The journey took more than a week by ship and I could not tolerate the cloying feeling of the ship’s belly. It had only one narrow exit to the deck, and the small space was packed with skinny strangers with desperation in their eyes. The situation is very much the same as this.This is limbo. Or purgatory. Except then, I thought that I would be eaten alive.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe we died in the fires and this is all some wicked mechanism through which to make amends. But if I was really here to settle my guilt, my sisters and Bran would be here. Maybe they will be the next ones to turn up in the snow.

I should watch carefully.

Though the storm rages and we are wedged into this scant shelter together, the Herald is crouched at the solid, buried end of the trunk with the other wounded. I cannot see her from where I am anymore, but  people turn their heads to look upon the Herald every so often. They seek a glimpse of her, the one who survived. She draws us in, wherever we stand.

How are you alive?

And I can’t help but think a conceited thought. Now that I know what I… Maker, how do I put this without sounding like an insane fool?

Tell me, do you see right through me? Do you know what I was thinking when the attack began? Is it written in my eyes?

Now that I see it for myself, my life is nothing but a shallow pool. Nothing is hidden. I have nowhere to hide. You must see everything.

Of course, that can’t possibly be the case.

You still trust me.

Chapter Text

—When the storm passed, we found ourselves buried alive.

There was near-panic when we realized by the strained light of the early dawn that the entrance of our sanctuary had been almost completely covered by snow. It would have been agony to manage being trapped in such a small space with so many others, but a few of our trading partners—the merchant surfacer dwarves—were small enough to squeeze through the icy gap in the uppermost portion of the opening. The brontos left outside survived the onslaught of wind and snow, hardy creatures that they are. Once they were prompted (and baited with food) they were quite efficient at breaking the ice covering the end of the trunk and digging us out through the snow. Some damage was done to the tree trunk itself—mostly when Iron Bull started to try to dig upwards with his horns—but the space did not collapse and we survived the night. The scout parties all took note of this place. It would serve as a good hiding spot for patrols, should one be necessary in this area.

For my part…

I have taken open space for granted in my younger days. Running through the fields of my family’s farm as a child, I readily traded the outdoors for libraries and desks in my adolescence once I was admitted to the monastery. I felt no pity for myself.

After Kinloch Hold, everything changed. I spent the entirety of my stay in Greenfell village escaping every room I was asked to be in, and the journey by ship to Kirkwall was utter hell. Even as Knight-Captain there, I was far more likely to stand in the open courtyard in front of the Gallows than to take up residence in my office. I became adept at organizing plans while in the open and memorizing them just long enough to jot them down in a rush for the scribes later.

Since then, I’ve come to accept the indoors again, so long as there is more than one exit and I am always within sight of a door. Though I do not prefer it.

Last night, as we were filing into the tree trunk, I felt nothing but relief to be out of the weather. As we squeezed in to make room for everyone, I suddenly realized that there was only one exit, there was no room to move, any Blood mage or demon could easily seal us in with a wave of their hand. Even a chance rockslide—such as the one that brought this massive tree down in the first place—could occur again, crushing us all to death.

The thought of being entombed by ice would have been the end of me. Or, so I believed until yesterday.

Faced with the confined space and no other options, I found myself staring searingly at the outside air, at the rapid pace of the snowfall. What exactly did I think was going to occur? There are Blood mages in the Inquisition, we’ve…established that. They could seal the way out. But we have also attracted some of the most powerful mages alive today. Between Lady Vivienne, Lord Pavus, Solas, and the Herald, we would not have stayed trapped by any spell.

But I found my fear no longer occupied the panicked core of my need to survive. It felt like something else. More like a reflex than an instinct.

A child learns not to put their hand to the side of a kettle in case it is hot. It is not best practice to grip kettles at any age, but we managed to clutch this one and release it and come to no harm for the trouble.

I had learned a hard lesson, true, but there is no lesson so perfect as to warrant perfect obedience regardless of circumstance.

As long as I could witness the outside air, I was calm enough. And exactly what would I do if I couldn’t? Run about slashing and screaming?  I am the Commander of the Inquisition. I wouldn’t. I know myself well enough to say that.

It’s as if I feared my own panic more than the realities of being trapped again. And I can control my actions. So what exactly is there to fear?

I wonder if…

Well. I still prefer the outside to the inside, but things have slowly began to settle, perhaps. It has been a decade. Stranger things have happened.

And there are worse fates to consider.

The gales were powerful last night, but I thought I heard something roar overhead as the storm hit its peak. It seems unlikely that an Archdemon would bother to hunt us during such a storm. I know. But still.

For now, we set off north, though the path winds and twists so that sometimes we walk east or west. Even south, to climb over ravines or steep inclines.

Jagged peaks and rough plateaus storm the sky. None of the advisors suggested that we head this way. It’s dangerous with the number of people we have, especially now that it is all covered in snow. The landmarks are nonexistent and the air is thin. As it is, a pile of supplies was left behind at the mouth of a narrow ridge as there was simply no room to carry it with us safely.

The Herald won’t say how long we’ll be travelling. It’s not as though we can turn back anymore, but the uncertainty is frightening. I can’t plan when I don’t know what is happening, where we are going, or what the distances are.

All the same, I haven’t questioned her. Not out loud. I have asked enough of her.

Who could pay what we owe her?

But I admit that I cannot follow blindly for long. That, too, is a lesson I have learned.

Chapter Text

—The Herald was walking at such a pace today that the pack animals found it difficult to keep up. We skirted the summit of a monstrous, craggy peak and camped on a hard, rocky plateau next to a roaring waterfall. Stocking up on water has been beneficial, and the noise helped a few of us—including me—get the rest we normally wouldn’t.

It remains cold so high in the Frostbacks, and the snow depth is a frustration for many of the elves and the dwarves, who are wading in it up to their chests. Our supplies are dwindling, and the broad-footed brontos have room to carry a few of them now.

We have a few decent hunters in the group, however, and they are the only reason we have made it as far as we have. Sera is a city elf, but she’s remarkable at it. Killed two rabbits this morning as we walked. She simply veered off into a wooded area and returned a minute later with two kills which she tossed over to the healers. It will help.

The snow has buried any indigenous plant life, but I spotted some rock tripe near the waterfall. A few of the healers came over, and seemed enraptured by the information. I’ve tucked a strip of the rock tripe in my cheek to chew on as we walk this morning. It’s…gritty and horrible, but it’s a comfort anyway.

Mom would be amused.

The walk is getting long, and the weaker amongst us are starting to fall apart. A few people have gone up to the head of our line to speak to the Herald, mostly to offer words of praise or encouragement.

Not Cassandra, who—perhaps surprisingly—was the most direct with her. I walked a little faster to catch a few words. I heard: “We’re more than halfway. I think so. I don’t know. I heard the call.”

Cassandra broke away with her lips pursed. She glanced at me as she returned to Iron Bull and Blackwall. Apologetic, maybe. No new information. She doesn’t wish to push too hard, either.

Soon we will have to. We run out of food tomorrow night, regardless of how many rabbits Sera brings us.

The only person who speaks to the Herald with no hesitation is Solas. Of all of us, he visits her the most. He is so soft spoken, I can never make out what he says.

At the same time, it seems I am being watched, too.

Cole. That strange boy that arrived at the start of the attack. There is something off about him. And he smells, Maker’s breath. It’s not the reek that comes from running for one’s life from an Archdemon and bolting through catacombs, nor is from breaking one’s back as a laborer and still being too poor to afford soap. It is more like sickness with the rank of human decay. The boy has been somewhere he shouldn’t.

He reminds me of someone, though their name slips my mind. The bottom line is I do not trust him.

All the same, he watches me unabashed. Sometimes he mumbles under his breath. He hasn’t tried anything and seems incapable of magic but I keep my hand on my sword. Those daggers he carries aren’t meant for peacekeeping, or for comforting the wounded he seems to constantly hover over. They are for killing. In secret.

His arrival may have saved a few lives in our camp, but all the same, I wish he hadn’t stayed. He disgusts me.

Chapter Text

—The sun sets sooner in the valleys than it does in the peaks. We walk in the shade of the mountains now, and it throws us into a gloomy, freezing twilight in the late afternoon.

She keeps walking. Impressive, considering the injuries she’s sustained. Even so, she is not tireless.

In the hours between shadow and darkness, her pace slackened enough that she drifted back towards me. Saves me the trouble of stomping up the line to her. Especially since everyone is watching her now.

I cannot accuse her of being lost; she has stuck true to her heading, even if we took circuitous routes to arrive at better ground. But there is no sign of a settlement. We have only enough food to last for a final meal.

She must be looking for a clan with some ties to Lavellan. A good thought, something the rest of us had not considered. But finding a moving target under these circumstances is a slim hope. And having lived as close to the Frostbacks as I have…Well. She might not know the Chasind and their reputation. Or the Avvar. It could well be that the clan she is looking for is gone or dead.

We sang the Chant of Light together before we began to follow her. I sang, too. In the moment, I did not know exactly why. I promised myself in Kirkwall that I would never believe in anything blindly again, and when I left the Order, at the expense of my mind and my identity— of everything, really—I made that promise my cornerstone. So why sing a prayer I have grown skeptical of? Why revere a flesh and blood individual, a friend I know to be fallible?

Because I needed something fallible, flawed, and humane.

My loyalty to the Inquisition has never wavered, even before I knew her. When she was a prisoner locked in our basement, I was bringing her blankets and chucking rabble-rousers from the Chantry so that they could not trouble her. I believe in the necessity of the Inquisition. I believe with my eyes wide open. I believe she is capable, yes, but more than that, I believe in us, all of us, together. Singing was our unification, our ceremony.

Yes, I too wished for some blessing from the heavens. After singing on the night of her return, it seemed as though the Maker would indeed save us, protect us. I wished to believe, maybe more than anyone.

But I can let this go no further. Not on blind faith. My duty here is clear.

…Maker’s sake, I have no idea what to say to her. How does a person look another in the eye after ‘advising’ them to sacrifice their life for yours? And then, with a straight face, ask them for even more?

There has always been a level of institution between myself and the soldier in question. Clearly defined ranks are chief among them. It is my job to give orders, and the others must follow them. There is none of that in this case. Where does the Herald of Andraste fit in a military chain of command?

Of course, I’ve sent soldiers out to fight battles they’ve lost. I’ve sent men out knowing they were likely to die. A handful of times, they’ve surprised me and returned home alive. We were all glad of it. Some remained and were lauded as heroes, having done the difficult or the unlikely. Others had seen too much death and asked to be discharged, and I gave them my blessing.

But something is always broken after.

In her case, it was not her company that was assigned. It was, “you personally must go.” And it was more than dangerous. It was a death sentence.

And then I wonder, what if she was chosen by Andraste?

When she survived the Conclave, I advised Leliana to take her head and send it to Denerim. Then I asked her to stay in Haven while the rest of us fled.

Here I am, standing over a mage with a sword in my hands, prepared to execute once again.

So, the question is begged: if Andraste chose her to live and pulled her from the Fade, but I told her to die, did I sacrifice Andraste’s favoured? Maker, am I Maferath in this equation? Or Hessarian? In the course of this, have I become the Holy Lady’s enemy?

It boggles the mind.

I maintained my pace as the Herald drifted in next to me.

“How are you?” she asked.Clearly, I had no concept of how to make small talk with her after everything.

It was the first time she had spoken to me since taking control of our heading. After I was apparently unable to provide an adequate plan on my own.

And it was the first time she had spoken to me directly since—

…Cullen…

I rubbed my jaw.

“Unscathed,” I said. “Yourself?”

She gazed down at her feet, considering her answer. The ground was difficult and it was growing dark. The forest around us had fallen trees, brush, uneven roots, stones, and it had all been covered in a deep blanket of snow. It made for a difficult, slow walk.

“I’m okay,” she said. It was neither good nor bad. I nodded and an awkward silence quickly built up.

No point in delaying the inevitable, I suppose.

“I need to ask you about our destination,” I began, signalling discreetly to my soldiers and to Leliana, who had been walking the nearest to us. They slowed to give us room.

The Herald sighed nervously. At least she didn’t immediately become defensive.

…I’ve been arguing with Leliana too much.

“We have reached the end of our ability to travel. Starting tomorrow, we will have exhausted our supplies. The environment does not provide enough to sustain all of us. When will we reach our destination? And what are we looking for?”

“I am heeding a call,” she said. I had heard that line. She must have known that it would not buy complete impunity forever.

“That’s fine,” I said. “But my questions remain. You may be chosen, carried forth on divine will, but we are not. People will die if our situation does not change tomorrow. I am asking you if that is likely or not.”

She swallowed and kept her eyes forward.

“We can send out scouts. Just tell me what we’re heading towards.  Is it a camp, a settlement, a ruin, what? I have responsibilities to everyone here. Their lives depend on our safe passage.”

“I know,” she said. “But I— It’s not as though I am privy to everything. Much of this is based on faith.”

My heart began to sink. “Faith in what, exactly? Last time you swore an oath, it was to Elgar’nan, not Andraste. If you’ve converted, it was recent.”

“It takes no ceremony to have an open mind.”

“You must know that it concerns me, hearing that our journey depends on vague descriptions of an ‘open mind’. Most of all from a mage.”

Her face flushed hotly.

“See things from my point of view,” I said quickly. “I may not be a Templar anymore, but I’ve spent my entire life seeing the consequences visited upon those who heeded a voice that seemed to have good intentions. Whose ‘call’ are you hearing?”

“Not a demon’s, if that’s your concern.”

“How much farther must we go? What will be waiting for us when we arrive?”

She shook her head slowly. “All I can tell you is this is the way that we must walk, and what we need most will be at the end of the path.”

“Will we arrive tomorrow?” I pressed.

“You need to trust me.”

“I do. We all do. But we need to know.”

Silence.

“Is it me that you don’t trust? In Haven, I asked what I did of you because I did not see any other choice. If you do not wish for me to know, I understand but you must tell Cassandra and Leliana where we are going. This is untenable. People will die.”

She stopped, looking at me sharply, eyes wide. “Is that what you think? None of that is— It’s—”

I felt as though something important was slipping through my fingers. I had an impulse to reach out and catch it, to clutch it and stop it from falling past me, but I could not comprehend how to begin. What was I saving? How can anything be caught by words instead of deeds?

Then, the ground beneath us changed. A deep, heavy thrumming rumbled through the earth through the bottoms up my boots and up through my knees, sending snow falling like dust from the boughs of the nearby trees. A deep bass sound followed. It was so low, it was almost impossible to hear, only feel.

In Leliana’s employ, a pair of Dwarven scouts used a set of krishoks: large, powerful impact devices not entirely unlike drums. Their purpose is to send sound through rock. The Legion of the Dead uses it to speak to other companies throughout the Deep Roads over long distances. The benefit of the krishoks in our circumstance is that they cannot be heard through the air the same way a horn or a cry can be. Its a signal that can only be felt through the earth. In the Inquisition, it is to be used specifically when calling out a threat from above.

Shit!

The Herald clearly felt the rumbling too, but she was not with us when the signals were assigned. There was a collective gasp amongst the survivors as they felt the tremor and realized what was coming.

Everyone dove toward the trees. With the lowering light, the dark bark and our motley clothing, we could blend into the forest. Mages sent out controlled bursts of wind to fill our tracks.

The Herald ran beside me and crouched next to the trunk of the same tree I chose. She watched me for cues, knowing there was no time to explain.

A second later, there it was.

The Archdemon flew low over us.

During the attack on Haven, I was preoccupied with trying to keep as many people alive as I could. I took in the size and scale of the threat and little else. But now, with all of us in hiding, all I could do was watch as the root of so much evil swept its shadow over us.

The thing was so huge it almost nullified the sense of fear in my mind. It was like gazing upon an ocean, or a massive storm. It went on forever. The wingspan alone was jaw-dropping. Tiny dust devils sprang up behind the powerful push of its wings.

Concealed as we were, and with the Archdemon as high as it was, we had a prayer of being missed. So long as everyone kept their heads, stayed still, remained silent, didn’t draw attention…

And that is when the Herald’s hand began to glow.

Like a bonfire, the strange magic in her palm cast light all around her, as if it was calling out. As if it wanted to be found by this creature that would murder us so effortlessly. She followed my eyes and looked, startled, at her hand.

I had to act fast.

Reaching for it, I smothered the anchor in my own palm. It did little to mute the light. I clung tightly, our fingers crushing into one another. The green light was bright enough to be seen through the trees.

I shoved her hand through the crust of ice beneath us, plunging her entire arm under the snow. The green glow was still coming through the edges of her hand, vibrant like the doorway to another world. I gripped her with both hands, squeezing as tightly as I could. I couldn’t tell if the hammering heartbeat I felt between my fingers was hers or mine, or a union of the two.

The green bloom faded. I held. Her hand, and my breath.

The air smelled of incense, of burnt ritual flame and old, dry blood. The Archdemon was so close, we could smell it.

I looked at her, and she looked back at me.

I held, tightly, trying not to move and let forward a ray of green light that would betray us. She held her breath, too.

The Archdemon passed overhead, circling. Several people let out involuntary cries. I turned, warning them with my eyes to stay silent.

And if the Archdemon lands, if it finds us, what is the best course? The Herald already faced it once for us. Would it let the rest of us go if she sacrificed herself again? Could I let her walk up to that thing to die, while I turned my back a second time? And if I decided to be the hero today in defense of the maiden, a monster of that scale would kill me easily; I hold no illusions about that.

How do I lessen the damage? What is the best thing when I am at a disadvantage this extreme?

I could feel the blood hammering against my temples, my pulse writhing in my throat.

I saw into her eyes and hers saw into mine.

How many last moments are we to endure, in life? I am tired of them.

We don’t die here. Not after everything we have been through, and what we have been chosen for. Neither you, nor me. Not yet.

It roared off to our left as it banked. I hadn’t seen it turn so much as felt the way the air moved when it passed. It could have been right on top of us, diving straight down to swallow us up.

The Herald grimaced.

Several seconds stretched into silence. I held utterly still, eyes fixed on the dim glow in the snow, my hearing primed for wind and dragon cries.

I could feel myself beginning to shiver from the cold. I let the muscles in my shoulders go slack to mask it. We’d had cold nights in Honnleath. I learned to hide the signs so no one would fuss.

At last, the thump came from the north. Two short, rather understated rumbles. The beast had carried on, away from our position.

I let out my held breath and finally released her hand.

I found I could only do so with some difficulty. I had squeezed so hard it hurt my knuckles to let her go. I had gloves on, and my hands are a fair bit larger than hers are. If I squeezed hard enough to hurt me, it must have been legitimately painful for her.

She made no complaint but slowly withdrew her hand from the snow. The glow had faded to a dull pulse, nowhere near as bright as it was earlier. Her fingers and the back of her hand were bright red from the cold. Much longer beneath that ice and I would have given her frostbite.

She folded her hand into her jacket along her ribs to warm it up.

“Are you all right?” I asked. The spaces between my fingers ached, as if she was still clinging to me. “Have I hurt you?”

“No harm,” she said. “It reacted like that to Corypheus when I faced him in Haven, too.”

Had the Elder One been with the Archdemon just now?

No food, no shelter, and about to face two unspeakable evils at once. Again.

…Lovely.

All around us, people poked their heads from behind trees, quietly murmuring amongst themselves. No one was hurt, but everyone had seen their death pass overhead. And if the Archdemon was here, Red Templars would be investigating the area too.

“Talk to Cassandra,” I whispered. “We won’t last much longer with calls that close.”

She stared into my eyes with an intensity I did not expect.

“I don’t remember much, the night I heard the call. I remember facing Corypheus and the Archdemon, or whatever that thing is. He told me he had walked in the Fade, as I had. He sought out the Golden City. Corypheus wants to take the place of God.”

She said this with a twist of disbelief, either because she doubted his abilities, or because, as an elf, she did not believe in the Maker, at least not as Andrastians would know Him.

“Corypheus did what he did, but if not for you, he would have destroyed me in Haven. I wouldn’t have thought to use the trebuchets to save myself. I did what you said, I did exactly what you said, and brought the mountain down. The debris opened up the catacombs and I was able to walk to safety.

“No, you didn’t almost kill me. You saved me. I wouldn’t be alive if not for you.”

“Quin—” I stopped myself. I hadn't said or written her name since Haven. How could I, after what I had almost taken from her? And what I had been thinking of the hour before the attack? I can never speak of my thoughts during that time. They are too wanton, too selfish.

“I remember walking through the snow for days. I was falling in and out of consciousness for those last few hours. I was so cold and so, so tired. I kept going because I knew it would be the end of my life if I stopped, but…”

I don’t need this life. I remembered the moment, seeing her across the flats.

“I hit a long dark spell after I collapsed,” she continued, voice hushed. “I couldn’t walk another step. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to call out in case someone could hear me, but I hadn’t the strength. Except…”

She looked at me. “You were the one who…” She splayed her hands in front of her, red with the cold, looking for words.

“We are grateful you returned to us,” I said. Even to my ears, the words sounded cold and stiff. Something one might say to a stranger.

My jaw is rubbed raw.

“You saw me when no one else did. And I remember saying your name,” she said, making it real. “I would have died without you. Twice. I owe you my life.”

After willingly attempting to make the ultimate sacrifice for us, we were nowhere close to even.

“You don’t owe anything to me,” I said softly. It is hard to speak around regret.

She curled her fingers into a loose fist. Not unlike the way I—

It’s…It couldn’t be the same.

“Thank you for seeing me. And for holding my hand,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

She set off again more quickly than before, half to gain ground and half to outpace me, I’m certain.

She is Andraste’s chosen. Her flesh is sacred, and I’ve just damaged it with my own hand. Is this some kind of sign? I’ve tried with my whole heart, my will, and all my cunning—the sum of which is sincerely formidable—and yet I’ve mishandled her in some way every time I’ve had the chance. One would almost take this as proof to step away.

Perhaps the Maker’s will is not for me to uphold. Perhaps Uldred really did change me in a way that has made me unworthy of His work.

I looked up over my shoulder. The Herald was at the edge of the trees, pushing forward so quickly it was as if the Archdemon’s wings were on her heels.

She did not slow down to speak with me again.

Chapter Text

—Walked all night by the light of the moon and a few brief bursts of magic. Stopped to rest before dawn in a shallow cave with a substantial overhanging plateau. We have four dead and no time to bury them. Even if we did, the ground is too frozen and the wounded need help. Everyone’s morale is low, though they won’t say it.

Some of us eschewed our rations last night so that those who need it most can have a few scraps for breakfast. We are out of wood but the scouts collected enough for one small campfire in front of the overhang. Everyone is exhausted from the cold.

Even in my gloves, which are well-made, the ends of my fingers are frostbitten once again.

The healers are trying to heat snow up to bring the life back into them, but I’m far from the only one and they are already racing.

One of the healers noticed that my jaw is red. She asked if it was injured. I told her it was not. I hope she is the only one that asks about it.

I almost do not mind the frostbite. It’s a reason a person might look at their hand frequently, as I have been drawn to do. The damage is almost a physical representation of what I feel.

I squeezed her hand so hard, it still aches. It’s as though…

Why is she so persistent in my sense memory? It continues to linger on my skin as though a shade of her remains, continuing to grip my hand or whisper my name.

Why can I still feel you? I am left with afterimages of you and I have never felt so empty.

Why…?

Was it the anchor?

None of us know what that magic is capable of. I held on for a long span of time while we hid from the Archdemon. Could it have caused this feeling?

Hmm.

No one can say, but perhaps more disturbing still, I made myself vulnerable to unknown magic, and it did not cross my mind to be concerned until now. Why didn’t it bother me at the time?

For her part, the Herald is sitting away from the fire, head down on her knees. She is clearly exhausted but we barely managed to convince her to stop.

“We’re not far,” she keeps saying, though we haven’t been ‘far’ for hours now.

I keep seeing Solas milling about. He talks to the Herald, speaking to her in a hushed voice that I cannot hear. She seems calmer afterwards. Perhaps they are sharing information about the area. Something only elves know? Hard to say.

When the fire goes out, we will have to move again.

We’ll leave the dead. It’s too difficult to carry them, given our state.

There are muffled sobs in our pathetic camp.

As for right now, there is no storm and no snow falling, but the temperature has dropped and the wind is damn cold. I know that I am freezing. I stopped feeling the need to shiver a few hours ago. It’s as if whatever mechanism that causes it in me simply gave up and broke.

For the first time in years, I find myself missing my bed in Honnleath. No matter how cold it got, I always knew it was waiting for me and I could go and get warm.

I wonder what they did with it, after I left. Gifted to Rosalie, maybe. Not that it matters; it must have burned with the rest of the farm.

How hot was that fire, I wonder? Doesn’t it know that it owes me its warmth?

Chapter Text

—Many of us are beginning to suffer a horrible demise, continually heading into that deep, cold, endless dark. The rations are gone and we cannot stop to sleep. No one revolts. We have come too far to turn back, and any other heading is the same as this.

Lady Cassandra must find this familiar. We are all Seekers, in a way, enduring our trial of faith.

We continued, the Herald striding ahead, taking the incline unfalteringly. As the sun began to rise, we were frozen, weak, and mindless; survivalism set in.

It is difficult to explain what it is like to someone that has not experienced true desperation. There is no conversation to be heard, no dissent or levity. It is difficult to think of anything but oneself and one's own pains in circumstances. There is no compassion for others. Sometimes thoughts of relief pass in fragments amidst one’s thoughts. Eventually that too disappears. All of existence boils down to putting one foot in front of the other, and nothing more.

It is not always walking that becomes the driving force behind survival. Sometimes it is combat. Sometimes it is prayer. Other times, it is something in between.

Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me…

Nevertheless, a being can walk for hours this way, past the point of exhaustion or collapse. And so, we did.

As the sun rose, my spirits began to lift a little. The darkness banished, we could see our footing and check our surroundings for threats. It felt safer, even if the air was so cold it was ultimately no less deadly than an Archdemon. The only difference is the pace at which it kills.

The Inquisition had gone silent, each survivor fighting his or her own internal battle.

Oddly, I did not think of phrases like, ”let this be done soon,” or "let this be over," but “keep on walking, give me more, I can take it,” as if this was some sort of fight I could win, and as if there was no one else involved.

My thoughts were as mangled as anyone else’s, I expect. I almost didn't notice that we were running out of mountain.

Whatever I had imagined, I had not imagined this.

The Herald stopped. The rock had formed a sort of frame along the ridge we had climbed. It led to a sheer drop into a rocky valley. But there, across from us in a complex nexus of jagged ridges, was salvation.

Skyhold. A massive stone fortress under no current banner.

We took in the valley below. I was stunned. We all were.

The Herald had tears in her eyes. They seemed to be tears of relief as much as happiness.

The fortress is built on a shear of rock in the centre of what is perhaps a tectonic divide. The landscape is such that Skyhold always has the high ground, no matter the direction of approach. It is shielded from all visible paths, using mountain peaks as shields. It is a military fortress of elven design and, I would guess, dwarven build.

I was amazed to look upon it, but cautious as we traversed the lowlands and climbed the plateau at the foot of its gates. Building this must have taken millions of sovereigns. Few monarchs could afford this of pocket, even reigning ones. What king or queen could build—or even inherit—this and afford to walk away? What lord could conquer and then abandon it? Surely it must be occupied.

But with the help of some vortex magic, Leliana’s most agile spies were able to scale the walls and break into the gatehouse to raise the portcullis and grant our admittance. I was prepared to stave off a stiff challenge, but we faced none.

It is old, abandoned, and falling apart in some places. It is massive, with huge iron gates, and walls fifteen feet thick. Patrolling the inside, it’s clear the place is deserted. No one has set foot here for years.

There are ruins all over Thedas, forgotten for centuries while brave (and uncommon) historians scramble to try to make sense of them. Skyhold would be far from the only such structure left to decay, but it boggles my mind that no one knows of its existence. How can something so big be forgotten?

Scouts cleared the area and the survivors were allowed to explore. Some whispered amongst each other, pointing out new discoveries as they saw them. Others were stunned into silence. Still others bent their knees and prayed a thanks to the Maker for their deliverance.

The fortress has an impressive keep and ten fortified towers defending its gargantuan walls. I couldn't help but think, as we walked through what was left of the square, that this is a great gift. Haven’s loss was brutal and unforgivable, but this place is much improved for our uses. It is easily defensible. It is much more cohesive in terms of outbuildings. There are stables, a galley kitchen, a foundry, and even a prison. It was made for war, and for the successful staging of a population supporting such a war. There are required repairs, but it is beyond incredible.

I must say it once again: it is a miracle.

The Herald seems as surprised as any of us. She says she has never been here, but "knew" of its existence.

I’ve thought of a solution to her vague hints: she is the First of her clan. Perhaps there was some sort of mythology around this place amongst the Dalish. It is possible the knowledge is protected in some way. Perhaps she is not permitted to share it with outsiders and that is why she could not explain it further. Or she was concerned that, in a room full of Andrastians who live and die by written texts, there would be an immediate distrust of her oral history. In all honesty, she might even be right.

Though with the grateful looks that the Herald throws Solas, perhaps Skyhold was rumoured in southern Elven circles, while her own clan (and humankind) was deaf to it.

I am beginning to understand whose call she might have heard.

Anyway, this is novice conjecture. I do not know why she did not trust us further. However, after all this, I can say this with perfect confidence: we will trust her through any test or challenge, through any hell. Whatever she may call herself, Herald or Andraste’s chosen or merely Mage Lavellan, this is real.

And I…

Never mind.

There was flour and honey in the kitchen. Very old, but mixed with snow melt heated from the copious wood and oil stores, we will satisfy our hunger with unleavened bread until tomorrow. The gates closed behind us and I posted guards on the walls. We will not have to fear the wilds.

Solas, Lord Pavus, and Madame de Fer have already put up magical wards to hide Skyhold from the Archdemon. Apparently the building's foundations are steeped in whatever nuanced magical energy they require. It was a team effort including all the mages in camp. They are still at work but when they are done, Skyhold will supposedly be impossible to see if one doesn't already know it's here.

I am…reasonably certain we never taught the mages in Kinloch or Kirkwall such things. Though I can hardly speak to what Montsimmard or Tevinter has in their curricula. First Enchanters Irving or Orsino knew magic I was not privy to, either.

Despite how unexpected it is to live under a shield of magic after my history, I admit it is a relief to have it. No structure can be immune to discovery. Not without magic.

For today, we bask in the glow of four fires in the square while the watch paces the walls. Soon the real work will begin.

Chapter Text

—For all its strangeness at night, Skyhold feels uncannily familiar in the light of day. I cannot say what it reminds me of. It is not the Gallows and it cannot be Kinloch Hold.

If nothing else, the events of Kirkwall taught me how to run a fortress.

We need to search the place, check for threats, inventory the assets, secure the perimeter, triage the problems. But we have one thing of import to do first: our circumstances have changed completely. So, too, have our goals. We have seen our enemy's stripes. We have also seen our mettle tested. The organization must change in accordance with this new knowledge.

Earlier today, Leliana, Lady Montilyet, Lady Cassandra and I discussed the state of the Inquisition. The Inquisition needs an Inquisitor—or rather, inquisitions have historically had them, but so far we have not named one. Being the diplomatic face and the combat spearhead of the organization is not something any single one of us would willingly accept. With one exception.

Cassandra began. "We should make Quinna the Inquisitor."

Leliana: “Yes, I agree."

Josephine: "I think so too."

Everyone else in the circle was looking at me for my ascent.

I hesitated. Admittedly, I did so for the wrong reasons.

The day of the attack, I had certain…thoughts about her. Ones that I have not yet dealt with or cleared. Things have only compounded in recent days. It had nothing to do with the Inquisition or who should have the Inquisitor's sword, but it felt immoral to immediately favour a person that I had such thoughts about.

The second half of it is, I am, shall I say, unaccustomed to working through issues of this nature. If she becomes Inquisitor, we are bound to work closely together until an end is brought to the conflict. I can imagine nothing more awkward.

The long and the short of it is: it is wrong to keep her near me. It is wrong to keep her away. I do not know how to navigate this.

Now that I look at it on the page, it seems overcautious. I haven’t blared about my…attraction. I wasn't the one to suggest naming her Inquisitor. And it would be ridiculous to hobble the Inquisition by denying it her talents, or to hold her back simply because of my inner turmoil.

At the time, the weight of all these things tied my tongue.

"Do you not agree?" Leliana asked.

I inhaled to speak.

"I do," Josephine cut me off. "But her being an elf will lead to certain diplomatic challenges. It will be a concern for Orlais. Not to mention Tevinter.”

“And she’s a mage," Cassandra noted. "That will cause problems in Ferelden, or anywhere devoted to the Chantry’s teachings."

“And Corypheus will still be hunting her," Leliana added. ”If we harbour her, we will be the ones to receive his ire. And it is considerable.”

They had talked themselves into it, then out of it again.

Maker, I could hardly keep up.

In truth, the deeper issue of faith was also at issue.

I was born into Andrastianism. Faith—or rather, religion—had been offered to me like a gift from my mother and father in lieu, perhaps, of the material wealth they did not have and could not extend.  But faith is more than that. It is more than a vocation and more than a part of my familial heritage. It is more than the cultural norms of Ferelden.

In short, I believed it. I believed in and loved the Maker, in spite of His mercurial fury and apathy toward us, in spite of His unsteadiness and his cruel abandonment of Thedas. At the time, I accepted that we had faltered so greatly we had lost the one love that should have been eternal. And I believed our collective suffering was the one thing that would bring Him back.

Similarly, I believed in and loved Andraste. I believed in her existence, in her goodness, accomplishments, sacrifice, and her tenacity. I fully accepted that she was the ideal individual, and that she was and should be the god of our endeavors, the objective arbiter by which all our souls would one day be measured.

To me, faith was both reality itself, and the sense with which to perceive it. To question it, indeed to break from it, was both madness and suicide. To reject everything about the world was dire. But I did it anyway. It was painful, disorienting, and humiliating to see the world afterwards. Day by day I behaved the same. I was up at the same time with a job to do, but inside I was despairing the incorrectness and the wastefulness of faith, and of relinquishing my eyes, ears, and heart as I knew them.

I still see, though through new eyes.

I have turned away from the Order, and from the Chantry as an organization. It is impossible not to see the same patterns and abuse of power there as I saw in the Templars. The abused frequently become abusers, and the Templars are a whirlpool heading down to the abyss, and pulling the mages with them. Knowing this, of course I could not say.

Since then, I have not been to services, nor have I read or actively contemplated the Chant. The Inquisition has filled the gaps, thankfully, but I haven't yet wrestled through the little humble truths of my new existence in the “base” world.

Now, it is harder for me to say whether the Maker exists. It still feels true, but how much of this is due to habit alone?

Andraste is somewhat easier because of the fall of Tevinter and the written records of her life. So, if Andraste existed, was she truly beloved by the Maker? And, was the Herald truly chosen by Andraste?

The question feels thorny, wounding, and slightly offensive to the person all this concerns. Can she be chosen by something and someone she does not believe in?

And where does that leave me? Did Shartan, the elven military advisor and champion to Andraste, also believe she was chosen? How can such a person knowingly risk the life of a holy individual?

Did Mafterath believe she was holy too? Did Hessarian? Did they willingly kill her anyway?

All of this seemed like a metaphor before. In my days in the monastery or the Circles, I brought questions to theologians or to Knight-Commanders, but I never thought these things would apply so directly to my life as I knew it.

I inhaled again. “She isn't the easiest option, clearly, but she is the best. I've heard tales from you, Cassandra, about her fearlessness in battle and the respect afforded her by the common man because of it. She proved all of that and more in Haven. She was a rare talent in the raid, saving civilians and rebuffing the enemy’s main attack line. She brought down many strong opponents. When everything was at its darkest, she was prepared to die for the Inquisition and to save all of our lives. She has proven herself capable, willing, and she far exceeded what we could have reasonably asked of her. On the mountain side when she—“

“…she defeated death itself…”

“—returned to us, the people were moved. They sang. We sang. Herald she may be, but she is more than that—“

…Knuckles…tip…ache…

—to the heart of our writ, and to each of us. Yes, she will be discriminated against. Yes, she will be questioned. I ask you this: so what? We must stand behind her—”

…fingers breaking, bitten, freezing…

“—all the more. She stood for us when no one else could. Now, we ought to stand for her. She's earned it. Make Quinna—“

“…Cullen…”

“—Inquisitor. There is no denying it. I say yes.”

It is right that she be made inquisitor. My hesitation had nothing to do with her, but a series of personal matters got tangled up in the moment.

All I need to do is ignore the issues for a few weeks and they will pass, like so many other things have. My duty hasn't changed. I haven't changed. She doesn't know. It's fine. Uncomfortable, maybe, but fine.

The Herald saw us talking and came to ask about our plotting. I suppose we looked conspicuous, clustered in a circle and whispering.

She accepted, after the shock wore off.

I hear people speaking her name and smiling. They are glad to know that, while we have been dealt a blow and we have all lost friends in Haven, the Inquisition's future and its present, are certain. That's what we need. Certainty. A sense of stability.

I suppose I am no exception.

I believe in this, as it is. As for the rest, the nuances of holiness and being chosen, I cannot say. Perhaps when we are on the other side of this, I will be able to see it all more clearly.

Chapter Text

—Annoying little problems are everywhere and everything is moving too slowly. The soldiers are working but it’s nowhere near good enough. We've been rushing through the mountains, running for our lives, and now that we are in Skyhold, everyone somehow thinks the work is done. The dawdling and lazing and chinwagging is infuriating.

So I’ve started drilling the soldiers on rushing structures. It’s a bit of a metaphor where discipline is concerned, but, in my experience, if one has to complete an action a hundred or more times, one learns to think of it in terms of metaphors. The message will come across—through brute force, if necessary.

If the vomit on the bridge is any indication, the message has begun to sink in already.

For the exercise, we begin outside and “take” Skyhold’s bridge and “dismantle” the portcullis. Then we split into two groups which run through the square to the rear walls at the foundry or the stables. The purpose of the run is to make space for those coming in behind. The point being, an army is a singular body. The Inquisition is a body. It is not safe until everyone is inside the walls. The work is not done until everyone is in. If a single soldier is foolish enough to stop as soon as they are in the entrance, they block the way for everyone else. These self-centred actions must be unlearned.

They’ve been at it for four hours now. After two weeks, it won’t be an issue again.

It will stick until new recruits begin arriving and they’ll need to be taught the same thing.

Bah.

I have a vague memory of Knight-Commander Greagoir in Kinloch Hold saying, “the commander wears the biggest boots because he’s got to do the most kicking." A little indelicate perhaps, but not incorrect.

Skyhold is well made and well defended. It is hidden and outfitted appropriately.

That makes Skyhold inherently dangerous.

It reminds me of centurion shock training in the monastic cloisters.

This occurred when I was approximately seventeen summers. After we recruits had learned the sword, the shield, and the bow, the Knight-Brothers took us to learn how to wear armor.

This seemed a silly thing to us recruits. We had been wearing leather, chain, even plate armour, all the way along. We knew how to put it on and take it off, how to care for it, and we had done more repairs than any population living, outside of the smith class.

Personally, I was never one to stomp my feet and complain about any form of training (even if I secretly felt it was beneath me), but some others were mildly offended at the start of our first lesson, as if we had been sent back to learn our numbers and letters from scratch.

Templars are, and have always been, shock troops. Heavily armored, they move slowly. They cannot and therefore do not hide. And, due to the conditions of their work, the call to retreat is exceedingly rare. "A Templar’s only ransom is his dagger," as they say.

Centurion training was learning to embrace becoming a force too armoured to be stopped.

The thickest, heaviest suit of plate was heaped onto us. A frogmouth helmet of iron, interlocking joints all the way down one’s fingers, elbows, knees, and hips, and a massive tower shield was added to our kit. After donning it all, we stood in parade formation, shields up and steel lances out, under the hot sun.

A minute passed and I was already shaking with fatigue. Under all that metal, the pressure against our joints was brutal. Our feet sank deeply into the dirt. The inside of the helmet was like an oven.

Men started to lower their shields. They were given a verbal warning, a swat from the Knight-Brother, and finally expulsion from the grounds if they lowered their shield a third time. Some passed out, falling with an unholy clatter to the ground.

I was reprimanded twice, which was rare for me. Sweat soaked my clothes. My arms ached for days until next week when we did it again, standing in the hot sun. This time, when our ankles were wobbly and we were panting only to stay upright, we were commanded to run from one end of the staging ground to the other.

I have learned complex material, and I have done drills. But I thought that this might actually kill me. All of us were groaning, loudly and artlessly. The next week, it was the same run but with a rope stretched across the field for us to jump over.

Having been a Circle Templar for several years, and having trained many recruits and planned for sieges, I must wonder about the utility of this training. It would be useful in only two situations: retaking a fallen Circle in the event of a declined Right of Annulment, and to besiege a secular fortress.

I wonder now how much we Templars were being trained for political reasons. At the command of Val Royeaux, we could easily be put to use in the event that Orlais wished to strike against Tevinter. Or the Anderfells. Or Ferelden.

All this to say, being so heavily armoured is a danger in and of itself. It takes massive amounts of energy just to keep moving. Having complete protection can prevent a person from accomplishing their goals, or could wind up killing them if the conditions are not right.

Skyhold is the same. It is protection, but it is also a burden. It will bankrupt us, drain our resources, or simply spread us to thin to fight if we are not careful to grow and organize properly.

I say this as though I am unhappy with this discovery. On the contrary, I have never been so pleased. But every tool requires skill to use. We must learn quickly, or this place will crush us.

I'll have to make some promotions and have others share some of this lifting.

I’ve spent the last few days carefully laying out the order of operations for our success in Skyhold. It is less about what must be done (it all must be done, of course) but it is about when each task is begun, by whom, and for how long. The intricacy is formidable.

The consequences even more so.

Later…

So…

It seems Lady Josephine has experience running "households" of this size. I was about to say the fortresses and posh people’s houses really aren't the same thing, but she rattled off a list of tasks she's taken care of already, and some of my concerns were on it. Structural integrity and repairs are chief among them. She’s already sent off several requests for utterly embarrassing sums of gold, most of which she has slated for my use once it is received.

