The Inquisitor's Ghost
Author's Note: Sorry this took me so long, but I played the Trespasser downloadable content and decided to do a little rewrite. This chapter has spoilers for those who haven't played Trespasser yet, but I tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum. Also, I just wanted to say thank you to PolarisRose and Artemisieh-2 for your comments, your words really touched me.
This chapter has a soundtrack: Here With Me by Susie Suh & Robot Koch. This song was recommended by Inquisigirl.
Chapter 31 – The House That Built Me
Maker, though the darkness comes upon me
I shall embrace the light
I shall weather the storm
I shall endure
What you have created, no one can tear asunder
- Trials 1:10
Two Years Later
The Dales
Orlais
Ember Laurent, once leader of the now disbanded Inquisition, stood on top of a verdant hill surrounded by Orlesian farmlands. A clear sky was bursting with pink and gold as the sun peeked over the horizon.
The now twenty-six year old woman was too thin, her collarbones visible beneath her drab, grey tunic, her black tights loose on her skinny legs. Her waist-length curls lacked the vibrant red she'd once been known for. And she was too pale, dark circles ringing her once bright, aquamarine eyes. They were dull now, seeing yet never engaged. Hollow-eyed and wan-faced, she bore the miserable appearance of having seen better days, and having uncommonly bad ones now.
The run-down farmhouse off in the distance looked abandoned. It was eighteen long years since she'd last looked out on the Laurent farm, and after today it would be another eighteen years before she looked out on it again—if ever.
This place wasn't home. It never had been. Home was where the heart was. Well, she believed her heart had been taken from her two years ago, so home, these days, tended to be any place she could lay her head.
She remembered being ambushed in her room by Samson. She remembered pain. She remembered feeling disconnected from herself, as if her mind and body were two separate things. But most of all, she remembered Cole. She remembered the moment he'd touched her mind in the deep, dark place it had been trapped in.
She remembered it so clearly. It was hard to describe. It was comforting… she had felt safe, consoled, cherished. It had been like being held close by him, cradled… the bond had been so complete that she had been unable to extricate herself, nor did she wish to. There had been a constant warmth, that had spread outwards from the very center of her being, infusing her body with happiness, completeness, and unimaginable love.
But it had been ripped away.
She'd awoken to find herself in a world stripped of the single greatest thing in it. How was she supposed to cope with that? How was she supposed to survive that? She wasn't. She couldn't. No one survived with only half of their heart. And now she knew why.
At the red templar base, once she'd been able to get a grip on herself, she'd entered the Fade physically by using the Anchor, rushing in after him. But the moment she'd entered the Fade in the flesh she'd been swarmed by hundreds of demons, some more powerful than the fear demon they'd faced before, as if they had been watching and waiting for her. It seemed she was the ultimate prize and they'd all been ravenous for possession of her power and soul. In her weakened state she was an easy picking, the Anchor on her hand like a beacon for them to locate her.
After mere seconds in the Fade, she'd been dragged back into this world by her companions, kicking and screaming, raging at the sheer injustice of it all. What did they ever do to deserve this? What had they done that was so damn wrong to deserve this cruel fate?
Her advisors watched her closely after that to make sure she didn't use the Anchor again. She was kept like a prisoner under lock and key and subject to heavy surveillance. She wasn't allowed a moment alone. They didn't trust her. They said she couldn't kill herself by using the Anchor to go after him. They said she was too important. They said they needed her, that the world needed her to fix it. They said Cole's sacrifice would be for nothing if she let herself be killed trying to bring him back.
She hadn't used the Anchor since. They'd thought she'd listened to them. They'd thought she hadn't used the Anchor again because she didn't want Cole's sacrifice to have been in vain. But they'd been wrong. The truth was her hand had been dying. She'd been unable to control the Anchor after that. She hadn't been able to use it to enter the Fade in the flesh. She hadn't been able to save him like he'd saved her.
She'd forced herself to continue on as the Inquisitor, putting one foot in front of the other, wearing out each day in an endless cycle. She'd spoken when they'd told her to speak, she'd fought when they'd told her to fight, and she'd eaten when they'd said eat. But she wasn't living. Her soul had been ripped from its other half, and no soul could survive something like that. It became a husk, an empty shell of what it once was.
She'd fallen into a state of limbo where life had taken on colorless shapes of muted greys and nothing came into full focus any more. She'd become hollow, more akin to a corpse. Ironic, wasn't it, that he'd saved her from Tranquility when Tranquil was exactly what she'd become without him.
