"Tell me what happened," Cullen demanded as he stood in front of Delani's wounded companions.

Cullen had led a small platoon of soldiers, accompanied by Iron Bull, to the campsite where Delani had last been seen. They had been met by death, bodies of bandits and a few Inquisition soldiers were strewn about. The battle that had taken place here was hard fought. Everywhere he looked he could see evidence of Delani's skills as a rogue.

The grass was charred by Antivan fire, broken glass from smoke bombs and healing potions littered the campsite. Many of the bodies had fatal puncture wounds or slashed arteries. Delani fought smart and she fought hard, it came as no surprise to him that she had taken down as many bandits as she had.

Iron Bull had rushed to Dorian the moment that they dismounted, hurrying to the mage to check him over and feel for himself that he was alive and would be fine. Cullen envied him for it. How he longed to hold Delani, to look into her sea green eyes and see for himself that she was alright. But he couldn't, and it was killing him. Not knowing if she was even still alive hurt more than a blade to the heart. Cullen had to find her. He had to get her back.

Cassandra, Varric, and Dorian were bandaged and splinted, an arm cradled in a sling here, a crutch to help support their weight there. They were a mess, and Cullen was relieved that they had survived the encounter at all. That relief did not fracture his worry for Delani. She was missing and he had to find her. Cullen needed all the information that they could give him.

He was standing in front of Dorian, who was currently being treated to a protective shoulder rub from Iron Bull. Dorian's leg was in a splint, broken, and his bare chest was bruised and bandaged. There was a long gash on his hairline that had received stitches, and Cullen knew that Dorian would curse the scar it left behind until the end of time.

"It was dawn and we were preparing to return to Skyhold," Dorian started, dragging a hand down the side of his face as he recalled the events leading up to Delani's capture. He looked exhausted. There were dark half moons under his eyes and his hair was unkempt. If Bull had any sense he would make sure that Dorian did not get his hands on a mirror.

Rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes, Dorian continued with his account of what had happened to them. "We were discussing Cassandra's lack of a love life," his explanation was interrupted by the distasted growl that came from the Seeker, and a smile edged the corner of Dorian's mouth. Still holding Cullen's gaze, Dorian carried on, "when Delani sensed the ambush coming. Her ears did that strange twitchy elf thing before she ordered us to prepare for an attack."

"That's when we were overwhelmed," Cassandra added, taking the reins of the explanation so that Cullen could have a militarized version of the account. "They came in number. We bested them in skill but they swarmed down on us like insects." She answered his next questions before Cullen could give voice to them. "They had no identifying markers, nor any particular skill in combat. The only thing that they had were their numbers. They flanked us and closed in on us until they had a hold of the Inquisitor. The second they had her, the attack stopped and they pulled back."

There was a boulder weighing down in the pit of Cullen's gut. "They came for her," he stated, dread coursing through him like ink, blackening him, destroying him. He swallowed down his rage, wrangled down his growing panic, and instead focused on his purpose. Cullen had to investigate the attack so that he could better understand the attackers and try to predict what their next move would be.

"It sure does look that way, Curly," Varric muttered, looking about as distraught as Cullen felt. All of Delani's companions appeared to be angry and upset over the abduction of their leader. These bandits had stolen something precious from them, and they would pay for that crime with their lives.

Cullen ground his teeth, trying to stave off the tempest of emotions roaring inside of him, but he was failing. His overwhelming anger, his petrifying fear, his unbearable despair were tearing him apart limb from limb and he could feel the turmoil expanding inside of him until it threatened to burst out of him in an explosion of the messiest kind.

He started pacing, his face buried in his hands as he rubbed at his features. He had started walking so that he could better work out the onslaught of emotions raging inside of him. Instead, his every step seemed to stoke the flames, prod the hearth until he had no more control over his feelings or how they came out of him.