Many hands make for lighter work, and, as I am discovering, wealth has hands as strong as anyone.

Hat tip, Montilyet. Hat tip.

Chapter Text

—I need to get a hold of myself. Fast.

It happened while I was out in the main square, working. There’s so much to do and nowhere near enough hands. We need to review the perimeter, take stock of threats, establish possible hunting grounds, and map and control areas of approach from the valley. I was establishing a few exploration parties—and again, Jimlad is so slow it makes me froth. Do you need every last detail of each task spelled out for you? Perhaps a reminder to step with your right foot and then your left? Makers sake!

And…well.

I knew that she was there, even though I did not turn to look. Her gaze feels like a ray of warm sun, comforting against my back.

Business grounds me. I had buried myself in tasks. I don't wish to think about the conversation on Haven we were due to have, the things I cannot and must not say. But I can only dodge the reminders for so long.

The Herald— No, I suppose I should call her the Inquisitor now. No point holding onto fleeting familiarities.

We spoke. I explained my strategy. Full fortifications, prep, and rotas by the end of the week. I told her the events at Haven could have been different if we had warning, or even half of these fortifications.

"We will not run from here,” I said, at the end.

I meant it. But implicitly, I wanted her to know that, should the unthinkable happen again, we will remain together. We will not leave her to bear the burden of sacrifice alone again. We will be a force, down to the last man and maid. I will see to it.

She asked after our casualties. They were heavy. Many soldiers and civilians were killed. Though not everyone in Haven was part of the Inquisition. A few pilgrims came to visit the Chantry, and a handful travellers had the misfortune of stopping for a meal at the tavern and got caught up in the celebration after the Breach. Their exact number, their names, and how to reach their families, are not on record. It will take Leliana and Lady Josephine some time to issue notices of death to their next of kin. That is perhaps the hardest part.

The final death toll is in the hundreds. It was punishing, but it could have been worse. I told the Inquisitor as much.

And she… She looks, healthy considering the injury and the cold brought her to the brink. And even I could feel it when—

Never mind.

The healers did a fine job. There isn't a scratch on her now. My frostbite was taken care of with no lasting signs as well, though it feels silly to place the two on equal footing.

Now that she is Inquisitor, I thought it appropriate to let her know that people are glad that she has taken up the position. If people questioned her or distrusted her before, all that has been put to rest.

I am glad for it professionally. Since she has the final say, it will calm the rhetoric between myself and Leliana. Maybe.

And personally…

It is easier to devote oneself to someone who has given their life for you—or was prepared to. It seems a sanguine word, but what other one could there be for this position that I am in?

I told her morale has increased. Apparently hers have as well.

Case in point, she made this comment to me that—

Oh, it’s silly to preserve it here. It doesn't matter.

Chapter Text

—You know what? To hell with it all. Here’s what she said.

I was speaking to the Inquisitor about those that died.

She said, "I'm relieved that you—that’s so many made it out."

I don’t understand. Why not just say the rest of it? "I'm relieved that you made it out." What tripped her up?

Gladness, for the others, possibly. All the civilians, spies, diplomats, and soldiers’ lives are important, even if she doesn't speak to each and every one of them as often as she does me. Perhaps she thought it polite to mention them as well, given that there were so many around just then.

At the time, I read too much into it. No, not read. Felt. Damn this lyrium. Every small interaction feels like a cataclysm.

She said what she said, and all I could think was, “you care that I lived, while you barely lived at all?”

Maker, it eats at me. I must look like a coward to her. Someone that would trade her life for his own. I don't know how to say it or address it without looking like it’s true.

And I still couldn't look her in the eye.

What I felt at that moment was overwhelming sadness. She was almost put in her grave. And we were almost lost in the mountains despite her sacrifice. Without her to bring us here, we would have died anyway.

So much of me is tangled up in the moment in the chantry before she went to face Corypheus. It wasn't a bad call, I know that. But how can I ask her forgiveness for something I am not allowed to be sorry for? I did the right thing!She did the right thing! And yet… This.

But, if she is indeed relieved at my survival, then I suppose she has no grudge against me. My death would have seemed like justice, otherwise.

I don’t know. At that little, skipped word, it would seem as though she has forgiven me. Without my having to ask.

It feels as though the world has shifted on its axis yet again, as it did when she saved me from a horrible future in Redcliffe. Like a hand keeps intervening in these terrible wrongs and righting them. But it is always hers and never mine, no matter how hard I think I work.

I have to fix this somehow. If I had known what was coming at Haven, I'd have been more prepared, I would have handled it, she wouldn’t have had to make a sacrifice, and everything would be different now.

How can I tell her this? After everything?

I can't. So, I will not try. I will only show her.

I touched her arm as she walked away and said the only thing that made sense: "I will not allow the events at Haven to happen again. You have my word."

The past cannot be undone. I, more than anyone, know that by now. All I can do is commit to changing the future. I have no magic; Dorian's time-bending trinket is not in my hands, and I would reject it if it was. I will have to steer it through ordinary means at an extraordinary level.

I just have to figure out how. To keep her alive. In this.

I promised.

Chapter Text

—That brief conversation left me as raw as a burn. Yet, it is difficult to put my thoughts into words. I didn’t—

It was an ordinary interaction. Unlike finding her outside of our camp in the snow. And unlike clutching her hand while the Archdemon flew over us. Nothing unusual happened. Still, I feel untethered by it.

Every time I interact with her now, it stays with me for days. And it isn't because of…that thing I thought about her when we were still in Haven. The whole affair incident is awkward and embarrassing, and I wish nothing more than to put it behind me. For more reasons than one.

I know that I have been put through a certain amount of difficulty in life: lyrium still tears at me, and the many paths I have walked for want of a steady destiny are no longer beneath my feet. At times I wonder what I should replace them with. So, being untethered should be nothing new to me.

Other incidents are not so simple, by contrast. I suffered in Kinloch Hold. Then I was released into an existence so devoid of humanity I could hardly fathom existing past the next breath. Now, I can laugh at a joke. I couldn't have done that the day I was released. So, am I healed? Or am I tethered to it still?

How does one tell? Only by the absence of pain and of adaptations circumventing the incident.

For instance, if a soldier takes an injury to his leg in the field of battle, he knows that he is injured through his pain. If he rests for a time until he feels no pain but still limps as he walks, the injury persists. It hasn’t healed, even if it no longer hurts.

I am beginning to suspect that, even though Kinloch no longer fills me with anger or terror or grief at every waking moment, I have been limping since the day the Circle fell. I just haven't thought to consider it until now.

And I must admit, between the nightmares and the emotions and thoughts that persist when I think back to those days, it’s obvious that the wound is still open. Tethered to me.

A wound can be stitched. A mangled limb can be amputated. What is the solution for my injury? If I only knew, I would just proceed with it and see it done with, at long last.

Well, perhaps I have lately been given a hint.

Case in point, the Inquisitor's presence is different to me now. Before, when we were still in Haven, I used to think about lifting her chin of my forefinger, though it bedevilled me as to the reason why. It was frightening how strong that urge became, as though I could hardly control it. When I look at her now, I no longer feel that urge, tearing at me. To tip her face up toward me so that we might…

Now that the meaning has been ascertained, the urge is no longer pressing me, howling at me to be understood.

Instead, I feel it now for what it is.

I think about…it. That. With no hidden meaning, no self-deception. Nothing to hide behind. No matter how awkward or impermissible the thought itself may be. At least it is real. It is something I can comprehend.

Yet it…it feels new, as if I had just developed it yesterday instead of several months ago when the urge itself began.

If I may use a visual metaphor, the sense of it is like a piece of artwork recently brought into a room. It brightens the space. I feel my eyes constantly drawn to it, my mind finding new things to appreciate about its presence.

And, new things to be unsettled by, of course. Why is it here? Who hung it? What will it cost…?

Maker’s sake. We were talking about the massacre of our allies. We have more work than ten of us could ever do. And still, part of me positively thrills by the mere fact that she is here, within the same walls as I. It is astounding how quickly and readily my mind has undone its grief upon her supposed death. But my memory clings to it, like guilt for another sin.

I look at her and feel sorrow, as if her living presence is a memorial to what I failed to protect. Another part is speechless, beaming at gladness for her attention when she offers it to me. Another thinks, in tiny snatches, about…what it would feel like. To act on what I imagined.

I keep that thought for when the night is very black, and the fortress is silent. No one must know of it, but it provides a sort of comfort to me. Even if, were I still in the Order or in the monastery, I would be obligated to confess this as a sin to the Mothers.

And, yes, another part of me is indeed dutifully preoccupied by fortifications and the actual requirements of my duty here.

All of this is jumbled. Every part of me seems to think less of the others.

Why fuss with requisitioning new farrier tools when I have this beautiful, fleeting dream in which to dwell?

Why daydream like a school-aged boy of romance and…embraces when there is actual work to be done?

The final word on Kinloch and putting all of that behind me is this one simple thing: I took her arm as she walked away from me yesterday. Did I do that for her benefit, or for mine?

Is something in me rotten or absent, so that I seek something from her to heal myself? Am I capable of moving on in life, and battling lyrium and being the Commander of the Inquisition all at once? If so, I can't be the type of person who acts selfishly, even in movements so small.

I've touched her four times. It was always impetuous, prompted by external factors but always untoward, if mildly so.

Yet, I remember them all. I should regret them or apologize to her or muzzle whatever part of me looks to her to provide what I should be content without.

…In spite of myself, I hope this time wasn't the last. How dim my life would be if that was the case.

Chapter Text

—No, I was right the first time.

Two days ago, I started off with a reprimand to get a hold of myself. Clearly, I did not.

Today, I read through the last entry and I am appalled. "I hope this time wasn't the last"? Maker’s sake. These words are foul and immoral. Moreover, how dare I?

This journal needs to be locked away or it needs the fire.

No one can see these sentiments. Not ever.

Chapter Text

—With the Skyhold keep now open, we’ve established a new war room. The amount of work to be done is overwhelming, particularly after we heard status updates from Lady Josephine and Leliana. They are positively inundated with messages from their contacts in other cities; business has continued as usual outside of Haven, and they are buried in happenings that have gone unaddressed while we lost Haven and ran for our lives in the woods. Add to that the work of setting Skyhold up, and it seems like a lifetime of work ahead.

Part of me is glad.

All my painstaking plans with tasks like gears set in a great machine has already been put into service. My colleagues seem relieved I have so much of it is in hand. Leliana hasn’t had a critical word for me in days.

So, take that.

The Inquisitor is…

Well, she seems ready for the journey ahead. I dare not say anything further.

She brought a promising new line of inquiry for me, too. It seems Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi has offered to take the Iron Bull’s Chargers down to Haven to take stock of what remains. It still feels too early, as if the place might still be unstable after the avalanche, but if the enemy is picking Haven’s bones clean, we need to know. Or rather, they need to be stopped and then we need to know. The Chargers should be equal to the task. There’s also a matter of retracing our steps and collecting the dead and the supplies we left behind along the way.

Lord Pavus and Helisma Derington, a Tranquil we took in as a researcher, have requested a corpse of one of the belligerents from the attack to, uh, dissect, I think. I’ve agreed, but under the proviso that we establish an external base for hazardous materials of that nature. Some secluded hut out on a mountain peak somewhere.

Fortunately, they’ve agreed to my stipulations. The armour and weapons from the enemy can come within the walls for research purposes until further notice. On their next trip abroad, the Inquisitor’s party has offered to bring back equipment from these so-called Red Templars for study here. I’ll need some if I’m going to design a treatise for my swordsmen to use. We will see what comes of it, but if any of it begins behaving how Varric’s red idol did, all of it is getting thrown into the sea forthwith.

Maker, I can't fathom what it would take to turn a Templar into those things we saw. No one in Thedas should be alive after undergoing the hideous contortions my former brothers and sisters were forced to endure. I still cannot make myself fully believe that they are human. Were human. People I knew. And cared about.

We hold no hope for survivors lingering in Haven, though the Chargers will listen for anyone who might have survived, trapped in buried basements. It will be good to provide the dead with their last honour.

Today, I too have been granted a simple, very blessed gift.

It took some time but the mages have lit everflame in the kitchen. Mother Giselle, who helps organize the day-to-day affairs of Skyhold running, sent civilian volunteers to collect snow to melt while the engineers work on what is apparently a complex aqueduct system in the fortress structure. We had been melting it for drinking water, but with the flames running constantly and with limited need for new fuel, they have been able to generate more water more quickly.

It was getting late as I was working outside at a table erected near the keep. A civilian offered me a shallow bowl of water. At first I didn’t know what to make of it, but I looked about and saw other volunteers handing out similar bowls, buckets, and small amphoras to the healers nearby and the day watch. They were gleefully stripping off their…well, everything to wash.

I certainly was not about to do the same, but it has been some days since any of us have had such creature comforts. I accepted the bowl and thanked the volunteer before heading into the gatehouse. We do not have the staff yet to man it, so I was guaranteed a moment to myself.

The water was pure but very cold. I had no time to pull off my entire kit (nor could I expect my solitude to hold so completely that one of my underlings wouldn’t come patrolling through the area and catch me in my altogether). Instead I removed my gloves and washed my face.

Truly, the smallest gifts can lift the spirit the most.

The water hit my eyes like a shock, but I could not believe how much ash and grit spilled from them. The fires at Haven were a week ago now. It seems as though I have been seeing through ruination all this time.

I rinsed over and over, scrubbing my cheeks and brow, letting the water run over the back of my neck, feeling that sweet relief.

Sometimes a bowl of cold water is all the miracle one needs.

Chapter Text

—Quarters have been assigned. I am highly pleased with the way the selections went. I daresay each of us advisors received our primary choice of lodging.

Josephine is in a comfortable, well-appointed wing in the run-down but sizeable main keep. It is easy to defend, as is the Inquisitor’s residence next door. Leliana has selected the rookery above the library, perfect for her many messengers—and apparently the acoustics are tuned in such a way that one may listen to everything said in the lower floors. It’s…very suitable, I’m sure.

There are a few wings and towers I might have taken for myself, but I jumped at one in particular. The foremost gate tower overlooks the fortress's bridge, the funnel of the valley below, as well as the switchbacks on the main path of approach. On the opposite side of the gate tower, the windows look down onto the keep and both fortress squares. Laterally, it connects to the rookery and to the outermost wall. In essence, I can see everything happening inside Skyhold, and view any party approaching from without. Even the Gallows, with its repurposed offices and labyrinthine concentric floors, doesn't hold a candle to this.

On a more personal note, this tower has no less than three exits. Apart from being a contained space, which I used to find intolerable, the three points of egress means, simply, ease of escape. It is absolutely perfect when stale fears of imprisonment gnaw at me. I cannot be trapped here. If I ever need reminding of this, I can simply walk out onto the wall to take the fresh air, or look upon the grand view from my latticed windows. I can see everything, am accessible to everyone that requires me, and I cannot be penned in during hostile situations. It’s perfect.

Perhaps best of all is the sleeping chamber one level above. Connected by a ladder that I can withdraw when I retire, the bedroom is secluded from the rest of Skyhold and surrounded by thick stone walls, easily muffling any noise I might make in my sleep.

One corner of the exterior has, unfortunately, become unstable and has fallen away, leading to a pile of rubble which needs to be cleared and rebuilt. I doubt it makes much of a difference to the noise, but I’ll make sure it is rebuilt when I have more time.

To be honest, I'm not sure that I mind the cold air, because, ah—well, something rather strange has happened to me since the retreat from Haven. It's…awkward and not worth bothering the healers with, but it has been consistent enough that I'll note it here.

As we journeyed to Skyhold, the temperature was very low. Some of our number, particularly those from the temperate regions of Orlais, found the conditions abominable. By contrast, the cold is not new to me, exactly; there were certainly some frosty nights in Ferelden that made me miserable as a child; curling into a ball and rubbing my arms to warm myself up was the only way I could sleep. In fact, I recall getting stuck in a snowstorm while out foraging with my father and my face getting so cold that the fluid over my eyes kept icing over, making it impossible to see. I remember being afraid for my life and thinking I would never feel warm again, no matter how close I stood to the fire upon our return. It took two days for the numbness to fully leave my feet. We were more fortunate in the Frostbacks.

Essentially, I am accustomed to the cold, and the journey there, while gruelling, was not a shock in that way. Therefore, it is some surprise to me now that, though we are higher, the air is thinner, and the climate icier here, I am constantly overheating.

Something about my armour seems to diffuse the heat somewhat during the day, even though this exact feature used to be a great nuisance in Haven. I used to hang my plate next to the hearth so it would warm up in the morning. It was liable to freeze to my skin when I picked it up otherwise. Now, when I walk through to our newly appointed War Room or linger to view progress in the keep, my breastplate roasts me like an oven.

For some reason, it’s worse at night.

Though it is no great irregularity for me to wake in a cold sweat from a nightmare (or just a general sense of distress), it is very unusual for me to be too hot under a single blanket in a room with no fire and half its damnable exterior wall missing!

I don't seem to have a fever and there are no other symptoms associated with it. I have not approached the healers as I doubt they will have an answer, but if I had to guess, it's as though something went haywire in me during the "long dark" after Haven. Being lost, afraid for everyone, stalked by the faces and voices of Templars I had known, was bleak. The endless walk and the constant cold perhaps broke whatever part of me detects and maintains a healthy stasis with my surroundings.

Or, perhaps I am not seeking equilibrium anymore. Something unusual happened when I picked Quin the Inquisitor out of the snow. Perhaps it was magic of some kind. Surely she did not cast something upon me, but it’s as if, since then, my skin is seeking the cold that it should not have escaped. Perhaps it wishes to return. Like I ought to plunge myself into that snow. To seek what I once had, there. Something I no longer have.

Anyway, all very odd and highly devious.

The, uh, solution is somewhat ignoble, too.

I've taken to laying on top of my blankets. It baffles me, but I may try pulling the ladder up tonight so that I may sleep with lighter bed clothes on. I will only do so if there’s no possibility of being interrupted, or, uh, seen, even if I am urgently hailed.

The sweater I can do without. Maybe even the tunic.

Oh, but this feels like madness! Hides and skins are going for triple the price they were in Haven. People are colder. Why am I the only one that's burning up?

It must be lyrium working its way into my muscles, the same way it was settling into my joints before. What's in store for me next? Blue skin? Excessive hair? Cardiac explosions? Deflated eyes? This situation is so impossible to predict, I have no idea where to look for precedence or to seek guidance. Every new challenge is a surprise on top of the frustrations it brings. Maybe all my veins will weaken and I'll suddenly bleed to death inside my skin. I may unwittingly become a propaganda showpiece at Thereinfal Redoubt on why Templars must always stay loyal no matter what, unless you want to end up like ol’ Cull Ruthers.

I've become accustomed to feeling an unpredictable range of ways each morning. Sometimes there is pain. Sometimes there is fear. Nausea. Depression. Irritable, uncomfortable energy. There's no rhyme or reason, only the feeling of being worn down.

Routine saves me. Every day, wake at the same time. Dress in the same way. Occupy myself so completely that the physical, emotional, spiritual, mental pains occur outside of and towards the background of my chosen tasks. Whatever unpredictable, intolerable, unpleasant thing that happens can carry on without me. For, at the end of the day, I am alive.

Or, it could be that this is a flu and I'll be better next week.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

— Too hot. Can't sleep. Desperate times, desperate actions.

I have started sleeping in the, ah...well...without apparel. Don't ask.

Later…

Woke up shivering. Not ideal. Putting on trousers.

Later…

Boiling. HELP.

Chapter Text

—There are a million things to do. Our new home, Skyhold, has a handful of truly significant structural problems. For one, there is a massive crater right through the dungeon! It needs to be assessed or else the entire keep may tumble into the valley below—with us inside it. Lady Josephine has requested some masons from Orzammar to see what they can do about it, but I've had our military engineers check it in the meantime. They haven’t seen anything like this fortress before, but their report should give us some idea as to whether we are in a death trap or not.

There is an absolute sea of such matters. The food stores, such as they are, are desperately in need expanding. Some of the messenger birds have contracted avian pox and it’s beginning to spread. The horses need attending to; a few of them escaped the carnage at Haven. Primarily those that were being used or exercised offsite (lucky), or those that left of their own accord during the havoc (smart). Some may yet survive on the hills around Haven. Of course, many more were killed and we are generally at a dearth.

One surviving horse belongs to the Inquisitor, a special gift from Horsemaster Dennet. It carried two wounded on its back much of the way from Haven and didn’t dawdle. We owe it two Inquisition lives.

Since then, and although it seems Skyhold may have some sort of internal aqueduct system, we only have been able to give it melted snow to drink, and it has only been allowed to graze on the patchy grass inside the square alongside two dozen other horses we have been able to marshal (plus the horses of our visitors, however many they may be at any given time). It’s hard on the poor beasts, but there is no way to grow fodder within the fortress. All of that is down to trade. And trade will be down to Lady Josephine.

As for sourcing replacement horses, that will be on me. Dennet wants compensation which will come from the military budget (thank you Queen Anora) and a guarantee of safe passage for more. I’ve set up a preliminary escort line to provide that safe passage, though we are hardly safe ourselves yet and the journey will draw us thin.

The mage corps constantly maintains and refreshes our cloaking wards. Patrols return with reports of dangers, wildlife, rockslides, and sightings of suspicious individuals—bandits or Venatori?—at the far reaches of our range.

There was a major surge of Red Templars into the Hinterlands area, I'm told. They’re murdering the war refugees. And, despite our successful closure of the Breach, we have received confirmation from three separate sources that the Fade rifts remain open. All of this has been a significant blow, but to some more than others.

The fight might have been brought to an end the day of the closure. Now we are certain that a true war has begun. We must prepare ourselves. And now, we have the means to begin dragging what is dark in Thedas into the light. In secret, I much prefer this to the polite peacekeeping and outreach we were expected to do initially.

Meanwhile, our healers are exhausted and undersupplied. Strange artefacts have been found in the nooks and crannies of this place. And, time to time, I hear the sound of beating wings.

I'm not sure if the sound is real or if it is a paranoid memory displaced from the Haven escape. But I had no lyrium in my blood, then. So, what displaced the noise, the terror? And why? What good would it do to hear it now when there is nothing here to fight or flee from?

It’s madness pointless.

Not to mention…

I see that boy skulking around. The one that looks and feels so wrong. Cole.

I have questions for him, but I have had no success in pinning him down. It's like he knows when I can see him. He immediately slips out of sight behind some corner or pillar and he's gone by the time I get there.

I'd like to talk to…a certain person about him, but she hasn't had a free moment when I have. I've sent her two notes about my concerns, but she hasn't replied. I suspect Cole is stealing the messages.

I trust my soldiers to keep people safe and they are all watching out for him, but I will not pretend that I trust him even slightly. Frankly, if we are just going to allow Cole to be here, I might as well kick down the Archdemon wards and invite that thing to take up residence in here with us as well.

Yet, the Inquisitor was quick to trust him in Haven. Why? Did he put a hex or something on her?

No, surely not. The Inquisitor is likely more capable of defending herself from such onslaughts than almost anyone living. Between her service as First to her clan and her time with us, plus the presence of Lord Pavus, Madame de Fer, Grand Enchanter Fiona, and, well, Solas, I doubt that insidious magic of that nature could have slipped by all of them.

Or at least, that is what I have been telling myself.

If I were to think of it optimistically, he was correct in Haven. His warning was apt and well-timed. We might have been slaughtered outside of the relative safety of the chantry without his warning. I admit that. But sometimes good deeds are done in service of evil plans.

Further, he knew about the catacombs, or rather, knew that Roderick was attempting to tell us. Roderick was many things, but the man certainly could not have been an apostate. His mind would have been closed to the Fade. So why was Cole the one who had information to help us not once but twice on the same night? Particularly when he did not know us before that day?

Now he is within our camp, watching our every move.

Maybe the reality is not so worrisome. Perhaps Roderick muttered about it to Cole who happened to be nearby. He did his due diligence and reported it when he heard the Inquisitor and I talking about related matters nearby. Cole might simply be an unwashed human who appeared here for mundane reasons.

But I do not think this is true.

Cole seemed to channel Roderick's thoughts, espousing inappropriate prognostications regarding the chancellor’s impending death—which did wind up being true but was not medically established at that time, nor was it the type of thing anyone with any rationality or social tact would say.

In fact, he always speaks in odd phrases rife with disconnected images, closer to the way a person's thoughts might collide and bubble up in pictures and sensations rather than in orderly, communicable statements.

No, the boy is touched by something inhuman. The list of possibilities is limited, but none of them are good. He could be a demon, or an abomination. Now that Archdemons and warped Templars and things are about…I don’t know. Perhaps he is something worse than what even I have imagined.

We cannot afford to take a chance that he is a benign oddity. With everyone occupied in getting settled, I will have him quietly removed.

I will tell a patrol to arrest him. I know the Inquisitor seems to have befriended him. I mean, she did speak to him on our journey here—I saw them together half a dozen times. But if I can't discuss the situation with her, and if he is avoiding me, I will have to act alone.

I know I ought not spook the mages. I cannot have them thinking I’m persecuting anyone without due process. But at the end of the day, I don't think they’d like having an abomination here either. It is an uncomplicated decision.

Sable and Lapierre will do. It will just be an arrest and questioning. For now.

Chapter Text

—I found Sable and Lapierre wandering in the keep. Even though it has been a full day and night, they swear they haven't found Cole yet.

I’m sure they were very surprised when I pointed to the back of the keep to where Cole was standing on the dais, looking at the ruined throne and illuminated by a bloody shaft of light! It's the most obvious spot in the fortress! I saw him from the steps outside!

Did Jimlad infect everyone with his incompetence?

I made the mistake of taking a moment to chastise my soldiers and direct them to Cole, but by then that sneak had moved on.

He must’ve heard me. An oversight. But, why hide? If someone is looking for you, why hide from them?

He must be up to something. And he knows that I'm onto him.

I do not wish to disturb the whole fortress, but something bad will happen unless I can detain him.

Chapter Text

—I decided to speak with Leliana and Lady Josephine about my suspicions regarding Cole. I'm certain they both know who he is, bashing at Haven’s gates and alerting everyone to the attack, not to mention his distinctive hat and odd behaviour. In fact, I'm sure Josephine addressed Cole by name once when we were regrouping in that giant tree trunk on the way to Skyhold. Between their people and mine, we’ll be able to sweep the grounds surreptitiously and see that this is sorted out with minimal disruption.

I went to Josephine’s study earlier today. I asked her to keep an eye out for Cole and to alert me if she saw him.

She looked at me with her eyebrows furrowed. "Who?"

"Cole. The gangly young man we ‘collected’ when we fled Haven."

She squinted, trying to recall.

"You know," I said impatiently. "Blond boy, not a soldier or a healer or an artisan. He wears a hat with a broad brim. He speaks like—well, like he thinks everything is a poem or a riddle."

"Sorry, what did you say his name was?" Josephine put her hand to her forehead like this might help her remember. The pose looked distressed, like she was getting a headache.

It felt positively uncanny to see her that way, looking just as I do when I doubt myself.

"He helped Chancellor Roderick lead us out of the catacombs. You must remember."

"I…" She let her hand drop to the desk. "Are you sure it was Chancellor Roderick that led us out?"

I gaped. "Of course it was Roderick! He had been skulking around the place since the Conclave began. It's how he knew there were tunnels in the first place. Are you feeling all right?"

She blinked slowly, as if she was coming out of a nap. “I— Not exactly?” She looked about herself, at the wrecked furniture and rubble still in the room. "Is there another demon in the wine? We have to tell the Queen at once.”

I checked about the room for any sign of Cole or other entity working some insidious magic. There was no time for an exhaustive search, but satisfied she was in no immediate danger, I left Josephine there at her desk and tore through the library to Leliana's office in the rookery tower. "You're not going to believe this, but we have a demon in our midst putting Lady Josephine under its thrall. I need your spies searching Skyhold for the one known as Cole. Immediately."

Leliana was at prayer before a half-scale carving the blessed Andraste. Instantly she was on her feet. “Josie?! Is she hurt?"

"No,” I replied. "Cole seems to have wiped her memory, or is blocking her recollections of him somehow. The damage goes all the way back to his arrival at Haven. We must take him down now!"

Leliana grabbed her bow and daggers, left on a chair out of the gaze of the Holy Lady. “What sort of a demon can wipe out a person’s memory?"

Such a heinous ability wasn't something that had ever come up in Templar training or out in the field. Demons could harness enormous power, much of it we cannot catalogue or comprehend. Moreover, we have had plenty of horrible things happen to us over the years, Leliana and I. When, exactly, was the root cause not a demon?

“Does it really matter?” I told her. "We need to find and arrest Cole. We can figure out the how and the why of all this later. And please tell me you remember who he is, or I am going to snap in half."

“Of course. Cole is the one…who…”

Leliana squinted at me. My heart began to sink. She did not have that lost, almost drugged appearance that Josephine had, but her usually sharp, incisive expression mellowed as she put down her weapons and shuffled through her papers, looking for something. “…to whom does he report?"

“He’s civilian, if anything," I said. "Not one of mine, not one of Josephine's, and I'm certain he's not in your direct employ either, unless he's a freelancer." I struggled to speak calmly. My heart was pounding. "Cole alerted us to the attack at Haven. He came to the gates and told us Corypheus was coming. You were standing with me. There's no way you do not know.”

Like a shadow, that same puzzled expression of Josephine’s descended on Leliana’s face. "I…"

“Maker's sake! He's exactly your height with blond hair and a hat with a brim out to here," I held my hands up to approximate its width. “Come on! You can look at any person in this camp and find out their profession, their parents’ income, where they were born, and what their darkest secret is, all from one glance. You can't tell me you don't know who Cole is. He's the most eye-catching person in this fortress outside of the Inquisitor and Iron Bull!"

Leliana blinked slowly. "Are you certain about the hat…?"

That rat bastard.

Josephine and Leliana aren't mages. Their minds should not be susceptible to demonic influence. Still, if he had gotten to them, he was likely going to come for me next.

Or, for the Inquisitor.

I headed for the stairs. I might already be too late. With her mage mind, open to the Fade, the Inquisitor was the most vulnerable of us. And if he could warp Josephine and Leliana—

"Cullen, wait."

I couldn't, not with so much at risk. I continued, walking backwards toward the stairs. “Do you remember who I'm speaking of?”

She shook her head. “I do not. But are you sure that he is real? And not…" She gestured toward her own head. "… not from lyrium, not from the withdrawals?"

Dammit. Cassandra told her, whispered it to her that day in the chantry.

Who knows how many of Leliana’s spies had been told, or had figured it out on their own? Did Cassandra really need an entire fortress of eyes to observe me?

Despite my irritation with this news, Leliana’s question deserved a considered answer. Admittedly, it was not something that occurred to me until then.

Instantly, I began to doubt myself. Was Cole some hallucination I had been too paranoid to parse from reality?

I admit that he does sound too atypical to be a demon, and completely absurd to be a human. Leliana’s assessment felt alarmingly astute.

I can always tell Uldred’s voice when it is needling me and I reflexively disregard it now, but lyrium might be finding new ways to erode me. Some new way to seep beneath my armour.

Perhaps I am going mad. Perhaps Cole was a phantom in my altered mind. Either I am right about Cole or I am insane.

But someone had carried Roderick through the catacombs. A hallucination could not have borne his weight.

I lunged down the stairs three at a time. The guards on the keep’s dais informed me that the Inquisitor was not in her newly-assigned chamber. I hurried over to the smithy on the other side of the dais to check for her there.

I’m not going mad. If Josephine didn’t know Cole, she would have simply said so. Same with Leliana. It’s a simple question. They wouldn’t have been dazed and unsure. That’s not normal.

Seggrit was in the smithy, still nursing his injuries but going over plans for a new shield with Cassandra.

"Have you seen the Inquisitor?" I asked, reining my demand into a question just as the harried words left my mouth. I wouldn't get the information I wanted if I moved too quickly.

“No," Cassandra replied, looking up. "She could be in the tavern."

That might have been enough, but Leliana’s observation had gotten my goat. "Have either of you seen that boy, Cole? Quiet, thin, large hat?"

That same drowsy, faraway look descended on Cassandra's face. "A boy…?"

"Seggrit?" I asked desperately, looking to the gruff smith.

"Nope," he said. No dumbfounded look, no seeking the edges of his memory. "Just got out of the infirmary today. Can't be a goddamn social butterfly when I’m laid up, roight?”

If I was trapped in some hellish Fade dream where nothing I perceived was truly real, the spirits managed to nail Seggrit, I'll give them that.

I quit the smithy. Varric was warming his hands by a newly set fire in the main keep, but I jogged past him. He might know Cole's name or the Inquisitor’s whereabouts, but there were only a few more places she could be. The tavern, or perhaps the stables, if not somewhere in between. It was faster to run than to stop.

I clutched the pommel of my sword as I jogged across the yard. Dispatching a demon is a skill in which I am particularly adept. If Cole left me for last, he had made a grave tactical error.

Inside the tavern, workers were piling up old junk and catching pests. There is no beer yet and little food so far. No one was taking meals or leisure here. This was a construction site, like any other.

The Inquisitor did not seem to be working on the lower floor, though I stuck my head in the kitchen just in case. The new chef and her helpers were standing on stools, trying to knock down an old bird’s nest from the rafters. One of them was screaming about bat droppings. Business as usual, but the scream was shrill enough to shatter glass.

It did something to me. Cut through my soul like a surgeon’s knife and instilled an ancient panic.

Hand on my sword, I bolted up the rickety stairs. The upper floors were dingy and covered with bugs, dirt, and mould. Sera, the archer, was there, poking around a storage room. She couldn't have been up to anything good, but I ran past her.

As a person who grew up in a single level house, and as one who subsequently trained in a huge, multilevel monastery, I am very sensitive to the noise people make by simply existing on the floor above me. They can be speaking quietly or walking normally, but the muffled activity is always a disruption on the edge of my senses. And I heard nothing from the highest floor of the tavern. I was already mentally mapping a path from the walls to the stable.

I stopped short when I saw the Inquisitor on the top floor.

She was alone and facing away from me, standing near a darkened corner where the slanted roof cut into the building. She was doing nothing: not cleaning or working or talking to anyone. She was simply standing motionlessly. As if she was in a trance. As if she was being controlled.

“Inquisitor?"

She did not acknowledge me. I stepped forward. Something prickled my skin, some subtle horror. This was not normal.

I called her title again, but this time I drew my sword. Something unnatural was happening here. I felt it.

“Sera,” I hissed to the floor below. “Get up here, now!”

"Oh," said a voice. It might have been the Inquisitor’s, it might have been that ‘boy’s’. Then I heard speech that could not have belonged to the Inquisitor.

”Finding faces fleetingly. The demons all look the same out here. The strike will come swiftly—Mi’salihn!—but do not hurt. It mustn't hurt for long.”

As if finally hearing me, the Inquisitor turned around. She pulled back in fright seeing me standing at her back with my sword drawn.

Me, the executioner.

“Fenedhis! What are you—”

Even in the midst of Haven’s destruction, I've never seen her look upon anything with such wide eyed fear. Maker’s sake. Not my intention.

I don't blame her. I just wish that she trusted me enough to know I wasn't about to murder her where she stood. But what I wouldn't have given for a half dose of lyrium and the Litany of Andralla just then. All of Cole's mind rot would have fallen away, at least from the Inquisitor.

Sera came running up the stairs behind me. “Whatever burrs you piss-lot got in your gut-arse, I didn’t shove ‘em, or didn’t shove on purpose-like this time, so shove o— eh?” She paused a pace behind me, taking in the unusual situation.

Despite frightening the Inquisitor, I didn't intend to put my sword back until it had solved our problem at long last. ”Get away from that thing, stand behind me,” I said, reaching out my arm to maneuver her away. "It isn't human. It bewitched Josephine and Leliana. It's doing the same thing to you."

Sera readied her bow, but she did not draw her nocked arrow. Until the shadow moved.

The demon looked no older than twenty. The slit in its hat provided a glimpse at one of its eyes, a disturbing pinprick of light in the shadowy corner. It did not have claws or horns. It did not speak my name in Uldred's voice. It did not throw magic to defend itself, but I saw its hands slip through its trousers and to a pair of what could only be concealed daggers.

The unrepentant bastard was clearly ready to kill the Inquisitor! It moved with such cold surety that I was immediately certain it had killed men before. Perhaps even armed ones, like myself.

“Quinn—”

My armour isn't meshed. A dagger–wielding rogue like this was bound to make my life very difficult. If he got past my first sword strike, I was likely to be outmatched.

“Sera, take aim.” I was glad she was there. If Cole attacked, she would handle it with as much force as I was liable to, if less restraint. “Inquisitor, get behind me,” I repeated desperately, my eyes locked on the demon. Maker, why was it so hard to make anyone else understand?

She did not listen. “Cullen, why are you brandishing your sword?” She was clearly confused, addled. Perhaps about to be possessed.

I hadn't brought a shield, and the Inquisitor’s magic is powerful; I know that well enough. I can't imagine what she was capable of if her spells were magnified by a demonic pact.

I might be able to block an ice strike or fireball with my vambrace. Perhaps Sera could take out Cole in the meantime. But without any space to manoeuvre, this would be over fast.

I hardly wished to die at the hands of a demon. I had not worked so hard, travelled so far, and survived so much just to find my end here, particularly from that pathetic bundle crouching in the corner.

“What’s it?” Sera called from a pace behind me at my right.

I could feel the sweat on my upper lip. “A demon. It’s brainwashing Leliana and Josephine. And Maker only knows how many others.”

I know a killer when I see one. It's like looking in the mirror.

The creature spoke.

”You're afraid? Of me?" It was half-statement, half-question. Rarely does the thing make so much sense. He must be scared, himself.

The Inquisitor looked over to me and back to the creature.

"You can see Cole?"

For a heartbeat, I was so glad to hear her use its name. I wasn't going mad. I was not alone in this.

"Of course I can see him," I said, not knowing with absolute certainty if this was for the better or for the worse. "He's magicked everyone else into blindness and washed away his memory from their minds. He's a demon. He must be stopped!”

“Where’s it at, then?!” Sera was frantic at my side. In my periphery, her arrow flicked from side to side, seeking an enemy she couldn’t see.

Maker’s breath, what has the power to do this?

The Inquisitor had not stepped aside. I had no path to which to make a kill move. Instead, she looked over her shoulder. “He's here, isn't he? Aren't you?”

The boy-shaped demon blinked beneath its hat.

Sera’s arrow fixed decisively just as the Inquisitor looked down, her eyes on the ground where Cole crouched. “Ah, there you are! Why were you hiding?”

"Icy stare, steady arm, nothing wrong. Must kill it, before it kills me—or worse."

I stepped slowly forward, extending my arm to bring the Inquisitor away from the thing. She still refused to move. “Cole?"

"Letters, losing, lost. Loss, loss, loss, lyrium. And, leave me, leave me, leave—“

"Enough!" I struck out with my blade, coming down in an overhand crossbody sweep. It would have cleaved a man twice Cole’s size in two.

"No!" The Inquisitor stepped toward me. We collided, her shoulder blocking my elbow and stunting the arc of my sweep. Cole escaped harm, far beneath the strike. Simultaneously, the Inquisitor cast a buffet of wind strong enough to blow Sera’s arrow sideways into the wall.

I slid back to make enough distance for another blow. "He's a demon!" I repeated. “Get away from him!”

“No he isn’t!” The Inquisitor shouted, sounding as desperate as I felt.

Sera nocked another arrow. “What is that thing then? ‘Cos it ain’t right.”

I certainly was not about to sword fight the Herald of Andraste. Not for any reason.

"This was a bad idea," Cole said, from the floor.

“It isn’t, it’s just…not going my way right now,” the Inquisitor said. She reached up a hand to rub her shoulder, where she had blocked me. "Ow."

"Why are you defending him?" I asked, much more loudly. If people came from downstairs, good. If there were more witnesses, it would make it harder for Cole to slip into the shadows again.

"I'm defending him because you’re trying to kill him."

“He has earned my ministrations,” I said.

The Inquisitor took a deep breath. “Sera, put your arrows away. Cullen, sheathe your sword. Cole has done nothing wrong. If you believe that he has, is it not the Inquisition’s belief that the accused stand trial? Or are they meant to face death without an investigation? Being as I have not yet been found innocent of causing the explosion at the Conclave, I'd be happy to tie myself to a stake if you'll run and get the torch."

I coughed.

As frustrating as I would normally find this, I began to feel a sense of calm. Not something that came from a spell, but that familiar sense that she continually offers me. Whether she knows it or not.

She was unharmed. She did not appear to be possessed or significantly controlled. This was the Quin Inquisitor I knew.

I lowered but did not sheathe my sword, and indicated that Sera do the same with her bow. Though she was clearly confused, the archer complied.

”Inquisitor, please. This…person is very dangerous. I need to find out exactly what he has done to the other advisors."

The Inquisitor raised her eyebrow. "Cole, did you do anything to Josephine and Leliana?"

“And Cassandra too,” I interjected.

"Birthday, break up, betrothal. Hare Lord, estranged son, wife and daughter on his arm, forgiveness sought—send gift." Cole said. Insanity, all.

"I'm still getting used to his manner of speech," the Inquisitor admitted, "but I think that means—“

"Yes," said Cole. "It means yes."

The Inquisitor twisted around. "Wait. What? You did something to Leliana and Josephine?”

"Yes," he said, almost cheerily, as if nothing about it was evil or repulsive.

The Inquisitor sighed wearily. "Dammit, I was pulling for you. What did you do to them?"

"I made them forget me," Cole said. His words seemed true, from what I had seen from Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra in the keep.

At least he’s being honest, I thought. Would a demon prize honesty? Even if an angry Templar soldier stood before him with a brandished sword?

"Reverse it," I snarled. "Give them back their memories."

“But they're my memories," Cole told me, as if his claims weren’t utterly ridiculous. "They don't need to know me. It's better if they don't. And if you don't. Forget!"

