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20 Harvestmere, 9:41
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She is a saviour, they say, though she has spent so long failing to save herself. The world is clear with what it wants from her and she has no intention of ignoring it. It has taken her by the shoulders and insisted that most of all, she needs to stay. Stay and bear witness. Stay and have her hand raised for her. Stay, without dwelling. She’d almost died to the Breach, and, not a day later, to a rift. Another two added to her count of I almost died. Thorns sprouting upon a rose stem as it grows. The Inquisition can make a herald of her, she is not a reluctant figurehead, it’s comforting to be handed a purpose like a ration card. She has to be clean and without motive if she is to give the people what they need. For that, she must tear her eyes from the old precipice.
And her family are eager to remind her of what a unique opportunity it is. She’d hoped the feuds in Ostwick would keep them from bothering her. Whenever one of them strikes a blow against another noble, they send her a bragging letter with multiple postscripts of awe: how very proud they are of her, how excited they are to see what the Inquisition will do. What she will do. Of course, when she is on the brink of achievement, suddenly everyone is proud.
They all think it took twenty-five years and the Veil ripping open above her head for her to gain perspective. She crumples up the most recent letter the moment she finishes reading it — Oh, do you see, cousin, how the world smiles when you turn your face to it? — and brushes it from her fingers like cobweb.
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14 Firstfall, 9:41
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Find a way forward. If she endures for long enough, surely she’ll find something that will have made it worth the pain. It would do the Inquisition little good for its Herald to be found unceremoniously buried in snow. Or maybe she wouldn’t be found at all.
Having left the dank cave is looking more like a bad decision by the minute - exposed to the mountains as she is, the wind presses the cold air against every inch of her body. The chill of it could turn water to ice with a breeze. Though she can’t feel it, she knows her heart is reheating her blood as fast as it can. She alternates tucking her thumbs beneath her fingers and her fingers against her palm; if she could keep her extremities from numbing she could pretend this wasn’t the kind of situation where people get frostbite. The cold grips underneath her teeth and turns her gums frigid. Fidgeting becomes pointless: her fingers swell pink like they’re covered in hives, and are numbing quickly, so she stops.
The further she goes, the surer she is that there was no world left beyond these mountains. Her vision begins to pack close to her face. With her line of sight this bad, she could have missed a search party and lost her chance. They could be just behind her. The wind would knock her on her face if she turned even an inch.
The campfire she finds hasn’t been there long enough for the snow to cover it. She presses her hand against it. Her hand comes away blackened, but warmer.
There is so much left for the Herald of Andraste to do. So she carries on, calves stinging with every step.
Soon her arm is too weak for her to hold up in front of her face. She cannot hear the wind anymore, nor even feel it as she walks. She cannot feel a single thing. She has been eroded into a heavy, rolling consciousness.
She yanks her foot out where it has caught in the snow, and pulls her neckerchief up over the bridge of her nose. Within a few steps it falls away. When she stops to fix it, she finds she cannot move her hands to her face, nor can she move her legs any further. I might die right here. Hasty as striking a match, she fills her mind. Ale and fur blankets and heated bricks wrapped in cambric, the mustiness of her father’s barn; cocoa that scalds her mouth and boots lined with fur that tickles her knees. Spreading her hair across spring grass, sun on her tent in the Hinterlands making everything inside look orange, Haven’s snow-defiant sunlight, elfroot snapping between her fingers, the Commander’s low chuckle. All of it as warm and promising as it was distant.
Farther than her eyes can strain, there was something behind the slope of ice ahead. A glow.
Hope flickers and rises in her like a candle flame. Her legs give way, nevertheless.
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12 Haring, 9:42
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Inquisitor,
Congratulations are in order. Though hopefully you have been congratulated from one end of Thedas to the other already, Par Vollen and Seheron included. Corypheus’ defeat is monumental. I’ve sent an official request for copies of the infirmary reports along with my man. Observing the toll of war is a hobby of mine, you see, it does well for a man of station to be seen involved in -
(Josephine has removed the next page, with an addendum that the Marquis spoke of Tevinter battle strategists for the entirety of the page.)
- and did I hear rightly of a dragon?
To the duller: Your troops, skilled as they are, liberated Emprise du Lion. Congratulations are once again in order, however - with those monstrosities still about, the natural resources of the area are irreparably contaminated. Black lotus, rashvine nettle, even the majestic Felandaris weed. All blighted beyond what coin could forgive! It is one of the most tragic losses in this aftermath. Several caches of mine, likely to be found in the burned ruins of a village I forget the name of, contain property I wish to pledge to the Inquisition. If I find my old maps before sending this letter to you, I shall attach them. If not, Commander Cullen is welcome to contact me personally for later copies.
