Chapter Three : Honesty (Solona)


The staff shot upwards, and with a tremendous CRACK the genlock's leering face turned to pulp and bone. Solona grunted with exertion, flashed her barrier to shield herself from the spray of noxious black blood, and pivoted on her heel to launch a magical strike at the next darkspawn coming. The little fireballs channeled through her staff wobbled along their path, leaving streaks of glimmering hot air in their wake. "Shit!" she mumbled to herself, sparing a second to watch them miss and snuff out in the scorched grass. "I think I just fucked up the attuning focus."

Well, she would have to correct for the damage. She steadied her footing on the smooth stone beneath her boots and channeled her will into a burst of flashfire, pushing the spawn back against the sheer face of the cliff. Above her on the ledge, Cullen was closing the distance on an emissary, summoning splashes of blue-white light to counter its magic. Cullen and Solona kept their distance from each other, lest he hit her with an errant bolt and smite the daylights out of her. Even still, she was over-sensitive to the prickle of his nullifying aura. It kept eating away at her barrier.

The root of the problem was that templars and mages were not trained in cooperative combat. Battlemages usually worked alone and always at great distance, controlling the flow of battle from a high vantage over the field. Foot soldiers tended to get nervous in the proximity of mages. And templar abilities ran wild when the lyrium burned too brightly in their blood. Unpredictable as chain lightning, they worked side by side with other templars, who would not be affected by the runoff. Alistair, at least, had seemingly adapted his tactics to work in close quarters with Morrigan, but in light of his recent confession she could not be certain that other templars could replicate his precision.

Her teeth ached. She ground her molars together to combat the funny numbness in her cheeks, which marked the onset of a migraine. Her mana struggled to compensate for the exertion of the fight and the persistent drain of Cullen's presence. She reached for her belt, grasping for the vials of lyrium tucked into leather bands, and came up empty.

Shit.

"Look out!" Cullen bellowed from the edge of the cliff. He cast about for the fastest path down the steep trek to her. They were poised on the edge of a rocky outcropping on the face of a great verdant hillside. Dozens of small caves dotted the region, usually the home of local smugglers who worked for the dwarven Carta, but currently occupied by the darkspawn equivalent to 'forward scouts'. Cullen's ledge was about fifteen feet above Solona's. Below her was the wide valley, a sheer drop into the orange treeline.

"I'm looking!" she said curtly, finding herself short of breath. She pulled her hand away from her belt to get a better grip on her weapon. Darkspawn were coming fast and thick from the incursion she had come to seal, pressing their advantage as her spells began to sputter. The Carta had excavated right into the Deep Roads to construct themselves a profitable den away from the patrols on the King's highway. The highway ran parallel to the river below them. Best not to think of the drop.

Solona rotated her staff so that the bladed end faced outward, and wielded it as a polearm. As she swung out in a crescent of superheated air, the hurlocks closest to her burst into flames, which briefly drove the mob back. She could not step backwards. The ledge was composed of frangible rock, and might give way under her weight. Briefly, she wished she could be like Morrigan, and metamorphose into a thing with wings.

"Hold on! I'm coming!" Cullen shouted. He retraced his steps backward toward the path on the hillside, heedless to the pair of shrieks on his tail.

Solona hissed in alarm and threw him a barrier. Before it could shield him, it withered in a flash of smoke, with a sound like shattering glass. "Drop your aura!"

"Why? I have a shield." He lifted it to demonstrate its efficacy. "I do not need your help. If anything, you need mine!"

"Don't you trust me?"

"I— Yes! Of course I do!"

"Then listen to me!"

She swore she could read his reluctance, even through his helmet, but there was no time. Her diaphragm relaxed as the ability faded, and with it went the impression that someone was standing on her chest. One cool, calm breath— that was all she needed. She grasped for the last of her mana, knowing that it was going to hurt, but that she had no other options. She was cornered, and the only ways out were through the darkspawn or off the side of a cliff.

