Seven
Lina and Dominic reluctantly did their duty.
The mage didn't take part. Cain didn't care.
He was giving these poor souls a merciful end.
Their eyes were dead. The red lyrium had penetrated them too deeply. Their minds were either being torn apart or burned away. They were less than slaves, nothing but husks.
He told the others to go outside and get some fresh air. He would look a bit deeper into the mine and join them in a moment.
A lie.
He needed them to go away.
They did as ordered.
Cain retreated farther down the tunnel, out of their sight. Anya had noticed he was hurt, but he had tried to keep it from the others. The Red Templar knight had slashed him while he was dispatching the foot soldier. The hulking knight didn't carry a blade, but the lyrium crystals growing from his meaty fists had slashed as true as any dagger.
Cain's mouth felt like was filled with ash, bitter and burning, just like it had after Haven. His pride had forced him to take this assignment, but it was foolish and dangerous. After another scrape with the Red Templars, he was realizing just how vulnerable was to their corrupted lyrium. Too vulnerable.
He lifted his fingers and examined the blood that was coming from the gash in his abdomen. Cain looked over his shoulder to make sure the others hadn't followed him. He was alone.
He lifted his mail shirt and the tunic underneath and took a closer look at the wound.
"Shit," was the only appropriate word he could summon in his mind as he looked at the bloody hole. It wasn't large and it wasn't bleeding badly. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't even be bothered by it.
But his eyes honed in on the fragment of red lyrium that jutted from his flesh.
It must have broken away from the Red Templar's fist and caught in the wound. It was barely a sliver, not even half as long as his pinky finger. But it was red lyrium.
He reached down, his fingers shaking as he pinched the small shard between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. It felt like any other stone, smooth and hard, if not slightly warm. He could feel fresh, hot blood sliding around his fingertips as he tugged, slowly pulling the piece out to make sure it didn't break under his skin.
The knight was monstrous, his distorted features, red crystals growing out of him. The battle in Haven was confusion and surprise and he hadn't had time to really take notice of his foes. But this battle was different. He was close and his eyes took time to examine the grotesque knight as he attacked it.
How long had it taken to corrupt the knight to such a state? Red lyrium hadn't been anywhere except Kirkwall less than a year ago. The Templar Order had been fractured by Lord Seeker Lambert, but not so far fragmented that this type of wicked transformation would have been so widespread.
It could only have been weeks, maybe a few months at the most, for someone like him to become something like that.
The shard of crystal slipped free from his wound and he quickly threw it down the tunnel with a quick flick of his wrist.
He coughed again, his chest heaving and he bent in two. His stomach wracked and he choked, his stomach lurching. His eyes watered and a pulse of bitter ichor washed through his mouth again.
Cain needed to bandage the wound, but he fumbled in the small pouch on his belt. He pulled the small vial out and uncorked the stopper, placing the cool glass to his lips. He tipped it slightly, letting the lyrium drip onto his tongue. He sipped more deeply than he would usually and swished the thick fluid around his teeth and into his cheeks before gulping it down.
The bitter taste faded and he could feel a calm come over him as the blue lyrium pervaded his body.
Cain closed his eyes, drew a few breath and clenched his fist in and out, trying to relax his muscles. There was that same aching and tension in his body that he had felt after Haven. His mind calmed and his body eased and he suddenly realized he felt exhausted.
It had been some time since he had used his abilities at that level.
"Cain?" came the soft feminine voice from behind him. "Cain, you're hurt."
"I told you, I'm fine." He took a step forward away from her. The mage.
She continued walking toward him, he could hear. "You're not," Anya said, matter-of-factly. Her fingers lightly touched his shoulder and her jerked out of her grasp and took another step forward. She followed and grabbed him this time, pulling him around. "Stop this. Let me help you."
Cain turned as she pulled and used his right arm to shove her away. He pushed harder than he intended and Anya stumbled back, having to catch herself against the wall of the mineshaft. He was awash with anger. His right hand curled into a fist instinctively and his eyes narrowed.
"Leave me," he growled.
His reaction had startled Anya, and she cautiously took a step backward, pulling her staff off her back as her eyes locked around his clenched fist. She slowly brought it around to her front, eyes carefully watching Cain's hand. "You are a Templar," Anya said, the words laced with equal parts bitterness and disappointment.
His fingers tightened in his fist and he felt another swell of anger run through him. What did she know? She was just some girl. She should have died with all of the other mages in the Circle Tower. She probably was a blood mage, as the other Templars had said. He should have helped them instead of cutting them down. They knew his suffering. She didn't. Maleficarum.
