Author's Note: I'm not too impressed by this chapter, it feels a bit rushed in my opinion, but it was mostly a lot of fighting and walking and I don't want to describe every single fight in detail, because that would get very old, very quickly. But! Now they're out of the Deep Roads, which means more juicy things to come ;D

I'm thinking, however, of ending AUA soon and doing a sequel, because I don't want to have a story that has a hundred chapters, that can seem very daunting to new readers (and myself, haha). So would any of you mind terribly if I were to split Tori and Cullen's story into two parts? If anyone has any real complaints against it, I won't do it, but otherwise I'll be ending AUA in a few chapters and starting the sequel.

Also, thanks again to everyone who reviews, I love it and I really appreciate it, you are all - in Zevran's words - ridiculously awesome! I couldn't continue to write (at least, not this quickly) without you! :) A very special thank you goes out to Allie, Kiki Aries, and Aya-Chan4861, who have stuck with me for so long and always take the time to write reviews (which always leave me strutting and preening like a peacock after I read them, that's how ego-boosting they are). You three are especially special, thank you so much :)


Cullen was starting to hate the Deep Roads with every fiber of his being.

The stench of darkspawn clung to his armor, his skin, his hair, and he couldn't get away from the smell no matter how he tried. He smelled it in his sleep, which was plagued by the monsters they hunted and whispers in the deep. He barely slept, and when he did he always awoke on the edge of panic with his nightmares still in his mind and his heart racing. Every time he awoke, Toriana was sitting on her bedroll, large eyes staring sightlessly down the hall, and he began to wonder if she slept at all. The shadows under her eyes and the paleness of her face said she didn't.

The Deep Roads seemed to be taking a toll on everyone in their company, especially in the two days since the explosive ambush. The Templars and mercenaries were nervous, jumping at every sound and suffering nightmares that left them exhausted. The Wardens merely looked grim and tired, and Cullen wondered if they shared the same nightmares of darkspawn he had or if every Warden had different dreams of them.

The Deep Roads were an evil, desolate place.

Mekel took the role of guide in Pater's absence, leading them closer and closer to the broodmothers the Wardens had found in their previous excursion. Cullen stuck close to Toriana's side, despite the fact she was about as warm as a block of ice and did not talk unless it was to give orders. He stayed silent as well, but eventually he couldn't keep his curiosity and bewilderment at the explosion to himself; he had to know, for his own peace of mind. He had never seen an explosion like that save for the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry – which had been on a much larger scale – and the paranoid part of his mind told him that it was magic's doing. His training hissed that people who could cause such destruction should not be able to run free; he fought it down as he looked over at Tori.

"The explosion…" he began, wincing when Toriana's eyes fixed on him with an emptiness that frightened him, "What sort of magic was that?"

Her lips pressed together tightly for a moment before she answered in clipped tones, "That was no magic. Explosives are a work of science."

Cullen's brow furrowed; science? The only thing he had heard of science was from the lay sisters who said that it was a dangerous, heathen art. She caught his incredulous look and elaborated, "There are chemicals… certain materials that you can mix together, and when exposed to heat they combust. We once had a dwarf at the Keep who specialized in such things, but he left years ago." She frowned, eyes dark and seeming very far away as she continued, "My guess is that the emissary stole the explosives, or somehow… learned to create them."

A darkspawn, learning? That didn't sound promising. "Can they do that? Learn," he clarified when she looked at him blankly.

She nodded slowly, her expression wary and veiled, "I've found darkspawn who could think, learn… speak." Cullen gaped at this – weren't darkspawn all mindless monsters? She didn't seem keen on explaining, however. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that this one figured it out on its own."

And with that, Toriana shut off, facing ahead once more and clearly done talking. Cullen gave a barely audible sigh and resumed his silent walking.

He hated the Deep Roads, and darkspawn even more.

It was three days after the emissary's attack (during which they found many smaller groups of darkspawn and dispatched them easily) that they found the broodmothers.

Cullen had to swallow down the bile rising in his throat at the sight of the swollen, tainted… things. They were barely recognizable as once being human, and now, seeing firsthand what became of women captured by the darkspawn, he understood why Toriana had reacted so viciously when he'd told her that some women were taken captive.

Their company was standing on a wide ledge overlooking the cavern, where they could see the darkspawn but the darkspawn could not see them. Toriana signaled for absolute silence as she surveyed the scene, and he could see her mind working as she frowned down at the three broodmothers gurgling and shrieking below them, tentacles waving in a gruesome mockery of arms. Swarms of what Toriana had told him were called Children scuttled around the tentacled monstrosities in various forms of development. Some were wriggling larvae and some had full legs and scythe-like arms. It was a disturbing sight, to say the least.

After a few minutes Toriana gestured for everyone to follow her back into the narrow tunnel they had come from, to a small cavern a short distance away from which they wouldn't be heard. "Head back to the surface," she ordered, standing at the front of the group with a stiff, commanding posture that did not warrant any argument. "With the broodmothers so close together, I can kill them all with a blizzard and we can head home." There was a short murmur of appreciation from the mercenaries and Templars.

"Mekel and Cullen will stay with me. Moiraine and Carver, you lead the men towards the surface and we'll follow as soon as we can. Be prepared to meet some resistance on the way." The man and woman in question nodded, and Moiraine began giving orders to the men as they headed back in the direction they had come from.

Once the three of them were alone, Toriana turned to Cullen with as serious an expression he had ever seen her wear, "This spell will be massive, and there's a good chance that the power of it will attract the attention of a demon." He paled at that, but didn't speak and so she continued, "You know what you might have to do."

