Chapter Text
Da didn’t return by first frost. Neither did he come home the week after. When he hadn’t returned by the time the snows started falling, Cullen knew by his mother’s expression it meant Da and his cart would be kept on the wrong side of the passes until the spring thaw.
Ma grew thinner; her hands always chapped and reddened; her hair so brittle that it broke when she brushed it. Sometimes, when one of them called her, she blinked, dazed, as if summoned from far, far away. The sadness in her eyes said he didn’t want to know where she’d been.
Cullen didn’t need Mia to tell him something was wrong. Ma’s trips to the Chantry with or without him grew less frequent. He still went, when he could. Sometimes he brought Rosie, her little gloved hand held tight in his so there was no risk of running, of falling, of getting caught between a red ball and a runaway cart. Rosie’s left mitten had a hole in it; he wondered if Mia could darn it. He didn’t dare ask Ma. She’d only cry.
“Why she so sad, Cully?” Rosie asked. He thought, at first, she meant Ma, and he prepared the careful lies, but when he turned to speak them he found her rosy-cheeked face upturned, eyes fixed on the statue of Andraste.
He hadn’t ever thought she looked sad before. Not with her big sword to protect everyone, not with her strong shoulders and her armor.
“Come on, Rosie,” he said, giving her hand a bit harder a tug than strictly needed. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes, grey like Ma’s, filled with tears. She didn’t cry them, though. Cullen almost wished she would.
When they passed the baker’s shop, the baker’s wife gave them two loaves of bread. “Yesterday’s,” she said, waving off Cullen’s insistence that he had no money with which to pay for them. Annie, who worked at the tavern, ran after them when they passed and handed Cullen a dozen eggs.
His mouth watered, even as he tried to give them back.
“Oh,” Annie said, ruffling his and Rosie’s hair in turn, “we can’t keep up with our hens. You’re doing a favor, taking them off our hands.”
Something about this seemed strange, but, since their own hens were being stingy with their laying, Cullen only accepted the gift and continued on. Just inside the gate to their garden, he found a basket of preserves and jarred vegetables and even a gorgeous piece of honeycomb dripping sweet gold.
“This is what it’s come to,” Ma said so softly Cullen knew it wasn’t meant for him, accepting the offerings with her chapped, red hands.
“We can have eggs?” Rosie asked brightly. “I miss eggs.”
Ma turned her head so quickly Cullen knew it was to hide tears. Gripping Rosie’s hand, he pulled her away from the kitchen. “No chess,” Rosie said, pouting. “Hide seek.”
“Later.” When she dug her heels in—she was surprisingly strong, for such a little thing—Cullen hissed, “Naughty girls don’t get any eggs.”
A different kind of lie. One that made him feel so twisty and sick inside that Mia trounced him at chess three times, until even Bran said, “D’you forget how to play, Cull?”
“Dead queen!” crowed Rosalie, holding the little white piece aloft. “She got stabbeded.”
“Stabbed,” Mia corrected. “And no, she didn’t. It’s just a game, Rosie. No one got stabbed.”
“The chicken got stabbeded so we could eat it.”
“Rosie!” Mia pushed both hands through her hair, fingers spasming as if she wanted to tug on it.
“What? Chickens get stabbeded and pigs and even peoples.”
“No,” said Cullen. “Not people. Not here, Rosie.”
“I dreamed it. Like with the chicken.” Rosie jutted her pointy chin out defiantly. “Bran said—”
“Bran didn’t say anything,” said Bran, holding up placating hands. “I’m not falling for this trap.”
“You said the knights have swords to fight with and the queen has a pretty dress with flowers on it and the little castles each have five hundred rooms in them all with feather beds and pillows and new shoes and mittens without holes.”
Cullen glared at Bran, and by the shamefaced look his brother gave in return, realized his brother had likely been spinning tales that got out of hand. Not, he had to admit, that feather beds and pillows and mittens without holes didn’t sound nice.
“Those are just stories,” Mia said.
“Stories is better than stupid chess,” huffed Rosie.
“Are better,” Cullen corrected. “Stories are better.”
“Eggs are better,” Rosie insisted. “And bread and honey and jam with blackberries in. ‘Specially if Cully’s queen’s dead.”
