He dreams, tossing ,turning in his bed.
Cullen sees it again and again. His hand and arm brandished protectively in front of a heavily bleeding inquisitor who is head down, a wound bleeding from his head and Dorian holding the young men protectively in his arms, kneeled, the inquisitor's head turned towards his heart.
Corypheus's dragon is dead, but the magister himself is still too powerfull and they fear he might take over the world still.
Cullen dreams at night and relives it again, Corypheus ready to strike, hand outstretched to strike his enemies one last time.
And then the ground opens up and roots with long ugly thorns spread out of it. A large greenish flower grows in place, magic of the fade, it's greenish color spitting out of the ground as the flower - clearly of demon descent-, grows and grows and then creaks as if a tree is about to fall down. And Cullen knows she has come.
The ground still trembles, small rocks and stones shaking and moving with it's impact. And then the flower blooms open revealing it's most innercore and there appears , floating above the flower, hands stretched out, a young humanlike woman, though her features and body define her as a demoness. Flowerpetals bloom from out of her eyes, long white hair now resembling long leaves cascading down, sprouting from her head. Vines tear from the young woman's lips, growing and growing from her mouth and forming around her feet, blood wells up from her legs as she slowly ascends up and then she stops, floating softly above the flower. She turns her hands who were turned upward, slowly forward and then she attacks.
It's as if a river has been released. With a loud "whizz" the roots and vines growing from the ground speed forward, lightning fast, and wrap themselves around the arms of Corypheus.
The magister, still in his euphory, is baffled and drops the orb in his hand. The attack he had planned starts to fade by the flowerwoman's surprise-attack.
Yet, it doesn't stop there, the roots grow thick,thorns piercing Corypheus's flesh. With a roar he tears his arm loose, only to find new roots growing long and attacking relentlessly, growing around him as if he's a prey to be eaten.
With a groan Corypheus calls demons to him and has them appear. The flower beneath the young woman's feet seems to grow full and then it closes before opening rapidly and releasing streams of ugly green and white magic. The flowerdemoness's screech, so loud it has everyone covering their ears,lulls the demons halfasleep. Then the flower starts to close and open again and the rays of magic starts to shoot towards the demons, hitting them square in their shoulders, arms and chest, even in their faces. Soon enough the demons start to scream and hiss and the bursts burn and burn them and they try to escape but they cannot. The white burst are still being shot out and then they start to form small spikes that cut the demons as they fly cuts and cuts, until the skin is red and black with blood.
It gives the inquisitor and his company enough time to reorganize, but then the orb starts glowing and suddenly the magic around Corypheus explodes. The flowerwoman's roots and thorns and vines, holding him captive, fly away in pieces shrivel and the burn to ashes.
Yet the roots come back and keep attacking. At least until suddenly Corypheus appears before the demoness and his large spindly hands grip her throat. She huffs, a deep breath, desperate.
" A demoness fighting for humans, how unusual." The magister sneers.
" You fight for them, you might as well die for them." He spits.
And then he looks at her, the flowerwoman with petals growing from her eyes and vines growing from her mouth and everyone sees it happening before they see it, a large red wave that goes through the air and then crashes into the woman standing before them.
Her mouth is stretched open in a wordless cry and then she falls still.
For a moment their flowerdemoness, their friend, seems to be still. The air has stopped moving as if she's stuck in time and then a secon ticks by and cracks start to appear all over her body.
The inquisitor and his company hear the sound of as if rockand stone is breaking and the flower seems to dry up. Then it starts to crack and break, as well as the roots coming out of the split in the ground.
And then the demoness's head bows backward, mouth open in a wordless cry of pain and the body full of cracks, like shattered porcelain, explodes into a thousand white and grey petals, followed by the flower above which she floated exploding beneath them, dissapearing into a thousand petals as well.
The air is stark with floating petals and small leaves. They fall everywhere, coating the ground into a large yellow carpet, and falling down from the sky like rain. As they start to fall slower it really starts to rain and suddenly the still inquisitor in Dorian's arms looks forward, humming with energy, teeth clenched and his eyes green; green as the fade he came from; his eyesockets filled with a large green light and then it envelops him, whirling around him and he grips Corypheus with his anker and brings the demon down on his knees.
Everyone sees in this a new victory and so they stand and fight with weapons raised.
But too Cullen it is her, the flowerwoman explosing into a million petals that make him wake up from his dream with a beating heart. And he thinks no no, please no, let it not be reality. But when he wakes, he is in his bed and as he looks outside it is light and he knows morning has come.
Cullen stands up from his bed and wanders out to the battlements.
Florus mortalialis; the deadly flower. A breed of demons. Her breed of demons. And like the flower she is named after, like a flower withering she died.