Cullen swallowed hard, finding it suddenly difficult, "You're asking me to…"

"To kill me if I become possessed." She said in such a calm, emotionless voice that he wondered how she could just face the possibility of her death without so much of a blink of an eye. Was it something the Wardens had taught her? To be cold and calculating, even when facing the worst one could imagine?

No, it couldn't be, he told himself as he remembered her back in Kirkwall, awakening frantic and sobbing and clinging to him as if he was the only thing between herself and insanity. Or the night before they'd left on this expedition, when she'd spoken to a King who was not there and looked so broken inside. He knew she felt pain, misery, sadness… So then was this just an act? And for whose benefit was she maintaining her outward calm?

Cullen was barely aware as he nodded, swallowing again and again and being unable to wet the dryness in his throat. The other Warden, Mekel, nodded to her when she gave him a questioning look, and then she turned and walked back towards the broodmothers.

As he stood beside her on the outcropping, his sword drawn and ready, he could feel the power within her building and growing into a tempest within her, until her whole body crackled with magic that made his skin itch. He dutifully stayed by her side, prepared for the worst but hoping for the best. It reminded him horribly of her Harrowing, of her lying defenseless beneath the edge of his blade and him sweating and frantically wishing that she would wake up, wake up…

Cullen couldn't bear the thought of having to kill her.

But he would do it if he had to; he knew this. If it came to it, he would kill the woman he had longed for for nearly sixteen years of his life – for his duty, and for her, because he could think of few worse fates than becoming possessed and losing who you were. That didn't mean he had to like the idea of it.

He could feel the Veil growing thinner as she held on to her spell, magnifying it within her, and he could sense the straining of her body trying to contain it. Sweat broke out on her brow above her blank, unseeing eyes that were half in the Fade, and her arms trembled where they held her staff aloft.

Toriana's spell was released with such suddenness that Cullen jumped in alarm as the cavern before them dropped in temperature so low that frost formed on their armor and encrusted their hair. Gale-force wind howled through the chamber, carrying shards of ice and wisps of snow that crashed into the broodmothers below, pummeling them and their half-frozen Children. Their inhuman shrieks and bellows were lost in the roar of the wind as they were beaten or frozen to death.

The Veil was growing dangerously thin the longer she held the spell, but even though the darkspawn below them were dead she was not stopping. Her breaths were coming out in clouds and her lips were blue from the cold, her eyes wide and vacant and holding a hint of the purple that he had been told was reminiscent of the Fade. There were things on the other side of the Veil, waiting like starving hounds one the other side of a rapidly crumbling fence where a wounded fox lay helpless.

Cullen could barely move from the cold, but he managed to put a hand on her shoulder and shake her, calling her name. She did not respond and he swore and began gathering his mind, hoping she wouldn't hate him for what he was about to do…

With a push of willpower, Cullen stripped her of all of her mana.

Toriana gasped as if she had been stabbed and her staff clattered to the floor as she stumbled back, hands flying to her head and looking panicked. Her spell died away and the temperature slowly began to return to normal, leaving behind the corpses of the darkspawn lying in the bottom of the cavern. More importantly, Cullen could feel the tremble of the Veil going back to normal, and he sighed in relief.

Toriana, however, was giving him a scandalized look, "Y-you smote me," she croaked in a voice that was raw and weak.

Cullen grimaced, "You were about to either tear the Veil or kill us with that spell. I did what I had to." She still looked stricken, gasping for air with wide eyes and seeming on the verge of either tears or screams. He had seen mages stripped of their mana before, and they had worn the same horrified look as she had now. Was it truly so terrible for them? "I'm sorry." But he wasn't sorry he had smote her, because he had saved her life in doing so; he was merely sorry that it was clearly so horrible a thing to go through.

Her lips twisted, and for a moment he thought she was going to shout at him, but she merely grimaced and clutched at her head, muttering under her breath about her head splitting open. As she picked up her staff he made to sheath his sword and she stopped him, "There will likely be darkspawn on the way out, and since now I have no mana to defend myself, you better keep that out and get ready to kill some monsters." Her voice was biting and irritable, and though he felt his own irritation building towards her that she was taking it out on him when she had been the one to nearly kill them, he obeyed without further response.

They caught up with the rest of their group after only an hour, despite the fact Toriana was too weak to manage more than a moderately swift walk, as the larger group was locked in battle with a horde of darkspawn three times their number. Cullen stayed close by the Warden-Commander's side as she made an attempt to join the fighting, using her blade-ended staff like a fauchard. She wasn't entirely effective, but she managed to kill a few darkspawn, and those she could not Cullen took care of with a swift blade.

Now joined up with the rest of their group, they made it through the Deep Roads faster, tearing through any darkspawn they came across with fervor. Everyone knew that home and safety were nearing them, and despite their fatigue were fighting as hard as they could to get through it faster. At some point Toriana finds a few lyrium potions on one of the darkspawn and drinks them all as if she's desperate, and then she's brimming with magical energy and their path through the Deep Roads seems to go even faster as she burns and freezes all the darkspawn in their way.

Even at an increased speed, it takes four days to return to the surface, and during the whole trek Toriana says no more than the orders to set up or break camp every night and morning. Cullen still wakes from nightmares, and he still sees her every night sitting and staring into the fire as if she's in another world entirely.

And then it's almost like a dream when they begin climbing the stairs that lead to the surface, and when they emerge from the hole in the ground the light is blinding after the near-darkness of the Deep Roads, and it takes everyone a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the afternoon sun. The remaining mercenaries whoop and cheer, and even the Templars give wearied sighs of relief, but the Grey Wardens stay silent as they continue to walk, eyes dark and weary. Cullen can see the grief in their faces (even though they try to hide it), in the way they cast one final look back to the entrance of the Deep Roads before they disappear through the trees, and the line Toriana had said during his Joining comes to mind.

And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that one day we shall join you.