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A Templar Unbound
By Cenowar

"I've never told anyone what truly happened to me at Ferelden's Circle. I was… not myself, after that. I was angry. For years, that anger blinded me. I'm not proud of the man that made me."
- Cullen, Dragon Age: Inquisition

Chapter One
A Ritual of Favours

The stars above Skyhold weren't as clear or bright as they had once seemed.

Commander Cullen stared up into the night, a cool breeze catching him as it rose across the mountains and over the battlements, and he let out a quiet sigh. He should feel at ease, he told himself. While Corypheus's defeat had come at no small price, it was finally over — for now. He should be celebrating with the others, enjoying the victory of the Inquisition's plight, perhaps even being tempted to another round of Wicked Grace, if Varric got his way.

But, no. He was here, standing against the cold stone of the battlements and staring out into the endless mountains. Alone.

She had told him to meet her here, at this time, to avoid the prying eyes of those whose business should be elsewhere. Yet as Cullen stood and waited, a sense of unease began to creep over him, like small, invisible tendrils of cold piercing through his chest. This, what he was doing here tonight, was wrong. He suspected it was not unlike how he would feel if he were to make a deal with a demon. Oh, such irony. Fate was cruel.

Shoulders square and back straight, he braced himself against the crenellated wall and hardened his resolve: he had not spent the years since Kinloch Hold and Kirkwall infiltrating the Inquisition for nothing.

Cullen's fingers flexed against the stone under his grip, hard beneath his gloves. She should be here by now.

As though on cue he felt a pair of eyes upon him, the way one might feel a knife in the dark, and he turned to see the dark shadow of a cat slinking along the battlement's walls. With a cursory glance to the courtyard, to make sure they were alone, Cullen shifted his footing but did not turn to face her.

"I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind," he said into the empty air, taken aback by how the words came to him. Perhaps he should not be surprised by how easy it was to live in the shadows.

"And miss the chance to see a templar fall?" The voice was mocking, curved with a smile that was sharp as a blade. "That would be a grave mistake indeed."

Where once a sleek, black cat had sat, there now stood a woman, tall, slender, and laced with mystery.

Cullen gave Morrigan a swift glare. "I am not a templar," he reminded her. "I gave up that life a long time ago."

"Ah yes. The captain, torn from his righteous tower of persecution by the power-hungry mistress." Morrigan smiled a small, dark smile. "How you've changed from that boy we found shackled in the tower, surrounded by abominations, so long ago."

Cullen didn't care to keep the acid out of his voice — he would take a Tower of abominations over what he was about to do, any day. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Such a rush! Waited long enough, have you?"

"Look, do you have the Sphere or not?"

Morrigan's smile faded, but the fire and laughter in her eyes could not be quelled even by Cullen's fierce words. "I do. Follow me then, templar, if you wish. I do hope you know what you are doing."

-x-

When he had first read of the Dema Sphere, he had known, even then, that it was more than just a myth. At the time he couldn't explain it — the knowledge that he was reading about a forgotten relic, rather than a historical fable, had gripped him as tightly as a fist around his heart. An orb with the power to reshape the world; it was the kind of thing from children's stories, and yet…

The dusty tome had lain in the archives of Ferelden's Circle Tower, secreted away by the First Enchanter so that unwitting eyes wouldn't ever stumble across it. Cullen had been far too junior within the Order to really understand what he was reading at the time, but the knowledge of it had stayed with him, like music he couldn't quite get out of his head.

It wasn't until after he was sent away that he realised why.

After Uldred's uprising within the tower, something within Cullen had snapped — some branch of his morality, of his faith, had given out that night, and though he had reshaped himself since then, when a heart twists, even when it's rebuilt, it is never quite the same again. Everywhere he went, mages mutated from people into demons, or they were simply empty shells that could at any moment become demons, and she, the one who had slipped through his fingers like precious water in an oasis of dry, stark land, she too was the epitome of his nightmares. In some ways, she was the worst. The fact that a mage, of all things, had escaped his grasp so completely unsettled him. He had not heard of her since the night she had left the Tower, but his imagination had provided him with many creative possibilities.

She could be dead, he had rationalised. Dead, or a blood mage, or an abomination. Hundreds of nights he had spent torturing himself with what she could have become, and even more days he had lost in trying to find her. Never once was he successful, and so, in her absence, he had sought the Dema Sphere, which sang to him like a siren in his dreams when he had most needed a lifeline to reach for.

