He woke to pain.
Cullen knew pain. And this was still worse than anything he'd ever felt before. Fire prickled along every nerve, burning beneath his skin, and white-hot heat sent spikes of agony into his head. Every breath tore at his lungs, never allowing him to take in enough air, pressing, pressing. Still he fought, but every twitch of every muscle made his bones feel like they were breaking beneath his skin, again and again and again.
Desperate, gasping, he tried to remember—he'd been on duty. It was his turn to stand guard before the Harrowing Chamber, even though no Harrowing was planned, and the room was empty. No. No, that had been long ago; this was a different pain. This was not violet light and desire demons whispering in his ears, this was darkness and the tang of lyrium in the air and the feel of a fist clenched tight around his heart. No. That was a dream. This was fire under his skin and his lungs in a prison.
"Cullen," whispered a voice in his ear, familiar, too familiar.
When he opened his eyes, a slight girl knelt before him, with tousled, reddish hair and eyes a pale color caught between green and grey. She wasn't smiling, but he knew her left cheek held a dimple when she did. She reminded him of someone else—no, that wasn't right. Someone else reminded him of her? He tried to shake his head, to clear his thoughts, but the pain was too great. It scraped and scraped at the inside of his skull, burning his eyes, burning.
"Sol—Amell," he gasped, the word torn from him in a moan. "You… shouldn't… your room. Curfew."
Her hands were open in her lap. Flames danced there, tiny rivulets leaping from one palm to the other. She tilted her head, eyes wide, her innocent expression sabotaged by the red shadows cast by the fire in her hands. "Cullen," she repeated. "What's wrong?"
He grimaced as the pain squeezed tighter, stealing the breath from his lungs so he couldn't scream. "Abominations," he managed. "In the Tower."
"I'm not an abomination," she said, even as the flames jumped from her hands to run races up the sleeves of her robes. They burned neither cloth nor flesh, and she did smile then, her dimple showing. The heat made her hair dance around her face. Reaching out with one of her burning hands, she pressed the fingertips to his heart. "And I'm not in the Tower."
He managed a scream, though his voice was all but gone and the sound emerged broken and raspy. He couldn't focus. He couldn't concentrate. He needed… he needed… he tried to gather enough will to—no, a smite was too much, but even a cleanse eluded him. He longed for white light to chase the shadows away, to burn the red with holiness, with—but no. Even squeezing his eyes shut did nothing; the skin of his eyelids burned red, just like everything else.
She laughed, running her fingertips down his cheek, leaving fire in her wake.
"Cullen," whispered a voice. Not the same one. Different, but still familiar. Similar.
He did not want to open his eyes, to see the burning girl. A wash of coolness spread over him from head to toe. At first it soothed, quenching the fire. But a moment later the cold seeped deeper, chilling his bones, making his blood sluggish. Even his heartbeat began to slow. "That's… enough," he said through chattering teeth. He clenched his jaw, but still he shuddered. "Cold."
"No," she said, as the cold turned somehow colder. "You're burning up."
This time when he opened his eyes, it was a different girl kneeling beside him. No, older than a girl. A young woman. Her hair was shorter and darker, her eyes greener, but still she reminded him… no, still he was reminded? He knew her. He thought he knew her. She wore no mage's robe, but a staff lay on the ground between them. One of her hands rested on the wood; the other hovered above him, glowing a blinding blue-white. A trickle of blood, almost black in the silvery glare, ran from her nose and over her lips. As he watched in horror, she reached up and smeared the blood on her fingers, smiling. Then she wrapped her bloodied fingers around her staff. Threads of red-black began to weave through the pure light, and when the tendrils of black touched him, pain and heat began to mingle once again with the cold.
"Blood magic," he breathed. "No. Not you."
"What are you talking about? Cullen, wake up."
"Your nose is bleeding," he said through gritted teeth. "I believed you. You're just like the rest. You're just like the rest!"
Somehow, even with the cold and the heat and the pain, Cullen drew himself to his hands and knees. "Maker preserve me. Maker guide me. Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are… blessed are…" He struggled for control, and a dim glow formed around his fingertips, spreading up over the first knuckles, then the second. Soon his palms held holy light, holy warmth. He closed his eyes again, seeking the still, calm place. "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. This, this my reward for trust and leniency? Blessed are those who… blessed… even you."
