The Inquisitor's Ghost

Author's Note: This chapter has a soundtrack: Pieces by Red. This song was recommended by a lot of you throughout the story (like Lacewing and Asilyessam) and I was amazed to find so many of you thought of this song in relation to Cole and Ember because if they had a theme song I think this would be it. Also, there is a part in this chapter inspired by a review by geminidragon76.

Translations:

Mythal lasa ghilan: Mythal grants guidance.

Sethen'an: The Fade / Land of Dreams.

Atish'all vir sethen'an for ros elgar'enansal ir Mythal falon'lin: Enter the path of the Fade / Land of Dreams with the blessing of a spirit and the blood of a friend of Mythal.

Chapter 32 – The Broken Mirror

The deep dark before dawn's first light seems eternal

But know that the sun always rises

- Chant of Light

Ember stood alone in the Crossroads, only it wasn't like any part of the Crossroads she'd ever seen before. It looked like the courtyard in front of the Winter Palace. This courtyard was covered in grass and a few paved walkways. Ivy grew in a splendor of vibrant green shades on the stone walls. There were several lofty myrtle trees scattered about along with ferns, moss, and wildflowers growing in brilliant profusion.

Normally the Crossroads was full of randomly placed Eluvians that stretched as far as the eye could see. But in this small courtyard there was only one other Eluvian besides the one she'd come through.

The question with every Eluvian was not "What does it do?" but rather "Where does it lead?" Eluvians were portals. Most Eluvians lead you to what Morrigan called "The Crossroads," which was a place where all Eluvians join, wherever they might be. This place was the Crossroads, or at least a place like it, a place that was between worlds.

Elven words were carved in the mirror's golden frame. Most of them were unintelligible gibberish, but a few words were clear: "Mythal lasa ghilan," which Ember knew translated to "Mythal grants guidance." There was also "Atish'all vir sethen'an for ros elgar'enansal ir Mythal falon'lin." She knew "falon" meant friend. So, Mythal's friend? She also knew "elgar" meant spirit and that "enansal" meant blessing, but she couldn't translate the rest. Her elvish was terrible.

But there was one word that was very clear and carved into the golden frame multiple times: "Sethen'an." Ember knew what that word meant. It meant "Land of Dreams," which was what the elves called the Fade.

Her heart lurched against her breastbone, the oxygen locking at the foot of her convulsed throat, her mind racing. Not all Eluvians lead back to her world, some lead to other places, like the Beyond or even the Fade, if legends were true.

Sethen'an. Ember's eyes remained fixed on that one word as excitement raced through her. Was it possible that this Eluvian lead to the Fade?

Hope. Maker helper her, but she was being filled with it. Dare she even hope that this Eluvian could lead her into the Fade where he was? Nothing was more treacherous than hope.

On unsteady legs, Ember walked up to the mirror and slowly reached out her hand to touch it. There was no reflection, no light, no colors. It wasn't activated. Some Eluvians were unlocked, like doors accidentally left ajar, but all the others could only be opened with a key. The key could be many things. Each Eluvian was different. She had to figure out the key to this Eluvian. This Eluvian could lead her to him. This had to work. It had too.

With her lungs wrung so tight it was hard to breathe, Ember creaked out the Dread Wolf's blessing, "Fen'Harel enansal."

Nothing.

"Maybe in the common tongue?" Imaginary Cole suggested beside her, speaking her thoughts out loud.

"Dread Wolf blessing," Ember translated the Dread Wolf's blessing into the common tongue.

Nothing.

She tried again. "Fen'Harel ma ghilana."

She tried that in the common tongue. "Dread Wolf guides you."

Nothing.

She tried, "Fen'Harel ma halam."

Common tongue. "Dread Wolf ends you."

Nothing.

Ember's expression tightened and she started listing off anything she thought might be the key: "Mythal, Flemeth, Asha'belannar, Solas, Sethen'an, Vir Abelasan, Abelas, Evanuris, Inquisition, Inquisitor, Ember Laurent…"

Nothing.

She summoned magic and channeled it into the mirror.

When nothing happened she tried again. And again. And again.

For what felt like forever she was summoning spells, casting them at the mirror one after another, trying anything that might activate the mirror.

Nothing.

Out of mana, she felt a devastating mix of frustration, panic, and red-hot fury swim up from the pit of her stomach to encompass her whole being.

Teeth grinding together, her fist shot out and hit the golden frame, causing the mirror to wobble.

