The Inquisitor's Ghost
Author's Note: This chapter has a soundtrack: Snake Eyes by Mumford & Sons.
Chapter 17 – In The Eyes
The Old Gods will call to you
From their ancient prisons they will sing
Dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts
On blacken'd wings does deceit take flight
The first of My children, lost to night
- Silence 3:6, Dissonant Verse
The next day, Ember lay in her bed, staring up at the stars on her ceiling, caught in the crossfire of her own thoughts. Sleep had evaded her last night. Her nerves had been too rattled, her mind racing with too many thoughts, questions refusing to leave her alone. And when sleep finally found her, it was him that she saw. Images of Cole had materialized in her mind's eye, so vivid and clear, along with the memories of them. Memories that had touched willfully and vibrantly on her mind, making her cheeks blush at the lascivious images that played.
In the morning she'd gone to the eastern wall, but Cole hadn't been there. She didn't expect him to be. She'd then found Leliana in the rookery and asked the rogue some vague questions about what happened when people slept together for the first time. Leliana had told her that it was normal for a woman to bleed during her first time. Despite her best efforts to make it appear like she'd just been curious, Leliana had seen through her and knew she was asking because of personal experience. However, Leliana had assumed it was Cullen that she'd been with. Ember didn't correct her assumption. She'd just said it was none of Leliana's business and left.
Relieved, Ember had gone searching for Cole to let him know that he hadn't hurt her and that what had happened last night was normal. It was just a part of it. They just hadn't known. She wanted to talk to him, to explain, but she couldn't find him. After hours of searching it was clear that he didn't want to talk to her. It wasn't her imagination; he was avoiding her.
It was so easy to avoid someone, here at Skyhold, with all the bustling, clattering people, all the comings and goings, all the meetings, all the discussions, all the messages, all the different groups of people concerned about different things and insisting on the greater importance of whatever their subject. But it was nearly impossible to corner someone who could disappear into thin air.
Giving up, Ember had gone to her room, hating the sting of rejection she felt. A cold lump of foreboding had settled into her stomach and she hated the growing weight. And now, here she was, struggling to get the turmoil of her thoughts into some kind of rational order.
She tried to see things through his eyes. Cole must be feeling terribly confused, overwhelmed, and frightened. He was hurting. She didn't have to see him to know. When she thought of how he'd reacted last night, when it played in her mind, it made her feel like she wanted to rant and rail, to smash something. The horrified look on his face wouldn't leave her mind, each snapshot nibbling at her brain, forcing her to endure that painful moment over and over again.
She made her hands fist and dug them into her closed eyes to rid herself of that image. But that look kept playing behind her eyelids, a heartrending reminder of how wretched things had ended. A part of her couldn't believe it had happened, that this wasn't just an awful nightmare.
The loss of him was devastating. It felt like an end. She was not ready for this to be the end. She was pretty damn sure she would never be ready for there to be an end. How was she supposed to survive without this now? Now that she had a taste of it?
Ember groaned. His scent of leather and cinnamon and something entirely him lingered on her sheets. The heady essence of it was ravaging her sanity. The scent of him still clung to her skin; images clinging to her mind. He'd dug himself a little hole inside of her heart five years ago, and there he continued to live and breath within her - a constant presence.
Ember's heart stopped as she realized quite suddenly that she was tragically, irrevocably, wretchedly in love with him.
She wondered when she'd fallen in love with him, or if she'd ever stopped.
Cole loved her. He might not realize it or understand it, but she was certain of it - just as she was certain that she loved him, too. Once they talked about last night everything would go back to the way it was before. She would find him and force him to talk to her. She was not afraid to ask for what she wanted. She was not afraid to own up to her own desires. She wouldn't let what happened last night drive a wedge between them.
She was suddenly overcome with an unholy need to be closer to him. She got out of bed and dressed quickly in tights and a tunic. She walked quickly down her steps and exited her quarters. She ran a hand over her fire red curls and adjusted the sleeves of her tunic as she walked through the throne room, avoiding the crowds of people there.
