Fill for two combined kink-meme prompts: What if the Inquisitor had been an ally of Corphyeus before the Conclave? and What if the Inquisitor had always been a Templar? So, I say, why not both?

I should note that there is a graphic torture scene in this first chapter, hence the M rating. This was a specific request of the prompt writer, and I tried to keep it tasteful and on point rather than gratuitously violent. Your mileage may vary, so just be aware of that before reading further. I'm thinking there are going to be 5ish chapters of this, but it depends on how the rest of the story fleshes out, so it could be longer or shorter. Also, I just adore grumpy old Master Adan, even though he's just a minor bit character. There needs to be more Adan in the DA fanverse. So now there is. Enjoy!


The cells beneath Haven's chantry were cold and cramped, the stone kept perpetually chilled by the frozen earth that surrounded it. Slow-burning braziers trailed tarry smoke along the ceiling and provided some light, but they did little to bring any warmth to the air. This was by design, Leliana knew, glad for her own layers of arming coat, maille, and cloak as she entered the small dungeon and nodded to the soldier who was on duty there. The basement chambers had been intended primarily to store wine, books, parchment, and other things that kept better at cooler temperatures, but a chilly night spent in the cells had likely made more than one penitent rethink their crimes over the centuries.

Until lately, the village had little need for a proper gaol - the cells usually only saw the occasional drunkard or brawler sent down to cool off for a night and face a stern lecture from the Chantry Mother in the morning. Even with the chaos of the Conclave's destruction and the ensuing crisis of the Breach, the cells remained empty. All save one.

"She's not dead," Master Adan remarked without looking up from where he sat to one side of the small space with his vials and potions, squinting in the dim light as he scribbled notes into his ledger. He was not a young man, but not yet old either, his dark hair shorn close to his head and his scruffy growth of beard sporting a streak of grey here and there, and his expression was perpetually set in a look of irritated concentration.

It was the same answer that the gruff alchemist had given her for the last two days. He was no physician, but all of the more experienced healers had died at the Conclave, and so he was the only one competent enough to deal with the aftermath. And, he was right. Though no one had really expected her to survive, his patient was still alive.

What intelligence Leliana had been able to gather quickly had pinpointed the woman as Ser Magna Trevelyan, daughter of a devout and prestigious noble house in Ostwick and a Templar. She had taken her vows just before the mage rebellion had begun in earnest and had disappeared into the chaos of the conflict shortly after, presumed dead until she had stumbled home unexpectedly a month before the Conclave. At the time, she had claimed that her superiors had decided to split from Chantry control and so she had left them to return to her post. As a reward for her loyalty and perseverance, she had been assigned to accompany her great aunt, a prominent Mother in the Ostwick Chantry, to the Conclave as guard and aide - and it was there, apparently, that her true intent had come to light.

"She should be dead," said Cassandra severely, from the archway of the gaol.

Leliana turned to shoot a pointed look behind her at the Navarran Seeker. They had had this discussion several times already since the disaster had occurred. As colleagues of long standing, she was more than familiar with the Seeker's aggressive impatience. The knowledge that they had not been able to protect the Divine weighed heavily on Cassandra, Leliana knew, and that was one more source of fuel for the Seeker's rage.

"We need her," Leliana replied, as she had done many times before, unwilling to argue the issue. The prisoner was the only one who could give them answers. If she lived long enough.

Trevelyan was still unconscious, Leliana quickly noted, though the former Templar's body shivered noticeably on the mat of clean straw in the corner of the cell. She was human, well-built, and otherwise apparently healthy aside from the glowing Mark on her hand and its side-effects. Someone, perhaps Adan out of a sense of professional duty, had gathered her damp, dark blonde hair away from her face and Leliana could see beads of sweat standing out on her skin. The shivering was not from the cold.

"Will she recover?"

Adan looked up at the question, and Leliana could see the weariness and frustration in the lines on his face. The man was doing his best and it was not an easy job they had assigned him. She gentled the severity of her expression to encourage him as he sighed.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Sister. Maybe? The Mark isn't spreading anymore. I don't know if the damage is permanent, though the worst of it looks to be over. Her eyes move, she whimpers nonsense sometimes, which is an improvement. I've done all I can. If anything kills her now, it'll be the lyrium withdrawal." Adan ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair, shaking his head. "Maybe she deserves this, but it'd be kinder and less a waste of my time just to let the Seeker there put a sword through her already and get it over with."

"Thank you. I think we have heard enough," Cassandra interjected stonily, unamused as she turned her dark eyes from the healer to Leliana, guardedly. "Well? What do you think?"