“She’s not dead,” Cullen snapped, so sharply Rosie dropped the queen and sent her bouncing across the floor. His throat felt tight and his eyes prickled, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, have said why. “She’s not dead,” he repeated, quietly. “She’s just… in prison. For a little while. She’ll escape. She’ll get rescued.”
“Wonderful,” said Mia, sighing. “Now we’re all telling tales.”
“Better than feeling sorry for ourselves,” Bran said.
For another moment, Mia looked like she might protest. Then she smiled, almost as wide as she used to smile before the red ball and the cart and the long almost-year without Da. “Fine,” she said, “but this time let’s make up a story that follows along with all the moves of the game.”
Bran brightened, Rosie settled on Mia’s lap, and Cullen fetched his fallen queen from the floor, setting her back in her proper place.
“Start ‘Once upon a time,’” demanded Rosie. “They always start ‘Once upon a time.’ And no one’s ever hungry, but sometimes they get stabbeded.”
“Once upon a time,” Mia said, snuggling Rosie with one arm and moving one of her pawns with her free hand, “there were two kings and two kingdoms, and for no reason anyone could remember, they were always at war with one another…”
#
Battle, Cullen learned—true battle, with its heat and chaos and the stink of fear and blood and shit and death—was nothing like training. Nothing like the ordered give and take of a chess game. True battle stole the ability to think beyond the next swing of one’s exhausted sword arm, the next dodge, the next desperate inhale of willpower that exhaled as a cleanse or a purge or, more infrequently, a full holy smite.
He, who’d worked so hard and practiced so often and studied so endlessly, he’d thought himself prepared. How foolish. How foolish he’d been.
Words of the Chant slipped through his mind, wet with blood. Magic exists to serve man, as one of the rogue mages—Kipton, fire, always with tricks for the littlest children—sent a tongue of bright-hot flame whipping Cullen’s way. It missed hitting him only because the stones beneath his feet were so slick he slipped as he tried to bring his shield up.
Farris’ shield. He—he didn’t need it anymore. Not with his face burned past recognition. Not with his eyes boiled out of his head leaving only empty sockets to stare at the ceiling.
Kipton had done that, too. Kipton, who’d always seemed pleasant enough, who’d been polite if never friendly, who’d never once been given a reprimand. He snarled now, features hardly recognizable save the bright leaf green of his bloodshot eyes, and when Annlise’s smite caught him, Cullen brought up his heavy arm bearing its heavy sword without hesitation. Without too much hesitation.
Not all mages were trained to battle—Cullen knew that well enough. For every elemental mage whose staves were weapons as powerful as their magic, the Circle held half a dozen healers or herbalists or scholars whose magic was strong enough to keep magelight lit but not much else.
When Uldred—almost smiling, the Maker-forsaken bastard—finally appeared, he dragged a dark-haired youth with him. Cullen recognized the lad at once. Marken. Gifted healer, hopeless at conjuring even the simplest offensive spells. Terrified of templars. Erric had enjoyed picking on him almost as much as he’d enjoyed picking on Cullen.
Though Marken, of course, hadn’t been able to fight back. And Cullen wasn’t sure the lad had an Annlise on his side, either. Cullen had known. He should have done more. The brief swell of self-loathing—and renewed loathing for Erric—fueled his will, but before he could loose the smite, Uldred shook his head, brought his hand up, and slit Marken’s throat.
Like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t the vilest misuse of power—
—never to rule over him never to rule over him—
Cullen lurched forward, already lifting his sword, but Uldred’s bloody hands gestured and Cullen stopped. Was stopped. Was forced to stop. Around him, mages and templars alike lay dead and dying. Moaning. Uldred came with demons—with abominations—with more mages, whose names Cullen knew, whose faces were as familiar to him as those now lying waxen and slack-jawed in pools of blood on the floor. He couldn’t even see the color of the stones, anymore. So many. So many. Surely the rest of the Circle—surely Greagoir—
—Maker, though the darkness comes upon me—
“Now, now, now,” Uldred drawled, sidling closer as the blood dripped heavy from his hands. Tap tap tap against the stone like raindrops on a roof, like mice in the walls. “That’s quite enough.”
Still, Cullen could not move, could not fight, could not even blink, though his eyes burned. Uldred grabbed Cullen’s chin with cold, cold fingers and forced it down, forced Cullen to meet his eyes.