Leliana emerged from the door that led to Josie's office. The rogue spotted her and said, "Sweeting, may I have a moment?"
Ember nearly snapped at Leliana to be left alone. But that would be rude. Leliana didn't need to suffer because of her foul mood. Ember took a deep breath. It took a lot to control her temper. "Umm, sure. What do you want to talk about?"
"A report written by scout Harding has gone missing. I suspect foul play. I'm searching all of Skyhold. I know you bring reports to your room, sweeting. Would you mind if I had some of my agents search your room?"
"What? Okay, whatever," Ember uttered impatiently. "I also keep reports in my nightstand. Be sure to search there too."
Josie appeared at Leliana's side. "Inquisitor, Sera says there is trouble in Verchiel. She's asked for an Inquisition presence – a few troops to march through town – to spook the nobles pushing around her people there. I suggest-"
"Whatever you want," Ember answered uncaring as she moved around Josie and Leliana to head for the doors.
Ember took two steps before Cullen crossed her path. "Inquisitor, Vivienne and I would like to speak with you about our plan concerning the Winter Palace. Are you free to meet tonight?"
"Sure, sure," Ember mumbled absentmindedly with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Just come to my room after dinner."
Ember got stopped four more times on her way to the Herald's Rest. Once she was in Cole's room, that was unsurprisingly empty, she placed a note on his bed that said simply: I need to see you. Meet me in my room tonight. If you don't come to my room tonight, then I won't bring you on the next mission.
That would get him to see her. He refused to miss a mission.
After dinner that night with all of her companions and advisors – less Cole – Ember had changed into her armor and spent some time with Blackwall at the training grounds. Afterward, she'd met Leliana in the rogue's room. Leliana told her that they'd searched Ember's room for the missing report but found nothing. Leliana had also apologized for the mess they'd made. Apparently, Leliana's agents had trashed her room in their search for the missing report.
Ember had bathed in Leliana's room and wore the clothes Leliana had left out for her – black tights, a forest green long-sleeved tunic that reached her thighs, and black leather knee-high boots.
The crowd in the throne room and dwindled to only a few as she approached her quarters with nervous eagerness. She could only hope that Cole was already there. She entered her quarters and walked silently up the stairs to her room. She stepped off the last step and her pulses quickened at the sight of him, her breath catching in her mouth.
Cole was sitting cross-legged on top of her desk that was covered in papers, as if someone had dumped out all of the drawers of her desk on the surface to dig through the contents.
Cole's head was in his hands, his shoulders caved in. He was staring down at a piece of parchment resting in his lap. There was a fire blazing in the hearth beside him, and golden light played over his pale face, highlighting the deep wells of exhaustion beneath his eyes. He looked miserable, a solitary figure in splendid self-imposed isolation.
That view of him unawares tugged willfully at her heartstrings. He looked impossibly grim. Pushed too hard too fast into something he didn't understand and had trouble comprehending.
Cole's gaze lifted abruptly, dropping his arms. He did nothing to mask the heartache there, and it was hard to see. How she wished she could go to him… that he would put his arms around her and hold her the way he had last night. But he was keeping his distance from her. He seemed a thousand miles further away from her than mere feet. It felt like a divide the width of the universe stretched between them.
She looked at him, and for several moments, all she did was stare. His nearness had always affected her powerfully, but this time the effect was magnified tenfold after what had gone on between them last night.
"Thank you for meeting me." It was the lightest tone she could muster.
"What did you want to tell me?" he asked emotionlessly, as if she was a complete stranger.
Ember blinked once. Twice. She hadn't been prepared for that, or the way he looked right at her. Through her. She hadn't been prepared for him to build a wall between them over night. She stood awkwardly, wondering what she should do or say in the face of this new development. Tension was between them; she could feel its presence, alive and distancing. She hated it.
Determined to break through to him, she slowly approached him. He visibly stiffened, his eyes shifting to the balcony doors, as if to escape. She stopped instantly, a few feet away from him. She needed to tread carefully. He was obviously teetering on the brink of bolting, and if she said or did the wrong thing, he was going to tear out of the room.
