Author's Notes: This story occurs after the events of final story DLC: Trespasser and refences events from the content. If you haven't completed the DLC and wish to avoid spoilers, please tread cautiously. Also contains some disturbing imagery.
The dulled sword landed solidly into her padded doublet, eliciting a quiet grunt from the force behind the blow.
Both froze in place. Their blades stilled. The edge of his sword rested against her flank. Her blade hung low to her side, out of position and unable to parry. Her chest lifted in and out with labored breaths, a small glisten of sweat alight with the fading orange of the dusken sun.
Trevelyan stared down at the practice blade. The dull, grey, unremarkable iron. The dirty gauze wrapping around the handle. The numerous scratches and dings along the crossguard and blade from poorly defended blows of his opponent. The fingers of his right hand, wrapped around the hilt, hand trembling from exertion.
"You did it." It was simple. Blunt. Observational. But the three simple words from Cassandra's mouth carried as much joy and care that it sounded the same as if she had whispered "I love you" into his ear.
It had been four weeks. Four weeks of furiously pacing around the yard. Four weeks of sparring for hours. Four weeks of sweat, of bruises, or cursing and moments of rage so thick he could not swallow them down. And now he stood, the blade of the practice sword planted into Cassandra's ribs. The first blow he had landed cleanly. The first kill.
After four weeks, the small smile that turned up on the corner of his mouth was the first time the frustration and rage had seemed to clear. The first time he had reason to feel hope again.
"It's a start," he said between his own heaving gasps for breath.
His pushed-back, unremarkable brown hair was slick with perspiration. The stubble he wore across his jaw was getting so long it had nearly curled enough to be considered a beard. He was so tired. So tired of fighting. But he could not stop. He could not rest. Not even for a day.
He would need to do better. One strike would not be enough. One small victory could not suffice.
Trevelyan remembered the pain.
He had to remember the pain.
He would always be reminded by the empty sleeve, dangling loosely below where the elbow, forearm and hand of his left arm used to be.
The Divine's chamber was dim.
Her golden bodyguard, bedecked in her gleaming aurum, had come to his chamber. The demand had been simple, a command straight from the Divine's lips. "Now," the bodyguard had emphasized.
The door shut quietly behind him. The two bodyguards would be standing right outside, he knew. But they would not see, nor hear, nor speak a word of anything that happened within. Cassandra sat at the edge of the bed, her hands folded in prayer, still wearing the long, white, red and golden habit of her station leading the Chantry. The hat lay on the bed, next to it, the book of poetry he had given her nearly three years ago.
She did not acknowledge him, her lips quickly moving, soundless as she completed her prayers. Her hands were still, palms pressed together. The sight sent a ghostly shiver through his left side, a tingling in the stump, nerves asking for fingers that were no longer there.
"You called for me, Cassandra?" he said quietly.
She lifted her head, the look of steely determination in her eyes. Cassandra pushed up from the bed, crossing the gap between them quickly as she took the sides of his face in her hands, planting her lips hard upon his. Her body pressed forward, the golden chains and ornaments of her habit jingling, muffled as her chest pressed against his. He wrapped his arm, his only arm, around to the small of her back.
"I have missed you, my love," she said in the moment she lifted her mouth from his. Cassandra pressed her cheek to his, her eyes closed, basking in his scent and embrace.
"We just sparred this evening," he said, pulling her closer to him. It had been three weeks. Three long weeks and he had yet to land a blow upon her. As the sun slipped behind the towering white buildings of Val Royeaux and the yard grew too dark to see, he had slammed the practice blade into the dirt in frustration and stormed away.
He did not eat tonight. He had angrily called for the servants to draw him a bath. He had ignored the pile of reports from Leliana and Cullen about the rebuilding effort. He slipped into the nearly scalding water, soaking his tired bones and tired muscles, staring at the ceiling until the water grew tepid with his failures.
The Inquisition was no more. It could be no more. It had grown, grown beyond his ability to control. It had sickened with cancer, cancer that was exposed only too late. After two years, it had rotted from the inside out.
He had recounted every line Solas had fed to him since they moment they met outside Haven on their way up to the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Everything the elf had ever said hung in doubt. The praise he had lavished for recruiting the rebel mages. The furious scorn he had cast after opting to take upon the knowledge of the Well of Sorrows upon himself. His long and rambling explanations of the Fade, spirits, demons and magic. Nothing could be believed. Everything Solas said and everything he had represented might have been a lie.
