His hands were covered in blood and shards of red lyrium. Maker willing, they wouldn't bore into his skin. If Varric was right about how contagious this stuff was it was only a matter of time.
Maddox leaned against the wall of Samson's workshop. Beaten, bloody, like he was just before he was made Tranquil. Cullen remembered that day. Remembered the tinge of unease that tugged at his heart when Meredith brought out the brand. And he remembered, especially, how he'd ignored it. And let Maddox lose his soul without a murmur of protest.
All for writing love letters.
"He deserves a decent burial," the Inquisitor said, and Cullen promised he'd look into it. But then they had to find Maddox's tools, to take to Dagna. To try to break Samson's armor.
And that was when he found it.
A wig, it looked like, of bright red hair, draped over the pommel of a sword. Except it wasn't a wig. It was a scalp. And he knew someone who liked to put her red hair up in that intricate braided knot.
His blood felt like it was on fire, but his stomach was a pit of ice.
He found next a hand, delicately boned but full of callouses, with the scrape he'd noticed playing chess yesterday. And then a thigh. Muscled, cut apart at the bones like a haunch of beef. The skin was dusted with freckles.
Her staff, plain gnarled wood, leaned against a shelf, on which a cauldron sat. Fear curdling in his guts, he looked in the cauldron.
In a pool of blood her face floated. Beautiful, perfect, every freckle in place. Her wide gray eyes seemed to be smiling, to match the curve of her lips. When she opened her mouth the blood rose up, bubbling.
Cullen woke cursing and drenched in sweat.
As usual.
They were getting worse.
If only Solas were here, he could ask the elf about his dreams. Solas knew everything worth knowing about the Fade. Maybe Cullen was being plagued by a demon, and if he killed it he'd get a decent night's rest. Or maybe there was some kind of tea he could drink, or cantrip he could recite, just to stop seeing these things when he closed his eyes.
What if the nightmares didn't stop after she left? After she moved on?
He rose from his bed with a groan. It was nearly dawn anyway.
He washed the cold sweat off and changed into fresh clothes. Then he walked out on the battlements. He often did, first thing in the morning, just to get the fresh air in his lungs and chase the dreams out of his head. Then he warmed up in the courtyard with the early rising recruits and started on drills.
No army can function properly without daily drills.
He retreated to the stairs above the courtyard to watch when the morning dragged on and the bailey grew too crowded. Of course, that was about the time she showed up.
She seemed fine. Laughing with the Iron Bull, stretching and twirling her staff. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and check her for wounds, after that dream. Run his hands over skin that had never been cut, over a body that was warm and alive and safe. Most of all, safe.
But he didn't move, because that was ridiculous.
"She was never afraid of you. Only sad that you did not trust her," Cole said, behind him. Cullen closed his eyes and silently prayed to the Maker for patience. Cole was the last person he wanted to deal with at the moment. His internal thoughts should stay inside his head. It was bad enough he had to think them without airing them out in the common space.
"Good morning, Cole," Cullen said. Not encouragingly. He glanced at the young man and noticed he was holding flowers. "Who are the flowers for?"
"Maryden," Cole said, sighing. Oh, God, he sounded very human when he did that. Cullen glanced from the flowers to Cole's face and tried not to wonder if spirits could grow up and start wanting to court people. "She loves to get flowers with her breakfast. The best flowers grow behind Cassandra's practice dummies, if you ever decide to get Ivy flowers."
Ah, yes. Just what he wanted. Advice on how to make an absolute fool of himself.
"Thank you," he said, quellingly.
"The shadows sing to them, and then the song is all they hear," Cole said. He was watching Ivy move, his hat low over his eyes. Reading her, no doubt. Or at least commenting on her. Cullen decoded that sentence as being about the Warden's taint. "They become the darkness they fear."
Maker knew what that meant.
"Ivy's trying to help the Wardens. You like helping people, don't you?" Cullen said. Cole glanced up at him, surprised. For a moment he looked like a normal boy.
"She's soft inside. Like you. I think she'd like the flowers," Cole said. Cullen sighed.
"Thank you for the advice," he replied. With less vitriol than the first time.
"You'll wish you'd taken my advice when she tells you she's going to be the one," Cole said. He shrugged in that lanky, uneasy way he had, and shuffled off. "You'll wish a lot of things then."
"Thank you, Cole," Cullen said, between clenched teeth.
He could not wait to find out what that meant.
It sounded. . . bad.
Fortunately, there was plenty to do to keep his mind off it. Finishing drills, working out supply lines to their remote fortress- fewer people wanted to help, now that the Breach was no longer a threat, and it added to their challenges. He knew Josephine in particular was scrambling to find the role of the Inquisition in this new world.
