Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Half of Skyhold heard it.

The roar had come from the Herald’s Rest. Losing no time, soldiers were soon ushering patrons outside, including the bard and highly disgruntled landlord, who was of a mind to seize those responsible and drag them out into the snow himself. Room for negotiation, however, was not offered. Still in its early days, the Inquisition’s forces were a patchwork of uniforms and creeds, but in this instance, all were following the orders of the Scouts. The rehomed templars, the freshest of the recruits, were taking to the expulsion with the most reluctance, themselves treated like civilians as they were ordered out into the yard. The accusation of ‘demon’ that had cried through the rafters urged them to storm in, and several argued with the self-appointed gatekeepers, blades drawn and orbs of mana gathered, but they knew enough to obey in the end. There was a certainty to the people in green; whilst private panic flitted between them in secret glances, they held true. What they were following was no order from their Commander, but in service to their Commander, it went unspoken. Give him space.

Runners were sent for Seeker Pentaghast, but she needed none - she had heard the voice as well as the rest. As had the Inquisitor. Turning from her conversation with The Iron Bull, she stared across the yard to the tavern, her blood cold. Crows flew from its rafters en masse, making the sky a picture of the dread she felt. There was no mistaking his voice.

“Stay here,” she ordered Bull, already moving.

“You’re the boss.”

The Qunari watched her go, rumbling and grunting to himself as he assessed what the elf was running towards.

“Boss!” His voice called out across the square. There were few people she would pause for right now, but he was one. She stopped. “That sounds like Asala-taar . Go carefully.”

Aredhel nodded, turned, and ran.

The stand-off was happening on the top floor. The Commander had armed himself with a broken bottle and was levelling it at the Inquisition’s latest, oddest addition: Cole.

“Get out of my head, ‘Spirit’!” he growled, his face twisted in malice and defiance. The edges of his mind felt foggy, his reasoning being tugged from his hands as soon as he grasped it, a pressure building behind his eyes that signalled a desperate need for what his blood remembered relying on. Or, it could all be the further works of this demon. He had protested its presence when it had been brought here, but he had not done enough - he had allowed himself to be overruled, too afraid of falling into his ‘old ways’, but not all knowledge from his past was misguided. He still had some worth. This was a demon, found within a dream inflicted by another demon - it had no business being here, and even less business inviting itself into his thoughts.

“But I’m not in your head,” the approximation of a boy protested, voice nasal and deceptively innocent, though the lie was failing. “I am here. But it sings. It is loud, and the song is sad; you do not know if you believe the words.”

“Enough!” Cullen lunged forwards, near-frothing as he dove to drive something sharp into this abomination. They could watch whether it would pretend to bleed.

He would not stay silent - would not be kept on another leash and coaxed into negligence. He would not have his mind invaded, his thoughts turned into toys, again dragged out into the world through an already gaping wound -

The bottle’s journey was purposeful and direct, heading straight for the throat. A blade, he would have sent through the ribs, but a bottle to the neck would do just as well.

The boy didn’t move.

“COLE!”

Cullen faltered; both men turned. The Inquisitor had taken the steps several at a time, elven feet flying up them, though in her fear and haste, each step had still felt clumsy and terrifyingly slow. Below, Cassandra waited at the tavern door: in militant yet fretful whispers, they had agreed to let Aredhel go up alone, but there was a solidarity in the concern that clutched at them as they gripped each other’s shoulders. In less rushed circumstances, it would have been a hug, and it was felt just the same. Cassandra was fast becoming a sister: Cullen appeared to be the hearth around which Aredhel was gathering a new family.

Right now, though, that fire was a danger. Slower but with no less urgency, she crossed the final steps to approach the pair, eyeing the Commander as she might a wolf that was yet to decide if it was her clan’s friend or foe. Her staff was not with her, but as a mage, she was never unarmed. 

“Cole. Behind me.” Her voice was low, direct, quashing the desire to panic and turning it into authority, as her Keeper had taught her. “Commander. Lower your weapon.”

Cole did not move. “He wants me to not exist, but I can’t do that. But what he really wants is for HER to be gone. But she isn’t there; not really.”

“ STOP!! ” Cullen’s voice came out desperate, somewhere between an order and a ragged plea.

“I can leave, but he’ll keep her there -”

This time, Aredhel cut in: “Cole. Stop.” Pained, she looked to the man suffering in front of her: her greatest priority, tattered like a neglected Aravel sail. Had she let this happen?

“Do you see what it is, now?”, he demanded. Again, his voice was not angry so much as desperate: a man living a nightmare and wondering why no one but he could see sense. In his world, it was true. “It is a demon. Walking around!” A sound close to a laugh of madness rattled within the strain of his words. She had never heard him like this. “Inviting himself into our heads!”

