AN: Thank you for the kind comments and reviews.
The demon's claws raked across his back, his blood-curdling scream echoing through the hall of the Circle.
"Give in, you know you want to." For hours the torture continued uninterrupted as the demon sensed Cullen's fortitude faltering.
"I'll give you nothing, demon." He spat back through his crimson-coated teeth.
"I see I've taken the wrong approach." The demon mused as it swayed around Cullen, the click of its feet like a metronome over the screams in the atrium. Screams of his order murdered one by one by Uldred and his followers.
It placed purple-skinned hands of mottled flesh over its eyes. As their fingers dragged the length of its hideous face, the only one left remaining was Solana's- his beautiful mage. Her straight, flowing hair the color of night. The glowing hazel eyes that used to put him at ease now filled him with a terror he never felt before when the demon whispered into his ears.
"Cullen," Solana's voice was an oasis in the desert to a man dying of thirst. The frightened Templar clamped his lids shut as his hands found purchase around his ears, pushing against the sound funneling grief into his soul.
He watched the mage expire alone on the stone floor while he fought to protect the innocent in the tower when the uprising began. She fought bravely. Her emerald-toned staff swinging freely in the air as her magic reached for the assailants storming in from all sides.
She never showed fear as the blood mages came for her, never cried out when the blade struck deep into her side. Her fading hazel eyes caught Cullen's as her body collapsed limply to the ground, blood flowing over the cold concrete as triumphant cheers rose from the revolters.
From the confrontation, Cullen flew into battle, fighting his way up the floors of the Circle with a group of Templars hoping to stop this uprising in their tracks. They were captured by Uldred and his group of willing blood mages.
After an eternity, he knew not how many of his brothers lived and as the screams grew fewer and farther apart the Templar gave in to the fear of becoming one more demon for Uldred 's army. -
He had yet to grieve the loss of the black-haired, soft-smiled mage that infatuated his time in Kinloch. The smallest touch from the woman with the gentle eyes kept him smiling for hours as his shifts through the night would drag on with no end. It was the folly of youth to believe in anything resembling a future for the Templar and apprentice mage.
That flame of hope burning brightly within the heart of the boy who allowed himself to look deep into her questioning eyes and ask, 'what if?'
The demon now wore her angelic face twisted into a canvas of evil as she smirked at Cullen, leaning in front of him as he recited the Chant of Light to block out her lies.
"Open your eyes." She commanded, and Cullen's eyes opened against his will, looking deep into her pair of hazel with a sinister glint hidden in their paths. "Good boy." Her slender hand rose to her throat as she untied the stays of her robes. As her fingers crested down to the swell of her breasts, Cullen swallowed hard, tasting the blood leaking from the lacerations inside his mouth.
"I like you, I can't wait to give you what you've been waiting for." She pulled the front of her robes open, revealing the flimsy band that covered her breasts. "I think you'll going to enjoy this." She breathed as she leaned forward to place her mouth on his.
Cullen's body spasmed as he woke. Heart pounding so violently his vision spun as he focused on his surroundings. He focused on the hole in his ceiling, counting the stars until he could move without the threat of vomiting the bile and acid coating the sides of his throat.
Sweat covered every inch of his body as the chills set into his muscles, adrenaline wearing off. A warm weight snuggled against his arm as he gained control of his erratic breathing. She was awake. Her breathing shallow as she curled around him, comforting him with her presence when words would be insufficient. Her hair wrapped around his shoulders and neck, fingers trailing over the side of his bicep.
Every time he blinked the images of Kinloch flickered behind his exhausted eyes. He started another round of star counting of the stars as the image of Solona's decaying body pushed its way to the front of his mind.
"What if all this is for nothing, Ev? What if we work so hard building our army only to be crushed as we arrive to fight Corypheus? If something happened to you…" His words trailed off. The image of Evelyn's bloodied body now taking the place of Solona's twisted one on the ground in his vision.
Ev's hand reached up, wrapping around the far side of his face as she turned his head, his ear resting against her plump lips.
