The course of true love never did run smooth. ~William Shakespeare
The smaller training yard, situated in the crook of curtain wall and keep in Skyhold's lower ward, was normally the quietest and least used of the fortress' public spaces. Being further from the barracks, few of the soldiers frequented it and it often became an extra paddock for the nearby stables or a welcome patch of sunny ground for the kitcheners to sit in as they shelled peas and plucked chickens for the night's meal. This afternoon, though, the yard was occupied and word soon got around the castle that it was better to steer clear for the day. The Inquisitor had arrived back from Val Royeaux at midday and, from the hard and constant sounds of a training sword thwacking and thumping against a wooden dummy, she was not in the mood to be disturbed.
Aelis was not aware of being avoided. She had scarcely been aware of anything but the storm of thoughts swarming through her brain like a chaotic and maddening cloud of midges since leaving Blackwall's cell in the bastille of Val Royeaux. There was work to be done. There was strategy to be discussed and letters to write and people who needed her attention - the whole bloody world seemed to need her attention - but all she had wanted to do throughout the tense negotiations in Val Royeaux and the silent, uncomfortable ride back to Skyhold was hit something and then continue hitting it until she either felt better or felt nothing at all. Better it be the dummy than an actual person, and so she trained and sweated and cursed the state of her shieldwork under her breath.
Why? It was the question Aelis kept coming back to. She didn't begrudge Blackwall - no, she corrected herself bitterly, Rainier - the initial lie. It was one thing to lie to a stranger, someone who couldn't yet be trusted, but the time since they had been strangers was long since gone. He had been her friend - her mentor, even, in those dark days before the attack on Haven - and for some months now he had been her lover and closest confident. Beyond her advisors, beyond any of her other companions, she had trusted him the most. She had looked up to him. And, damn it, she had let herself love him. He had seemed so good, so immovably and unshakably bent on doing the right thing and being the hero that she herself had always wanted to be, that she had let her death-grip on her own heart slip, and that made it all the worse now.
How could he have let her lay herself open to him, in so many ways, while hiding the awful truth from her all the while? How could he have not trusted her? If he had told her, she would have understood. It would have been hard to hear, but she was no better than he was. She had once been the Mornay to Farrell's Rainier, following orders that she was too afraid to disobey and giving those orders to others. The parallels both sickened and tormented her, dragging up memories that she had long since tried to bury.
~~0~~
Two dozen people huddle around the central well of their smouldering hamlet, terrified of the soldiers who surround them now just as they had been terrified of the soldiers who had demanded their hospitality at the blade of a sword the week before. The old men sit motionless, defeated. They know what's coming. The women try to comfort their children. A baby squalls, refusing to be comforted.
Do it, the commander orders his lieutenant, a bored tone in his voice. These people mean nothing to him beyond the coin he was paid to punish them for harboring the enemies of some noble lord. They're one more tedious job on his itinerary.
There are children, sir, she replies, uncertainly. Two of them are staring at her now from where they crouch behind the flimsy protection of their mother's arms, twin boys with wide dark eyes.
So there are, the commander replies, unmoved, but testy now that his orders are being questioned. Get on with it. Daylight's wasting.
Sir, the lieutenant protests, turning to face the older soldier plaintively, but the commander is in no mood to be challenged. He glowers at her. A dangerous expression. An expression that heralds pain and punishment, especially since the other soldiers are taking notice of the disagreement now. She's walking a thin line, but she can't believe that he means it. Executing the captured soldiers had been one thing, even if they had been disarmed and defenseless. The village men, those who had fought back against the mercenaries, had given her no choice but to kill them. The elderly, the women, and the children are a step too far, even for Farrell.
Another word, Milady, and you can join them, the commander growls out. It's not an idle threat. They left an archer in a field for the crows to pick over not a week before for trying to desert mid-contract, his back shredded to the bone from the leaded cat before blood loss took him. She feels her heart pounding in her chest, her lungs burning. She's killed before, hundreds of times by now, but never like this. The rest of the company is staring at her, watching, waiting. The villagers are waiting, too, breathless, their faces white with dread.