Belatedly remembering her command, Cullen put down the bottle, his eyes boring into the ‘demon’ the whole time, then stepped towards his leader. He hoped that the gesture of obedience would prove his clarity; prayed that she, of all people, would see reason. “It will not end,” he pleaded, a hand taking her shoulder, his voice forcing itself under control. “It will not stop until it has affected everyone.” Even within his fear, there was something else surfacing in Cullen as spoke to her: protectiveness. She realised, with mixed insult and love, that he was seeing a mage open to being misled. “It will tear this whole place down.”

“Cullen…” Sympathy ached like growing pains within her bones. There was no risk of her being convinced - she knew he was not thinking clearly on this, and understood why. Cole had been a struggle for him at the best of times, but it was more than that, right now. It was the withdrawal. Looking up at him, she picked her next words carefully, preparing an attempt at soothing him, at talking him down. He interrupted.

“It is my job to protect Skyhold, Inquisitor. Please. Let me do it.”

All of a sudden, the man flinched violently away from her. He had felt it - invisible fingers in his hair. The sensation landed on him like a spider and clawed unwelcome down his spine. No. Please, please, please…Not here. Not in my life. Twitching, the man rolled a shoulder to knock the echoed intruder away: he knew what it was, that it was not real, but that mattered little. ‘She’ was here, returning whilst his mind was distressed. She moved in his peripherals, proof of what a demon could do to the mind even long after one dragged it out - even if one had never let it in in the first place. Their claws left deep grooves.

“I could make him forget…?” Cole offered, helpfully.

“DO NOT -! ”

“Cole, no!” Covering her face in her hand, Aredhel attempted to hold on to her patience. “Just leave. Please. You’re not helping.”

“Alright.” Sullen, he obeyed, disappearing on the spot. Aredhel breathed a little easier, yet Cullen felt no relief. He watched the Inquisitor, half-hearing, half-deaf, as she began on the spirit’s defence. ‘I’m sorry about him’; ‘He helped me’; ‘Are you alright?’. He realised, to his grief, that she only saw lyrium-pangs here, not logic. What did he need to say to be heard?

The sensation had not left his spine, his skin still attempting to shrivel away from his remembered, imagined captor. He never thought Aredhel would defend an obvious demon: he trusted her implicitly.


‘Do you know it’s her… ?’ The distorted mannequin of Surana seemed to stand at his side, a hand daring to rest on his shoulder, mouth near his ear as she whispered to him - a recycled memory of her artificial breath hitting his skin as the flashback sewed itself new life. ‘I wasn’t me…’

His stomach dropped from him, his skin ice.

The envy demon - the one that this ‘spirit’ had ‘saved’ Aredhel from… - it had attempted to mimic her, hadn’t it? Just as it mimicked the Lord Seeker. Walking, physical. Convincing enough to go unfound for years. Just like Cole.

Kinloch’s echoed phantom bit, nipped and tugged, ignored, at Cullen’s ear. But even an enemy could be correct.

His gaze levelled on the Inquisitor like a blade, his tone curling with lofty suspicion as it once had often, falling into the familiar register like reclaiming one’s armour. “How do I know what you are…?”

Aredhel faltered. “...What?”




The imposter’s voice drifted over to Cullen from a great distance, known and convincing, but neither had ever been a guarantee before. Her eyes, so lovely and yet so pained, could not be trusted. That love was what he would want to see; that worry, the best tool to levy against him. “Cullen….It’s me. You know me.” He shook his head, feeling like a child reduced to wordless protests.

The detestedly familiar mirage of a woman drifted around the pair, always on the edge of his vision, yet still he could sense the apprentice robe falling indecently from her. He forced himself to focus, instead, on this new creature taking on the form of the woman he now loved. Very likely, it was a demon in elven guise - he knew it to be possible on every level. At best, Aredhel was now a mage who had endured much at two demon’s hands…Grief closed up his throat, his mind clinging to the former suspicion. He had to believe it - he could not face the implications of the latter.

Out of the corner of her own eye, Aredhel also saw movement - Cassandra, inching towards the stairs. The elf held out a hand, as minimally as she could, and shook her head. Bringing more people up here would only confuse the Commander further. He needed navigating out of this. Meanwhile, she searched for an answer, brows furrowed. She understood the connections being made here, through the panic misfiring in his mind. It was a valid fear. He may be unwell, but even when this fog cleared, he deserved an answer. “I….will ask Solas to check. He can make sure I’m no demon.” The Commander’s face remained guarded, and even as she spoke, Aredhel knew Solas’ word was not offering enough.