"We stand as gods among men, Cullen. You are the sword and shield guarding Thedas against harm—her chosen protector." Her answer sent chills down his spine as she breathed the words. "Lay down your worries. I would rip open the Fade to slaughter every demon within to keep you safe. They will cower at my feet and know the price of what it means to threaten Cullen Rutherford. As you guard Thedas, I will keep you safe." Her crimson lacquered nails dragged across the stubble of his throat turning his head to face hers, so their gazes met.
"Evelyn, I…," Words failed him as searched her olive eyes. Sleep was heavy in her features as she laid facing him on the bed. A weak smile appearing on her tired face.
"We'll talk about it in the morning, Cullen. Sleep in peace knowing I'm here." Her eyes closed as she pressed her forehead against his and drifted off back into the Fade.
He watched her, the slack from her face falling as she fell heavier into slumber.
There were so many things he wanted to tell her that fear kept shoved down with the bile stuck in his throat. As terrified as he felt in his dreams, he felt invincible in his waking hours by her side. She shared her strength freely, and he believed her when she said she would let nothing harm him.
His lids drift closed as he chuckled as the softest snore passed over her lips. She was right. There was time to discuss these things later. There would be time to tell her he never wanted to wake without her by his side. That standing by her made him a better man. There would be time tomorrow.
Turns out tomorrow is a fickle thing.
"Recruits left!" The Commander's voice echoed over the training fields as he pushed the army through their morning training.
A withdrawal headache pushed on all sides of his head as he struggled to keep his eyes focused on the recruit's awkward movements. Cullen's poor sleeping schedule degraded as the Inquisition returned from Halamshiral. Since Leliana and Josephine left over a month ago to beg for any military help they could muster, his sleep was nonexistent. As focused as he stayed on his essential work, his traitorous brain filled his mind with memories of Evelyn.
Scouts appeared magically every second he wasn't paying attention with another stack of missives needing his immediate attention at all hours of the night. The longer he went without sleeping, the stronger the sweet song humming lullabies from the little vial of glowing blue promising him a release and relief from his suffering. Pain haunted his waking hours as he single-handedly kept the Inquisition moving forward towards the beast known as Adamant would wear him down until the song became too irresistible to resist.
The Inquisition's army was less than half of what they left the Winter Palace with. Guards were stationed heavily around the perimeter of Skyhold, not to keep the enemy out, but to contain the soldiers within. The Commander believed most of the army that wanted to desert already left and had been proud of the progress his remaining recruits made despite only being half an army. The remaining men were committed and believed in their cause that stopping Corypheus was more important than anything else.
As betrayed as Cullen felt at his Ferelden soldiers deserting, in the quiet hours of the night he wondered if he would do the same in their position. No- he had decided. Not that he felt his family needed protection from him, but he would be too stubborn to admit his organization was led astray.
Look how long he had lasted in Meredith's vision of what the Templar should be before she had passed the invisible line in the sand that prevented him from condoning her actions. It took threatening the lives of every mage in The Gallows for Cullen to see the insanity lurking behind Meredith's eyes. How far could Evelyn push them from their ideals before Cullen stood his ground, a sword pointed at her heart? Or could he ever? It was a trail of thoughts he wouldn't allow his mind to follow, afraid of the truths his mind would whisper in the dark.
The lack of veteran Templar also hurt their training processes in Skyhold. Knight-Captain Barris oversaw all training for recruits and follow up. Cullen and Rylen together paled at his organization and innate detail, their training schedule loosening at the seams. Until Idalya entered and helped them pull the threads back together until they had a cohesive and effective training program back in place for the slow trickle of recruits that still made their pilgrimage through the mountain paths leading to Skyhold despite everything.
We will rebuild the elf said as she gripped him by the forearms when he told her there was no point in preparing for Adamant. Her words had been so confident even as the woman looked frail. All the elf's softness melted away over the previous weeks as she skipped more meals and remained alone for all of her off hours.
The few younger recruits struggled as the reps edged towards its completion. Cullen's feet led him over to their exhausted faces against his will until he was looking over them and their incompetent footwork with scathing fury brewing beneath his skin.