Maybe they didn't have one. Maybe their days were numbered.
When his headache made reading reports impossible, he took a walk on the battlements. All the way around. Through the new mage tower the Inquisitor decided that Skyhold needed, and around to where the high walls overlooked the courtyard. Dorian was already there, whispering into a crystal. He stopped and smiled when he saw Cullen, and dropped the rock back onto his chest.
"If it isn't my favorite Commander, come to take the air. What brings you to this remote corner?" Dorian asked. Cullen shrugged, and gestured at the necklace Dorian wore.
"Just walking a bit. What's that you're wearing?" he asked. Dorian touched it, half consciously, and smiled brightly. Cullen knew that smile. It was the same one Dorian wore when he was about to cheat at chess.
"Long range communication. Marvelous, isn't it? I'm testing the enchantment. Still needs a few little tweaks. But it is, of course, brilliant," Dorian said. Cullen nodded in understanding. It must be difficult, when the Inquisitor left Skyhold and Dorian didn't join him. Their romance was one of the things the Chantry truly distrusted about the Inquisitor, but neither man cared. Nor should they.
"I'm sure Lavellan will return from the Emerald Graves soon," Cullen said, answering the things that Dorian did not say aloud. The dark-haired mage nodded in understanding, and thanks.
Cullen leaned over the ramparts, watching the courtyard below. Just as he suspected, Ivy was there with Morrigan. The two of them seemed to be in a heated debate, but not an angry one. Just two scholars arguing over whose perspective was most right.
"Is it possible?" Cullen asked. Dorian joined him at the rampart. "Can the Joining be reversed?"
"Of course. I believe we could do it today, if we had a Gray Warden handy that no one would mind losing," Dorian said. Cullen snorted. "It's always experimental. Always a risk, the first time. Or the fifth time even. What's worse, I believe you southerners would call it blood magic. No one will be sacrificed, I assure you, but the Taint is carried in the blood. And it has to be removed."
"Why would. . ." Cullen paused, thinking of how to say it. "Why now? If it were possible, wouldn't someone have done it before?"
"That's the rub, isn't it. I don't think so. You have to consider what Thedas was like just a few short years ago. The Templars had their Chantry, or vice versa, and were tied to obedience by their dependance on lyrium. And the Chantry's control of the lyrium trade. Southern mages had their Circles, and their phylacteries. Plenty of control there. Orlesian nobility has the Great Game, still, and you can't tell me that lethal nonsense doesn't get incredibly predictable over time." Dorian gestured at the two women debating magic down below. "The Gray Wardens have a sad lot in life, but the dangers they posed to the common order were understood. Controlled. Historically it was a good place to send political rivals to get them out of your hair. Everyone knew they couldn't have children or engage meaningfully in politics. Everyone but your friend Ivy, that is, who made a career out of meddling for all she was worth."
"The woman did pick two kings," Cullen agreed.
"Indeed. What I'm saying is, people who have power want to keep the power they have, and they want to get more. You always need more. These utterly committed armies of the faithful, like the Templars and the Gray Wardens, they make for excellent tools." Dorian waved a hand as if to ward off protests. "I know the Gray Wardens themselves are not supposed to be tools used by anyone but. . . they can be. We utilized some ourselves to fight demons in southern Orlais. They're a fearsome force precisely because there is no turning back. They never retire, never desert. They fight like madmen because they have nothing to lose. You change that? And they're just like any other army."
"I find that a regular army is quite sufficient," Cullen said, dryly. Adamant came to mind, particularly. The legendary martial prowess of the Wardens hadn't helped them much then.
"Exactly. You do. The Inquisition does. All of Thedas is being remade in a new image, and the new Thedas is much more concerned about creating good things than keeping forces in reserve to deal with the bad. You're trying to get Templars to a place where they can go off lyrium safely, Cassandra and her little band of surviving Seekers is reversing Tranquillity. In some special cases. And Ivy wants the Wardens to be able to leave the taint behind. Just think how much better they'll be when they have their hearts in this world instead of the next."
"You can be resigned to your death but still have your heart in this world," Cullen said, without thinking. Maudlin thought. But then, the old days in the Circle were very much on his mind of late. Dorian waved this away.
"Oh, come now, don't pretend that all this truth and justice folderol gives you breath in the morning. I'm talking about truly caring for the future. Having someone to share it with. Children, if that's your particular thing," Dorian said. Cullen looked at him, expecting to see Dorian giving him that look that meant he was teasing, but the other man looked pinched. Tired.