The prisoner's body shuddered, twitching involuntarily as a low groan escaped her lips. Trevelyan's face was deathly pale, as if she were wracked with a terrible fever, and set in an expression of suffering. Leliana had known many Templars - most of them good and faithful men and women who tried to balance vigilance and compassion. Everything she had found so far indicated that woman laying in the cell in front of her had been one of those good Templars once. And now she was a murderer, a heretic, a traitor to every vow she had ever made. She had conspired with enemies unknown to bring about the destruction of the Conclave and many, many people were dead because of it. In the end, she had willingly gone up to the ruins of the Temple and tried to close the Breach, believing that it would likely kill her, but it was too little, too late. She deserved no mercy. And yet expediency demanded it.

"We need her," Leliana said again, finally. "There will be time enough for justice after we know what we're dealing with."

Cassandra nodded, displeased but evidently unable to find fault with the logic. She produced a vial from her belt pouch, handling it carefully, as she gestured for the guard to unlock the cell. Leliana stood by, watching as the Seeker entered the enclosure and knelt over the prone form of the prisoner.

"It is a weak preparation. Cullen indicated that it would be just enough to stabilize the worst effects of withdrawal, but only for a day or so," Cassandra explained, opening the vial and lifting the woman's head just enough to cautiously trickle the glowing lyrium philter down her throat.

The prisoner choked and coughed reflexively, but the liquid stayed down. Within moments, her tremors eased and her breathing began to settle. As Cassandra stood, Trevelyan took a deep breath, her eyelids struggling to open for an instant.

"Samson?" she whispered, her voice hushed, cramped, cracked with strain. Leliana quickly searched her memory for knowledge of that name. It was somewhat familiar, but she could not place where she had heard it before. Before she could attempt a response, Trevelyan's eyes closed again and her head lolled.

Adan cursed and moved quickly past Leliana to kneel down at his patient's side, feeling for a pulse and breath, lifting back her eyelids to check her pupils. After a tense moment, he sat back on his heels, sighing.

"She's alive," he explained curtly, shaking his head. "At least the shaking stopped. I'll send you word if she wakes. Let her rest now."

Exchanging glances, Leliana stood back to allow Cassandra room to exit the cell and then followed her out of the gaol and back towards the stairs.

"And now what do we do with her?" the Seeker asked, glaring straight ahead. "I assume you have something in mind?"

"We need to know what she knows," Leliana explained. They stopped at the foot of the stairs and the Seeker looked back towards the entrance of the gaol, through which they could see Master Adan straightening and going back to his writing, the guard locking the cell door after him with an iron clang. "I will look into the name Samson and see what else I can find out in the meantime. When she is conscious again, we can interrogate her properly."

"She was unwilling to reveal any information before," Cassandra observed, cautiously. "With the Mark no longer spreading, we have no leverage with which to force her cooperation this time."

"Time is of the essence, as you well know. I will see to it that she cooperates," Leliana replied, looking into the Seeker's eyes and seeing the glimmer of recognition there are her meaning registered in Cassandra's mind. She shook her head, "The Mark on her hand is likely the key to closing the Rift permanently. You want to see the Divine's death avenged. So do I. But we have a greater purpose now, one that we may not be able to complete without Trevelyan's help. She will help us, one way or the other."

Before the Right Hand could reply, the Left Hand continued: "The only people who know about her crimes are us, Josephine, Cullen, and the soldiers who were there. Everyone else - all they've heard is the rumor of her being pushed from the rift by Andraste. I've seen to the soldiers. They'll be silent on the matter of the visions at the Temple. Josephine and Cullen will wait for our decision once we have had a chance to question her. She will pay for what she has done, but not while she is still useful. And we must convince her to be useful. I need to know that we are agreed on what must be done before we go any further."

Cassandra glowered back at her for a long moment and then nodded. "I understand. Within reason, I will assist you. But, I assure you, Leliana, that I will see justice for this done in the end whether she is useful or not."

With that, the Seeker turned and stalked up the stairs towards the main Chantry hall, leaving Leliana in the shadows of the cellar to contemplate how best to pull the information she needed from Trevelyan while simultaneously securing the fallen Templar's assistance. She knew, in her heart, that it would not be easy. But what was the suffering of one woman, when thousands of lives rested on the answers she could give?

~~0~~

Consciousness returned suddenly for Magna as a skin-burning splash of near-frozen water hit her face, driving the air from her lungs. She gasped, painfully, trying to draw in a breath even as her chest spasmed to expel it back out again. Her body overbalanced and collapsed forward from her kneeling position onto her forearms. Her wrists were manacled together, unable to catch her fall, and a lightning strike of pain shot through her arms and spine as her elbows impacted the solid stone. A strangled groan escaped her lips.

She was shivering uncontrollably. There was an ache inside of her that seemed to twist tighter and tighter with what felt like every breath. The world that she could not yet open her eyes to throbbed around her dangerously, the metallic scrape of her shackles hurting her ears. The footsteps that circled around her sounded like the tramping of an armored battalion. The air felt as if it were pressing in on her, rubbing painfully against her skin.

