"He won't talk," Cullen muttered, arms crossed, head bent down. "We've tried offering him…well, anything. Everything we can. He won't talk. I'm ready to let Leliana have at him."
"Varric was as annoyed as you," Cassandra murmured, pacing the small entrance to the dungeons slowly. Their prisoner was well out of earshot. "If you do hand him over to our spymaster, do not let Finley know. She's already quite upset with our treatment of him."
Cullen frowned. He'd read the report. After subduing the man, their Herald had healed his more grievous injuries. He'd tried to run on the second night they'd had him, and Bull had been 'forced' to put his axe in the man's shoulder.
Again, Finley had healed him.
After that, however, she'd become withdrawn and quiet, much like she had been when she first joined the Inquisition. Well, that's how it seemed to Cullen when he'd welcomed them back, only to have her breeze right past him without so much as a glance.
Cassandra insisted it was different. Her mind wasn't lost, but focused on something so much so that she missed simple greetings and parts of conversations. Her brow was always scrunched down. Her eyes were not haunted with echoes of horrors that had already happened, but instead flickering with that eerie fire, her mind a whir with unspoken thoughts.
"I suppose you're right. It won't end well if she finds out," Cullen muttered. If it had been a few months ago, he wouldn't have even considered it a problem. Now, though, with so many coming in, speaking about the Herald as though she were the one leading the damned Inquisition itself, there was no way she could be quietly brushed to the side.
Whether she'd meant to or not, she'd made herself crucial in the political circles, as well as the demon fighting front.
"Yet we must to do something," Cassandra conceded wearily. She ran her hands down her face and shook her head. "I will leave that to you, Commander. If you are certain you cannot break him, we must do as we must." And with that, she turned on her heels and left.
Cullen considered going back to the man and trying one last appeal to him. Maker's breath, he was a templar. If something had happened to one of his brothers in arms, he should have wanted to help him rather than hide whatever had gone wrong.
Following after Cassandra, he left the dungeons.
Perhaps that's what he was doing? Had his friend been the one with the bright idea to use red lyrium instead of the traditional kind? If that was the case, he could see the Order trying to cover up such a blunder.
But the orders had said to kill anyone who saw him. That…that was a long way to go to cover up one man's misstep.
This, with the way they hadn't been able to get in contact with the Order, left knots in his stomach. His feet carried him off without him paying much mind. He kept thinking over why the templar would have turned to red lyrium.
If he was given the option, would he have taken it?
The thought of lyrium brought a familiar hum to his ears. He missed it. He missed the way he felt after taking it, the power that coursed through him. Now, he had days where he felt so weak, like his own legs wouldn't support him.
The headaches should have been getting better, shouldn't they? He could feel one nibbling at the edge of his consciousness. It was always there, ready to bloom into a migraine at any slight provocation. Most days, he could ignore it if he threw himself into his work.
Now, though, wondering about lyrium, about where his order was…
No. It wasn't his order anymore.
He wouldn't be bound.
A knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. Without realizing it, he'd gone to the small house they'd given him—despite his protests that he could stay out with the soldiers—and had taken off his armor. Really, it was a single room, with a side area sectioned off for bathing, but it felt like they'd wasted resources on his behalf.
Another knock sounded. He tugged his leather jerkin back into place, looped his sword belt around his hips, and went to open the door.
The Herald stood there, looking around idly, hand poised and ready to knock again if he took much longer. He furrowed his brow and started to ask what she wanted. Before he could focus enough to find the words, she strode into the room, hands already moving in vague motions as she spoke, her words assaulting his mind quickly. He missed the beginning of it, instead numbly closing the door after her, watching her pace in small circles through the room. Worse, her accent was more pronounced than usual, which didn't help him follow what she was on about, either.
He tried to focus.
"…too familiar, and I feel like maybe that's why it's ringing bells, but not really? It's wrong, but that was never particularly wrong, so maybe it's…" She trailed off as she looked up at him, stopping in the middle of his room. "Do you think…?"
He rubbed his temples, praying she wouldn't summon his demons. "Herald, I have no idea what you're talking about."
She took in a deep breath, crossing her arms. Her fingers drummed madly against her arms. Then, she turned and wandered over to a table near his bed, with his armor laid out on it. She ran her fingers over one of his gloves, her curiosity idle. "It's wrong. Red lyrium."
He didn't want to have this conversation right now. He rubbed his face. "Yes, we know that."
"But, it's still lyrium. Just…wrong." Finley glanced to the side and then at him. He considered telling her that she didn't have to break up her thoughts quite so much, but she seemed to catch on. Perhaps it had been the sour look settling over his face. "I don't know. I feel like it's familiar, but that could just be because it's lyrium, yes?" She began pacing again. She stopped at a small shelf, running her fingers across the different books' spines there. Most of them were military strategy. Actually, all of them were. Cullen had never seen a point in reading things that didn't have practical value. "I mean, I know templars use lyrium for…things." She paused, tilting her head. "I know they get slower without it…"
"Is there a point?" Cullen snapped, his voice a bark. He startled both of them, and she turned on her heels to face him, her boots scraping dully against the floor. Cullen could feel the pain creeping into his skull.