The word was issued like an order, the way someone might command a dog. I felt magic in the air, but not the sparking, buoyant, almost gas-like power of a charging mage. This was an undercurrent, as if the magic ran through the floor beneath us and the walls at our backs, beneath us and over us and through us all at once.

Sera looked about herself. “What are you lot playing at?” She looked in consternation at her lowered bow and arrow and slung them onto her back. Then she finished with a huge yawn. “Never been so knackered at such slack-jawed brass.” She yawned again and began heading back down the stairs.

“Sera!” I called her back, incredulous. “Where are you going?”

“I. Said. Shut. It.” Her red and yellow clothing flashed between the stairs below me until she was out of sight.

Cole looked blankly at the Inquisitor and then to me, perhaps expecting us to react in the same way.

"I will not tolerate being cursed by the likes of you," I growled. "Reverse it immediately or I'll take your head off."

He didn't seem to be listening. Instead he was staring down at his hands in surprise. "Why didn't it work?"

"I believe I can answer that," said a voice. Solas was walking up the stairs behind us. He carried his staff. He was prepared to cast, perhaps to fight. I wished I knew who he was preparing to do combat against.

"On guard, Solas,” I said. “This demon has been warping people’s minds and he needs to be neutralized!”

"Cole is no demon," the elf said in that collected, confident way he had. “Stow your sword, Commander, and we can arrive at the truth."

One unspeakable perversion of nature and two mages, both unbound by the strictures of sanctioned Circle magic. I certainly did not like my odds.

By the time I thought that, I knew my window to kill Cole had closed.

"Look to your left," I said, lowering but not sheathing my sword. "Then you'll see who’s really responsible for this mayhem."

Solas leaned on his brandished staff. “Cole, stop hiding. We can’t solve this if you make us blind to you.”

‘Blind to you’? But I can see him just fine.

Cole straightened up, and with his hands out in full view, walked in front of the Inquisitor toward me. My hand twitched toward my sword, but he did not advance. Instead he stood about three paces away from me.

"Cole," Solas cajoled with the firm tone of parent, but he was still looking at the back wall behind the Inquisitor. He hadn't seen Cole move. Nor had the Inquisitor. Why was I the only one seeing him?

I could have killed him then. Run him through. Half a pace forward with an easy elbow thrust. A child could've done it.

This is hard to describe, but a thought crossed my mind, then. Not something I specifically wished to consider, but almost like a glimpse of something that bubbled up from my memories. It’s the type of thing that a person would experience and dismiss a thousand times in a single day. It was so brief, it was almost unintelligible.

Kirkwall came to mind. Or rather, an incident during its collapse. One that I regret.

I said nothing of it. And yet—

“Three, thronging, thralls. Duty is in my blood, failure in the ashes. Roads run red. ‘Kill them. They must not be allowed to turn.’”

A curtain of crimson flooded my eyes. I saw red.

"Get out of my head!" I roared and lunged. Throwing my sword to the side, I tackled the boy to the ground and clutched his thin neck in my fist. I throttled him. His hat went flying. That awful skin turned purple from pressure of my fingers. And Maker, that stink washed over me in a cloud.

Clinging to my hands, Cole spoke through clenched teeth. “Words, whispers, warnings in sibilance. She said, ’like an ocean.’ And…she…was….right.”

FUCKING DIE!

Immediately the light changed, the taste of the air. Someone attacked me. With magic. It didn't hit. Not sure why, now. There was shouting. A tussle. And then the Inquisitor was beside me.

“Don’t do this! Drop him! Let us discuss it!"

"Not when that son of a bitch is in my head!” I was going to tear him to pieces.

The Inquisitor was gripping that thing’s disgusting shoulders. "Cole! Leave Cullen alone! Whatever you’ve done, stop!”

The thing looked at her stupidly, like a dog that was expected to speak.

“Cullen, please drop him!”

I released him, the wretch. I grabbed my sword, kicked open the tavern door to the outer wall, and staggered out into the cold air.

I was covered in sweat and shook like an aspen. I needed blood and calm.

Me, the executioner.

I threw my sword over the wall as if it were a cobra. Distantly I heard the clatter of steel on stone. A guard stared at me, stupefied as I rampaged up the stairs toward my tower.

I'll have Cole sent up to the Harrowing chamber. Knight-Commander Greagoir will see that he takes the brand.

Nonsense crackled behind my eyes.

We are not in Ferelden anymore. Greagoir is not Knight-Commander. Tranquillity only works on mages. Cole is not a mage.

Or is he? Was that it? Another Uldred?

I shut and locked the door behind me.

Have I gone raving mad?

I locked each of my three doors.

I threw sword away. My only protection. Yes. I’ve gone stark raving.

Could get a runner to recover it. If there's anything to pick up. Need new one anyway. Not sharp enough. Head clean off. Head clean.

I hear Uldred. Some deep well within me still holds part of a second, disembodied individual. Part man, part demon, part memory, still lingering down in my depths. A voice echoing from the cold abyss. But not today. Today I heard—

—like an ocean—

Those words! There is only one thing that knows those words. There is only one being that Cole could possibly be. He is a demon. I have no doubt anymore.

I will never, never suffer those words again. Not ever.

A soft rap at my door. Always someone hounding me for something.

I paced. They knocked again. It sounded like a woman's hand. A tentative question. I knew who it was.

I tried to get your attention for days.

But I would not be drawn to it. Not from this pit. Not into that bright glare. Outside world stays out.

I groped lamely for the pommel to balance me where I stood. Of course, it wasn’t there.

Why had I thrown my cursed sword? It’s the only thing I have!

And why did I try to do it with my hands?

Chapter Text

—I hate leaving tasks unfinished. The boy is a threat. What am I here for, if not to handle threats?

I let an hour pass. I did not exactly calm down, but I regained my composure.

I keep considering that muddled pallor of confusion descending upon Leliana, Lady Cassandra, and Lady Josephine. This malicious magic was purposefully done to them, and its effects still linger. I can't remain here, knowing what I know. No matter if the Inquisitor and Solas may disagree with me. No matter if…if Cole sees my thoughts again. I must bear it. Once he is dead, there will be no further concern. Decapitated heads do not speak.

Well, with demons or maleficarum, they might.

When the runner had retrieved my sword, I thrust the battered blade back into my belt. I had to bend it twice before it would fit. It would need to be re-edged if not completely replaced before I could do any proper sword fighting, but I could take Cole's head off with a dull blade. Abominations deserve no better.

I walked down from my tower and into the fortress square. It's possible the Inquisitor had settled in the tavern, but I bypassed the building. Whatever one might call the altercation we just had, I didn't wish to return to it.

Solas said he might be able to explain what Cole was. He hadn't shown direct signs of being under the boy’s influence, at least.

I mounted the steps of the keep.

Solas has taken up in a side room off the main floor. It is dingy and cold yet, but there's a fine old table in the centre that looks sturdy. Like my tower, it has many exits. The sleeping area is attached. This observation of similar taste might have given me some degree of optimism, but today I felt nothing.

I was admitted, and I suppose I should not be surprised that Solas and the Inquisitor were together, sitting on a dusty old settee, shoved to the side of the room against some ramshackle scaffolding from ages past. Both of them stopped their discussion as I came in. They looked almost guilty about something.

"Is he here? ‘Cole’?” Demons don't have names. They do not have parents to name them or citizenship to verify it. They aren't individuals. It isn't a name. It isn’t a person.

"He's roaming the courtyard," the Inquisitor said, too matter-of-factly. I could have flipped the desk.

"That thing is dangerous. I thought I could trust you two to at least keep an eye on him until we decided what to do with him. But I suppose that should have been explicitly stated?"

I was being very diplomatic for the aggravation that I felt.

Both elves exchanged glances, as though I'd said something foolish. "Cole has been casting Blood magic on our allies. Josephine, Leliana, Cassandra, and if I'm not mistaken, Inquisitor, there's evidence to suggest he is using it against your mind as well. He is not human, and he is malicious. There is only one way to deal with creatures of this nature. I understand you may have additional information, Solas, but facts are still facts. He must be dealt with. Not soon, but now. What is the obstacle you face?"

Solas, normally austere and content, was pink on his cheeks from barely contained fury. At me, no doubt.

Why? Why fight me? What possible good could come of allowing Cole to be here?

"Commander, allow me to explain what I know," Solas said, though it was obvious he would rather fight me than talk. "Cole is not a human, as you correctly observed. But, he is not a demon as you suggest. I believe it more likely that he is a spirit, but the world has not altered him as it typically does to a spirit. I am trying to discover Cole's exact nature and origin, but I require time and a significant measure of his trust. Which is why—”

I scoffed. "What sort of ‘spirit’ controls the minds of the people around it?" Maker, Cole was Uldred in a smaller, weaker body. And he wasn’t trying to hide it! What I could have saved myself from, what I could have saved all of Kinloch from, is unfathomable, if only I had known to cut the head off of that snake before he had trapped us all.

"That is irregular," Solas said. He was clearly fighting to keep his calm. This irked me. Whatever I had done was predictable, warranted, and in the majority’s best interests. Solas sneaks about, secretly researching abominations and acts surprised when there's backlash. Then he has the audacity to be condescending, while simultaneously remaining ignorant of the crux of the matter.

I should take Cole's head. We can research him later.

"We think Cole is a spirit," the Inquisitor said, taking the reins from her counterpart. "He has the ability to turn invisible and make people forget they saw or spoke with him. It isn't Blood magic. Nor is it demonic mind control. He just disappears from a person's memory. Because spirits surviving in our world is so rare, we have had almost no contact with non-demonic Fade entities. It’s why Cole’s abilities seem so unusual.”

She ran a hand through her hair, almost nervously. “It’s not just the advisors. It’s everyone here in Skyhold. Ask most anyone about Cole and they will have no memory of him. There are two people here in camp. One of them is me. Apparently the Fade magic in my hand makes it easier for me to sense and see him, and it's harder for him to make me forget his presence.

“The other exception is… is you. He can escape the sight of other Templars and avoid detection, but he cannot erase his presence from your mind. There is something about you that makes him permanent. He doesn't understand it any better than we do."

I was not impressed. "That's not all he's capable of doing. Those nonsensical ramblings of his. Those are…thoughts, aren't they? He's taking them from others."

"Witnessing, not taking," Solas interjected. "Cole can sense people’s internal goings on. He hears internal monologues, feels memories, and senses the esoteric from every individual in proximity."

“That is an invasion," I thundered. "People do not need anyone, be it demon or spirit or human or whatever else, inside their minds. I am adamantly against this."

"I agree it creates a certain vulnerability in the people here," Solas continued. "But Cole cannot extinguish or prevent it. It is merely a sense, the same as hearing or smell. You cannot unhear what is spoken in your presence. Nor can you, in a crowded room of conversations, think, ‘I am allowed to hear this person speak, but not that one. I have consent to listen to her, but not to him. I must turn my ear away here, but not there.’ It isn't possible. Nor feasible."

"All of this can be solved by simply having Cole leave Skyhold. Then he hears nothing, by accident, on purpose, consented or otherwise. It's a simple, common sense solution."

The boy can leave as ashes on the wind, too. That's effective and easy to arrange.

The Inquisitor was shaking her head. "I asked him to stay."

Under whose authority?

I almost said it. Almost.

Even as Knight-Commander with emergency powers over Kirkwall at the heights of my career, my authority was far from infinite: the Knights-Divine, the Seekers, not to mention Andrastian doctrine held sway over me at all times. Nothing I did was unilateral.

It seems the Inquisition is not the same.

The trick of it is simply that authority is never above question or external considerations. I've learned that quite well. We are a team. At least, we are meant to be.

”That decision affects all of us," I said. "Why were we not consulted?"

"I consulted with Leliana and Josephine, and they agreed," the Inquisitor shrugged.

They then promptly forgot about it, no doubt.

"Odd that you did not consider me." Lady Josephine would have been pleased with my restraint.

The Inquisitor closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if my insinuation physically hurt her. "I realize how this must look, but I know that you have a more conservative opinion on the Fade."

Andraste's sake!

She continued. "When we brought Cole to you—which was my express intention, by the way—I wanted to be very well informed. We wanted to be able to explain what he is without any hesitation, and we wanted to have an answer for every question you might have, simply so we could make the best decision for everyone. We wouldn't have taken much longer, a day or two more at most, but we hadn't accounted for the possibility that you alone were immune to his magic and would see him walking about, where nobody else could."

"And the damage he could've done in that time? The people he is capable of hurting, or killing, I suppose that has no meaning?"

"Cole hasn't hurt anyone," she said. “He's not malicious. The opposite of that, in fact."

"Yes, truly," Solas interjected. “Certain kinds of spirits are exceedingly rare, even in the raw Fade. When one is encountered…"

He continued, but my attention was on the Inquisitor. She had begun her speech with conviction at first, but that seemed to wither when she came to her last point. Perhaps Leliana or Josephine would have been able to tell what it was simply by looking at her, but I cannot.

Just the same, she dodged my eyes. It made me nervous.

"What are you not telling me?" I asked, cutting Solas off mid sentence. "There's something you're trying to hide. What is it?"

Solas stopped, perhaps somewhat offended but the Inquisitor gave a deep sigh of resignation.

"Don't freak out," she began.

Oh, this’ll be rich.

"Cole is a Compassion spirit. Or is associated with one in someway. We think."

"So he's possessed," I said. “We've already established that."

“No, he is not possessed—” Solas cut in.

"That isn't the issue," the Inquisitor said, also cutting Solas off. “Compassion spirits take it upon themselves to help or heal others of physical or emotional pain."

In exchange for what?

"Cole is no exception. The injured we brought with us from Haven are particularly affecting for him. They are hurt and in pain. Some of them will get better with time, help, and supplies. But there was one soldier who survived the journey but was beyond help."

Talbot. One of the first volunteers that joined the Inquisition. I knew him well.

The Inquisitor leaned forward. "Cole doesn't understand mortality and existence the way we do. When he looked at the soldier, he saw someone in terrible pain, who was never going to recover. As an act of compassion, Cole suggested mercy killing him."

What? Murder Talbot while he was defenceless and experiencing the final days of his life? When time is the most precious?

"That is utterly demented," I said, hardly keeping my rage restrained. "Talbot was one of the first civilians who believed in us— in you! He believed enough to travel all the way to the Frostbacks and lay his life on the line, even though he grew up raising bloody chickens in Killarney all his life and never held more than a carving knife—”

“Cole didn't kill him,” the Inquisitor said. Her eyes were like misted glass. "He knows enough to ask about these things and abide by our wishes. I told him no. He listened."

"Well thank the Maker you were within earshot," I muttered. "I hope you'll be here next time someone else is hurt. Or Cole needs a friendly reminder not to murder people.”

The Inquisitor and Solas exchanged a glance. Solas looked weary but resigned, as if he had expected this reaction for me. For her part… I cannot say what the Inquisitor was thinking. Perhaps she thought I would be more accepting. I was not.

"Commander, listen to reason," Solas had the audacity to say.

I laughed. "Reason? You let an abomination, one that you cannot control or even remember run roughshod through our ranks, without knowing what he is or what he is capable of, and I'm not seeing reason? You dare?"

"I will not stand here while you impugn innocent denizens of the Fade!" Solas continued. "He has harmed no one and he will harm no one. By contrast, how many mages has your blade destroyed, Commander? More than you'll tell us or more than you know?"

I scowled. "That isn't what this is about. And if you don't like standing in my presence, Solas, you can go."

"Your arrogance does your precious little credit, Commander. If I discover that Cole has been harmed or threatened in any way while my back is turned—”

"It won’t come to that," the Inquisitor said. She sounded certain. I took the support in the argument—Maker knows it's rare!—but why she decided to assert this so firmly was beyond me.

“And if that thing harms or threatens anyone here, what’s your plan then? Or hadn’t you gotten that far?” I retorted.

“He will be treated the same as any of us. If Cole does someone harm, he will be taken under arrest and face trial," the Inquisitor finished.

“Assuming he doesn’t just ghost his way through the walls.”

"The Templar-trained can contain him can't they?" the Inquisitor asked. "Or the Orlesian mage muzzling the rifts right now. What about her? She could consecrate a prison cell for him, if that is a concern spoken in good faith.”

“Lethallan—" Solas began speaking to the Inquisitor in Dalish. She responded evenly while Solas seemed to grow increasingly agitated. I was about to ask them to speak in the common tongue, but Solas returned to it, not shouting exactly but rounding in exasperation on the Inquisitor. "Because he's wrong, Lethallan. Our focus should not be here. It should be on Cole who is the most confused and vulnerable of any of us.”

"Agreed," Inquisitor said as Solas stood up.

He held open the door to the main keep, but the Inquisitor did not follow. "We need to find him," Solas repeated. “He comes to you more readily than he does me.”

"I know," the Inquisitor said. "Give me a minute. I'll catch up."

Solas looked at me with a withering glance and shut the door behind him.

I was highly surprised that the Inquisitor had opted to stay. Things had gotten heated, I admit that. Even so, the last time I was alone with her was when I gripped her hand to hide it from the Archdemon. I— No, of course not. We were in a crowd of all Haven survivors then.

The last time we were alone was when I found her in the snow outside of— No. Cassandra, Varric and the others were on my heels when I reached her.

The last time was when we were in Haven near the chantry. I was half-mad with pain and I realized that I— Maker’s sake, we were in public.

Why does it always feel like we are the only two in the world?

I put my hands behind my back.

We had experienced a fair few…memorable moments in the last two weeks. Today would not be the same, I decided. I would not be unknightly; no Archdemon was overhead and my pain was more manageable today. I have no more excuses for acting emotionally around her. She will start to notice my behaviour before too long if I keep this up.

Here, now, tabula rasa. A fresh start. It would have to be, frankly, or else—

“I’m sorry," the Inquisitor said. "What you said, about not informing you about Cole. You were right. That wasn't fair. I apologize."

I can't say I expected this. I received my due deference in Kirkwall —perhaps too much—but it was exceedingly rare that I was extended an actual apology. People were frequently too busy covering up or minimizing their faults to acknowledge them.

As a result, I had no idea what to say to her.

“I— Really? Why?” Maker. What am I? Eleven?

The Inquisitor made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "Solas is very knowledgeable, and I’ve had my own training from my clan, but neither of us truly understand what Cole is. A spirit-possessed human? A ghost? A spirit in a corpse? A Fade-made body? These should be impossible, but now it seems like they could very well be walking among us.

“At first I thought Cole was…not exactly insane, but odd. A poor, sad boy missing pieces in his mind. And then I saw him disappear. I knew he was something else then. An Other. He worried me. He does worry me. We share that concern, Commander. But can you imagine what we must all look like to him? Or the shades of grey between the Chantry, the Divine, the mages and the Templars?

“He took a risk and tore over the countryside to warn us of the attack. Without him, it would have been much much worse—he prevented loss of life in our camp. Conversely, without us, his situation would have been much better. We owe him an opportunity to be himself, whatever that truly means, because I doubt there is a single other place in Thedas that he can go where he will be accepted. I want to give him this as thanks, but also as a moral decision in a world full of violence and exploitation."

She shook her head. "And here I am, without a soapbox. My point is, I should've told you all this as soon as I knew about it. I kept you in the dark on purpose. Never again. Now you have my word."

She spoke as though we were traders at a market. I hadn't sworn to keep Skyhold—and her presence here—safe because I expected something from her. I do not wish her to go on believing that. But I did not know how to discuss this it in a way that was as…neutral as I needed it to be.

"Thank you, but I continue to have great concerns about this. Spirits can rupture, warping into demons. Since we do not know what Cole is, we do not know what could turn him. Perhaps a battle? Or something commonplace like an argument? It might be far less predictable than that. The cold. A campfire. An incantation. Moreover, we do not know how to contain him if he does turn. Will his demonic form have unusual characteristics, like he currently does? And this resulting demon, because he has been close to us, will know all sorts of things about us immediately. What you care about. Where you sleep.

Maker, I keep trying to give small concessions as we speak, but it is so difficult.

"I understand your rationale,” she said. “But I am not in the business of judging people for things they ‘might' do. I’m here with you inside an isolated tower in a creepy old fortress and I am not concerned, though you are Templar-trained and I am a mage, you are a man and I am a woman, and you are armed and I am not. I do find Cole unpredictable and strange—I am not blind. But trust has not had a chance to grow. It would be a mistake to kill someone simply because we have not given them a chance. That would be tragic. And far too circular for my taste." She leaned against the dirty scaffold lining the round room. "You must've known that too. When you attacked him, you held back. Part of you knew it wasn't right."

No. Part of me knew that you wouldn't like it.

The Inquisitor ran a hand through her hair. “Also, Cole seems to be a bit scared of you now. That makes me sad."

And, Makers's breath, in that moment, I did feel a bit ashamed. I had acted without due consideration, like I was not in full control of my actions. That was, indeed, worthy of examination, or whatever she was doing to me here.

“Cole said something about an ocean. And—your face. I’ve never seen you like that! What did he mean?”

She's walking too close, standing on the ridge of the crater within me. Instantly I felt my thoughts turn black. Whatever openness I felt immediately evaporated. “My only motive is to prevent unnecessary loss of life. That is all," I said.

I wonder. Does she see through me as easily as it seems?

She straightened up from the wall. ”Cullen, can I tell you something I haven't told anyone before?"

"If you trust me with it."

Why in Thedas would I say it like that? I am no gossip and I know it is not my purview to judge her for her past.

"You can, Inquisitor. Of course you can." Perhaps I salvaged it. Perhaps I did not.

The dusky glow of a dirty torch played upon her hair. It was morning. Too early for amber and red flames inside of dark rooms.

I leaned on my sword.

“Never mind," she said at last. "I wasn’t— Sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. Suffice it to say, I've learned not to assume the worst about people, simply because the worst has so often been assumed about me. I just don't want to see it happen to anyone else.”

I knew by her demeanour that the decision was made. Despite her gracious apology to me earlier, there would be no capitulation. I decided to reach for one concession, for my own sake.

“Tell Cole that he is not to come into my tower unless he receives an express invitation from me. Nor is he to stay in the tower beyond the structures of the original invitation. My captains, lieutenants, assistants and so forth, none of them can grant Cole this entry. Only I can. He is not allowed in under any other circumstance.”

"I agree to tell him. Your space is, and shall remain, your space and your space alone." She inhaled and let out a long suffering sigh.

These are waters I was not prepared to swim, but I had to say something or she would likely think I was being tyrannical. If she knew about Uldred, even half of what I had experienced, perhaps she would think more charitably of my reticence. But I had no idea how to begin.

"Surely you've seen what happens when a spirit possesses as a human. As it happens, I—”

"I haven't seen it."

I balked. "What?"

“In the woods, demonic possession is one of those things we hear by fireside. It's like a myth or a tall tale, something parents talk about to frighten their children."

I couldn't believe my ears. "You're a mage. How has this never come up?"

She shrugged, though not with apathy. With bitterness. "We are Dalish. They kill everyone else like me.”

…oh.

Thinking on it now, I had been preoccupied with my personal horror and had not considered that she was operating within her own. Pain comes from many angles. From demons and spirits, yes, but also from the wholesale rejection and destruction of the Other. Horror comes from the non-magical as much as from the magical itself.

Is your pain as hard to speak as mine? Do we have that same dark crater within?

What fell between us was an airless, dense silence.

I could see the Inquisitor out of the corner of my eye, stone faced and silent but clearly upset.

How can I do this? How can I possibly look at you and have this conversation, knowing what I know? With Régine’s voice in my head saying, "she destroyed death," and feeling everything stop, including my own heart when I saw you in the snow? My hand aches like your fingers are still entwined with mine. I hear your voice whisper my name. Maker, I can still feel you in my arms like a wound that hasn't finished healing. And here we are. Arguing. Hurting each other like we are strangers. Like nothing has happened, like nothing has changed since Haven.

Everything has changed. I have changed. So have you.

So why this?

“I’ve offended you," I said. "Clearly I— Rather, you must understand that I—”

Could I tell her? For any price? Is it possible for me to shove that mountain of trauma up through my throat, form it into noise, for someone else to understand? Maker, the very idea is beyond absurd.

"It's fine," the Inquisitor told me, pushing off from the scaffolding. "We've reached consensus anyway, I believe. There is a great deal to be done in the Hinterlands, the Storm Coast is a mess, and now there’s that business in the Mire about your missing soldiers. I must go, soon. Continue to work. And I’ve just realized I need to take Cole with me. I don't think it right that I leave him here when he is not yet accepted."

My heart began to race. Putting him in close quarters with someone as important as the Inquisitor could be disastrous. "Take Cassandra,” I said immediately.

The Inquisitor nodded briskly. "I will. We will watch Cole for strange behaviour. If it happens, we will look at stricter measures but until that time he is to be treated like anyone else. And he is to stay out of your tower, no exceptions. Does that cover it?"

"Yes," I said. "Thank you."

I sounded unexpectedly hurt to my own ear. I can't say why. Nothing bad had happened to me. Nothing remarkable. But Maker, I ached.

The Inquisitor opened the door to the keep, to follow Solas and reenter the world. She hesitated, hand on the iron ring. “Was Solas right?”

"About what?" I asked.

"You. Killing mages."

I paused. What sort of question was this? Yes, I had been a Templar and dispatching mages who threatened me or the lives of civilians was my duty. Moreover, hadn't she herself killed mages during the course of this war in the name of self-defense?

"I have killed them," I said. Trepidation tastes like bitter rust.

"… How many?"

Ah. She wished to know if I had kept count. Notched a belt. Kept ears. Revelled in it.

Does she not know?

When it happened one on one, the apostates I hunted, the abominations I put down, the apprentices that failed their Harrowings—each of those I remembered. Often their names, their faces, and the conversations we'd had before their turning. I knew many of them quite well, especially when I was still in Ferelden. In the mayhem of Kinloch's collapse and in the aftermath of the chantry explosion in Kirkwall, it was harder to keep track. I could not always tell which of my opponents were demons and which were abominations, willingly giving their flesh to demon hosts. Often the lines between what is demon and what is mage is not so clear.

I suppose I had lost count. Solas might have been correct about that part. But it's not as though things are always black and white.

But how could I look her in the eye and say that?

”I… I prefer not to speak of such things," I told her. I lowered my gaze. She must've seen the guilt. Or worse, she saw this is proof that I would not be forthcoming when asked a difficult question.

And this, right after she asked if she could trust me and thought better of it.

She looked struck.

I'll note that the Inquisitor had the compassion to leave it at that and not drag me over the coals after the row we just had, but I find that I am not so forgiving toward myself.

How many have there been, really? How many lives—?

I thought it was a sign of strength, not to weep over every drop of spilt blood. Should I allow every demon to mark me, to make me grieve as if it were a friend, even if they had never been a person?

…I do not know how to give what she asks of me.

Chapter Text

—

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

Dammit, do mages that were made tranquil count? Does apprentice Aldir count? I didn’t kill him but he died in my presence.

What of the sick or aging mages that died in my Circle? Does it matter if I was or wasn’t on shift? What about abominations? How about the one in the, uh…establishment that Hawke interrogated on my behalf, who attacked and was subsequently killed? Is that on me? What about Blood mages? What about Tevinters? Maybe elves care less about their deaths. Or is the fact that they were mages the only operative factor here?

And what of non-mages? No concern about that, apparently.

Did that Anders person survive, in the end? I don't know. Does he count?

Maker’s sake. I'm certain I'm forgetting some. This poorness in my memory is a terror. I can't confirm how much of me lyrium has consumed and how much of it is just normal forgetting

healing

apathy

moving on?

moving forward!

making excuses.

Maybe this is normal. I don't know anymore.

Does she want their names?

Chapter Text

—I keep wondering about what the Inquisitor alluded to. She asked me if she could trust me with something, some instance she hadn’t told anyone before. She seemed about to speak, then thought better of it. And perhaps rightly, I’m irritated to say.

That aside, I thought it would be harder to interact with her again. Certainly, there was the disagreement about Cole. That business was awful. But actually talking to her felt surprisingly easy. Easier than it should have, even if it wasn’t perfectly light and friendly.

I hesitate to call it 'normal', for it was not quite that. But I had assumed a certain amount of resentment from her after the…‘advice’ I gave her in Haven. It's not every day an individual is asked by their ally to die and is then expected to continue working alongside them.

I have been in this situation a handful of times before. Most Inquisition soldiers or Templars who know they are going into very dangerous battles have an opportunity to consider and to renew their commitment to the cause. To put it another way, they are often given at least a little time to fully realize that the end of their life may be forthcoming.

A Templar sent to collect a particularly vicious apostate has the journey to process the reality of an unpleasant fate, for instance. On the other hand, some situations do not allow for such deep considerations. Death can come either way.

In Kirkwall after the chantry explosion, we Templars moved to minimize harm and restore order. It was my task to remain with Meredith in the main thoroughfares while the rank-and-file Knights pushed into the side streets and neighbourhoods. I could act simultaneously as overseer and bodyguard, taking in the changing climate of that ghastly fight and ensuring our commander remained alive.

The attack on the chantry shocked us all, that day. The Knights came running out to meet us from wherever they were in the city. I organized and sent them back out as quickly as I could. In one case, there were two avenues that intersected at my left. One branched southeast, the other northwest. In the second or so I had in which to look down these paths from where I was, I could see that the walls on the southeast path reflected a faint, flickering glow. By contrast, the walls on the northwest path reflected nothing. The windows were dark.

Just then, three soldiers ran toward me, harried but looking to help.

There was no time—and I mean it completely: there was no time—to investigate both paths myself. Meredith was pressing forward and we could not linger where we were. From my quick observation, it seemed there was a fire down the southeast path while the northwest one seemed quiet. I told two Knights, one a relatively new Knight and the other a Knight-Lieutenant, to take the southern path. They could handle the fire, assist the civilians, put down a moderate danger. Down the seemingly safer northern path, I sent the third Knight alone. Ideally, she would have had a partner to accompany her, but we had to work with what we had.

It wasn’t until almost a week later that I heard a report on what happened to them.

It turns out the southeast path, the one with the flame, was not a moderate danger, as I had deduced. The firelight was not from burning debris, but from a colony of almost twenty powerful Rage demons.

The two Knights were vastly outmatched. After a brave but brief scuffle, Ser Ullman was killed. I was informed that the fire that ended his life was so consuming, his faulds and cuirass melted together, encasing his skeleton inside. Ser Breme, the officer, happened to be standing closer to an alleyway. Seeing there was no chance of defeating his enemies, he retreated.

Breme received minor burns and a broken finger, but his injuries were not severe. Even so, he was never the same. After nearly losing his life in so violent and sudden a manner, he seemed to lose his knightly courage. I believe he would have left the Order if he could have. But, since his injuries were not career-ending, Breme was not given discharge, nor a lyrium pension. He campaigned for office work. I had none to offer. Eventually I sent him to Highever to act as a chantry Knight instead. When the order came for the Knighthood to return to the White Spire, I do not know if he abandoned his post or heeded the call. I can say with certainty that he did not join the Inquisition. At least, not as a soldier.

And, it turns out, the northwestern path was completely safe. Ser Ingrid informed the inquisitive civilians to return to their homes and lock their doors and windows. She faced almost no danger that night, while her fellows suffered and died close by. Her fate, and that of Sers Ullman and Breme could not have been different.

Had I kept the three together, she might have died along with Ser Ullman. Or, perhaps the added set of hands would have allowed all three of them to fend off the Rage demons long enough to get away. It is impossible to say and, as I have learned, useless to imagine.

All this to say, it seems the suddenness of the near-death incident plays a part in the severity with which it affects the soldier or Knight in question. Ser Breme had no opportunity for contemplation. As he asked me for his discharge weeks later, he seemed to carry a high degree of enmity toward me for, as he put it, ‘sentencing him to death’.

I suppose his standing as a combatant has little bearing. A mage, a hunter, a city guard, a sailor…whoever is given a day to consider their fate versus one who is simply thrust into it has an opportunity to collect their inner fortitude and make their peace with their orders. That peace, I think, is worth more than gold.

Breme was not the only person in my career, or even that night, that I, essentially, ordered to suffer in this way. Often, those who cheat death either apply for discharge as Ser Breme did, or are simply too low-rank to receive direct orders from me thereafter. If they lost their trust in me that night, they forged it anew with their lieutenant and were able to move on.

For my part in all this, we fight dangers every day. I’m always grateful for the safe return of my soldiers, and I carry great respect for those that beat the odds. Those like Ser Breme. His decision to retreat was correct, and he quickly formulated and executed a plan to save his own life while under extreme stress and pursued by eighteen or nineteen Rage demons. It is a great feat of cunning and strength. As much as some civilians consider any retreat an act of inherent cowardice, anyone that has held the sword in an organized force knows that this is not the case. It is merely a fact of battle.

If the Inquisitor, then, carried the same distrust of me as did Ser Breme, it would not be incongruous. Though I am not Cole and cannot peer into her private thoughts to know for sure, she seemed to act roughly the same toward me as she did before. Her trust in me, somehow, remains undamaged.

I am not sure what to make of it.

A little awkwardness, in this case, is to be expected. If she had not wished to speak with me just yet, I would not have held that against her. Particularly after I, uh, snuck up on her with my sword drawn.

Instead, something else has happened. It was apparent when she stayed back after Solas left.

Between the two of us, it seems a certain…familiarity has arisen.

I can't exactly say how I arrived at this assessment. What about our interaction felt more familiar than before? Eye contact, the openness about a difficult topic, the apology she offered me? I might simply be reading too much into her remaining with me after Solas departed. Duration does not equal closeness. And, though she intimated she was willing to trust me with something sensitive about herself, she reneged in the end. Dammit, what was it?

At any rate, the ease is certainly not stemming from me. It is entirely from her. I'm as tense and awkward as I always am. I don't know what to do with my hands or how to stand or what to say or how to speak. I'm conscious of everything, second-guessing my posture and the rate of my breathing and every nuance in between. But she seems at peace with it, with Haven and the Cole situation and the other difficulties we have faced and the mess that I am behind the orders and the office.

I…Hmm.

I've had disagreements before. My life is rife with them, if not completely defined by them. From digging my heels in when Mia was feeling contradictory, to becoming a Templar in the first place, to dealing with Greagoir and Meredith and their various designs on me, to leaving the Order with no discharge papers. I prefer peace of course, but I can handle conflict. Fighting. Arguments. And even at that, I've never been in a situation like this one. No, this is completely new.

The dynamic between the Inquisitor and myself is unique. In…more than one way. At least from my personal perspective.

I haven't said anything about it, of course. And I’ve taken to concealing this increasingly cumbersome book in which I have meticulously expressed the entire mess. It now resides beneath my bedding as I sleep. Not even Cole’s ghostly hands could extract it without waking me, given how perilously light my rest is, if any is taken. With the book under my gaze on my desk during the day, I feel reasonably certain that my ramblings are secure.

Doesn't mean I didn't spend half the night wrenching my eyes open to see if I could spot Cole sneaking about the rafters, watching me.

Anyway, I have been considering—or rather reconsidering—the nature of…disagreement. I cannot be like those captains who hide the swordsman most in need of retraining when the commander comes. I know it is to be on the receiving end of unearned polish. When I work with the Inquisitor, I must explain things as they really are, or at least, my best estimation of how they are.

Despite doing just that, this argument about Cole has followed me constantly for two days. It’s not about him. I don’t care about him. Rather, as illogical as this is, it irks me to say things that will bring her distress.

This is war. There will be plenty of distress, now, tomorrow, overmorrow, and onwards. I'll have to get used to being the bearer of the worst kinds of news and feeling for her while I do.

Despite some insinuations, I have never lacked compassion. Even in Kirkwall. It was there, just…buried. Misplaced. Now, it feels much stronger.

I have no answer to this other than to wait out the situation. I'm just meditating on it now, I suppose.

Chapter Text

—I can’t stop wondering what it was that she was about to tell me.

I suppose I have been no paragon of forthrightness, either.

I should tell her the honest truth about my condition. The lyrium. Lady Cassandra knows. Apparently Leliana also knows. It is only right that the Inquisitor know, too.

But if she sees fit to dismiss me because of it…

I should simply accept it, of course. It, and what it might mean.

A replacement commander can be fully installed in a few weeks. On the surface, it will cause more of a disruption for the officers than it will for the Inquisitor.

For my part, my life would be over. I know myself well enough to foresee that I cannot avoid lyrium’s pull forever, not without some other orbit keeping me in check. I’ll rationalize another dose sooner or later, as I almost did right before the action at the Breach. If it wasn't for all the work I had, I know it would have been the end. And to go from all this to absolutely nothing? In my defense, it would crush most people, addicted or not.

So, to replace me is a headache for her and a fate for me.

But it is wrong to keep the truth from her. I was brought here to do a job, and though I am loathe to say so, I have been impeded by lyrium from time to time during the course of my work as commander.

For instance, I thought that Desire demon from Redcliffe was a harbinger of more Desire demons set to come through the Breach. I was in withdrawal pain and I blamed that particular demon for it. I had the soldiers learn new treatises the day before our mission as a result.

Of course there was no Desire. It hadn't come through so far. I should've trusted the data. Instead I had to grind my own axe and confuse the soldiers at the worst possible time. Lapses like that are liable to get people killed. People like her.

She is in danger. From me.

Whether the danger is tolerable or intolerable is not my call to make. She must be notified, and the call must be hers.

Still. It's a hangman's noose and the lever is in my hands.

I know I have to throw it but, Maker. How do I explain it in an objective way, without making her instantly think she should remove me?

Damn it all, now I sound like I'm preparing a manipulation. Quite the contrary. If I advise her to replace me, it should damn well be because it is the right move.

Well, is it, or isn't it?

Chapter Text

—I haven't said anything to the Inquisitor yet. I need to make up my mind about who my replacement would be, should she select that route. It’s the least I can do.

It might take a few days while I deliberate.

On the pages of the journal, a faint script in Cullen’s hand can be made out. A separate document has been set here, written upon, and then removed and sent elsewhere.

More than 27. Less than 100.

I regret that I cannot give a more exact accounting. The reality is, unfortunately, as you suggest.

The names of the 27 and approximate dates of their deaths are enclosed.

Knight-Commander C—

Commander Cullen Rutherford

Commander Rutherford

Commander Cullen

Comm—

Cullen

Chapter Text

—There are so many things I wish to untangle in my mind. I am more or less buried in work, and my head feels like a tangle of wet yarn. I keep yearning to draw it out and hurl it aside while I manage new treatises for Red Templars, new materiel and command chains (how did I ever do without mounted troops before now?) and plans for new trebuchets. There's enough, more than enough, to do. Yet I cannot focus.

I have very few ties to Tevinter. The land means little to me except that it is the great enemy against which our Andraste would rise to show her light, but Tevinter has a phrase that has been surfacing again and again as I go. In old Tevene: ego ast veritum. In thyself, the truth.

I am cognizant enough of my own habits to know that I have turned away from a great deal. Perhaps too much—and that is why I cannot focus.

But today I saw something.

Leliana and I have spoken on work matters frequently since Haven. She has been quick and straightforward in setting up her network. There's a rookery for her messengers and space for her comfort above the library. Though where she sleeps, I am not certain. (Is it behind the crates? I bet it’s behind the crates. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s very comfortable and surprisingly lavish.)

But I suppose we all have our secrets.

Outside of work matters, she has been markedly subdued since Haven and our run-in with the Archdemon, and after our frequent disagreements on the road to Skyhold. I hadn't considered it overmuch until she came to my tower today.

She did not send a runner first. Lady Josephine always does; it always seemed unnecessarily formal to me until today. When Leliana arrived, I had three field messengers waiting for responses, and the damn quartermaster—now a teenaged whelp who couldn't negotiate for a single carrot, much less devise and manage a steady food supply—had all gathered in my office to collectively wring their hands. Leliana had to wait almost a full hour while I dealt with everything. By then, Leliana was wrist-deep in the contents of my desk: the maps I had drawn and notes I had made.

My journal was upstairs where she wouldn't stumble upon it, I recalled with some relief.

"We should get you an assistant," she said as soon as I was free, a glimmer of her old humour returning.

"I have two," I told her, letting my exasperation show. Lady Cassandra had said the same thing about assistants not long ago and I took it to heart. Perhaps it is in my best interest to allow others to see the rate of work I manage.

Though, what's to stop them from having two replacements for me if they decide I am no longer fit?

Argh, not my decision, not my decision.

Leliana stood to gaze into my ink pot. She tested the heft of my quill.

"Is there something I can do for you?" I tried to anticipate the reason for her arrival. I had ‘liberated’ her messenger, Dollop, for a quick sojourn to the camp nearest Dennet’s farm, but she already knew about that.

Part of me must still be insecure; all I could think about were ways to parry her criticisms.

Leliana stood up and put my ink pot back. "Our journey to Skyhold was fortuitous," she said.

Fortuitous, and harrowing.

"Our escape from Haven was daring. The minstrels will sing songs,” she continued.

Daring, yes, but we only managed it by the skin of our teeth. The losses were high.

"You were instrumental," she said.

Maybe.

The trebuchets, calling the retreat, and the preparation of the chantry were good calls, as it turned out. I did the best I could with what I had. There was also the matter of…

Leliana had been standing in the path of the Archdemon flame when it struck. She might have died if I hadn't protected her.

Of course, she couldn't simply say such a thing to me. Leliana had been a combat veteran of various sorts for as long as I had been, if not longer. She had fought for her life while I fought for the approval of Chantry Sisters and beknighted monks, safe in civilized training grounds. And she had faced an Archdemon before. I hadn’t.

"You acted very bravely. Even when death seemed certain,” she told me.

It is difficult to express how very kind this was of her to say. Pinning that moment down with words meant making that painful moment live again, making it stick beyond the chaos of the day and allowing it to adhere to the now.

If Uldred had returned in the same way, I can't imagine what I have done or how badly I too would have lost my senses. I saw, or rather I had seen her wide eyed terror. I recognized that terror immediately and fully, the same way I recognize my own voice when I scream myself awake.

At the time, her need was clear, wordless. She needed help. I gave it. That was it. She recovered in seconds and went on fighting. People that didn't already have a painful history with Archdemons were defecating at the sight of it. One can hardly begrudge her a solitary lapse of emotion.

“You were brave, too,” I said.