First, the barriers. A dull, reverberating WHOMP, a sustained bass note, vibrated the air. The mage and the templar were bathed in green light. "Come on," she told herself, digging past her reserves. "Just once more."

Solona drove her staff into the stone and the air… split. A score of darkspawn were lifted off their feet; with them came plumes of dirt, small stones, and torn grass. They hung there briefly, the smiles shocked right off their disgusting faces, and then they smashed into the earth with tremendous force. Bones and armor shattered. Flesh ripped like paper. A fountain of bile and ichor rained down upon them, in thick globules, rolling down the shimmering slick of magic barrier.

Not fire, then. She'd thought it would be fire.

The mage blinked. The sound was audible in her pounding head. The horizon tilted on its axis, and she slumped, still clutching her staff for dear life when her knees hit the ground. She saw Cullen peel away his helmet and throw it aside. It clattered against the rocks. His cheeks were mottled red and his curly hair was soaked with sweat. She scanned him quickly for evidence of the tainted blood, and was satisfied that at least she had protected him. Before her, where the Veilstrike had landed, the ledge began to crack.

Her vision blackened at the edges; the center was strange and too bright. Cullen's face, creased with concern, swam out of view. "Are you hurt? Where were you hit?"

"I'm fine," she said, or she tried to say, at least. Her tongue was filled with a burst of hot coppery flavor. Blood poured in a gush from her nose.

A strange sound beneath her. The stone moaned like a living creature. Small pieces began to crumble at the lip of the bluff. The first clinks of falling rock brushing the foliage were musical, sweet as rain. Cullen dashed forward, always nimble even in his heavy plate armor, and grabbed her by the armpits, lifting her back onto her feet. "Maker's breath," he said sharply, with an edge of something in his commanding voice, "can you even walk?"

Solona staggered one unconvincing step forward and knocked into his breastplate. "Yes."

"There's no time for this." He frowned. "Let me carry you."

She batted him away. "No." It took all her concentration not to vomit on his polished templar boots.

"We cannot stay here," he said, narrowing his eyes. A flicker of annoyance registered on his face, and as she was trying to work out what she had done wrong, he scooped her up into his arms, staff and all. It was not a graceful maneuver, as while she did not have the strength to fight him, she also did not have the strength to assist him.

"You do not look fine," he commented dryly, as he hefted her away the cliffs like an unwieldy baby.

She flashed him bloody teeth in response. "No one likes a glib templar."

"Alistair seems to do fine." He smiled but it did not reach his eyes.

"Alistair's naturally charming. You're just a pain in the ass." He snorted at that. Her head bounced off his pauldron, and the sky lurched out of focus. She gagged, and swallowed a mouthful of foulness. "I'm going to pass out."

"Do not faint or I may drop you," he cautioned.

"Then put me down!" She had intended to be acerbic but it was more pathetic. She tried to lift her hand to pinch off her nose and the motion proved to be too much. "Shit," she moaned by way of feeble warning.

"Sola, don't you—"


When she came to again, Solona was flat on her back with her arms by her sides. A yelp rose in the back of her throat but she clamped her lips together. Not a spongy, rotten mattress under her head. Her surroundings were cool and dark. Her fingers scrambled, digging into the loose soil beneath her, gripping for bearing as the world whirled around her at high velocity. If she moved, she would vomit, she just knew it. Again, by the rancid taste in her mouth.

She took a shallow breath from her one useable nostril— beyond the stench of blood was fresh earth and… oak barrels? Something sharp, and astringent. Alcohol. She remembered there had been mosswine in the barrels in one of the Carta caves. Not potable for humans, but good for cleansing. The taint clung to everything it touched, a poisonous mold, unless exposed to strong alcohol or hot fire.

"Cullen?" she whispered carefully, not trusting herself to open her eyes more than a crack.

"There you are," he said. The humor had gone right out of his voice, leaving him with only naked worry. "You have been out for a while. I thought I might have to find Wynne."