"I wanted to talk about last night."
Cole's head snapped to the side to stare into the fire, his eyes flinty in the firelight, a muscle pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. "It won't happen again," he stated, his voice harsh with remorse.
Ember's lips parted as she stared incredulously at Cole. Staring at his face, she knew without asking that last night would be their only time together. The resolve was there. She could see it clearly.
A realization dawned on her, so brutally hard that she felt ill and nearly stumbled. "You regret it." Ember's fists clenched as tears prickled behind her lids, turning her vision watery. "You regret me."
Something sharp and pained passed over his face, but he hardened his features. "I regret me."
"I know this is hard for you. A lot happened last night. I'm sure it was more than a little overwhelming, confusing, and frightening. I wish there was something I could do to help you. We'll work through this together, okay? We just need to talk about it." She dipped her head so she could see his eyes. "Everything is going be alright, Cole. I promise."
He took a shaky breath. "You hear but you don't listen." He didn't look at her. He remained quiet for a long, unnerving moment. After a long time, he said, voice strained, "I shouldn't be here anymore."
Pain surged anew and twisted inside her, so acute that she had to put a hand to her belly. What did that mean? Was he planning on leaving Skyhold? Was that it? Was he going to just leave after…
"I won't leave you," he said softly, as if reading her thoughts. "I will help the people here. I will help you defeat the Elder One. I will protect you. I won't abandon you, dear heart."
Her eyes glinted. "But you won't be with me, is that it?"
He looked at her with more sincerity and honesty than she'd ever seen in them before. "You said it would be better to be apart. I see that now."
Ember went to shaking her head. It was almost too much to process. "But I don't want to be apart."
He hopped off her desk and the piece of parchment that had been resting on his lap fluttered softly to the floor. He headed for the stairs, as if to go. She stared at him for a minute, stunned, not believing what she was seeing. He was going to leave? He was just going to leave? When he brushed passed her, as if she didn't even exist, she became nearly violent. Rage, and something uncomfortably near panic, seared her insides.
"NO!" Ember gripped his arm, as if she could bind him to her.
Cole disappeared and her hand gripped nothing but air. He reappeared a few feet away from her and was already heading for the stairs.
She stepped in front of him, blocking his path. "You can't just walk away from this. I know you felt it too."
He peered at her, his expression more intent and serious than she'd ever seen it. "I'm not alive, remember. Shadow taken form."
"You feel something for me," she stated firmly with absolute clarity.
He shook his head and his face dropped like his heart was breaking. "I shouldn't."
His eyes shifted. She followed his gaze to the piece of parchment he'd been reading that was now on the floor in front of her desk. She took a few steps toward her desk and her heart stopped when she looked down at the parchment, recognizing it immediately. It was the note she'd written herself right after she'd escaped the dungeons of the White Spire. She bent down and lifted the parchment and read it:
His name is Cole.
He's not that old, perhaps twenty years. No more.
He has shaggy blond hair that hangs in front of his eyes and wears dirty leathers— perhaps the only clothes he owns. His eyes are blue, crystal clear, like melted ice. They are the most haunted eyes you've ever seen. He's tall and lean, as handsome as he is strange.
He was there when you were locked in the dungeons of the White Spire. He talked to you, he helped you, he protected you. He brought you ratatouille to cheer you up, he got you a book of poems, he made you the necklace you wear around your neck. You liked him, trusted him, cared for him. He was your first kiss. No other will be like it.
Nobody can see him, and those who do forget him. Just like you are doing right now. Remember the kiss. But also remember that he's the Ghost of the Spire. He killed a mage, an elven girl, right in front of your eyes. He said he'd done it before. He said he did it to feel alive. He most likely will again.
Cole was your first love.
Cole is a demon.
The parchment fell from her fingers to land on the surface of her desk, her chest rising and falling. She met his gaze, her face red and shiny like an apple.
"I wrote this a long time ago."