"How did this happen?" Cullen demanded, his tone low, dangerous, a growl that could rival that of a wild animal. He stopped pacing and sharply turned on his heel. Glaring at Delani's three companions, he angrily asked, "How did you allow this to happen?"

Varric and Dorian shared a glance, and Cassandra set her jaw. Lip pulling into a sneer, the Seeker corrected him, "We didn't allow anything. We were ambushed and overwhelmed, there was nothing that we could do."

Eyes narrowing into daggers, Cullen seethed, "Did you even try?"

It was Dorian who answered him, insulted, infuriated. "No. We just let ourselves almost be killed for the fun of it. Didn't we?" He turned to the others, inviting them to join him in his ire. "Wasn't nearly dying just so much fun?"

Iron Bull's grasp tightened protectively on Dorian's shoulders. He impaled Cullen with a dangerous look, a warning vibrating in the undercurrents of his voice as he rumbled, "Back off, Commander."

"We fought as best and as long as we could, Cullen," Cassandra assured him, understanding in her brown eyes even if her expression was disapproving. "The Inquisitor's abduction pains us just as badly as it does you. She is our friend and our leader, and we want her back just as much."

Breathing heavily, Cullen tried to put a cap on his emotions. He could not let them rule him, he could not let them guide him. Delani's life very well depended on him keeping a level head. Dragging his hands through his hair, he sucked in one deep breath after the other until his rage no longer clouded his mind. Once he could think clearly again, Cullen sighed and straightened himself back out.

To Dorian and the others, he apologized, "Forgive me. Knowing that Lady Lavellan is in danger is…" terrifying, sickening, overwhelming, unbearable, unacceptable. Cullen settled on, "difficult. I did not mean to take out my frustrations on all of you."

Varric shrugged, unfazed by Cullen's accusation and quickly accepting of his apology. Allowing a supportive smirk to curl the corner of his mouth, the dwarf sympathized, "We get it, Curly. But Scarlett is fine, and we'll find her before you know it."

"And once we do, we are going to make those bastards pay," Dorian agreed, resolute and cocksure like he always was in regards to the things he believed in wholeheartedly.

Before Cullen could reply with his gratitude for their support and sympathy, his attention was pulled to the tree line. One of Leliana's scouts emerged from between the trees. The spy master had assured Cullen that the elf was a tracker of great skill. When their eyes met, the elf woman waved Cullen over and he immediately excused himself from the conversation.

Running to where the tracker was standing, Cullen asked, "What did you find?" He hoped that it was something solid, something that they could use to find Delani faster.

The elf woman looked up at him with her large brown eyes, her expression was serious and unreadable. Gesturing for him to follow her, she stepped back into the forest and pointed his attention to the ground. "There are tracks, fifteen pairs by my count, none belonging to an elf."

He looked up from the forest floor to meet the tracker's gaze. Wordlessly, he demanded to know what that meant. If Delani had no tracks, did that mean that she wasn't with the bandits? If she wasn't with the bandits, then where was she?

"If she was in the same shape as her companions, she was likely unconscious," the tracker observed, helping Cullen to visualize what had happened to Delani. "The Inquisitor was probably carried to their mounts."

His stomach twisted at the thought of someone else's hands on Delani, especially someone who had hurt her to the point of unconsciousness. When Cullen found these bandits they were going to pay with their lives. The price of hurting his beloved was blood, all of it, and Cullen was going to collect.

The tracker guided him further into the forest, her eyes on the tracks as she carefully walked beside them. Without looking up to meet his gaze, she pointed in the direction the tracks were headed. "They're going north, by the looks of it." Returning her attention to Cullen, she gave him a curt nod and assured him, "We'll start following the tracks at first light. A group that large travels slow and stops often. We'll catch them, Commander."

He didn't want to wait until first light, Cullen wanted to start searching for Delani right that very second. But he knew that they needed to be able to see the tracks in order to follow them. Right now they had to focus on collecting their dead and injured and returning them to Skyhold. He had to write letters to the soldiers families. He had to make sure that Dorian, Varric, and Cassandra were properly tended to by healers. And then, the second that the sun broke over the horizon, Cullen would help track down the bandits and bring Delani home.