"I told you I was going to faint," she answered matter-of-factly, which was her way. She licked her lips, and found a trace of dried blood. She searched for a tactful way of saying 'Did I puke on you?' Nothing sprang to mind, so she tried a vague,"I didn't… get it on you, did I?"

Cullen caught her meaning, ruefully smiling. "I dodged it. Mostly."

Solona clutched a fistful of dirt into a tight ball. "Cullen, I'm mortified."

"Don't be. You warned me, but I am afraid I was too busy saving your life. The whole shelf of rock gave way." He settled something cold and wet on her forehead. "It was not my finest moment either."

"Thank you." The cloth on her head provided a little relief, though it seemed so heavy that it anchored her to the ground.

"I've seen the symptoms before, from— Well, I suppose you know what a smite looks like." He had the decency to look pained. His hand rubbed the back of his neck, and he scowled. "You drained your mana with that spell."

"I overtaxed myself."

"It was much more than that. Feeling you go limp in my arms was… I am not prepared to relive that experience."

"Not so much scraping the bottom of the barrel as punching straight through it, huh?" She smiled, with her tongue between her teeth. "Feels like I was the barrel. Punched."

"I've never seen you use force magic before."

"I was picturing a whirlwind of fire. It came out wrong."

"It was accidental?"

"Do not get prickly, templar. I'm tired. Just because I teach primal spells does not mean I cannot branch into other schools."

"It's been my understanding that most mages cannot."

"Since when am I 'most mages', hm? Irving gave me the teaching post because I can demonstrate all the offensive elements without lighting a student on fire. Well, that and the spot was open. It's not even my favorite."

"Far be it for me to besmirch your many talents," he demurred. Cullen rested a hand on the side of her cheek and ran his thumb around the shell of her ear. Solona shivered weakly. Maker, he hadn't touched her like that in how long? She let him linger, afraid of scaring him off.

"I took a chance. I knew it would have to be big. And look, it paid off."

"It nearly killed you, Sol."

"An unintended side effect, I will admit. I was actually trying to save our lives."

He laughed. The warm sound settled in her bones. "How do you feel?"

Solona took stock. Her shoulders ached, the base of her skull was throbbing, and her mouth needed a good scrubbing. She brought her hand to rest on the soft swell of her belly. A fluttery sensation, like the brush of a moth's wings in the lamp light, followed her touch. "Alive," she answered.

A crease appeared between his eyes. "I suppose that's… good?"

Solona wondered if he remembered the warmth of the first harried, wild kiss between them. She was a junior enchanter, and he a strange new templar assigned to her library. The man turned flame-red every time she passed him by, and all her friends teased her about his unsubtle crush. She'd finally worked up the nerve to tell him off when next she caught him alone, but it was he who made the next move.

Rutherford brought her a cup of hot chocolate— Maker only knew how he had acquired it— and an apology, promising that on the next rotation he would get himself assigned someplace else.

Her stomach dropped in dismay at his pronouncement. She could not work out why. Amell had never been closer to Knight-Lieutenant Rutherford than this— she found he smelled pleasantly, of fresh soap and chocolate foam. Although she was a tall, broad shouldered woman, he was larger in every facet, which took her by surprise. He was so gentle, so earnestly apologetic, so disarmingly good looking that she caught herself patting his armored elbow and telling him it was quite all right, she had never noticed any hint of impropriety between them. He sighed with relief, and left her wondering about the kind of man who could work out her favorite drink before he had the nerve to talk to her.

Two weeks of his stone-faced blank expressions when she walked by, and she was no closer to solving that puzzle. It was worse than the blushing. Now he made her skin itch. So she did the only thing she could think to do— she pushed Rutherford into the stacks. A quick snog would suss him out, like it almost always did, and she could go back to life as usual in the tower.

At first he flailed, caught off guard by her sudden advance. She'd almost let him go when his hands suddenly came to grip her behind the elbows. He kissed her back, and he was good. He wasn't supposed to be good. The press of his lips shocked her, like the electric jolt of pure lyrium. Her feet stuck to floor, paralyzing her with unexpected bliss. Amell had kissed her share of mages— and none of them had felt like that. She was still frozen, her full breasts squashed against his chestplate, when he broke away.