Suddenly, resolve hardened in her. With perfect clarity that both came from within and yet felt as though it arrived, fully formed, from elsewhere, she saw what must be done. And not only for him. “...No. The templars.”

“The templars?!” Even Cassandra, the Order’s greatest advocate, exclaimed from the room below.

Thankfully, Cullen didn’t seem to notice her voice, but he heard Aredhel’s. The man’s face fell in shock, pulled back to himself by the shock but finding a new nightmare waiting in reality.  “ What… ?”

“The templars,” Aredhel repeated, raising her chin and attempting, through declaration, to smother her fear. “We have the benefit of their service now. We might as well use them where they work best. I will submit to their assessment - ask them to check that I am no demon. They will know better than anyone how to test it.”

Softening, as though the past threats had not occurred, she offered the man she knew an encouraging smile. “Alright…?” Inside, fear was attempting to pull her apart like fretted wool, but she kept her composure. She could not, as a mage, pledge to lead an army of templars in the name of Andraste and the late Divine without subjecting to the Chantry’s way of doing things. Not after what had happened to the Lord Seeker. Her people had to trust her. And she had to see she could trust them.

Cullen crumpled. Boots crunching over broken glass, he closed the last of the distance between them: her hands found his breastplate as, lovingly, all malice gone, he took her arms, drawing her close in a waft of oakmoss and furs. She breathed it in and he breathed in her, her hand finding his face as it collapsed in concern.

“Do not do this…” Once again, he pleaded, but this time, his voice was all gentleness. His eyes were lucid - the fog was gone. “They could kill you…”

“If I am no demon, they will not.” His lack of faith in the templars was starting to shake her own, but she refused to let it show. It must happen. She knew the reasons: it could not be changed now.

“I do not trust them.” His whisper broke her heart, even as his return to himself healed it. He held her as tenderly as he could whilst, all the while, gripping on for fear of losing her - for fear that his follies were about to destroy the last good thing he had left.

“Right now, you don’t trust me either, remember?” she smiled, pained. “But you deserve to trust both of us…” The elf reached up and touched Cullen’s hair, looking at him with unchanged love. He would never ask this of her, but that was why she must offer it: for him, and every templar she had saved for him. “And you will.”

Chapter Text

Light was dim in the empty sideroom that sheltered Andraste’s shrine. It shone muted through the windows’ coloured panes, a hint at the Maker’s presence that fell upon, but did not interrupt, the contemplative stillness with which His children would enter, kneel and pray. Its ceiling towered, allowing the statue to do the same, but the room itself was simple, taking nothing it did not need. The steps leading up to the holy image were far more modest than in city chantries, but still a sense of reverence had been laid, with each flagstone, into this approach to the Maker’s Bride. Up one side of the statue’s plinth, ivy had been left to grow, unchecked; in streamed the light, reflecting from the leaves like dappled summer sun, reminding Aredhel of the forests where she first learned to love the gods, and where, unexpected, the Maker had found her.

Candles sat upon some of the steps, their wax running onto stone as they petitioned people’s prayers to their Lady, who in turn petitioned for them to the Maker. Or so the belief went.

The Inquisitor knelt before the statue, an unlit candle in her hands. Conjuring flame in her palm, she cast as she prayed, knowing that the two did not combine easily in the minds of those serving the Chantry, but feeling a peace as she did so all the same. She offered the fire as a part of her prayer, casting it with love for the deity she was attempting to serve, and as the wick caught, she felt that love return to her, tumbling within her core like a growing laugh or the early glows of joy. It was the love of a mother. With great care, the Inquisitor - Andraste’s supposed Herald, if the faith of others was to be believed - set the candle down upon the stone, murmuring extracts of the chant and prayerful sentiments of her own.

One day, she vowed, she would have the full gardens here restored and converted into a chantry space. She wanted to build spaces for the other faiths, as well - statues to the gods of her own people, which deserved an outdoor place of their own, and a space in the Undercroft or even deeper below for the dwarves to mark their Ancestors. The Inquisition was young, but there was much she wanted to do for it; for now, though, first, she must do this.

She knew the footsteps in the doorway before she turned.

“I… had hoped you would change your mind.” Cullen looked tired - often true, but even more so today. Instantly, Aredhel’s stomach crunched with guilt, even though it was for his sake above all others that she had decided to do this. It crunched even so, another balled fist within her, alongside a first one made of her own fear.

She rose, standing before the statue as she faced him, other people’s candles around her on either side. The pair’s voices echoed in the quiet, sacred space: “I can be stubborn when I want to be.”