For a moment, she said nothing. Perhaps my speaking had ruined our wordless rapport. I could not tell exactly what she was thinking, but I had a few guesses.

"That Archdemon… We must destroy it," she told me eventually. "Our battle is with Corypheus, but this isn't over until we know that it is dead. I will not rest until I know the corruption of that thing has been swept away."

"We will need to notify the Grey," I observed.

Blackwall might be able to facilitate the communication. Or, maybe…

"I don't know where Holly is," Leliana said, correctly assuming my next thought. "I'm certain she's alive somewhere, but…”

So even Leliana, with her large network and Holly’s friendship, did not know. She looked sad.

Unless she was lying to me. I know she is capable of it, but I do not think that she would. Not about this.

I said the most honest thing I could.

"Holly has done enough. I skipped the Blight last time. It's my turn to shoulder some of the burden now."

The Circle was a very dangerous place when the Grey stormed it during the Blight. Holly didn't scale those steps and save my life for nothing. I would make myself worth it.

Leliana tilted her head toward me. "You sound resigned."

"Of course. I’m already planning for the next time we face it.”

"I'll leave you to it then."

Leliana stood. She looked up at me. I looked back, half expecting a sarcastic comment. None came. This look was gratitude for the thing she could not say.

When I understood, I nodded, showing that I accepted her thanks.

As she took her leave, I suddenly realized something that had escaped me until now. What happened to her and what happened to me, while very different, broke us in a similar way. It is cold comfort to recognize these same cracks in her, but there is some comfort to be had in recognizing a sameness in another. If nothing else, I know that I am not exactly alone, even though our twinning exists only in what we cannot say out loud.

Chapter Text

—Work is like a wedge. The smallest tasks beget larger and larger ones until everything around them is pushed aside. I have less and less time to inhale.

We received a primary series of traders today, bringing a range of food and base supplies like oil, wood, bandages, animal fodder, and so forth. It's utilitarian at this stage, but Lady Josephine tells me that matters will improve quickly from here.

Good. I must admit I grow tired of stale, unleavened trenchers for morning and night meals. Awake all night as often as I've been lately, I’m ravenous by dawn and there's nothing to sate it with.

I can only be so hungry in so many ways.

Part of the problem is this agreement about Cole. I will not backtrack on the agreement that I made with the Inquisitor; he is not allowed in my tower, but I still see him at my window out of the corner of my eye. Whether it is real or false, I feel as if I must be prepared for an attack at all times. And as there is more for me to do, it simply is not feasible for me to stand watch at my own door.

It wears on me. I should be preparing for attacks from above, from the left and right and from beneath the fortress, but not from within. That's too far.

Yet, here we are.

The fact that Solas is staring daggers at me is no help.

What's worse is…I have no direct evidence of this, but I think Cole is accessing my tower, even though I made it an explicit condition of our deal that he is to stay away from here. Yesterday, I saw a shadow move high above my mantle. It was bigger than a songbird or a bat by far. I did not see features on it exactly; I could not see a face or anything more detailed than an impression of a dark shape. There are no signs of animals, and spirits, shades and similar can drift about, mocking natural forces like gravity. What else could I have seen?

Why is he here? Why is he watching me? I'm certain he'll try to spring on me in the night, catch me unawares. It won't happen. I'll sleep with a mail coat on and a sword in my hands. If he tries something, I'll take his head off.

And who could blame me? How can I be expected to show mercy with a knife pressed to my throat? Maker, all this concern and care for something that can only watch and plot and kill and kill. It’s vile.

I almost hope for his attack. I'll be proven right (yet again), and I can take care of this matter as it should have been dealt with days ago.

I'll have to find a way to don the mail without him seeing. I can dress in the library and sneak back over the wall with my coat over it. Up in my private room with the ladder withdrawn and the door locked, everyone will know that whatever stalked me wasn't natural.

I will strike. Mi’sahlin.

Chapter Text

—Dawn’s approaching. Nothing has attacked, though I have waited here, tense and coiled like a cobra. I haven't slept. What's worse is I now see two shapes. One is still looming up near the ceiling, but it seems no bigger now that I am one floor up and much closer to it than when I was downstairs.

And the other… It's between my eye and my pillow.

Whatever his unnatural abilities, I am confident that Cole cannot make himself so small. It must be a trick of the mind or the eye or the dim light or…some other imaginary entity. It’s possible the other one is as well.

Ugh. Probable.

Still. The one above me feels insidious. It looks evil. Dark. I should strike it away or catch it, if it's real. I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye and the moving shade against my eye is keeping me awake. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep tonight.

The moon is full, and my journal is here. And I have thoughts to work through.

The monastery where I received my early education was run by the Spiritual Chantry. Nuns, Sisters, and sometimes Mothers held authority over the school. It was called a monastery even though it was staffed primarily by women. I believe it was because male students were admitted there, and the name implied it was not segregated, but a life of prayer and godly introspection was expected, alongside lessons on literacy and maths.

Because women ran the monastery, it wasn’t until I was well into my teens and I was admitted to the Cloisters that I saw another man in a position of power.

The Templar Order is comprised of primarily male knights who function as monks of the sword, as opposed to monks of charity or the hospital. Because of this, Templars are sent to monastic cloisters for knightly vocational training—sword fighting, prayer, mastery of our incoming suppression abilities—as opposed to a traditional barracks like soldiers or state guards. Every aspect of life revolves around it the core purpose of our life, which is the suppression of magic, either by steel or lyrium. But because our vocation frequently requires the killing of others, lives wrought by the Maker just as carefully as our own, we are trained to keep sin from our minds and in our actions. If the only evil we commit is killing mages through the line of duty, because they failed a Harrowing, became possessed and so forth, then it is simply doing the Maker’s work. Therefore, if we are struck down suddenly in battle, our souls are clear. The reasons for our piousness are myriad. We obey the Maker’s will, and we must be trained never to hesitate to use our steel—precisely because it is difficult and painful for us. Instinctually, we despite harming others. We must learn to surrender that impulse to the greater good. It is not easy. At least, it wasn’t for me.

Vocational training consisted of prayer as much as it did of swordplay; a knight cannot exist without a strong spirit and a strong body. His duty is not done unless his own soul is seen as worthy in the eyes of the Maker, despite the blood on his hands.

But Templars are not the only monks in the Chantry. There are the monks of the almsgiver, the monks of the infirm, and the brotherhood of the flame, to name a few orders. Monks themselves are meant to be subservient to the Chantry hierarchy. Most monks, I’ve noticed, are aged. Many are former Templars too physically broken to endure the punishing days in plate armor. If their minds have resisted lyrium and continue to do so, they are allowed to live in poverty amongst other monks, in the absence of the families they were forbidden from starting.

Others are old men who have lost their kin or were never lucky enough to have them. They turn to the monasteries to seek some sort of purpose. Some are used up labourers, soldiers, or— uh, accustomed to work in red light districts. Others are simply directionless.

It is a subtler fact that some monks are somewhat deluded in their value; they believe they rival the Sisters in the Chantry and could steer the community chantries (or the Mothers within them) if the monks so chose. Chancellor Roderick resembled these men, though at least he had earned some rank as evidence of his importance, where the vast majority of monks never do.Of course, this boastful self-importance always irked me; duties are not meant to be competitive, and women have been given the express duty of shepherding the faithful—whether we men believe this is fair or unfair. For a monk to insist that his value within the chantry exceeds that of an instated Mother or Sister is a false assertion done transparently to soothe a low sense of self-worth, and not a reflection of a factual reality.

As a child, I remember seeing the monks of the infirm arriving at the monastery every year to check the students for lice and scurvy. They never did me harm, but I did not like it when they came. They were cold and rough, rarely spoke, and who all shaved their heads and dressed alike as though it pained them to look too different from one another. They prodded us, gripped and shook our teeth, and wrote brief reports on us, and passed them into a nun who waited at the entrance. They were a little like the Tranquil in their quick, impersonal manner with their eyes down and their gruff commands. If there were problems —out of ink, a severely sick child—the nun was alerted. If there was a dispute, the nun’s say overruled any monk’s, even if the nun was fresh to her vestments and much less experienced than the monks involved.

I didn’t know whether to fear them, respect them, or pity them. Their presence made me unsettled and sad. I wanted to look away from them and never see them again.

The Chantry says that men, women, and those who are neither, are equal in the eyes of the Maker. Yet, women, they maintain, are truly capable of effective leadership. Inherently compassionate, calm, and reasonable, women have a natural advantage. I do not doubt it.

So I do not doubt it was why Knight-Commander Meredith received her position over the many men in the Order. She was responsible and calm for many years.

Compassionate…

This was never her strongest attribute. Now that I think of it, this might have been exactly what we needed most, in Kirkwall. Compassion.

I did not provide much of it either. Or, if I did, it was not in the right way. Or in the right volume.

Do I lack compassion? And why?

Men are told we are too “warlike" and "passionate". Some men are, I admit. Recruits who visited the Kirkwall, er…red light district with the express intention of disobeying decorum expectations and looking for outlets for this…attribute were almost always men. Female recruits were almost never found….there.

Though, in spite of all my faults, I can say honestly that this was never my weakness. Even my wrongdoings—my five sins—they were, if nothing else, quite few, given… Uh, well, as compared to other men. I think.

But I suppose it's not the frequency so much as the severity.

As it is, I was never one to have…liaisons

entanglements

inadvisable attractions

a girlfriend

romantic interests

inappropriate desires

unnecessary attractions

Andraste’s sake. I can’t find the right word that accomplishes what I am trying to say on the one hand without making a liar or a fool of me on the other.

Perhaps I am as guilty or as susceptible or as, uh…passionate as they said I would be.

Some may think that I lack compassion, but I generally have counterpoints to prove I am no monster. I stood up for the mages in Kirkwall, defending some of them. It’s the…other thing I have a more difficult time parrying. But there is more than one meaning to that word.

Yes, I advocated for violence more than once in areas that might be considered grey. I crossed swords with Meredith—perhaps for compassionate reasons but it still ended in war. I feel that this was tragic but ultimately right. Perhaps I could have done something less severe, like, I don't know, tackling her? Add to it the statues coming to life and the matter was quite out of my hands.

I advocated for the killing of First Enchanter Irving after the fall of Kinloch Hold. Holly refrained. I was extremely upset by this, but I don't think old Irving showed any substantive signs after I left. Not that I could stand the sight of him afterwards.

Maybe I am too warlike.

The situation with Cole is causing me to question the acuity of my perspective. I was ready to flay… it? him? alive or dead or whatever he is. The Inquisitor wanted to speak about it rather than fight. Then someone cast magic at me during the scuffle. Was it her? Was it Solas?

I think I know, but it is unfair to assume. Or at least, it is unfair to act on my assumptions. Right now anyway.

As it is, I feel strongly that Cole should not be here. Even if he is well-meaning, this is not the right place nor the right time for guesswork and experimentation. Here I have some evidence that I am not waylaid by the weakness inherent to my biology; Lady Cassandra agrees with me. She said she'd speak to the Inquisitor about it when they convene again. Perhaps she will have better luck than I did.

At least this way I know my sense of it is not based solely on some reactionary deficiency of my soul or my physical biology. At least one woman thinks Cole should be removed as well. Maybe it will happen. And I can relearn how to sleep. Because this is pitiful.

Since I have no shortage of time, I will…entertain the notion that my treatment of Cole was indeed incorrect. It could be that, abomination or not, Fade creature or not, he may represent some sort of benefit or resource for us to use. But at times, some healthy tissue must be cut away for the body to heal properly. Samson’s dismissal from the Order comes to mind. He had some excellent attributes and it was a shame to see him begging on the streets of Kirkwall when he could have hefted a shield, but we cannot keep people in slices. The bad comes with the good. And Samson just had too much bad. Current circumstances underscore this quite well.

I do not think that Cole will prove to be a substantial loss. Just as the removal of Samson seemed cold at the time, it was no less necessary to remove a suggestible, self-centred, and insubordinate knight

from the ranks. To reinstate someone like this is asking for infection to spread.

But I have been wrong, before. I admit that here.

During the fall of Kirkwall, there was an incident that I…

Part of me considers it an unnumbered sin, and one which I regret no less than the others. A second part of me mutters in indignity. I had little choice in the matter, why am I so eager to lay all blame at my own feet?

Out with it.

That vile apostate, Anders, was like Cole, or so I’m told. Varric described the man as playing a willing host to a spirit, a ‘well-meaning’ one that had been possessing a—a corpse near Amaranthine. When the corpse could no longer sustain the spirit, Anders let the spirit into his own body, and over a few years the spirit—once allegedly benevolent—turned evil, sank its claws into our world, and started this war.

He was a freak.

I see the similarities with Cole. A spirit here under bizarre circumstances.

Even if he is good, this world is not. Thedas will wear him down and change him into something vicious enough to survive here. We cannot suffer what spirits must become.

Like the Inquisitor, Hawke gave Anders a chance. She could have notified the Templars—me!—of his erratic behaviour. For years, she chose not to, ignoring the signs of his mental decay. The loss of life as a result of this decision is incalculable; the death toll rises by the day.

I made it out alive, but not unscathed.

When the Right of Annulment was called, Hawke’s team ran with the mages, protecting those who had not yet turned into abominations. Myself and the other Templars stuck with Meredith and collected mages that had spilled out into the streets.

I was in shock. I wouldn't have admitted this on the day, but I was. Seeing the chantry go up, knowing everyone inside had been killed, knowing that the Templars would be the second domino to fall in that chain…it felt like a storm was in my hands, but even past the lyrium I was stunned. It felt like a dream. At times my body seemed to be moving without me in it.

The Right of Annulment was claimed. The request is meant to go to Val Royeaux first, but it would take weeks to go through proper channels. Here, the buildings glowed amber with sick flames from burning debris, and there were cries from trapped civilians as the linchpins that held our collective sanity together snapped and Kirkwall itself began to break apart.

We Knights moved in phalanx formation. It was one of only a handful of times this was ever called for: myself amongst four other Knights, pushing past and slaying the stunningly dense array of demons that had already found purchase in our city.

Surprised by the noise, many civilians rushed into the streets or over to their windows to see the damage from the explosion. I saw houses crushed by flaming stone in the districts nearest the chantry explosion. In the second districts further away, small debris like wood, small stone and chunks of mortar from the long roof struck trees and grain stores, setting fires as far away as the docks.

Glass… There was so much of it in the chantry. It stabbed through Kirkwall like a blast wave. People who saw the flash and looked out of their windows were struck with missiles of glass, either launched from the holy building or from their own windows, shattered by the force and heat of Anders’s bomb. Hundreds of people were blinded by the incident. Panicked, they ran into the streets, blood coursing and down their faces and screaming for help.

The demons, of course, feasted with abandon.

Undead were whipped up by the frenzy, climbing their way into houses and attacking those with sense enough to hide. As we progressed through the city, we fought demons and I personally hacked through a dozen or more reanimated civilians, some of which simply sat back up to battle us again. I was exhausted, my arms aching from striking through bone and scales and rebuffing lightning and fire. More came anyway. Some mage, some demon, some a combination, some possessed corpses, others hazards were environmental. Yes, I lost count of just how many I dispatched. Survival became unthinking, reflexive. Step, breathe, kill. Step, kill, breathe. Kill, kill, kill… It was hell. Exactly hell.

Then, there was a lull in the battle. The Gallows area was clear as most of the mages once held fast within were tearing through Kirkwall. Except for…

As we walked through the merchant’s square, killing everything that posed a threat, I had heavy flashbacks to Ferelden. I felt simultaneously that this wasn't real, that the screams and bodies were one of my nightmares. I should not take what I was seeing too seriously or there would be real world consequences when I finally did wake up, aimlessly sleepwalking or tangled in sheets and pelted by dirty socks from my bunkmates.

In some other part of my mind, I was in the throes of mania. I felt as though I was drowning, and I had reached the last stages of panic as my air ran out of my flattened lungs.

I panicked. I wanted to claw my way free of everything, to surface in a place where I could breathe. I could feel my cuirass moving against my chest as I inhaled the ready, ashy air around us. I was drowning, but nobody could tell.

Worst of all, I had taken my lyrium that morning. I should have been steady. Steadier than I was. I hate to think of how I would have been affected by this same incident today, given how raw the withdrawals have made me.

I somehow managed to keep my panic hidden, forgetting about the terror and the strain for a time, my mind working through strategies and counting Templar swords flashing in other districts or flat and motionless, laying on causeways by the hands of the dead.

Meredith was at my back. She had not drawn her sword.

I was there, and a handful of lieutenants. She didn't have to.

Until we arrived at the Gallows.

Hiding behind the drainage awnings were three mages, two men and a woman I knew to be quite young—younger than myself at the time. I was glad to see them when they did not change or summon. Their clothes were not bloody, nor were they injured. These were the first people I had seen in hours that were not mangled or corrupted. All told, they looked clean and civilized. I was relieved. No one was more surprised by my reaction than me.

Meanwhile, I could hear Chester's voice on the fringes of my memory, brought to life by the horror I was seeing.

Can a hallucination be clairvoyant? Spirits have odd, supernatural powers. They can levitate, seep through walls, create weather phenomena.

How different are spirits from ghosts?

How different are ghosts from hallucinations?

From memories?

From predictions?

“I should've cut twice," Chester said, clear as day.

I recall snapping my neck to the side, looking for him. The shock was intense enough that I clasped a hand to my chest, half expecting to find a wound there, as if the metal breastplate was my skin.

The mages were falling to their knees.

"Have mercy, we beg you!" The eldest of them cried. They held staves. They were stowed.

"No," Meredith said flatly. “The Circle is beyond redemption."

Yes, I had taken my lyrium. I had been trained as a Templar, readied for years to face threats of this nature. I had worked as one for the better part of a decade, steeped in a culture of following orders and killing, containing, and burying magic.

Even so, let it not be said that I was not horrified. No. Viscerally, down in my bones, I was raw and shaking with the kind of terror that only comes from old wounds. But I spoke up.

"Knight-Commander, surely the Right of Annulment requires something more—”

"It requires my word, Cullen. Do as I've commanded."

And here, Meredith made a fateful error.

To invoke Annulment, to kill these Harrowed mages who had not shown outright evidence of corruption, required express permission from the Divine. Very few knights, including Meredith, know the procedure to invoke the Right as well as I.

Knight-Commander Greagoir barred the doors of Kinloch Hold and let us suffer inside, awaiting permission from the Divine to annihilate the Circle and the abominations inside of it.

The Divine’s wisdom is required on the matter. If it was as easy as obtaining a Knight-Commander’s word, my suffering would not have occurred. Meredith forgot that my life had once been staked as payment for this wisdom.

It requires my word, Cullen.

No. It requires much more. I, beyond any Knight in the Order, know what the Right of Annulment truly costs.

Meredith lied to me.

No matter how justified she believed the order to be, protocol had to be followed. Even at the expense of our lives. And she was trying to bypass it.

For what? We could hold these mages until word came through. I had been ‘held’ in Kinloch for the same reason, trapped beneath the Harrowing Chamber, and we would be better to these mages than the demons were to me.

I did not give the order.

"Must we all be slaughtered for the actions of a few?” the foremost of the mages cried.

Of course, in the outside world, this would be unjust. But the fact remains that it was not the outside world. These were not fully autonomous individuals. These were mages of the Circle and we were Templars, mandated to control magic.

Yet, our mandate was only a subsection of our purpose, not our purpose entirely. Our purpose was to be the presence of Andraste in Thedas, to bring peace, light, and goodness, despite the mage-curses that some bore as the mark of their nature.

"They have not resorted to Blood magic," I observed. ”Even to save their own lives. Perhaps if we watch them carefully—”

"And if they hope to escape by playing innocent?" Meredith asked. "Will you accept responsibility, Cullen?"

She almost never called me by my first name. To do so twice was unheard of. I understood that she was asking a rhetorical question, reminding me of the burden I would bear if the mages were possessed and resorted to the murder or torture of innocent civilians, while simultaneously reminding me that I was her subordinate.

Her meaning was clear: could you really accept it if your actions caused an innocent to be tortured like you were?

I hadn't told her about…that. What happened. Though I'm sure she must have guessed. My waking up screaming had was less than a secret around the Gallows. I was frequently up all night. I worked with a fervour that could only be described as manic, running from task to task, sprinting as though something was chasing me.

Alas, I was weak. I was unable to hide it all.

Why she would lord it over me in a moment of heightened tension is another matter. I expect it was done to silence me.

It just so happened, as we were fighting our way here and I felt like my consciousness was trapped between wanting to run and wanting to conduct my duty as I had sworn, that I had somehow boiled off everything but the truth.

I answered her question.

"Yes. I believe that's what being a Templar is about."

Meredith rolled her eyes as if my statement was naïve. “And I say we are here to protect the people. We must be judges, jailers, even executioners.”

Executioners.

A rebuke. Reminding me of the low-status job I once held in Ferelden.

I know what that word means: my soul on the block.

At the same time, I was fuming. Yes, I had been a judge. I had been a jailer. At her command!

And I had been an executioner long before she met me.

The condescension was a greater aggravation than if she had reached over and slapped me. But now wasn't the time to fume. The three mages were looking at me, fearing for their lives.

"There will be time later to decide which one of these things the mages deserve," I said. “We can lock them in the chantry where it's safe and deal with the demons for now. Cooler heads will prevail.”

Meredith hissed. “Cullen. Innocent people are dying as we stand here. Dispatch them so we can move on. That's an order."

Could I disobey her, my Knight-Commander? She had ten years more experience than I did. She knew things I didn’t, perhaps some of which was applicable here. I had been out of the dormitories, removed from the general population for a long while. These mages might very well be liars or killers. Perhaps she was right to condemn them. I didn't even know the names of these three.

That made it easier.

I was not in full agreement, but I gave the order to the Knights with me. They drew their swords.

It is one of the great regrets of my life.

There were screams and cries, but no signs of corruption. Even at their deaths, they did not give themselves over to the demons.

I didn't know whether to admire them or pity them as their spilt blood soaked the cobblestones. They could have taken us with them, but they chose to die cleanly.

A few years have passed since this incident, and I yet maintain one ineffable fact: what is alive can be slain, but what is slain cannot be made to live again. All these mages needed was a few hours of observation, and then they could have kept their lives.

Life is the only thing that we really have.

We walked toward the docks. Meredith was irked by my resistance. I was sullen. I tried not to let it show too much. We still had our own lives to save, and the fires were only growing hotter.

More than anything, I was incensed on behalf of the men I had with me, the ones that I had given the order to. Whether they agreed with Meredith or not, whether they knew my soul bore the scar of giving such an order, matters not. Their hands were needlessly bloodied. And surely they saw the same thing I did. It was clean blood, taken away for reasons that were assailable.

Was this murder? I found myself thinking, as we hacked our way to a family cornered by shades. Are we murderers? Truly, we are killers; the Chantry made sure of that. But did the Divine, in all her wisdom, know for certain that we would never take an innocent life? Would Andraste see the good in my Knights when it was their time to face the Maker’s judgement? When it is my turn, would the Maker judge me worthy, or call me a sinner? Had I just seen three innocent mages dead, and condemned my own Knights in the eyes of the Maker in the process?

We saved the family, hurrying them into their dwelling where it was safer, but I was only half-present.

I had followed the orders given to me by my superior, but I took issue with the mere thought that the knights who had carried out my order, the ones who had killed the mages out of deference and respect for the Order, for the Maker, and for me, would have to live forever with that stain upon their hands.

For what? For Meredith? For her paranoia? Or for her good judgment? For the safety and welfare of Kirkwall? Or for convenience and hatred?

As we bolted to the docks, I found, increasingly, that I did not know.

I always knew that the soul of the Commander bears the burden of the judgements made and the order given. I can live with that—or at least, I had been living with that—because of military philosophy. There is, in the Order and here in the Inquisition, a framework built on the ethics of death. A civilian life is worth the life of a Knight—that is what it means to serve Thedas. Training aside, financial cost aside, and unless it is a time of siege warfare, the Knights are to lay down their lives for civilians unquestioningly. In Templar parlance, they are called ‘innocents’ to drive home this action.

Mages were second class. If a knight and a mage were threatened, protocol was to leave the mage to die. The Templar’s life is worth more. In the Order, the Knight-Commander’s life was worth a lieutenant’s, or even a Knight-Captain’s. But there was Knight at risk in that altercation. There was no reason for those mages to die. We were the aggressor. Like any demon or pirate or terrorist, we were the evil.

The Knights followed my orders, like they promised to do. My soul bore the consequence, like I swore I would. But there was no reason for it. Our faith was wasted.

I was being wasted.

Why? I asked myself silently as we pulled flaming rocks off of a crushed house with our hands.

This would not bother Meredith. She would not lie awake at night, wondering if she had made the right call, killing those mages. She would not second-guess herself, nor would she carry this as a burden. Her had no blood upon it, though it was her decision that led to this. But why does my soul bear the scar, and hers does not? Why?

Because she does not have one, I thought bitterly.

At first I thought it was petulance, but the longer we fought, the more I began to realize that I might not be wrong. If my conscience was inflamed because of her actions, the impetus was on me to challenge her.

Nothing could be undone, but the execution left me feeling sick. It felt wrong. It felt like a sin.

I decapitated a shade. Felt nothing but mild satisfaction.

Had I gone soft? My years in the upper levels of authority might have made me unaccustomed to death. If my terror and confusion at this bloodbath wasn't evidence, what in Thedas could be?

We ran again, sweat dripping down my forehead from exertion, but my sword was firm and my arm was quick.

But if I argued, caused a fuss, was I in breach of the Knighthood?

I had sworn to obey, sworn fealty, sworn death to the others and death to myself before I withdrew my service. The Order wasn't just an organization that had admitted me, it was a mould I had been pressed and reshaped to fill appropriately. We were all ‘the same’.

The others had carried out the execution with no complaint. Meredith asked for it. They conducted it. If I thought differently, perhaps I was in error. If the mages shouldn't have died, surely there would have been hesitation on part of the Knights. Even a slight bit.

I… Was I the only one?

Ser Nicholas took a lightning bolt, and he began convulsing in his metal armour.

Lightning. Pride. Again. He stood at the axis between three docks, as tall as a ship hull and more dangerous than death itself.

I must have faced him a hundred times in the years since Kinloch Hold. A hundred more in my own head, night after night.

That demon always had such an unfair advantage over us. Lightning strikes straight downward, bypassing our cork-cored shields. Our armour is lined, but it's always a crapshoot as to whether the bolt will arc. It was a stroke of luck that I wasn't also hit as the lightning forked around me.

I didn't need to look over my shoulder to know that Meredith was fine.

The Pride demon’s scales suddenly grew dark, their purplish sheen instantly dulled by a will so much greater than his own. She was faster than I was, a pace behind me and trusting us to handle the interference at arm’s length.

I have never seen anyone smash through a Pride demon so quickly, or so thoroughly. Not even me.

And I am motivated.

With his considerable magic so effortlessly smashed, it was satisfying to watch the other Knights in the party take him down. With her and with them, I didn’t have to lift my own sword to see it done.

In the end, his corpse broke apart like brittle stone.

Fitting. So fitting.

It was obvious to me then why Uldred waited until Knight-Commander Greagoir was gone before launching his attack. They were forces of nature when they had to be.

Was I, when I was Commander?

Am I now?

I was quiet as we spread out along the docks. Truthfully, I was in a stalemate with myself, unable to see past the limits imposed by my situation, by my very existence.

I should have gone against my Commander. Her order was unjust. Wasn't it?

But I cannot go against the Order. They are the last bastion of goodness, of decency in a world gone utterly to destruction. Aren't they?

It is easy to say now what I was missing that day. Breaking from the Order would be extreme under any circumstance, especially on a day like that. But I hadn't come to realize another stumbling block had been planted in my mind, without my knowing.

In a life or death situation, and in a right and wrong situation, the two matters can cross in a way that is counterproductive. The right thing can lead to death. The wrong thing can save a life. That is where I was.

It hadn't occurred to me then that the best solution was, metaphorically, to jump off a ledge. Run myself through with my sword. Make myself stop breathing.

I hadn’t realized I needed to stop taking lyrium.

I had been drilled with the narrative that it meant death. It meant a long, excruciating descent into a madness I had been running from since Uldred showed me the edges of what true madness really was.

Turning from the Templars meant forsaking the strength I had sought, and it meant giving up the thing that was making my nightmares and visions bearable. It meant returning to the place that Uldred had sent me. Where he had changed me.

Without lyrium to shield me from my private agony, and when the lack of lyrium meant its own madness, I was doubly damned by the Chantry's curse.

It hadn't occurred to me that day in Kirkwall thatdiving straight into the pain was the answer. All I could think was, I cannot leave. I cannot turn against. I must stay loyal. But how?

At least by then I had come to see that Andraste would not have wanted those three mages killed. Meredith had gone against divine will, I believed, though it was hard to meditate utterly and with full-mindedness as we fought in the convoluted streets and piers of Kirkwall.

I had been trained in theology enough to know one must never evaluate religion through a modern occurrence. But what other lens could I see my faith with, now that I had begun to pry my eyes open?

If it was not the Maker’s or Andraste’s will that these mages be killed, should I let a second group of them be killed in similar fashion? What about a third? At what point was my limit, then, if those three mages hadn't been it? Who else would I kill? Anyone? Everyone? Where was the boundary? What was the consequence?

I was aghast. If I had done wrong, and I knew it was wrong, and I did not prevent a wrong from happening once again, I would inevitably order more men to kill innocent people. And upon whose soul would lie the sin?

Mine. Of course. Where it fucking belongs.

And what would become of a captain who ordered his Knights to do wrong? They would distrust me, but they would have no choice but to follow me anyway. They were tied to the Order, as I was.

So, I owed it to them to stand up. I could not have their soul carry the burden I knew better than to heap upon them. Their addiction to lyrium meant obedience to me, at the cost of their soul.

I had to be the one to stop this. If my soul pays the price to the Maker, so be it. If lyrium sends me to madness, so be it. But I had to break through the coercion before every Templar was dragged into damnation by the same leash.

My breaking point was another order from Meredith. She demanded the execution of a non-mage.

By then, I hadn’t reasoned through my thoughts so clearly as they are here, but I was a powder keg with a lit fuse.

“This is not what the Order stands for!” I was fuming about my own indecision, about the stain on my soul and the hands of my men. I was traumatized by the explosion at the chantry. There was more behind my decision to depose Meredith in that moment. But I do not regret it.

The momentum worked in my favour and in the favour of rightness and morality, in my view. We defeated Meredith and a great many of us broke away from the Order, which I believe had become corrupt.

But I do not deny that some Templars may have chosen to follow me because they had been fighting for their lives that night, and I was the one that saw them through it. Because I had commanded them much of the way along, some of them may have joined the Inquisition out of habit or rote more than a true and genuine desire to be here.

I do not deny knowing that they had nowhere else to go, so they came with me. And I have benefitted from it, from that leash. The entire Inquisition has.

Perhaps I could have—should have—handled Meredith differently, shown empathy, been a cool head. It could be that I escalated when it wasn't necessary. But we rid Kirkwall of what had become a great and secret evil that night. We could not have done that without a little ‘passion’.

I do my best for them, for my Knights. If this is the home half of the Templars took, at least it can be respectable, dignified, and purposeful. But that doesn’t mean I feel no guilt.

It is why I am lying here in bed, writing until my hands cramp. Even if I do have a sword at the ready, prepared to kill anything that looks like Cole.

I've learned, see? I am calmer! More restrained! The boundaries are defined! This room is the no man's land, and my stayed blade is the proof of my rehabilitation!

Hah.

I saved a city with my blade, once. It is hard to accept that it is ineffective, when it has been proven capable of so much.

…is magic really the same as this? So useful, reliable, worthy of glory and fealty, of dedication and prayer? And then forcibly restrain it and push it into subservience…?

Everything I've learned, I've learned by accident, and half of it contradicts the other half.

Maker’s sake. I can feel I'm not making sense anymore. I might burn this entry too, and save myself the embarrassment of reading it again later.

There is no trace of sunrise yet, and I can hear Ser Malcolm's step on the parapet below: heavy and scraping on the right side as he rotates his hip to account for the weight of his broadsword. He's midnight shift. It's not yet approaching the morning.

I could try to sleep, I suppose. I haven't seen that shape for a while. I might be safe.

I should try. Doze. Step lightly on the hem of oblivion. For a little while.

Chapter Text

—Still awake.

What I should have said earlier was this: I knew what it would do to me.

At least, on paper. I knew enough.

I remember Ser Ralferin’s slack, vacant stare. I remember Ser Carroll’s sharp, incisive intelligence crumble into oafish, almost drunken babble. I’ve seen Knights with more advanced lyrium madness than these who did not fall into madness exactly but who lost their ability to think, to remember, to reason, to feel. They became empty vessels, hardly more humane than the corpses we burn to thwart the influence of seeking spirits.

Ser Carroll was eaten alive from the inside out. He was so cheerful and decent, yet he spiralled out of himself and into a second childhood in the space of a few short months.

Every dose of lyrium is like mere water to Knights like these. They need it constantly, and can think of nothing else if they are lucky enough to be able to think at all. Some remember they need coin to purchase it, but others know only how to swallow it.

They are abominations in their way, too; possessed by something malevolent that should never have been allowed into them in the first place.

I was never fully possessed, but, since Kinloch, I cannot say I have truly been ‘myself’. A sick, second thing exists in me now, and I knew that lyrium had been my internal armour; it was the only thing protecting me from the full force of whatever is within me now.

Lyrium has been a great, great comfort during uncertain times. Perhaps my only one.

It was the only thing that knew.

Before I truly needed it, I took only a very low dose. In Kinloch, I took a standard phyltre every three weeks, an amountbefitting a Knight of my age and experience. Even this felt like more than enough. I drank it because I was told it was important to.

It's impossible to know where compliance ended and truly needing it began. Physically, anyway. Emotionally, it is much easier to pinpoint.

It happened the day Uldred attacked. Not in the aftermath, I realize, but that very day.

Knight-Commander Greagoir left that morning for business in Gwaren. It was something to do with the loss of Lothering in the Blight. The events were bad, but they felt far removed from us, playing out like a story rather than a hellish reality that would come for us soon enough.

A few of the Knights and several of the mages had kin or other attachments to Lothering. The news of its sacking left the entire Hold in a raw mood, and this was particularly pronounced after the massacre at Ostagar. The mood was low, and the situation was irregular.

Greagoir was not like Meredith, who only kept one Knight-Captain. Perhaps she sought to consolidate her power (and those who had the power to depose her) into a single individual she felt she could monitor and effectively control. By contrast, Geagoir had five Knight-Captains, several Knight-Lieutenants, and other officers. He took two such captains with him and a significant accompaniment when he left, leaving the less-experienced, rank-and-file Knights—myself and Chester, for instance—in the hands of the remaining three captains.

The vast majority of Ferelden’s Knights were still in the Hold, of course—Greagoir didn’t strip the place down to bare stone, but those that left with him were the most capable and battle hardened.

The three remaining captains all had to do double duty for the two who had left, and the Knight-Commander’s duties were split between Ser Farris and First-Enchanter Irving. This left the rest of us to pick up the slack.

Fortunately, all ceremonies and Harrowings were rescheduled. No visitors were permitted, and any magical experimentation was put off. In short, not much was being asked of me other than indexing.

I liked the methodical work of pulling phylacteries and record keeping. To a point. I was still shy, then. Mess hall still intimidated me as I was one of the lowest ranking Knights at that time. Chester was faster at making friends. I stammered and couldn’t keep up with the chatter, so spending some time working in silence with a few others was welcome.

Especially since some mischief was afoot.

With Greagoir gone, all Chester could think about was Wicked Grace. His master plan was to win something off one of the other Knights, some trinket or coin. We were not permitted to possess such things, but it seems there was always some to be had in the Circle.

Chester would take these gambling winnings and give them to Ser Carroll in exchange for passage across the lake. He was hoping too, uh…”meet” a young lady in the inn on the mainland. I got the impression that this was not a lady that he knew, but rather he intended to fish for whomever was available.

Perhaps this would not have been daring in Kirkwall, but it certainly was in Ferelden. Such… contact was well forbidden and Greagoir was much more by-the-book in that regard than Meredith ever was. Life was a bit more free for the mages there, and a bit more spartan for the Knights.

The very idea of it made me flush. I couldn’t fathom approaching a stranger for something as personal and vulnerable as that, nor could I condone flagrant rule breaking of this nature as soon as Knight-Commander Greagoir had a foot out the door.

In the frosty spring dawn, I had absolutely no inkling of any danger. I felt safe, even a little pleased to be picking up some added responsibilities left undone by the absent officers. That day, I felt helpful and inspired. So, I resolved not to assist him with such… activities.

Chester was greatly chagrined. I usually win at Wicked Grace, though it involves much more luck than chess. Apparently, where my wit has no bearing, a little good fortune tends to follow me in the realm of cards. As a result, Chester would always sit at my right, playing his hand before me so as not to receive my moves. This got him through a great many matches and earned him a few pots when the other Knights could be convinced to gamble.

It was frequent enough that Knight-Lieutenant Annlise had taken to grumbling about it. I was not at all prepared to face her ire. That woman was scary. Scarier than Greagoir by a factor of two.

To avoid Chester’s pleas and my superior’s condemnation, I decided, as I descended the stairs for my indexing work, that I would not hurry. I could not be accused of cheating or aiding and abetting…inappropriate conduct if I was working in the basement and missed the game. I—

I should have stayed.

Maker’s breath, if I had known what was going to happen to us that day, I would have stayed upstairs and played that ridiculous card game with him. Damn that basement. Damn our chores.

I hid from it, our last game.

Chester. I would have let you win, you know? If I had any inkling that the demons would come for us, I would have taken every small thing I could find and I would have thrown it in that gambler’s pot you insisted on, and I would have lost on purpose. And if you had taken the boat to the mainland inn and bedded every maiden in Ferelden, I wouldn’t have breathed a word of it to Greagoir. As much as you gave me side-eye, I never would have said anything to them. Not about you.

The ‘basement’ in Ferelden's Circle consisted of several floors, many of which were actually above ground. They contained tools for the Tranquil’s enchantments, old boats. Mage blood. Magical objects. So much of it was old and poorly understood.

I was indexing the blood phylacteries used to track escaped mages. They filled a vast library, hidden behind a magically sealed door. I was told to cross-check the phylacteries with a list of the current mages in the Circle. Anyone who had died, been made Tranquil, was transferred away, or had their blood collected and used on a tracking mission was noted and the phylacteries were updated. We were also to look for signs of damage, tampering, or missing phylacteries.

Every now and then, we'd catch a mistake. Days like that, I felt important. If only I had known…

What? How that room would change my life? What would befall me that day? Or how small a mislabelled phylactery would look by comparison to the cares I carry now?

What am I doing?

I meant to tell myself a story, remembering old times when lyrium has done me the most good. Now, all I can see is Chester Bevan, sitting backwards in a mess hall chair, out of his cuirass but still in his faulds and vambraces, wreathed in incense smoke and pretending to be offended that I was looking at his cards. Plotting and laughing and refusing to care about anything that wasn’t fleeting.

This was not the loss I intended to remember.

I have decided how I shall tell the Inquisitor about my addiction. Captain Rylen will be my replacement if she chooses to remove me. All I have left to do is pull the lever, as it were. The ground may fall out from under me. Maybe it will not. I will accept either outcome. I must.

Tonight, I thought I would recall a more innocent time, when I first set foot on the path that led me here. But I find I cannot revisit this day just yet. Perhaps I will be able to when my conscience is more clear.

I am trying to soften a blow that must not be softened. That is the reality of it.

The time has come to simply move forward and endure what may come.

Chapter Text

—Of course, the Inquisitor is busy working through something with Josephine. Damn it all. Now all I can do is wait until it is convenient for someone else to end my life for me.

Bah, mewling nonsense. I do not wish to think about it anymore. My mind is already completely rutted about telling her.

Cole was bad enough, but at least there was something I could do about him. Maybe that's why it felt so imperative to act against him quickly. I don't know. It feels more complicated than that, but it hardly matters now.

Leliana delivered a report today that there have been no sightings of this Archdemon. It's a good thing, I suppose, for the welfare of everyone in the lowlands not to have a hellbeast of that nature swooping over them. But its absence yields more questions and fresh concerns. Where does it go? Where could a thing of that size—and presumably that appetite—exist where it will not be found? Is someone willingly harbouring it? If so, who? And if it is capable of controlling or attracting Darkspawn, where is the mass?

…I haven’t seen her in a few days, either. It’s my own doing, and as much as things have been going well with the Inquisition, I find myself hoping for some word, some glance from her that doesn’t come.

I know better than to covet such things. It’s too much when it happens anyway. There’s just so much about her that I do not know.

I’m sure that there are things I could help with or work on for her if only she would ask me to, but—

I keep forgetting that it is very possible none of this will matter by the end of today. And if I am no longer Commander, then I—I suppose I will not see her again. I hadn’t considered that before now.

If our waves are fated to never crash together, then I need vapour in the air. I’ll have to hole up in a city big enough to attract a minstrel so I can hear of the Inquisitor from time to time, then. If I can tolerate listening to the exploits of others who have taken my place.

No. If I have only one day left here, I will not spend it in melancholy. There is still one obstacle here that I am uniquely knowledgeable about.

Its name is Raleigh Samson.

Seeing him in Haven was the greatest shock of the attack—worse than the Archdemon and Corypheus, at least for me.

I hadn't expected to see him again. In the back of my mind I thought he must have either died or that he must be eking out a ruined, pathetic, but ultimately harmless existence in the gutters of some city somewhere. I thought that he was done with armour and swords.

In his last few years, Samson appeared much like that idiotic Redcliffe guardsman,Emile: hapless, self interested, easily fooled. Yet, Emile got the drop on me in the Redcliffe Chantry, I’m positively revolted to say. But that was luck. With Samson, it’s never luck. When he was apprehended and removed from the Order, it was from a tactical risk and what he considered to be a harmless act of disobedience. It wasn’t that he didn’t know. It’s that he thought it wouldn’t matter.

