Killeen was exercising Firefly when she saw the knot of riders on the road across the ravine. Inquisition banners, she noted first and foremost, bone-deep friend or foe reaction, and then, narrowing her eyes, made out the huge antlers of the hart the Inquisitor liked to ride on longer journeys.

She stood in the stirrups, straining to see the big white form of Steelheart, found the stallion and saw his rider upright. Not hurt, at least, not badly.

Her breath came out in a half-sob of relief. The sense of unease, the irrational conviction that something was wrong, was really badly wrong, had grown stronger with every day of their absence.

But it was just my imagination.

Still, the feeling lingered.

Killeen turned Firefly toward home, letting the mare have her head. Even with Firefly's speed, the other riders had passed under the gate long before she herself reached the bridge, and when she reached the stables it was to see Master Dennet's boys walking the horses cool, Steelheart among them.

Dismounting, she asked the nearest as casually as she could: "So, they're back?"

He nodded.

"Everyone in one piece?"

"As far as I could see," he said, and shrugged.

Killeen made herself take care of Firefly, then check Steelheart's legs and hooves, and then, detouring to pick up a couple of sweet rolls from the kitchen on the way, walk, rather than run, back to Cullen's office.

Which was completely empty of Cullen.

Of course, she thought. They'll have debriefings, there will be the matters that Lady Montilyet and the Spymaster want to bring to the Inquisitor and the Commander's attention. It was ridiculous to expect him to be here.

Then she heard a footfall in the loft.

Could be Cullen.

Could be not Cullen, too.

She didn't call out, but slipped the rolls in her pocket to free her hands and cat-footed her way to the ladder, climbing slowly and silently, until she could raise herself just enough to peer over the edge of the floor.

It was Cullen: Cullen in his shirt-sleeves, cuirass and cloak slung carelessly on the floor in a way that was completely unlike him, the fabric of his shirt and the ends of his hair damp with sweat despite the chill in the air, Cullen holding a faintly glowing blue bottle in his hand and staring at it as if it were simultaneously the entrance to the Void and the key to escaping it.

He wet his lips and Killeen saw his throat move as he swallowed convulsively. "Just a little …" he whispered hoarsely. "Just this once."

Killeen hauled herself up into the loft and he spun, startled, the bottle disappearing behind his back. "Kill. I didn't hear you."

"Give me the lyrium, Cullen," Killeen said flatly, and held out her hand.

He looked away from her and didn't move it. "It's … you don't understand."

"I understand that you've made it this long without any," Killeen said. "And it hasn't been easy. Do you want all that to be for nothing?"

"I wouldn't — not like before," Cullen said. "Just — for now."

"Just one drink." Killeen took a step towards him, then another. "Just one hand of cards."

"This is different," he snapped. "I need this. I can't — I can't go on like this. Not like this."

Killeen reached him, touched his arm gently, as she would a spooked horse. "Talk to Lady Cassandra," she suggested.

"She doesn't understand, either."

"Then —"

Cullen turned sharply. "It won't help! Nothing will help! Can't you get that into your head?"

His movement had brought the hand holding the bottle within Killeen's reach, and she grabbed it.

Cullen seized her wrist, gripping it until his knuckles whitened and pain shot up her arm. "Leave me alone! Do you understand? Leave me alone!"

Her fingers opened involuntarily as he found the pressure points and compressed them mercilessly. Killeen saw him take the bottle in his other hand through streaks of light across her vision as his grip on her wrist tightened further. Bones moved in ways they were not supposed to. "Cullen —"

"Enough," he growled at her.

"Cullen." Killeen tried to keep her voice even. "Cullen. You're hurting me."

For several seconds he seemed not to understand, and then he looked down at his hand as if it belonged to a stranger. "Maker," he said harshly, and let her go.

His fingers had left her flesh bloodless and he stared at the white imprint of his grip, his face blanched to almost the same colour. A long moment passed.

Then he spun on his heel, drew his arm back, and hurled the lyrium bottle through the hole in the roof.

Very far away, Killeen heard it break on the rock below the keep.

"I —" Cullen said. "I —" He sank down on the bed, head in his hands. "Kill."

"Nothing broken," she said.

"Not for lack of trying," Cullen said on a single hard breath, and then: "Salve. In the chest. Let me —" He flung himself to his knees at the foot of the bed, hands shaking so badly it took him two tries at the latch. "Sit down. I'll find it. I know it's here." He dug furiously through the contents, finally producing the pot he sought and bringing back to her, fumbling to open the lid. "Let me —"

"I can do it," Killeen said.

"Let me," Cullen pleaded. Killeen held out her wrist and he took it so gently she could barely feel his touch, scooping out the salve with his other hand and spreading it tenderly over her skin, and then again, and again, as if he could erase the marks he'd left. Finally the pot was empty, and he released her arm and turned away.

"Cullen," Killeen said. "Talk to me." When he bowed his head, silent, she added: "Or I'll fetch Cole. Your choice — but I will know what's going on."