"You said—" he said.

"Did I?" she said. "It was an accident."

"That did not feel like an accident," he said with that clumsy templar frankness which she usually could not stand, but found endearing on him.

"I fell into this bookshelf. You caught me."

"With my mouth?"

"If you like," she agreed. "It could be other places."

Color flooded his face. "Yeah," he agreed. His throat bobbed in a swallow. His brown eyes fixed on her mouth, then on her bare collarbones.

A year together. One nearly perfect year. The more serious it became, the more careful they were not to get caught. Unlike her previous dalliances, there could be no middlemen to pass notes or stand guard. Time between them was nearly impossible, even for a lieutenant and an enchanter. Perhaps, especially for a lieutenant and an enchanter. As a mage, she knew all the best hiding places, but that ran the risk of other mages finding them.

Eventually they'd discovered a disused storage cupboard behind the statue of Eleni Zinovia. They used it precisely once before Jowan discovered she wore the key to the basement on a chain around her neck. Solona closed her eyes at the memory, and when she opened them again, Cullen was returning to her with a dusty bottle in his hands.

"You look like warmed-over death." He sounded apologetic.

"Thanks." It came out in a huff of air; her voice was rough to her ears. She squeezed the lump of earth in her left hand.

"I found this hidden behind the barrels," he offered, as she pulled herself into a semblance of a sitting position.

"I told you, humans can't drink mosswine. And I wouldn't want to even if I could."

Cullen uncorked it with a knife. "I think this might be different."

Solona palmed the neck of the dusty brown bottle and gave it a careful sniff. The paper label had rotted away in the damp. "Antivan Sip-Sip," she pronounced, and eagerly took a swallow. It burned her tongue and throat going down, and her eyes watered. Nasty stuff. Fermented hot peppers and fruit. But it washed the taste of bile from her mouth.

"How can you tell?" Cullen asked, mildly impressed. She handed it back to him.

"It's my party trick. Great-Aunt Lucille thought an interesting lady had to know more than just dancing, drawing, and singing. We learned all the fashionable card games, too, but Max was always better than me. Ah— careful. You might not like it."

Her warning came too late. Cullen cringed around his mouthful. "Maker's breath," he complained. "Nobles drink this?"

"Marchers who play at being pirates. And actual pirates, one assumes. I'm surprised to see it squirreled away in Ferelden. Doesn't seem like your kind of drink."

"Give me a proper ale any day," Cullen agreed, licking spice from the backs of his teeth.

She opened her mouth and an entirely different question fell out. "Cullen, do you think… don't you think we should talk about Kinloch?"

His face hardened. He folded his arms across his chest. "No."

"Wouldn't it be better if we just…"

"I said NO, Solona. I thought you of all people knew better than to ask!"

"You know me, always poking my nose where it doesn't belong," she said, trying and failing to keep the hurt out of her tone. "Can you even look at me and see just me?"

Cullen made a sharp noise, and when he spoke, his voice was like a lash. "Fine, if you want to talk so bad, we'll talk. Right after you tell me what happened in the cells." A nerve twitched on one of his eyelids.

"No!" An impulse, as powerful as his own. She drew her knees up and hugged them. "Damn it," she said after a long moment.

On the far side of the cave there was a wall composed of wooden slats. Painted on this wall was the black sun insignia of the Carta, above a shorter-than-average doorway, with a locked door. The scaffolding held a number of wine casks. Again, the black sun was branded on the lids, along with some numbers that she might have made sense of if she had access to Carta records. The structure was nearly full, but for a single empty place. The liberated barrel was propped up on the table with a tap in it. A wide, dark puddle in the dirt below it suggested that Cullen had been using it to clean. That accounted for the smell.