Armel Dufort-Charpentier
The missive is one of the many that the Inquisitor and Cullen knock to the floor one summer evening. Most of her visits to him end with them pushing his desk clear of distractions, and neither of them are particularly inclined to break that habit. In the morning, he will of course shuffle it together with the rest of his papers, but for now his mouth is on hers and their mixed breath is hotter than the warm night air.
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30 Drakonis, 9:43
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She had been in snowstorms before. Maker’s breath, she had gone back and forth across Emprise du Lion tens of times. This was something she should be prepared for. And yet she has lost her entire party to the blizzard. Sera had run off in pursuit of some wolf, and the others had vanished behind the roar of white. Perhaps in vain, she’d discarded her pack once it was clear the snowstorm was not to pass quickly. Let some roaming Snoeufleur have the fifty bushels of elfroot. She had nothing left now but her weapon, the veilflare dangling from her belt, and the clothes on her back, which were thinning in the wind.
In the last three weeks she’d had no more than four hours of sleep each night, yet she had insisted on hauling herself forward as leader of this expedition, and all others that were so much as propositioned at the war table. Corypheus and the rifts are long since dealt with and the beloved Herald’s hands are useless. She has been floating through her days, clinging to duties like they were shipwreck debris.
She almost walks into a jutting rock, white as the swirling blizzard.
She has put the others at risk. Although, could they not find their own way back as they still had their packs, and Dorian his magic?
There is only so much distance between camps. She tries to keep herself calm, even as the chill bites at the shell of her ears. It pierces her eardrums, filling her head with a ringing, and she can do little but clench her fists and try to take even breaths. Her legs are stone.
Gusts like icy fingers pinch at her cheeks. She can’t hear the wind around her, or her breath, and she cannot see the sky. This could be mountains, or a field, or anywhere. She could be heading too far west. Still, she pushes her legs forward for what feels like hours, expecting for Dorian to appear at any moment and chide her for running off. Lost our sense of direction now that our magnet of a nemesis is gone, have we? Tut. No, not quite that, Dorian would not be so apt and cruel. He must be back at camp by now, wondering what glint of ore had distracted the Inquisitor so.
When her vision blurs and packs close to her eyes, something inside her chest churns. Then it settles.
Oh. And she stands still, the snow eddying around her, daring the Maker to turn his face back to the world. Oh, but I could die. Not almost. Why, this has been longer than it was after Haven.
A primeval darkness stirs, and yawns around her. Her breath scrabbles up her windpipe, a desperate exhale right before her throat closes up. Everything is trying to leave her body at once. Her ribcage slams backwards against her heart. A refusal, because she was dying, wasn’t she? That was all. Not terribly consequential, not something warranting such a reaction…
Twenty-seven years was long enough to exist. For so little time, her life had made her see more than enough; it seems only fair to have things cut shorter than most. All her life she’d been aligning herself to situations like an arrow against a bow. She is splintered from use. Her heart is spent. Its perseverance has subsided to a flutter against her insides. There is little left to beat against.
She has no place in peace.
But here, oh, I have been here before.
Hope is a slick of bile at the bottom of her stomach.
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Everything is black and sickly with warmth. The world is tar bubbling around her face. Her eyes and mouth are stuck shut, but she can hear again, there is words through the ringing.
Mutters about the Maker; her name, over and over. Prayer, or begging, or both.
The fervency of it makes her remember Cullen. Oh, he understands, as much as she wishes he couldn’t. They were both weary-shouldered. To die would be to relinquish responsibility and nobody would blame her for it. Cullen understands. He would forgive her. She loves him dearly, but to love was to live and that had been so hard.
She is hot and boneless. She is melting into the world. If her arms could move, she’d push away the heavy water surrounding her. It kept her from the cold. She wanted to be taken back, she knew just how to step off now —
“Andraste preserve - if this is a test, it is…” She goes deaf again, or the voice breaks; she couldn’t know. “You would not welcome the prayers of a man that passes it.”
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The very hour she leaves the infirmary for her quarters, Cullen knocks on the door to her quarters with a tot of brandy, an apology about the war room, and an immediate kiss for her cheek. They sit together on her couch, she in a shift that covered most of the poultices upon her, and he in his armour. The conversation strays back and forth from courtesies to complaints about the infirmary. More than anything, he repeats how glad he is that the Maker did not take her so soon. Neither of them touch the brandy.
As the sun sets, he leaves his armour by the door, and they sit together on her lounge in their plainclothes. There is no suggestion that he could leave her for the night after her absence. Each gaze lingers more than usual, his touches infrequent but gentle. When she passes him a glass of brandy, his smile is as grateful as if she’d given him holy water. She crosses her legs beneath her on the couch so as to not bump his. Tonight he seems too soft, like bruised fruit.