Take them to the barn, she shouts, finally, turning to the men that are under her command. Her heart feels like it is about to burst from her throat and fly away. She stopped singing the Chant of Light long ago, but she prays now - a desperate voice in her mind that pleads for this not to be happening, that begs the Maker to change her commander's mind since she cannot.
The people weep and plead and struggle as the soldiers herd and drag them down the main road to the largest hay barn that is still standing and secure them inside, jamming the doors shut. It's early autumn. The rafters are stuffed with grain and straw for the winter. A torch is prepared, but before the sergeant can heft it up, the commander intervenes. The lieutenant's heart leaps with relief, thinking that he's changed his mind, that even Farrell can't be as inhuman as this - until he hands the torch to her and nods to the loft. This is her punishment for defying him, even momentarily, it dawns on her. His eyes glint at her, satisfied with the horror written on her face, the mind behind them as dark and cold as the Void. She knows then, at last, that nothing is beyond Farrell.
She grips the torch, feeling sickened in the deepest recesses of her being. And because it is either the people in the barn or her, and because she knows that the people in the barn are already as good as dead anyway, she turns and hurls it with all of her strength. It sails through the square opening of the loft hatchway and lands deep inside. Within minutes, the entire loft is in flames. The people below pound and scratch against the wooden walls, wailing to the Maker, to anyone, for help.
There is no Maker, the lieutenant thinks, numbly, standing back from the heat of the blaze as the first of the screams begin in earnest. There is no one who can help these people. And now there is no one who can help her either.
I told you I'd toughen you up, her commander tells her, clapping her on the back with a nasty grin before walking away.
~~0~~
With a loud crack, the arm bar of the training dummy splintered under her training waster, and Aelis glared at it furiously, lungs pumping and huffing from exertion and emotion, her lips twisted in anger and her eyes stinging.
We'll regret this, my lady, she remembered Blackwall saying after that first wonderful, yearned for kiss, his grey eyes fixing her with a look of grief that she hadn't understood then and which she now understands all too well.
"You wonder if they felt the same way you did," a voice said, perfectly completing her thought, from somewhere above her and Aelis did not have to look up to know who it was that was perched in the gnarled oak tree. "Orders growled out hard and low. The faces and places are different, but the command is the same. Do it. They trusted him. You trusted him. He gave the order, and you followed your orders. Rainier, Farrell. Mornay, Milady. For you, the faces all become the same."
"Get out of my head, Cole," Aelis ground out, the words coming out as a tense snarl as she bit back the urge to whirl on him. Her teeth clenched together so hard that she heard the cartilage in her jaw crack.
The slim figure of the spirit-boy dropped lightly from the tree branch, spindly arms and scarecrow figure landing with preternatural balance, his wide-brimmed hat flopping. Aelis closed her eyes. She didn't want to look into his freaky, froggish face. She didn't want see how he peered through her, prying into places that hurt her as acutely and precisely as a field surgeon digging arrowheads out of her flesh. Her sword hand gripped the hilt of the waster, her shield arm made a knuckle-whitening fist.
"You thought that being near his goodness meant that you could learn to be good, too. That's why it hurts. He thought the same thing about you."
"Cole. Stop," Aelis gasped, feeling the muscles of her torso ache and contract as if with actual physical pain, making her want to curl in on herself in an attempt to block out the words. Her breath hissed, "please."
There was a silence and then she heard the boy's oversized feet shift away. He paused.
"Milady died at Haven. Rainier died by the sea. The faces don't belong to them anymore. The lie does not mean that you are less. Not to him." And then, he was gone, in his unsettling way. She couldn't remember seeing him leave, but Aelis blinked and then she was looking at thin air.
She drew a ragged breath and then wiped the sleeve of her padded gambeson furiously across her face to remove the burning sweat and dirt and threatening tears from her eyes before shaking her shoulders out and forcing out the deep exhalation in order to keep her blood moving. Aelis craned her neck to each side and scuffed her feet in the dirt. Don't think about it, she told herself as she tried to square back up with the splintered dummy. He doesn't know what he's saying. Who knows what he even is, if not a demon sent to plague us with his creepy, unwanted eavesdropping.