Everything except his statement that the Inquisition was dying, subject to a string of inevitable betrayal and corruption from within.
They needed to start over. Himself, his trusted advisors and a few of the most loyal men and women willing to stay with him. They had built an empire from nothing once. They could do it again. He was now the Right Hand of the Divine. The title still felt bitter upon his lips. A cruel jest.
All Trevelyan had left was his right hand.
"That is not what I mean," Cassandra said as her hands began to tug at the collar of his shirt.
His right hand, his only hand, lifted to grab her wrist. "Don't."
"Lay with me tonight."
"I can't." His words were as empty as his sleeve.
She stopped, resting her head upon his chest. Her hands moved, her fingers lightly probing the flaccid sleeve until she made contact with the stump of his arm. Trevelyan recoiled at her touch, pulling his arm back, away from her.
"Please," she whispered, the typical hardness in her voice all pulled back.
It had been three weeks. He had been avoiding her. He had pulled away from her embrace and her touch. He had pulled away from her intimacy, knowing where such confrontation would lead.
"I don't want you to see me like this," he confessed.
Trevelyan could not even bear to look at it himself. The magic had been able to heal the raw and gaping wound as cleanly as could be expected. But the scarred, rounded stump of flesh disturbed him, the way it just seemed to hang there, useless and deformed. A forever reminder of the machinations and deception that Solas had perpetrated upon him and all of Thedas. The arm was a badge of shame.
Cassandra's right hand pressed lightly over his heart, feeling the uneven pulse of fear beating through his chest. She turned her head slightly, planting a kiss on the ridge of his collarbone.
"Nothing could make me love you less."
Trevelyan tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but he could not force it down. His hand grasped for her head, cradling her to his chest. His lips rolled inward as he fought back the tension in the corners of his eyes. She was right. It was not the shame of his failure that he felt now, only the shame of his foolishness.
Cassandra did not move. She did not speak. She did not push him. She did not move as the world knew her to be, a battering, blunt, intense woman of action.
She only had concern. She only cared. She only loved. She was the woman that he knew, the one that he had urged to become Divine. He pushed her although he knew that such a calling would place a line between them that they could never truly cross afterward
There might come a time when these meetings, these kisses and embraces could no longer be shared. There might be a time when duty would demand that such selfish pleasures be ended. They had both understood that becoming Divine would be for the best of all Thedas. It was a sacrifice they were both willing to make. It would only be a matter of time until the good of Thedas demanded that even these stolen moments cease, too.
And that time might not even have a chance to come if Solas could not be stopped. Every day since the pain of his slowly dissolving arm had crippled him, since Solas disappeared through the last Eluvian, since his companions saved his life in the unknown hills of some long forgotten glen in the spaces between magic mirrors - all were on borrowed time.
Clinging to such temporary shame was foolish.
The lump went down his throat. He planted a kiss upon the top of Cassandra's tussled obsidian hair.
"There is nothing I would not do for your love," he said.
He lightly pushed her a step back and began to work the buttons of his shirt with his single hand, the buttons that confounded him daily with only five fingers to work them. The shirt began to fall open, exposing his chest as he pulled it apart, working the last two buttons at the bottom of the shirt.
He shrugged his right shoulder, the shirt falling open and off his right side. He shook his right arm, twisting it out of the sleeve until he was able to pull it free. The shirt swept down across back, hanging limply from his left shoulder, clinging to the remains of his arm. Trevelyan took a deep breath, crossing his right arm over his chest, grabbing the other end of the shirt. He began to pull it away, sliding it down off his shoulder and pulling it across the amputated limb. As he could feel the last bit of fabric slide across his upper arm, he released, letting the shirt drop to the floor.
He turned his head to the right, his gaze on the tiled floor of Cassandra's chamber. He did not look at his arm. He did not look at her.
He slowed his breathing. His eyes were fixed hard and unmoving on a singular tile. Cassandra stood just a foot before him, no doubt her eyes looking over his body, fixated upon the forever-wound Solas had given him. Vile, deformed, grotesque.
Her fingertips brushed across his bare skin, pressing against his tightened left bicep. He gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowing on the floor, refusing to look. Her fingers moved slowly, lightly, tracing down his arm until it reached the abrupt end. Her fingertips rested at the joint where his elbow used to bend, which was now was just a mound of magically-repaired flesh.