"Your feet are sloppy. Clean it up! Shields higher! Look," he poked his sword into a recruit's shield, "a fireball would have crashed around your shield. Hold it angled down just below your eye level. Now!" The recruits shook as their Commander barked out orders, embarrassing them in front of the most seasoned soldiers.
There was no room for softness with these men. Adamant would not be kind to these men nor their fate and neither could Cullen to give them their best chance of survival. Most of them would not live through the battle against the highly trained and resilient Wardens, but he wasn't certain that the soldiers knew the power of the Wardens they would face after a treacherous hike for weeks across the desert to the fortress.
There was an instant surge of gratification when the young recruits cleaned up their footwork and moved their shields to the proper positions. It was such a small thing, but it was what he needed. Nodding his approval, he looked off to the next training ring, where Idalya demonstrated how to avoid contact in the battle to a group of soldiers, putting her phenomenal speed to use.
She casually moved back and forth between the roles of a soldier and instructor as she went from showing half the group the proper way to attack a dodging enemy while shifting to the other side to show the proper way to dodge the incoming lethal blow. The recruits looked at her with such admiration in their eyes, that she if she told them frilly dresses galore was the way to bring down the Red Templar, the men would show up proudly in full skirts ready for battle.
She broke the recruits up in pairs as they took turns lunging with their practice swords as the other half of the pairing avoided the hit. Slowly she worked her way through all the pairs, pointing out critiques or edits to fix their form or for where their eyes to watch their opponent to have the greatest range of view. The men smiled and congratulated each other as they became faster with the moves as Idalya sped up the drill until the soldiers were pouring sweat from under their helms as they ducked and dodged the blows that an hour ago seemed impossible to avoid.
Dal clapped her hands at the end of the drill as the recruits shook hands and clasped one another on the back. It had been ten years and the young elf still schooled him on how to do your job with honor and grace in the face of adversity.
"Okay recruits, we're done for now. Get some water then head to Knight-Captain Rylen for Templar work." The soldiers stood at attention, then left to rehydrate at her dismissal.
At the makeshift desk he had scouts bring out to the training yard for him, Cullen flipped through his growing pile of missives as he searched for any sign that the two other Ambassadors would arrive back in Skyhold soon. They sent word a week beforehand about leaving to make their way back to their mountain fortress, but that was the last communication Cullen received. Even Leliana's scouts claimed to have had zero interaction with the Spymaster which was unusual for her.
Finding nothing from the Ambassador in the pile, Cullen sighed out of earshot of his soldiers. When the women returned, he planned to move forward to approach Cassandra to find his replacement as Commander.
The nagging and unrelenting cry for lyrium plaguing his hours before was destroying him as every inch of his body begged for the return of the crystal blue savior. Whispering secrets no one else would understand. He asked Cassandra to replace him once, but both she and Evelyn adamantly denied his request.
In the past, Evelyn helped him keep his focus on the future ahead and to keep pushing forward, but now he spent more of his days lost in the dark days behind him. The light at the end of the tunnel was no longer visible if you turned your back to it. Cullen didn't want hope anymore. He held it tenderly in his hands once, before it slipped away, disintegrating in the air like falling grains of sand caught in the wind. Ev stood beside him and told him they were strong and could face any adversity that came their way. That was until someone stronger came along and told her they alone could keep her safe in this world waiting for her to fall.
Cullen shut his eyes as he burned out the image of her glowing auburn hair. Thinking of her made the veins in his arm twitch, silently yearning for the pierce of the needle, the push of the plunger, until… no, I can't do this.
His teeth gritted together, and he opened his eyes to find himself alone at the pitiful desk as no one paid him any heed as he fell to pieces in the middle of training. He flexed the palms of his hand open and closed as he tried to move the sensation out of his traitor arms.
He was shocked back into reality as the front drawbridge clicking into movement, servants running about clearing the entry area as the door opened into Skyhold. Please let this be Leliana and Josephine. The faster they returned, the faster there would be a replacement in his position- someone that could hold themselves together as they prepared to march to war.
Cullen was not that man.
He hadn't realized he headed that direction until he was waiting at the entry for whatever group waited on the other side.
As the group entered Cullen's line of sight, the half-smile playing on his lips faded. His stationed patrols unit entered with a line of dirtied Inquisition soldiers behind them, their hands tied behind their backs. The deserters.