Samson was removed from the Gallows (fairly or not) by Knight-Commander Meredith when she discovered him sneaking messages between two mages. He said it was hardly noteworthy; two kids in love wanted to scribble dramatic poetry to each other and fold their letters into intricate birds.

In his mind, he likely believed that, if he was caught, he would receive a reprimand but not substantial punishment. This might have been true for a new recruit, but not someone as high ranking as Samson was at the time. In Meredith’s mind, Samson should have known better, and he was punished for that more than he was for the actual indiscretion.

Or, so I gather.

The Samson I knew was about fifteen years my senior. When I got my first promotion to Knight-Corporal a scant few months after my arrival, I was moved out of the dorms and into the officer barracks. I was cautiously relieved. I knew I would have to share a room with someone I did not yet know, but at least it would be only one other person.

Between the rest of the Knight-Templars in my dorm, I was waking at least four of them every time I lay my head down. I was determined that things would be different with my new roommate. If I got on alternating shifts—he in the day and me at night, for instance—I could then retire to an empty room without fear that my nightmares would disturb anyone.

I looked forward to it. Though the Knighthood was my vocation, I was physically and mentally unable to sleep quietly, which was something of a requirement for me to function as a Knight myself, and alongside the rest of the Order. I was humiliated by my inability to do so, and the noise adversely impacted those around me. Sleep was a little piece of humanity that I had lost after Kinloch Hold, and I had only begun to take stock of what I might claw back.

Much of my success or failure hung on my new roommate, the unknown variable of the person with the misfortune of living with me. The thought of my various neuroses being put on display with someone who outranked me was unbelievably stressful. So was the proximity. I had always lived in groups, save the time Mia and I were quarantined in the family basement when Bran and Rosalie got sick. Living with only one other person meant there would be no one else to act as a buffer between this stranger and I.

My behaviour had gotten me kicked out of Ferelden Tower and into Greenfell village. The journey by ship to the Marches resulted in similar assessments of me: everyone on board—even the very young children—simply knew there was something off about me. It was only by luck that I had been hired into the Gallows, and the person who decided to accept me had never even met me, so it was thereby never explicitly stated that I was suitable or if I should be sent back.

If I was too awkward, too assertive, in any way unprofessional, or "not level” enough, I would be removed again, and there were no small villages in the Marches to send me to. In short, I had to find a way to be liked by my new roommate or I would be sent back to Ferelden. And I would not survive being sent back to Ferelden.

My hands were shaking as I waited to meet Samson. I was done my work for the day, ate quickly at my allotted time, and, when he did not turn up in our room, I sat on my newly assigned bed with my gear in a box and my armour on its stand, waiting. Everything was ready to move if I had made a mistake in finding the room, or if he, being my superior, decided he did not like the look of me and kicked me out.

I hadn't been in Kirkwall long enough to build up any familiarity with the officers’ barracks. The only one I knew was my direct supervisor, Ser Kain, and he hardly had the patience to remember my name. Meredith was nothing but hushed whispers and a closed office door to me in those days. My new world was small, yet.

I wondered if I had healed enough from Kinloch to be fit for close company again. I told myself over and over that I was. I raked my fingers over the sides of my box.

I'm not that bad. I'm not a werewolf, I wasn't raised in the woods—

In my mind’s eye, I could see the flames in the trees around Honnleath.

—my mother didn't raise a slob—

Screaming, flesh torn from bone, hands reaching out, begging for help.

—and my father did not raise a fool.

Shouts, a mass of laughing Hurlocks, blades singing as the beasts rent their writhing victims. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say goodbye.

The Denerim monastery didn't train a moron—

—Chester—

—that was going to come all the way here and simply fold like a napkin.

I didn’t leave, though the silence and the anxious waiting gave me nothing to consider but the thoughts I sought to evade. The sacking of Honnleath, the fall of the Circle, of being discharged yet again…

I sweated and shook like a bastard and planned germane and meticulously normal responses to every question that my new roommate might conceivably ask me.

It wasn't until the day turned to night that Raleigh Samson entered our chamber.

He was a reasonably tall man, about my height and somewhere between lithe and average. He was slightly grizzled, perhaps from working late, and his eyes were as bloodshot as mine felt. He was wearing full armour when he arrived.

I stood up when he entered the room. I nearly knocked my box onto the floor.

"Ser Samson?"

He looked surprised to see me. Hadn't he gotten the memorandum?

“And who might you be?" He maintained polite eye contact with me while he began removing his vambraces.

I’ll pause here to say one thing: I have never, before or since, seen anyone remove kit as efficiently as Samson, and this includes the Tranquil pages that some of the highly decorated officers had. Samson removed it as though it was a second skin.

Despite his clear comfort with it, his armour looked decidedly lived-in. It lacked polish and sported a few scuffs.

I had heard horror stories of the tough disposition of Kirkwall’s Knight-Commander, but she had not seen fit to reprimand him for his appearance and I knew Knight-Commander Greagoir would have suspended this officer until his armour was made immaculate. Funny how the same organization could have such divergent cultures in different cities.

"I've been reassigned as your roommate," I said, offering my hand. “Knight-Lieutenant Cullen."

The new title still sounded awkward to me. Ser Samson took my hand and shook it. His grip was almost crushing, as if he had spent the day with his sword in his hand and was used to squeezing metal.

"Ah, of course," he muttered, flicking off his cuirass and faulds. “We’ve been understaffed so long, I'd almost started to think I had a private room."

I wasn't sure how to respond. Surely a private room was ideal, but I hadn't made this call.

"I am a mindful roommate," I said. “I keep my things organized, and I won't cross to your side of the room…"

I made sure not to say ‘your half’. He outranked me and he was here first. If he wanted three fourths of the room, I could accept that. Though it seemed this was beneath Samson's concern.

“You’ve a Fereldan accent, Serrah,” he said, emphasizing the ‘serrah’, as if marking his own Free Marcher status.

Even so, the implication was clear, and it was not exactly friendly. I was prepared for this.

I lowered myself to the edge of my bed. "Thank you for not calling me ‘dog lord’," I said.

‘Fereldan’ and ‘dog lord’  had become interchangeable phrases in Kirkwall. I took umbrage with the insult. It wasn't as though refugees from the south were coming in droves and signing up to laze about. I was fully trained with a few years of rather rarified experience in Circle life. I wasn't running from the Blight, nor did I have my hand out. Nor had I ever owned a dog.

"Been here long?" Samson turned away to hang up the armour he had removed. The wooden poles of his kit stand were dark from years of leather strap polish rubbing off in small amounts onto the wood. My own stand was pristine. I wasn't sure if I should be proud of it or if it was a sign of inexperience.

"Five months," I told him.

It felt like longer. Arriving at the Kirkwall docks felt about three years past, that horrible frigate nodding aside its pier with me standing on the deck like a wide eye cretin. Paradoxically, Kinloch felt like only a few weeks ago. Time felt both too short and too long.

For the first time, Samson's quick hands missed a latch. It caused no fuss and made no noise. I just saw him scramble momentarily for it.

"Only five months? Took me seven years before I made Knight-Corporal.” Again, I could not tell if this was a compliment or a slight.

“I suppose there's less competition for promotions now, since…"

Many Marcher Knights were sent south to restaff Ferelden’s broken Circle. I didn't wish to say its name.

Samson decided to draw a different conclusion."That stupid fire in Starkhaven.”

Perhaps he hadn't heard about Kinloch. Or maybe word had been suppressed.

At any rate, I decided not to correct him.

"How long have you lived in Kirkwall?" I asked.

One thing about lyrium is it made social interactions like this so much easier to bear. I stammered much less often, and speaking hardly made me nervous at all. I found I actually had the mental space to collect information and enjoy the discussion, even if it was only brief and perfunctory like this. And it felt good to operate with a slate as clean as this one.

"Twenty years this Wintersend", he said, hanging up the last of his armour in record time. “I’ll be set up for a nice Chantry pension and everything."

I'd seen some Knights go lyrium mad after ten years. Ser Carroll started showing signs on his ninth year and was hardly functional as a Knight after eleven. By contrast, Samson looked sharp. It might take him another twenty years before he would be discharged and permitted to collect that pension.

“Congratulations," I said. Considering how hard—and how many times—I had to fight to be here, I was not looking forward to the prospect of hanging up my sword.

With no hint of bashfulness, Samson removed the rest of his clothes and began to wash from a basin next to his bed.

I averted my eyes. I hadn't expected the man to strip down in front of me upon our first meeting. Though, this was his room, I suppose. If not here, then where was the man expected to change?

I just…could have done with a little warning.

“Do you have family here, or…?" I tried to make conversation while I stared at the floor, while simultaneously trying not to look as though I was making a big deal of it.

“Nope." It sounded more alike ‘narp’ with the accent. "You?"

"No," I said. "They're all back in Ferelden.” I was panicking, I realized. I didn’t want to talk about my family. Why would I ask about that? We were both officers. I should ask about the workings of the Gallows.

“Heh, guess that means I should travel more," Samson said, tossing an old towel to the ground to sop up the mess. "Though, if I'm going to cross the Waking Sea, it'll be to see Orlais. I've heard your area is something of a blighted hole in the ground these days."

Not exactly tactful, but he wasn't wrong. Mia, Bran, and Rosalie deserved better than what Samson was describing. "Something like," I said. “And the journey by sea is awful."

"Pirates?" he asked, pulling on fresh small clothes.

There were too many ways to die in that cramped, lightless, airless, confined cargo space belowdecks. Between my persistent, vivid, unwanted memories of my captivity, I hardly cared about corsairs. However, there were sightings of the bastards on the ocean, and some of the passengers had brought children on the ship. I couldn't stand the idea of them being hurt, nor could I tolerate their loud voices and constant talking. I remained on deck for the duration of the voyage, standing at attention, day and night even a while I took brief sips of sleep. The captain thought I was well mad. The other passengers averted their eyes if they were within sight of me. They perceived me as a wounded animal, capable of lashing out at anyone I saw.

This mystified me. I hardly spoke, I had not unsheathed my weapon, gestured, or behaved violently. I don't know how they intuited the truth about me.

Standing in full armour, I had never felt so naked and transparent. Everyone on that ship could see right through me.

“Didn’t see any pirates,” I said simply.

“Lucky sot," Samson told me. "Between the merchants, the smugglers, the pirates, slaves, and the gorry Qunari, the Waking Sea’s apt to run crimson."

"Have you ever seen one?" I asked.

"What? A pirate?" Samson smirked as he hitched his plainclothes trousers and drew a long sleeved white shirt over his head. "You really are from a backwater.”

That stung a little. I had lived and trained in Denerim for three years. The capital of my nation was hardly a backwater. Moreover, it had been so long since I was home in Honnleath that I almost forgot I was from a small town. When faced with the quaint placidity of Greenfell, I ran screaming. So why was it so obvious that I had been born in a small town? Was I stamped with invisible ink that only city people could read?

"I meant Qunari, not pirates.” I was not doing well at this.

Samson hefted open the door. “I wasn't trying to offend you. Have you eaten?"

"I have," I said, glad that I would soon have peace.

"Okay," Samson said and was already halfway out the door.

"Wait!" I said. I was on early shift, and by the time Samson got back, I would be asleep.

He was already drumming his fingers on the side of the door.

"What is it?"

"I have nightmares," I said. "Sometimes. You know how it is. Sometimes I…make noise. Mutter. Just hurl a pillow at me if I bother you. That usually shuts me up. I'll try to get on the opposite shift as you as soon as possible so I won't wake you. It's just that tonight things are rather in flux so…”

Samson looked at me with amusement at first, but it rapidly melted into pity. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for. "The refugee situation has gotten political in town, but none of us doubt that it was horrific."

He had leapt to the wrong conclusion, but I did not wish to discuss what really disturbed my sleep.

”Thank you,” I said.

Samson shrugged. “Anyway, I’m deaf as a post in my right ear, and otherwise I sleep like a log. Guess we both got lucky.”

When he was gone, I marvelled at his efficiency. The man didn't stay more than a quarter hour. It was as close to painless as I could have imagined.

In short, that was my first interaction with Samson. A brisk but not unkind man, it was a shock to see him begging on the streets soon after. Lyrium insecurity makes a mess out of all of us, but lyrium withdrawals bring out the worst. People like Samson—and presumably I, were I in similar circumstances—let the mere fear of being without it drive us to deception and manipulation. The crystal nips at our heels, and we would sacrifice almost anything to placate it, if we are not prepared to deny it scrupulously at every turn.

Particularly since he had no time to prepare for his expulsion, Samson would not have known to face his desperation. It’s a hard existence, to put it mildly, and he has had to live that way for years. Longer than I have by a damn sight.

Seeing him on the rise over Haven… I felt dread, but there was a certain poetry to it.

I have often thought of my "future" self, the one who was left to attack Redcliffe while everyone else was trapped inside. I had become quite convinced that this future self of mine had fallen into lyrium again with something incredibly important to fight for and no room for mistakes. Seeing Samson at Haven was something like seeing my future self, in a twisted way. A self that had just enough lyrium to make getting off of it too difficult, and too little of it to escape the withdrawals completely. I can't imagine being Samson’s age and having his pension and lyrium stipend taken away, being sore from old injuries and arthritis, and suffering the thirst, the headaches, the muscle weakness and shakes on top of it, not to mention the confusion and the memory loss.

It's not hard to believe he turned to red lyrium. Desperate and faced with a mountain of it, even if it was the wrong colour, and even if it came with a few unusual provisos, it would be an extremely compelling offer. Even if a strange, horrible creature offered it.

It's just…even addicted and dependent, why not try to get off the stuff? It's not as though the life of a disgraced Templar is worth much. If it is lost in the attempt, who would mourn? Why fall so willingly and completely into the arms of a drug? Especially to benefit a being like Corypheus that is so terribly malignant? Surely Samson must be ashamed, even as he is dependent. Knights are supposed to be prepared to lay down their lives for the greater good. Why not do so now? Is this not the greater good?

I wonder… In his mind, what does lyrium do for him? What is it good for?

Perhaps lyrium holds more lightly to him than it does to me. He has had several more years to grow dependent on the stuff, but…

I have written in these pages that I seem to be missing a piece of myself, or some part has formed or grown incorrectly. Perhaps this is the part that lyrium would have seared into the most readily, preventing me from becoming hopelessly dependent. Its hold on me is indeed strong, but I am still alive where its absence has killed many others. Perhaps it is missing one hand-hold in me. That might be enough to finish prying it loose.

Samson might not have this advantage.

By contrast…

I lie in my bed, clutching a sword and watching shadows, suffering under my own withdrawals.

I have to find a way to defeat him. He has all the lyrium he wants and more. Samson does not have this obstacle to contend with, does he? He does not ache, and shake, and suffer. He does not yearn for the smile of a woman whose very attention he cannot seek, as I do. Uldred does not whisper to him in the dark as he does me.

Though Corypheus might. Whisper. He is worse than Uldred, I am certain.

I wonder…does Samson have it worse than I do? What is red lyrium doing to him that it is not doing to me?

SAMSON’S WEAKNESSES

• deaf in right ear
• addicted to lyrium, probably hopelessly
• excellent with armour
• grudge against the Order?
• some sympathy for mages
• more resistant to lyrium than other Knights
• nearing fifty summers
• roughly thirty years of experience as a Templar
• (twenty more than me)
• knows I can’t sleep

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

—Dawn has not yet broken. The Inquisitor is set to leave today, along with her party. I held no protest. We must move or lose the good graces of our newly allied cities. Reports from our tentative explorations in the immediate area provide insights. We aren't surrounded by Red Templars. The Chargers have seen none between here and Haven.

We have recovered a few of our number, though many of them lay outside of Skyhold. I've retooled staffing so that everywhere the Inquisitor goes and all the roads in between will be patrolled by well-armed soldiers.

In short, I’ve done all I can, but I can't sleep. I keep thinking of other things I need to see done in the meantime.

Really, I should focus on Haven. The recruiting stations in Denerim and Redcliffe have been informed of our, eh, ‘change in location’, but it’s very likely that there are people who haven’t heard the news and are still travelling to Haven to find us. They'll be arriving at a snow-covered ruin. If we can begin diverting them to Skyhold, I can maximize our defences. The more soldiers we have, the safer she’ll we’ll be.

I brought up Samson earlier. Haven’s destruction at his command was a massive blow. I have more thoughts on him but they are difficult to collate right now.

The…person I think of frequently is leaving today. I know it is for the best but I must not let a single soldier, item, weapon, or anything else within my control to be missed, absent, broken, lost, late, inadequate, or faulty. It's impossible to fathom what I might have missed at this stage, but I do know it would be a tragedy beyond measure to lose her after she returned to us by the faint grace of a literal miracle.

My jaw is rubbed raw.

It was less than two weeks ago that I was so sure we would all die in a crush of demons and demigods. That, to understate it, was a very hard day. But what sticks to me most stubbornly is not the loss of my life, but the loss of the battle itself.

When I was faced with death in Haven, I was not as distressed by it as I thought I might be. Perhaps it is due to familiarity. In Kinloch Hold, death stalked me, not in secret but fully visible, completely revealed. I knew that one small mistake meant… Well. Not only that my life was over, but that I would be reformed and remade into something for the demons to use, to spread, and to kill others. I did not wish to be twisted in the image of their insidiousness. Death seemed like the better of two possible ends.

As we prepared to go down fighting in Haven’s chantry, the normal—if sudden—conclusion of a sword plunging through my chest felt…acceptable. I wasn't in the same withdrawal pain as I had been days earlier. I was no longer squirming, at death’s behest. I no longer wished for it, but I had made my peace long ago with dying by the sword. It is a given, as a Templar, even for the young recruits. I could die on my feet, going down fighting, outnumbered but not outclassed.

But there was one thing I did fear in that moment. Not of death or dying, but leaving things undone. Of my time ending early while others yet depended on me to give orders, to stand beside them, to talk them through it.

That's what my fear is: leaving a burden unborne.

Though… Perhaps they wouldn’t have killed me, but rather they would have force-fed me red lyrium.

I…

…I daren’t think about that. Skyhold must not fall. That is all that needs to be understood. And it will not fall. Or I will make myself too troublesome to risk experimenting upon.

Tevinter refused to take Templars as hostages for a reason. When the attacks closed in on the Tevinter border—

Damn it all, I left Mia’s letter in Haven. The one I only skimmed. I wish I had read it more carefully. At least then I could figure write a vaguely appropriate response. Without seeing what she wrote, all I can do is talk about myself. How conceited.

Andraste’s mercy.

Some people depend on me to provide direction in a heated battle. Others rely on me to send a simple letter. I suppose, one day, there may come a time when I no longer give orders, or my sister does not expect my letter. But they do now, and such expectations are ongoing. Clearly, there are things that I am not at peace with, yet.

It was also up to me to inform the Inquisitor of my condition. I have not. And now there is not enough time before she goes. I am not at peace with that, either.

Part of me wishes that she would not go.

Chapter Text

—The first wagons entered the ward perimeter and passed through Skyhold’s gates this morning. Lady Josephine managed to tweak a supply line and sign a deal with some surface dwarfs who, conveniently, also did business with her lyrium smugglers. Dwarves don't typically sell food. Under the earth, out of the sun, very little grows. Orzammar survives on its purchasing power (if I can shamelessly borrow Josephine’s phrases), meaning their relationship with the farms of western Ferelden and southern Orlais has always been particularly lucrative. Surface dwarves, though, trade in all things from housewares to weapons to orphan children, or so the legend goes.

The wagon Josephine bargained for arrived today and it was a sight. Packed completely full, the cart had snapped an axle just down the ridge and had to be repaired. It was bearing mountain mushrooms, ale, potatoes, guinea fowl, salt, and fruit leather. Some of it is survival food, but the salts are a necessity for drying and a luxury for flavour. Most of us haven't had a decent meal since Haven. Our few hunters have caught the odd rabbit or fish out in the wild, but these are fed to the injured in order to help their recovery. I do not begrudge them that—quite the contrary. But my stomach growls the same as everyone else's. My cuirass is starting to grow loose.

We have a cook managing the kitchen and she has a few helpers. Sera seemed interested. Perhaps she has some training and wants to help? That would be nice.

We are lacking quite a bit of equipment apparently, but we have enough wood to build roasting spits in the square. It seems we will be able to see the Inquisitor off with a fair attempt at a feast. It'll do everyone a bit of good to sit down together and eat our fill without concern about the consequences, for once. Similarly, I look forward do a hot meal. I can't remember the last time I've eaten until I was properly full. Pity there's no butter to further mushrooms in… bah. I have work to do. I ought to be productive instead of dreaming about dinner.

Perhaps I can take that time to reach a truce with Solas before they depart. I don't need him railing about me all the way to the mire. And I still can't wait to see the back of Cole.

  That said, we are already looking ahead to their return. We intend to have a great many repairs and improvements made. We are still in the beginning phase of our occupation of this fortress, and some areas, like the prison, are slated for review by the dwarven mason’s guild before we can put them to any sort of use. There is a stomach-turning gap in the middle of the floor. An inattentive person could easily stride through and plummet to their death.

On the plus side, there is a decent sized forge—actually, there are two of them. There's one in the keep and a second one in the outbuildings. It'll take our new quartermaster some time to get the forge properly outfitted, but first we need to reestablish our connection to the main roadways, then arriving volunteers can continue to find us. Leliana wants to establish checkpoints along the avenue of approach.

The avenue of approach. It seems, in this harsh ring of mountain peaks, there is only one that is passable on foot.

Skyhold is impressively built. The area is a flattened seam between the convergence of four unique mountain plates. Even if the peaks proceed in neat, consecutive executions—which any person simply gazing up at the mountain vista could identify as being untrue—the fact that Skyhold sits here in this stable, watered, flat region is miraculous. I do not know what the chances are of such a thing happening, but they must be slim to astronomical. Not to mention, we are looking into what supplies the fortress with its water, but it seems to be a series of geyser-like springs beneath its foundations. Some-bloody-how?! I can’t wait to see the masons’ report on that.

The singular path that connects us to the outside world sits upon a cleft between the ridges of a fatally steep, sheer rock peak. It too is easily defensible. It is not exactly narrow; our traders with their food wagon had no trouble negotiating past. Yet, the path does not wind. There are few caves and we are above the treeline. So, for the last two miles, there is no cover. There is no way to approach Skyhold stealthily. One must wear one’s intentions plainly on one's face. Redcliffe is not much different, and it is the most defensible structure in Ferelden.

In short, Skyhold is possibly the best-fortified structure I've set foot in, at least in its bones. When it is fully operational and repaired, it might be the best of its sort in all of Thedas.

…I'm stalling. I admit it. Distracting myself. Maybe I should just face it head on. I’m just so tired of hurting.

Chapter Text

Would Cullen join a Discord server? Maybe, if it was called the Lion's Discord. Comment here if you have issues joining.

https://discord.gg/bBEcmde5

Chapter Text

—The feast to see the Inquisitor and her party off went ahead as planned. It was, uh…memorable, I suppose.

The kitchen staff, all newly appointed, did their utmost to prepare food for so many. There are fifty of us here in the fortress. There were sixty, but subtract the Chargers and a handful of spies watching the pass and, well, our number is significantly reduced. The soldiers on the wall account for a quarter of what’s left. They nipped down the stairs to eat quickly in turns. Gods, we really have to get on recruitment.

Still, it's pleasantly bracing to see so many of us together. Skyhold has several tables lying about in the tavern and elsewhere. Some had been dragged out into the square for cleaning. Instead of bringing them back inside a rubble-strewn tavern, we formed a circle out of them on the green and lit a fire in the middle to cook and to keep us warm in the cool air. The (rather terrible) ale was welcome. Somehow, it was better hot and watered down than it was chilled and drawn straight from the keg. It kept everyone’s hands warm while we waited.

Everyone was in good spirits, pleased to feel—at least for a little while—that things are ‘okay’. It has been a very long time since some of us have felt that. Since I have felt that.

Of course, it was only a façade.

The table was set. It was still daylight. Everyone was there, from Lady Cassandra and Leliana to Toree the stable boy and the dwarven traders who brought us the ingredients for the meal we were about to receive. The Inquisitor was seated in the centre of the largest table. I sat at that same table, but across its narrow side and two or three seats down from her.

Many others were nearby, standing, talking, and filling mugs or old bowls with the warmed ale. Cassandra was a few paces away, arguing with Dorian about something. I noticed immediately that Blackwall took his seat at Quinna's left, trading barbs with Sera but methodically sweeping the area with his eyes. Guarding.

It made me feel at ease. Iron Bull also seemed to be watching from where he stood at the far end of our circle, over by the stairs near the medical tents. I was glad for that too. But not complacent.

I watch, too. Even when it looks like I am not. I repeatedly check every corner, conscious of the weight and length of my sword.

…and lo they gathered in the Maker’s shadow, each with the lady’s keen tolerance…

I saw him first. Cole. Skulking near the stairs up to the keep. The shadows were long enough, and his steps so thoroughly cushioned that no one else seemed to notice him.

He creeped around the edge of the banquet. Even though it wasn't yet dark, I felt as though we were being stalked by a shadowy predator.

When he's not invisible, one could still easily overlook him. Drab clothes, thin body, downcast face, being and doing nothing. The boy is like the refuse that collects in doorways of unkept houses: useless and unsightly.

One need not hear him speak to know that he is not normal. An astute observer might quickly reach the conclusion that he is not human. Still others may not deduce anything particular about him visually, but they would instinctually know that something is off.

This was certainly the case at the feast.

He was not conducting any business. He did not have a tankard in hand, nor did he show any interest in the bread and fruit leather on the table. He had no interest in speaking to any of us, even to Solas or the Inquisitor who had advocated for him. Instead he stood, talking to himself, colourless lips moving like hypnotized snakes.

I stared at him while I sipped my ale. What I wouldn't have given for a pen knife from Lady Josephine.

What use is such an existence, to skulk, half-mad on the periphery, putting everyone on edge and doing no work, no good, serving no purpose at all except killing silence with nonsense for one’s own amusement? Dangers aside, threat of violence aside, all my complaints shoved ignobly under the rug, the fact remains that the boy is wretched. I do not understand why he insists on staying here. Surely he can't be happy. This place must be as ill-fitting to him as a sweater on a fish. Why not just give in and go back to the Fade?

A few minutes passed. He crouched, absently mumbling at a bare patch of dirt near the stairs. For what horrid purpose, I cannot guess.

People came to talk to me. Rylen, Harding, and later Lady Josephine took up a chair beside me. Things between us have settled since Redcliffe; whatever she wished I was or thought I would be in front of Fereldan nobility no longer seems to matter to her. We have reached an understanding, I suppose. I am what I am, and I serve my purpose. She appears to have gotten over what happened with the Desire demon, though the events at Haven still weigh on her. It was her first time seeing a battle.

Often, armed conflict isn't necessarily an existential crisis; battles can be little more than rapid skirmishes that resolve in seconds and do not result in deaths at all. Haven was objectively a very bad, very hard situation, particularly for someone who has grown up in safety and has never seen violence before. The most seasoned of us were shaken. It can't have been easy for Josephine.

It was at about this point that the doors to the as-yet-unnamed tavern flew open and two pairs of kitchen staff emerged, carrying two overturned shields, used as platters and laden with roast fowl, mushrooms, and cakes flavoured with preserved fruit.

Immediately, all attention was on the food, and people who had been standing and chatting took to their seats.

But the Inquisitor… She stood up.

Madame de Fer made a stride toward the empty seat at the Inquisitor’s right, but just as she did, the Inquisitor herself turned and offered the spot to Cole.

Vivienne froze, and a massive, disgusted shudder seemed to crawl through her. Josephine's head snapped to attention before studiously and deliberately asking me if I did any travelling while in Kirkwall? Where to? And did I enjoy it?

While I spoke a half-baked answer, I was truly watching the odd boy look up and hesitate before gingerly picking his way over to the chair at the Inquisitor’s side.

I had seen him in corners and at edges, sticking to the shadows. But I have never seen him occupy a central space and face us before.

Cole sat, sinking awkwardly into the high backed chair. He remained with his eyes downcast and his back ramrod straight. He hated this as much as we did.

Cassandra, meanwhile, visibly scowled from a few seats over. Perhaps she sensed—or simply saw—the discomfort everyone in camp was in. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor stood in front of her chair.

"Everyone, may I have your attention?” The people at the table were already watching her uneasily as she motioned toward the boy, trapped in the firelight.

"I'd like to introduce you to my friend. His name is Cole. I haven’t known him very long yet, but I do know that the place he grew up is very far away from here, and it is very different from the Dales, and from Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches. Because of that, he is somewhat unlike you or I. But he is still my friend.

“Every one of us owes Cole a debt of gratitude. It was he who first informed us of our enemies at Haven, soon after our lookouts noted the army headed our way. Because of the warning he gave us, and because he took the time to listen to poor Chancellor Roderick, we were all able to escape through the catacombs to safety. None of us would be alive today if not for Cole—even me.

“He is not a chatty type of person, but when you see him, it's okay to say hello and give him a smile. After everything settles down and we become used to Skyhold and our respective places in it, we can begin to work on getting to know each other properly." She looked down at Cole. “Is that okay with you, too?”

Cole said something to himself before cutting himself off. He looked meekly around the table, seeing the mass of people all staring at him. Eventually, the boy gave a nod, agreeing to the Inquisitor’s statement. He looked nervous.

The Inquisitor continued. “Speaking of Chancellor Rodrick, it is no secret that he and I had a few differences of opinion. But Roderick was a good man who was strong in his faith and who did absolutely everything he could to ensure the safety of everyone around him when it was necessary. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude, as we do to everyone who died during the events of Haven and on our journey here. They died protecting us, helping us, strengthening us, and caring for us. Let’s take a minute of silence to remember them.”

The Inquisitor speaks very well.

When the minute of silence had passed and the meat was portioned out, the mood relaxed as people began to eat. Laughter and chatter took over the evening. As the sun fell behind the mountains, cold wind began to dive down over the ramparts onto us. The fire helped, but it wouldn't be long before the wind drove us back to our work.

I ate quickly, remembering the security measures I wanted to put in place around the Inquisitor’s quarters. Structural assessments to the whole keep are still in progress, so there was, let’s say, resistance to me commissioning and pushing through a new build before all was done. But even if it isn't perfect, it needs to be in place by the time the Inquisitor and her party gets back. I would be remiss if she was not completely defended by her new stronghold at the soonest possible moment.

Anyway, as I finished my plate, I looked up and across the table. The Inquisitor was turned away, talking to Solas. By contrast, Cole spoke with no one.

Even so, he looked different than he did when he was first asked to the table. He no longer seemed so tense and uncomfortable. The boy’s plate was unused, but he had his feet stretched out toward the warmth of the fire, watching the flames with a contented look on his face.

While I do not think he should be here, and while I believe that his presence will only bring more pain, I can see that the Inquisitor is trying to be kind. Added to her quick and complete public forgiveness of Roderick, and her genuine words of love toward those we have lost, many of which were my soldiers… I’m genuinely affected by what she said tonight.

There is a sweetness to her that hardly seems possible in a world as brutal as this one. What kind of a life must one have led to be so unerringly, unabashedly kind? I'm not certain I fathom the mere odds of someone like her existing, much less appearing here.

That sweetness is something I...I mustn't consider overmuch. It makes me wistful for my own past. I see a shade of my lost self in it. Or I would, if nineteen-year-old Cullen could have spoken to a crowd, and commanded their attention while doing it.

“You should get a cloak to go with your coat. It would really balance your profile and refine your presence.” Josephine had drunk two ales. She plopped her empty tankard on the edge of her wooden fork and almost tipped it. Perhaps dwarven spirits are stronger than what she is accustomed to.

I was about to ask her what in Thedas she meant by that—or if she needed me to get her more water—when she cut me off.

"That's another thing," she said, still with enough Maker-bestowed tact to keep her voice low. "The seat at the Inquisitor’s right hand. It's special. She shay—blah!— she should have asked someone of high rank in a related organization to sit there in order to show the Inquisition’s fav—hic!—favour. Like Cassandra for the Seekers. Or Leliana for Divine Justinia. Or you, for Ferelden. And the Templars. And Kirkwall. And the people. That seat is a statement. It really isn't the type of thing you give away for pity.”

My blood, sickeningly, childishly, quickened for a minute at the thought of receiving that request, but I quickly found myself unexpectedly cross with Josephine’s statement. Yes, I can see the sense in her argument. We are all being observed; small details like this might be argued about in universities decades from now. It’s irritating, insipid, unnecessary but…fine. There’s nothing I can do about it and it doesn’t much get in my way, so I’m content to let it go.

However, I do not represent Ferelden, nor the Templars, nor ‘the people’. I represent myself, and to some extent the soldiers who have volunteered to take up arms at the Inquisitor’s command. That is all. To read so much into a seating arrangement—much less holding them as sacred—is asking for misunderstandings and mistruths to flourish over time.

And, honestly, there is something pure about extending an invitation to an outsider. Something beyond politics and appearances. There's a decency to it. And, in this case, an explicit request for all of us to join in offering Cole that same kindness. ‘Though you come to the Inquisition with nothing and as no one, sit at my table, sit at my side.'

If the Inquisitor’s right hand shows us 'the favour' of the Inquisition, then doesn't Cole's presence there simply say, ‘whoever you are, you are welcome here and you matter'? That is highly respectable, my thoughts on him aside.

I looked over at Josephine, who was swaying slightly in her seat and looking critically at Varric’s choice of jacket.

“Does it really matter?" I asked. “In the grand scheme of things, when people are missing and dying and fighting for their lives, does it really matter where someone sits at a table that they have been invited to?”

I gathered up my belongings and prepared to take my leave.

“Yes,” Josephine replied definitively. “Mock it if you like, but little things like this do matter.”

“Well, that’s foolish,” I said.

Why is it that malcontent only happens when the privileged miss out on something trivial, but when the broken receive nothing, day after day, they simply accept it? Why is the seating arrangement remembered, when the death toll outside of these walls is not kept? Why is it that friendship and kindness is forgotten, but the appearance of it is remembered and criticized? Can none of these people tell the difference?

I turned back to Josephine. “You’re probably right, Lady Montilyet, but I seriously question the logic of it all.”

…Perhaps there was a kinder way to say what I meant.

Chapter Text

—I am not a combat engineer, but there are a few tricks I learned (and retained) from my time in the Cloisters. Those buildings were dark, ancient, crumbling, and historically meant for war—not unlike Skyhold. I hope the design translates.

I was up early to get a jump on the day before the Inquisitor's team leaves for the swamps. I sent a runner to Solas to ask if he would meet with me. A few minutes later, the elf arrived at my door.

"I'm glad you found a place to suit your needs here," he said. I’ll take this as a sign that his fury toward me seems to have dissipated. He is not the warmest of people.

Suits me fine, frankly.

"Myself as well," I said, though the draughty tower was still a mess, and the hearth was cold. "Listen," I said. "About…about Cole."

“Ah,” Solas said, rocking back on his heels. "The Inquisitor assured me that the incident has been dealt with. I did not expect to discuss it again.”

I shouldn't be surprised. Varric did say the two of them were very close, after all.

“Well, yes,” I said, and inexplicably stung. “He is a part of Skyhold, as the Inquisitor wishes, and he will accompany you all to the Mire. Cassandra is already quite aware of the situation, and she feels as strongly about it as I do.

“The issue is, I believe that you are in a position to detect problems with Cole the Cassandra or the Inquisitor may not yet be. Your experience with the Fade is unique, as I understand it, and I must be absolutely certain that no harm come to the Inquisitor. After everything that happened at Haven, with an army out for her head, an Archdemon, an ancient magister—allegedly—skulking about, she is going out into a more dangerous world than ever, and that is why—”

"If all of these other dangers are so great, why, then, is the topic of discussion Cole, once again?”

Maker, is he testing me on purpose?

"The deepest cut can come from the smallest hand," I said. I don't often speak in metaphors, but to my ear it didn't sound half bad. Solas, however, was rolling his eyes.

"Cole will not harm the Inquisitor."

"How do you know? And don't stampede to claims of hypocrisy. Yes, Cassandra could harm or kill her, so why aren’t I subjugating everyone to that level of scrutiny, so why do I trust her but not Cole? The reasons are obvious, so we shall move past them.

“The Inquisitor has made up her mind to go and to bring Cole with her. You're her…her friend, are you not? You value her. So, I wish to know how you know that she is safe. Whatever it is, it must be compelling. I didn’t ask you here to argue, or even to convince me. What I am asking you to do is to put my mind at ease.”

Solas crossed his arms behind his back and began to pace. I had a professor of astronomy who did the same thing. It made me feel like I was back in class.

“To be frank about my theories, I believe that Cole is a spirit of compassion. We don't know how he exists on this plane or what brought him here. He either does not remember, or he will not speak of the matter.

“However he came here, we know he acutely feels the pain, fear, sadness, and grief of others. Can you imagine such a life, Commander? A life in which all you feel is pain? Pain that isn't truly yours, but originates from the people that you love?

“No matter how many wounds you bandage, how many mouths you feed, it keeps engulfing you like a tide. Cole speaks to himself—reams of words no one hears or comprehends— because he’s trying to sort out the inner thoughts of every single person between these walls. He hasn’t the space or the silence to tell his own mind from the others, much of the time. Lesser beings would've killed themselves as soon as they first felt the pains of this existence.”

I was as placid as glass. "You're saying Cole is an exceptionally…durable spirit, and that is why we need not fear him?"

Solas huffed as if I was being intentionally obstinate. “I’m saying that Cole perceives Quinna as a beacon of healing and relief. Much hurts this world, things that are both mundane and supernatural. She has taken it upon herself to bring as much of it to rest as she can. Though there is some discomfort and dismay, Cole knows beyond any doubt, that if Quinna falls, this world will be plunged into an eternal agony. And if that happens, Cole will feel it first, and Cole will feel it most. He will not harm her, Commander, because he will suffer more than you can possibly imagine if she dies. That is how I know. That is why I trust him."

I sighed. If that was true, it was indeed a believable deterrent. “Does Cole…rather, is Cole aware enough of everything to attribute these fates to the Inquisitor? How do we know he will not be confused by these complex circumstances or held under the sway of another spirit or demon?"

“Spirits are perhaps uniquely immune to being possessed by other spirits. And Cole knows the difference between right and wrong.”

“And if I asked him in here to speak for himself, he would say this?"

At Solas’s sour expression, I gradually walked back my statement. “Whether the Inquisitor takes Cole with her is not up to me. There are benefits to it, I fully admit that. Moreover, the decision is made. But I am asking you to watch—objectively watch—everything you can. That is what this is about. If she dies, the rifts will drown the world in demons.”

Solas was unmoved. "Rifts are challenging to close, but not impossible. A few opened up during the Blight, or so I heard. Some of your countrymen recalled closing them with swords and axes. It seems that rifts can be closed by violence if the situation is desperate enough. Truly miraculous. It’s as if a cut can be healed by stabbing!”

He looked over to me as if suddenly recalling I was there. His tone cooled once again. "No harm will come to her, Commander. I will guard her with my life. I do mean that. I would find it…intolerable if she came to harm."

The room seemed airless suddenly, as if a storm blast was about to whip through.

“Good," I said, but the word nearly caught in my throat. “I've said this before when you first began to travel together in Haven, but it is doubly true now: anticipate threats from all sides. Her life at the expense of everyone else’s, including yours, including Cole’s. I cannot be more emphatic than I am being right now. She must survive at any and all costs."

“Certainly," Solas said. "Will that be all?”

As he left, I collected the staff listings for the encampments on their route. I've made sure they were Templar-trained soldiers at every stop in case Cole turns or there is concern of possession. I had to shuffle a few people around and it was quite obvious what I was doing, but I hardly care. There’s more at stake here than individual pride.

If Solas knows what’s good for him, he’ll take my words to heart even if he thinks I’m nothing but a prejudiced Templar.

What else am I missing? What else can I do? Short of strapping a grenade to Cole's neck—Sera. That's who I haven't spoken to yet. I can hardly trust her not to shank Cole for breathing, but she'll be one more set of eyes and another willing blade. (And who could do wrong with a jar of angry bees strapped to their neck? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner!)

I should run off to find her quickly, before they all go.

Later…

Right after I wrote that, I walked to the window overlooking the courtyard to see if Sera was about. The horses were waiting on the grass, and so was Iron Bull, Cassandra, and a few others, but Sera was not there yet. Nor was…

The yard in Skyhold is almost completely cleared of snow now, I notice. Still, from my tower, I find myself looking out at the dingy, icy heaps that were too packed and frozen to shovel away. I think for long stretches in contemplative silence. Watching.

I recall the way it felt against my fingers, my wrists.

The Inquisitor is leaving the keep and walking down the stairs.

I feel the physical sensation, understated with my distraction, I feel the discomfort of the snow, and of her hand in mine.

She walks confidently over the grass, smiling as she sees the others.

The weight of her against me, the mortal fear of her looming death. My name along my cheek in the very air that was killing us.

She’s going today. It’s hitting me that I don’t know when I’ll see her again.

She remembers something, running over the grass and into the tavern.

I remember that thing I never did, the move I didn't make outside of the chantry on the last day, before our world went to hell. That thing I haven’t done. And will never do.

I still feel you, every time.

That place is gone now. Where I fought myself away from you, in the chantry's arch. And my cabin minutes later where I realized everything. Maker. It’s all destroyed. That archway, the cabin, all of it.

My chance. It’s gone. I will never get another opportunity to conduct that moment differently. Everything fled so quickly.

But if I’m honest with myself—yes, the walls and foundations might be gone, but what I feel for you hasn’t changed.

Knowing what I know, I wonder if…

Maybe I should have listened. To the thought.

The goldenlily. I think of it. There are so many reasons why I shouldn't. But I do.

“Cullen?"

I jumped slightly as she closed my door behind her. She hasn't called me “Commander” in a long while. I'm not sure when she stopped.

I still cannot say her name.

"Inquisitor," I greeted her. I sound hoarse.

Quickly, my mind feeds back all that I had put in place. Special forces on the ready. A guide between all camps. Accompaniment in three relay groups, all standing ready at the foot of the mountain. Campsites, medical support, supplies—

"I hope Solas was minding his manners," she said.