Cassandra held for just a moment, before lifting her hand away. She closed the space between them again, her hand lightly touching his chin, pushing his face back around to where her eyes met his.
He spoke first. "I love you."
She smiled, her eyes locked into his, not glancing to the side at his misshapen appendage. She ignored it, as if it were whole once more. "I love you, too."
She meant it, he knew.
The sword taunted him.
Dagna and Harritt had slaved together for days to make sure everything was perfect. The dragon bone, fickle to work with, so strong and so stubborn. The careful masterwork preparation that needed to be made to infuse the Fade-touched materials into the very being of the sword. The painstaking effort Dagna had put into tracing and creating the superb cleansing rune slotted into the weapon. The effort Harritt had put into crafting the custom hilt and pommel to balance the sword perfectly.
He had named it Valor. A peerless weapon crafted from the endless resources of the Inquisition. It was a blade that inspired everyone around him to fight to their utmost. It was a weapon worthy of the man who led the greatest force in all of Thedas.
Now, it sat mounted in the halls of the Divine. A new, holy relic worthy of the admiration and awe of the true believers of the Chantry. A blade wielded by the man who had healed the sky and saved the world from ruin.
Two weeks ago, he had used it to cut through the Qunari invaders as he thwarted their Dragon's Breath plot. Two weeks ago, he had worn it proudly upon his back wherever he went. Two weeks ago he had carried it as he stood before the Dread Wolf, the great deceiver, the wicked one, Solas.
Now, it meant nothing. The sword required two hands to wield.
And now, he only had one.
Another strong blow slammed into the padded chestplate on his left side, the sting of the slash vibrating through his chest.
Cassandra wasn't putting all of her strength behind any of these blows. She was holding back. Still, the pain that radiated through his chest from the latest blow told him that the flesh beneath his training doublet was now little more than one, giant patch of overlapping bruises.
She wasn't even carrying a shield. But no matter how many strikes he threw, how strong he threw them or how quick, she had little problem checking them all aside. Her counterstrikes all found purchase. His right arm, alone, was untrained, slow and uncoordinated.
"Perhaps we should stop," Cassandra said. Her face was bent between equal parts concern for his well-being and a poorly-hidden sense of frustration with a recruit who was not advancing in his lessons.
One week ago, he could have kept step with her in the training yard. One week ago, he could have wrapped both his hands around the grip of Valor and battled her on equal ground. One week ago, the Dread Wolf had eaten his arm.
Trevelyan had trained with the greatsword all of his life. The one-handed blade felt foreign in his grip. Cassandra was a peerless fighter, true, but she was barely even pressing him. Without his two-handed blade, he fought as poorly as a farmer who had never lifted a sword in his life.
But he needed to learn. Solas was out there somewhere. He would need to be stopped. Trevelyan would not sit idly in some castle, reading reports from the field and sending other men to their possible death against unknowable risk and impossible challenges. It would have to be him.
He regretted not attacking Solas as soon as the deceiver had revealed his true intent. Elven god or no, Trevelyan should have given his life trying. Solas should have killed him when he had the chance. His empty apologies, the falsified sorrow on his face as he revealed his goals and his mercy would be his undoing. The way he so casually dismissed the threat, the promise that Trevelyan would never rest until he stopped Solas and his insane cataclysm, they were all mistakes.
The elf left Trevelyan with one good arm. And he would never let it rest now until either Thedas was safe or he drew his final breath trying to save it.
"No," Trevelyan said, wincing, lifting his practice sword back before him and resetting his feet. "I have to learn this. I have to be able to fight."
He charged again, throwing the strike high. She checked it. She swept across his right side and he awkward stopped it. He shoved back, the sword thrusting. Cassandra knocked it aside, her blade moving impossibly fast as it struck that same part of his chest, another blunt crash to his already battered ribcage. This time he could not stifle the grunt of pain as he stumbled backward, his right hand coming up to cover the agonizing wound.
"You're hurt," Cassandra said again. The frustration was fading quickly, being overwhelmed by her concern.
"I… I can't stop," he spit out. He could barely even move the left side of his body. As the remaining section of his arm twisted in the pinned sleeve, he could feel incredible pressure and pain pulsing across his ribs and through his shoulder.
"We can pick up again tomorrow," Cassandra offered.
"No!" he shouted, banging the tip of the practice sword into the ground. "No, we have to keep going. Stop holding back on me. I cannot grow stronger if you're coddling me."