Sometimes, when she was her lowest, she would lie just like she'd done when she was eight-years-old and being taken away by templars, on her side with her arm stretched out in front of her, her palm up.
And she would wait. Wait to see if Cole would magically appear like he always did, out of thin air, and hold her hand just like he did all those years ago.
But he never did. Hours would go by, and ever muscle would ache from not moving an inch, waiting… waiting…
But he never came.
When she slept she went to the Fade where she searched for him every night. But she'd never seen him, not once in two years.
Unfortunately, the demons that always came for her in her sleep were becoming harder and harder to resist. She was becoming vulnerable to them and their deceptions. Every night they tempted her with the one thing she so desperately wanted.
Open your mind to me, mage, and I'll return him to you, they would whisper and she would hesitate, sorely tempted to just say yes and give in to their possession just so she could see him one more time.
But she couldn't give in. She couldn't. They were just lies. What would Cole say if he saw her about to let a demon possess her? After all he had done to reverse the Right of Tranquility, how could she just throw it away? Just the thought of it made her sick.
Ember hung her head in exhaustion, the sun hot on her skin. She was tired. Maker was she tired. It went beyond her throbbing skull. It transcended her flesh and ran deeper than her bones. And her left palm was itchy. Always itchy. But when she tried to scratch it she remember she couldn't. Sometimes she forgot that her left hand wasn't there anymore.
Maker, but life can be a cruel and heartless bitch, she thought with sudden raw bitterness, staring down her missing hand and forearm.
Two months ago, after using the Eluvian network to track him down, Solas had asked her why she continued to fight for this world when it had taken so much from her.
"That's the world," she'd managed to say through the pain in her hand. "Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes—and it's gone forever. The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. I keep going because he would want me too. Cole believed there was good in this world worth saving at any cost."
"Cole believed you were worth saving, not this world."
After a long pause she'd asked the question she'd been ashamed to ask, but was too weak not to, "If you tore down the Veil… would I get to see Cole again?"
"No," Solas had answered. "This world would be destroyed and everything in it, including you."
She'd swallowed that bitter pill. "Well then, I'd better get to stopping you, now shouldn't I?"
"You can't stop me."
"I will stop you. I swear it."
"How?"
"Anyway I can." Ember had gritted her teeth, watched in immeasurable pain as her left hand, in fact everything below her elbow, had turned to stone. "Even if it means meeting you six feet under, I'll see you dead before I allow you to slaughter the innocent people of this world. They are worth saving. They are worth dying for. Cole would see you as an enemy for threatening to harm them."
"You may be right," had been Solas' grim answer. "But my path is set."
"Then so is mine."
Ember frowned as she looked down at her missing hand, the scarred stub of her elbow. She didn't know how she could stop Solas now. She couldn't fight him, she knew that. Not any more. But perhaps she could investigate, work in the shadows, find something that could stop him.
Ember slowly made her way down the hill towards the house that held so many horrible and haunting memories. There was one burned down barn beside one that was barely standing, both neighboring a small, white farmhouse that was weathered, beaten, but sturdy in spite of itself.
The spring air was slightly warmer than that of the cool north where she'd been living. The trees here were tall and green, the sky open, the soil dry beneath her knee-high black boots as she walked. She wasn't sure why she'd stopped here. It had been on the way to the Temple of Mythal, sure, but she hated this place. Perhaps she'd been drawn here because this was where she'd first touched Cole – when he'd held her hand when she was eight-years-old. Eighteen years ago today.
"Happy Birthday."
Ember's steps didn't falter, didn't stop, but her eyes slid to the side toward the male voice that had penetrated the haze in her mind. Her eyes locked with haunted blue orbs set within a ghostly-white face with shaggy blonde strands hanging into them.
Oh Maker, not now, she thought wretchedly as Cole's sweet, smiling face looking at her just to torment her.
She rolled her lips inward. The first time she'd seen him—about six months after she'd lost him—she'd been so shocked she'd fallen out of her bed. He'd just appeared in her room at Skyhold, staring at her, smiling at her. She'd run up to him, tried to throw her arms around him, but she'd held nothing but air. That was when she'd realized that she was just seeing things, things her mind so desperately wanted to see to fill the void of depression and despair that had filled her in those first few months he'd been gone.
Did people do that? Did people actually go crazy because someone they loved died? Or was it because he'd touched her mind for that split second in time and this was a result of that brief possession, like a residue of his essence on her brain?
"Or maybe you're just so sad you need me to be real, even if it's just in your mind," her imaginary Cole said beside her, reading her thoughts.