It had taken him years of dead ends, lost rumours and clandestine meetings before he had learnt its likely whereabouts. The irony of the fact that it was heavily guarded by magics only the most ancient of mages could invoke was not lost on him. A templar alone would never have been able to reach it, even if he'd found it, and the magic taught in each of the Circles throughout Thedas wasn't old enough to break the protections.

But there was more to the mages of Thedas — and the templars too — than could be kept in books; there were secrets that been lost, magics that were forbidden, and those whose stories were better left untold.

Morrigan, a Witch of the Wilds, was one such secret.

The room she took him to was cold, draughty, and felt like a part of the stronghold that had always been forgotten or overlooked. It was the kind of place you would build from the corner of your eye. At the end of the room stood the infamous Eluvian, whose stories of ancient magics unsettled Cullen more than he would like to admit. He liked things he could touch, forms he could remember, and it was why even now what he was doing felt like little more than a dream.

To have spent so long searching for the Sphere only to be within inches of it now…

"We have a deal, then, do we not?" Morrigan said, stirring him from his thoughts. She leaned casually against the wall, her arms folded, her eyes wicked in the torchlight as she watched him, and Cullen could not escape the feeling that he had somewhere along his journey become her prey.

He felt his mouth go dry. Flashes of memory — of red-gold ringlets, and a laugh that sent a shiver down his spine — made him shake his head to clear it. If he wanted what he had lost, he didn't have a choice.

Morrigan was expectant. "Well?"

Cullen closed his eyes. "If you have the Sphere, I promise you and your boy protection from the Inquisition for as long as I remain here," he agreed, the words like ash in his mouth. Maker forgive what he was about to do.

"Excellent. In that case, we shall begin."

-x-

There was nothing.

It was not only dark, but it was empty, cold. Cullen blinked, but it seemed to make no difference — he couldn't even make out his hand in front of his face.

"Hello?"

The word came out as heavy as stone, and it fell into the nothingness like lead. He took a step forwards, or tried to, but couldn't tell the ground beneath his feet from the air around him. Everywhere he looked there was inky black, like a sky without stars. Like a sky that had never had stars.

"Morrigan? Are you — are you there?"

Maker, he sounded as uncertain as a young boy.

From the darkness, a flash of orange light flared up, and it was blinding. Cullen covered his eyes with his arm as his gaze adjusted to the dim light. It was a candle flame, he realised. And, in front of it, the dancing shadows of Morrigan's eyes.

"Do not be afraid," she said softly, holding the candle towards him. "We are in a world rarely trodden by mortals."

The reality of what he had just entered into settled in the pit of Cullen's stomach, pulling at his confidence as though dragging him beneath the surface of a still, cool lake. He took a steadying breath, and looked around him. There was still darkness in every direction, and the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

"What did you — Are we still at Skyhold?" he asked, at a loss for the answers he wracked his mind for.

Morrigan gave a delicate laugh which was as cold as the chill on his arm. "To ask such a question is very…" Her eyes caught his, amber in the glow of the candle, alive with the ghosts of ancient magic. "Human," she finished, with an amused smile. "Do you really want to know, or would you rather I told you a story?"

Cullen swallowed. "Is this what the Sphere does?"

"Now there's a more sensible question. The answer is no, but it's closer to the truth than your other. Come with me, templar — the answers you seek are not far."

Though the world they were in seemed formless, and lacked shape or substance, Morrigan began to walk away from him. The candle's light left a trail of fire in the sky that hung in the air like mist, and caught Cullen's curiosity as though he were little more than a helpless moth. He followed, his steps seemingly endless in the dark.

"This is … not what I was expecting," he admitted, as he glanced around them. The inky blackness was everywhere he looked; he could feel it pressing against his limbs, seeping into his lungs as he breathed, tangling itself in his mind. It was a very surreal experience, and one that did little to calm the trepidation of his heart.

There was a smile on Morrigan's words as she spoke, "You sought a magic that was older than the earth itself. It's no surprise you were not prepared for what was to come."

"Older than the world itself? How is that even possible?"

"Many things are possible if asked for at the right price. Tell me." She looked back over her shoulder. "Why do you seek the Dema Sphere?"