She is so different from me, moving quickly throughout the room, while I stand, rooted to the windowsill. She’s a dancing light upon my frozen snow. “The man has been in an absolute snit since yesterday. I couldn’t drag the reason why out of him, though.”

I wished to ask why. If he needs something for today, or something was worrying him, then I would see it resolved so long as—

"Yes, it went just fine. It was just a minor request," I said. I had to say something before she drew her own conclusions, or before I thought of too many avenues of possible error. I was stressed enough already, and I did not wish to spark another argument with her. Especially not now.

“Oh, good. I was worried about you for a minute.” Crisp morning air. Fresh travel leathers. She looks ready. And she looks so—

“I'm looking forward to finding our soldiers and bringing them home, but I do feel nervous about leaving Skyhold."

Me, too. She couldn't know how much.

"I feel like I've played with fire long enough that I'll stick one foot out onto that bridge and a boulder will come crashing down onto me out of nowhere.” She laughed. "It's superstitious, sort of. If it was possible enough to even be a superstition."

“The bridge is well-guarded and has been recently assessed by the engineers,” I offered. "I have reopened lines of contact with every camp. You won't be more than a stone’s throw from help on your way to the mire, no matter the day, no matter the hour." I had been in authority long enough to conceal even the slightest shade of uncertainty I had. We had done everything we could. But the Mire is territory that is unmanned and largely uncharted.

I know that whatever I’ve done isn't enough to remove all possible danger. So does she. Nothing is ever completely safe, especially for a special combat group in contested territory.

I should tell her about the withdrawals. I’ve planned to for days. It would be right to do so now, while we had a moment behind closed doors. To avoid it for the sake of her peace of mind while she travels is, at best, a poor rationalization, and a lie at worst.

I know. I know.

But when I think of how she would perceive me, especially after weeks away from here, sleeping in tents, lashed by the wind, baked by the sun. For me to expect her to go through that while putting her life in my hands, to have her place so much faith in someone like me, when I am not…not whole—who would tolerate the risk I pose? Especially through all the discomfort and uncertainty of the road?

She should have the opportunity to make an informed decision, but if I tell her when she has newly returned, she has seen the evidence of my suitability—or lack thereof—for herself.

I know it's wrong to withhold. I just can't quite say the words.

I once tried telling everything to Cassandra. She was in the best position out of anyone I’ve ever met to understand what I’m going through with the lyrium. Still, I felt like a dog trying to talk to a cat! There was no cohesion. Then she had to go and drag Leliana into it. I did nothing but dig myself into a hole.

I couldn't explain it to Cassandra, how can I possibly explain it to the Inquisitor?

There must be some way, some string of words I can say that will at least get my point across fairly. I cannot think of them now. When I ought to. When it matters.

She’s leaving. And I cannot imagine losing everything in one day.

"Always have the closest safe area in mind," I told her, as I once did in Haven, long before now.

"I will," she said.

"Know that our lost soldiers lives are worth a great deal, but they aren’t worth the lives of your company. It is a hard thing, but remember it.”

“I shall.”

“And always make sure that you—”

"Thank you for saving me.”

I stopped cold. I looked toward her, right at her, for the first time since she had entered the room. There wasn’t a shade of mirth on her face. She was serious, even a little sad.

“The snow. You saved me.”

Immediately, I was flustered. ”I didn’t— I did the opposite. I’m doing the opposite right n—”

"Not when it mattered."

I realized that I had been holding in my breath. “I…”

“Thank you for handling Haven the way you did. You were a god, Cullen. I should have died with a whisper, but you let me bring down a mountain.”

Maker, my chest…

"With your words. And your plans. And your quick thinking. Without which…”

She stopped. All she did was look at me. The air was so silent all I could hear was a rush. The sound of the waterfall from inside the keep.

I…

She cleared her throat. ”Anyway, Dorian wants to stay in Skyhold and scour the library for magic texts. Apparently there's a lot of old books there. Including this one…"

She pulled a very slim, very dusty blue volume out of her pocket. The History of the Southern Dalish by Ingmairen Kitmarr.

I felt like I had just been jolted between worlds.

Like I had done so many times before with my runners, I reached for the offered pages.

”A dwarven account of the Dalish?"

The thing was only 100 pages, and it had illustrations.

"It's not about the Marches and there's no mention of clan Lavellan, and he definitely has the bit about halla bone carving methods wrong, but if the topic interests you— I mean, it seemed to before our home got levelled. It's a convenient place to start, considering the book was in the library right across from you. And it's not as obvious as Genitivi. Not that I in any way think you will have time for this sort of thing. I know you’re extremely busy.”

"Thank you," I said. "I shall read it."

"I found a volume on the Clayne wars that I'm taking with me. You'll have to let me compare notes with you when I get back. You can lecture me on what I got wrong.”

I nodded. “Stay safe."

What more could I tell her that wasn’t too much?

I watched from my window as she headed down to her waiting party. Cole was seated on a white mare, holding the reins wrong and the horse was dancing about an agitation. Solas was mounting his hart. He looked grim, with a creased brow and a scowl on his face. Perhaps our discussion had put him in a sour mood.

But all of it melted away when he saw her. She was grinning too.

She was not that way when she saw me. She was smiling when she came in, and then…

All settled, my soldiers opened Skyhold’s grand gates. The party walked beneath the gate house. I crossed my study to watch them through the opposite window.

I'm glad to see our goals being furthered. There is no other option but this. Yet…

I will miss you.

The words are so simple.

I'm sad to see her go. Not that I deserve to. I’m more or less the direct cause of this.

I watch Solas as he rides away, his hart and the Inquisitor’s horse side be side. He has the audacity to frown, but he is so fortunate. While he and I have very little in common most days, he has one very specific thing in this moment that I do not have: he can go with her. And I must remain.

They carried across the long bridge and onto the rocky mountain path on the other side. They grew small and I lost sight of them as my eyes were eventually blocked by the edge of my window.

For a time, nothing happened. I can hear the lack of them in the walls around me, the square below me and to keep across from me. All of it is emptier now.

I let out a great breath. At the tail end of it, I could feel the stirring of a headache brewing, a throbbing in my temples just at the edge of my pulse. I slipped an elfroot leaf into my mouth and began to chew. A forlorn hope, but fortune may favour me on a day like this.

All at once, I have no plans at the ready, no runners, no lineup, no meetings. All the maps are for closed projects. Everything else is quiet, quiet, quiet.

She came to speak with me. We were alone. And I did not feel that urge.

Something has changed.

Chapter Text

—Now that we have made our next great step forward, and now that all of our away teams have left the fortress, we are in a compulsory holding pattern. Skyhold is a large egg in a delicate nest, and for now, all of the little sticks and strings holding our security together have been depleted. All that can be spared are now gone. It is up to those of us who remain to hold everything together until our members return. Spoken without the flair: if we send out any more people, we will not be able to defend ourselves.

I'm awaiting many reports from almost all of our camps and patrols in Ferelden. The quartermaster is just setting up, and I can only ‘encourage’ him to work faster so many times before the man starts shaking. I'm working on the addition I wish to make the Inquisitor’s tower and I have a half-dozen other projects on the go, but most of my personnel are between locations or aren’t expected to give substantial updates for a while.

In short: I have work to do, but all of it is rudimentary. I haven't been in between tasks to this degree in months. It’s positively maddening.

Thoughts are creeping in.

I would have expected them to be about lyrium, and though that irritation drags its carcass around my mind frequently, the most urgent of my thinking has dug ruts around the grave that is Haven.

It still feels too fresh to press into. At least, not without troubling the foundations that we have laid here. But I am repeatedly compelled to ask, rhetorically: what the hell happened to that place? We were in a town, surrounded by celebration, and not three hours later we were running for our lives and the whole place was wiped completely out of existence. Now we are here. Who would believe it?

I have felt a similar sense of displacement in Kinloch and Kirkwall to a lesser degree. These are not thoughts I would willingly speak aloud; rather, they sound like the pointless musings of a novice Knight, shaken by the first taste of battle. “Things were so peaceful and manageable yesterday. How did it come to this?”

My peace has never been complete in any place. Nor is anyone’s, I imagine—there are always little imperfections: the daily stresses of our lives, the vast unknown around and before us. No one is in utter bliss, even those that appear to be. But whatever peace I have found in life I seem to lose all at once, rather than by degrees.

This seems to be mental inertia, and there is diminished space for a new, grounded reality beyond the (highly unwanted) superficiality of these thoughts.

I should be used to massive, sudden change. That is the life that comes with warfare. It’s the life I chose, and the reality I’ve lived since I was a teenage boy.

Hell, every Fereldan should be well acquainted with realities like this by now. One day we're fine. Tomorrow it's the Blight. Or the occupation. Or King Maric’s rebellion. Or the Mage/Templar war.

Still…what happened?

I remember being in my cabin in Haven during the celebration. I felt awful. The withdrawals were some of the worst they’ve ever been. And I was coming to a realization about, uh, her.

Yes, yes, I know, that has coloured my thoughts since then. I think about it. I think about what kind of person am I that I would let that get in the way of the observation that an army was fast approaching. I’ve ripped my brain apart repeatedly since over why I am now suddenly so easily distracted from my tasks, my precious work overridden by thoughts I have no business thinking. And no, I haven't done a single thing in response to it. At least, not beyond suppressing every aspect of those thoughts with every ounce of will that I have.

Save, of course, between these pages.

But here is the question I haven’t been able to answer, and I’m beginning to feel genuine concern over my own abstinence obstinance: the thoughts I had in those moments about her…were they really so bad?

Maker, did I honestly just ask that? As if I could justify those thoughts, the lapse in my attention, and the continued derailment of my duty by telling myself that it could've been worse?!

In the end, we were attacked, I had given us all up for dead, I'd given her up for dead, and now she comes to offer me a book before she leaves and I'm supposed to, what? Just take it and read it as though none of this has happened? I’m supposed to pretend I can so much as look at it without being consumed by thoughts about her fingers touching its cover and the little smile she gave me when she handed it to me? I’m supposed to read it and not wonder what she’s doing, if she is all right? If she is in pain or cold or afraid or surrounded or dead? I’m supposed to go on living? How?

What happened?

I was living in a cabin. I had come to the realization that I had been suppressing a certain thought about her, actively committing Sin Six. I was looking out of my window at a chantry, in a village, surrounded by people. I can see it in my mind. Down to the smell of the resin in the cabin and the gleam of the icicles hanging down from my roof, the sound of chatter and sparking spruce logs on the fire outside.

That entire village is gone. The cabin is destroyed. The chantry was crushed. Most of the people I was hearing and seeing were killed. Nothing from that memory exists in this world anymore.

Except the way I felt. That, somehow, has stayed.

“Stayed.” It’s stronger now, if anything.

Do not dig so deep. Haven’t I learned? There are other avenues here, other things I have not yet grasped fully.

Chiefly, what in Andraste's name is Samson thinking? He is older than I am and far more experienced. So what was the point of all those years of knowledge if they bestowed no wisdom? I do not understand what could possibly twist a person’s mind to this degree.

And for what? What was the point? Why destroy and kill? You are a Templar at heart. You know better than to follow a demon. Even if he had all the lyrium in the world, you must still know that what he asks of you is abhorrent. To see the ruin of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, to know that the Divine was murdered by the being to which you have sworn your allegiance?

Even Meredith, a slave to lyrium, could tell a demon from an ally in her final hours.

Hmm. Now I wonder if…

This sounds tenuous even to my ear, but she truly hated demons with every iota of her will. Red lyrium or not, it was as core to her personality as being a Knight. And when the schism occurred, despite the presence of mages and disobedient Templars all around us, it was me she attacked with all of her fury.

Could she have known something I did not? Did she see Uldred when she looked into my eyes? He must still persist there, like a little scar between my iris and pupil. The same way a flicker of green light pours through the sky over the grave that is Haven, marking the place where the Breach tore through.

Apparently Samson’s perception is not as acute.

What did he see when he saw me, I wonder?

Perhaps he has forgotten me, and as a result, cannot anticipate so precisely what I will do.

But I doubt that.

His arrival at the head of that army almost feels planned somehow, as if Corypheus somehow found out who I was, dug into my past, and found one of the few surviving Templars outside of the war that knew me.

Samson was far from the Gallows when the explosion occurred. He would be one of the few Knights that not only knew me personally, but did so before the responsibilities of being Knight-Captain took me away from the recruits and the training ground.

But how could Corypheus have done that?

Honestly, this is an interesting—if disturbing—line of inquiry. Samson was hardly a wretch, last I saw him, begging for lyrium at the docks. Perhaps that is the answer. The man must've hunted Corypheus, set on a target, looking for lyrium like a mabari tracks blood.

The alternative is much less likely, but far more chilling. Corypheus allegedly stated he had walked in the Fade as a Magister, seeking the Golden City. If that were true, if he had walked in that impossible real and held communion with the creatures there…

Are Pride demons a hive mind? Do they all know me as Uldred did?

If they do, then someone like Corypheus could learn things about me. If Pride watches me now, embedded in my mind like a spy, I am like a baited trap, aren’t I?

I wonder. I asked Solas his advice on similar issues once before, but I was not willing to give him details to work with. He cannot know the exact workings of a Pride demon’s mind of course, but I wonder if…

I had best not think it. Cole is far away by now, and even if he were here, I dare not ask him this question. Though he might know the answer better than anyone else, he would see through my thoughts and straight into my vulnerabilities. I cannot.

Perhaps I should try? To be safe?

Maker. I trust nothing of myself anymore.

But what does it matter? I was onto material concerns at the start of my writing, and my thoughts have whipped away like an uncontrolled gale.

I do not trust myself, nor do I trust these walls as impervious. Only one of these I seem to be able to fix. Skyhold is superior to Haven, but it would be madness to think it invincible. I must defend it with all my innovation.

Kinloch Hold is surprisingly like Skyhold, the longer I think of it. Built to be inescapable, to keep mobs out and mages and demons within, the Chantry built a massive needle on an island in an endless lake. No one could swim across such a ghastly expanse.

It did not make me safer. It disconnected me from the world.

And the permeable thing about Kinloch wasn't its walls or its stones or its barred windows, but the minds of the people held within it.

What is the longest time a Circle has gone without a major incident? In Kirkwall, it always felt like we were managing them, triaging the worst of them before they could spread.

How long can a system like that keep running before someone dies? What is the future in such a place?

There are many mages in Skyhold; their will—collectively, if not individually—has brought them here, as my own will has brought me.

Is that enough? Does a strong will keep a punctured mind in check? What is the future of Skyhold?

Is it irony that I find my mind so like a mage’s, and the thought of it gives me comfort?

What is the difference between irony and fate? Is one a spirit and the other a demon in the Fade?

So what possible future could there be between a man like myself and a woman like—

It has been two days since they left. There is no chance of me seeing her for some time, and this knowledge has brought me some cautious objectivity. Most days, I listen—even when I'm not aware that I am doing it—for her voice coming from the wall, or the sound of her step on the stairs outside.

I know that it isn't coming. There is a shapeless sadness to it, a general discontent. Maybe it has come with due clarity; I can no longer pretend that she doesn't affect me, either in her presence or by her absence.

This leaves my position rather unfair. I am damned if she's gone, haunted if she's here.

I do not know what this is supposed to be. We have work to do, heaps of it, and she will continue to leave here for protracted periods, facing various dangers and doing so alongside Solas. The commander of the military body has no right to seek the…attention of the person for whom the military is formed. She hasn’t any to spare, never mind that it is insane of me. I owe the soldiers my complete focus; it's their neck if I am distracted.

Yes, but what am I, if not distracted? What have I always been? What is a Templar, if not a man with one foot on a mage’s neck and the other in a lyrium bottle?

So, my earlier question: what future could there be for a person like her and a person like me?

The power relations between her position and mine are unnavigable. Where I to say something to her, it would be unfair to her, given the perception of my station. She relies on me for her life. Some individuals might use that as leverage. "Refuse me and I might withdraw the arms watching your back," or similar. Of course, I would never, and I hope she knows that, but the perception or fear of it is inescapable. Particularly so if we attempted to go forward with it and it was unsuccessful. It would make for a needlessly messy professional relationship, and frankly I do not need the sadness pain devastation humiliation difficulty it would pose. I have enough problems as it is. And proper heartbreak is one pain I have never had to weather. I’ll take my wins where I can.

Not to mention, Inquisitor Lavellan is a name that will carry on for centuries. What she does now will be permanently remembered in the culture of our time. She can afford to make no missteps, and I can afford to take no limelight. I've had enough of it as it is. They're clearly as no future here, nor is there any path forward.

Can’t I please just move on?

Later…

It occurs to me that I do not know of her, uh…marital status in her clan. I haven't asked. Nor has she spoken openly of an attachment back home. That might put everything to rest right there.

It’s just that…

Becoming the Inquisitor…it has surely been trying. There can be no other word for it. And it's not as though I don't understand the nature of command or high profile. I do. And we do seem to get on. Her and I, I mean. We reach different conclusions about certain decisions, of course, but we understand when another implicitly. Which is something of a feat, considering how different her life has been from mine.

While I see the cloth we have been cut from bears a different pattern, it seems it is of the same stock. And that is something.

We are companionable. Supportive, even. That’s good, isn’t it? That will be useful, for the days and the work ahead.

Yes. Good.

….can’t that just be enough?

It could be that Andraste has chosen you. It may very well be that you are holy, meant to accept the burden of choosing where we must go from here. I must not become a complication by dividing your attention.

So, I put my faith in time. Whatever this is will fade in a few weeks’ time. Perhaps even before your return.

I will always respect you. I will always value you. But this… other thing is of no practical use. It has no future. There is no hope for it.

It will fade. It will fade. I will forget.

I hear your voice call my name every night when I try to sleep. I have not put any of that behind me. I do not know how to begin to do so. And I am ashamed to admit, good logic and planning aside, I do not wish to put it behind me.

I wish it to continue, this feeling. I wish for the gladness that the possibility of seeing you brings me, and the way it brightens my many long hours in this tower.

There are so many minutes of my life that I wish I could ease from my memory: the storming of Kinloch, the defense of Kirkwall, my last words I said to my family before I left.

But despite all the horror, I wish I could sharpen one.

Madly, I wish I was back under the gaze of the Archdemon so that I might relive my moment with you once more. Your hand in the snow. Each of my fingers spaced perfectly against each one of yours. This memory I would relive exactly how it was. Every breath, every shimmer of white-hot fear. But this time, I would sense your hand with all my attention.

I need to feel one thing that I cannot remember. I need to know.

Did you squeeze my hand in return?

I did not think to ascertain that in the moment, and though I’ve thought back to it a hundred times by now, I thought I knew. I thought the answer was no.

I thought it was one-sided, my affection. But now I wonder how accurate my recollection could be, and if you— That is, if you willingly, at least for a moment—

If it was, if you truly didn’t, I think I could let go.

Tonight I read the book she lent me. I recall her hands on its spine. And I think back. But I cannot reach that detail, anymore.

What happened?

Chapter Text

—Must think of other things. Mechanics. Technical statistics. Angles. Load-bearing things. Pillars! Yes. The material of war. With so many of us away, I have fewer hands to count upon, and, while things are otherwise calm, there are more bottlenecks and snarls possible with so many gaps in the roster. I must steer around them. Or fix them. Smash the bottles.

The preparations of the fortress continue. The hauling out and inventorying of all the furniture and tools left abandoned here carries on. There is an unbelievable amount of material, and little of it makes logical sense. Some of the things left in Skyhold are very old. There are barrels with wood so dry and cracked they seem ready to turn back into sand. Meanwhile the stable looks to be quite recent; sap has newly beaded up in golden orbs along its sides, like blood slowly seeping from a shallow cut. That outbuilding is a few decades old at most.

Who would arrive in this remote place, build a stable, and then leave?

There are other such questions. Repairs have been made to parts of the fortress roof in living memory, while others bear damage from arrows so ancient, they hardly bear any resemblance to any in current use.

Meanwhile, despite the addition of numerous structures, the south tower connecting the primary suite to the rest of the keep appears unfinished. It’s as if it was never completed when Skyhold was first built. But it’s the stronghold of the keep!

An inventory of the library should—or rather, has been—yielding some particularly unusual questions. The book that the Inquisitor gave me before she departed was written by a dwarf in the common tongue. But the pages are not numbered, nor is the book dated. There is no biography. How did this come to be printed, much less filed here?

I haven't shaken the feeling that Skyhold’s Lord or Lady will come riding up to the main bridge at any hour, bringing an army at her back. The farm boy in me dislikes this situation. Respectful treatment of others’ lands is paramount to survival, and so are good manners. Community relies on appropriate and enforced division of land in rural areas. Good fences, as they say, make for tolerable neighbours.

But the Knight in me was trained to simply strike rather than to ask permission first. We were freezing and needed a place to shelter, and a place to muster our strength in order to do the tasks we are called to do. No one was here, not wall guards, not a warlord, not even a ‘gone fishing’ sign. We took it because we needed it, not for greed or conquest. It was the only option we had and we have done no harm here. If there is someone with valid claim to this fortress, well, they’re going to have to wait for us to be done with it first before they can move back in, and that’s all there is to it.

So, I let the Knight in me call the shots while the farm boy looks over his shoulder and wrings his hands.

At any rate, my project continues. What I'm building for the Inquisitor is to go in the unfinished tower connecting her residence with the keep.

It’s an old but rare defensive standby. In monasteries, Circles, and strongholds like Therinfal Redoubt, Knights are garrisoned in egalitarian dormitories and guarded by their own ranks in turns. However, the Knights-Divine and their engineer corps have much different goals than Circle Templars do. To protect the Divine or other high-ranking members of the Chantry, the Knights-Divine completely restructured everything about the Templars they commanded—their formations to their armour and even their architecture. Battle is different when there is someone to protect.

The Divine in Val Royeaux is protected by a long hallway, not unlike the unfinished space connecting the Inquisitor's chamber with the main keep. It is understood by the Templars that, no matter her history, the Divine will be no combatant. But in the event that the city is stormed by Orlais’s many enemies—Tevinter, the Order of Fiery Promise, the Qunari, vengeful elves, Ferelden, pirate syndicates, or other rebels—a devilishly simple defence device is included outside of the Divine’s private bedchambers.

Once a hostile force makes it to this area, the wooden floors are all supported by a series of joints not dissimilar to standard joists. However, cog mechanisms can withdraw the joints by the pull of lever. So, if the Divine is threatened, all she need do is pull the lever before or while her enemies cross the hall outside her door, and the floor simply collapses beneath them, leaving them to fall to their deaths.

This seems ridiculously simple in the realm of possible traps. It is not flashy. It does not spit fire or release demons. But it is devilishly effective because of these attributes. It is almost invisible, it is in a constant state of readiness, and best of all, it requires very little maintenance; there is no magic that may dissipate, or oil to go rancid, or wicks to rot. It can be operated quickly by someone old or frail, or even injured. It can be triggered in advance of an attack if the user likes, though I'll make sure there's a good long drop for any fool unlucky enough to fall through.

The other effect is, there is now no floor that the invaders can traverse to get to the Inquisitor’s chamber. Making a floor from nothing, especially when harried by the fortress’s defenders, is surprisingly difficult work. Ladders and things may be lashed together to create a flimsy bridge, but this takes time. And there’s always the chance it too will collapse, leading to yet more invaders to fall to their death.

The doors in the Inquisitor’s subtower are also adjacent to one another, I notice. I’d wager it is more challenging than even the Divine’s setup to traverse once the lever has been pulled. It is difficult to build a floor, certainly, but it is even harder to build one that goes around a corner.

In short: it’s amazing and I am irrationally excited about it.

Of course, by no means do I think it full proof. A motivated force will cross the gap sooner or later. But, with no floor, they will be delayed by several minutes at least. It will buy the Inquisitor some time.

Though, to do what is less certain. As her chamber essentially hangs over the side of a cliff, there's no possibility of an escape tunnel, and there's nowhere to go but down.

The best chance of a successful retreat would be through her window and down into the ravine. That too will be dangerous, but I'm told there are elven spells that can awaken…what did they call it? “Shape”… "memories" or some such? These supposedly call into reality a rope or set of stairs, if spirits in the Fade recall there being one present before. Whether they do or do not recall such a thing, or whether this creates a massive security flaw, is a question for her return.

To be entirely forthcoming, I am not exactly certain the extent of the magic in her repertoire. I do have some experience with magic of course, but the school taught in Ferelden was different but then the sort permitted in Kirkwall, and Dalish magic is different from Chantry magic by far, to say nothing of what the Lavellan clan may know, or what she herself may have excelled at. And, as Dorian says, there's always the possibility of inventing something new—either by luck or by will.

I remember when we were fighting for our lives in Haven, and she was—

No! This isn’t the topic. I am mapping out the mechanisms for the subtower, not thinking about her.

Okay. Focus.

I know a few Chantry engineers, but none of them are in Skyhold. I'll have to reach out and ask them here specifically, though I doubt the Chantry will allow their workers to aid us in an official capacity as they work to disavow our mandate and decry our existence. They've been more obstinate than usual likely, and that's saying a great deal. It's rather like dealing with an institution made up entirely of Rodericks.

Not that he was all bad in the end. People believed in her—in us—when it mattered. Perhaps they will again. But that doesn’t mean I’ll leave the engineering of this floor trap in the hands of anyone but the best.

I'll circumnavigate official channels. I’ll write to the best combat engineer I know, and to the second best at the same time. Both of them are laypeople of the Order that were not in the Knighthood, as many others were. They likely side with the Order in the war, but their indoctrination may be less severe. They might even be looking for work, considering how deeply the Chantry’s economy has been effective.

Finding them without going to the Chantry directly will be a chore, but Leliana is Leliana, and she does owe me a favour. One or the other of these engineers will surely agree to do this project. It will be done.

In the meantime, I'm forgetting the meniscus approach. We must start with our outermost fortification and work our way in.

Chapter Text

—These last two days, I have been a blur even by my own standards. Whatever Corypheus and Samson want, whatever they will do, wherever they stand, I will be ahead of them. I have spy reports, a million requests in for specialized research, and new captains picked. The troops are reorganized and preparing to specialize into regiments, and by the Maker, I swear I will have the best, most well-defended, efficient, and iron-clad supply route from Redcliffe to Skyhold by the end of the week, so help me.

But it seems there are others who are taking a less serious approach to the war.

Lord Pavus stayed back from the Inquisitor’s mission.

He insists he will "catch up" to the team at some later juncture, though I've never known that to be particularly effective (or safe) when long stretches of travel are concerned. Daylight is limited and horses can only go so far in one day.

At present, Dorian is standing on the battlements, knee-deep in books he dragged out of the rotting library. One of these things alone would not be particularly concerning, but both of these things together are legitimately alarming. Clearly all is not right.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that he was standing in front of Skyhold’s northwestern concealing ward which is built onto the garrison brick. The wards aren't large. When they are visible, they are about the size of a human head, and they resemble a small sphere of tangled gold branches. There are five in Skyhold, and apparently they themselves have cloaking spells concealing them unless an attuned mage dispels the disguise effect. Apparently even very sensitive mages wouldn't know they were there unless one was looking for them, and was using all their concentration.

The cloak they generate to hide Skyhold is similar. It is visible when the sun is at just the right angle; sometimes I can catch a greenish glint to the air outside, but only if I am looking through the glass panes in my tower.

Dorian, on the other hand, was staring at one, hurling whispered insults and making fists in his hair.

"The harmonics are all wrong," he muttered over his shoulder as he heard me approach.

"I don't hear anything", I said, by way of a joke.

"Oh, ha ha," the mage mumbled, looking through the red focus crystal atop his staff. "Did they teach you that joke in Templar school? Because it shows."

I thought it was passable.

"Is there something wrong with the ward?” I asked. “If so, I'll have a message sent to Solas and the Inquisitor immediately."

Dorian bristled. ”Oh, by all means, get the real mages on it.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Dorian continued. “It’s not my fault! Warding isn’t my subfield, but even then! If you so much as bring these things up to the great lady Vivienne, she suddenly pretends she can’t see or hear you! So I thought, if the Circle mages can’t, and since Solas swears he has no clue how they work, who does? Do you know that not even Grand Enchanter Fiona understands what these things are?! It’s unconscionable.”

The mania is slipping in. Out on the wall, the wind is biting but the pain of it is somehow bracing. At least, it felt soothing on the migraine I was developing. In another life, I wouldn’t particularly mind standing out there and listening to the man rave, but I have other things to do.

“And I know she's a Circle mage,” Dorian spat. “The Chantry filters all the magic she’s allowed to study, and that isn’t her fault. And I know Tevinter would never dream of a government action restricting the area of study of any Altus in good standing, especially with proper tutelage—and before you accuse me of bigotry, I know full well that not every elf can wield all elvish magic, but Fiona’s had time outside of the Circles. Who knows what the Wardens teach their mages? But if even she figure it out—” Dorian pried at the ward’s ancient metal antlers ineffectually with his fingers. "It just—it just shouldn’t be able to do this. It's like seeing a cat or a dog in a maid outfit, serving supper. The utility is undeniable and the novelty is amusing, but sooner or later you start asking, ‘wait a minute. How are they doing this?’"

I was more concerned that he’d damage something. "Does it much matter? The important thing is that it works."

Dorian looked up to the sky. With his back to me, he looked like he was about to fall to his knees in exasperation. "You wouldn't understand. You're not an academic.”

Maker’s sake, he makes it sound as though I have no brain in my skull. "You ought to leave them alone,” I told him.

"But that's just it,” Dorian said, flipping through a pair of old books he had butterflied on the pile at his feet. "If these wards go down, if they run out of particulate, if their sub-altar negatives break down into light waves of the wrong vibration, we're finished. We won't be able to fix them. Do you see? Skyhold is like a bridge. These wards are the pillars. Pillars we cannot see. They could be decaying or broken or half-collapsed already. We should not be this laissez-faire about relying on them. At least not until one of us can damn well figure out how they bloody work!"

To be fair, I understand the frustration. I've had Samson needling the back of my mind since the attack. Why was he working with Corypheus? What was he getting out of it? What is he planning next? I’ve spent days trying to figure him out like he was a puzzle. If he was physically present in inert pieces sprinkled throughout the fortress, I’d be camped out here as well, taking him apart and going as mad as Dorian.

But sometimes the best thing you can be to someone is an objective voice.

“Be that as it may,” I said, perhaps too clinically, "the Inquisitor and her company have set off for the Fallow Mire. The marsh is full of undead waiting for something to disturb the waters. I understand you favour fire magic. You would be a great asset to them there. Rather, a necessary one."

Dorian stiffened. "Are you attempting to guilt trip me into going, Commander? I’ve had enough experience dodging that from both of my parents than I shall ever require to avoid your little jabs. But, thank you.”

I crossed my arms. “Did your parents teach you how to dodge military orders, too?"

The mage scoffed. "You don't really think— But I'm not even— I’m not part of your—”

I fixed him with my frostiest glare. “Dorian. Go."

Lord Pavus grumbled. "If you think I'm done with these wards, you are very much incorrect,” he said, flipping his books closed. “I don’t care what Solas or Fiona knows or doesn’t know. I am going to figure this out. As for you, well! You’d better be grateful you are so very, very good looking!”

I said nothing, arms still crossed.

In two hours, Lord Pavus had saddled up and was on his way east. I admit that I’m pleased, but not for the obvious reason.

I shouldn’t be so amused by this, but I just kicked out a Tevinter. I think my ancestors would be proud.

Anyway, to work.

Chapter Text

—Skyhold is seeing marked improvement every day. All the buildings are livable—or at least functional—now. We have lines on staples and supplies, and the structural issues have been, if not entirely fixed, stabilized or isolated. Most major problems are solved, and things are becoming more organized. Of course, new issues continue to crop up like weeds, but the progress is undeniable. We’re no longer roughing it, but living here. Fully.

The horses are contained in the stable and so are the crows in the rookery. We have organized grazing rotations and a farm team (somehow) at work in basin below the fortress. We have also built up a healthy amount of firewood. The water system in Skyhold is unique as well. Actually, it is genius, really, now that I've had engineers track and assess the access points for stability and military chemists to test the stream for purity. 

There is water within Skyhold. It culminates in a waterfall over the keep's forge. But it is not a river, as we thought. It’s a spring. A freshwater, geothermic geyser. And it’s huge. 

The spring expels enough water to provide a steady source of very hot, fresh water and a strong upward thrust. In the lower floors of Skyhold, this kinetic and thermal energy is used for several purposes. The water blasts into an angled room which we (and apparently previous parties) use for collecting drinking water as it pools. Pure life, straight from the earth. The second room is built on a slight slant. The water rushes into a trench where it can be used for bathing while it is still hot. The third chamber is for washing clothes and other objects, and the final room is just a slatted drain.

The runoff remains warm as it falls into the valley. We’re in the peaks, but it heats the ground enough for us to grow thresh in quick cycles for the beasts using nothing but our own grey water. Assuming no blizzards blow through and kill it all.

There is very little need for water maintenance, storage, drainage, or for any deep cleaning as the current simply washes everything we do not need away while suppling us with fresh water and heat. It's incredible.

Unlike Redcliffe, Denerim, and so many other military installations, we hold and completely control our own water source. It can't be diverted or poisoned. We can't be thirsted out. Siege warfare against Skyhold would only be suicide. For the aggressors.

Shake us from here, Corypheus. Try it. I dare you.

Speaking of Redcliffe, Atticus, the young man we brought with us after he left Arl Teagan's employ, has some Templar experience with a sword. But, when he joined us, he was duly informed that he'll have to undergo Inquisition training first. He seemed disappointed. I do not doubt his dedication or ability, but everyone must be retrained, even experienced combatants. Our equipment is different. So are our enemies. Killing a demon is not the same skillset as fighting a Red Templar or a Blood magic-fuelled Venatori. I would be remiss if I did not see that everyone was adequately prepared. 

Atticus ultimately accepted his position in the infantry, but he did not seem pleased that he would have to be retrained. I understand the frustration, particularly since the action at Haven. We do not yet have a formal treatise for dispatching Red Templars. Without some greater study of the matter, I will not get far. And casualties will mount as morale drops. It has already begun, if Atticus is any indication.

I've drawn up a few measures (while totally guessing at the stances, which is a rather large red flag) and the captains are attempting improvements by battling a few mocked-up pieces of Red Templar armour we saw at Haven, but we do not know their composition, and we have no in situ weapons to test against, nor are there reliable reports on the base tactics of the foes we face. Reports now indicate they were seven, eight, ten feet tall with four arms and rubies for eyes. The physique of an unaltered human has its limitations, ones that can be exploited or at least defended against, but from what I recall, and what the Inquisitor remembers after facing so many, it seems as though few of the Red Templars actually share a common physiology. It stands to reason, I suppose. Crystal structures are unpredictable and variable. Red lyrium will grow as it does in the bodies it possesses. Like seeds, I imagine the crystals will root in fissures or areas of the body prone to its influence. Sometimes in bone, sometimes in organs, sometimes in the skin. But how can an entire army—my army—train to fight an enemy that is different with every iteration? How can we predict that which, by its nature, rebuffs anticipation merely through its base existence?

Moreover, if we train only with the recollections that we have of that night, we run the risk of training to fight an enemy that exists only in our assumptions. the older a Red Templar is, or at least, the longer he has been under the red lyrium's influence, the more crystal mass his body is likely to carry. So the longer we are at war with Corypheus, the more time his forces have to become one with the metal. Which means, they will be more difficult, heavier, more dense, more powerful, every week we wait.  Even if we are lucky and my guesses are completely accurate, the enemy we fought in Haven may never resurface across the battlefield from us again. 

Furthermore, I cannot tell if a given Red Templar was human at its core, or elven or dwarven or exactly what. They are all so grotesque, resembling nothing familiar. Much of what I thought I knew as certainties in swordplay are simply useless now. Our enemy, for instance, may not be more vulnerable beneath his armour if his body is married so closely with metal. What could be more basic than that?

And I would be foolish to rely on my memory alone. Even where I totally confident in it, which I am not. Not quite.

So what am I to do? Give my soldiers nothing and tell them all to wing it? Blasphemy.

I wonder if… 

Samson is around fifty years of age. As a Templar, he took lyrium with the rest of us, if a little more frequently owing to the dulling nature of the stuff over a lifetime. That’s twenty more years of damage that was done to him thandone to me. And if these are the withdrawals I have now? Would his withdrawals be multiplied by three?

I can’t imagine it. I truly can’t. And, frankly, regardless of his actions toward us, I still cannot wish on him what is likely already happening to him. No one deserves that. And I do not despite him enough to think that he does.

As bad as he is, and as much as he is serving a being of pure evil, I’ll give Samson this: he was a good roommate. He picked up after himself, returned exactly when he said he would and left on time. He was an experienced, dedicated Templar. I was impressed by him, really. He worked hard and knew every post in the Gallows. He had an answer to every question, knew where everything and who everyone was, and he cared about his job. He was never in any serious trouble, or so I thought. There was only one problem: Samson seemed to care about the mages he was charged with protecting. At the time, I didn't. And I wished to not care. So, we did have a small amount of friction at times.

One way that he was different—not necessarily bad, but different—was he always seemed to be going to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. He wasn’t the sort to sit still. 

I had been, once. In the Cloisters, I was capable of reading for sixteen hours straight with no breaks, and I could meditate all night and not stir, not even for food or water. 

After Kinloch, I…lost that. The silence, the little cracks between pages and paragraphs that my mind could use to wander in. The sense of being restrained to a single place. The slow, methodical approach to anything as though time was infinite… I hated it all, suddenly. I hated everything, unless it kept my muscles busy and my mind busier.

I read a lot in Kirkwall, but only when I had nothing better to distract myself with. If there was no work available and it was the daytime, I'd open a book and lay it down on the floor so I could read it while I did push-ups. Hard physical and mental work together was the ultimate analgesic for my pain. 

Samson was somewhat similar, but he hated to stay on one task for long. He seemed to relish leaving, going across town for this or that and stopping to look at or talk to whatever or whomever he pleased along the way. Maybe he too had some past issue needling him. 

In those early days, I was particularly agitated while doing sentry duty in senior mage wings. Past their training and Harrowing, these mages needed very little intervention from Templars. The seniors had long since made peace with their imprisonment, and if they had problems or grievances, they had either learned to hide them, or had become proficient at diplomacy and could convince their First Enchanter to act on their behalf. Templars were stationed in the senior wings, nine times out of ten, to squash the sense of being too free. We were there as a reminder and little else. Or so was the culture in the Gallows in those days.

I had learned a different lesson about senior mages, of course: that they could be as foolish and impetuous as apprentices, and their mistakes could be bigger and more insidious.

Most Templars in Kirkwall took shifts in the senior mage wings willingly and considered them as restful, almost treat-like tasks. Unlike them, I was on high alert. I watched the senior mages like my life depended on catching every irregularity. While the mages walked openly in the halls, even calling a greeting to the Knights here and there, I acted like I had been thrown into a viper pit. 

I even did the unthinkable: I donned my helmet and closed the visor. I hated confined spaces at that time. I bore it with clenched teeth and a racing heart, sweat spilling into my ears. I had my hand on my sword. Every noise made me jump. Voices pitched in laughter were enough to drive me to murder. 

I controlled myself for the most part —Greenfell village taught me how not to "leer" with obvious aggression, though it certainly did not teach me much about restraint! Really, I bit my tongue and wore my helm out of fear of Greenfell than of the mages. If I was not allowed to look upon them with intensity, I would simply conceal my gaze. What are helmets for?

On the days when I was hitting thirty or more hours with no sleep, I began to grow increasingly paranoid. I recognize that this is not ideal, but I will reiterate: I could not sleep. Certainly, if I lay my head down I would fall unconscious immediately, but the price of rest was a minor death. 

Back in the hole, trapped, surrounded by pulsing, rotting flesh—

I would do anything to escape being subjected to that kind of torture again. Even if it wasn't real. 

Bah. That's the thing, the rub of it all: what I dreamt, what I still dream, it was real, once. The realness of it is inescapable, and it is everpresent. That's part of the hell.

As a result, reality itself becomes unknowable. 'Is it back? Am I back? Is he back?' And dreaming only makes it worse, compounding on itself like an avalanche bringing more and more and more snow until mountains and villages are simply pulverized to gravel in its wake.

I fear Uldred for what he did to me. And for every dream of everything he did and didn't do.

Even so, a body can only exist so long without sleep. Likewise, a mind will wander even while the body manages to stand up straight, take orders, and look placid.

All this to say: one day, I made a mistake.

Chapter Text

—I was on my third rotation in a row. I started the previous morning, doing guard duty at the top of the stairs to the Gallows’ main entrance. For my second shift I was standing at a Harrowing, which are always done overnight. I was not executioner—Ser Barrick was. I offered to switch with him. Without a mage’s neck exposed and pliant under the slightest pressure from my sword, it was harder to stay awake, standing still and silent in the darkened room until the mage managed to pull herself out of the Fade. Ser Barrick said no. I was quietly enraged at him for days. 

The third and final shift was in the senior mage wing. This was a blessing and a curse. Working the senior wing was notoriously boring and staying upright for three watch shifts in a row was difficult enough, especially since my head had been nodding with sleep since the Harrowing shift. At least here, if I lost the battle with sleep, I wouldn’t pass out in front of an entire square packed with my colleagues, my betters, and the civilians. I only had a few mages and a handful of Templars to worry about. They’d gossip, but not as much as the juniors. 

The senior mages had been given permission to attempt to speak to a spirit of wisdom that had apparently been in this part of the Fade for several generations. I was not clear on why they sought to speak with this thing in the first place. I knew from my shift briefs that they were to ask it only questions; the Knight-Commander never permitted the mages to issue commands to any Fade denizen, no matter how benign. She said it was hard to turn a spirit into a demon with mere queries. Commands could have a much more detrimental effect if not worded exactly right, so no commands whatsoever would be permitted.  

I hadn’t met Meredith in those days. Those were merely the rules issued from on high, and I intended to make the mages follow them to the letter. 