"It was —" he started, stopped, shook his head. "I can't."

She moved a little closer to him, took his hand in both of hers. "You can," she said. "It's a nightmare until it's a memory. Someone told me that, once."

"Someone who didn't know what he was talking about." Cullen's voice was so low Killeen had to strain to hear it.

"I disagree. And I'm the only one with a vote, right now. So tell me."

And in a low, faltering voice, he did, broken phrases and long pauses. The Shrine of Dumat, the horror of fighting and killing men he recognised, men he'd known and liked; the Tranquil, Maddox, taking his own life through agonising poison to protect Samson's secrets; the search for anything, any clue, that might help them against Samson.

And everywhere, red lyrium, in the bodies of the dead, in the walls, growing from the floor and spreading like a fungus throughout the Shrine, distilled and prepared into bottles stacked ready for the Red Templars to take.

"Mages can hear it," Cullen said. "And — I didn't know until I was there, but Templars can too. At least, this ex-Templar can. Maybe because there's no other lyrium to drown it out. And it sings, Kill. It sings like lyrium, but not quite the same. It sounds — darker. And stronger, Maker, so much stronger. It was — it was everywhere, all around me, and I wanted, Andraste forgive me, I wanted. You can't imagine what it's like, Kill, there aren't words for that feeling, that craving. I think if I'd been alone I might have, even red lyrium, even knowing. And — ever since, I can't — can't eat, can't sleep, it's like my skin doesn't fit, and at the same time like I've been hollowed out, the sky is too low, like I'm deaf and blind and all I have to do to see and hear is —" He was sweating again. "I don't think I can, Kill. Not again. Last time — there wasn't so much at stake. But now — and it's all I can think about, all I can imagine, all I can hear, that song, the memory of that song, the memory of how good it feels when the song is in your blood."

He fell silent, fingers laced through hers.

"Does the Inquisitor know?" Killeen asked, and when he shook his head. "Maybe I should go and fetch her."

He closed his eyes and nodded, expression bleak as endless winter. "She should remove me from my position, replace me."

"Maker, that's not what I meant," Killeen said. "I thought — you would want her — to talk to her."

"I don't want her to … see me like this," Cullen said. "You're right, she should know. But … when I can — not yet. Not now."

"All right," Killeen said. "Cullen, when did you last eat?"

He looked blank. "Yesterday. I think. Probably."

She freed one hand from his, dug in her pocket and produced the roll, somewhat squashed. "Here." Cullen looked at it doubtfully, and Killeen pushed it closer to his face. "Eat it. At least some of it. You're burning logs you haven't cut yet — didn't it occur to you that would only make you feel worse?"

Cullen took the roll, obediently tore off a bit, and ate it. "Nothing much has occurred to me for the past four days but lyrium."

Lyrium, and punishing yourself for wanting lyrium, Killeen thought. She went to his chest, rummaged until she found a clean shirt, and tossed it to him. "Eat your roll, put on a dry shirt, and lie down," she said implacably.

Cullen followed her directions without argument, without even a word, shoulders slumped, eyes shadowed.

"Now sleep," Killeen said, but he didn't close his eyes. "Cullen, I'll be here, I promise."

"The dreams are —" he said. "Worse than — before."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. "I'll be right here."

His mouth tightened, and he covered his face with his free hand. "Kill," he said, low and wretched, holding to her hand with the strength of desperation.

"Still here." She put her other hand on his shoulder. "I'm here, Cullen, you're all right. I'm here."

And then, whether she simply lost her balance or Cullen drew her down, Killeen wasn't sure, but she was on the bed beside him, and he was clinging to her with the strength of a drowning man holding to the rope that could save him, face pressed against her neck, body shaking with silent convulsive sobs.

And there was nothing she could do except hold him with all the strength of her arms.

"I should — should have taken you with me," he said raggedly. "And Void take the Inquisition. All the way through the Shrine I pretended to myself I had, that I could hear what you'd be saying." His vowels flattened to an approximation of her less-well bred accent. "Cullen, don't be a bigger fool than you were born. It was all that got me out of there with my soul at least partly intact."

Killeen stroked his hair and whispered over and over that it would be all right, that she was there, that he was all right, for what could have been ten minutes or three hours, until his shaking eased and his breathing steadied.

"I'm so tired," he murmured wearily. "Kill, I've been so tired."

"Then sleep," she said, and as if she were a mage and her words had the force of magic to command obedience, his body went slack against her, head heavy on her shoulder, and he was gone, falling into the dark well of sleep with utter confidence she would not let the creatures who lived there harm him.

Killeen pulled the blankets over both of them and settled down to keep watch.

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Note: This chapter has an incident of what could be described as domestic partner violence. Nothing in this chapter is meant to suggest that such behaviour is "okay" if someone is upset enough, that it doesn't count if it's "just" bruises, or that being sorry makes everything all right.