"Cullen," whispered the voice again, and this time he heard fear in it—genuine fear. Fear of the Maker, as was right. Fear of His wrath. They shall find no rest in this world. It sounded as though it came from far away, drifting on eddies of air and breath and blighted magic. "It's Amelle Hawke, Cullen. Wake up. You're dreaming. It's not real, whatever you're seeing. Wake up."
The white light around him brightened, rippling outward in a wave. He heard a grunt of distress, followed by a mumbled curse and a moan. "Andraste's ass, Cullen," groaned the familiar voice, "You did not just smite me in your sleep."
He opened his eyes. A nightbird called out, and was answered by a second. The fire had died, and though it was a warm night, the breeze was chill. One of the horses whinnied; they both looked at him with fear-widened eyes.
Amelle lay sprawled, half atop him and half on the ground, blinking. Her staff was on the other side of the firepit, and no blood dripped from her nose or stained her fingers. She grimaced as she tried to push herself away from him, weak limbs failing, and groused, "Reasons a relationship could never have worked between us. Ow."
Something about the grimace and the lack of blood and the joke was enough to shake the last vestiges of memory and dream and horror from his mind. "Oh, Maker," he choked. "Amelle."
She glared at him. "Maker my ass, Cullen. Oh, my head."
Hands shaking, he helped her sit, propping her up to lean against a convenient tree trunk. "Fire," she ordered, "and tea. And then you're going to explain what that was all about."
#
It was never pleasant, being smited. Smote? Whatever. Either way it was unpleasant. This was certainly not the first time glowing white light had knocked her flat.
Smiting was even less pleasant, however, when it came out of nowhere, and when the smiter was just about the very last templar she'd have expected a smite from.
To say nothing of the in his sleep bit.
Leaning against her tree trunk, Amelle watched Cullen rebuild the fire—there would be no help from her to light it this time. She could see him still struggling, trying to… bury whatever had so distressed him. She frowned as he tried several times to strike sparks from his flint; his hands shook too hard to manage it easily.
By the time he'd done as she asked, rebuilding the fire and bringing her a tin mug filled with tea, his hands were steady and, except for a hauntedness in his expression and a complete unwillingness to meet her eyes, he seemed once again calm.
Seemed was the operative word. Too often seemed was a healer's worst enemy—she'd seen it often enough in the early days of the illness in Kirkwall, after all. A broken bone seemed like a broken bone, not a symptom of lyrium-driven madness. In men like Cullen, she suspected devotion to duty and the unwillingness to appear weak hid all sorts of ills; they strove to seem fine at all times, even when fine was furthest away from truth. Amelle was only surprised she'd not noted it before. But then, the mask Cullen wore was a good one.
An old one, she suspected. One that almost fit as closely as his real face.
He apologized again as he handed her the mug, his voice sincere, but his eyes still downcast. The warmth felt good between her palms and though her bones still ached and her mana was still depleted, she began to feel the breath and life of her magic returning in a faint trickle.
Cullen did not sit. He stood opposite her with his hands clasped behind his back and his neck slightly bowed. Perhaps it was the guilt in his mien, or that he looked so much smaller out of his massive plate armor—she was still growing accustomed to that—but he appeared in that moment very much like a soldier expecting a dressing down from a superior officer, or, more pitifully, like a child about to be chastised.
After a hot, comforting sip of her tea, Amelle said, "Remind me again why traveling with you was meant to be the safer option?"
He closed his eyes briefly—clearly not ready to joke yet, then—and shook his head. "Amelle…"
"Oh, Cullen, please. I've been smote before. It's not the end of the world. I'm starting to feel better already. But I think I'd like to know why it happened. That part seems rather important, don't you think?"
His face closed like a book slammed shut. It went so carefully blank and hard Amelle nearly choked on her mouthful of tea. Not until the openness was gone did she realize just how much she'd come, these past weeks, to take it for granted. It was not her friend Cullen, but the templar standing before her now, the same one who'd once almost carted her off to the Gallows, and this time no Kiara could intercede for her. She swallowed hard and actually, for a moment, felt the faint tug of fear in her gut.
"Cullen," she said gently, not quite able to keep her voice as light as she wished it to be, "you're giving me a crick in my neck. I can't stand right now. Won't you sit? Please?"
His jaw worked silently, and just when she thought he was going walk away, he instead sat heavily, crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap. He still wouldn't look at her. "I was… dreaming."