It just so happened that Samson, my new roommate, was on shift with me. He looked at me askance as I took my post in the laboratory. He knew I had just worked a double; he would've heard me return to our shared room if I had gotten off early. He didn't question it though, at least not out loud right there and then.  

I had already planned out what I would say to him: "working isn't a sin." Not a denial, not a mistruth. And, if he pressed me: "I appreciate your concern, but it isn't necessary." It was the most professional way of saying, ‘it’s none of your business’ that I could formulate.  

Until then, I would merely watch the mages, with my sword arm ready. 

Unfortunately for me, there was something about this shift that I hadn’t counted on. One of the seniors leading this summoning was a dead-ringer for Uldred.  

Slightly shorter than Uldred, Memnoch was otherwise extremely similar in appearance. He had a bald shaved head and a flat, indignant-looking face. Even though he was not the mage spearheading the summoning, he was playing a key role in the spell, and had several questions prepared for the demon spirit being hailed.  

Of course, as soon as I saw him, my tired heart began to sputter. I wanted to throw off my armour to vent this furious, panicked heat welling up in my flesh. I was compelled to climb the very walls. 

Tired as I was, I knew that fixating on him was irrational. Memnoch had a clean record. He hadn't been in any trouble since his Harrowing, and resembling someone evil—even pure evil—was not a crime. He had likely never even heard of Uldred.  

Then again, with the fraternities and guilds the mages had won the right to keep—which I would have quelled with two hands and all my cunning, were I Knight-Vigilant—it’s possible the two had actually met. Spoken. Conspired. They could have been brothers, for all I knew. 

Surviving Kinloch Hold, there were a great many things I thought of doing as Knight-Vigilant, if I could secure the top job for myself. And if the two had exchanged letters, either before or after Uldred became possessed, Memnoch might know about the fall of Kinloch, and my presence there. He might have known everything.  

I stood, twisting inside my suit of armor, clutching my sword. Watching. 

Samson was on watch, two or three Knights over to my right. I could feel him watching me, too. 

The mages conducted their ritual and managed to secure the attention of the Wisdom spirit they were seeking. Green and glowing, the thing had taken the form of a human from its mid torso and up, but its hands and legs faded into the empty air. The presence of it was revolting, no matter what it was.  

You are not meant to be here. You should not pretend to look like us. It's not real, nor right.  

Everything about this interaction was unnatural, an affront to the Maker and His order of nature, and it should never have been permitted anywhere, much less the Gallows under any stricture, even under armed guard. 

I watched Uldred’s Memnoch's face as he hunched over a desk, taking notes and excitedly chattering with the other mages participating in this disgusting farce. I absolutely despised the entire affair. I already knew that when this was over, I would write a letter of objection to my commanding officer. Allowing mages to use the tools the Fade bestowed upon mages was one thing. Actively inviting an entity from that world into a Circle full of vulnerable mages situated in a densely packed city full of innocent people was quite another.  

What would have happened if Uldred had gotten loose? Taken over Redcliffe? Or Denerim? ...or Honnleath? It could happen here. It could happen right now. 

Of course, we Templars are meant to handle this strife, but was it really fair to throw any measure of risk at us and just assume that we could handle it all, no matter what it was?  

We could be injured, maimed, killed in the line of duty, or even worse. Do our lives mean nothing? Does our pain mean nothing? 

Of course, when the spirit began to turn, I was the one that noticed it first. 

Despite my chugging, panicked, exhausted brain, half-immersed in fashioning the angry letter I intended to write denouncing the whole affair, I caught the rumble in the demon’s words, coming through the floor instead of sailing through the air like normal speech.  

I knew that tone. I’d know it anywhere. Anywhere. 

I drew my sword and concentrated my will into its blade. I hurled the silence forward to crush the otherworldly potential of the demon. It had begun to cast something. It was too early to tell what. It was not elemental, but a charm or a hex capable of weakening the whole room.  

I struck first with my counterspell, then with my sword. The hit was near-perfect. It struck the groove between the spirit-demon’s shoulders and deceptively dainty little neck. As my two blows landed, two things occurred almost simultaneously. The first: my counterspell did not affect the creature. As a result, my sword passed through the creature as if it had been turned to air, though the steel was as heavy in my hand as it ever was. 

I had done everything right. I crossed the room, I struck it twice, hard, and well. And nothing happened. 

With that, the demon darted into a safe refuge. The mage who had summoned it, an elder named Juniper, had opened herself up to channel what she thought was a benign Wisdom spirit. The turning demon had just enough time to leap into her.  

It was, after all, an unnecessary risk.  

Mages scattered. Some ran for the lower floors while others tried to stay behind and cast something in defence of Juniper, but when Samson and the other Templars surged forward, they only got in the way. Several senior mages were accidentally muted by the surprised Templars all casting at once. Mages fell to the floor, screaming.  

I heaved my sword up again and, with all my will and the fear of death and pain and the mayhem around me, I tried to silence the demon again.  

By the grace of Andraste and the might of the Maker…!  

In the monastery, we are trained to push our will, amplified as it is by delirium lyrium, into our hands and visualize a wall forming in our palm. When it works, you can actually feel that wall form, hear the whoosh and the wind in your face. After practising for months in the training yard, when the vows are spoken and the draught is brought to your lips for the first time, you join the roster as a Knight. But you do not feel like one, you do not know it in your bones, until you hear the wind of your own will brought into being by the lyrium coursing within you. Then you know you are a chosen soldier of the Maker. It is how I knew.  

But on this day, it did not come.  

I felt something leave my hands. It was not the wall, not my will or anything that would function as a muting strike. It was loose stones, a timid suggestion. It was nothing.  

If my will had turned to mere air, so be it. I struck again with my steel. My sword glanced through the demon again, but this time the creature struck back. It hurled a wave of energy at me, knocking me backward several feet. I hit the ground with a crash. My cuirass bit into my back, locking awkwardly beneath my pauldrons.  

Immediately Samson was standing over me, deflecting a second blow with his shield. An actual wall.  

I struggled to my feet, but the room tilted beneath me. Too long awake. I was a damn liability here. 

"I'm all right!" I shouted before Samson could think otherwise. I jumped up beside him, quick to brandish my own shield. Rays of energy were pulsing out of the spirit-demon, knocking over chairs and pressing against my shield, scratching hard against my legs, exposed but for the armour. 

"What happened!?" Samson shouted over the din. "I thought you had it!" 

"I did!" I yelled back. "I definitely did!" 

By then the other Knights were in position, seven other Templars all at different points around the room. The spirit-demon’s form had dissolved around the edges, making it impossible to tell which way it was facing. No matter. If we all struck at once, we would take it down. Unless what happened to me happened to everyone. 

Not even demons are immortal, I reminded myself. They might not comprehend life, but they know how to die. 

My heart thundered. This could easily turn into another Kinloch, everything gone wrong and all our footsteps in cold Heaven. 

Not again. Not again. 

A new form began to coalesce from the creature’s luminous flesh. And we all know what Wisdom becomes when it is twisted. 

"Quick, before it changes!" Knight-Lieutenant Mason roared from the opposite end of the room. "Ready? Now!" 

All of us surged forward, swords pointed low, ready to run the demon through. Other Templars readied their power to silence. There was no time for me to tell them that it didn't work on this entity, perhaps because it was in the midst of complex change.  

They were surging, and for a moment I tranquilized myself with the hope that, if we could not silence it, we could hack it to death instead. 

I’m not sure which one of us silenced it successfully, though I am certain it wasn't me. The demon’s energy pulses immediately stopped as the entity’s power went rushing back into its core. Then, six Templars and their swords all crossed exactly inside of Juniper's now solid, almost ordinary but corrupted body. Six swords ran her through, ending the corruption but sending a font of blood and a pile of limbs tumbling to the floor. I was a step behind, hobbled by my own fear as much as I was by my damaged armor.  

Why was it so easy for them, but impossible for me? 

One of the other senior mages, presumably a friend of Juniper's, looked up from where she had been thrown. She began screaming and cursing us when she saw what had become of her friend.  

I understood why; I knew what it was like to look upon the dead body of a dear friend. I looked carefully down and to the left of the corpse. I knew how it might haunt me if I looked directly at it just then.  

But to curse us like this? What did she expect us to do? Ask the abomination to think about its actions or it would get a spanking and no supper? It needed to be put down before it killed all of us. 

I had to fight the urge to slap her. 

We had gotten blood on our hands and a stain on our souls with no alternative, only to be shouted down by someone that benefitted directly from our sacrifice. And someone that may very well pose the exact same danger to us yet again. 

"Shut your damn mouth, you swine!" I shouted at her. The Templars were hurrying the other mages us out, but I had an entire tome of reasons why we were not the villains in this, despite the body on the floor. The mages were, and have always been, the problem. And not just here, not just in this particular event, but in everything they ever tried to worm their way into. From Andraste through to Kinloch, the damage was always done by a mage.  

In my defense, I had been trained throughout my life and long before I was a Templar to notice effects much more than their causes. It wasn’t until I stood at the top of the Gallows as Knight-Commander that I began to see the structure for what it was. As a young Knight, I had no hope. 

But Samson had his hand on my shoulder. He was pushing me back toward the stairs. I did not wish to acquiesce. 

"It's your fault! All of you! Look at the corpse on the floor, look into your friend’s eyes and tell me that Wisdom was worth it!"  

Samson pulled me downstairs by the arm. I was livid. I was ready to rave, but back in the Templar wing, the mages that most needed to hear what I had to say were out of earshot. 

"Come on now," he was saying. "Let's go cool down and clean up that armor." 

I had no intention of cooling down, and there was no blood on me. I wasn't fast enough to catch up to the others when they struck Juniper and that burgeoning Pride demon down. 

"A waste of time," I muttered, heaving my shoulder away from Samson’s grip. "They need to hear the truth. We make all these allowances for them, and they haven't realized-– haven't even considered!—what the consequences of all this might be. Do the mages just not get it?" 

Samson ushered me into our shared room and closed the door behind us. I reached for the ring. "What are you doing? The Knight-Commander needs to hear about this!" 

"She'll be told," Samson said coolly. "That's Knight-Lieutenant Mason's job. Not yours." 

I couldn't fathom why my roommate would feel the need to patronize me. He wasn't wrong, but that was hardly the issue. I had a right to speak to the Knight-Commander if I wished. This was a serious issue that had resulted in a death. 

Moreover, I did not wish to be in the enclosed space. I reached for the iron ring again. Samson smoothly pushed the door closed with the heel of his hand. 

"No. We are going to stay here until you calm down. And then you're going to tell me what happened when you tried to strike that spirit." 

"‘Spirit’? It was clearly a demon," I snarled. "And by your own logic, isn’t that Knight-Lieutenant Mason's job too?" 

I was being snide. Samson’s lip twitched. "Calm first," he said. "Then talk." 

I grumbled and paced, removing my gauntlets and unclipping my damaged cuirass. "Why in the Maker’s name would your Marcher Templars allow the mages to pull a dangerous gaff like this? They get it in their heads to mess about with cursed entities, and somehow they are simply permitted to go ahead and do it? We are the ones that have to pay the price for their insistent flirtation with these entities that do not belong here, and do not even wish to be here, in the case of the demon brought through today. One of us could have been killed. It's bad enough a mage was sacrificed, but at least she was the one doing something unconscionable!"  

I hurled off my gloves and started to unharness my faulds. I had gotten adept at doing this alone since Greenfell. I no longer needed a mirror. "What about us? What sins did we commit that we’ve all earned a fate so terrible? And another matter: who saves us in the end? We have blood on our hands. We die without Last Light to absolve us of our wrongdoing. What then?" The pauldron straps tangled in my gorget. I could have torn it in half with my bare hands for the audacity.  

Samson was unmoved. "This job involves killing, but the Maker chose you for it. That's what the vows are for. You offer yourself in the Maker’s service before you take the lyrium. You pray to the Maker for forgiveness every night. You are absolved. He isn't a fool, Rutherford. He knows the situation." 

"Yes, but we could have died today. Just now. It could have been the end of our lives. So rarely do we receive our final sacrament, unlike the everyday people who go about their busy little lives, not carrying how much goes into keeping their streets from running with blood." I had my cuirass off. The back portion was bent, the lower corner rolled up like a fist. It would have to go to the smithy. I'd have to get a spare in the meantime. Those things never fit right. 

Samson crossed his arms. "That's why we live segregated lives. We are not tempted by the secular world’s vices. The Maker will have mercy on us for the ones that we've killed so long as our own souls are clean of other sins." 

"Doesn't mean we don't deserve better," I muttered, pressing the curled up portion of armour with my thumbs, as if it would do any good. 

"You're so concerned about Last Light," Samson said, leaning too casually against the washing basin. "Got something to confess?" 

"Not to you," I retorted. "Or anyone, aside from Andraste."  

No, the Maker alone. He might understand me better than our Holy Prophet would. At least, in this particular instance. 

"What happened between you and that spirit?" 

I hurled my cuirass across the room. It hit the wall with a clang and slumped onto my bed. "Nothing happened!" 

Samson arched an eyebrow. "Do you honestly think I believe you? And throwing your armour around will do you no good." 

"I do not need this now, all right?" I was so furious I could hardly speak. I threw off my faulds.  

And it occurred to me that, if I could no longer suppress magic, this might be the last time I wore this armor. I should not be in a hurry to get out of it.  

The fury in me remained, but suddenly it felt unmoored, attached to nothing as it orbited around my empty chest. I stood, stock still, staring at the buckles on my vambraces. "I… I was too tired," I conceded. "I haven't slept. I'm sure you know." I regretted bringing it up, especially opening myself to more of his scrutiny. I didn't need to explain more than my failed attempt at suppression.  

Samson scoffed. "So you missed?" 

I hadn't missed a target since the second week of archery training. Perhaps I should have gone with Samson’s erroneous assumption, but I couldn't quite stomach the embarrassment.  

"I did no such thing," I spat. "I’m a T—" 

I looked down at my hands. Now, without their gloves, they looked stark and thin. Unlike other members of the Chantry who often fast to humble themselves as part of their spiritual journey, it is a Templar vow that we eat three times a day and consume meat at least once per day. Even during hard times, we must fuel our bodies to be ready to fight in service to the Maker. And yet, I looked to be growing thin.  

Was I losing muscle…?  

Should work more. Drills, or extra training. Otherwise— 

"Rutherford." 

"What?" 

I sat down on my bed to remove my leg armour. I did not know what I would do after this. I couldn't speak to the Knight-Commander out of my armor, but Samson would argue if I tried to get it on again. Appearing before the Knight-Commander out of armour, breathless and raving was hardly the first impression I wished to make, anyway. A letter would have to do. But I certainly couldn't do it with Samson trying to lecture me. I would need to go to the library or— 

"Rutherford." 

"What?!" I nearly hurled my sabaton at him. 

"What happened with the spirit? I know full well you didn’t miss. I'm not blind." 

That soothed me, slightly, but it was hardly enough to make a dent in my black mood. "A woman lies dead upstairs." I could hear the mania in my own voice. "What do you hope to gain by interrogating me like this?" 

"An answer," he replied. "And hopefully before next year." 

I grumbled and continued removing my plate. 

"You know they paired me with you for a reason. Get the experienced Knight in next to a young buck like you. Why? Believe it or not, it’s because I can help you. Just tell me what happened so we can solve it and move on. 

A "young buck"? I taught myself swordplay while I was working doing back-breaking labour on the farm. I tore through school faster than any student in living memory. I had been a Knight for three years and lived through some of the most tumultuous events in Ferelden for part of it, so why would I need anyone's guidance now? 

I swallowed, furious at him, at Juniper, at the mage who cursed us and her friends who listened, the First Enchanter, the Knight-Commander, all of us, everything. 

"Come on, Sirrah. I’ve been around a while. There’s nothing wrong with you that I haven't seen before." 

I wondered, was he right? Was my situation really something he could understand? After Kinloch, I had concealed everything about me as tightly as I could. But it was at that moment that I began to question if that had been truly wise. 

"It didn't work," I said finally. "I tried suppression to crush its magic, and it didn't work." 

Samson remained leaning next to the basin. He did not react. "In what way?" 

"Maker, I don't know. I would have fixed it if I could tell you ‘in what way’ it didn’t work. Your questions don’t make any sense." 

"Stop covering it, Knight. You suppressed the spirit, but what occurred? Was its will stronger than yours? Did it overpower you?" 

That's not what it felt like. It was more like I had balanced to a series of stones atop each other and instead of becoming a wall, they toppled over themselves.  

I shook my head once. "It wasn't that. The suppression wall we form. It's like that did not come into play. It didn’t fail. It just never really was."  

I swung my armoured leg up onto my opposite knee.  

I had just told Samson I didn't have any will, or any faith. If ever there was a death knell for a Templar, this was it. 

How does a person get more faith? I couldn’t just dig it out of a hole in the ground. My existence had been rooted in faith. My family, my vocation, my daily life, everything through and through. I didn't feel faithless. And if I was, how could I get more of it? Certainly I was not as forgiving as I was as a boy. Perhaps I was less noble in that sense than I was before Kinloch, but that didn't mean I was faithless, or less of a Knight. If anything, it should mean that I was better at it. I just became what they needed me to be. Didn’t I? 

"What was going through your mind as it happened?" he asked. 

That was harder to describe. In situations like that, I do not think in words that I could easily say to another person. Perhaps some people do. But I do not. In situations like that, I think not in words but in past and future motion, in velocity, force, grip, resistance, muscles, and joints. I think physically. And, emotionally in some ways. The need to preserve myself. A sense of duty, the responsibility to proceed. Fear either to combat, or to use as fuel. Fury at being put through this in the first place. Utter disgust toward my adversary.  

I told the first half of this to Samson. Then I told him the second half. I had already ranted about it to him. He might as well know what I really thought. 

"When was the last time you suppressed something successfully?" 

It hadn't come up much in the last few weeks. 

"About a month ago, when we were rounding up that apostate and his damn stupid father." 

"Did it work then?" 

That day was horrible. I took a strike to the face and hurt my wrist, but I had been able to suppress then. Or rather, the apostate had been suppressed. But I was travelling with Ser Thrask and Ser Oren. It's possible one of them had done it and in the confusion I only thought it was me. 

Samson scoffed. "You're overthinking it." 

He might have been right, but I only had one answer to give. "Perhaps it was me. Perhaps it was not." 

"So what changed between now and then?" 

Not much, really. I had gotten a bit banged up but I was better after a few days. Life had been proceeding as normal since then. As odd as my normal was. 

"Nothing has changed," I told him. Saying it felt resolute, though it didn't give much information.  

Samson leaned back and crossed his arms. "You want to know what I think?" 

Not at all, I thought waspishly. 

"It's one of two things. The first is that you're simply too tired. Even with the lyrium, we have to rest sometime. We take vows that we adhere to the Book of the Light and the Way. It contains our code of conduct. It tells us what colour fabrics we may not wear, and how long we can grow our beards, or how much we have to pray every day. It does not tell us that we must sleep at night simply because it's not always under our control. But you know you must keep your sword’s edge and the hinges in your gauntlets from rusting. Just as we take care of our equipment, we must sleep just as we do any other chore." 

Not likely. I thought. But I was as torturously tired as I had ever been. I would have loved a long, restorative rest. It's just that things were not so easy as that. Not for me. 

"What's the second thing?" 

Samson shrugged. "You may need to increase your lyrium dosage." 

This had not occurred to me. The suggestion made my blood quicken slightly, as though I had been offered a valuable gift. "Is that possible?" 

"Maybe. Usually it doesn't happen until you're fifteen, sixteen years out in the field. Eventually you get too used to the dust and you need more to get you back up to the level you need to be at. Sort of like a fat man who needs to eat two meals to fill his belly. It’s happened to me twice already. And when it happened, it went more or less like you described just now: all call, no answer." He shrugged. "You seem awful young for it, but stranger things have happened, and you're a pretty tall fellow. If I were you, I'd get a good rest and try it again in a week or so. See if things improve. Maybe you had a bad day, maybe you got a bad lyrium mix. I only trust these dwarf traders as far as I can spit them.  

"Mind you, I might be wrong. Check with the clinic sister if you think you ought to start taking more. Don't want to hurt yourself. Or have to pay out of pocket for the extra." 

Samson left me then. I'm not sure if it was a feeling that he had done everything he could for me and had to set about fixing the aftermath of today's doomed summoning, or if he had grown bored of the discussion and left me to consider the possibilities for myself. I sat in mild shock with one sabaton off and the other propped up on my knee.  

Could my failure today really be from a lack of lyrium? It would be simple to prove, and simple to solve. Unlike a lack of ability. Or faith. Or something broken and missing and ruined deep down inside. That means, all I'd have to do is— 

Samson returned, sticking his head back into the room. 

"Let me say again, Knight: you need to sleep. Before you do anything else, eh?" 

He left again. 

Why sleep when I can just take lyrium? I thought.  

Of course, the issue was somewhat thornier than just a simple yes or no. Lyrium is a toxic substance. The Order made that clear to us when we joined. Some Knights can tolerate it for years upon years, like Ser Annlise. Others, it ate through rapidly like locusts through fruit on a vine. Like Ser Carroll. He was no older than I am now when the confusion made it too difficult for him to continue on with his normal duties. Then being out on the lake with the simple task of being the ferryman to Kinloch Hold was what ultimately saved him from a horrific fate in the end. 

Should I..? 

I slowly stripped off my remaining sabaton, leaving me unarmoured and in the common nubuck underarmour. I could feel my cold sweat hitting the cool air. 

Perhaps…  

If lyrium mutes emotion in a Knight in order to make him more bold and analytical, and to make him capable of suppressing emotional expressions like magic or spirits, could it be that the lyrium I took was working much harder to mask or neutralize my personal emotions, leaving none for the suppression spells? I had hardships to consider. If the lyrium dose I took was something like a ladder to help me climb to a Templar’s heights, it could be I was now starting from inside of a pit.  

Surely every Knight had some pain to forget, but few Knights had lived to see their Circle fall. The timing made sense. It seemed to fit. It just hadn’t occurred to me to think of lyrium that way. 

The cost, though. That was another issue. The more lyrium I took, the more damage it would do, and the sooner I'd end up an insane husk with no thoughts of anything but the vial.  

I sat for a moment and considered this possibility. I recall my hand on the edge of my leather shoes, absently pushing them off with the pad of my thumb. 

If I go lyrium mad— I stopped myself. A Templar really only had two deaths: by lyrium or in battle against a supernatural fiend. The first death meant a demise of humiliation, of weakness, but a demise in complete fulfilment of one’s duty. We are to give everything to Andraste until there is nothing left for her to take except our earthly body, and then, when our heart finally stops and our time runs out, we offer her the rest as well. 

To die the other way, falling in battle, meant dying from a mistake. From being beaten by something stronger or better than me. 

And as horrible as the lyrium death sounded, I hadn't planned on being beaten by anything else.  

I could make peace with madness, I decided. In fact I even found the slow descent and the daily loss preferable to the feeling of helplessness that I felt in front of a nascent Pride demon when Samson stood over me and protected me with his shield. I’d rather go mad. I’d rather lose everything than feel that again. 

Though, when my mind began to dissolve and the memories began to disappear—some of which might be a blessing to lose, I thought—what exactly am I assuming I will have to live without? Carroll seemed happy enough, but he could hardly make sense, and trying to hold a conversation with him was nearly impossible. If I could no longer make sense of words, could I still feel sensations, like the rough grain of the leather shoe I was holding? Would that part of my mind die too? What about the parts that always kept track of time, even when it was dark and there was no sun to look upon? What about my sense of balance, the one that was so imperative to wielding the sword? And losing the part of me that remembered Kinloch I might not miss, but what about the part that remembered Honnleath? My family? My own face? 

It was impossible to know the exact risk, the exact cost. What would I be losing, what would I gain, and how much sooner would the toll be due? Would it come to pass in forty years? Twenty? A year? Would I become like Ser Alhanen, standing at a country chantry and whispering nonsense under his breath? On the other hand, more lyrium meant stronger abilities, and calmer emotions. I might be able to sleep if I could just calm down enough at night. For the time that I had, whatever it was, lyrium might make it tolerable again. 

Because I was bone tired. So, so tired from lack of sleep, from nightmares, from being on edge and unable to exist in my own skin. I still am to some degree. I’ve just gotten used to the gritty edges at the corners of my eyes and the brain fog. Coping has become a part of life. But at the same time, I have some space to scream, now. A bed in a room of my own where I can deal with my pain in the solitude I needed then. Privacy is a balm, one I did not have in Kirkwall. 

As I sat, contemplating my predicament in the first relative peace I had had in weeks, I realized that it didn't matter if my failure that day was because of a low dosage or because of fatigue. Lyrium could, in fact, solve both issues simultaneously. I could finally have a full night with no nightmares. And my suppression would be powerful enough again. I realized that, to have both of these things, I might have to pay a price, but the cost was one that I had always been willing to pay. And to sleep with no fear of terror or humiliation? To go through my days at my best? No price would have been too high. 

Samson had told me I should sleep, but I washed and dressed in off-duty clothing, clean linen and nubuck trousers. No one told me to get back on shift, and no one came to ask about my version of events that ended in Juniper's death. My sword did not bring her to her end, so if there was disciplinary action to be had, I would not be facing any. 

In Kinloch, there was one medical facility for everyone, and it was run by Tranquil, largely. Here, there were two separate clinics: the one for the Templars was staffed by Chantry sisters. The one for the mages was staffed by both healer mages and a few Tranquil in those days, plus a Templar for surveillance, but the mages were pushed out by Meredith in the months to come. The mages were to visit the Tranquil for minor physical injuries that could be handled without magic, but they never had anything to do. It was as if they would rather suffer small pains than be reminded of what their possible fate looked like if they couldn't keep their magic under control. The other thing the Tranquil were tasked to handle was the moment of labour and childbirth. Other mages were not allowed to be in the room for this. 

But that was hardly applicable to me. 

I vastly preferred the Chantry sisters in Kirkwall to the Tranquil in Ferelden. No slight against Tranquils, but with the sisters, there was no chance of being looked after by someone who might have held a grudge against you. 

Inside the clinic, I was expecting to face a series of tests and be examined for evidence that I was lyrium deficient. I expected to see confirmation—one way or the other. I explained my suspicions to a clinician, a blonde, freckled, rather slow speaking young woman who I recall was double jointed in the last joint of every one of her fingers. She kept bending them back in irritation or nervousness as I presented her with my problem and my theories. 

She paused for a long moment, assessing me. "Do you think you need more lyrium?" 

I must have looked like an addict. But I came prepared. "I haven't been having withdrawals," I explained. This was true, and something that I did wonder about. "But I was not able to execute a simple suppression today, so I thought that maybe…" 

"How much more do you want?" 

What should that matter? What I was looking for was a learned opinion. Wasn't there a test I had to do, or a threshold that I had to meet? Something I had to prove to someone? It couldn't be that I could go ahead and walk into the clinic and simply ask for it. Not to mention, I wasn’t a chemist. I didn’t know how much more lyrium I should take to solve my problem. And mages were told they could go mad if they were exposed to too much. Were Templars the same? What if the dose was too strong? 

"I wa— Rather, I need enough to allow me to suppress demons again." I hoped this would prompt her to look into it further. She squinted with real skepticism this time. 

"You're not going to sell it, are you? We've had a problem with it getting into the black market and that." 

I wouldn't have known how to sell lyrium on the black market, even if I intended to do so.  

"I would never do such a thing," I told her. 

"Okay then," she said, writing something down in her notes. "I'll up your ration. It’ll be ready at the quartermaster on the third day of the month, as usual." She smiled. Very broadly. "Would you like anything else?" 

I was flabbergasted. I had no idea lyrium was just there for the taking. "—I'm sorry. What is the date today?" When you stop sleeping at regular intervals, it can be very easy to lose track. 

"The seventh," she said. "Oh, that's a long wait for you, isn't it? I'll see if I have more you can take with you right now." She stood up and accidentally knocked an unlit candle from its stand and onto the ground. "Whoops," she said, bending low to get it. "Sorry. Did you say it was lyrium that you wanted?" 

"…Yes?" What was she getting me then? Rat poison? 

The sister went to a shelf of herbs and tonics. Lyrium was the shiny one on the far right. I could spot it from across the room, even then. 

"How are you feeling otherwise?" she asked, studying the bottles. "We could do a full exam if you like." 

I felt fine, but I was concerned that more lyrium was not quite in my best interest. An examination might set my mind at ease. 

"I have time to sit for an exam," I said. Immediately, she turned toward me. "I didn’t realize Kirkwall had monks at the clinic." 

"Monks?" 

They come at the same time every year to see to all of us. The clinic had to process and record all of our health information at once. Surely this was their busiest time. She would know about it, surely? 

She was looking at me intently, smiling slightly as if trying not to think of a joke at a solemn moment in the Chant. 

"The lyrium is on the far right, second row," I said. "Under ‘L’. It's glowing." 

She looked at me like I had said something odd. Eventually she looked over her shoulder and reached for the lyrium. "Ah, yes! Thank yo—whoops!" She dropped it again. Fortunately, the bottle didn't shatter. I sincerely hoped this woman wasn't trying to be a surgeon. Frankly, I hardly trusted her to be my clinician. 

I was bouncing my knee where I sat, trying to stay awake. The fatigue was starting to get to me. A headache was threatening, and I was sick to my stomach. Would the lyrium calm that? If I took too much, would it amplify my abilities to unsafe levels? What if I tried to suppress a mistake by an apprentice mage and instead of crushing their magic, I crushed them instead? Was that even possible?  

Better demon than me, I thought. Better a mage, too.  

"We have no monks on duty, but I would really feel better about giving you this lyrium if you let me examine you, quickly." The sister had the vial in her hand this time. "Please start by removing your shirt. I would feel your heart beat, Ser Knight." 

I pulled the string on my tunic before I could think further on it. Already she was standing over me. 

I stopped. "W—well, I—I also would. Feel better. B—but the Order forbids me—"  

She lifted the hem of my shirt, exposing my, uh… well, my stomach and chest. 

Immediately I flinched away. "I am forbidden to disrobe in the presence of a w—woman," I said.  

This had come up a handful of times before. The Order had the monks come for exactly this reason. It was considered indecent to bare one’s flesh before an individual who was not one’s wedded husband or wife. It was indecent to…fraternize in an unchaste matter with anyone inside or outside the Order, but given the nature of our dress requirements, from armour to meal time mantles, prayer dress, and nightclothes, and considering we are pressed into dormitories or barracks, the rules are somewhat relaxed when it came to practical situations involving male and female Knights. 

Women are rare in the Order. As a result, I had never had a female roommate, nor had ever travelled with one. Though, I'd been on shift with a few. They tend to be matched with other female Knights when it comes to room assignments. Everyone's more comfortable that way. As for other men, well, most had been in the Cloisters since they were very young boys. There was nothing unchaste about bathing or dressing in front of your fellows, simply because it happened so quickly and so frequently. We hardly noticed it anymore. Things were a bit different for myself, given that I joined the Order when I was already becoming an adult. But I adjusted quickly. I had no other choice. 

Either way, I was…poorly equipped to handle what was happening with the Chantry sister. 

I pulled my shirt back down. "D-doesn’t the Chantry—I mean, y-you’re not seriously suggesting— Rather, I appreciate your willingness to help, but you must know that I can't…" 

She pushed my arm aside and lifted my shirt again. I realized that she was standing astride my knee, positioning it between hers. "Come now, Ser Knight. Just relax…" 

My personal difficulties aside, the Chantry expected…certain things from the sisters. They had taken their own vows. They were married to the Maker. Surely I would be no temptation in an arrangement such as this…? 

But, still. I knew better than to become one. 

I stood up, straightening my clothes. "F-forgive me, sister. Excuse me," I said and headed for the door.  

It wasn't until I was halfway down the hall that I realized I hadn't taken the lyrium I had come for. 

I knew I could not return for it. What in Thedas could I say to her? Hello, I've decided I haven't humiliated myself enough today. 

Rattled, I returned to my dorm room. 

Samson was gone. Silence was all there was. 

I could not handle it. It was all too much. The death, the failure, the sister, the fatigue, everything. The thoughts all clamoured like disembodied voices, begging, demanding that I turn back time somehow and erase them, to redo what I had and hadn’t done. 

I sat down at Samson's and my shared desk and shook the ink well. I began writing a message to the Knight-Captain. 

Well, I say "letter". It was really a list of demands.  

There should be no more summonings permitted. Mages should not be allowed to study or to speak with denizens of the Fade. They should never… They should also… 

Halfway through, my eyelids began to droop.  

Stay awake! I commanded myself, knowing Juniper's death would play behind my eyes over and over again, mingling with the sea of death I carried within me.  

Most of all, I was furious at Samson for having suggested sleep—twice! As if it was his business! 

But, the shortcomings continued to stack up against me. I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open. I couldn't spell. My letters were all over the place and my lines plunged hideously downward. The thoughts were all over the place. The page was coated in scratch marks from my failed attempts to blot out my mistakes.  

It seems even my will has its limits.  

I yanked off my nubuck and pulled on my standard issue white nightshirt and threw myself into bed, even though it was hardly past noon. And I was tired. So tired even the fury and the touch of old trauma could not sustain me. 

Even so, sleep would not come for me. Instead I lay awake in the artificial dark brought about by the shutters over the room’s single window. A thread of daylight glowed in a bright frame around it.  

I covered my eyes with a hand to blot it out.  

I almost dozed. I drifted off just enough for my eyes to remain closed and my thoughts to grow obsessive and uncomfortably nonsensical. I watched specs dance behind my eyelids; images of sapphire rain and golden stars and Pride’s glinting, purple scales.  

I heard distant voices as people went about their day, doing their work while I lazed in my room like a bratty child. I heard a great clatter during shift change. Many footsteps, many voices. The faraway clang of cups and dishes in the mess hall.  

Was I hungry? I couldn't tell.  

I heard the door open and Samson entered. I was facing away and made an attempt to foreground my breathing so I would sound like I was asleep. The door opened again a second later. He did not return.  

Perhaps he took lodging in a spare bed in another officer’s room that night to give me peace. I sought peace, certainly, but I did not wish to lay here with nothing but my thoughts. I sat up and tried to listen to the words spoken by others passing by my room. What happened to the other mages from the summoning? Would there be an investigation? Would I be called in for questioning? 

I knew from previous experience that it was a demon, so I acted. What previous experience, you ask? I am the only survivor of Kinloch Hold. 

In my thoughts, survival felt like authority. I wished to believe it counted for something.  

I have seen what kind of damage Pride demons can do. I was not about to let that happen here. 

But I would have. It was Samson and the others that truly prevented disaster. 

The sun began to set, baking the light to an ominous orange rim around the shutter. I had been lying aimlessly for hours. My thoughts had worn a rut around the incidents of the day.  

That silly Chantry sister! If she had just remembered where that lyrium was placed, she might have given it to me before things became too uncomfortable. I might have been asleep for hours by now.  

I couldn't remember the last time I really slept. I was fine before Uldred, but that was over two years ago now. Surely it could not have been that long since I’d gotten a proper night’s rest. A person would collapse or burn out long before that. Wouldn’t they? 

Regardless, I was so fed up and furious with it all that I did something desperate. A day ago, this would never have occurred to me, but I rose from my well-pummelled bed and mixed another dose of lyrium.  

I wasn't due for more for another week and I might face withdrawals at the end of the month if I couldn’t replenish my supply, but if I could explain the situation to someone else at the Gallows clinic, if I could make myself sleep, if I could reinforce my will…  

I knelt on the cold stone floor and set the ritual items up along the desk, which functioned well enough as an altar to Andraste as I prayed. The Holy Lady looked at me with her arms folded over her sword, as if disapproving of my decisions.  

I was allowed, wasn’t I? This was the main benefit, a boon and obligation in the Order, right? I had sworn myself to this life, and lyrium was a part of it. Wasn't it? Didn't I have a good reason to take it? Hadn't I received permission when the clinician increased my supply? Wasn't I doomed if I didn’t take it? How many more weeks could I possibly live like this?  

I mixed the dose. I prayed. I asked for strength. I begged for forgiveness. And then I took the lyrium.  

It felt odd to do so at night when it had been my routine to take it in the morning. I cleaned my teeth and washed, as if I was getting up for the day. Then I lay back down in my bed, cold now that I had left it for so long.  

I felt calmer. I think I must've been glad to take the indecision off my plate, to take action in some way. I looked up at the darkening ceiling with hope.  

I could no longer hear noise from the mess hall. Evening meal was done. Shift changed had finished. Everyone was either doing chores or at prayer.  

I closed my eyes. If I slept now, I could get a normal night and a little extra. One blessed night with no nightmares, no choking fear, no awkwardness with my roommate. This was a perfect storm. 

Guardsman Étienne was shaking me. "Maker's sake! Are you trying to die?!" 

I looked up in surprise to see a set of moss-coloured eyes staring up at me with palpable stress. Étienne clutched onto the front of my nightshirt with his fist like he was preparing to punch me in the side of the head. But his face was terrified.  

I was cold. I remember that quite well. My hands, my feet. Freezing. I realized that wind was buffeting me. And that I was not lying down but standing up.  

Other guards stood behind Étienne, clearly troubled and staring at me. There must have been half a dozen of them. I inhaled to speak and my foot slipped slightly. It fell into empty air beneath me.  

Étienne gripped me by the shoulder with his free hand, eyes electric with terror. "Come on, just come back," he said, slowly reversing and taking me with him. The floor was metal, I realized. The shutter was open and the sun was spilling in. The ceiling was blue. 

We were outside, I realized. And I was in danger of…falling?  

Guardsman Étienne clutched my arm as the other guards lifted him, and then me, over the edge of the battlements. Everyone seemed relieved. I still wasn't clear on what had happened, but I looked back to see where I had been standing: a banner pole jutting out over the Waking Sea. Below was a drop of at least five-hundred feet onto the rocks and waves below. 

"How do I know your name?" I went weak in the knees. "How did I get out here?" 

"I don't know!" said Guardsman Étienne, who was clearly on watch today. "I just turned the corner and there you were, standing on the pole and muttering crazytalk!" 

Suddenly I was dizzy and my mouth was dry.  

An old guardsman with a deep scar across his cheek and grey in his hair regarded me with bemusement. "That there's what’s called sleepwalking, Ser." His accent sounded almost Chasind. "Walked up here in nought but your altogether."  

I felt queasy and stiff. I hadn't sleepwalked as a child, to my knowledge. I shouldn't have been in any danger of it here. "What was I saying?" I asked Étienne. "You said I was muttering?"  

He looked at me helplessly. I was rattled, certainly, but Étienne was beside himself. "Are you all right?" 

"Yes," I told him. "I'm not sure what happened. You saved my life, I do know that. Thank you." I looked about myself, disoriented. This wasn't even the Gallows! I had left the premises and walked in my nightshirt to the cliffs. 

And I remembered that I had been dreaming. Just images. Mouldy bread. A staircase on its side. Candles with many coloured lights. A feeling of dread. How that brought me out of the Gallows and over the sea was another matter. 

Most of all, I was preoccupied with how I might return home, given my state of undress. Upstanding women were walking about the city now. And I wasn't even wearing shoes.  

I wound up riding through town as a stow-away in a mail cart. I was squished in between two bags of letters and small parcels under a waxed sheet. As the cart cluttered down the cobbled streets, stopping every so often for the courier to reach in and take bags and boxes out from around me, I felt dazed. Off. Like the world was down a tunnel from me.  

I arrived back at the Gallows, my home and my place of employment, prepared to face the embarrassment of making a fool of myself in front of my coworkers. Could there be anything worse? 

Chester would never let me live it down, were he here to witness this disgrace. He would come at me with all of the ribbing I would have received from all three of my siblings.  

Though, I realized, I was older than him now. At my current age of twenty-two, I had gotten one more year of life than he had. 

I expected the realization to make me sad. But I didn't feel much of anything.  

I emerged from the mail cart at the Gallows, hoping that I wouldn't find any broken bottles with my bare heel. I hurried up the stairs and turned into the dormitory, seeing the confused glances I got from the other Knights, seeing me in my bedclothes. Most of the Knights were in their helms. I couldn't see their expressions, even if I was interested.  

I returned to my room to find my covers thrown back in a perfect triangle, as if I had flung off the blanket with commitment instead of rolling out in a stupor. There was a notice on the desk addressed to me, from yesterday. 

Ser Rutherford, 

 

Due to the unfortunate death of a Harrowed mage during an approved experiment, all Knights on duty are hereby granted reprieve until next week. Meanwhile, an investigative interview has been scheduled with you. Be prepared to answer all questions fulsomely and truthfully. 

 

Please arrive on time. 

 

Knight-Lieutenant Mason 

My interview was scheduled to start in four hours. I hadn't missed it, fortunately. But what in Thedas was I to do with myself, with no work and, for once, no need to sleep? 

I put on my nubuck in preparation for my armour. I noticed my cuirass had been repaired. 

At that moment, Samson skidded into the room. "Andraste's tits, boy! Where have you been?" 

"Sleepwalking, apparently," I said and held up my cuirass. "Did you send this for repairs? It's nice." 

"I saw you show up in the mail cart! What happened?" 

"Didn't I say sleepwalking? I woke up halfway across town. It would have been nice if the Templars on nightwatch had stopped me before I got out in the first place. Do you know who was on? They might be slacking." 

"I was on guard duty this morning. The last I saw you, it was yesterday evening and you were sawing logs. You didn't hear me take my armour off or get into bed, even though I dropped my helmet. Twice!" 

"I took more lyrium," I said, under no illusions about where this would end up. 

Samson squinted. "How much?" 

"A full dose." 

Samson slammed the door. A week ago, it would have made me jump. Today, I barely cocked my head. 

"Lad, you've taken too much. Far too much. A ten percent dusting would be more than enough. You’re too new to be taking so much. It's not safe. Your heart will stop!" 

"I feel fine," I said, fastening my cuirass. "And you were right. I was overtired. Extremely overtired. That probably has more to do with the sleepwalking than the lyrium did." I don't think I had ever dressed so efficiently. The straps went into their loops on the first try every time. The prongs went right through the right holes immediately, as if the armour was falling onto me if its own volition. 