“ So I’ve noticed .” Cullen’s voice curled with a hint of chiding play, and for a moment, that alleviation made them both smile, but it didn’t last. So often, gravity caught up with them; they were two people who naturally chose steep routes to walk.

Aredhel moved towards the ex-templar, each step a distinct sound in the silence. The closer she drew, the clearer she saw the anguish that he was trying to hide. Something about it struck her, taking her a step outside of time as she wished, in a sudden yearning, that they had pursued this thing between them for long enough to know each other fully. If today went badly, the idea of their story ending as missed or half-explored connections broke her heart - they were one being, still working out the early steps of being two uncertain halves. But, in many of the ways that mattered most, they were already that team, and she had no intention of dying today.

“Please, reconsider,” the Commander began as she reached him, his hand remaining at his hilt, his body language formal and closed despite the intimacy that crept into his voice. “You have given enough. You needn’t do this.”

“Cullen…” The elf tilted her head, sad and reassuring, all formality taken out of the equation by the way she looked at him.

He looked defeated. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“You know why I’m doing it.”

"My…”  He faltered, interrupting himself with a look of pain, cut by the jagged blade of frustration. When he continued, his voice was strained, confiding; “Were I taking lyrium like I should, yesterday would not have happened. I cannot let that choice kill you." His eyes and voice pleaded, his last sentence only not a whisper because of how fervently it was uttered.

Stepping that bit closer, the Inquisitor found her Commander’s hand and took it, raising it between them and pressing it to her. She gripped it for emphasis, knowing that there were walls between her words and his ability to accept them. "There is no ‘should’. And your concerns were fair. If you've been thinking them, others will have. I need to do this for them.”

In her heart, more than anything, she was doing it for him: the fear and disorientation she’d seen in him yesterday broke her heart, and it would be foolish to assume that they would never resurface. However, her care for him had illuminated a wider picture that she should have seen before. She should have done this the first day they returned home with the templars.

“People put faith in me. More than I ask for. Perhaps more than is right. And that includes people from the chantry.” One hand still holding onto his, her other cupped his face; even through his grief, his eyes creased a little in a half-smile at the touch. “They’re following a mage, Cullen. That could change things, for everyone.” Thank the Maker, it was a passion they shared. “I need to meet that with integrity."

A tendon tightening in his jaw, Cullen nodded. He couldn't deny it. "In Haven you nearly…" Haven was still impossible to speak of, for many reasons. Now, more so. Mirroring her, he cupped the Inquisitor’s face, needing to hold onto her essence. “I know what you are willing to give… But…” Drawing her close to him, their foreheads met, their eyes closing as they connected. Grief and honesty hung heavy on his wordL. “...I do not know if I can watch you give it.”

“If I’m really me, I won’t have to," she countered, nudging his nose with her own, smiling at him despite her own anxieties. Not letting them get the better of her, she pulled back enough to meet his eyes again, releasing his face and instead resting her hand against his forearm. Against his bracer, the templar emblem under her palm. “ Trust them .”

“I do .” Cullen sighed, exhausted. He'd been exhausted for a long time. “And I don’t. I’ve seen too many reasons not to. I've been reasons not to…” Sighing again, he relented. She would not change her mind, and perhaps she was right not to. One hand at her face, the other at her back, her pulled her back to him, stepping to meet her, their foreheads connecting once more as he tried, as gently as he could, to envelop her, in some way shield her from what was to come.

“I…will always back your decision. You know that, right? You have my support.”

“Even if it’s this…?”

With an even quieter sigh, he agreed, words badly audible through their concern. “Even then…”

=

The templars had gathered in the combat square - a cordoned off area of suitable size, and central to Skyhold. Their shields glinted sharply in the light, the Sword Of Mercy emblazoned upon them, their breastplates and bracers. Tower shields, kite shields - in every form they took, their bearers lined the square, a wall of reminders of their creed, the death of their prophetess and their willingness to enact the same when called upon. It was a symbol that would be seen often around the Inquisition, now: people needed to have faith in it, or they would always be divided. 

The templars were stood in an unironic circle, ready to receive and test their supplicant. On the other side of the fence line, crowds filled the yard, covered the stairways, watched from the ramparts: half the population of Skyhold had gathered, if not much more. Amongst them were the faces Aredhel knew and looked for: the Bull and his Chargers, Blackwall, looking about as grim yet unreadable as each other. Vivienne, one of the few who seemed to trust the process, though again, hers was a face that would not be read. Cole.