His soldiers entered solemnly, jaws set into a tight line, eyes facing forward as they marched. Their prisoners marched single file in between as people gathered around in the courtyard to see the traitors returned home as prisoners.
The Commander's grip on the handle of his sword caused his hand to go numb, an improvement over the anger pumping through his veins as the men continued to file into the courtyard. Their heads down in shame confronted by their former Commander.
These men swore their allegiance to the Inquisition and snuck away under the cover of night. They abandoned their brothers in arms and their vows when they escaped from Skyhold. Cullen would make an example of these men of what happened when you broke your word to the Inquisition and to him.
His Captain ran over, saluting Cullen as he drew near. "Commander." He was out of breath after the trek up the mountain. "We found them holed out in a small encampment to the woods south of here. They had a plan to get out of Skyhold, but not how to travel in the frigid temperatures back to Ferelden. They were fish in a barrel, sir."
"Good work, head in and debrief with Rylen."
The Captain nodded and set off up the side stairs to make the trek back to Cullen's office where Rylen was buried under stacks of paperwork Cullen dumped on him before taking over the training any man below could have run. But with Rylen, Cullen didn't have to tell his friend he was so exhausted he was falling asleep on his feet. He couldn't risk sitting down to sort paperwork since he'd pass out at his desk in the middle day or worst, his nightmares follow him into the daytime while surrounded by the soldiers that followed him.
He should call Rylen down now; Cullen knew he wasn't in the right mind to deal with something like this. Better to wait for Leliana and Josephine to return to make a group consensus. Cullen knew all these things, but his anger was getting the best of him. Weeks of poor sleep compounded him to the point of explosion and these men returning from their failed attempt at escape was his last straw.
The deserters' eyes widened as Cullen pulled his sword from his scabbard and walked to stand a few steps on the stairs leading up to the front doors of Skyhold to look at the men. He rested the tip of his sword on the stone as he spoke.
"You have failed the Inquisition. You gave your word to our organization, broke it, and abandoned the second you had questions." Fury sizzled through his veins. "You were not conscripted or forced to join- you joined our cause then abandoned us! We will make an example of what happens when you break your word!" He snarled at the line of men. "Prepare them for execution."
A collective gasp escaped the watching crowd as the shocked Inquisition soldiers made the deserters form a single file line while another soldier brought a wooden box for the men to bare their neck to Cullen's steel that shined cruelly from his side.
"Cullen?" A gruff voice from below caught his attention in his steaming anger towards the cowering men, many who had tears streaming down their cheeks.
"What, Blackwall?" He didn't have time for this. The man had no sense of timing. Blackwall walked hesitantly past the line of waiting deserters and closed the distance to Cullen's side.
"What are you doing?" The man's whisper threw Cullen off guard like a shield blow taken to the chest.
"Excuse me?" Yet another time the grisly Warden was out of line with his opinions.
"This isn't the man you are, nor want to be." Blackwall's features were grave, his tunic covered with wood shaving from some carving project he wasted his time on.
"Since the sword is in my hand, apparently, I am, Blackwall." The Warden's jaw clenched as he considered his options and Cullen wondered if the Warden would have the gall to attack him in front of his own men and hope to survive.
"Have you ever killed an unarmed man before? Have you ever looked a pleading man in the eye and brought the sword down? That changes you, Cullen. Murdering a man in cold blood changes you and changes your men forever. This isn't you…"
The last word hung invisibly in the air, but Cullen knew it was anymore, he wasn't like that anymore. Or was he? As poor of an answer as it was, he didn't know who he was without Ev. He could fight every day if it meant he could live another one by her side, but now his struggles overwhelmed every decision he made.
He couldn't think.
The Warden refused to break his stare as he expected an answer from Cullen.
"This isn't how we do things here, you know that. These are your rules, Commander." The Warden leaned his closer, the earthy smell of wood radiating from him. "I'll do whatever I have to stop you from yourself."
That was it.
Cullen was done with soldiers not listening, he didn't give a shit if Blackwall was one of Evelyn's companions- the Warden was out of line.