Cullen had seen madness, before. He’d seen hate and cruelty.
He’d never seen evil. Not truly. Not like this.
—I shall embrace the Light. I shall embrace the Light. I shall—
“Leave him be, Uldred,” Annlise snapped. “He’s just a boy.”
Uldred flicked the fingers not clenched around Cullen’s chin at her, as if she were a fly buzzing in his ear, irritating but of no consequence. She fell silent. Not, Cullen thought, because she wished to.
If he’d been able to move, Cullen might’ve lost anything that remained of his dinner when Uldred smiled at him. “You are just a boy, aren’t you?” His fingers tightened, nails digging into Cullen’s flesh. The too-calm cadence of his voice never changed. “I was a boy once, before your kind came and pulled me kicking and screaming from my life, from my home, from my mother’s grasping arms. I did not stay a boy long. Nor, I think, will you.” The smile pulled one corner of Uldred’s mouth higher. “Shall we play a game? That’s what boys do, isn’t it? I hardly remember, it’s been so long.”
Uldred released him roughly, dragging sharp nails into Cullen’s skin, doubtless leaving weals of blood—Cullen’s, Marken’s, Maker only knew—in their wake.
“Hide and seek?” Uldred asked, with unsubtle condescension. He gestured around them. “I’d say chess, but all the pieces are broken. Wicked Grace? Chanson d’Argent?” He laughed. “Dead Man’s Tricks? Ahh, but no cards.”
Whatever spell held Cullen held Annlise, too, but, unlike him, she could speak and blink and lift her chin. When he drew near enough, she spat at him. Caught off-guard by her defiance, Uldred did not move away in time; the spittle hit his cheek just under his eye and slid slowly downward.
Uldred didn’t grab her chin. He didn’t touch her at all, merely walking a slow circle around her, lifting the hem of his robes and stepping over the bodies as if they meant nothing. As if his actions hadn’t—as if—
—I shall weather the storm. I—
“I know,” Uldred said. “We’ll play King of the Castle. You know it, boy? I stand here, King of all I survey.” He was tall enough that, even with Annlise between them, Cullen could see the entirety of his expression. He wished desperately he couldn’t. All those years, all that training. And to what use? For what purpose? To watch his brethern die. To see his charges slain or turned to a darkness from which they could never be saved. “And anyone, anyone—” He lifted a hand, the hand holding the knife that had killed Marken. “—Who dares stand in my way—” With his other hand, he gripped Annlise’s hair, her blood-soaked sunshine hair, and wrenched her head back, baring her throat. Cullen saw her swallow. He imagined he could see the flutter of her pulse. “—Must be pushed from my castle’s walls.”
Even at the half-twisted angle Uldred held her at, Annlise’s eyes met Cullen’s. Uldred had stolen her voice again, or she couldn’t speak the way he held her, but her lips formed the words—the unmistakable words—look away. Able to move once more, he flung himself toward her only to slam into an invisible barrier that flared purple under his touch.
—I shall endure.
“Look away, love,” whispered a familiar voice in his left ear. Solona. He’d known she wasn’t dead. That someone as strong as she couldn’t be brought down by a cloak-clinging, sycophantic weasel like Jowan. “Look away.”
And—Maker help him, Maker save him, Maker forgive him—he did.
I shall—
Uldred didn’t kill her quickly, and even bound in his prison, Cullen could feel the magic Uldred summoned. Not human. Not human. The power. Dear Maker, what fools they’d all been to think any mere templar strong enough to fight such power, contain such power. For all their training, all their lyrium, all their smites and cleanses and righteousness, they were nothing next to a creature like Uldred. Too small, too weak. Powerless. Helpless.
Annlise screamed and screamed and screamed. Until she didn’t.
—endure—
“Maker,” he mumbled, pleaded, wept. “Maker, no, Maker, Ma—”
“Good boy,” said Uldred from very far away. “Let’s see how long you can play this game.”
—endure endure endure endure—
“No, love,” said Solona, her hands on his shoulders, her lips against the soft skin just behind his ear. She smelled not of blood and sweat and death, but of Honnleath in the spring and Ma’s lemon shortbread and Chantry incense. “That was just a silly game. This is real. This is real. This is real.”