Upon their arrival to Adamant, much becomes clear.
Magister Erimond is in league with Corypheus and caused the premature Calling that drove the Wardens to become so desperate. After the blood sacrifice, Evelyn knows there is no hope of reasoning with them and they must be stopped.
Fighting the Wardens is harder than the Red Templars in a way. They still look like men and she doesn't have a lifetime of strife against their order. Worse of all, she understands the decisions that lead them to this point.
Solona, on the other hand, is enraged. She calls down lightning, not from her staff but from the sky itself and large swirling clouds that hover over the fortress. Several wardens drop their weapons upon sight of her, a few from relief but most from fear.
She allows those to live.
Hawke is a whirlwind of chaos and seemingly has a sixth sense for anything combustible in the area.
They cut a swath through the Wardens and their demons, leading the Inquisition Forces.
It is Hawke, Solona, Cassandra, Sera, and Solas with her when the dragon arrives, smashing the bridge from under their feet.
It is a fall she knows they cannot survive and so Evelyn stops resisting the pull of the anchor and pours all of her magic into the thing. It both obeys and does what it wishes, ripping open a rift that swallows them whole.
They are the first of flesh and bone to walk through the Fade since the Magisters that attacked the Golden City and she wonders what price they will have to pay for such a transgression.
It spats them out later, with an answer, one member less, and yet so much heavier.
The Inquisition and captured Wardens are stunned to see them, their gasps and shrieks soon followed by familiar faces pushing through the crowd. Leiliana is first, the usually enigmatic woman's jaw-dropping at the sight of them. Josie is right behind her, her hand going to cover her mouth.
Evelyn knows they look like they've been to hell and back (they have), their bodies covered in blood and ichor. Sera has collapsed into a sobbing, shaking, cursing pile. Cassandra is leaning heavily on Solas and favoring her now-injured leg. Solona is glaring at the Wardens, her bloodied knuckles blanched white where she grips her staff.
Cullen is next through the bodies, and his chest heaves in and out a huge breath when he finds her. It is almost as if she could read their very thoughts.
How?
It takes her a moment to realize someone else has approached and she breaks her gaze from Cullen to the dwarf now before her.
"Where's Hawke?" demands Varric, one hand fisting the edge of her cloak. "Evelyn, where is she?!"
Evelyn tries to respond, but her voice only creaks at the sight of his desperation and fear.
She clears her throat and tries again. "She stayed behind so we could escape... If this is the start of a Blight, we need the Wardens and we need Amell. I had no choice, I'm sorry, so sorry...Varric-"
She reaches out, intending to put her hand on his shoulder, but the dwarf has already stepped away from her, his lip curled in disgust before he turns to disappear back into the crowd.
Her fingers card through her hair, nails digging into her scalp in an attempt to distract herself from the despair she feels. Hawke is gone and the weight of it sits on her shoulders and compresses her chest, threatening to suffocate her.
The champion of Kirkwall, a hero of mages, and above all, her friend... And she left her in the Fade alone to face a nightmare. She left her to die.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," she chants as she curls over her knees and tugs harder on her hair. Anything to draw her focus.
Her magic is bleeding from her, wild and lashing. A warning to mortals. A beacon to demons.
The glow of the mark dances over the walls of her tent.
You are not Andraste's Chosen, something whispers.
"No."
Imposter.
"I didn't know!"
Betrayer.
"Stop. Please stop."
Her breath stutters as the next inhalation is ice cold and stale, the hairs on her neck rising as she feels the veil thinning around her.
Evelyn wraps her arms tightly about her waist, trying to empty her mind and calm her emotions. But all she can see is Hawke's daring smile and the sad determination behind the woman's eyes as she said goodbye and launched herself at the Nightmare in the Fade.
You sent her to die to save yourself.
"That's not-"
Varric will never forgive you.
"No. No, please..."
She can feel herself slipping, oily tentacles from the Fade wrapping around her soul in preparation to crack it open and let in the Demon that wore Merrick's skin.
And Cullen. Hawke was his friend too.