The words were bitter and spiteful. His mind was weary with pain and fatigue. The crushing ache in his chest made each breath agony. His mouth was dry and his hair was sweat-soaked. Dribbling beads of sweat fell into his eyes, burning and blurring his vision.
None of it came close to the unspeakable suffering he endured as the Anchor consumed his left arm one week ago.
"No, my love-"
"Again!" he roared before she could say more. His slashes were wild. She did not even parry them now. The slow, tired, loping slashes were futile. Her shoulders twisted left and right, her sword bobbing with each defensive shift of her stance. Her left arm was bent at the elbow, tucked in close to her chest, moving by instinct even though she carried no shield.
Trevelyan stumbled forward, his right arm burning with fatigue with each cut. He had to continue. Had to learn. He had to get better. Had to hit her. Had to find Solas and end him.
He lifted the sword over his head, swinging down with all his force. Cassandra did not dodge this time. Her sword came up in one fluid motion and caught the strike. In perfect rhythm, an unbroken chain, her left arm pushed forward, striking his chest, knocking him back and she followed with one hard step, the blade swinging hard across her body.
The edge of the sword connected just above the pinned spot of his sleeve, smashing into the very end of his left arm.
The shock of pain fired up his arm, crumpling him to his knees. He could not help but scream as the practice sword slipped from his fingers, the bludgeoning ache in his ribs tearing him apart as he bent toward the ground.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Cassandra furiously apologized, dropping her own sword as she crouched to him. "I didn't mean to-"
"He should have killed me," Trevelyan muttered between gritted teeth, his eyes clamped closed as he tried to endure the pain that settled in his stump, that did not abate and did not fade. "You should have just left me to die there."
"You can try again when you recover," Cassandra said. "You can learn, in time. It will just take time."
He didn't believe her. The pain in his body now screamed that he could not learn. That his days taking the field of battle were over.
But the ache was not nearly as powerful as the pain he would never forget, the one he swore he would remember until the end of his days, the pain that Solas had inflicted upon him.
"If I live…" he forced out over the crackling of the magic spilling from the Anchor, wracking his arm, "I'm coming to stop you."
It was a sworn oath. One Trevelyan would never break.
Solas rose back to his feet, his face with a look of sorrow painted across it. He was not sorry, Trevelyan knew. Monsters could not feel sorrow.
"I know," he said. "Take my hand."
He did not give it, but the elf reached down and grabbed his palm, overflowing with the violent energy of the Fade. His entire arm felt as if it were aflame, burning from the inside out. The Anchor was eating away at his armor, bits of steel and leather blowing away like ash fluttering out of the hearth.
"I'm sorry," Solas said. His left hand lifted, a slight jerk of his palm, a flash of blue-white magic, a pulse that ran up Trevelyan's fingertips through his veins to his heart. The energy tearing out of his palm through the Anchor did not abate, but it burned just more coolly for the moment, the pain cutting just slightly.
With that Solas turned, walking casually until he reached the pane of the Eluvian. A single step more and he vanished through the liquid face of the mirror, the glass growing dark and inert behind him. With that, he was gone, and as he vanished, the pain returned.
Trevelyan crumpled down again, his right hand gripping around his forearm, his mouth screaming in anguish as the energy burned down his arm. His armor was melting, he could feel the flesh underneath tearing apart and the trickle of the magic creeping down past his wrist and up his arm. His eyes were foggy with pain and his body weak from shock, but he managed to force his way to his feet.
It was the end. His last moment. The others had stayed behind to allow him to confront Solas alone. But as he stumbled down the rocky path, past the stone-still statues of the Qunari warriors, toward the swirling Eluvian that had carried him here, all he could think of was seeing Cassandra's face one last time.
His body fell through the viscous surface of the Eluvian, falling back out into the clearing littered with Qunari dead. He toppled to his knees as another burst of energy from the mark on his hand ripped up his left arm, a large chunk of his gauntlet and part of his hand sloughing to the ground before his feet, glowing, burning, fading.
Trevelyan could not discharge the energy as he had done before. He could not force it out of his hand, could not let it blast around him. Whatever Solas had done to him, it was now trapped, penned into the mark, with no way to escape except to eat its way through him.
"Inquisitor!" Varric shouted, the first to see him. He ran, but the longer legs of Cassandra and Vivienne carried them faster to his side, both women crouching down.