The ground was cool beneath her, her eyes shut as she listened to the night. Cicadas serenaded the darkness, nocturnal creatures creeping about as the fire died down. One by one all of McGregor's men had succumbed to sleep. There was likely to be one or two men keeping guard, but snores filled the clearing, heavy and even breaths letting her know that the others were asleep.

Slowly, she opened her eyes to find that the campfire had dwindled in size, casting a weak glow over the campsite. Delani set her jaw and ignored the pain that the action caused her. Wayne's beating had definitely broken her cheekbone, and it might have loosened a tooth or two in the back of her mouth. The right side of her face was swollen to the point of nearly sealing her eye shut completely. And Delani was next to positive that her nose was broken. She'd tend to her injuries later. First, she had to cut out of these ropes and then teach these bandits the error of their ways.

Carefully untucking the knife from where she'd hidden it between her bound wrists, Delani started to saw through the rope. She worked slowly, soundlessly, watching the sleeping bandits for any signs that they were about to wake. Once she felt the rope slacken against her wrists, she pulled her hands free and draped the rope over the back of her neck. Now she had two weapons against these fools. Tonight there would be blood. But first, she needed use of both of her eyes.

Delani brought the knife to the swollen side of her face. Pressing the pointed end to the corner of her eyebrow, Delani pressed down on the puffed up skin and winced as she dragged the knife down in a half circle and stopped at her broken cheekbone. Blood oozed from the laceration, seeping from the cut like a bitter wine from a broken cask. She sealed her lips shut and tightened her throat, stopping herself from making any noises that could potentially wake the sleeping bandits.

Once enough blood had drained from her face, and Delani could see from her right eye again, she set out to work. She pulled her necklace out from under her collar and peered down at the worn coin. Sending a prayer to Mythal, Delani begged the goddess for protection so that she might see her love again. Her second prayer went to Elgar'nan, the All-Father and god of vengeance. May he guide her hands tonight and cover them with the blood of her enemies.

She pressed a kiss to the coin, pretending for a moment that it was Cullen she was kissing, and tucked it back under her collar. When she opened her eyes again it was with relief to find that all of the bandits were just as she'd left them, sleeping. Crouching low to the ground she inspected the campsite, carefully scanning over each bandit as they slept. All the way at the edge of camp, almost completely out of the dim campfire's reach, a single lookout stood his post. A smile inched over her lips, she would deal with him first.

As angry as she was with these shemlan, Delani wasn't looking for a fight. There were too many of them and all she had was a knife and a rope. If she had her daggers and some grenades, then maybe she would have felt more inclined to just unleash her vengeance upon them like a hailstorm of fire and horror. At the moment, all Delani could do was sneak around the camp and hope that none of these imbeciles were light sleepers.

She rounded the camp, her footfalls were silent, her breathing was even, and the knife was ready in her grasp. This was not her father's knife, a knife that had seen her through countless struggles and filled her with comfort. This was a stranger's knife, used for things she couldn't even begin to imagine. It seemed fitting that she would use it to kill the group who had killed her friends. No, she shoved the thought away. They were alive. They had to be alive. She couldn't fail them too.

The lookout was whistling quietly to himself, picking the leaves off of a low hanging branch and folding them in half before tearing them down the middle. Delani almost felt sorry for the man, this was hardly fair. He was easily distracted and a terrible lookout, and it was going to cost him. Luckily for him, Delani was feeling gracious. She wasn't going to make him suffer.

Coming up behind him, Delani stalked toward like a wildcat ready to pounce. The moment that she was close enough, she lunged forward and covered his mouth with her hand. The sound of his surprise was muffled in her hand, soon to be accompanied by the sound of his death. As Delani secured his movements she stabbed the knife into his side, repeatedly punching the blade through his ribs and into his liver, his kidney, his lung, until he was no longer able to hold up his own weight. The bandit slumped forward and Delani eased him onto the ground, careful to keep him from making a sound.