"So you… thought you were smiting a… Fade spirit, or something?"
He shook his head again, and she thought she saw a crack in his mask, just for an instant. "How much… what do you know of what happened at Ferelden's Circle?"
"Ferelden's… Circle?" she echoed. "I… only the rumors, I suppose, of some trouble near the beginning of the Blight, and that the Hero arrived in time to put a stop to it."
Cullen chuckled humorlessly. "Oh, yes. The Hero arrived. I wouldn't necessarily say 'in time' however. She arrived in time to save a handful of mages. And a handful of templars. The rest were… not saved."
Even in the dimness of firelight and darkness, Amelle saw the shadow darken his features, and, more than that, she recognized it. It was the same shadow she saw on Kiara's face. On Fenris'. On Sebastian's. She imagined her own face wore it all too often. "Maker," she breathed, "You were there?"
His lips twisted in an unpleasant smile. "Your sister never told you. I confess myself surprised. I would have thought… I would have thought she'd have warned you, at the very least."
"My sister," Amelle echoed. "Of course."
This, at last, brought Cullen's eyes up to meet hers. "Doubtless she wanted to spare you the details."
"I could fill books with the things Kiara keeps from me to 'spare me,'" Amelle retorted. "But this isn't about Kiara. Or me."
"I… would spare you, too, if I could. It was—" he grimaced, cutting at the air between them with a swift, sharp motion of his hand. "I thought I was past this. If I had better control—you don't know me, Amelle. You think you do, but you… can't."
Amelle hesitated only a moment before offering her mug of tea. He stared at it as if he could not understand its significance. She urged it an inch nearer, until he took the hint and relieved her of it. After another moment, he drank deeply.
"Tell me," she said. "Try."
A fine network of fissures spread through his carefully constructed mask as he held the mug near. "Amelle…"
"It's all right, Cullen," she said softly. "We're both awake — I promise you; we're awake. This isn't a dream and it isn't the Fade and whatever you have to say, I will listen. You can tell me anything."
He let out a short, brittle laugh, his fingers tightening around the mug; clearly a battle raged in him, but Amelle had no idea which sides were in play, or which was going to win.
"I don't…"
She waited.
"…Want to."
He was being honest, at least. She had to credit him that. "Might I ask why?"
"I have worked too hard to get past this," he said, staring down into the mug. "To prove myself worthy of my rank, of my men, of the Order itself. And I am… I am afraid you… won't understand, that you'll… see me differently. That you… that you could even come to hate me, once you've heard — once I've told you…"
"Cullen," she began gently, "did you explode the chantry and kill hundreds of innocents in the name of justice for all mages?"
He looked horrified and jerked back. "Maker, no."
"I… don't mean to make light of anything you went through, and I sincerely hope you don't take it that way, but… but that is an act I don't understand. It is an act I will never understand, and one I don't think I'm capable of forgiving. And yet it's an act I still… feel somewhat responsible for, and I must live with that sense of responsibility. So… whatever it is you are afraid of telling me, for fear I'm going to judge you? I'm telling you now… you aren't getting rid of me quite that easily." She offered him a smile she hoped was reassuring. "I will listen."
"You say that now…"
"Yes, well. What friend would do less?"
Hearing his own sentiments echoed back at him was enough to ease some of the tension in the set of his shoulders. He blinked at her, and if it was because he hadn't expected to hear the words at all, or simply surprised she'd stoop to such a tactic and use his words against him, Amelle didn't know.
So, gently, she added, "You think a little sleep-smiting is going to make us enemies? Clearly you don't have siblings. Carver used to do worse just to see how I'd react. Do you have these dreams often?"
"No," he replied. "Although they have been more frequent of late."
"Since the Gallows, you mean?"
"Since the Gallows."
She sighed. "Who doesn't have nightmares since the Gallows?"
Letting out a long, slow breath, Cullen stared into the tea, as though trying to divine answers in its depths. "I was on duty when it started. Outside the Harrowing Chamber. There was no Harrowing scheduled that day, so I anticipated a quiet shift. More fool me. I remember that: thinking it would be quiet. I… liked the solitude. Much of it I don't remember well, but I remember that: standing in the hallway below the stairs, shifting from foot to foot, counting cracks in the stonework." He fell to silence, but as it was a silence of gathering thoughts and not one of recalcitrance, Amelle waited patiently.