"Be that as it may, you must turn yourself into the clinic at once." 

I grabbed my helmet and strapped on my sword. "No," I said. I had no interest in being fondled by that sister again. I had already taken the lyrium, and there was no way for it to be drawn out of my system. Furthermore, I had other matters to deal with. 

Samson lingered, eyeing me cautiously. "Where are you going?" 

"I have to test it," I said. "Come with me." 

I headed through the courtyard, passed the mages’ quarters and entered the disciplinary wing. It was here that mages who had done wrong—or were under investigation for wrongdoing—were housed.  

I unlocked the barred, wrought-iron gate and headed past the cell blocks. While Circles do not necessarily have a fully incarcerated mage population, every Circle does have some dungeon or prison within it. There simply is no way to do without one.  

I had a good idea of where she would be located. 

The mage who had cursed us yesterday was lying on a bed of straw, her head resting on the side of her arm. There were two chairs in the cell, but she opted to lay on the ground like an animal, I noted.  

I put my helmet on and checked that Samson had donned his too. He knew that were we to speak aloud, he would be overheard. Instead he put his hand on his sword and followed me into the cell.  

The mage looked up. She wasn't as quick to call us "wretched bastards" today. She was older than I was, perhaps the same age that my own mother would have been, if she had been alive. 

"What is your name?" I asked her. In Kinloch Hold, I knew everyone's name, even the newly admitted child mages. In the Gallows, I hadn't even tried to remember their faces, much less their names. 

Samson looked at me askance. If I was on official business, I would have known the mage’s name already. This was, quite obviously, not official. It was personal. 

The mage sat up primly with her calves tucked to one side. She did not stand. "My name is Darnil." 

No "Ser"? Or "Knight"? 

"Stand up," I told her. She did. "What sort of mage are you? What is your focus?" 

She looked at me suspiciously. 

"Just answer," Samson barked. 

"Hexes," she said. "And a little fire craft."  

Combat magic. Good. 

"You were at the failed summoning the other day." 

"Yes. Am I— Is this an interrogation? Will I be let out?" 

"It is not an interrogation. I do not care about the mistakes you made that led to the death of one of your own. I only care about one thing that happened in that room." 

Darnil was starting to look frightened. 

"Sit in that chair," I said, gesturing. I remained standing. "What is your strongest skill?"  

She would know entropy. It’s the way mages think. Why grow anything for yourself when you can simply diminish someone else? Why learn for yourself if you can simply ask an evil entity to fool you into thinking you already have all the answers? 

"My strongest skill is torment," she said, casting her eyes down. "I enhance vulnerabilities in a foe. I weaken their armor, their muscles, their resolve." 

I lowered myself to the chair in front of her. "Darnil, I would like you to cast that spell on me." 

She shifted uncomfortably. "What?" 

"Torment me. Go ahead." 

She looked over at Samson. "I've never raised a hand against a Knight in my life." 

"Good, you know the rules. Now obey them. Do as you are bidden." 

Darnil looked at me blankly. "I won't. You'll kill me. I’ll have you know that the sisterhood is expecting me at our next assembly. They will know when I don't turn up that you forced me to do this. They’ll demand—" 

"What makes you think you won't turn up at their next meeting?" 

Very deliberately, I unhitched my belt. Darnil began shaking. Looking back now, I can only imagine what she thought I was about to do. But I only took off my scabbard and tossed my weapons into the bed of straw she had been lying in. Then I looked up at Samson. "Take no action against her. It is something I need her to do."  

I turned back to her and held up my hands. "I'm armored. I have no weapon. You will not be punished. And your spell isn't lethal." I put down my hands and steadied myself. "Proceed." 

"Your friend is going to take my head off. He’ll—" 

"Mage. I said proceed!" 

She shivered and made her cast. In that moment, she was weak-willed. Whether from fear of me or from poor natural talent, I felt no effect. 

"Again," I said. This time, she gathered up her strength and truly struck me. 

I have been hit with my fair share of magic—everything from artless fireballs to intricate mind-control spells. I have counteracted many. I have taken the full force of yet more. I have been hit by strong hexes, and I’ve tasted entropy. I hate it. It is not painful exactly, but something precious is stolen from the victim, leaving them weak and vulnerable. It feels like being completely benumbed and having one’s own skin ripped away.  

I felt it coming. I reached down into myself and pushed Darnil’s magic out of my way. Torment did not hit me. 

"Again," I said, not sure if she was holding back or if lyrium had truly filled the hole in me.  

She cast. I could see her eyes shine with power, though hexes themselves are typically invisible.  

I let my own eyes drift out of focus. I felt the spell come, and I slapped it down. Darnil let out a little gasp of exertion.  

"Again." 

She obeyed, with more power this time.  

I felt the lyrium roiling up in me like cold water. The magic began to condense in her hands. Little curls of vapour, like steam, began to emerge from them. I squashed the cast with the full brunt of my will. Darnil whimpered and buckled at the waist.  

"Keep going," I told her. "Faster."  

She obliged, bringing her cursed talents to bear on my lyrium-primed will. Each time she reached for more power, the lyrium rose in my blood, exactly to the level I needed it. The strength emerged from me like a wall, precisely as it should.  

"Try something else," I told her. "Use your fire craft." 

"Not with the straw here. It'll catch," Samson warned. 

"Damn the straw," I replied, locked in Darnil’s flashing stare. "Cast it!" 

Hearing Samson but not wishing to anger me, the mage hit me with a blinding spell. It was unexpected. I crushed it anyway. "Again! Don't wait, just cast." 

She used blindness again, then torment. Then confuse. I blocked them all. It was easier now than it had been in months. I hardly broke a sweat. I had focus to spare. 

"Please," Darnil whispered. "My mana runs low. I cannot—" 

I suppose I had proven that I still commanded the necessary amount of faith required to be a Templar. I could have stopped there. But I was exhilarated. 

"Do not stop," I told her.  

So rarely do we have the opportunity to test such things, to really see the mark of our power on the world, especially when our lives are not in danger. When we are not afraid. 

I felt the air in the room change. Darnil went pale but suddenly I felt her power grow immensely. 

"What the—" Samson began, but I held up a hand to silence him. Then I readied myself to silence her. 

"Fire," I commanded. And she did.  

Where she struck with a fist before, now she struck with a hammer. She was angry, I realized. She hated me. Perhaps she hated all Templars, but she certainly hated me the most.  

Torment. Blindness. Confusion. A jet of fire aimed at my face and upward, away from the kindling.  

I felt some heat, but I crushed it all, methodically, perfectly. But I had begun to tire. Darnil had, of course, fared much worse. Struggling to keep pace with me, she had been losing something of herself. Unlike a Blood mage, she did not sacrifice her blood for power, but something else had gone. Her skin had dulled and her eyes had yellowed. 

She looked up at me. "Please. Let me stop. This is torture." 

I dimly felt Samson's hand on my shoulder, trying to draw me back. 

Darnil was the fire mage, but I instantly felt myself immolate with fury. The lyrium calming my blood had been partly used up, or something massive and caustic within me had risen up to burn right through it. 

"'Torture?!" I shouted. "What do you know of torture? Nothing! Now hit me! Hit me until I feel something!"  

The last sentence was blocked out by a crack of torment so tremendous it could have ripped a Knight down to his bare bones. If it had struck me, it might have knocked my soul from its anchor. But I pushed it back. But I could do no more. The spell was too powerful to simply evaporate. Instead, it surged backward and hit Darnil.  

She collapsed, convulsing on the floor. 

"Maker's sake!" Samson leapt forward, but there was nothing he could do.  

I watched coolly from my seat. Darnil sputtered on the ground in front of me as her convulsions began to subside. One of her fox-fur coloured eyes weakly focused in on me. 

"Janus is a liar," she said. "He stole a primer from Orsino. One about spirit tracking. The summoning was never about questions. It was about monitoring. The spirits." 

Samson, who was half a breath into berating me, stopped and simply stared at her. "What did you say?" 

Normally, I would have been distressed to hear such a thing. Now that the fire had cooled in me, a vague feeling of muted approval was all that I could feel.  

"Why was Janus monitoring spirits?" I didn't know which one Janus was. Samson would. 

Darnil's mouth flattened into a line as tears began to overtake her. "He wanted to find out which ones orbit the Gallows. Which ones are drawn to the mages. And which spirits serve them. Spirits, or demons." 

Samson had stopped trying to intervene. He was merely watching, brow creased. 

"Some spirits are here by their own free will. Others are trapped by the influence of demons. Some are chained to the Fade in this spot through other means. These are the ones Janus is curious about. He is trying to find out how many there are. And why they stay. What compels the spirits. If not love or fear. He wanted to turn a spirit into his spy. To witness what happens in the Fade. When a mage is turned Tranquil. He thinks he knows how tranquility works. And he is trying to stop it." 

Darnil collapsed into broken sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whimpered into her palms.  

It was impossible to tell who she was apologizing to. Either way, Samson had seen enough. 

"You should go," he told me, signalling with his eyes that he wished for me to take this information through the door, ostensibly to a Knight-Lieutenant. "I'll see that Darnil is all right." 

There was no admonishment. I wouldn't have heard one if there was. I stood up wordlessly and left as he suggested. 

Couldn't these damn mages leave well enough alone? Punishment was only meted out if it was deserved. Why not accept the situation, the rules, and the strictures, and simply stop meddling? There would be no need for half of these interventions if they would just listen to us. I left the door unbarred and turned out into the courtyard. 

A tall, blonde woman was standing just left of the egress. Clearly, she had been listening. "Your name and your rank, Knight?" 

It was a question, but she said it in a way that evoked obedience. A query that was also a demand. 

"Knight-Corporal Cullen Rutherford," I told her exactly as I took in her emblazoned breastplate and her battle crown. This was Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard. Why had she been secretly monitoring Darnil?  

I was unnaturally becalmed, but I felt a surge of concern. What I had done might be considered unorthodox. Logical, from my perspective, but certainly not planned, stated, and filed in advance. 

It occurred to me that Darnil was not the one she had been watching. 

"No," she said. "Knight-Lieutenant from now on. Report to the officers’ briefing tomorrow morning."  

She did not stay to explain further, nor to tell me the time and place of the briefing.  

After she left, I carried onto the Knight-Lieutenant commanding my unit and told him what had happened: mage Janus had stolen documents from First Enchanter Orsino with the aim of illegally convening with spirits to undermine our ability to use Tranquility.  

This sparked a month-long investigation in which mage Janus was ultimately made Tranquil himself, along with two other mages. Mage Darnil faced backlash from her brethren and had her nose cut off while she slept. She was then transferred to Wycombe’s Circle.  

Orsino lost a great deal of standing for seemingly being unaware that Janus had taken his documents. Of course, whether or not he was truly unaware was disputed, but there was no way to prove his ignorance or innocence.  

Samson remained my roommate for another six months. Then, a space opened up in the officers’ quarters and I was given a private room. He always treated me decently, though he was less familiar with me after what happened that day. I imagine he thought he knew how to handle me when he could treat me as his lesser, an inexperienced Knight, eager for his guidance. After my odd behaviour and second sudden promotion, it seemed more difficult for him to relate to me.  

I can't say it was wholly unexpected, nor was it the only such case in my time there.  

As for me, I never took so much lyrium again, and I wound up increasing the dosage by a mere fraction, like Samson had suggested. Though this was done unusually soon in my career, I was not completely isolated in my needs, and I was able to use my abilities as required thereafter. Though there was still…space in me for various uncomfortable reminders of my history. 

I never walked in my sleep again. When I visited the cliffs above the Waking Sea in my turn as Knight-Lieutenant some months later, none of the guards who had saved me seemed to recognize who I was.  

I did not remind them. 

Chapter Text

—Maker’s sake. I just received a letter.

From my sister.

…sigh.

Apparently the Inquisition is enough of a going concern in South Reach that news of the destruction of Haven was rather lapped up by the populace. I imagine Lady Josephine’s diplomats or Leliana’s whisperers might've had something to do with that information making it all the way out there.

I know we must ensure that everyone in our network is aware that we are no longer in Haven, but I wish we weren’t spreading rumours about our own defeat far and wide. I am certainly not claiming to be a master of public opinion but…really? Must we endure this humiliation on an international scale?

More precisely, I did not wish for my family to hear details about what happened to us. Of course, I am not suggesting that we lie about it. I'm simply rankled by informing so many people of our failures and shortcomings, particularly when we are operating under the advantages of invisibility. Corypheus knows a few people survived Haven—we sent up a signal arrow, and if the Inquisitor saw it, he likely did. Our only saving grace is he does not know where we are.

All of us worked like dogs to make sure this was so. Blackwall set us up with a few Warden safehouses so we could train new soldiers in convenient locals rather than constantly drag people up through the peaks to get here. Most of our network has not and will never see Skyhold. Our gold is squirrelled away in this account or that storefront, or that chest buried in this hill. We are hidden, many eggs in many baskets. The organizing of this was abominable, and I leaned on Leliana heavily. I cannot fathom the amount of work Josephine put into managing our finances. It’s staggering.

So why risk our efforts by crowing about them so loudly? I think it wise to lay low, at least for a while. Let me build a true army, one that could rebuff the Venatori and the Red Templars if they strike. But apparently Josephine is trying to capitalize on our plight by moving her wealthy friends to sprees of donations and emotional speeches rendered on marble floors the world over. Of course, Leliana agreed with her and my concerns were overruled. Certainly, these donors will have to know where to send their treasure, and our soldiers can only hold down so many miles of trade route. But still…

Maker, that Josephine. Were she suddenly rendered penniless, I swear that woman would be the richest beggar in any town in a matter of hours.

At any rate, our need for relief funds has resulted in campaign of songs and stories shared by bards and minstrels all over Thedas. Many of these centred on the Inquisitor’s bravery in Haven. The fact that she survived a solo encounter with an Archdemon is chief among the highlights in these songs. I, uh, certainly understand the appeal, but if Corypheus didn't know it before, he absolutely knows now that his precious anchor has not been lost.

Well, I say that but I doubt Corypheus or any of his massive Red Templars have a preferred local tavern they wander into for a quick tankard and chinwag at the end of a hard workday. Not to mention larger urban settings like Kirkwall, which—

Ach. I just pictured Corypheus prowling the Red Light District. Revolting. I may never recover.

Anyway, regarding Haven: the Orlesians know, the Fereldans know, the monsters know, and so Mia has also found out. Corypheus is definitely a danger to us, but Mia is an out and out threat.

The situation is this: she heard the news of the Haven attack first, and nothing further for some weeks until the songs of the Inquisitor’s survival reached her. So, for the space of the intervening weeks, she and her neighbours all presumed that the Inquisition had been crushed. They erroneously presumed me dead for that time.

I do not wish to accept blame for this, particularly because of how this exact situation has played out before in our recent history. Yes, I survived the violent assault of the Red Templars, but I was more fortunate than many others. So, what shall I do, write to Mia and boast that I am alive while my own soldiers are lost?

I cannot write a letter of that nature.

And what did she expect of me? To amble, half-frozen and lost in the Frostbacks with an Archdemon flying overhead, but pause and pen a note to her in case we happened upon a courier in a snowdrift? Madness!

Skyhold itself only just established its communication thoroughfare, and the bulk of Leliana’s messengers have only recently been cleared for flight after many of them suffered illnesses from dehydration and stress. I’m doing the best that I can! It feels like just a few days ago that we arrived here, as mystified and helpless as our crows. If I’d have known Mia was grieving me again, I would have made it more of a priority to write to her. But how was I to know what the bards or minstrels did or didn’t sing about? I’m not in charge of the whisper campaigns. I’ve been against discussing Haven in the first place!

The long and the short of it is she’s furious with me. That’s bound to last a month at least.   

The Inquisitor has been gone for two weeks already. Paradoxically, that feels longer than it should.

Oh, good. Dwell on it more. That'll help.

Maker’s sake. If it’s not lyrium, it’s the woman. Between the two of them, my mind has become a hot stove. I can touch nothing inside of it for long before it hurts.

I do not know how to respond to Mia’s letter. Some clipped message verifying, "yes, I'm alive. Yes, I know I should have written. No, we did not disband. The Inquisition persists and so do I.” But by the time I'm done with it, the blasted minstrels would've written an eight-verse epic about it all and performed it in four-part harmony in every tavern in Thedas. And they'll make it much more germane than I will be able to.

Hmm…now that I think of it, what is Maryden up to? She writes songs. Surely she can write letters. Maybe she would pen a quick summation of events in my stead?

Bah. By the time I explain the situation to her, I could've just done it myself.

I should send my siblings proof of life. I know that. But I invariably say something too frank that makes Mia worried or even more angry, and she’s quite sour with me right now. If I gloss over the realities of this war and focus only on the good, Bran or Rosalie might wish to join the Inquisition themselves.

And that…

While we need the hands, I will not allow my siblings to come here. I will not have any more of my family killed because of Thedas's incessant instability. If I cannot bring the three of them safety and security after all of this, what has been the point of my sacrifices? Did I lay awake at night as a child and dream of becoming a Templar for nothing?

There has to be someone left to save. Otherwise it has all been for nothing and I might as well never have started down this path at all.

…Why am I acting as though I am some grand hero?

When they needed me most, I was nowhere to be found. My family saved themselves and Mia protects them now, not me. Why should I take credit for her good work?

All I can do is make broad moves to lessen the evil in the land and hope that it helps them too. It’s very unlikely anything I do affects their daily lives at all.

And, good. Good for them and good for me. We are not the same, anymore. I am not the right tool for that particular job.

Chapter Text

—I am pensive. My mind is a maze of doorways that all lead to different rooms. I am needed in all of them. I do not know which to enter first.

I've been thinking about my siblings since yesterday. I haven't written back yet, but in trying to formulate a response and justify my silence, I’ve been passively imagining the lives they live now.

Rosalie must be so different. She was very young when I left for the monastery, never to return. She is an adult now. I wonder, does she have a job, or a vocation? I’m sure Mia would tell me if she did, but even if I had this information, it is difficult to get a sense of a person through milestones alone.

Bran still seems standoffish, even in the letters. He and I always had something of a rivalry. It was something he insisted on having, and not a true, organic competition between the two of us. I’ve never understood his reason for it.

Mia… I was close with her once. But we lost that long before I made my decision to leave for the Order.

Without a way to imagine them clearly as they are, my mind has nowhere to go but back out of that door and through another, into a room filled with childhood things: the farm, Honnleath, the cold winters and mom and dad.

Through the wall, I hear pounding from yet another room, as if fists and swords chip through the masonry. Chester and the other lads from the Cloisters make their appearances in my thoughts. I still remember all their names, first and last. All their faces. All of their deaths. Though it has been more than ten years since I’ve seen a single one of them. Living or dead.

I think of the Inquisition, of course. The structure, the details. The eighteen or so active projects that I have, and the twenty directives I’ve assigned to other people. I think of them even while I'm thinking of them, as if I have two minds working in tandem on different details of the same subject.

I think of Cole, what horrible things he might have done to innocent people while he is out in the world against my advice.

I think of Samson, for the same reason.

And of course, that makes me think about…the one I shouldn’t. There hasn’t been any word yet, even from Lady Cassandra. I—

Hmm. Odd that I didn't consider lyrium until now.

Chapter Text

—The Chargers have returned from their recovery mission at Haven. Iron Bull is with the Inquisition’s away team, so the operation was commanded by Officer Aclassi. He sent a request to my office to deliver a formal debriefing. Maker, it makes my job so much easier when the officers know what they're doing.

Krem arrived at my tower with an itemized list of the Chargers’ activities. They recovered the dead we left behind en route to Skyhold. I am relieved. That will bring needed closure to the friends of the deceased, and Lady Josephine is informing their families. Mother Giselle has arranged for a funeral pyre.

It's grim work, but it’s something the Sisters can teach the civilian volunteers to help with. We have a handful of people with no combat experience, but their occupational history has little value here at present. We never turned away a single set of hands offered in good faith, but what work can a glassblower or a barber have here? Certainly there might be a little here and there, but hardly enough to fill the person’s days. So, why not burn corpses? Aren't you glad you signed up with us?

…Why are Varric and Lady Cassandra never around when I'm telling jokes? They still don't believe that I can be funny for some reason.

Anyway, along with the dead, Krem delivered precise reports on the ruin of Haven.

About six feet of snow has settled over the entire settlement, burying many of our structures entirely. However, the tallest structures: portions of the walls, the chantry, and the tops of a few of the more robustly built cabins still peek out of the snow, if they were not completely crushed or swept away.

Red Templars were present at the site.

According to Krem, they did not appear to be particularly organized. Most were simply lumbering about the place, perhaps wasting time or otherwise unable to conduct any useful labour. However, some were intelligent enough to attempt an excavation. It is unclear what they were looking for. Possibly clues to our whereabouts or for our supplies and gear, but the Chargers were actually able to dispatch all of the Red Templars there.

I'm impressed. I said as much.

To ice that particular cake, the Chargers even brought back a few pieces of Red Templar armour for us to study. How very fortuitous. I'm next in line to work with it after it has been checked and catalogued by Helisma. I badly wish to write an update to the treatise!

Anyway, after the Red Templars were dispatched, the Chargers continued the excavation of salvage that might make a difference to us. The chantry was, apparently, completely inaccessible given the size of its doors, which are now buried in snow and rock. The west side of the city, where the apothecary and the tavern once stood, was completely destroyed.

I had hoped that the Chargers would have been able to recover some trace of the supplies Arl Teagan sent us that were held up because of Jimlad’s bill of lading. According to the Inquisitor, the cargo, held for processing near the apothecary, was set alight somehow and exploded with great force during the fighting.

I would guess it was saltpeter from Redcliffe’s lakeshores. It’s terribly disappointing to hear that it went to waste, especially in that it resulted in yet more deaths on our end. Considering the distressing physiology of the Red Templars we are now facing, I would have been able to put those supplies to use, if any was left.

But, much of that side of town had been obliterated by falling rock. Leliana’s tent was gone; the Chargers found no sign of it. It seems that I was the lucky one in this regard. Part of my cabin survived.

Templar life, proceeded by hand-to-mouth agrarian poverty during my childhood, led me to a rather modest existence in my current circumstances. I do not own much, and thereby lost very little in the attack. There was no sign of any documents or letters left in my cabin, though Krem states it did not appear as though the Red Templars had dug down enough to rob it.

"The windows broke and let in the snow," Krem explained. “It was heaped up to the ceiling. The east wall collapsed, and much of what was inside was swept away. All the remaining furniture was mangled, and anything written with ink was made illegible by the snow. But there was one thing that survived. Chipped it out of the ice myself.I thought you might like to have it back.”

Krem handed me a warped and scratched black lacquer case. I did not recognize it until I popped open the bent hinge. Inside, the set of silverite knives given to me by the Arl of Redcliffe. They were completely undamaged. I had given them up for lost.

"You thought correctly.” I looked up. "Thank you, Lieutenant Aclassi, very much. The Chargers drink on my tab tonight."

Krem laughed mildly. "Thanks, Commander. But if I were you, I'd limit it to a round or two. Rocky plays a game he calls ‘drink all the ale in the entire bloody Tavern’. He’s never lost a game. It's a Charger favourite but it does rack up the sovereigns, if you know what I mean."

I had it on good authority that the Inquisition had only acquired one hogshead of ale so far. If the Chargers played their game, it wouldn't break the bank but it would hardly be fair to the other workers entering the tavern wanting a drink.

I could buy them a meal, but I got the sudden feeling that they may have a companion game called 'eat all the grub in the entire damnable tavern’ too.

"Noted," I said. "Uh… Thank you for the warning."

"Yessir,” Krem said and took his leave.

I stared down at the handsome set of knives. I hope things have settled in Redcliffe and that the Arl is managing.

I think I’ll set up a target in my study. I can't say I have time to practice my throwing much, but I frequently do wish to stab something.

Chapter Text

—Since the Chargers’ return, excavations at Haven have been put on hold. This was a difficult choice. We do not wish for our enemies to dig up anything they can use against us, but the new snowfield is unstable. Regrettably, our energies are finite and Skyhold must take priority now. I hope leaving the missing bodies of our lost comrades will be forgiven in time. We’ll look into placing a memorial there as soon as we can.

One hopes that the undead won’t rise again in a torrent of possessed monsters as soon as we turn around. Under the scar of the Breach, it’s difficult to say what the demons on the other side of the Veil will do once they discover the pile of corpses there that they can possess. If the Veil has been weakened anywhere, surely it is weak in Haven now.

The deceased are certainly buried under an unfathomable weight of ice and snow. I imagine what it would be like to slip through the Veil, seeking a body to inhabit for the first time, anticipating the five senses and the feel of a permanent environment defined by its immunity to raw will. How tragic, then, to coalesce into something buried and immobile and utterly crushed in ice. No room to inhale, even if there was air to be had. Mangled flesh and broken bones. Silence. Catastrophic cold. And no way out. What an unrighteous birth.

It almost makes me feel for the spirits, but little can be gained from thoughts such as these.

For now, a funeral pyre has been set for the bodies of those who fell after our arrival here. The Chargers collected those that perished during our trek to Skyhold. These include the body of Chancellor Roderick, and two others. Losses were inevitable in an attack of that scale of course, and the harsh environment we had to endure sealed the fate of too many.

Though there is one…detail that Lady Josephine and Leliana are currently tackling.

When the Inquisitor returned to us in our ramshackle camp in the mountains, she was gravely hurt. To save her life, one mage healer and two traditional healers worked exclusively on her with all of their focus.

Her reappearance was miraculous. It became a unifying force that saved the Inquisition. The healers worked to preserve her life at all costs.

And there was indeed a cost.

Roderick was fatally wounded and seemed to hold onto his life by the slim virtue of faith and necessity alone as we journeyed. By contrast, the other two deaths might have been avoided if the healers had not withdrawn their ministrations to focus on the Inquisitor. Now, to an outsider, it appears that we favour the Inquisitor’s life over those of our volunteers—at a factor of two to one, no less.

While Josephine has drafted letters informing the deceased’s next of kin, the families will seek details, and the friends of the deceased amongst the Inquisition have already attempted to give those details. Leliana has stopped these letters from being sent (and a few other innocuous ones so as not to draw suspicion, I’m told). We must tell our side of the story before outside accounts are permitted. If they are permitted.

Initially, I questioned this secrecy. The loss of any two souls is regrettable, but the healers had to save the Inquisitor. The organization would collapse without her. The families will grieve, but we had to act.

I was then reminded (rather coldly) that, at the time of these two deaths, an Inquisitor had not yet been appointed. The Herald—as she was then called—had already completed her purpose at the Breach and could have been released from the Inquisition if we had time that night to discuss this with her.

Essentially, we withdrew medical care from two volunteers to save only one volunteer. As soon as we inform the families and allow the details from the witnesses through, we will inevitably be accused of either blatant favouritism or rank ineptitude, and we will be called to account for it.

As I said, the dispositions of the family members are unknown as the circumstances around these deaths have not yet been officially disclosed, but we can anticipate that, if they are anti-mage or prejudiced against elves or something similar, their fury will be considerable.

Even so, I cannot help but feel as though I am missing something here. This is diplomacy. I do not need to be bogged down with every detail of every facet in everyone else's work. There has to be more to it. Why else would Leliana and Josephine involve me?

Perhaps one of these deaths was someone important. Or, more likely, someone quite rich. And so, even though we weathered this hellish misfortune through our own ingenuity and grit, we are now called to prostrate ourselves at the behest of someone with inherited sovereigns. It seems we are inescapably shunted into class sorting devices, no matter how ill-fitting, even when we are corpses.

I wish the wealthy bore life’s difficulties with as much dignity as the poor. We are all bound for the same fire in the end. Why not just accept it?

Chapter Text

—It has been fourteen days since the Inquisitor left. There has been no word from her or her party. I do not like it. I must set up more checkpoints along the road and make it inescapably clear that patrols are to write immediately when the Inquisitor's party passes through! This is a mess. 

None of us can predict the future, but naturally it is down to me to anticipate what is most likely to happen next. I must get ahead of what Corypheus will do. Or, more specifically, what Samson would advise him to do. Now that they have been denied the anchor, where will they find a substitute? What is their next target? 

After relating the sleepwalking incident which occurred while I was cohabiting with Samson, I have been increasingly distressed by the knowledge that someone who was a valuable voice of reason to me has turned coat. He knows more about me, and about one of the most vulnerable phases in my young life, than almost anyone else alive. And he knows general things, like my age and experience level, that others would either miss or have to use precious time and resources to research first. Samson has all this knowledge in mind already.  

I never thought to shield myself from my own brothers and sisters in the Order. I am not a scryer. I could not have foreseen that I would be fighting against the Templars at the Divine’s behest.  

Though it was hardly a rare event, being double-crossed by other Knights or former Knights. Unlike a knife between my ribs, their treachery was harder to see. Though, truly, it was no less painful. 

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never joined the Order. I know these thoughts are driven by fatigue; I haven’t slept well lately and I know I should rest, but I cannot quite bring myself to stop my work and accept the silence. Instead I…find myself missing home. Though what exactly about it I miss is difficult to establish.  

Life in Honnleath was safer, than this, perhaps. Less mentally demanding. But small. So very small. 

The house is gone now and the farmlands were decimated by darkspawn. I haven’t seen the ruin for myself, but I know that it, like Haven, no longer exists. Despite its absence, it is still the original version of ‘home’ to me. Everywhere else has just been a ‘for now’ type of place.  

Either way, it does not really bear thinking about. All I can do now is look ahead, and plan for whatever may lie there. Knowing about me is an advantage that Samson has, yes. But what exactly about me will he use against the Inquisition? 

Already I know that he has a terrible hunger for lyrium. He may still think the same about me, not knowing that I have broken through its hold. Whether its loss will be my end is one thing, but I can no longer be controlled by either its absence or its abundance. I may be able to use this to my benefit, should he ever strike out against me. 

He knows I was from Ferelden. It was inescapable in the barracks. I never hid my accent and some Knights barked like dogs when I passed by. But as I said then, it is no more a weakness than a skull or a spine. 

I wouldn’t have talked materially about the fall of the Circle. And what could I have said about the farm? Did— 

Have I mentioned my siblings to him?  

No, their move to South Reach did not come until after Samson was no longer my roommate. He would not know their whereabouts. Not on his own. 

Does Corypheus have a spymaster like Leliana? It seems laughable that he has a diplomat like Lady Josephine on his side, but I cannot be too liberal with my assumptions. I do not understand the inner workings that the Venatori, and apparently they are a considerable force in Tevinter. That can only be by design. So what if he does have spies? What if he knows where my family is? 

Dammit, Leliana’s in Sahrnia! I can’t even ask her to send a watcher. 

Maker’s sake, Cullen. It’s late. And we think before we act. We think before we act.  

First thing’s first. Did I say anything? 

Remembering them was painful, particularly in the early years while Samson was still in the Gallows. But I— Dammit, I don’t remember! 

Second thing: if I mentioned them, or if word of them got around to Samson somehow, does he remember such a detail? Of all the things happening around then, including his dismissal, would he recall whether a former roommate of his had two sisters and a brother back home? 

Maybe, if this former roommate was repeatedly promoted and this caused jealousy or resentment.  

Third: is Samson the type of person to send a death squad after three innocent civilians?  

Two months ago, I would have emphatically said no. He would never have attacked my sisters and brother. But since then, it has come to light that Samson sided with a demonic evil that he should've known immediately to reject.  

By all rights, he should be with the Inquisition. With us! The man I knew would not have followed Corypheus. This new Samson does not seem to have the sense or humanity that he once had. And Corypheus would certainly not allow him to show mercy, if he does still possess it.  

So, I believe the answer is yes. If he finds out where Mia, Rosalie, and Bran are, he would go after them. Just to please his master. Just to twist the knife. 

Fourth: militaristically, is there a purpose to killing my family? 

Their existence may be known to him, he has the capacity to attack them, and he would. But what is the point, truly? What would they gain by murdering the last people I hold dear?  

Little, I reason. Very little. 

Corypheus would get more out of ransoming them, perhaps. He might do so to cause me to err, or to redirect resources in a way that is beneficial to them and detrimental to the Inquisition. They may choose to do so at a particularly crucial moment. That would be the play. 

At that point I would be reliant on Leliana to see them broken out and brought to safety. Otherwise, I shall have to steel myself for the possibility that I may have to let them die, if such a disgusting dilemma were ever to face me. 

Godsake. 

Admitting this does not feel right. There is almost always a third option, rather than a simple decision to either bend or stand. But military doctrine must still take priority; there isn’t always time for creative solutions. I know that I cannot sacrifice the entire Inquisition for the sake of a few individuals. No matter who they are. 

Maker, this ink runs as cold as frost. 

I take solace in one thing: if they break me personally through my family, the Inquisition’s military will not disappear, nor will it materially change. Someone else would simply helm it. Samson must know that.  

A good commander would consider their deaths to be too small or too ignoble to bother with. They should be safe for that reason. 

I can’t tell right now if this is a fact or a mere hope.  

If we are to be opponents, Samson and I, then so be it, but the both of us know better than to attack individuals. It is ground into us as we transformed into the Templars we once were. It was our purpose to protect those who could not wield magic or suppress it if used against them. It is why we are what we are. Why draw breath at all if everything in you is gone? 

…Do I think too highly of him? 

He should've known better about Corypheus. He might do this, too, even if he knows better. Even if there is no point.  

Damn it all to hell. I need to let them know. 

On the pages of the journal, a faint script in Cullen’s hand can be made out. A separate document has been set here, written upon, and then removed and sent elsewhere. 

Dear Mia, 

Yes, you did hear correctly. Haven was attacked and, regrettably, it was a total loss. I am unharmed, as is the rest of the core staff. We have formed a new base of operations where we are safer and better positioned for the work that is to come. All is well. You need not worry for me. 

However, I have reason to be worried for you. 

However, you have reason to be worried for yourself. 

It has recently come to my attention that there is the slimmest possibility that your life may be in a little bit of danger. 

South Reach. How safe is it really? 

Is everyone there with you? Healthy and happy, I hope. Out of curiosity, did Bran continue learning the sword or did he stop as soon as I left? 

Are there still Templars in South Reach? Reliable ones? Check their eyes. Are they red?  

What is security like in South Reach? Good? Lax? Is there an organized militia or town guard there? A decent wall? Lookout towers? 

Is there another place you can go if the situation in South Reach becomes dangerous? I'm not asking for any particular reason. There’s no cause to panic look over your shoulder lay awake at night wake up in a cold sweat run 

Leave it all. Let it fly to the wind. Burn your life to the ground yet again because I still do not know how to protect you 

Chapter Text

—Using the armour brought back by the Chargers, I drafted up a new treatise for the killing of Red Templars. Well, “killing" isn't really the goal at this time. All I have to work with is a helmet and a pauldron, so the treatise is more about exploiting the weaknesses in these areas to make possible small-scale retreats for the armed infantry and foot soldiers. For them, it’s about harm reduction. At least until we have some more weapons to study and the researchers have given us a better picture of what sort of magic is involved. I’ve decided to position the archers into doing the heavy lifting for now. The helmet gives me some idea of where on their face the enemy might be exposed. But the inescapable fact is, we simply do not know enough to engage them with confidence. Not yet. 

At the moment, the smith apprentices are making copies of the armour we have. These will be installed on practice dummies for the archers to use, here and at their safe houses and remote barracks. They can get used to firing into eyesholes and through throats. That isn’t a departure from their normal skillset, and I assume a punctured eyeball or skewered neck would harm anything, even what the Red Templars have become. Our next goal needs to be 

Later… 

Huh. That was odd. 

It's late at night, though I am awake in my tower. Writing here has become my custom at the end of the day, and as I was mid-sentence and debating whether I would sleep tonight or not, I heard a knock. I expected an officer with important news or a message that something terrible was happening and my attention was needed, despite the late hour. But it wasn't an officer. It was a recruit.  

It took me a moment to recall his face, and unfortunately I think he saw my lack of recognition. Eventually I remembered him as Atticus from Redcliffe. Atticus was not yet done his Templar training when the war broke out and the Order split, leaving him with no place to study in Ferelden. He decided to sign on at the Arl's mansion as a servant. When we passed through, he came with us instead. We rather picked him up from under the nose of that ignoble Ser Emil the day after the Desire demon attacked the Redcliffe court.  

Atticus, now acting as a recruited swordsman in the Inquisition army, had spent the day working through my treatise along with the other soldiers. It seems that he did not like doing so. 

"Commander, might I have a word?" 

Normally, concerns are brought to one's supervising officer, not directly to me. On the one hand if everyone came directly to me to have their questions answered, I would have time for nothing else. On the other hand, I do feel as though I am not so important as to be above speaking with any soldier or civilian in the Inquisition. Pretentiousness is a character flaw as contemptible as greed or cruelty.

“Yes,” I told him. I'd get the officers involved only if it was an ongoing issue. Plus, Atticus and I knew each other somewhat. Perhaps this was related to Redcliffe. 

He gave a short, slightly awkward bow and came in out of the night air. “Commander, about your new treatise…" 

"Ah! Yes. Rest assured that will not be our final manoeuvre. We can roll out a more aggressive attack phase when our primary research concludes." 

Atticus drew in a breath. "Actually Ser, I'd like to, uh, quit.”  

A few people had left the Inquisition after Haven. Many reported extreme fear or inability to sleep. I was always informed but rarely in person like this, and most of these incidents had petered out. This seemed like something else. 

“I see,” I said. "Is something amiss?" 

Atticus swallowed and shifted his feet. "Ser, I owe you for bringing me on, but I may have been…somewhat less than truthful about my situation when I volunteered." 

Ah, here we go.  

“‘Less than honest’?” 

“Well, I did mention I was undergoing Templar training when the Knights were called back to Val Royeaux. What I may not have mentioned was in the Cloisters, I was, um, having a difficult time with swordplay. I didn’t get kicked out or anything,” he said quickly. “I can take down wraiths. Demons are tough, but I was able to scrape by in training. 

“And now? I see the Red Templar armour. These guys are twice the size of me. And they’re fully-trained Knights, not to mention their Blight-magic or whatever’s making them the way they are. I’m still just learning, and I was never much good to begin with. I seriously doubt my ability to survive a sword fight with one, even with the treatise. I’m just not good enough. I mean, I couldn't have beaten a Templar before he got Blight-lyriumed. Now he's gigantic and hitting as hard as an ogre. I can't imagine doing anything but buckling." 

This matter is delicate. Our knowledge of the enemy is not complete. A few of us got lucky in Haven and took down a few powerful foes, but not one of us should feel comfortable in killing one, even the best and most experienced. The fear is normal, and certainly not unique to Atticus.  

Yet, if a soldier is looking you in the face in the calm of midnight in the safety of your stronghold and telling you unequivocably that he is incapable of doing what you ask of him, you had best listen. 

"We have some excellent swordsman working with us,” I told him. "If you believe your skills should be improved before you attempt active combat, we can arrange for more in-depth lessons." 

Atticus reddened. "I don't know, Ser. Have you ever come across someone with a natural talent in swordsmanship? Someone who just gets it, even if they're new? Well, I am the opposite of that. I just don't get it, even when I really should. To be entirely honest with you, I have needed an extra edge in training for quite a while so…I—I got special dispensation to start taking lyrium early. Before I took my vows.  

“It's only with that added help that I can weaken a wraith enough to kill it. Or disorient a demon to get my licks in. It’s, uh, partly why I joined the Inquisition in the first place. You people give a lyrium ration to the Templar-trained without asking too many ques— I mean, without judging too harshly. Taking lyrium helps against demons and mages, so, since it was free, I figured I could do some good here. And the lyrium was getting hard to afford on the black market, especially on a house servant’s pay.  

“But now that we're fighting other Templars… I don't know. It just seems like the rug got pulled out from under me. Again. It's the exact enemy I'm not equipped to face. I think I need to quit before I get decapitated.”  

He forced a smile at the last sentiment. “I’m told I wouldn’t be as headsome— er, handsome, without it.” 

I hardly knew what to say. A person his age taking lyrium to save his own life seemed tragic to me, but I was wary of stampeding to that particular issue at the expense of the problem I had been expressly presented with. 

“What will you do if you leave the military?” I asked. He seemed as though he had nothing to lose when we spoke in Redcliffe.  

“Actually Ser, I was planning on asking Lady Josephine to hire me as a diplomat. I saw my share of engagements when I worked for the Arl. Some of them involved royalty, even. And I can’t be worse at diplomacy than I am at swordplay.” 

I couldn’t help myself. “There are certainly those that have natural talents at the sword, but proficiency requires discipline and instruction. No one, no matter how gifted, can reach their potential simply through what is innate. A prodigy cannot beat a Red Templar without training. It doesn’t work that way. It will not serve you to get discouraged.” 

Atticus blinked. “Does that mean I can’t go?” 

I waved my own comment away. “No. You can—of course you can. Assuming Lady Montilyet has use for you.” 

“Yes, I asked one of her ladies and there seems to be room.” Atticus was nodding, clearly relieved. But he did not depart. “Ser— Thank you. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t my arse on the line. But can I ask, if I did stay to get more training, who would it be with?” 

I had a few names in mind. Ser Irice maybe, when she returned from her mission. Corporal Howard. Captain Nemes. Perhaps Corporal La Choix. The Chevalier influences may shake what Atticus thought he knew—or thought he didn’t know—and he could start fresh.  

I told him my thoughts. The lad looked crestfallen. I don’t know why. Perhaps because he had not heard of any of these individuals. Unfortunately, real work hardly ever begins or ends with legends and minstrel tales. Celebrity is rarely a good indicator of ability. That, and Lady Cassandra, Blackwall, Iron Bull, and the rest of the Inquisitor’s party were already busy. 

“Is it okay if I try out the diplomacy thing for a while, then?” 

“I hate to lose a good Templar,” I said, perhaps a little too diplomatically. “But, yes. Go ahead. Good luck.” 

Atticus gave a stilted bow before departing. The whole interaction seemed slightly askew, as if I once again was not getting the full picture, but he is the nervous type. I wonder what sort of training diplomats undergo to get over these shortcomings? Here’s hoping Atticus takes to them better than he did with the blade.