The lyrium horrors, she knew immediately, her stomach clenching with misery. She'd experienced it once before, though this was not yet as severe as the three weeks she had spent stumbling through the wilderness, half-delirious and weakened, before Samson had found her. Her body felt heavy, her mind felt heavy - but she could still think. The terrible, maddening need had not yet stolen her mind from her, though memories were terribly confused. She had thought herself already dead, in fact, obliterated in an explosion of green fire. Gritting her teeth, Magna tried to push herself back up from the stone floor, her abused muscles straining to engage.

A hand gripped her tunic at the neck suddenly and pulled her roughly upright onto her knees, and she stifled a grunt of pain and opened her eyes. The torchlight burned into her retinas as if she were staring into the sun, leaving illuminated trails behind that made her dull, insistent headache roar with white-hot agony for an instant.

When the pain cleared, she could dimly make out the stone walls around her. A dark figure moved into her field of vision between her and the torch, the armored greaves and tabard bearing the black and white contrasted image of sword and radiant eye suddenly striking a chord of memory in Magna's brain. This had happened to her before. Almost exactly. Realizing it was disorienting and terrifying, in that she could now not be sure whether she truly was awake or if she was asleep and wrapped in a nightmare. Or, more worryingly, if her mind was more warped by the withdrawal than she had thought.

"Is it over?" she croaked as the image of the hideous Breach - like a gangrenous sore on the roof of the world - returned to her along with scattered, fleeting memories of terrified faces, people running, her left hand crackling with sinister green energy that burned her body like magefire. Her palm flamed to life, glowing, sparking, in her distress.

She remembered a woman's dark-eyed face scowling at her, demanding that she account for all of this. That face lowered itself before her again now, crouching to look her directly in the eyes. Magna could only stare back in horror, her nerves thrumming, trying to determine whether this reprisal was truly happening or a cruel hallucination. Let it be a dream. Let me wake up back in my tent on the road, with the Conclave before me and no explosion and no Seeker demanding answers. Let it be over!

"That depends on you," the Seeker's sharply accented voice rapped out, tersely, too real to be a figment of her addled brain. "We saw the visions at the Temple. We saw you there, in service to the monster that is the cause of all of this. Tell me who you serve."

The demand hit Magna like a physical blow, reminding her of the phantom images of herself, blade drawn at the Elder One's side. She could remember nothing after that, but the events of the past few weeks spread back out into her mind like a blanket of anguish. She had failed. She had failed the Elder One and her brothers of the new Order. Worst of all, she had failed Samson, and thinking of that made her heart clench with despair more severe even than the aching horror that she was already suffering.

She could not remember how or what had happened during the ritual, but clearly something had gone wrong. This could not have been what the Elder One intended. She looked down at the glowing sigil on her trembling palm and swallowed. Somehow, it must have been her fault. She could think of no other reason why she remained alive and branded with a magic so alien that it dwarfed anything she had ever seen in the mages at the Circle in Ostwick. The others - the strange, foreign Venatori soldiers that had accompanied the Elder One and who had clearly not been Templars like her - had perished. As for the Elder One himself, what mere mortal could say? He was not yet a god, but he was not quite mortal either. The thought of it, and the fate that surely awaited her if she ever came within his gaze again, filled her with gut wrenching dread.

You'll do fine, Samson had told her, clapping her on her shoulders as she had prepared to return to Ostwick to reconnect with the Chantry and set the groundwork for her larger mission. His haggard face had had a gleam of pride to it as he'd smiled at her. She had been his aide and protege for most of a year by then. I'm sending my best. Those Chantry bastards won't know what hit them until the deed is already done.

She had sworn, then, in her heart, that she would not disappoint him. Samson had saved her life. When he had found her, she had been lost - both in body and in spirit - mired in the horrors of lyrium withdrawal, too weak to fight on, and unmoored from the institutions that had governed her entire existence since childhood forward. He had rescued her. He had given her both a hand up and a new purpose to serve. And she had failed him.

The Seeker was glaring at her, waiting, and Magna bowed her head. She was a dead woman no matter what happened now. Even if they didn't execute her - and how could they not? - the lyrium sickness would carry her off raving and demented in the end. Even if she escaped before that happened and returned, the Elder One would destroy her for her incompetence. The only thing she could do now was decide how she wanted to meet her end.

Remember, she heard Samson say in her mind now, remembering the vehemence in his words on the night she had thrown her lot in with his Red Templars, they used you, discarded you, and hundreds of Templars like you. You gave them your mind and your body, and they made you a prisoner just as much as the mages. Never forget that. They're not your masters anymore.