But Cole did know what he was saying. And Aelis did think about it. And the training dummy died a hundred more deaths before she could bring herself to breathe easier again.
The sun's rays were starting to slant over the battlements, the shadows lengthening along the ground. Her back and legs were sore from riding. Her arms were sore from training. Her mouth was dry from thirst; all she could taste was the salt of her own sweat and it tasted of anger and anguish. But, she wasn't ready to stop. Not yet. Not until she had made a decision. Not until she had bled off the last of her hurt onto the training field so that she could face the others without flinching. Aelis did not want to face them at all, but she had to. She would do it right. If the Inquisition failed, it would not be because she had failed them.
And I won't give Cassandra the satisfaction, Aelis thought to herself, her mouth tightening in bitter disdain, even as she knew it was unfair of her to think this. Her relationship with the Seeker had mellowed slightly after Haven - they had a common goal that they both cared about now, and so they had learned to work together - but there would always be tension. Aelis privately suspected that Cassandra would always consider her a godless thug, while she would probably always see the Seeker as a fanatical bully. And the situation with Rainier had brought the old resentments to an ugly head once more.
You have options. You can intervene, if you wish, Cullen had told her once they were all assembled in the war room again. Cassandra was in attendance, though she rarely involved herself directly with the planning these days out of a sense of deference for Aelis' position. The Seeker could not argue with her results, but it was better if they did not clash over methods and reasoning and it would do no one any good to give the appearance of undermining Aelis' authority. Perhaps Cassandra sensed what was about to happen. Perhaps she felt that no one else would have the courage to say what needed to be said to Aelis' face. Perhaps, as Aelis tended to believe, she simply wanted to rub it in. A criminal falling for a criminal. Two peas in a pod.
Leave him be, Inquisitor, Cassandra had insisted. Let Orlais take care of its own problems. We have more important matters to attend to. Her sharp, imperious Nevarran face and dark eyes had fixed on Aelis like the deadly points of arrows being drawn at her heart. Remembering, Aelis felt the hairs on her neck bristle and the muscles in her back clench like the arching yoke of a cat.
It had not gone well. The argument had ended with Aelis slamming her fist into the war room table and roaring, He would do the same for me. If you had ever loved anyone other than your damned Maker, you would understand.
It had been a long time now since Aelis had lost control of her temper like that. It brought back foul and haunted memories. She could feel the spectre of Milady still stalking underneath her skin, as if she were a demon-ridden mage. Her horror and revulsion of hearing that tone in her own voice again made her check herself sharply and she had stormed away before she could do any further damage. That was why she was here now, beating a training dummy to kindling, working the beast in her into exhaustion.
He would do the same for me. Would he? Even as she questioned it, she knew that it was true. Blackwall - Rainier - had never failed her before now. He had risked his life for her more than once. He had gone out of his way to help her, as well as a legion of other people they had come across in their travels. He had stayed behind to die with her at Haven, when all hope was lost. If it was all a ruse, then Blackwall was a master manipulator more deft than Vivienne could ever aspire to be. If the tables were turned, he would not walk away and leave her to her fate. He had wanted so much to believe in redemption; that alone she knew to be absolutely true. Whatever she had done, whether she deserved it or not, he would have tried to save her.
The heavy sound of footsteps and the creaking of leather approached, and Aelis turned from her thoughts to see the hulking, horned figure of Iron Bull standing at the edge of the field. He had two double-handed wooden training swords balanced on one shoulder and a waterskin in the other hand. He nodded his large head at her and raised the skin.
"Hey, Boss. You look like you could use this."
Aelis stared at him. She wanted to refuse, to send him away. She didn't want to talk to Iron Bull any more than she had wanted to talk to Cole. But, her body clamored for the water, and need won out in the end. Grudgingly, she leaned her training waster against what was left of the dummy and took the waterskin from Iron Bull as he neared her, balancing its pendulous, kidney-shaped body along her elbow as she pulled the stopper and drank.
"Not bad," the enormous Qunari mercenary observed, surveying the broken dummy with a critical eye and then glancing at the shield on her arm. "Mixing up your fighting game a little. Smart. You never know what's going to be on hand when a rumble goes down."
"We're short a shieldman now," Aelis replied, cautiously, eying her friend warily.