"The last four words are all that matter." Abrasion roughened the low-pitched comment.
Ember looked back down at the parchment at the last four words.
Cole is a demon.
In an aggrieved tone, she pointed to the note on her desk and said sharply, "That was written by an eighteen-year-old girl who was afraid of something she didn't understand."
He gave her a stony stare, his eyes cold and dark like a slab of stone. "She was right."
Pain sliced through her like a knife blade. For a moment she couldn't even speak, a lead ball in her stomach. She stood on shaky legs, and the last ounce of energy she possessed seemed to siphon out of her. Her chin fell to her chest, and she seemed to deflate.
"So, that's it?" She strangled out the words, unable to look at him. "You're giving up? Just like that?"
"To swim in the sea, you have to grow gills."
Her head lifted sharply. "What the hell does that mean?"
His expression shuttered. "That I am me. Not spirit after all. No escaping it. Can't change my nature by wishing. Can't change, no matter how much I want to. Always this. Can't just believe it to become it. Not human, no matter how bad I want to be that for you," he uttered in a tiny voice. "Protect you. Nothing else matters."
Growing increasingly frustrated, she asked, "Protect me from what?"
"Me." It was an aching, hollow sound.
Her hands fisted at her sides. "I don't want protection from you."
His brows dropped low over his eyes. "You should."
"Well, I don't!" she cried, exasperated. "You see that note? That note is what kept me afraid of you for five years! I will not waste another moment of my life believing you are something you are not. I will not waste another minute letting fear rule over what it is I feel for you. And if you think, for one second, that I will give up on us so easily after everything we've been through, you don't know me at all!"
His shadowed eyes locked with hers and the movement of his lips was nowhere near a smile, more of a grimace of regret, which made everything hurt so much worse.
"See me when you look at me and you'll see you're not safe with me," he muttered with a cracked voice. "Apart is best, just like you said. I don't… I don't know what else to do."
Ember felt the hollowness in her gut open up, wide and bottomless as ever. "Cole… you've been asking me to see you. Well, I do. I see kindness, caring, compassion. I see my ghost, my protector, my dearest friend. But most of all I see goodness. Why can't you see yourself?"
His head bowed, his chin hitting his sternum. His shoulders were slumped as if a heavy weight rested atop them. Despair hung on the man so thick that it clogged the air.
"All I see is blood," Cole uttered severely, his voice ragged and tight with emotion. Cole looked down at his hands to stare at them in horror. "All I see is your blood on my body, my tongue, my hands, under my fingernails. Blood because of me. It won't wash off. No matter how hard I try. Scrubbing until raw. But it won't wash off. Never wash off." His voice started to rise, the words running together, a terrible momentum of growing hysteria. "Swore I'd never hurt you. Vowed. Pledged. Promised. And then I… I…" His voice was choked, a wealth of pain in his face. "You'll be safe away from me, dear heart, I swear to you. Safe and sound."
"I'm safe with you."
At her quiet vehemence, Cole sliced a hard glance her way from beneath his lashes, his eyes stabbing through the dim light into her. Suddenly, he was standing over her, boring down on her, driving her to back up against the desk's edge. There was a dark edge to him. Tension coiled her muscles, panic strumming her nerves. She tried to move away, but his hand came up and pushed against her collarbone in a way that was unmistakably intimidating, slowly forcing her down until her back pressed into the desktop.
"No. You're not." His blue eyes were glacial.
Her senses reeled, rawly frenzied, and she squirmed underneath him, but he held her still and her skin singed where he touched her.
"I wanted to possess you." A blade with a serrated edge clearing its sheath, that was Cole's voice.
Her tummy lurched in stricken protest. "No. You couldn't possibly. You are-"
"I know what I am." His jaw was clenched so tight she could hear his teeth ground painfully against each other. "Look into my eyes…" he ordered, his voice hoarse from the raw tightness in his throat. "What do you see?"
A pulse began to beat low in her neck as she forced herself to meet his gaze. Those arresting orbs stared her dead in the eyes beneath long charcoal lashes and she felt as if his eyes were burning a pathway to her soul.