He swirls the brandy in its glass, holds it up to the firelight, and peers through. He likes brandy, a fact which had surprised her. He has no problems stopping at one. Beer was cleaner than the Tower’s water, he’d told her, and having to quaff it with every meal quite put him off abusing alcohol.
His shoulders are hunched as if he had never taken off that lion-like mantle. All at once her mind overflows with how much he has put himself through, how much he has put others through, how much he has had to atone for. How many times his best attempts were misguided, or hopeless. She had spent a week unconscious, leaving him alone to it all. And to the possibility of another regret.
“I’m sorry.” It was an apology which Cullen was supposed to wave away, followed with reassurances that he is relieved to have her safe. His shoulders were supposed to slacken.
He stays silent. Then he turns his face to her, eyes brandy-brown. The way he looks at her makes her wonder if he didn’t understand, after all. None of it.
“You had a flare on your person.” He bends to place the glass on the ground and doesn’t sit back up. Without looking at her: “You haven’t been well of late. I had hoped, despite it, that you wouldn’t… I suppose I was wrong.”
Once tossed up, his disappointment sinks in her like a sovereign in a coin fountain.
The fire’s crackling from across the room is the loudest noise in the world. She fixes her eyes on her bed. The blankets and sheets have been folded neatly, and the pillows had undoubtedly been fluffed each day in foolish anticipation for her return. Once, Cullen had tickled her so hard she’d torn a hole in the sheets by dragging her foot in hysterics. His sandy hair had been messy, his lips shining, his eyes eager. The man across from her is still the Inquisition’s commander, only in plainclothes. A childishness wells up in her as he straightens up. She wants to ruffle his hair, unbutton his collar, and find him the same as he had been a fortnight ago.
She reaches to the side table, pours herself a taller glass than his, and drains it.
“Do we have to dredge this back up?” Light words followed by a flick of the hand that says, this is a frivolous topic.
“I’m not the one - ” His eyes are apologetic as he lowers his tone. “I only meant… it brought itself up. I want you to know that I’m aware of it; that you can confide such things in me.”
“I don’t want to kill myself.”
“You wanted to...’ His eyes are pained. They see something precious in her. ‘... it was clear that you did not wish to survive.”
She wants to say, it’s a loaded crossbow. She wants to say, it’s a creature that hungers at the chance of feeding, until I cannot hear. She wants to say, it is a distant metaphor; it's other than what it is. Instead she is honest.
“I’m tired of surviving.” Survival has been preordained for her, by Andraste, or by some other cruelty that was not her own will. Her neck is sore from being reared back. She drops her head into her hands. “Why couldn’t I think of anything else? I have so much.”
Cullen doesn’t move, and she sits cradling her head, her mind running over him, Josephine, Cassandra, Leliana - everyone - anything I could want, anything I could ask for. Then his arms are around her, and her face is buried in his sleeve before she realises she’s done it.
“I understand,” he says, softer than any other words that evening. “Maker, but I understand.”
“I wish you didn’t.”
“I cannot say that I understand why you…” He draws back, the fire lighting on the empathy in his expression. It’s foolish, but she’s grateful that his expression is not reverent. Right now she could not bear to be looked at as anything but human. “I would have this.. compulsion see you as I - and others - see you.”
She smiles weakly. It would work like that, in a clearer world, one black and white as his beloved chessboard. But Cullen doesn’t know it as she does, for it is hers. Its sharpness has been pressed to her back for so long that it’s become a vertebra.
“I love you. Nothing could be better in my life. These last few weeks have been… very long.”
“I love you too.” He cups the back of her head and meets her eyes.
“I think it’s like a reflex. It’s never going to go away.”
“I cannot make an answer to that. Regardless, I will love you, despite it - ” As he speaks, she can almost hear him remembering what he wished had been said to him, many years ago. “I will love you for your strength with it - I would keep you from risks…”
His words are not carefully chosen, nor do they soothe her anxiety, but there is little Cullen could say to her that she could not think of herself, and his insistences of unconditional affection are sweet enough to make her smile for now.
The smile he returns is one that could widen with time. “I will stand by you.”
It is not a promise sealed with a kiss; he leans away, and holds her gaze. They will not mix tears and kisses. That cannot be how he helps her.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and this time prays he will not wave it away.
“Maker, I - ” Cullen exhales shakily. “I do not have the worst of it.”
They set the topic down beside their brandy glasses, and pull each other close. She does not need him to conquer this for her, she realises with a thrill. It is her own wound to cauterise. But she loves him, and he is a guiltless thing that keeps her anchored. His lips on hers are a reminder of how soft even scar tissue can be.