On the whole, she liked Iron Bull. He was fun to drink with. He was fun to fight with. He was imminently useful, as were his Chargers, and he had saved her hide more than once. But, she would never fully trust him. Besides the fact that he was an acknowledged spy and - she could admit this - smart enough to perpetually be a step or two ahead of her at nearly every turn, he was a mercenary of the best devils-may-care, ends-justify-the-means sort and she had spent a good amount of effort leaving that life behind her. He seemed to understand this without her explaining and did not take offense. He was nothing like her old commander had been. If she had fallen in with an Iron Bull instead of a viper like Farrell, then her life would have been very different. Still.
Iron Bull lowered the long training swords from his shoulder and leaned on them, regarding her with a humorous twist of his angular face.
"And you figure you and Cassandra might do more damage to each other than the enemy if you brought her along instead. I get it."
Aelis shot him a look. "Heard about that, did you?" Well, of course, he had. He didn't have Cole's supernatural gift of insight, but close enough. And he had made himself familiar with practically every servant in the castle, so there wasn't much that happened in Skyhold that didn't get back to The Iron Bull sooner or later.
The Qunari shrugged. "When the Inquisitor yells at her advisors, word gets around."
"Bloody hell," Aelis muttered, shaking her head in frustration. In her fury, she hadn't thought about that. She was getting it wrong. Bull interrupted her.
"Hey, don't worry about it, Boss. Happens to the best of us," he told her, cheerfully, as he stood upright and deftly flicked up one of the training swords to offer her the hilt. "While we're here, you asked me to teach you that Qunari disarm and coup technique a few days back. Seems like as good a time as any."
The air was turning cooler with the onset of evening, and Aelis felt the sweat on her skin becoming cold. A welcome relief after the heat of her exertion. She wiped her brow again, studying Iron Bull's oxish features and trying to detect what his game was. There was always a side game with Bull.
"Come on, there's only so long you can work over a pell before you need an opponent that will knock you back on your ass, right?" he cajoled, good-natured and grinning. For a moment, Aelis thought about refusing, but maybe he was right. It might take her mind off other things.
She took the sword, unstrapped her shield, and wrapped her palms around the wooden trainer to test its weight and balance. Despite her classical training in the days when her parents had expected to make a Templar of her, she had always preferred the solid heft of a two-hander or a bastard sword. I suppose I just have a taste for bastards, she remarked dryly to herself without enjoying the joke as she squared up with Iron Bull.
"The trick is to use their own weight to wedge their weapon to one side as they come in on you. Then you catch the hilt and twist so that their momentum breaks their grip on the sword. Most of the time, you don't even have to sweep them. They put themselves down," the mercenary commander told her, "Come in slow like you're going to take my head and I'll show you."
Aelis obliged. With a pivot of his body and a twist of his shoulders, Iron Bull demonstrated the move, breaking her hold on the trainer and sending her stumbling a few steps before she could regain her balance.
"Follow it up with a low sweep to the joint of the knees while they're fumbling around, put them down, then drive the sword point down into their vitals to seal the deal, and it's over," Bull told her. He nodded. "Again. Then it's your turn."
The simplicity of the technique was deceptive. After she had gone through the sequence slowly several times to memorize the moves, Aelis' first combat speed attempt failed miserably. Bull simply powered in and trapped her blade against her own chest, shoving her back.
"Angle's off. You have to crook it away from your body a little, so their blade slides down yours."
She raised the trainer again and concentrated on achieving the correct angle this time. The mental exercise was, in fact, helping. She couldn't concentrate on the moves and stew about her problems at the same time. They circled each other, Iron Bull attacking and Aelis refining and adjusting her grasp of the technique each time.
"So," Iron Bull asked, as they were resetting for another attack, "what are you going to do about Rainier?"
The surprise of the name after Aelis had refocused her attention to other things threw her off as he swung in and she overcompensated her block. The wooden sword rapped the top of her knuckles painfully and she shook out her hands, cursing.
"Andraste's flaming arse, Bull. Give me some damn warning next time," she sputtered, as he chuckled at her.