"No," she replied, hoarsely, into the silence of the chamber. She owed the Chantry nothing now. There was no Maker. There was no Andraste looking down from the Fade. She didn't know whether or not the Elder One would have mercy on her soul when he had achieved his godhood, but her last act in this life would not be to betray Samson and the other Templars of the Red Order. Of that much she was resolved.

The Seeker's expression creased into a scowl, her voice turning contemptuous. "Hundreds died at the Conclave. Thousands more will die due to the chaos you have helped create. And even now, when you have seen this with your own eyes, you will refuse to help end it?"

But Magna had said all that she was willing to say. She closed her eyes, calling up all of her reserves of will as she tried to focus her mind and turn it once more into the fortress that her training had made it. Everything she had believed in as a Templar might have been wrong, but the discipline was hers still. Without the lyrium in her blood to quiet the hunger, it was difficult, but she would try anyway. Whatever happened next, she would bear it in silence. It was the best she could do now.

"You were a Templar once. You swore oaths to protect the innocent. You swore oaths to defend the faithful from the dangers of magic," the Seeker accused,severely.

Magna withheld a gasp as the woman snatched the front of her tunic, dragging her back upright from where she had bowed. She could feel the Seeker's face close to hers, the heat of her skin - blushing with anger - inches from Magna's own, but she kept her eyes firmly shut as the grip moved to her throat and tightened.

"If that means nothing to you now, then tell me, at least, what has taken the place of justice and peace and faith in your corrupted mind? If not who, then what do you serve? What do you value so highly, that it is worth the blood of thousands?"

Hear my cry, guide me through the blackest nights, Magna recited in her mind, beginning the ancient meditative prayer as her breath constricted and the edges of the darkness behind her eyelids began to grey. They were the words of Andraste - who was not the Bride but only a woman long dead - but they were the words she knew by heart. She had recited them every day as she learned to quiet her mind and steel her will in order to bear the trials of Templar life. Though she no longer believed in the Maker, the words had not left her. She knew no others. And so she let the familiar ritual carry her through, beginning the process of divorcing her mind from the pains of the body. Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked.

"Cassandra," another voice warned, this one fluid and Orlesian, but also feminine. The grip on her throat held, squeezing tighter for a moment, and then Magna felt it release. Her body choked for breath reflexively, but her mind remained steady. Make me to rest in the warmest places.

There was movement around her, the brief conferring of voices, but she was beyond that now. Though she could feel the ache and tremble of her limbs, the prickling of her skin, the rapid patter of her heart, she was beginning to drift outside of it. The pounding in her temples began to slow and fade. See me kneel. For I walk only where you would bid me.

"Let's try this again," the Orlesian voice continued after a moment of silence, its tone warm, unconcerned, unemotional. The woman was in front of her somewhere, but Magna did not open her eyes. She would not let herself be fooled. Stand only in places that you have blessed.

Warm skin touched her hands briefly. Strong arms gripped her under each arm, lifting her to her feet and raising her bound wrists above her head, fastening them to what felt like a chain. A pang of fear momentarily seized Magna's belly, as she realized what was about to happen to her, but she forced it down, forced her mind back to the soothing familiarity of the verses. Sing only the words that you place in my throat.

"I have been keeping an eye on your recovery while you have been asleep," the Orlesian continued, moving about the room. It was impossible to tell the exact direction the words came from, as the sound echoed on the stones. "I know that you are disoriented. You are afraid. It will have been some time since your last dose of lyrium. I know that you are in pain."

Know my heart, Magna forced out in her mind, though these words came harder and with greater effort. The voice's soft assurance cut through into her thoughts in a way that the Seeker's barrage had not, the mention of her pain making it suddenly real again as she struggled to leave it behind.

"There is no need for all this unpleasantness. I have a few simple questions, and then you can go back to your cell. You will be given food, and enough lyrium to make you comfortable. You can rest. It will all be over."

Magna felt her insides twist sharply within her as the cruel possibility of relief was presented. Sweat was already dripping down her arms and down her chest and back under her tunic. Her body felt inflamed. Take me from a life of sorrow, she intoned, her parched lips moving to physically shaping the words so that they could emit no others and betray her.

"I want to know about this Elder One," her tormenter told her, reasonably. The woman was close to her now, the voice emanating from a place near her right ear, it's fluid syllables soft and unthreatening while still sending a chill through Magna's bones. "That is an easy question. If you regard him so highly, then you will surely wish to brag of his accomplishments. Who is he?"

Judge me worthy of your endless pride. Magna kept silent. She would be worthy. Even in these last hours - especially in her last hours - she would be worthy of the second chance she had been given. Her eyes closed tighter. Her lips shaped the next words - judge me whole - and she hoped in the way only the condemned can that it would be true and she would be judged for her steadfast loyalty as much as her failures.