The silence between them stretched. It was a tense, vile thing.. Solona found that she could bear it for just a little longer, but she was not sure Cullen could. The fall of the Tower, his week of torture at the hands of demons and blood mages, the death of his parents to the Blight… if she did not give him something back, there would be nothing left of the sweet-tempered young man who wooed her with hot chocolate.

Just…

Solona had a problem.

She had done her damnedest to ignore it. When her course had failed to come on its appointed day, she had barely noticed, distracted by Jowan's plot to access the apprentice phylacteries. Then she had been arrested. And it was just the smallest, twisted mercy to not have to beg the templar standing guard for rags.

She had enough humiliation. Her pride could suffer no more. She had used her privacy spells, until Knight-Templar Edgar thought to bind her with a pair of magebane cuffs usually reserved for prisoner transport. She wised quickly to his game. Edgar liked to watch. He was not on duty all the time, of course, and the others would free her hands with soft chiding noises, like they were a sympathetic parent and she a naughty child left in the corner.

As though she deserved it.

In the first days of imprisonment, she had been fairly calm. It was all a mistake. Plenty of time to craft the potion which would bring on a delayed menses. She understood that the Knight-Commander would be busy for a day or two, cleaning up, and making new phylacteries to replace the broken ones. Then there would be a hearing, and her part in the mess would be absolved. Her uncle would vouch for her. Certainly he would. There was no way for her to know, then, that Greagoir was punishing Irving for taking tower justice into his own hands. That she was to be an example— even the First Enchanter's beloved niece was not above templar law.

After a week, when no one came for her, and neither did the blood, she began to tell herself a little story, pacing the confines of her cage. Three strides by four. Cullen would switch shifts with Maithe and come to see her. Cullen's usual rota was in the enchanter's library. Maithe could be bribed with a lazy afternoon in the sunny library. With a hushed word, Solona could direct Cullen to Leorah, the sympathetic older elf who ran the potions laboratory. Surely Cullen would come eventually.

For a month she waited, burning tally marks into the edge of her thin, dirty mattress. Scores of similar marks chronicled the days of those who came before her— on the bedpost, on the wall, even gouged into the floor. She whispered to Lily across the aisle, promising her with gentle lies that everything would be just fine. As long as she had Lily, she would not be completely alone. Eventually, someone in authority would have to come for a Chantry acolyte. (Even if they would not come for a mage.)

Days became meaningless in her cage. No windows to hint at day or night. The world of the tower condensed into one narrow hallway. From beyond the bars she could see the guard desk with its solitary lantern illuminating the stack of books the templars used to amuse themselves. Time existed in six hour shifts— Roxie, Edgar, Maithe, Bren, RoxieEdgarMaitheBren… Sleep during Edgar's shifts. Don't let him catch you awake.

One day Edgar put the cuffs on just a little too tight. She said nothing, knowing that by the time Maithe came her wrists would be swollen and sore, but refusing to give him the pleasure of her reaction. His eyes glinted with bright excitement as he told her that Uldred's battlemages had returned from the King's service. The king was dead. War was coming. Even as he spoke, the enchanters were convening to plan for the Blight.

"A curious thing happened after three weeks in a cell," Solona said, lifting her stare from the dirt floor to meet Cullen's gaze. "The guards stopped coming. We ran out of water. Lily could not bear the thirst. I remember listening to the flies buzz over her body. I could not see, because the light had gone out. The noise was so loud, I could barely hear the demon offering me freedom if I gave up my body. I do not remember Kinnon finding me on the third day. I understand I was quite delirious from dehydration."

"Why didn't you give in?" Cullen asked. He looked… haggard. Older than his years. His knuckles were white around the neck of the bottle.

She did not have an answer for that. "When the Warden found you… When I found you, you needed water desperately. I wanted to help you. You said—"

"Solona, don't."

"—'I don't want anything from you'," she finished. "Does that still hold true?"

Cullen grimaced. "I was in a sorry state when you found me. The things I said were… unkind. Untoward. I regret them now. You know that. I should not have goaded you into this— talking of the tower. When I think of it, I am not myself. I wish only to forget."