"You think those Red Templars are going to give you warning? Shake it off," he taunted back, pleasantly, amused. She scowled at him, though she knew he was right. She stretched her smarting fingers once more and then gripped the hilt of her trainer again. A thought struck her. She eyed the mercenary suspiciously.
"If you tell me that you knew about Rainier this the whole time, I swear to-"
"Nothing like that, Boss," the Qunari interjected, catching her drift. "Always knew he was hiding something, but nothing like this. Have to say, I'm impressed. It's not often someone gets one over on me like that."
Sullenly, Aelis nodded and shifted her shoulders, shaking the tension back out of them. It was hard to tell where Bull's loyalties lay sometimes, but she believed him. Especially now that he'd been ejected from the Qun. And if Bull hadn't known about Rainier, and if even Leliana had overlooked him when she had had all of the information right on her desk the whole time, then perhaps Aelis could cut herself some slack for having been fooled, too.
"So?" he pressed, as they re-engaged. "You going to try and spring him?"
"You tell me, Hissrad. You're the 'people person', after all. Should I?" she retorted testily, using his Qunari title to get a rise out of him. He gave no indication that he noticed it. She successfully repelled the attack this time, but faltered on the disarm. Bull never missed a step. They completed another circle. He was enjoying this, she could tell. The mercenary wagged his horned head in a gesture of consideration.
"Not my place to say whether you should," he observed. When he attacked again, she rode his blade down and hooked the guard, but she was too slow on the break. He deftly freed his sword before she could twist it free. "But, you'll get him out anyway. Harder next time. Pretend like you're going to take my arm off with it. This isn't one of those fancy Orlesian dances."
Aelis cursed under her breath, feeling her frustration starting to build again. On the next attack, she caught his sword, rode it down, and wrenched the guard over, landing the trainer in the dirt and pulling her larger opponent off guard.
"That's what I'm talking about," Iron Bull growled, triumphantly. "Faster. This time its for real."
He swiped up the trainer and swung at her again, hard.
"What do you mean 'you'll get him out anyway'?" Aelis demanded, grunting with effort as his sword met hers with a loud crack. She whirled with him, just barely managing to complete the disarm before he twisted away. Her follow up blow whizzed by inches from his knee as he evaded her, though, and he caught up his sword in hand with more agility than she would have thought possible for a Qunari of his size and kept moving.
"I know how you work. You don't leave your people behind. Rainier, whoever he is, is still one of us. So, you'll save him. I'm just curious about what you plan to do with him afterwards."
Aelis couldn't tell whether this was meant as a compliment or an accusation. Her direction to save the Chargers had cost Iron Bull both his culture and his homeland, though he had accepted this as a reasonable exchange. She hadn't been able to sacrifice Krem and the other soldiers, even with an alliance with the Qun and a boatload of Qunari sailors on the line. She didn't know the sailors - poor bastards - but she had shed blood and drank ale with the Chargers. She'd had the blood of too many good people on her hands already. And she could never have looked Iron Bull eye to eye again if she had forced him to watch them all die, his little family of misfits.
You don't leave your people behind. As she thought about Rainier - imagining him sitting there in the dark dampness of his cell, waiting to die - she felt as if something within her was tearing, unbearably and agonizingly slowly, one seam at a time.
"Use that. Come on," Bull barked at her. He did not pull his shot at all this time. He was serious. The wooden sword made an evil sounding hiss as it arced towards her head and Aelis, her expression screwed up and her teeth bared in anger and pain, flung up her guard to meet it. There was a whirl, a wrist-wrenching twist, and a thump, and she found Iron Bull's back to her and her sword tip pressing into his neck. His trainer thudded to the ground a second later.
"There's a saying in the Qun," he told her, turning to face her. His tone was soft. Aelis felt her blood throbbing, her breath coming hard as she waited for his next move, every inch of her skin seeming to vibrate along with her heartbeat. Her anger had dissipated from her over the course of the exercise and the pain had dulled to an undercurrent, but her senses felt heightened, super-aware. Bull's expression was grave. "Ath ashkost. Seek peace in work. The Tamassrans and the trainers demanded the most from us when we were unhappy or angry. They said that those emotions were the sharpest stones to hone a blade on. And they were right. Sometimes, the work is all that gets you through."