Cullen's mouth became a hard line in his jaw, and he could feel the tension at his shoulders crackle down his back. "I have spent my life cast out of others' shadows, or forgotten by those who should remember me. Though I admit I'm more motivated by curiosity, now, than anger — I have still spent years wondering whether things would be different if I'd only saved her."

"'Her'?" One of Morrigan's dark eyebrows arched into a neat curve. "You do surprise me, Commander. I had not perceived you to be so easily swayed by whisperings of the heart."

"It's…" Cullen cleared his throat. "It's not as simple as that."

"It rarely is."

Though he could barely make out her actions, Cullen watched as Morrigan paused, and looked around where they stood.

"Yes…" she said distantly, almost to herself. "This will do. Here." She handed him the candle, and proceeded to sit at a bench that seemed to have been summoned out of thin air. In front of her was a table, black, cast iron and heavy, upon which she motioned for Cullen to place the candle. He was surprised to see a large glass orb sitting in the centre, that seemed, though he knew such a notion was foolish, to be waiting. For him.

At Morrigan's motion, Cullen took a seat opposite her. The impossibility of it all unsettled him, and he expected at any moment to wake from a dream.

"This," Morrigan spoke with reverence, placing her hands on the table, "is the Dema Sphere."

Cullen frowned. "Are you sure? It seems very unlikely that it would just… be sitting here."

"The Sphere isn't bound to the physical world as you are I are," she went on, as though she hadn't heard him. "There is a reason our books steeped such an item in mythology. Truly, you were the last person I expected to take an interest in it."

"Oh?" There was a hint of ice to his voice — Cullen did not appreciate being spoken to in such a patronising manner, though on the other hand, he supposed he deserved it.

"The kinds of people who become templars shy away from magic, especially magic which is both old and strong. They are ruled by fear, and it weakens them their entire lives." Morrigan regarded him across the candle flame with a level gaze. "It is surprising how quickly you turned from the path you walked for so long."

"I joined the templars to help people," he insisted, leaning forward towards the flame. "To make a better world. To protect the innocent, and to serve the Maker. The templars took a path I could… no longer walk. But my reasons for joining remain the same as I feel now."

A long moment stretched between them in which Morrigan did not take her gaze from him, and once again Cullen found himself feeling like she would at any moment swoop him into her talons and carry him off to Maker knew where. In one way, she had already done just that, and the thought that he was now helpless to the trappings of a mage instilled a strange kind of fear in him. She was right, in a way: he had come very far from the path he first walked.

"What do I do?" he asked, his gaze falling to the Sphere. It was as dull and unremarkable as the darkness around them.

"You do nothing, except understand that once you begin down this new path, everything will change."

"…Everything?"

"And at the same time, nothing will change."

Cullen lifted his gaze to Morrigan's watchful eyes. "I don't understand."

"Then I will explain it for you, in words even you will understand." She placed a hand over the orb between them, her expression brooking no doubt of the severity of what he was asking. "You want to know how the world might be if things were different. That is what the Sphere will give to you. No more, no less. For a time, you will walk in another's shoes, breathe as another does, and live, dream and feel as another goes about his life. This other is not you, and will never be you. You cannot undo what has led you to where you are today. Such magic would threaten the stability of the world, and you would be hunted as Corypheus once was."

Despite himself, Cullen felt a tremor in his chest. "So this… this won't change anything?"

"You will have knowledge of what never was." Morrigan sat back, her interest in her warning forgotten. "How much or little that changes, will be up to you."

Cullen stared forward, into the silent orb, and repeated one of the verses from the Canticle of Transfigurations under his breath. He was going to see her again, he realised with a sickening sense of relief. And this time — this time, he was going to get it right.

"All right," he said. "I'm ready."

With a nod and a smile darker than their surroundings, Morrigan picked up the orb and held it for him. As their fingers touched she uttered a word he didn't understand, and his breath was sucked from him in a single gasp. The orb crashed to the ground; the candle went out; the world rushed back to him, into colour, pain, sensation, as his memories were torn from him piece by piece, year by year, none of them ever having happened.

And then, just as before, there was nothing.

A/N: It has been many years since I've written any fanfiction - and many more since I've written anything worth reading! But Dragon Age Inquisition brought my thirst for obsessive fangirlishness rushing back faster than I was expecting. This story will probably be very slow burning, but I had several Cullen!ideas I was flirting with and this was just one of them. Wish me luck!