"I heard screaming. A great deal of screaming. At first I didn't believe my own ears. I hesitated. I didn't want to leave my post, but the screaming went on and on. The screaming… the screaming I have never been able to forget, even though I wish I could."
He was pale in the moonlight, and he looked so sick and wan she had to resist the urge to check him for a fever. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow and upper lip and Amelle could see the hesitation and uncertainty in the way his hands gripped the mug, in the faint, nearly imperceptible quaver in his voice—one wrong move, one wrong sound, and she knew he'd bolt, shut down, shut her out. So Amelle held very still, just as she would have done with a wounded rabbit or broken-winged bird, and she waited.
Finally, he continued. "I ran, following the sound of the screaming. It was coming from everywhere. The halls echoed with it. Cries of rage, of despair. Death cries. Too many death cries. Death has a different sound. I turned the corner and saw a templar—a fellow called Erron, if I recall correctly. I froze. After all my training, everything I'd spent my entire life preparing for was happening before my eyes and I… froze. Erron had his blade raised over a boy. A mage boy, only a few weeks past his Harrowing. The boy was… cowering. He was surrounded, and Erron's eyes were mad. He had these cornflower blue eyes all the girls whispered about, but nothing sweet remained in them then. They were bloodshot, and the whites showed all the way around his irises. I don't have any idea who any of the other templars were—men I ate with, laughed with, served with, but I remember the madness in Erron's cornflower eyes."
Cullen closed his own eyes then. Amelle hesitated a moment before laying her fingertips gently on his knee. He didn't flinch—or smite her again. He raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I knew the mage, a little. He was nice enough, I'd always thought. Polite, to mages and templars alike. We spoke sometimes. He—once had occasion to offer me condolences, and they were genuine." Cullen raised the mug, but it was already empty; he looked into it as though it had somehow betrayed him.
"You have to understand, I was… friendly with many of the mages in the tower, before. I was naive. I thought—I thought if we could bridge the gaps between templar and mage, we might all be better off. They used that against me. They made me see how wrong I'd been. But that was later. Later. Then I stood in the doorway, watching as Erron's blade swept down toward the mage boy's bared neck. While I stood frozen, the mage… changed. It was the first time I'd seen the birth of an abomination. He killed Erron and three other templars before I was able to focus enough to call a smite." Cullen shuddered, and his lips compressed in a hard line. Amelle watched him rebuilding his composure the way he'd rebuilt the fire. "I… they tell you, you know. They try to prepare you. We learn duty because friendship… friendship makes you freeze. Friendship makes you doubt. That mage nearly killed me, but I-I don't know. I don't remember. I was frozen in the doorway and then the abomination was dead on the end of my blade and I couldn't stop thinking about the way that mage boy had once offered me, a templar, his sincere sympathy. He'd been kind, when he didn't need to be. Then he was dead. And the tower was still screaming."
"I…" Amelle kept her hands in her lap, though she wanted badly to do something with them. She simply didn't know what. "I heard it started with a mage who… wanted to side with Teyrn Loghain at Ostagar."
"Uldred," Cullen said, his voice going low and ragged, nearly a growl.
"That part's… true, then?"
He gave a tired nod, and for a moment that lasted just as long as a flicker of firelight, Cullen looked years older. "He… attempted to explain away Loghain's betrayal, but the Circle remained unconvinced." He frowned again at the cup and, as if needing something to keep his hands occupied while he told the story, he began making more tea — two cups, this time.
"But that's good, isn't it?" Amelle asked as he found a second tin mug and measured out the leaves. "It's… that's… good they didn't…" He looked away and Amelle's words trailed off.
"Yes. It's — that they didn't side with him is… yes." He cleared his throat and fidgeted with one of the mugs before setting it aside as the water boiled. "Apparently he'd… sought out the blood mages hidden within the Circle. Convinced them to ally themselves with him. When he tried to leave after his… proposal, such as it was, was dismissed—"
"He… he tried to leave? But I thought—"
"No, it… would not have been permitted. But Uldred had his followers, and upon being told he could not leave, he — they — attempted a coup. His followers rose… they'd banded together and during the attack, Uldred summoned a demon — attempted to, I should say. Instead, he himself became an abomination, and then…" he stopped, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Templars pride themselves on being able to discover blood mages, but Uldred evidently had a gift for sniffing them out."