Within the blink of an eye, before Aelis could even begin to respond, the Qunari had snatched the sword from her hand and swept her legs out from under her, landing her gasping on her back in the grass. The blunt sword point buried itself into the earth inches from her cheek. Iron Bull's silhouette loomed over her, an enormous shadow in the falling dusk, backlit by the bloody sky.
"Whatever you decide to do, Boss, never let yourself be miserable enough to find that perfect edge."
He reached a bulky grey hand down and Aelis clasped it, breathless and exhausted, letting him help her to her feet. The Iron Bull clapped her on the shoulder with a smile and a nod as if it were all just a normal sparring match on a normal day, and left her with the waterskin. Aelis watched him walk away, slinging the practice swords over his shoulder as he whistled at one of the passing kitchen girls. Her mind was, for once in the last several days, completely blank. Her body was at the end of its endurance. She was done for the day.
Slowly, sorely, she collected the waterskin, drank, and poured a small amount over her head to cool her face and neck. Her hair was already dark and locked with sweat and the water felt like a balm on her parched throat and skin. Torches were being lit in the guard towers. She could hear the bard starting up a rousing evening of performance at the tavern. Dinner would be ready soon. She would take her meal alone. It was too soon for company. Normally, she would slip down to the tavern or the barn afterwards, but it was sleep that she needed and there was nothing in the barn for her now anyway.
Gathering her belongings and the nearly empty waterskin, Aelis made her way slowly back towards the upper ward. The sparring match with Iron Bull had purged her. She felt like a patient awakening from a fever, light-headed and unsteady, but she was already thinking more clearly again. She would apologize to Cassandra, and also to her advisors, for her lapse of temper. She would make herself eat tonight and she would sleep. And tomorrow, she would start working on a way to rescue Rainier. Bull was right. After the wrenching horror of sacrificing Stroud in the Fade, she would never leave anyone behind again, justice and expediency be damned.
As she reached the top of the stone steps that wound up to the upper ward, she looked up to spot a familiar face highlighted in the flickering glow of the courtyard's torches. Commander Cullen, who had been standing near the front steps of the keep, deep in conversation with one of his captains, turned and spotted her almost immediately. Aelis stopped, waiting as he extricated himself and approached her.
He looked tired. The last few days had not been kind to him either, chasing after her and Rainier across half of Orlais. He had problems enough of his own - orchestrating a war, commanding an army of the faithful, dealing with the discomfort of his fading lyrium addiction - without taking on her problems, too. He was the last person she wanted to see her losing her grip, but at the same time she was glad that it had been Cullen and not one of the others who had been there to help her hold it together when she had come up from the depths of Ranier's prison cell.
"Inquisitor," he greeted her with typical politeness. He always seemed pleased to see her, but tonight there was hesitance, too. Aelis smiled, for his sake, to show him that she was no longer angry.
"Cullen. It's been a hell of a day, hasn't it?"
"Yes," he replied, returning her smile, relief evident. His look when shifty again. "Are you . . . feeling better?"
Her anger had vented at Cassandra and not at him, but Aelis knew that it must have been unsettling all the same. She shrugged.
"I'll live. I need to drop these off at the armory," she told him, indicating the waster and borrowed shield. "Care for a walk?"
He agreed, apparently glad for the excuse, and they moved away from the lights of the main courtyard. She had always liked Cullen. He had a better sense of humor than most Templars. Better sense in general, really. There was something sad in him even when he was in a good mood, but - with the worst of his lyrium withdrawals over with - it seemed to burden him less these days and she was glad for that. He was her friend, and he worked too hard and put so much of himself into his work. She worried about him, more than most of her comrades.
Of all of her advisors, Aelis knew Cullen the best. She was on good terms with Leliana, they had an understanding, but the spymaster was too hidden and mysterious for her to get close to. She liked Josephine and felt protective of her ambassador, but they had so little in common that it was a tame friendship. Josephine was a reminder of the sort of noble Aelis should have been, a mold she could never fit into anymore than Josephine could pick up a sword and go into battle. Aelis cared about them both and respected them for their talents, but the relationships would always be somewhat tentative.