A hand wrapped around her hair, pulling her head firmly back as something - a thick strap, she thought - was slipped around her neck. Panic suffused her, scrabbling against the underside of Magna's skin as she felt the strap tighten, but she forced herself to remain still. Iron tines dug cruelly into the underside of her chin and the top of her breastbone, cold and unforgiving. Her chin was stretched upward at an angle that made it difficult to breath, and she could not lower it without putting painful pressure on the prongs.

"The Heretic's Fork," the smooth voice explained without either malice or sympathy. "Fitting for a woman who has betrayed her sacred vows and murdered the Most Holy."

Find me well within your grace. This was only the beginning, Magna knew. Stories of what the Seekers did to wayward Templars had been legendary in the Order. She felt a trickle of blood begin to slide down her throat as the sharp points of the fork pressed and scratched against her skin. Blossoms of pain radiated from the corresponding points on her chest, magnified by her already distressed body.

"There is still time to walk away from this," the torturer soothed at her, as other hands began to cut away her tunic, baring her to the waist. Her cheek flinched, her eyes opening automatically as she felt a blistering heat appear a mere inches from her face. Her eyes took in the terror of a red-hot point of iron so close to her cheek that she could barely see its tip in the edge of her vision. Blue eyes in a woman's lovely face watched her with preternatural calm from behind the brand's glowing threat. The woman smiled. "A few words will suffice. Who can they hurt now? But withholding them will hurt you. I can assure you that."

Touch me with fire that I may be cleansed, Magna continued, closing her eyes tightly and preparing herself for what she knew was coming. An instant later, she felt the scorching pain of the burning iron as it grazed the flesh of her left shoulder blade and clamped her teeth shut immediately to cut off her strangled cry. Her lungs heaved, unable to draw enough breath through her nose and constricted throat, unable to open her mouth without pain from the fork. Her body tried to twist away reflexively, but she could get no purchase either to move forward or back. She was stretched now beyond her full height, her weight uncomfortably on her wrists and shoulders, making it harder to maintain the extension of her neck forced by the fork. The trickle of blood that had begun to pool the hollow of her throat was joined by a second slow rivulet.

"What of Samson then? What would he think, to see you like this?"

Tell me I have sung to your approval. Tears sprung to her eyes as she struggled to lift herself up on the pads of her bare feet enough to fill her lungs with air and take the pressure off her neck and shoulders. Samson would honor her sacrifice. He would avenge her. He would take this as evidence of what he already knew to be true - the callous disregard of the Chantry for its once-faithful Templars. In suffering this, in dying well, she would perhaps earn his forgiveness.

The next touch of the iron was worse, the full length of the brand rather than merely the tip. It pressed mercilessly to the small of her back, overwhelming all other thoughts and ripping a bellow of pain from her throat. The fork worked its way deeper under her skin, the blood welling up from the wounds in earnest now. Her body arched and writhed and clenched, unable to avoid the torment. Her lungs felt as if they might burst. The smell of her own seared flesh reached her and her stomach heaved, bile rising into her throat.

Hear my cry. Sobbing for breath,she no longer cared to whom the prayer rose, if to anyone. Her legs and knees were weakening beneath her, tiring as she strained to breath, her shoulders feeling as if they were being pulled apart. Her chest was now covered with her own blood, the coppery smell filling her nose.

"You can stop this," the Orlesian told her dispassionately, as the brand was applied once again to her back, longer this time, dredging another torturous roar from the bottom of Magna's lungs and embedding the fork solidly into the thin flesh over her collar bone. "You can still make this right. All you have to do is tell me why you were at the Conclave. What purpose would sacrificing the Divine have served?"

As the torture continued, Magna was dimly aware that the edges of her vision were beginning to close in and whiten. The muscles of her neck and shoulders no longer had the power to hold her chin up. The fork rested against bone, her neck still extended at a painful angle but every breath now sending a wracking ache through her clavicles, shoulder, and sternum. It seemed to be happening to someone else. She seemed to float outside of herself, watching, as the irons were heated, applied, removed, and heated again. The anguished cries, the tears, the blood, the knees collapsing under her and throwing her full weight onto raw and bleeding wrists - they were all hers. The body that was suffering was hers. But her mind had retreated somewhere else.

Time seemed to lose its meaning. The individual burns, the voices, bled into each other and Magna felt as if she were slowly slipping under water, the surface of an ocean of pain and sorrow closing over her head and pulling her down and down. Seat me by your side in death, she thought, letting the words comfort her. Her thoughts were becoming muddled, her ability to remember the chant confused. What little energy she had had to resist the pain was now depleted. Her body gave up the fight at last, hanging limply, the strap around her neck choking tighter and finally cutting off her breath. Her heart pounded in her ears, her lungs burned, but she could not stop it. She waited, as the darkness began to creep up around her and pull her into its embrace.