Her mind floods with a vision of Cullen his face furious as he bears down on her with his sword.
They'll all turn on you. You will be alone. You will die alone.
"Please."
And you will have deserved it all.
"Evelyn?"
She lifts her head to find Cullen kneeling before her, his expression urgent with hands that grip her tightly around her upper arms.
She lets out a relieved sob and wraps her own hands around his forearms. Taking a steadying breath she levels her gaze to his.
"Cullen, I need you to silence me."
His face contorts and he shakes his head. "No. Fight it, Evelyn. You can do this."
"I can't. It's too close and too strong. And what I'm feeling... it's too much. You must."
"Please don't make me do this," he begs quietly. "Not to you."
She can feel the demon burrowing into her and she needs him to cut her off from the Fade to stop it. Digging her nails into his forearms, she leans forward, her teeth clenched. "Either silence me or ready your sword, Knight-Commander."
He squeezes his eyes tight before he passes one hand over her.
"Silence."
It hits her like an ax dropping down, severing her connection to the Fade and she collapses like a marionette with cut strings, gasping into the furs that overlie the sand in her tent.
For a moment, she feels nothing and automatically reaches for her magic, a wave of nausea hitting her and making sweat bead over her skin when there is no response. She guesses it would be much like if a normal person lost the sense of touch all over their body. One can function but it would be disconcerting and unnatural.
Cullen is brushing back her hair. "Evelyn? Are you alright?"
She manages a weak nod against his palm as he sits her up. "The danger is over. Thank you."
"How are you feeling?"
Grief stricken, sick, exhausted, she thinks but has something more important to discuss with him. "I'm not Andraste's Chosen."
His mouth opens then closes and his head tilts as if he did not quite hear her.
"It is all a lie," she continues, "At the temple of Sacred Ashes it was the Divine behind me that was seen. Not Andraste." She lifts her hand and stares at the dulled light of the anchor while fresh tears fall. "It's all been a fucking lie."
Cullen's calloused hands cover her own, hiding the anchor from her sight.
"The Maker is rarely as overt in His actions as the Chantry would have us believe," he says quietly and swallows, "I have seen a great many terrible things in my life. The demons at Kinoch, the darkspawn in the Blight, and the slaughter at Kirkwall. But in each, there was a beacon of light that held the darkness at bay long enough for good to prevail. My brothers kept me from despair until their last breaths. Solona fought through a sea of Darkspawn to stand before the Archdemon, and Hawke was the center of a rallying cry that lead to a revolution. And you emerged from the rubble of a cataclysmic event, impossibly, unbelievably alive."
It is his turn to lean towards her and all she can see is gold, in his hair, in his eyes. "I don't know if you are chosen, Evelyn, but we follow you because you are our light in the darkness."
His thumbs are rubbing back and forth over the skin of her hand and she remembers dying in the Frostbacks, that hand limp and frozen when she too saw a light. Small, pale, and blue, it cut through the blackest night she had ever known.
"And you are mine," she whispers.
She is tempted to panic, to take back her confession, but she is too exhausted to muster the effort. Instead, she just watches as several emotions flicker across his face. The first is the stillness of surprise followed by something uncomfortably close to the pained expression he made just prior to silencing her, but then it relaxes, replaced by what she could only describe as longing. He, already so close, leans in.
It takes her a moment to process what is happening. It is soft and almost unbearably sweet the way his lips meet hers. Like she is not alone in the confusing tumult of feelings about their arrangement. Like he understands. Like he agrees.
He pulls away far too soon for her liking and stands, taking her hands to pull her up. The opening to her tent flutters open to reveal Dorian and Cassandra.
"Everything alright?" asks the Seeker, her eyes flicking back and forth between Evelyn's tear-stained face and the Commander. "We felt a surge of magic-"
"Followed by a silence," completed Dorian.
The Tevinter mage is sharp and Evelyn can already see him putting the pieces together.
"I'm fine," she reassures them.
Cullen turns back to her. "I'll go and explain. You rest."
She mouths a simple Thank you before crawling onto a thin mattress, looking forward to a fore once dreamless sleep.