Good. The one man that had been awake was dead, which meant that the rest of these idiots were free for the picking. The grin that carved its way across her mouth was wolfish. Time to have some fun.

She creeped back into camp, her every movement slow and calculated. Not a single twig broke under the pressure of her weight, not a single leaf crunched announcing her position. Delani had been a hunter too long to make such amateur mistakes. She knew how to take a life, and she knew how to be merciful about it. It was fortunate for these bastards that she was going to show them a mercy they didn't show her or her companions. They deserved pain, Delani would give them justice instead.

The first man she came upon was snoring loudly, his jaw hanging open and drool dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Delani kneeled beside him, watching him for a moment as he slept. She wondered if he had a family, a wife and children. Was that why he'd agreed to join up with these Faceless Few and abduct her for a ransom? Was he trying to provide for his family? Delani shook away the thoughts. She was the Inquisitor and he had thought to sell her off to the Venatori, the very people who wanted to destroy the world as they knew it. He was a fool, and Thedas could stand to lose a few more fools.

She plunged the knife into the side of the bandit's neck, her movement's quicksilver. When she pulled the blade out blood began to spurt from the wound like water from a geyser. The man's eyes shot open but he was unable to make a sound. He pressed his hand to his neck, trying to stop the blood flow, but there was nothing that he could do. Delani waited with him, holding his gaze as she watched the life drain from his wide eyes. With her eyes she apologized that it had to come to this. Hopefully he would find peace in the afterlife. Perhaps his Maker would welcome him to his side. Somehow, Delani doubted it.

Once the bandit was dead, she moved on to the next. It was a quick death sentence, painless for the most part. The bandit had felt fear, for sure, but the incision itself was quick and made while he was unconscious. He had felt the blood drain from his body and pool underneath him. He had felt the cold grip of death caress his limbs. He had been afraid, but he had not suffered. Delani would give his friends the same mercy.

She repeated the process several more times. Coming to kneel over a bandit, she would bury the knife into the side of their neck and pull it out. Their eyes would shoot open, wide and desperate as they searched for the cause of the disturbance in their slumber. They would find her beside them, watching, and they would search her features as though she were an angel of death. Mouths slack and searching for breath, they would gasp and pant, and sometimes Delani would have to cover their mouths to keep them from making a sound. But she would sit with them and keep them company while they passed. They did not die alone, but they had to die.

Ten bandits she had already killed that way. Only five remained. When Delani stepped up to the next one it was to find Wayne snoring loudly. Anger burst forth inside of her, flames licking at her flesh. He had beaten her. She had been bound and defenseless and he had beaten her until she was broken and bloody. He did not deserve mercy. Delani would not grant him the kindness she had shown his peers. Wayne would suffer, and she would watch gladly as the life was violently sucked from his eyes.

Removing the rope from her neck, Delani stood over him, one foot on either side of him, and wrapped the rope once around each of her hands until it was taut in front of her. She fell onto her knees and quickly looped the rope around Wayne's neck. With her knees on his shoulders Delani pinned him to the ground as she tightened the rope around Wayne's throat.

His eyes flew open and he gasped for breath. Lips pulling back into an animalistic sneer, Delani tugged the rope tighter still, until she felt his trachea give under the pressure. Wayne clawed at the rope, trying to loosen it around his neck. It was too tight, he couldn't get his fingers between the rope and his neck, instead his nails clawed at his skin and left furious red scratches behind. Upon realizing that the rope would not loosen as long as Delani held it, he reached for her.

Delani pressed down on his shoulders with all of her weight. It was a position he would not be able to easily get out of. Her knees on his arms made it difficult for him to reach for her properly, and her being so far up his torso made him unable to use his legs against her. Wayne could have pushed her off of him if he wasn't panicking. But he was, which only meant that he was going to die faster.