It took Magna a moment to realize that the torture had stopped. Hands pulled her up, and the strap that had bound the heretic's fork in place loosened, allowing her to breathe again - her body drawing in the cold air of the dungeon with an agonized whoop. She could summon no sound, either of relief or pain as her head was tipped further back and the heretic's fork was removed, though the tines had sunk into her flesh up to their hilts and hurt abominably as they were drawn out. Her head sagged forward on her injured neck. She no longer had the strength to lift it.

"Your devotion to your cause is impressive," the woman told her. Magna's eyes opened, glazed and unfocused, and she made out the outline of the same pale face, blue eyes and red hair she had seen before. "Why did you stray? What was it that turned you to the Elder One and away from the Maker? Will you tell me that, at least?"

Magna let the silence bathe her again. She could not have replied if she had wanted to, but how could you describe betrayal so complete that it wiped away everything you had thought true in the whole of your life? Though her lungs could draw air again, her heart was still gradually slowing. With the blood she had lost, she truly might be dying now. Her body welcomed it. Her mind could no longer summon the fear of oblivion and punishment, and welcomed it, too.

The Seeker reappeared, her expression severe and solemn. One of the soldiers who held her lifted Magna's abused and bloodied chin back, and she did not resist. If they cut her throat, it would be relief at this point. If there was more pain to be inflicted, she would bear that, too, until it was over. She no longer cared.

Her mouth was opened and the bitter and achingly familiar taste of a lyrium philter reached her tongue. Moments later, the relief hit her like rain on the sands of a dry desert, and within a few seconds more, she realized that something was wrong. The lyrium was too strong, more concentrated than either the working dose she had been given when hunting maleficar in the wildlands of the Marches or the potent drafts that the Red Templars had used. It flooded her body, relieving the hurt of the hunger, dulling the pain of her injuries, suffusing her with power and blue light where there had been only suffering and darkness, but it confused and agitated her, too. Her heart thundered again with its rush like a cavalry charge. Why this?, she wondered, her thoughts struggling through the addling effects of the torture and the lyrium. Why now?

The Seeker had drawn back a few paces, but her gaze had remained steadfastly on Magna. The Orlesian torturer returned to stand next the the Seeker, the hands that had wracked Magna with agony minutes before now folded carefully across the woman's chainmail hauberk.

"I give you one more chance, Ser Trevelyan," the Seeker told her, harshly, but there was something else in her voice. Regret? Resignation? Magna could not summon the energy to puzzle it out. She waited. "Tell us what you know of the Elder One, of the Conclave. Help us end the crisis of the Breach. I cannot promise you mercy before whatever court tries you. But I give you this chance to save your soul by saving others. Redeem yourself here at the last. Help us."

Somewhere, Magna knew, Samson was regrouping, planning, and finding a way through this unexpected accident. Word would have gotten to him by now. She wondered if he knew she was alive, if that part of the story had been spread or if he assumed her dead along with the others. She wondered if the others, the men and women who had become her family in this last year, would mourn her loss. They would, just as she would have mourned them. Samson would. She barely remembered her own family, whom she had seen but seldom since she had been sent to the Chantry for education and training in early childhood. They had been veritable strangers to her when she had returned to Ostwick. The Red Templars were her brothers and sisters now. In the span of a year, Samson had been more father to her than her own had ever been.

Let him think me already dead, she thought as she exerted the very last of her will - fed by the rush of the lyrium - to slowly stand, forcing her feet to support her. She looked full into the Seeker's gaze as much as the blood and sweat that was running into her eyes would allow her to. Let him think it was painless and quick. Let his secrets die with me, so that my brothers and sisters in arms will prevail. Let me die standing, a true Templar and not a slave.

"No," she declared into the stale air of the dungeon.

The pain that hit her next was instantaneous and complete. The Seeker's body began to crackle with blue energy, haloing her like the fiery corona of an eclipse. Magna felt her body explode with agony, muscles jerked rigid, her bones seeming to try and pull themselves apart. The lyrium in her blood, once sweet relief, became a literal fire in her veins, burning her from within and overwhelming sight, sound, and feeling. She felt as if all the power of the blast, all the death and suffering that had been inflicted by the explosion at the Temple, were focused on a place in the core of her being in one single moment. Her mouth opened in a screaming rictus from which no sound could escape, and the blackness of the Void snapped closed around Magna at last.

~~0~~

"Maker's breath, not again," Master Adan shouted, crossly, swearing under his breath and slamming his notebook shut as Cullen approached the entrance to the gaol, his footsteps echoing on the stone. "Three days I spent putting her back together last time, only for you to come down here and burn her half to death. I'm not doing it again. I -"

The alchemist stopped mid-tirade as he looked up into Cullen's face, his bushy black brows arching in surprise. His arm had been about to stab meaningfully in Cullen's direction, but it dropped to his side.