Even the Herald knows I'm not as strong…
"Well," she tugged on her sleeve, a finger hooked in one of the holes already there. "I don't…know. You used to be a templar. Did they use red lyrium for more important rituals or something? Is that how it got in him?"
"I don't know." He took in a measured breath when he realized he'd snapped again. "What I mean is, I've never heard of anyone actually using red lyrium, so I don't know how he was…infected by it."
She looked disappointed. Had she really come to him just to ask him about that? There were dozens of templars in Haven, templars still in the Order. Couldn't she have asked them?
"It doesn't make sense that he would be taking it," she declared. "He was in pain. It caused him pain." She paused, reaching up with her hands to hold her neck, the fierceness of her gaze softening a bit. "I could see the anguish in his eyes. Why would he do that to himself?"
Cullen lightly caught her arm and dragged her toward his door. He couldn't do this. Not tonight. Not with the headache whispering trills of pain through him. "I don't know. Maybe he thought the pain was worth it." Maybe the song was stronger with red lyrium.
He tried not to think about it.
"I couldn't heal him," she whispered, even as his hand was on the door handle. He stopped so abruptly that she bumped into him. He hesitated, looking back at her. Her gaze was on the floor. "I…" As he let her go, she brought her hands up and ran them through her hair, further messing up her usually messy braid. She kept it too loose. That was why it was always such a mess. She glared up at him, though he had the feeling it wasn't really him she was angry with. "I am a good healer."
"I know."
"I mean, I can't heal everything," She started pacing again. This time, it didn't seem nearly as grating on his nerves. "If you die, you're gone. If you get something chopped off, you're staying in pieces," she shuddered at the thought. "I can't fix a lot of things, I suppose. But…this. This was…I don't know. It was a familiar break? Something I've tried to fix before and failed at. But I can't place what."
She grew so still for a moment.
He'd never seen her completely stop moving before, and the urge to shake her and make her start fidgeting again bubbled up inside him. This stillness was wrong.
He stepped toward her cautiously, reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder. Before he could, she abruptly turned around. "I don't know. I can't place it. I've been trying to think of my encounters with templars before, and nothing comes to mind." She blinked up at him, clearly surprised that he was standing right behind her. However, the usual shiver of fear that seemed ingrained in her when she was too close to templars didn't happen. Instead, she just furrowed her brow further. "What do you think?"
He lightly gripped the pommel of his blade. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking me."
She crossed her arms, glaring toward their toes. "That makes two of us."
Despite his earlier agitation, he couldn't help a slight smile. "You…came to rant to me, when you didn't know what you were even ranting about?"
She straightened up with a sniff, indignant. "I just wanted to figure this out. It's been bothering me since…since I couldn't save him."
He scratched the back of his neck before walking over and taking a seat on the edge of his bed. He patted the mattress beside him, and she followed, hopping onto it and pulling her legs up to cross them. Her shoes left a few flecks of dried dirt on his blankets, her pacing having dried most of the snow off of them.
"You tried, that's more than most would have done."
"You didn't see him," she whispered. "Bull split him open from side to side," her fingers splayed across her own stomach as she paled, "and he was still alive. It had to have been the red lyrium. No man could have survived that…" She looked at Cullen, horror plain on her face. "Sera and Varric both hit him with arrows, and it was like he didn't even notice them. He wasn't a person anymore…just rage. So much…rage and pain." She looked back at the floor, eyes wide. "You don't think…you don't think the Order would have done that to him, do you? To make him strong enough to take out the rebel mages?" Her shoulders quivered. "What if there's more like him?"
"I've been wondering that, too," Cullen admitted, resting his ankle on his other knee. "I would hope the Order wouldn't do something so desperate, but…"
"Maybe it's just a faction of the rogue templars?"
Cullen wished he could say yes to that. He had a strange feeling in his gut, though, that this was far worse than they could imagine. With what the red lyrium had done to his Knight-commander, he'd been worried people might remember the immense power it had given her, and not the horrible demise that had followed.
"Has his fellow templar said anything yet?" she asked. She frowned, drumming her fingers against her ankles. "I should have opened with that…"
"He will not speak with us," Cullen replied before he remembered that he was planning on handing the man over to Leliana.
"You plan to take more extreme measures." Her voice was flat.
"We…feel that whatever information he carries is likely of great importance. There was red lyrium at the Temple of Sacred Ashes after the explosion, and perhaps whatever happened to that other templar is tied to it."
It had been horrifying to see. Worse, as they'd drawn back with the Herald, he'd been almost certain he could hear it whispering to him, even though he had never gotten close to it. It was going to be a nightmare to go back up there to close the Breach.
With a fluid movement, she'd hopped off his bed and turned, batting away the dirt she'd left on his bed sheets. "I'm sorry. I should have considered that before putting my feet up…"
It took him a moment to realize she'd changed the subject. He reached out and lightly caught her wrist. "It's fine." He patted the top of her gloved hand and then held it in both of his. "I know you don't like violence, but sometimes it's necessary to prevent something worse."
She patted his hand and pulled hers free. Then, she turned and slipped out of his house, pausing in the doorway and looking back at him. "I'm sorry…"
He furrowed his brow. "For what?"
She hesitated a breath and then shrugged. "To have bothered you so late. I will try to stay mindful of the time in the future."