Wayne's beady eyes were wide now, holding hers with anger, hatred, and fear as each fruitless gasp was met by failure. His struggles were violent and loud, all that remained of the camp was probably awake now, but Delani couldn't pull her glare from Wayne's. She wanted to watch as the light in his eyes dimmed. She wanted to feel his struggles weaken. Delani wanted him dead for what he'd done to her.

The sound of someone shouting dimly registered in the back of her mind. The words were hushed behind the sound of blood pumping loudly in her ears. It was only when she felt a powerful pulse of energy shove her off of Wayne that she finally heard Ayden McGregor shout, "I said stop!"

Ayden was the mage who had frozen her in place before, she finally realized. Delani should have guessed. He had a certain way about him that screamed "newly free Circle mage" that was easy to discern under his bravado.

She'd landed some distance away from Wayne with a mouth full of dirt and painfully hitting her cut and broken cheek on the ground. Delani started to pick herself back up with a groan but, before she could fully gather her bearings, she was flipped onto her back.

Wayne was looming over her, the rope loose around his neck. Fury was bright in his bloodshot eyes, hatred burned off of his surface like heat from a fire. He was on top of Delani in an instant, before she had time to crawl away or fight him off. Upper lip pulled back into a snarl, Wayne wrapped both of his large, calloused hands around her throat and squeezed.

"So you like to play choking games, you knife ear bitch?" he rasped, his voice hoarse and breathy in wake of her failed assault. "It's a damn good thing that I've woken up with a hankering for rabbit."

His hands were so tight around her neck. Delani gasped for breath but not a single sliver of oxygen was able to make it past him crushing her throat. She scratched at his arms, tearing the flesh to ribbons as she fought to loosen his hold. Wayne was so much bigger than her, so much stronger. It didn't matter how hard she bucked or how furiously she fought him. He weighed down on her like a boulder and she was not going to be able to get him off of her.

Lack of oxygen was quickly making her light headed. Delani could feel her struggles weakening, could see the black creeping around the edges of her vision. Still she fought with everything she had left in her. She had to get Wayne off of her. She had to stop him from doing this. Delani had to free herself from these bandits. She had to find her way back to Skyhold. She needed to return to Cullen most of all. She couldn't die without him knowing. Delani could not slip from this life into the next without telling him that she loved him.

The grin on Wayne's face was the most disturbing thing she had ever seen in her entire life. And it was going to be the last thing that she ever saw. She was going to die here, surrounded by bandits, farther away from her friends and family than she could ever be, without the comfort of Cullen's warmth to help calm her. This was the end. And he didn't know.

Ma'arlath, vhenan'ara.

"Kill them all!" Her eyes were wild as she swung her great sword in a wide arch, pointing at all the mages she'd just demanded an execution for. The blade glowed red, tainted lyrium pulsing with a song of malice and death, coated with the blood of a hundred innocent lives that had not deserved their fate.

Meredith was covered in the blood of her charges. Crimson soaked her white blond hair, matting it around her face. Blood was smeared over her pale skin like war paint, bringing color to her eyes that were wide with madness.

Cullen looked around at those that were to be executed. They were children who had just come to their power, innocents who had done nothing wrong to deserve such a punishment. They were people covered in blood splatter that the Knight-Commander had spilled. None of these wide eyed magelings had truck with demons. None of them had dabbled in blood magic. The only one spilling blood, reveling in chaos, was Meredith and the Templar Order.

His gaze fell to his own hands and he gasped. His gauntlets were stained with blood. Fresh and wet crimson dripping from his hands like water. Cullen ripped them off only to find that his bear hands were still painted red. He was a part of this madness, he had helped lead the slaughter.

Searching his Knight-Commander's face, Cullen shouted, "We must stop this, Meredith!" Cullen was desperate. He had taken more lives than he had ever helped. He had made an oath to Andraste and the Maker, he had made a vow to himself and the Circle. And he had failed all of them. What kind of man did that make him? It didn't, he realized, it made him a monster.