"Did he?" asked Amelle, "Or were some willing to turn to blood magic if it meant siding with someone they thought powerful enough to be worth the risk?"
"Does it really matter?"
"In the end it doesn't, but perhaps you're giving him too much credit for being perceptive, when he was probably simply gifted in the art of persuasion… or intimidation."
Cullen let out a short, hoarse laugh. "You're more correct than you know."
Amelle looked over at the kettle over the fire and with a subtle flick of her fingers, sent the water boiling. At the sound, Cullen glanced over at the fire, then back at her, arching an eyebrow.
"You're quite recovered, then?"
Amelle simply lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "Enough to help things along. You were saying?"
He turned and poured the boiling water, passing one of the mugs to Amelle. "I wasn't there when… when he turned on them all. I heard it from others, though honestly I don't know how they knew. Not when so many didn't survive." He looked down into the cup, watching the tea leaves unfurl in the firelight, slowly tinting the water. "There was so much panic and confusion. So much screaming. I'm not sure anyone truly knew what was going on, and then… the Veil tore and with the demon Uldred summoned, others came." He paused then, and Amelle saw the memories—the horrors—flicker across his face as Cullen tried again to banish those thoughts. "You… you cannot imagine the chaos, Amelle."
But Amelle was silent. In fact, after those days in Kirkwall, after Anders and Meredith and… everything, Amelle could imagine such chaos. After what she had seen become of Keeper Marethari, she could imagine precisely what Cullen was describing. She could imagine it all too well, and she wrapped her arms around herself to combat the shiver making its way down her spine. The mug of tea she'd set by her ankle sent lazy curls of steam into the night air.
Cullen sent her a sympathetic look, and silently sat opposite her once again. She suspected he had more to say, but he was patching up his mask, swallowing his words with every gulp of tea. "Tell me the rest," she insisted.
He bowed his head, and inhaled deeply, holding his breath at the apex before releasing it again, just as slowly. Even with the moment of preparation, she could hear the tremor deep in his voice—terror and horror and sorrow all mixed together, all scrabbling for dominance.
"I don't know why Uldred didn't kill me right away. Perhaps because I refused to break, like so many of the others. It became a kind of game. One I couldn't win, of course. I lost the second that cage closed around me and the first of many demons started whispering in my head. That… that was what he did to me. Imprisoned me. Summoned demons to torment me. I lived a hundred lives, before the Hero showed up. A thousand. Some where wretched. Some were sweet. Some were beautiful—so beautiful I almost let them be real. All of them hurt, though. Even the beautiful ones. And none were genuine."
"You didn't lose, Cullen. How can you think for a moment you lost?"
He looked at her as if she were daft. "I did smite you in my sleep because I dreamt you were a blood mage. Is that the action of someone entirely in his right mind? Trust me, Amelle. I lost."
She leaned forward, meeting his eyes in the firelight, holdinghis gaze and pinning him with her own. "Cullen. You are alive. You are alive and fighting. Uldred is not."
Cullen watched her for several moments, clearly trying to parse her words for more meaning than they actually held. "You don't… care that I dreamt you were a blood mage?"
Amelle cocked an eyebrow at him and took a sip of tea. "You think I ought to feel betrayed because, oh dear, how in the Maker's name could you think such a thing of me?"
"I'd… w-well, I'd thought…"
Another sip, more deliberate than the last, and during which time Amelle never broke eye contact. "That I'd be offended that you'd dream unflattering things about me?"
His mouth worked silently. "It sounds—"
"Kind of silly when I put it that way?" She shook her head. "We have virtually no control over our dreams. Sometimes the fears we're shown aren't logical, but fear itself isn't logical. It doesn't mean you secretly suspect I'm a blood mage." She took his free hand, squeezing it. His fingers were still cold and clammy in hers. "Perhaps part of you is still afraid. You were betrayed before, punished — tortured — for believing mages and templars could be friends. And perhaps part of you still wonders if you and I have any right being friends in the first place. Maybe you're afraid you'll freeze when you know you ought to act."
But Cullen was already shaking his head. "No, it's not—"
She pushed herself up onto her knees and leaned close — too close for Cullen to look away, even if he'd wanted to, even if he'd tried. "I… accept what I am," she told him, her voice low and intense. "And I know… I know what can happen if—I know. I don't want to be a mindless… thing," she said, willing the tremor from her voice, "a thing that would slaughter those I care about without compunction. Being trapped like that is… it's worse than death."