"Oh. General. I thought you were the Sister."

"Can't say I get that often," Cullen replied, attempting humor to try to put the man at ease, though there was nothing about the situation that was humorous. Tensions were running high all over Haven. Outbursts of all kinds were becoming common, and he couldn't fault the alchemist for this particular grievance. "But I'm glad not to be if that's what's in store for her."

In truth, he was angry, too. He hadn't believed the rumor that was going around among his contingent of ex-Templars. Leliana had used her people for the interrogation detail, not his and there were all sorts of wild speculation going on about the woman in the cells beneath the Chantry. But a nagging concern had prompted him to seek out the guard that had stood outside of the prison chamber, and then the full story had come out. The account that the man gave - of the torture, of Trevelyan's resistance, of Cassandra using her Seeker's gift to set the lyrium in the prisoner's blood aflame - sickened him. As it did the other Templars who had left Kirkwall with him, who could imagine the horror of it happening to them and now seemed less certain of their decision to stay.

Do you have any idea what you've done? What moral authority can we have if we stoop to torture? he had railed at Cassandra and Leliana in the council chamber that evening, stalking before the war table. The Seeker had stood by, seething, but silent in the face of his impassioned harangue. The ambassador, Josephine, remained quiet on the sidelines with a serious expression, but she, too, was clearly troubled.

What choice do we have? Leliana had shot back, defensively. We have no leads to pursue. If she will not cooperate, how can we move forward?

He had wanted to shake her then, to make her see the damage she had inflicted - not just on the one person who might be able to stop the Breach, but on the morale of the troops who would surely hear about this.

The Chantry's abuse of the Templar's dependency on lyrium was one of the touchstones that had caused so many to turn from the Order and the Chantry to begin with. To use that as a method of torture - to deny lyrium until the hunger was strong, then give relief from the devouring need just to use it as yet another method of inflicting pain - was both heinous and stupid. It could have killed Trevelyan outright in her weakened state. If the torture had not broken the woman's mind entirely, she would certainly never trust the Chantry or anyone associated with it again. The interrogation had yielded no information, besides. It had been useless, as torture so often was. In the end, at his vehement insistence, Leliana and Cassandra had agreed that this would never be repeated. The prisoner would be treated humanely, whatever her crimes. They would find another way.

Cullen glanced from Adan to the occupied cell at the back of the prison chamber. Crouched against the back wall in the shadows, he could make out the form of a woman, kneeling, her head bowed as if in prayer or meditation. The image of it brought back an unpleasant flash in his mind - the Ferelden Circle, himself as a young Templar kneeling in a cage of magical energy, praying for mercy or death or anything to save him from the ravages that had been inflicted upon his mind. He suppressed a shudder and turned back to Adan.

"Is there any permanent damage?"

"You mean aside from the magical Mark on her hand that could kill her at any moment for all I know?" Adan replied, gruffly, but he shrugged. "No. She'll have the scars as a reminder, but nothing serious." His expression darkened. "Nothing physical anyway."

Cullen winced. The worst scars never are physical, he thought and nodded. "I'll speak with her. If she's stable, you can go about your other duties. We can take it from here."

The alchemist eyed him cautiously. "I mean it, General. I'm not going to keep patching her up just so the Sister and Seeker Cassandra can knock her back down. I'm no bleeding heart healer, but even I've got limits. It isn't right."

"Believe me, I know," Cullen agreed, looking the man in the eyes and nodding. "It won't happen again. I intend to see to that."

Satisfied, the Adan returned the nod curtly and gathered his kit and books, trudging out of the gaol as if he couldn't wait to be back up in the sunlight again. Cullen waited until he was gone and then glanced at the guard who was on duty.

"A moment alone," he told the soldier, who only hesitated briefly before saluting and walking outside the chamber.

Trevelyan had not moved since he had first seen her. She was kneeling, sitting back on her heels, her back bent, her head bowed, hands resting palm up in her lap as if in defeated supplication. The mark was quiescent on her left hand, but it still glowed a faint green in the darkness of the cell A curtain of dark honey-colored hair obscured her face. She did not look up or give any indication that she had heard him approach. Someone had put clean clothes on her, at least, Cullen obseved. A wooden plate with a half loaf of bread and a cup of water sat untouched on the stone floor.

It was a pitiful sight, despite what she had done. He had seen Trevelyan once before in the valley below the Temple. She had been with Cassandra, Varric, and the apostate Solas as they forged their way towards the Breach. Still wearing the armor of the Order, she had fought admirably and without reservation at the Seeker's side. He had found that curious for a heretic, and had held out hope briefly that it was all a mistake - that she was not the one responsible for the catastrophe. Trevelyan had been silent as he had paused to confer with Cassandra, but she had met his gaze briefly, her green eyes tired and stoic and sad. He had been struck by how young she seemed - not much older than he had been at the time of Uldred's Rebellion at the Ferelden Circle. He had hoped, then, that she would survive and clear her name. His prayer had only partially been answered. She was alive, but it was a broken woman that he looked at now. Though her guilt was established, he could not help but feel sorry for her.