"We will stop when they are all dead!" Meredith returned, running an unharrowed mage through with her hellish blade. She kicked the mage off of her sword and swung, hacking another in two. Her laughter was maniacal, insane. When she saw that Cullen had not joined her in her massacre, she whipped toward him and seethed, "I order you to kill every last one of them."

He took a retreating step back, shaking his head, trying to reason with a woman so clearly out of her mind. "They have done nothing wrong, Knight-Commander. We are sworn to protect—"

"The innocent," she agreed with a devilish laugh. "And we are!" Meredith bellowed before slaying another mage, grinning as his blood spattered over her face and coated her armor.

Returning her attention to Cullen, she grinned. "We are cleansing the world of these vermin cursed with magic. They are haunted by spirits and demons and it is our duty to protect the world from them. We must kill them all!"

"No!" Cullen shouted back, refusing to believe that that was what he had sworn himself to. He would not believe that that was what the Templar order stood for. It was supposed to be more. He was supposed to be better than all of this. Thirteen year old Cullen would have been horrified with the man that he had become.

Cullen shook his head as he backed away from this grisly scene. He could take no part in this madness. He could not accept that he ever had. "This is not what we do."

"It should be," his Knight-Commander rebuked. Her pale eyes flashing with something sinister, something terrible, something inhuman. Suddenly Cullen knew that it was not the mages that he should have feared. "Don't you remember what happened to you at Kinloch Hold? Don't you remember what they are capable of?"

He did remember. Not a day went by that Cullen didn't remember how horrible it was to watch his friends, his comrades get tortured and die. Everyday he remembered how he had begged the Maker for deliverance, but it had come in the shape of a Dalish elf. The Warden had believed that the Circle could be saved, that the lives of the mages were worth preserving. At the time he could not have disagreed more. She had not seen what he'd seen. She had not suffered as he had suffered.

But time and contemplation had soothed his anger. Cullen no longer saw the underlying threat in every mage he encountered. Not everyone was toying with blood magic. Most of them could resist the alluring whispers of demons. They didn't need to be feared. They didn't deserve to be slaughtered. For all the dangers they threw onto the laps of mages, the only one he saw murdering innocents was Meredith.

"Whatever they are capable of," Cullen started, eyes narrowing with anger and betrayal. She was his commander. She was his mentor. Meredith was supposed to guide him, help him, care for his wellbeing. Instead she had nurtured his hatred and his anger. She had turned him against his charges and blinded him to their suffering, suffering that he had helped inflict. Meredith was a monster and he was no better. But he did not have to go along with this madness any longer.

Taking a step toward the Knight-Commander he finished, "The only threat I see to the lives of innocents is you."

Her lip pulled back into a disgusted and disappointed sneer. Lowly, she replied, "Then you will die with them," before plunging her great sword into his chest.

A gasp tore through him as Cullen fell to his knees. His gaze dropped to the blade embedded inside of his chest. He stared at it in confusion, bewildered by the burning pain of his blood spewing from his chest. He coughed and blood fell from his mouth. When Cullen forced his head back so that he could look his Knight-Commander in the eyes, it was to find that they were completely blackened.

"You have failed, Cullen. You will only ever fail. Try though you might, your destiny cannot be changed." Meredith ripped her sword free and he fell back to the ground. Blood pooled around him, his life seeping from his body.

"No!" Cullen shouted, shoving himself from the dark grasp of the nightmare's hold. Pain shot through his head, and it felt like someone was using a butcher's knife to stir up his brain. He buried his face in his hands, his fingers in his hair as he dragged one deep breath after the other into his lungs. His body was shaking violently, his muscles spasming, and his body was coated with a thick layer of sweat.

It took several minutes for him to calm himself back down. The last of his heavy exhales left him with a shudder, and Cullen felt himself settle back into his body and the realm of reality where he resided. Dragging his hands through his hair, he tried to banish the lingering images from his mind, he tried to shake off the look of murder in Meredith's soulless and blackened eyes.