"Activate!" she commanded the glass.

When nothing happened her palm smacked the golden frame, hard.

"Activate, damn you!"

Nothing.

Ember let out a scream that had been pent up for two long years and the stub of her missing arm flew forward in her rage and collided against the glass. There was a loud creaking sound, but the mirror didn't break. A smear of blood streaked the mirror from the fresh scar on her elbow.

"Give him back!" she screamed at the mirror.

She began hitting the mirror, kicking it, screaming.

"Give him back, give him back, give him back!" Her voice broke on the last words.

For several minutes she lashed out at the mirror with everything in her, hitting it with her hand and what remained of her other arm, sapping strength from deep inside.

Don't be lost to me. Please, please, please. The small voice echoed in her mind.

Despair, dark and deep, suddenly engulfed her, gripping her so tightly she became immobile. Her mind suddenly went blank, reaction setting in to take her off somewhere deep inside herself where no one else could go.

She felt pain and winced when she cupped the stub of her missing arm that was now throbbing, wiping the blood away.

"Are you okay?" Her imaginary Cole asked beside her, but it was only her own voice she heard coming out of his mouth.

Disillusionment cut to the bone, and she felt her spirits sink so low.

Not real. Not real. You're out of you damn mind.

"Go away," she croaked. "You don't exist." Her throat worked. "You're not real, but he was."

He disappeared and she had a feeling he would never come back.

Hollow-eyed, she found herself staring at the mirror. She felt so numb, unable to quite take in the truth… that she had failed yet again to reach him. She couldn't save him. He was hers, and she couldn't save him. She was right here, so close, and she couldn't bring him back. She contemplated another day of this so-called life. The prospect of just sitting around for another year or so until Solas killed her, living each day without Cole, was soul-crushing.

She suddenly had a mountain on her chest, painful pressure at the backs of her eyes. She stared at the glass until it began to blur from the tears that clouded her vision.

Slowly, in a daze, Ember turned her back to the mirror. She managed to take a few shaky steps toward the other mirror to return to her world before her legs gave out and she sank uneasily to her knees. The damp from the grass seeped into her leggings but she didn't notice. She didn't notice anything. She simply stared at the ground with dead eyes, completely and utterly alone in every sense of the word. She had no family, no friends, no hand, no Cole…

On its own volition, her palm pressed against the skin over her heart and her fingertips slowly curled, digging unmercifully into her flesh.

Cut it out, she wordlessly pleaded to whatever higher power. Take it and cut it out of me. Get it out!

She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her eyes into her hand. Her shoulders began to shake as the sobs violently broke free. The sobs came out hard as punches, tearing at her chest and throat, squeezing her ribs.

She felt like she was falling—falling for what seemed like forever into terrible, all-enveloping, mind-numbing blackness…

But through the tunnel-dark recesses of her consciousness she was distantly aware of the sound of grass crunching behind her.

Her eyes slowly lifted from her hand, brows pulling together as she felt every hair on the back of her neck rise to attention.

Her body tensed when she heard something fall softly to the grass behind her.

Her hand fell limply into her lap, her eyes shifting frantically in her skull as she stared down at the grass in front of her. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone completely dry.

Not real. Not real.

She clenched her eyes shut and told her mind to stop tormenting her. She couldn't continue to lose herself in the blissful relief of an illusion her insane mind had created.

Suddenly she felt the air shift behind her and then a vague sense of warmth at her back.

It's just an illusion. Just an illusion.

She felt something brush against her from behind.

Her skin prickled, a fine tremor of response rippling through her whole body, her heart straining against a sudden fierce tightening across her torso.

Heart pounding as if injected with adrenaline, Ember remained kneeling but slowly turned around.

Her eyes instantly rounded, her mouth locked in a silent cry.

The Eluvian was activated, bright and incandescent, the glass looking like it was filled with swirling blue and white light.

But that's not what she was staring at.

Shaggy blonde hair. Lily-white skin. Haunted, haunted eyes.

For the next few horrible seconds she felt as if she were falling off the edge of a cliff! Her blood roared through her veins and the air sealed inside lungs that suddenly ceased to function.

Numbly, she shook her head in denial, her dense cloud of spiraling red curls rippling round her pale face. No, her mind was telling her. She was hallucinating—dreaming him up again.

She blinked once. Twice.

He didn't disappear. He remained kneeing on the grass directly in front of her, so close he was almost on top of her.