"Amelle—"
But she kept on, squeezing his hand harder and harder. "You did that young man a kindness, you know. It may not feel like it, but you did."
"I believe that," he said, though his voice betrayed him with a quaver of doubt. "I do know it. But I… it's not the memories. It's not even the dreams. It's the lack of control. I cannot guarantee something like this will not happen again. Perhaps… we are not too far from Kirkwall. Perhaps you would be safer traveling with Fenris. I am… I am certain he would be willing."
A short huff of humorless laughter burst forth. "Willing," she drawled. "Right."
He sighed. "Amelle—"
"No, Cullen. This isn't something easily fixed, I'm afraid. I think I'll take my chances with sleep-smiting."
He frowned, but did not immediately attempt to argue, which she considered something of a feat. After a moment the frown softened and he said, "Tell me."
She tried to smile, but her heart wasn't in it. "Is it to be a night for confessions, then?"
"Have you something to confess?"
She looked down at her hands, murmuring, "That makes it sound a bit more sordid than it is, I'm afraid."
Cullen said not a word — he simply watched her, waiting.
Amelle slid further into silence, putting her thoughts into order. She didn't want to tell tales that weren't hers to tell, but nor did she want to give a sequence of events entirely without context. "If you were unaware," she began, "Fenris was at one time… not at all fond of mages. He had very good reason to hate them, I thought, even though he counted me among those who did not deserve his trust. I stayed out of his way, and he didn't crush my heart. It was an… acceptable arrangement."
Cullen's expression was entirely too shrewd. "Obviously something changed."
She shrugged and moved a little closer to the fire. "I managed to prove myself to him in the intervening years. I proved I wasn't a… a viper waiting to strike."
"And he came to care for you."
Amelle blushed even as her heart twisted in her chest and tears rushed to her eyes. "I… suppose he did. Eventually. That… it didn't happen quickly. I don't—still don't know how it…well. The how is neither here nor there. Fenris… there was a matter that I… offered my assistance with—" Amelle bit down hard on her lower lip and twisted her fingers around the handle of the mug. "I thought he needed help, and so I offered my skills as a healer. I thought it was merely an old injury. He… accepted, though it was a complicated, delicate matter."
He looked as if he were waiting for Amelle to elaborate; she made a pained face. "To tell you more would betray his confidence." She rubbed hard at her forehead before attempting to explain further. "I'd thought trauma was responsible for something, but it turned out—I discovered, too late—magic was responsible. I healed the trauma, dissolved the spell—however you want to phrase it."
"Something went wrong?"
"Yes," she sighed. "And no. What I attempted… worked, though, to be honest, I'd had doubts. I thought I could—after healing the spring, I felt so much better. Stronger. I thought something in him needed to be healed, and in my bloody pride," she spat, "I believed I was the one to do it. Thought I was doing him a bloody favor."
"Amelle. What happened?"
Another question lingered beneath the words. A templar question. "On my word, no questionable magic. I simply… healed something that probably would have been better left alone, and in the process unraveled any of Fenris' trust I may have earned over the years." She glanced up to meet his eyes and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "He left and I haven't heard from or seen him since."
"You didn't… try to find out—"
"No. No, you didn't see the look on his face. He—whatever happened when I healed—Maker, I don't even think I can use that word in this case. Whatever happened, he was the furthest thing from happy or relieved or… or…" Amelle trailed off, looking down at her hands. "He said he had to leave, and then he left. He didn't… seem to want…"
"But—"
"Whatever was or wasn't between us, I ruined it with my bloody, sodding, blighted magic. And my pride. Mustn't forget the pride."
"Amelle…"
"It's done now," she said, unable to keep the weariness from her tone. "And I have Kiara to worry about. Making amends to Fenris—however I'm meant to do so—will have to wait until I know if she's okay."
"Not if. She will be fine."
Amelle tilted her head and fixed him with a steady gaze. "You're not a very good liar, Cullen, but I'll give you points for trying to cheer me up. Especially since you're the one with the terrible nightmares and sleep-smiting."
To his credit, he recognized the attempt to change the subject and, more blessedly, obliged her. "More tea?"
She smiled weakly. "As I think neither of us will be sleeping again tonight, that seems an excellent idea, yes."