"Guards grab this man. I'm charging him with insubordination, take him to the holding cells for judgment."
The guards moved forward without hesitation, grabbing Blackwall by the arms, pushing him further up the stairs as Blackwall continued yelling toward Cullen, but he stopped listening. That show was embarrassing in front of his men.
With careful movements, Cullen walked the final steps until his boots met the solid ground and were numb as reached the makeshift execution block his soldiers set up to stand in silence and watch their brothers be beheaded.
The door on the side of the entry drawbridge opened and Idalya and Solas entered, fur-lined winter jackets over their thin limbs as they approached the gathered scene. Confusion scrolled over Dal's face as Solas hung back, the mage understood what was happening, remorse heavy on his features. The next Warden pushed her way to the front until she found her way in front of Cullen.
"What's happened? Who are these men?" She turned to look across the line of the men and as her lavender eyes happened across a dirty Inquisition-issue tunic, she understood, her eyes wide in terror as she followed the line through and saw the wooden box set up for them to advance.
"Please, I beg you. Do not do this." She whispered. Her eyes desperate as she pleaded into his, but he turned away before his stubbornness could falter in the path of her hope and resilience.
"Think of it from their point of view, Cullen. They're afraid. Just look at them. They're terrified, not just of your sword, but about what's coming- and they should be! Every single one of these soldiers should be quaking in their boots about facing down Corypheus and his army, Maker knows I am!" The elf's hands shook as she pleaded with her friend, hoping to get through to him before it was too late.
"You remember what the Blight did to our home, Cullen. They lost friends, family, and children. The darkspawn killed indiscriminately. Our ability to have remorse and grant mercy separates us from them. Look at them, they're fucking children. None of these men should be old enough to join an army, much less die in a war." She squared her shoulders back, her body standing proudly as her face told another story. "You don't understand what you're sentencing these men to."
He tried to speak, but she held her shaking hand against his chest and he quieted as she stared up, sorrow filling her eyes as the pink and gray hues fought one another for dominance.
"You don't die and find yourself held in the warmth of the Maker's bosom. You die, and there's nothing. No resolution, no peace, no salvation. You're just gone and no longer exist." Her voice so fragile as her pleas grew exhausting. "Please swear you'll only take a life if you have to."
He felt ill as her words exploded in his head. He knew Dal well enough to know she wouldn't lie. What if there was no Maker? What was the point of breaking his chains to the Chantry if his noble death due to lyrium meant nothing? His feet stumbled as the sunlight became too bright for his eyes. The Hero's hand on his arm steadied him, her touch funneling strength into his weakening body.
"I am so sorry, forgive me," he whispered to the warrior who sighed as she nodded with understanding at the broken man who used to be a Templar. "You understand why I will do what I am, right?" He mumbled out of the corner of his mouth at Idalya who briefly raised an eyebrow at the Commander before resigning herself to the consequences of her actions with an annoyed sigh.
"Guards take the other Warden to spend a night in the jails for insubordination." He boomed across the field.
Solas nearly slapped himself in the face, as his hand rose too fast to his forehead, his jaw falling open. Idalya stood proudly in place, the deserters watching her like she was the second coming of Andraste as the guards carefully pulled the Wardens arms behind the small of her back and escorted her upstairs to the holding cells.
"Captain," the young man made his way to Cullen's side with haste. "Take these men to the cells, I will discuss their fate with the Spymaster and Ambassador when they've returned." The look of relief that passed his captain's face made Cullen's guilt multiply. In his impulsive anger, he nearly made the wrong mistake until two people stood up to him the way he had to Meredith.
Meredith.
His head swam at the thought of his previous Knight-Commander. She started on the righteous path only to be pushed astray by her fear of mages. He drowned in shame as he became the woman he loathed.
Lyrium withdrawal had pushed him to the point of no return. He owed Blackwall an apology, the man was right- taking those men's heads would have changed him forever. Never did he want to be the man lashing out in judgment against his soldiers instead of ruling logically.
His fellow advisers needed to return and needed to do so quickly.
For all his disagreements with Evelyn, he now had a saddening realization: I could never do the job required of her.