Her eyes scanned his face and her heart flipped over, then began to beat wildly. This wasn't the Cole her mind usually created. His hair was longer, darker in color. His face was more rugged and he looked older, thinner. A scar split his right eyebrow down the middle and continued on his cheek, as if someone had dragged the point of a blade, or a claw, down the middle of his eye.

Not an illusion.

Her heart gave a frantic leap behind her breastbone and every muscle pulled taut.

This is real.

She could feel the blood draining from her face, the sudden cold, clamminess of her flesh. She was in the grip of a shock so extreme she was paralyzed by it.

Cole.

He was kneeling right in front of her, so close she could reach out and touch his face. He was trembling, violently, and she could see the almost visceral relief that seemed to pour out of him as his eyes gorged on every facet of her face.

It's him. The real him.

His gaze filled with tears before two drops slipped the corners of his eyes to roll slowly down his cheeks.

Tears stung hotly in her throat and her mouth wobbled. She had to push a hand up to cover it. Her own tears split her vision into a million fragmented parts and then with one blink hot tears tracked down her face. Then she unpeeled her tongue from the roof of her dry mouth and let her hand fall from her trembling lips.

"What took you so long?" she reprimanded, her voice cracking.

There was a long silence, those depthless blue eyes burning into hers, and then his hands captured her face and he lowered his mouth to hers.

Tears trickled down her cheeks to seep into his thumbs that pressed into her cheekbones. Her lips parted and she sobbed into his mouth, could hardly kiss him for the way her lips trembled. His mouth pressed harder against hers to keep their lips locked, every inch of him shaking. Her hand gripped the nape of his neck, squeezing him as if she were clinging to life. Her lips clung to his and she could actually feel her soul connect with its other half, making her feel complete for the first time in two years.

Slowly, he pulled back, and with a broad sigh of relief, he rested his forehead upon hers, his hands still cupping her face as though he'd never let go.

Her forehead rolled against his, desperate to believe this was really happening, terrified it wasn't. "P-Please tell me I-I'm not imagining you," she pleaded, sniffling. "L-Let this n-not be another illusion."

His nose was pink, his smile wobbly. "Dear heart…"

She inhaled sharply, her chest tightening painfully, fresh tears filling her eyes. Maker help her, his voice was the single greatest sound she'd ever heard.

She lifted her hand to trace the unfamiliar scar splitting his eyebrow with her fingertips, her expression open and vulnerable. "It's you? It's really you?"

"I am me," he managed in a broken voice.

With a watery smile she let her fingers run over his face, through his hair, down the back of his neck, still trying to convince herself that he was real and he was here and she was touching him. Her gaze flickered up to find his gaze soft on her face, filled with such tenderness that it made her heart stand still.

"You're you again?" he croaked. "You bear the mark, but not the curse?" He swallowed with difficulty, stammering, "I-I… I helped?"

A sob tore violently from her throat. Oh Maker, this was going to kill her.

"You-u sacrificed yourself for me." She hiccuped and wiped her eyes with her arm. "W-Why did you do that?"

His wet eyes held hers, shimmering with too many emotions to name and so many shades of blue.

"Because I can't exist without you," he breathed roughly, eyes flicking back and forth between hers. "That makes you my soulmate, right?"

She stared into his sweet, smiling face, her heart aching and her eyes swimming. "But you left me all alone," her voice broke on the last word. "Trying to live a life without you has been a death sentence. How could you just—?"

Cole made a raw sound before closing his arms around her with such force that he very nearly knocked her off her knees and onto her back.

"Everytime." His voice was a rough, gutted sound in her ear. "Me for you. Everytime." His arms were fixed like steel clamps around her, a near-panicked grip that threatened to crack her ribs. "This is stone, you can't reshape it."

She was about to argue with that when her eyes rolled back into her head as she inhaled the potent scent of leather and cinnamon. Maker's breath, two long years without being able to breath in his sweet scent. Her muscles turned to water as she breathed, really breathed for the first time in two years, greedily filling her lungs with the unforgettable scent of him.

She melted against his lean chest, taking in a fistful of his armor, her cheek pressed against his heart. "How?" The question was a mere wisp of sound. "How is this possible? How are you here?"

He splayed his hands against her back while he nuzzled the top of her head. "The old woman—sharper, in both places, like Solas—her song old, very old, but only an echo of an echo of an echo."

"Flemeth?" she asked, rubbing her cheek over his heart.