Ember looked away from him, picking up her pace. The real Cole couldn't read her mind. And the real Cole didn't talk like that. She could never get his dialogue right. He always talked just like her.
Ember knew the Cole walking beside her right now was just a figment of her imagination, but he'd been an essential part of her mending process. He was like a tranquilizer; he helped keep the pain at bay in order to survive. She'd rather have him like this than not at all. It was a defense mechanism, one that kept her sane but also insane.
A moment later, Ember stopped far from the farmhouse, unable to make herself get any closer. She swallowed, watching it from the edge of the field. The dark windows over the door stared back at her like a pair of malevolent eyes.
The house was completely dilapidated. The front porch had almost rotted away completely, the wood was practically falling out of the walls, the foundation had sunk so low on the right that the small house was leaning noticeably. The windows were boarded up and there was a giant hole in the roof. She couldn't help but wonder when and how the people who'd once lived there died.
"Maybe they were eaten by darkspawn?" Cole said, answering her unspoken question.
"Or the roof collapsed on top of them," she replied impassively.
"This is not a good place," her imaginary Cole murmured beside her.
Ember looked at him and shook her head.
No, Cole wouldn't say that. More like…
"This place has many secrets," Cole said instead.
Ember shook her head again.
No, Cole wouldn't say that either. More like…
"There are secrets in this house," he obliged her.
No, that's not right either.
She frowned and Cole disappeared.
Cole wouldn't just be standing there, she thought. He would be sitting cross-legged… on top of something… like that tree stump over there.
Cole appeared sitting cross-legged on the tree stump a few feet away from her.
And he would be wearing a hat.
A hat appeared on top of Cole's head.
A bigger hat.
The hat grew.
And it would hide his eyes. He never liked the feeling of people's eyes on him.
The hat was pulled low over his eyes.
There. Much better.
She smiled, pleased with the image.
Now, what would he say…?
Illusory Cole looked up at her from beneath the wide brim of his hat. "Secrets are in the floors and the walls that will remain until they are dust and gone."
Ember nodded with grinning satisfaction.
Bingo.
But her smile slowly fell from her face, a lump forming in her throat. This wasn't Cole. Not the real Cole. It wasn't him. It would never be him. Cole was gone. She couldn't bring him back. She would never see him again. Never. And she just… just couldn't cope with that. How could she?
The lump in her throat changed into a burn as tears decided to take its place. "I miss you." The words scraped across her dry lips. "I miss you so bad."
"I know," her fake Cole said, but his voice had changed. Each day he was starting to sound more and more like her own voice.
He faded to nothing before her eyes, returning to that place in her mind where she kept him.
Heaviness lay on her heart like a boulder. By all appearances, she was losing her mind. Sane people didn't see what she saw, heard what she heard. Sane people didn't see ghosts.
But he wasn't a ghost. He was a figment of her imagination, a means of protecting her fragile psyche from harm. She was the ghost. In her mind, she was dead already. She was a ghost who had been granted a few years on earth to deal with certain obligations. But she was a ghost. She felt filled with a black void of emptiness, permeated by an icy numbness that felt akin to death.
Silently, Ember entered the decrepit and abandoned farmhouse. She walked its halls and entered its rooms, but quickly escaped out the front door. The moment she was outside again she came to a halt. She screwed her eyes closed and cringed as a spasm of pain surged through her left arm, or what remained of it. She quickly palmed the stump of her missing arm and gritted her teeth against the cutting pain. It was strange, but she could still feel pain in a hand that had been gone for two months now.
With short, labored breaths, she used her only remaining hand to dig into her pack and quickly swallowed one of the potions Vivienne had made for her. The blessed numbness from the narcotic pain reliever in the bottle began to spread inside her, like fast moving poison, anesthetizing her, thankfully shutting the pain down; where minutes before it was like a throbbing, unbearable ache, it was suddenly reduced to merciful nothing. But it didn't banish the anguish that persistently plagued her, the sense of despair she felt for what she'd lost.
Ember opened her eyes to the house she loathed, to the barn where she'd been strung up and whipped. She glared murderously at it all.
To hell with this place.
With a flick of her wrist, she watched with an odd sort of satisfaction as a fireball crashed into the roof, setting the place a blaze. The angry flames poured fourth to the exterior walls. Ember could hear the wood studs and rafters pop and crumble, as the fire chewed and devoured the building.
The Inquisitor turned her back on the burning structure and headed back to her horse. She was done with this place. It had been a mistake to come here. But it had felt damn good to see it burn.