She had not lost her mind until the end, he reminded himself. Meredith had been a good woman in life, she had been a good Knight-Commander. Yes, she had been paranoid, stern, and unbending, but she had led her men well and tried to do her best. It wasn't until she'd been touched by red lyrium that she'd lost her way. No one was perfect. He was even less so.

When Cullen pulled his face from his hands it was to find himself seated at his desk. He must have fallen asleep while trying to get some work done. It wasn't surprising that the dreams had come with vengeance. His worry for Delani was consuming him whole, making it difficult for him to hold the protective wall he typically had, to keep the worst of the nightmares at bay.

Pulling himself out of his chair with a groan, Cullen rolled his shoulders and stretched out his back. He threw a glance over his shoulder to check if he had slept through the night, but found that darkness still prevailed over the sky. It was still evening. He knew that he should try to get some sleep but, after that dream, the very thought made his stomach uneasy.

He would go to the war table and contemplate where the bandits were taking Delani. When morning came he would go with the tracker and a squadron of men, and they would find the Inquisitor and bring her home. He would take care of her and show her how much he had worried about her, how her absence had terrified him, and now much he loved her. Cullen would get the chance to tell her he loved her. The Maker could not deny him that.

Cullen started for the door that would lead him to the rotunda only for another door to burst wide open. A flash of sickly pale skin and patchwork clothing stormed into the room. Cole's eyes were wide, his features were haunted.

Cullen's initial reaction was irritation. How many times had he already told the lad that he could not simply drop in unannounced trying to 'unknot the hurt' inside of Cullen? Yet still the boy persisted, talking in that tranced way of his, speaking in half sentences and descriptive thoughts.

"Cole, you can't just—" he started, only for his words to be cut off by the young man.

"Angry eyes staring down at me. Revenge begets revenge begets revenge. His hands are tight around my neck, nails like knives in my skin." Cole was standing in front of Cullen, looking at him but seeing something else entirely. His mind was in a distant place, in someone else's head, and that person was suffering. It wasn't until Cole continued with the reading that Cullen realized who the boy was linked to, whose dying mind he was stuck inside.

"Creators don't let this be it. I'm not ready. He doesn't know."

Cullen shook his head. Grabbing Cole by the shoulders he demanded, "Is it Delani, Cole? Is someone hurting her?" His heart fell into his stomach like a dead weight. If Cole was feeling her now, if she was thinking those thoughts it was because… No. Maker, no, she wasn't. She couldn't be. "Tell me, Cole!" He shook the boy, desperate for answers, but Cole wasn't in his body. He was in Delani's

Voice low and steady, nearly melodic in his incantation, Cole continued, "His hair is like gold, strands of silk, stalks of wheat in fields I will never own. Amber eyes shine with what? I hope it's love, please let it be love. Vhenan'ara, forgive me, you will never know how much I love you. Vhenan'ara… I… Gone."

His knees buckled. His mind blanked. His heart shattered, and Cullen was destroyed. Hammering a fist to the floor, a roar ripped out of him as his grief consumed him to his entirety. Pain shot through his veins, worse than any kind he had ever felt before in his life. Cullen would have preferred death over this agony. He would rather die a thousand times over than be forced to live in a world that Delani was not a part of.

Ragged breaths clawed in and out of him, each one more difficult than the last. His throat was tight, he couldn't breathe. How could he breathe, how would he ever be able to breathe again when Delani no longer had that privilege? How was he more worthy of life than her? Why her? Why had the Maker taken her from him? Hadn't He taken enough already?

"No!" Cullen sobbed, his entire body convulsing. Rocking himself back and forth, tears racked through him, ripping him apart from the inside out. "No, no, no, no, no…"

He had survived so much throughout his life. The Ferelden Circle, Kirkwall, Haven, but he would not survive this. He didn't want to.