She felt him nod against the top of her head. "The fragment that remained returned to the Fade. Come with me, young man. Her voice had been sad, her horns pointy, her insides hardened like rocks as she took me to the mirror. Wait right here, young man."

Cole's death grip loosened slightly to ease her away just enough for him to see her face. His hands were unsteady as they cupped her cheeks. "I sat, sat listening and starring, nothing to see but black glass, unblinking and unsleeping, too afraid to look away, to miss it." His eyes shimmered, his throat working, his voiced husky, "Sitting. Starring. Watching. Waiting. Waiting. Two years, three months, sixteen days, nineteen minutes, ten seconds…" He exhaled an uneven breath, the gust of air ruffling the curls framing her face. "For you, I'd wait forever."

Her eyes rounded. "Maker, Cole… if I had know… I would have—"

"Don't," he whispered with a slight shake of his head as he smoothed her hair off her face. "You didn't know. Old woman never got the chance to tell you."

Her lips quivered, the fingers of her hand curling into his armor. "I thought I'd lost you forever."

His fingers slid gently over her cheeks, wiping away her tears as they slipped free of her eyes. "Never. Back to you I will always find my way."

Weeping, her hand turned to a fist, clutching at the fabric of his armor. "Please, don't leave me, ever again," she pleaded, begged. "I love you too much, Cole. I won't survive it again. I can't—"

He softly caught her bottom lip between his lips and all thoughts in her head vaporized. A shudder rippled through her with a whimper. His mouth began moving over her lips, soft and slow, with a barely there quiver. Her fingers tightened on his armor, white with the force of her grip, while the elbow of her other arm pressed against his ribs. His fingers began lightly stroking the sides of her face as he kissed her nose, her cheeks, her chin before pressing a gentle kiss to her lips again.

She slid her hand down the front of his chest, her lips chasing after his as he pulled back slightly. He stepped into her, sank his fingers in her curls, and slanted his mouth over hers. His tongue broke the barrier of her lips and slipped slowly into her mouth on a guttural groan. Her blood caught fire and her body lifted into his. His breath came out of him sweet as honey and she drew it greedily into herself as his mouth moved over hers, raw and deep, again and again and again.

In desperate need of air, she regretfully broke the kiss, but she didn't move away, letting her lips hover only a hairsbreadth away from his. With his fingers in her hair, they inhaled each other's air as they tried to calm their ragged breathing.

Soft kisses were pressed lightly against every feature of her face, like soft drops of rain on her skin, as his hands fisted in her curls, as if to hold her in place, like he worried she would float away and he was the only thing anchoring her to earth.

"No light. No fire. No song. All wrong—" He broke off and drew in a juddering breath. "Everything inside cold and empty and black. Had to try. Needed the real you. Listened to the song that is yours. Touched the brightest part of you. So scared I didn't do it right. I needed to know that I'd helped, that you were you again. And you are." He groaned, releasing his breath with unconcealed relief. "The curse is gone. Your mind is your own. Your hand isn't pulling you apart. You glow—shinning, shimmering, radiant." With a shudder that seemed to rip right through him, his fingertips trailed down her face. "So… so beautiful."

His arms fell to close possessively around her waist, and her head immediately fell into the hollow of his throat. She focused her eyes on the vein in his jugular, watching it thrum with each beat of his heart. She smiled, the happiness she felt so intense it was blinding.

Cole tried to speak, but his throat wouldn't listen to him. He had no voice left but his breath. He held her close, she fit against his heart as if she were made just for him. Everything was right again, shape and soul and purpose.

He tried to loosen his crushing grip, he tried to be gentle—to pull back and tell her all the things he'd so desperately wanted to tell her all those years he'd spent staring at that mirror, but all he could do was cling to her and shake against her like a leaf.

Cole sucked in a lungful of air and gazed down at the top of her head through his tears, said the only thing in his head, "I… love… you."

Her image blurred, and he quickly buried his face in her hair. "Seen, remembered, wanted, loved," he whispered thickly, his tears soaking into her curls. "You give me all the things I never thought I'd ever have. Thank you."

"I promise to give them to you for the rest of my life," she vowed, her breath hot against the side of his throat. "Just promise you won't ever leave me again."

Gentle, she filled him. Filled his lungs, his brain, his blood vessels, his heart. "I promise, dear heart."

"What do we do now?" he asked softly, tucking a fiery curl behind her ear. "Where do we go?"

She beamed up at him and it was like looking into a star. "Have you ever heard of the Avaar?"

The End