It took a few tries with only one hand, but Ember managed to pull herself into the saddle. She rode Tadwinks swiftly across the grassy dales, hopping a few farmers' fences, and then entered the Arbor Wilds.
She raced on horseback through the dense forest towards the Temple of Mythal. The only sound was of hoofs hitting the ground and the faint squeaking of worn leather as she tried her best to maneuver through the tight cluster of trees with only one hand on the reins. The forest was getting denser the further in she got, making it harder to stay on the dirt path that seemed to completely disappear at times.
The Inquisitor didn't particularly enjoy the long journey it took to get to the Arbor Wilds from Val Royeaux, but it was necessary. She was trying to recruit allies, trying to learn more about Solas so she could predict what he was going to do, trying to find something that could stop him. She figured the Temple of Mythal could help her.
Ember's skin suddenly crawled and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She felt like someone was right behind her, breathing down her neck, about to grab her. She peered behind her to see if she was being followed.
She wasn't. There was no one there. Still, she prodded her horse faster and picked up speed, just in case. She wasn't stupid. She knew how many enemies she had, how many people wanted her dead. She wouldn't be surprised if she was being tracked right this very minute by an Antivan Crow.
The temple was up ahead, but the Inquisitor had to squint against the glare of the setting sun to see it. When she reached it, she reined her horse and sharply turned, racing through the forest towards the entrance. Eventually she stopped, Tadwinks sweating and needing to be fed. Ember pulled up her horse, and paced around trying to control the steed.
She lifted one leg over the pommel and hopped to the ground. She tossed the reins over the horse's head, took them in her hand, and started to pull, leading her horse to the trees that lined the entrance of the temple.
It was difficult, but she managed to somewhat tie her reins to one of the smaller trees. She then took a carrot from her pack that was tied to the pommel. She rubbed Tadwinks' white nose before holding out her palm and letting her eat the treat from her hand. Ember nuzzled her horse and cooed, patting her soft white nose. Tadwinks nickered and snorted before bowing her head to a little pool of water to drink.
Within the temple, the halls were empty. Ember looked around, surprised to find the temple deserted. Where were the sentinel elves? Did they leave? What about their oaths? Had they been recruited to Solas' side? Did that mean Mythal had joined him as well?
Alone Ember walked through the temple, trying to remember how to get to the Well of Sorrows. When she reached the lower levels, she suddenly had an uncomfortable feeling that settled between her shoulder blades, as if she were being watched.
Body tense, ready for combat, Ember listened carefully. The sound of a branch snapping came from off to her right and she quickly spun around, dagger in her hand ready to fight. She expected to see a bear or a spider, but there was nothing.
"It's quiet," her imaginary Cole said, suddenly standing beside her.
"Too quiet," she answered uneasily.
"Be careful."
Nearly an hour later, Ember approached the Well of Sorrows that stood in front of the large resident Eluvian. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but hoped she'd find something that would help them defeat Solas.
As she drew closer, Ember noticed a pile of stone and wildflowers lying in front of the mirror. She didn't remember seeing that the last time she was here. Although at that time she'd been unconscious and had to be carried through the Eluvian by Blackwall.
Moments later, Ember's eyes widened as she realized that the pile of stone was actually a person, a person who looked like they'd been turned to stone. And it wasn't just any person, it looked like… like Flemeth!
What the hell happened here?!
Flemeth's body was solid stone, but she rested peacefully on her back with her hands crossed over her chest. Wildflowers of every color had been placed around her, outlining her body. It looked like someone had moved her here for a memorial of sorts. In the last remaining rays of sunlight, Flemeth's stone form looked quite picturesque surrounded by such lovely blossoms, which appeared to have been enchanted so that the flowers would never die.
Ember swallowed before bending down to press two fingers to the stone figure's neck, checking for a pulse.
"Stone doesn't have a pulse," Cole said, sitting high in a tree a few yards away, his legs dangling in the air.
"Solas must've done this," she whispered, studying the stone beneath her fingers, recognizing it from two months ago. "But why? Wouldn't the vessel of Mythal be more of a friend to Fen'Harel than an enemy? I mean, they are both elven gods, right? Old friends?"
"Perhaps Flemeth didn't agree with his goal," Cole answered simply, legs swinging from his perch on the high branch.
"So he prevented her from helping us by turning her to stone."
Ember grimly stared into Flemeth's stone face. She didn't know how to help the vessel of Mythal. She would have to try and get a hold of Morrigan. Perhaps she could do something to help her mother.