"Are you and Lavellan talking about children?" Cullen asked. It was more than possible to take in a small child, if they wanted. Or five or six. The recent war left too many orphans to count. If he were more of a domestic man, or if he'd been married, he would surely have taken several in himself. But Dorian laughed.
"Sweet Maker, no. Can you imagine me with spit-up on my well tailored clothes? Unreasonable." He shifted, his stance wider, and smiled more like the smug, carefree man he generally was. Tuning that communication stone must have truly put Dorian in a mood, but it was good to see it was lifting. "But I can quite picture you with tiny creatures clutching at your pant legs. It would be just like having your own little army of raw recruits to whip into shape."
"Perhaps. Someday," Cullen said. His eyes found Ivy in the courtyard. She was gesticulating wildly, and nearly knocking herself off the bench. He hadn't ever really found someone he wanted to share his life with. Which, to be fair, wasn't something that was even possible until recently. Until he owned his own mind, instead of owing it to lyrium. As a Templar, he was no fit mate for anyone. As a recovering addict he was far too damaged.
Maybe he still was. Could he picture himself taking a woman to bed if all he was going to do was thrash and curse and recite cantrips after his nightmares woke him? He couldn't even bring himself to patch the roof. The fresh air and moonlight helped in a way nothing else could.
Any woman he'd be interested in would be able to do better for herself than a cranky old general who had to sleep in a room without a proper roof and who woke her with his shaking and cursing.
"That reminds me, actually, of a question I had," Dorian said. His gaze followed Cullen's down to where Ivy was sitting. "I understand you and the Warden knew each other back in the Circle. What was she like, before she became the unstoppable juggernaut all of Fereldan loves to praise?"
Cullen hadn't expected that question. He was braced for someone, anyone, to ask about their previous relationship. And that one was easy to answer. They didn't have one. They were just acquaintances. His schoolboy infatuation was not anyone's business and it couldn't possibly have impacted her life all that much. But this, he had to think about. He watched the sunlight gleam off the beads she wore in her hair. She'd been in his nightmares too long. It was strange to see her in the light- but a good kind of strange.
"She was kind," he said, eventually. "To everyone. Even me, and I was a tongue-tied young fool. She liked to study long after everyone else had stopped and gone to their dormitories. I think she practically lived in the library. And, of course, she was a fantastic mage. Even then. I was at her Harrowing, and I've never seen one faster or cleaner."
"So, no surprises there. It's always a shock, isn't it, when a famous person ends up being better than their stories," Dorian said. He sighed. "Unfortunately, none of the more salacious stories are true. I asked. I only tell you because I know for a fact that you've heard them, and that you will never indulge your natural curiosity."
Dorian was right on both counts. Rumors about the Hero of Fereldan abounded. And they ranged from the relatively tame- that she had a secret marriage to Nathaniel Howe, or to the King himself - to the extremely physically improbable. He wasn't exactly sure how many people could fit in a bed at once but he was certain the answer wasn't four humans, an elf, a dwarf, a qunari, and a stone golem.
"You're right that I wouldn't ask," Cullen said, primly. Dorian flashed him a grin.
Below, in the courtyard, she burst out laughing at something Morrigan said. But Morrigan didn't join her- in fact, she looked quite cross. He could admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that he was still drawn to Ivy. Whether it was because of the terror of his nightmares or simply because she was a beautiful woman, he found his heart eased when he saw she was happy. His eyes kept finding her in a crowd. And it didn't matter, really, if the reassurance he felt was because his nightmares were clearly not true or because it was simply nice to see. Until she left Skyhold it seemed a small enough indulgence to permit himself. There couldn't be any harm in looking at her.
Morrigan rolled her eyes heavenward, and in so doing she glimpsed him and Dorian standing on the battlements. Dorian responded to her glower with a cheery wave. Ivy, still grinning, followed Morrigan's gaze upward and saw the pair of them looking down at her.
His knuckles were white, gripping the stone.
She returned Dorian's wave. Cullen couldn't quite bring himself to wave back. What on Earth was wrong with him? It wasn't as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. He was just standing here. A place he had every right to be.
"Oh dear," Dorian said. Cullen glanced at him and found the mage watching him with narrowed eyes. But then Dorian smiled, and strode off toward the stairs with a waggle of his fingers. Cullen didn't even have time to ask him what he meant. But he knew whatever it was, he wasn't going to like it.
Scowling, Cullen returned to his office. He had work to do, and no time for this foolishness. The next time he saw Dorian hanging around on the battlements he'd just nod.