She saw sorrow, guilt, regret, and pain.
But underneath all of that, she saw shadows.
She felt something in her chest drop to the floor as she looked closer, deeper, peering into the haunted darkness swirling in a sea of ice blue. Shadows were in his eyes and in his blood, were an essential part of who he was, anchoring him to a different world.
"You see it, don't you?" His voice was harsh, tension ebbing and flowing like a violent surf beneath his skin. "This is the part of me that is not, and never will be, human." A slightly demonic look lit behind his eyes. "This is the part of me that wants to take everything you are and make it mine."
He leaned over her backward-bent form, bringing his face close, his nose almost touching hers. His breathing was hard and deep, the unyielding planes of his chest pressing against the pound of her heartbeat.
"This is the part of me that wants to wrap myself around you, know every part inside, every inch of your soul." His breath stirred the hair around her flushed face. "This is the part of me that wants to consume everything you are, until there's nothing left of you, until there's no separation between us."
She breathed rapidly, her heart thundering violently as his fingertips slowly trailed along the bare skin of her collarbone to the smooth dip at the base of her throat, sending a trembling shockwave through her. The faint touch felt like a moonbeam brushing across her skin, and she felt it down deep within herself as if he'd touched her center.
The harshness bled from his face to be replaced with a miasma of despair. "And I fear that if I let myself be in you again… I'll be truly lost. And so will you." The words sounded forced from his throat as he touched the pulse in her neck in a fingertip caress. His chest expanded against hers and he released a barely audible, shuddering breath. "I will not hurt you again."
Ember squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head senselessly at him, feeling dizzy as his words formed a tightly wound knot in her gut. So that's what this was. He wanted to frighten her so she would stay away. He didn't understand. He didn't understand that what had happened was normal, that it was just being human. He didn't understand that he hadn't hurt her, that blood alone didn't mean pain and death. He didn't understand that even the most controlled men could lose themselves in the body of the one they loved. He didn't understand that some emotions could become so powerful that it felt like something else was taking you over, controlling you. He didn't understand that the urge to possess was not restricted to only demons.
Her opened to look up into the face hovering not even an inch above her. "You didn't hurt me, Cole. You just don't understand," she managed to say, despite how everything within her was in turmoil. "You think what you feel means you're a demon, but you're wrong," she murmured in a wobbly undertone. "What you feel is what a man feels when he wants a woman. That's all." She swallowed back the thickness in her throat and struggled to breathe at a regular rate. "Those feelings make you human, Cole."
His eyes flashed filaments of pure azurite. "Don't let my appearance fool you. I am not human." The lean, hard planes of his face looked harsh and forbidding, his strong jaw set and rigid. "I'm a monster."
A sob choked in her throat. Heat swelled her eyes. "But did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, even if you are a monster… you still might be my soulmate, anyway?"
His expression twisted, the pain a hard grimace on his face as he turned slightly away from her. The guilt on his face was devastating, consuming, and the mere sight of it shredded her heart to ribbons.
"Cole…" The hard knot of distress that was lodged in her throat made the name sound hoarse.
She lifted her hand toward him and he didn't move, so she bit her lip and touched his face. His skin was as smooth as it looked, milky-white and as smooth as porcelain beneath her fingertips. Though she used the lightest of touches, she felt his entire body tense tighter than a bowstring the moment her skin brushed his, the muscle in his jaw jumping.
"Please… don't touch me." His voice was full of strain, deepened by his internal conflict. "I don't deserve it."
"Look into my eyes…" Her lips trembled uncontrollably and her vision blurred with hot tears as her fingertips traced the smoothness of his cheek.
Cole's eyes flickered to hers.
"You see it, don't you?" Watery eyes stared up at him, crowned by deeply angled red brows. "This is the part of me that is, and always will be, in love with you." Her voice shook when she spoke. "No matter what you are or what you've done."
Only a hairsbreadth away, she watched Cole squeeze his eyes shut and his jaw go rigid, as if he was bracing himself against pain.