Cullen was a warrior, however, like Aelis herself. They had a common interest in the martial resources of the Inquisition and common experiences on which to base their friendship. She understoond the struggles he faced and the sacrifices he had to make, and his resolve and capacity for leadership were traits that Aelis herself admired and strove to emulate. His good opinion of her - as a soldier, as an Inquisitor, and as a person - mattered, nearly as much as Blackwall's had mattered. If he was confident in her, then she could not be far wrong. And, having lost Blackwall, his was the moral compass that she trusted.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I caused a scene. I know Cassandra was only trying to help, in her way. I'll go eat my crow when I'm finished here," Aelis told the commander, once they were sufficiently alone. They walked slowly. There was nowhere to rush to.
A more genuine, relieved smile appeared this time and he chuckled. "She won't hold it against you. If I had a gold sovereign for every time Cassandra's shouted at someone, I could buy Ferelden." He continued more soberly, "She knows you're doing well. She's proud of what we've accomplished - what you've accomplished. You've exceeded her expectations."
"Well," Aelis replied, carefully, humbled by this admission, unsure if she really believed it, "it's not over yet. I've still got time to bollocks it all up." She sighed. "These Wardens, Cullen. I don't know."
He nodded, silently, thinking the same thoughts, no doubt. The siege of Adamant Fortress had been worse than she could have imagined. The image of the frightened and desperate Grey Wardens practically lining up to sacrifice themselves to blood magic in order to prevent the Blight from swallowing the world after they were all gone haunted her dreams. It's not right to want to do good, to be good, and have it turned against you. Rainier had said that. She shook her head.
"We'll sort it out. Hawke has gone to Weisshaupt to find out what's gone wrong with their commanders. I want the Wardens who came over to our side and the ones that survived at Adamant treated well in the meantime. I'm not going to be responsible for punishing them. Their lives are hard enough already."
"Agreed," Cullen concurred. He paused and then stopped. He looked at her, though his face was shadowed outside of the range of the torches. She couldn't read his expression. "About Rainier."
Aelis flinched, but she didn't turn away. Not now. She nodded, trying to acknowledge the subject gracefully. "I'm going to get him out. But, I won't risk the Inquisition's good name on it. We take care of our own, but it's personal between him and me. Whoever he is, whatever he's done, I owe it to my own peace of mind to save his life if I can. I just have to figure out how, and what happens after."
"Leliana and I were talking about that earlier, in fact," Cullen admitted, and then hesitated. "She has a plan, though I'm not sure you'll find it all that palatable."
Aelis listened, her expression turning to a serious frown as Cullen explained. She had known since the beginning that Leliana had put pressure on her old commander - Farrell, that devious snake - to keep his mouth shut regarding her involvement with his company. She hadn't realized that Leliana had put him and his Shieldbreakers on the Inquisition's payroll as part of the bargain. In addition to the Chargers, the Inquisition kept a few dozen small mercenary companies on retainer to handle less critical jobs here and there in places that it was harder for the Inquisition soldiers to reach. Farrell had a broad definition of what counted as mercenary work. She'd seen him work for long enough before she had left to know that he had connections to every underworld organization and underhanded business deal on the continent. No doubt, Aelis realized as she followed Cullen's line of thought, many of them leading back to the cutthroat nobility of Orlais.
Leliana, it seemed, had picked up a thread that might just work to get Rainier released, given the right leverage. A favor called in here, a bit of coin there, and Rainier could be turned over to "private parties" for justice rather than facing the gallows of imperial justice. Farrell's contacts were well-placed for such work. And, if discovered, it would not lead back to the Inquisition. Farrell would make damn sure his own reputation was clear, and so he'd be obliged to keep the Inquisition's name out of it as well.
Farrell. She should have known she hadn't heard the last from him. He'd get a laugh out of her asking for his help, Aelis knew, shifting uncomfortably at the thought. She could almost see his shrewd, weather-lined face grinning at her out of the dark corners of her mind, his gimlet grey eyes winking cold malice, his rough voice - damaged by a half-slit throat in his youth - growling out at her: Blood or gold, Milady. Didn't I tell you everything costs in the end?
