He wasn't looking where he was going and almost walked into a wall.
To say Second-in-command (technically Knight Commander know, if the chain of command still applied) Cullen was in turmoil would have been an understatement.
There were ruins and flames everywhere he looked, Kirkwall was in flames. In a worse way than three years ago, even.
All because of that rebel mage whose name he couldn't remember. Ansomthing.
He had wanted everyone to choose a side and begin a revolution and here it was.
It was also Orsino and Meredith faults if he tought about it. Maybe he could have done something to calm her before she tried to kill the Champion...
But no, when she had shown signs of becoming crazy, he had approved. He had even been partial to Ser Alikr solution to the problem. Sure, it was horrible, but it was the safest way of preventing mages from being dangerous.
He sat on a nearby stone which originally was part of the wall above him, signaling the templars that followed him to continue their search for any mages without him.
Meredith wanted to protect people. And so did he.
But she had authorized, or at least turned a blind eye to, the mages' abuse, execution for the most rebellious of them.
A particular incident came to his mind, he desperatly tried to push it to the back of it, to no avail.
It was four or five years ago, four templars under his command had taken advantage of a young mage, had violated her then killed her. His only reaction had to diminish their pay for a few weeks.
The worst thing was that, even now, a small part of him said that the mage deserved it for being such a danger to everyone.
Calmly, he looked at his blade, there was still the blood of mages on it. Some of them had tried to flee, some had tried to fight and others had tried to surrender.
He had killed almost all of them. Some of them had been possessed, some weren't and just fought for their freedom. A freedom that a part of him knew they didn't deserve.
That said, he may have been a little too zealous in his duties.
The image of more mages he had hit, watched being raped, even the oen time he had joined him, sprung to his mind, unsollicited.
Ok, he had been an asshole.
The look of betrayal in the eyes of one of the younger mages, that trusted the Circle to be a safe place for them, when she realized she had been lied to.
He was a monster.
AN: No, i don't like Cullen, why do you ask ? I'll admit i was kind of disgusted by how much his actions in DA2 were forgiven, forgotten or retconned as being merely following Meredith in Inquisition.