"The Anchor, it's killing me," he sputtered out frantically. "Solas is gone through the Eluvian. He's planning to destroy the Fade. Destroy the world. You have to stop him."
The Anchor crackled and burst, bends of scorching hot Fade energy cutting up his arm. He looked down, the melted gauntlet nearly gone, spying the blackened remains of his hands, the skin burning away, charred black bones crumbling under the magic.
He lifted his head just enough, to the left. "Cassandra," he said. "I love you. I'm sorry it has to end this way."
A second pulse of blinding agony. More of his armor and arm melting away. His eyes darkening.
"I might be able to save him."
Vivienne's voice cut. Powerful. Confident. The voice of the First Enchanter. Her eyes darted up and down his arm, her hand glowing with a slight white light as she surveyed him with magic. "I can save him," she said again, just as certain as the first time. "But I'll need to take his arm."
Vivienne leapt into action, her hands digging into the pouches of her belt, pulling two blue, glowing vials. She knocked the corks out hurriedly, tipping the lyrium potions to her lips and chugging them down. The lyrium spilled out of the corners of her mouth as she coughed and gagged. But Vivienne did not seem to care, she did not wipe her mouth and did not even move when the blue potion dripped upon her pristine white clothing.
"Then let's get him back to the Winter Palace," Cassandra said as she began to try to lift him.
"There's no time!" Vivienne shouted. "He's not going to make it back to the Winter Palace. We must act now." Her hand snapped out, grabbing Trevelyan's left wrist. "Lie down. We don't have much time." Before he could move, her other hand was on his chest, throwing him down into the dirt on his back. Vivienne yanked his left arm, stretching it out, the green bends of crackling Fade energy scorching her own arms as she held his wrist down to the ground.
"Varric, get on his chest," Vivienne commanded. "Hold him down." As the dwarf was moving into position, Vivienne nodded her head toward Cassandra and the gleaming silverite axe at her belt. "Cassandra, I need you to take that axe and sever his arm above the elbow. It needs to be a clean cut. One stroke. Put everything you have into it to make sure it goes through."
Varric pressed down on Trevelyans chest, his two hands both pressing down on the Inquisitor's shoulder to keep it pinned to the ground.
"What? I can't," Cassandra sputtered. "I can't-"
"If you don't take off his arm now he is going to die," Vivienne challenged, her voice even harder and louder than it was before. "I can't stop the Anchor but I can heal his arm. There is no time for arguing. Do it or lose him!"
Trevelyan could barely feel Vivienne's grip around his wrist. All he could feel was the blinding pain of the magic eating away the joint. Cassandra moved.
"Inquisitor, you're still going to feel this but I will do what I can to numb the pain," Vivienne said as calmly as she could for the circumstances. Her hands began to glow white with frost magic.
"No!" Trevelyan shouted before she could begin, another agonizing scream escaping his lips immediately after as he could feel the muscle in his forearm shredding. The Anchor was now chewing up his arm. He could not longer even feel his hand or his wrist. If they were even still there, he couldn't see.
"No, I need to feel this," he said. "I need to remember what Solas has done to me. Forever."
Cassandra was in place, her axe pulled from her belt, her face blank with a stunned anticipation of what she was about to do. She pressed the edge of the axe to the armor, pressing just above the bend of his elbow. Her eyes stared blankly downward, memorizing the spot, eyeing her mark.
"Do it now, Cassandra!" Vivienne screamed.
"Maker, forgive me…"
The axe pulled back over Cassandra's head, her entire body twisting back around her torso. The axe lingered at full draw, holding for just a fraction of a second before coming down in a deadly, silver wave.
Trevelyan's horrified screams filled the valley.
Varric struggled to hold his place as Trevelyan's chest lurched up, brutal, hollow screams pouring out of the Inquisitor's mouth. Vivienne let go of the burning, amputated appendage and began pouring her healing magic into the hacked stump that spurted thick globs of blood all across her lap.
Cassandra stumbled backward, the axe falling out of her limp fingers as she turned away. The Seeker had killed hundreds in this war and never flinched, but now, she turned her head and retched into the grass.
Trevelyan could feel nothing but pain as Vivienne mended his lost arm. All he could think of was Solas, the tall, murderous elf stepping casually toward the Eluvian, leaving them all to die in his wake.
Trevelyan would not stop.
He would not forgive.
He would never forget.