Cole shook his head at her thoughts. "The swamp witch disappeared a year ago."
"Leliana must know how to reach her." Ember's eyes flicked up to meet his. "But what was Flemeth doing here?"
He shrugged. "Maybe she followed Solas here? Or maybe he followed her here?"
Ember stood and scratched the tender skin of her scarred elbow. It itched. "Maybe Flemeth came here to try and help the Inquisition. Maybe she was trying to stop Solas but had been interrupted."
His head tilted. "You think she was here to perform a spell."
"Yes, and no. Maybe…" Ember's blue-green eyes searched the area around the Well of Sorrows. "This is her temple, right? Mythal's? This is where she'd stationed sentinel elves to guard her Well of Sorrows. Maybe…"
"Maybe they were guarding more than just the Well of Sorrows," he completed her thought.
Ember nodded. "It makes sense. With the Well of Sorrows sitting right here, who would think to look for something else that Mythal might have wanted protected, hidden?"
Cole spoke her next thought out loud. "Like her own orb of power, similar to Solas' orb."
"Exactly," she replied, growing excited, hopeful. "If Mythal didn't agree with Solas' goal, she would have come here for her own orb to stop him. But he must've reached her before she could retrieve it, and turned her to stone."
Cole smiled. "If an orb of power truly is here, and if you could somehow find it, maybe you could use it to stop Solas!"
Excitement and eagerness rose within her at that thought. Could it really be possible? Was there an orb of power within her grasp? Could she really be that lucky?
"You won't know until you look," Cole answered her thoughts.
Cole disappeared, retreating back into the special compartment in her mind where she kept him.
For a long time Ember just stood there, staring down at Flemeth, trying to understanding what the old woman had been thinking and planning before she'd been turned to stone.
Ember's head snapped up abruptly, her brows furrowing. She thought she heard her name being called by a female voice, by Flemeth's voice. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?
Ember heard her name being called again and whipped around to find the sound was just the whine of an old gate several yards away creaking open. Her eyes narrowed on it. That gate hadn't been there when she'd walked in, but here it was.
Magic. There was no other explanation. But who's magic?
The Inquisitor looked around the Well of Sorrows before returning her gaze to the old gate. She wondered where it led, wondered why she was being granted entry. Perhaps it had been Flemeth's wish.
Ember walked over to the old gate and pushed it open with a loud creak. She felt a chill as she walked down the slope of a hill toward the lush meadow that rested at the bottom, half expecting the gate to close behind her. It was as if she were stepping into another world, a secret world meant only for her to find.
She shooed off mosquitoes, gnats, and mayflies as she continued down the narrow and faint dirt path that was lined with thick bushes of hazel and dogberry. Once she reached the bottom of the hill, she scanned the lush, open meadow that was overgrown with lavender. There was purple everywhere she looked, flowers gently swaying in the evening's breeze along with a scent that was both pleasant and somehow too sweet.
Wind whipped around her, catching and lifting my fiery curls, tossing strands over her eyes. The sun was disappearing now, setting the skies aflame with hues of amber and bronze with its last lingering light, casting an orange glow of sunset as dusk finally settled in. The tall trees that lined the meadow were fully leafed, draped across the sky like a canopy. The only sound was the low hum of inspects flying around her and the quiet sound of birdsong and breezes.
There was a large willow tree at the back of the meadow. Her eyes passed over it but quickly returned to narrow on it. The air behind the willow was alight with strange, shimmering ribbons of light.
She was walking now, slow and unhurried, but with purpose toward the willow. Her feet carried her forward and she obeyed. There was magic falling from the leaves of the willow tree, as if it was cloaking something, hiding something. If she concentrated, she could hear the low hum of magical energy within the wizened trunk, sluggish with sweet sap that was thick with enchantment.
She used her hand to push aside the leaves of the willow tree swaying with the wind and bent forward, disappearing in the leaves. The supple branches brushed over the back of her head and neck.
Once she'd cleared the branches, her back straightened and she pulled up short. Wide-eyed, she stared at what Flemeth had hidden here and what she'd come back for.
But it wasn't an orb of power.
It was another Eluvian.
"Fen'Harel enansal," Ember murmured, and thankfully the Dread Wolf's blessing was the key to this particular Eluvian, activating it with a burst of light and magical energy.
Ember bit her lip nervously. With growing apprehension she cupped the stub of her missing arm in an uneasy gesture. But then she squared her shoulders and stepped through the Eluvian.