The Inquisitor's Ghost
Author's Note: This chapter has a soundtrack: One Moment More (Acoustic Version) by Mindy Smith.
Chapter 30 – Through Varric's Eyes
The work of man and woman
By hubris of their making
The sorrow a blight unbearable
- Threnodies 7:11
I've seen some shit.
People say that a lot, but I've really seen some shit.
I took one look a young dwarven girl with golden hair and blue eyes and haven't been the same since.
I saw that same dwarven girl skip out on our wedding to be the bride in another.
I saw my brother go crazy, betray me and my friends, and then my own dagger slit his throat.
I saw a mage I considered a friend blow up a Chantry and start a war.
I saw the sky torn open and demons bleed into the world.
Only a few weeks ago I saw my best friend sacrifice herself to save me, one last time.
I saw one of the first darkspawn claim to be a damn god and try to destroy the world.
I saw the red-haired woman I believe to be sent by the Maker kill that same darkspawn, saving everyone and everything.
But this… I've never seen anything like this.
The Kid… he actually ran toward the rift and dived into it. He'd jumped headfirst into the Fade without a moment of hesitation, entering a world he knew he couldn't return from now that he was too human. But that didn't seem to have entered into the Kid's mind. He'd just… he'd just leapt through that tear in the Veil without a second thought and all on the slim, bare-to-nothing chance that he might save the woman he loved.
That is some crazy shit.
The rift suddenly closed in on itself and the room was intensely quiet. Every eye in the room was fixed upon the Inquisitor while that mage Rhys continued to heal her.
We waited.
I don't know how long we waited, but we waited.
It felt like forever.
Suddenly, the Inquisitor's eyelids fluttered rapidly and her body jerked around on the floor, shaking and spasming uncontrollably.
"She's seizing!" Rhys yelled as he tried to pry her mouth open so she wouldn't bit out her tongue.
The Inquisitor was suddenly surrounded by a pure, radiant incandescence. And then, she seemed to slam back into her body. It looked like she'd been catapulted and drew in a deep and gasping breath for air that was so loud it echoed in the silence of the room.
The Inquisitor shot up right into a sitting position, her hand outstretched in front of her, as if she was trying desperately to grab hold of something, and screeched, "Cole… NO!"
And then everything was quiet.
We all stared at her, unable to do anything else, keenly aware that Cole had miraculously succeeded in reversing the Rite of Tranquility.
We watched the Inquisitor breathe in great, shuddering gasps, swaying. She clutched the necklace around her neck and doubled over like she'd been kicked in the stomach, and her mouth wrenched wide on a sob that made no sound because she inhaled it at the last second.
My heart broke when she finally raised her head, staring straight at me with large, traumatized eyes. Silent tears ran down her face as those tear-filled eyes stared back at me, so heartbreakingly sad that I wanted to die rather than continue to face them. No one should ever stare out of such shattered eyes.
Gut-wrenching sobs suddenly sprung from her, as if a dam inside her had broken loose. Over and over again she cried out the Kid's name, her chest heaving and rupturing, wracking sobs clawing out of her. She was rocking back and forth, sobbing, bawling. Crying so hard her whole body was a shaking, a shivering ball of anguish.
My eyes pricked painfully and I hung my head as the sound of her pain hit me like a dragon tail to the gut. I stood there, a useless bastard, helplessly listening to the Inquisitor – the Herald of Andraste – weep her soul to shreds.
The Inquisitor was sitting upright on the floor, her arms wrapping so tightly around her middle, as if she was trying desperately to keep something vital inside.
And then her head fell back and she screamed.
And, Maker, it was an inhuman sound, the wail that suddenly broke from her chest.
I not only heard it, but felt it- the raw and primal scream that undoubtedly shredded the tender insides of her throat until all of the air in her lungs was gone. It was the agonized, heartrending cry of a mortally wounded and dying creature.
No one was immune to it. Everyone in the room froze in dismay, felt their own tears welling up inside them, the piercing sound of her heartbreak and the harrowing echo of her unbearable sorrow and grief hitting each and every one of us in a place that was tender and vulnerable.
On mechanic feet, I drew closer to her. I fell numbly to my knees in front of her and closed my arms around her, using the flat of my hand to ease her face into my hairy chest.
The Inquisitor automatically clutched the lapels of my coat, desperately seeking comfort. I just held her as the deep well of her agony opened up and came pouring out. She let go of it all in long, soul-wrenching sobs with barely distinguishable words winding through them.
Cole, I recognized, and no, but nothing else.
I didn't need to understand her words to understand her pain.
I suddenly saw a hand come to rest on the Inquisitor's heaving back - a hand that belonged to Cullen.
Another hand came to rest on the back of the Inquisitor's head: Leliana.
One on her shoulder: Josephine.
One on her other shoulder: Bull.
Within seconds, every damn one of us was touching her, offering her our strength, tears in our eyes or rolling silently down our cheeks.
None of them had known.
Not a damn one had known until the day she'd been taken what she had meant to the Kid or what he'd meant to her.
No one had known but me.
Author's Note: This is not the last chapter. There are two more chapters after this.