Even thinking about him gave her the shivers still, even though Aelis knew that she was now out of his reach. And Farrell would do the job as long as he was paid well. He'd never turned down so much as a copper in all the six years she had served him. She hated the idea of having any further dealings with the man. After the violence of their parting, he might very well just have Rainier killed and dropped in a ditch out of spite. She knew the her old commander was imminently practical, though; he wouldn't risk angering the Inquisition. Leliana was more than a match for his scheming malevolence and she wouldn't have suggested the plan if she didn't believe the risk was minimal. If it worked, Rainier would be delivered back to Skyhold alive, safe from Orlesian law, and the Inquisition would be blameless. Aelis sucked in a breath.
"I'd rather cut my hands off than deal with that bastard ever again, but we don't really have any better choices. I'll pen the request myself and have Leliana send it in the morning. Perversely, it'll probably put him in a better mood if he knows I'm the one begging the favor personally."
"And when they bring Rainier here? What then?"
There was an odd quirk in Cullen's tone; something Aelis could not decipher. What then? That was the real question.
In her mind's eye, her thoughts ran back to Rainier in his cell, of the torturous pain in his voice as he named himself a monster, of the haunted brokenness in his face - the face of a man she had loved beyond anything she had ever really felt herself capable of - when he had slipped to his knees under the weight of his own self-condemnation and loathing. Wouldn't you have been happier if you had never known the truth, if you had believed that the man you loved was a good man, an honorable man, not a monster?
No, she thought, honestly, the answer surfacing in her mind with chilly clarity. It doesn't work that way. The heart doesn't care whether it loves a monster or a saint. It loves anyway. And it was no monster she had fallen in love with, just a man. A man with secrets and regrets and pain and fear. A man who got it wrong, sometimes horribly wrong, and tried to do it better the next. Just like her.
"Rainier's already punished himself worse than I ever could. An execution would be merciful in comparison to forcing him to live with himself," she told the Commander. "We'll go through the motions. I'll officially pardon him, just so there are no questions or loose ends. Josephine can spin a pretty story to the Orlesians about the mercy of Andraste, and they won't be able to pin anything on us directly anyway. Rainier will be a free man. If he chooses to stay with the Inquisition, then he can take up his old place again with no further questions asked and we can get back to business. If he chooses to go, then no one will stop him."
Cullen nodded, slowly, considering this. He reached up to smooth a hand across his short hair and down his neck, and paused. She could only see his outline in the gloaming, not his expression. Though they were friends, there was always that little bit of inhibition with Cullen, that hidden part of him that he always held back.
"Just be careful," he told her, finally, and sighed. "You know him best. I trust your judgement. But I would not see you hurt again."
The earnestness in those last words touched her. Aelis searched what she could see of his face, but could make out nothing. At last, she shrugged.
"Who knows. After all this trouble, he might be glad to be rid of me."
"If so, then he's a fool," Cullen replied, and then brushed onwards before she could formulate a response. "I should get back. I hope that he proves himself worthy of your faith in him. Just know that we're behind you. And you know where to find me, if you need me."
"Cullen," she called, an uncomfortable thought occurring to her, as he turned to go. He paused, his blond hair highlighted in the distant light from the courtyard. Half of his face was in shadow, but half was illuminated enough for her to see the pale scar on his cheek and lip and one wistful, hazel eye gazing back into her own. Through them, Aelis thought she caught a glimpse of what lay inside that hidden place, and she smiled out of a sense of bittersweet kinship. "Thank you."
He nodded an acknowledgement, and she watched him walk back towards the keep before quickly crossing the rest of the path to the armory, ducking inside to replace her equipment on the racks. There was a letter that needed writing. There were preparations that needed to be started. Now that the decision had been made, Aelis could refocus her attention to where it was needed and take comfort in action and work until Rainier arrived. She could not predict how he would respond, whether he would stay or walk away rather than bear up under the burden of his disgrace, and so she did not want to hope for anything beyond preventing his death. She did not even know if she should hope for anything else. It would depend on what she found when she saw him again.
But she would believe in the good in him, as he had once believed in the good in her. And she would leave the door open. It would be up to Rainier to walk through it.