"My name is Ser Cullen Rutherford," he told her, drawing up the stool that Adan had been sitting on to sit closer to the bars of her cell. "We met briefly, but I don't know how much you might remember of that day."

Trevelyan remained absolutely still and silent. He might as well have been talking to a statue. Cullen had expected as much, however. He forged on.

"I won't blame you if you choose not to speak to me," he assured her, making an effort to keep his tone polite and non-threatening. "I wanted to come and see for myself that you were recovering after your ordeal."

There were so many questions he wanted to ask her. How had she come to this? What cause did she serve that she was prepared to die for it? Why had she willingly gone to the Breach to try and end it, if she was part of its cause to begin with? But he knew, having been in her place, that asking would only making her retreat further in. It would damage her further, and they could not afford that now.

Leliana had given him the dossier she had prepared on Trevelyan. She had been even younger than he was when she was sent away to a Chantry school to begin her training. In all her years as a recruit, there had never been so much as a complaint against her. She had, in fact, received commendations for her superiors for her bravery and dedication. She had been hunting maleficar when the rebellion had occurred - a job not entrusted lightly. There had been half a dozen Templars on that detachment and she was the only one known to have survived. That had been more than a year ago now. What had happened in the intervening time was anyone's guess.

Better than most, Cullen understood why she might have defected to some other cause. He had left the Order himself and come here to the Inquisition, but what had been out there waiting for her when her faith had failed? That was the real question. They might never know now. Perhaps that was beside the point now anyway. Whoever she was protecting, she was clearly willing to suffer and die to do so. Going up against that level of loyalty or fear directly would never work. But it might work in their favor, too, if it could be channeled to their ends.

"I was a Templar like you not long ago," Cullen told her, feeling out the words as he said them. He had gone over and over in his mind what he could say that Trevelyan might respond, too. Cassandra had railed at her, tried to arouse her sense of fear and shame. Leliana had tortured her. The only thing left to do was appeal to the her conscience. She would not have agreed to help at the Temple if there was not a part of her that was horrified by the suffering and death that surrounded them. And so the words that would reach her in her mental hell had to come from his heart. He abandoned his speeches, shaking his head. "I can't know what happened to you to bring you here. I don't expect you to tell me. But I hope that you will listen to what I have to say."

It could have been his imagination, but Cullen thought he glimpsed just the briefest movement of Trevelyan's hands. He could feel her listening, though she said nothing, and that bolstered his resolve.

"Outside of these walls, there is chaos. There are people who are dying. Mages, templars, nobles, commonfolk. We receive reports daily of rifts to the Fade opening in towns and farmland and countryside and demons pouring out. You know, as I do, what that means."

He shook his head, frowning as he searched for the words. "Whatever you think of the Chantry, whatever you think of the Order – and whatever you have come to think of us – I will not believe that this is what you want. I think you understand, as I do, that what is happening out there is wrong. An accident. A mistake. If the master you serve is worthy of your loyalty, he would not make you a party of this destruction willingly."

With a deep breath, he gathered himself for the final push.

"You alone seem to have the power to close the rifts. We cannot do it without you. And so all that I ask of you, Ser Magna, is that you help us close the rifts before more innocent people die. Nothing else is more important than that."

For a long breathless moment, Cullen waited. Just when he was sure that she was too far gone, his heart sinking in disappointment, she stirred. Her head lifted, her hair falling back from her face. He could see two ugly scars on her throat beneath her chin, imperfectly healed though Adan had done his best. Green eyes met his, and he felt his heart ache for what he saw there. There was suffering, fear, exhaustion, and perhaps the edge of madness – but there was a deep sadness as well, and an abiding shame.

"Will you help us?" he asked, pressing her for an answer now that he knew he had her attention. She stared at him for a moment, and then exhaled deeply.

"I will help you close the rifts," she told him, slowly, as if uncertain that her voice still worked. "I will try to save what lives I can. I will not betray those that sent me here. I will answer no questions."

"That is enough," Cullen replied, nodding solemnly, though mentally he sent his relieved thanks up to the Maker. "I will speak with the others and we will make arrangements for your release. You have my word that you will be treated fairly. Thank you."

She nodded before bowing her head once more, and Cullen saw her Marked hand squeeze closed tightly as he rose to leave. Welcome to the Inquisition, he thought as he turned to exit the prison, heading immediately to the council chamber, Herald of Andraste.