His anti-magic flared. Anya's eyes widened with fear. He pushed harder, letting the field expand off his body. She raised her staff. She pointed it. Nothing happened. He closed the distance in a single step.
His fingers wrapped around her throat. He pushed her into the wall. His mind was screaming. Kill her! She's maleficarum! She is weakness! You am strenghth!
Anya's fingers frantically grabbed at his hand.
He squeezed harder.
She opened her mouth. If she screamed, he couldn't hear it.
He clenched tighter. Her fingers raked at his his arm, useless. She kicked her legs, but couldn't reach. His power flared higher. Her eyes watered. They looked desperate. Hope slipped away. Fear overtook them. The bitter taste flooded his mouth.
That bitter taste.
Kill her!
Anya stopped fighting. Her eyes stared empty. Defeated. She was ready to die.
His mouth burned. His temples pounded. He couldn't feel his right arm. That bitter taste was so thick he could feel it stopping up his throat and his breath. He the air in, trying not to choke and looked at the greenish light in her eyes as she faded under his might.
A tear dripped from her eye and rolled down her cheek.
Stop!
The word jolted through him, as if an outside voice had screamed directly into his ear. But it was his voice, slicing through the rage and the chaos in his mind. His thought cleared. As if for the first moment, Cain noticed his fingers clasped tightly around the mage's throat.
He let go, pulling his hand away as if her neck had suddenly become white-hot metal pulled from the forge. He stumbled back, looking at his own fingers. He felt bile coming up his throat. He realized he was still holding his breath. He exhaled. The breath felt like fire, as if he had been holding in ash and acrid smoke.
He coughed. The acid in his throat forced its way upward and burned. His chest wracked and his jaw filled with spit and bile and he turned to the side, spewing it onto the ground. The coughs didn't abate and grew fiercer. His ribs felt like they were collapsing inward. He bent at the waist, then fell to his knees, pressing his hands against the cold stone.
The wound at his stomach burned. He sucked for air but couldn't seem to pull any it. Drool fell from his open maw, spraying in foamy slather as the coughs pounded out of his chest. His slather dripped red.
He gasped and the first breath of air slipped into his lungs like a cool rush of relief. His hands clenched and he breathed again, drawing another breath. He coughed, lighter, and took a third breath.
Cain could feel the calm retaking him. He forced his lips into an O and slowly pulled air between them. In and out. In and out.
He had nearly killed the mage.
A shiver ran through him at the thought. He had killed mages before, several, but always in battle. Apostates on the run, abominations formed as the apprentice failed his Harrowing, the rebels who tried to fight their way out of the Gallows at Kirkwall. But not like this. Not in cold blood. Not in rage, not just because they were mages, because they had insulted him. In and out.
He turned his head to the left. Anya was on her knees, her head down and hair covering her face. He could see tears dripping down into her hands folded in her lap. In and out.
"Anya," he forced through his lips. She didn't answer.
"Anya, please." Cain rolled to his side, a dagger of pain shooting through his wound. His fingers fell to the gash. It was bleeding again, he could feel as his fingertips brushed, hot, sticky ichor. The wound was burning, as if someone had stuck a molten poker inside it and dug it down. It pulsed waves of pains. She lifted her head slightly, a single eye peeking out between strands of her hair.
"Please," he said again. "Please. Help me."
It was a plea. "I can't …" he struggled. "The lyrium." It sounded like an excuse. Was it? For what he had done? "I can't withstand the lyrium. It was … in me."
"I can't, I don't …" He couldn't find the words. His mind was scrambled, filled with fear. "Please. Don't let me become that," he begged. "Become them."
The fingers on his left hand settled into the wound again. It was so slick with blood now he couldn't tell how large it was just by touch. His mind felt fuzzy. The bitter taste had subsided, now left with nothingness.
Anya stirred. She lifted her head and crawled forward on the floor toward him. She reached forward with her right hand, her fingers trembling. After what had happened, he couldn't blame her for being frightened.
Cain lifted his hand away from the wound as she drew closer. Her fingers stopped an inch from the slash, as his hand was still floating there, just above hers. He looked up and Anya was staring him in the face.
She didn't blink. She studied his face and his eyes, her lips pursed and quivering. Her eyebrows bent inward, wrestling with a decision.
