Authors Note: Cross-posting from AO3, this is the four-part fic and the first of the Inquisitor Cian fics.
Screaming. So much screaming.
Smoke filled the air, thick in his lungs until he could barely breathe, burned his eye, blurred his vision. It hurt so much.
Floating—falling—was he dreaming? Everything felt too solid, to real to be a dream. Everything was too dark; he could only barely make out rocky outcrops around him. Rubble. Destruction.
There was skittering.
Through the darkness, he could see creatures (Spiders, he thought with a hazy mind) crawling closer and closer to himself. He'd never liked spiders, even the small ones. Heart racing, thrumming in his chest, Cian ran—ran from the monstrous creatures, and they followed.
They always followed.
No matter how far he ran, how hard or fast, they followed. They were always just behind him, close enough that if he faltered, stumbled, or slipped for just one moment, they would catch him. So, he kept running.
He continued to run through the hazy darkness, even as the smoke in the air choked him, as it grew harder to see through the tears in his eyes as the acrid air burned. Even as his heart continued to beat painfully in his chest, threatening to burst out and implode, he continued running, pushing onward by pure, raw fear.
Was he dead? Was this din'anshiral? His journey of death?
Light cut through the darkness. Blinding bright, a white flame flickered and shifted, yet through the wisps of fire was the form of a woman standing tall at the top of broken stone stairs—a beacon of hope and protection in this nightmare.
Panic washed through him. Trapped between the terror of being caught by the creatures behind him, desperate for the warmth and protection she radiated.
He ran.
Cian ran up the stone staircase, never getting closer to the woman. The spiders at his heels closed their distance, inch by inch. He ran, unable to breathe.
His foot caught a broken corner and he fell. Palms scraped against the jagged rock, flesh torn, blood slowly oozing out, and pain thrummed through his leg. The skittering was louder, until it was all he could hear, and his nerves were lit with the fire of fear, pushing him on to continue moving, even if he was forced to crawl through the stone, crawl up the stairs. Whatever it took to get away.
The flames the woman was cloaked in burned even from where he was. Just looking at her was nearly impossible. Too bright. Too hot. It was as if he was trying to rest his gaze on the sun. Yet as she reached out to him with an open hand of fire, all Cian could do was surge forward on his knees, trying so hard to take hold of the hand she offered.
He couldn't reach. So close, so close, the flames burned, his hand felt as if his flesh was searing away. The spiders were closer. He felt their fangs graze his calf, felt them try to grab him, to drag him deeper into the abyss.
Cian grasped her hand.
The pain was unimaginable.
The light of the woman filled everything, burned away the darkness, the spiders. Blinding orange and white filled his vision— slowly morphed into a sickening, acidic green as the flames of her hand on his disappeared, slipped from his own grasp as the light receded.
The smoke filling the air was thick, so thick he could barely breathe. Screaming and yelling echoed across the skies.
Cian barely felt it as he hit the ground, cold and hot both. His arm felt as if it were bathed in fire.
He barely noticed as men clothed in armor ran to him, of the familiar sound of iron swords pulled from wood and leather sheaths. They were yelling—at each other. At him—as they circled him. But Cian could barely make sense of it. Could barely make sense of anything.
It didn't take long for his world to become dark once more. The heat of the woman was all but gone, replaced by frigid cold as his consciousness drifted away.