"Can you tell me how they used me against you?"

"No. I cannot. It is… unspeakable," he admitted, bowing his head. "Please, do not ask that of me." A fragile plea.

Solona outstretched her open palm, setting it against his shin. "Cullen, I really do not know a better way to say this, but I'm pregnant."

He flinched, from head to toe, like she had extended her hand to burn him. The corners of his eyes creased into tiny lines. His lips worked silently, in nonsense syllables, in silent blasphemies. "Does the father know?" he asked at length.

Solona did her best to disguise the fact he had just stomped up and down on her heart. All that was left in the aftermath was a cold, hollow place in her chest. "He does now."

Cullen… laughed. A quick burst of incredulous disbelief. "That's not possible."

Her stomach twisted. "Are you accusing me of something?"

"But the last time we— did that— was months ago!" he exclaimed. "That was four months ago. Before you were arrested. Before… before…" All the fight slowly drained from his expression, leaving only a trembling mouth and eyes bigger than she'd ever seen on him. "You sat down there, in a cell— with my child. That is not possible. You can't have—" his voice broke. "The Maker would never be so cruel. You didn't tell me." He scanned her face, read her like an open book. "You didn't tell anyone?"

"I had to hide it."

"But—"

"How would you hide a mageborn infant, Cullen?" She wanted to be cutting. It came out hollow. "Will you smuggle it behind your templar shield back into the tower, like one of Anders's kittens?"

"No child of mine will live in that place," he exclaimed, surprising both of them with his vehemence.

"You know the Chantry won't let me keep it."

"Stay with the Grey Wardens."

"The Wardens will have no use for a pet mage who cannot perform her duties. Cousland sees people only by the measure of their usefulness. When I get too big, my usefulness will run out. And you have my phylactery, so I can't run far."

"You want to run from me?" he said softly, wounded. "Have I been that terrible?"

"No." A beat. "But it would be easier for you if I left. It's one thing to bed a mage. But to put a child on her— There will be consequences."

"Damn the consequences, Sola. Do you really think so little of me? Were you ever going to tell me?"

"You really don't want me to answer that!"

"Ah."

She bit her lip. "I didn't mean it like that." Tentatively, she touched his cheek, letting her fingers rasp against his stubble. "I'm sorry. I've always had the damndest luck."

Cullen leaned forward, looking for all the world like he wanted to kiss her, but he paused. "It is my fault. I was the one who fell in love."

"Really?" she said lightly, caught off guard.

"From the first minute I laid eyes on you."

"Your 'ill-advised infatuation'?"

"Please. It was much worse than that."

"I was the one who kissed you."

"I know. I was working up to it. You rather ruined my plans."

"But you stopped looking at me."

"Only because I thought I would burst! And you never gave me any clue."

"So what was your plan, then?"

"I could…" he folded his hands in his lap, "bring you things. Gifts. Food from outside the tower. I saw that you liked my apology chocolate, so I asked Carroll to find more. And then, maybe, I might read a book, and give it to you to read, too. Then we would have something in common."

"You wanted to court me?" she said with disbelief.

"I wanted to marry you," he blurted. "Maker. Hopefully I would not have said it like that." He rubbed the back of his neck.

Solona went still. She had played this conversation out in her head a dozen times. In none of them had he proposed. "Do you still feel that way?"

"We broke up," he said simply, the awkward half-smile diminishing on his lips.

She winced. "I…" But what could she say?

"I followed you. I knew you did not want me, but I asked the Knight-Commander for leave to protect you anyway. But when I caught up, you had already decided. What could I do, beg?"

Wait. What? "Cullen, you broke up with me. Beneath the Harrowing Chamber."

"I never meant any of that. I was not in my right mind. The Warden told me— she called me your ex lover. I thought it had all been settled in my absence." Cullen shook his head in dawning disbelief. "Do you mean to tell me you still…?"

"Yes."

"I have been such a fool," he breathed, and finally, he kissed her.