Cain couldn't blame her if she didn't help him. She was on the precipice of death at his hand. She could spark magic into that hand and drive it through him right now. Perhaps she was considering it. He could accept that.
Cain pulled his hand back slowly, retreating.
Anya's eyebrows pulled out and lifted. Her lips opened just slightly and her entire body seemed to melt in relief. She blinked.
Her fingertips touched his stomach.
Cain winced as she slowly and carefully traced them across his flesh, feeling the wound underneath the blood. She slid closer to him on the ground and sat up, reaching her other hand to his abdomen to hold the sheared metal and ripped fabric aside. She bent her head lower to look and a white light flickered into being on her left hand.
Cain could feel her breath on his flesh as she examined the cut. He groaned as she dipped deeper into the slit and pressed down. Fresh blood oozed around her delicate fingers and she pushed a second time, eliciting another grunt.
"Try to hold still," she whispered to him. "I'll try to be quick."
Before he could protest, she punched her fingers deeper into the wound. A cry of pain escaped his lips and he jerked, but tried to steady himself. Her fingers fumbled inside his flesh and he ground his teeth together as waves of pain shot up through him.
Her tongue poked between her lips as he had seen her do while she was concentrating on a spell. She moved her left hand slightly, pushing again with her right and then quickly withdrew. Cain gasped at the sudden exit.
Between her fingertips, Anya held another jagged piece of red stone. She held it up, looked at it and sighed. Her eyes looked at Cain again, softer than before.
They almost looked like forgiveness, he thought. No, she would never forgive. Understanding, maybe, nothing more.
Cain averted his eyes to the side, ashamed.
"I can seal the wound now," she said. "If you trust me to knit it magically."
He had planned to rinse it and patch it himself. He turned over her use of the word "magically" for a second. She wouldn't have said it that way if she didn't doubt whether he could tolerate it. "Yes," he said simply. "Thank you."
Anya reached down again with her right hand, pressing her fingertips at the top of the cut.A green light wrapped around her fingers and she touched it to the open flesh, sliding it down the length of the wound as the magic quickly sealed the rent flesh back together as if new. In a few second, the skin was closed, leaving only the stains of blood on his stomach. She placed her palm flat against his skin and sent another pulse of magic that he could feel flow from her hand through him.
The green glow faded and Anya slowly pulled her hand back. "That's it.."
Cain reached his hand down, touching himself and finding the wound completely sealed. His flesh was smooth, completely normal.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know," Anya responded.
"I understand if you would rather leave. I can send you back to Skyhold with the others," he offered.
"And what about you?"
He paused. "I'd leave. Far from here. Far from anywhere. Somewhere where I can't hurt anyone."
Anya instinctively reached up and rubbed her hand around her throat. She was no doubt in pain. He had crushed her neck under his fist. He was sure there would be bruises.
"What is it like? The lyrium?"
"It's a noose," he answered without hesitation. That thought had been on his mind ever since he left Kirkwall, ever since the first day he tried to go without it and could feel his entire body lusting for it until there was nothing else to his existence but the yearning. "Every day it grows a little tighter. You stretch as far you can, you struggle and balance on your toes just waiting for that day you slip and fall."
Anya stretched her hand out again, touching the place on his stomach where she had just healed the wound. The touch of his fingers on his flesh gave him a sense of calm, a peace and feeling he couldn't remember feeling in years. Could he even remember that any more?
"And this red lyrium. It's all madness. It takes all of the worst in you and amplifies it a thousand times," he reached down and took Anya's hand in his. He squeezed. She didn't pull back.
"I can't," he stumbled again. "It penetrates me. I can't fight it. The lyrium is already inside me and the red lyrium, it's there too. I can't defeat it. But I have to do whatever I can before it claims me too."
It was then that Anya pulled her hand back. "How can you believe that?"
"How could I not? You see what I am. What I will be. You said it. Templar. Templar," Cain said with such disdain the second time. "We are already sentenced to die. The Chantry fed us this fate. And now a twist, an even crueler price to pay. We deserve this for what are, for what we did. To you. And to your kind."
The confession caused Anya's eyes to well with tears again. She sniffled. She leaned forward and took Cain in her arms, hugging him. It wasn't the reaction he was expecting. Confused, Cain wrapped his arms around Anya too, and held her.
She placed her head on his shoulder and cried for a moment. She whimpered softly, squeezing arms tighter around him as her chest lifted and fell with each quiet sob.
After a minute she said, "It's not your fault."
It's not your fault? He didn't understand.
"I won't let you destroy yourself."