Her fingers feathered over the locked line of his jaw.
His eyes snapped open, those soul-destroying orbs capturing and holding hers. Too many emotions flitted across his face for her to name.
Her forefinger ran up his chin to gently trace the curve of his lower lip.
His eyes were bright as the heart of a fire as they fell to stare fixatedly at her mouth, as if he was remembering how it felt beneath his own.
She caught a long breath, the air seeming electric and heavy with powerful memories that wrecked havoc on her nerves. The space separating them seemed to crackle with invisible sparks as every molecule in the room began to charge and collide. Her mouth being separated by so much as an inch from his was a torment that overpowered other considerations.
Emotion welled in her chest cavity as she wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck, holding him in place. She lifted her head off the desk, bringing her lips closer to his.
"What the devil?!"
"Cullen, he's hurting her! Do something!"
The sharp exclamations startled them so badly that they both jumped.
Ember's head turned to the side on the desk to see Cullen barrel toward them. "Get off of her!"
She had no time to protest or explain, though, before he reached them. Cullen shoved Cole away from her and the abrupt absence of his heat was like an icy burn. Cullen grabbed her arm and pulled her off the desk, away from Cole with a strength that made her stumble.
From the corner of her eye she saw Cole take an abrupt step in her direction, saw the concern in his eyes, but Cullen shoved himself between them and let his fist fly, connecting squarely with Cole's jaw and felling him to the ground.
Cole didn't stay down. With incredible agility he rolled to his feet and balanced in a defensive crouch, his arms slightly raised to allow the greatest freedom of movement. The wicked-looking dagger that had suddenly materialized in his right hand gleamed with lethality.
"I don't want to hurt you," Cole uttered in a deadly whisper, regarding the ex-templar coldly.
Cullen brandished his sword. "You were choking the Inquisitor! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Cullen, that's not what happened!" Urgency threaded through Ember's voice. "You don't understand!"
Cullen looked at her, clearly confused, and looking like he wanted to reply, but was unable to form words in his mouth.
"Do not listen to her, Cullen. She may be under the demon's influence," Vivienne snapped as she came to stand beside Cullen, staring at Cole as if he were a snake, getting ready to strike. "It would be wiser for you to flee into the Fade, creature, and never return."
Blue eyes glinted like hard coal. "I'm here to help. I won't leave until she tells me to," Cole murmured, his voice taut.
"So desperate for your prey?" Vivienne retorted with asperity.
A muscle flexed in Cole's jaw. "She is not my prey."
Ember cast the enchantress a caustic glare, and bit out, "Cole is not a-"
"Not a demon? Of course he is," Vivienne stated, her tone biting. "And what is worse, I think this creature has pretended to be one of us for so long that it has forgotten what it really is…" Vivienne gave Cole a baleful look. "…a parasite that's wormed its way into our world, feeding off all the things it can't have."
"Take it back! TAKE IT BACK!" Ember bellowed as she got in Vivienne's face, her chest heaving with indignation.
"This is the thanks I get for coming to your defense?" Vivienne asked incredulously, disbelief and outrage giving an edge to her voice.
"You hurl your cutting words as if they were wisdom when they are nothing more than the frightened epithets of a templar lapdog, and I am sick of hearing them!" Ember exclaimed stridently.
Vivienne's eyes rounded. "Inquisitor, darling, you don't-"
"You will apologize to Cole right now and you will-" Ember's voice trailed off to nothing when she looked back to see that Cole had disappeared as if he were smoke from an extinguished flame.
Ember cringed as something grabbed at her chest like a claw. Tightened. Squeezed. Her chest gave a suffocating spasm, her insides suddenly feeling hollow and empty, as if they had been scraped out with something sharp.
Feeling numb all over, save for that aching place in her chest where a bleeding heart now lay, the Inquisitor turned away from Cullen and Vivienne to run her fingers under her eyes, wiping the tears away before turning to face them again.
"Thanks guys. Thanks a lot," she muttered miserably.