Dorian stepped nimbly in line with her before she could enter the square, cutting mercilessly past anyone he needed to and falling in line with her as she walked: “You know, darling, you can still back out. There are plenty of ways to test you. We can ask that delightful artificer. Or, you know, dunk you under the water and see if you transform - that seems about as developed as their barbarous methods.”

“I’ll be fine, Dorian.” Aredhel squeezed her friend’s hand, smiling past her nausea, and managed to kiss him on the cheek without falling over. With great trepidation, dragging in a laboured breath and putting on a brave face, she stepped forwards.

She had never been in this situation before. She had been amongst templars, but never like this: immediately, as she passed the heavily armoured, identical-seeming sentries, each armed with a weapon intended, if need be, for her, she gained a first, terrible insight into how a Circle Mage must feel. She could see why knights became the faceless, fearful things they were for some, even if doing their job correctly, if you had grown up with this sword above your head. Only under it for a moment, it was already making sense to her.

Another reason to do this.

She also looked at their faces. Each man and woman was one that deserved a second chance. She met some of their eyes as she walked past them, smiling to a few, looking levelly to others, matching each one as seemed right.

As she walked to the centre of the square, she caught Solas’ eye. The look in it was complex - knowing, acknowledging, even admiring, yet ultimately disapproving, possibly even vexed. Often their relationship, for a reason she couldn’t yet understand. She thumbed at her Keeper’s ring, the patterns of wolves and old, cautionary stories a familiar feel under it. It represented duty to her clan; different stories to here, different gods, a different role, but that duty was the same.

Passing Leliana and Josephine, the air carried snippets of conversation to her, their voices above the murmurs:

“It is completely unnecessary,” her diplomat lamented.The spymaster countered immediately:
“It is smart. It will cut any rumour down in its infancy, when it is easiest to kill.”

She swallowed.

It was not until she reached the centre that she saw Cullen. He was beside Cassandra, both at the front of the crowd: she appeared to be saying something to him with concern, but his eyes were fixed on Aredhel. She flashed a nervous, foolish smile to him, unable to stop herself despite their mutual fear. As she did, Cassandra spotted her too, and sent her a nod. Breathing shakily, Aredhel nodded back, feeling a little strengthened. Cullen’s hand gripped his sword hilt; the other gripped the fence.

Soon, she was before the Knight-Lieutenant. It was happening. In a strange moment of distance from herself, she noticed that she had begun to speak. Attention moving over the crowd, her voice boomed and bounced around the castle walls, her lungs pushing out her words with the false, learnt confidence of a leader - project, be heard, and catch up with oneself once things began to feel real again:

“When the Inquisition came to the aid of the Templar order, we encountered a demon. One that had impersonated and replaced the Lord Seeker. One that tried - and failed - to replace me. Every one of you has placed your faith in this Inquisition, and it is prepared to meet that trust. We did not bring you here, and offer a fresh start, only to allow evil to persist.”

She tried to say something further, but her voice cracked and broke, her confidence wavering. She trailed to silence. “Sorry,” she muttered, turning back to the Knight-Lieutenant. “Carry on. Your turn.”

She knew those footsteps without having to turn.

Cullen had broken from his position on the side-lines, striding around the edge of the training square and approaching the templars. It was not the gait of a man about to interrupt a proceeding, but a man suddenly seizing control of it.

“Templars.” Some things do not change. He strode into position, voice carrying with conviction and habit: every templar there, whether they had ever served with the old Knight-Captain or not, understood. They looked to him: “If this is a demon or abomination, draw it out. These witnesses must see the truth of the thing before it is cut down - there can be no doubt. We cannot afford further schisms.”

Aredhel understood, immediately, what he was doing. She turned to him, gratitude almost making her lose her balance.

He continued: “I will see no blood until the demon is made plain." His voice had carried as far as the Inquisitor’s, making sure it was heard by the crowd, but as he continued, he lowered it, just for the gathered templars: “If this is no demon, then she is the Herald of Andraste. And your leader. Remember that.”

As one, they saluted. “Aye, Knight-Captain.”; “Yes, Commander.”

The Commander grimaced against the other title, but nodded. Aredhel shot him a dizzy, brow-knotted look of thanks. Light bounced piercingly from his bracers as he stepped back, traveling along the emblem’s engraved blade.

Time, then.

“Templars! With me.” The Knight-Lieutenant began her issue of commands; the crowd were advised that anyone who was not a Templar should take a good four paces back, warned that if the demon was using any protective counter-measures, there would be fallout. The sound all seemed muted to Aredhel as she looked down at the soil beneath her, focusing attention on her breath going in and out. She nudged a foot at the churned ground, kept so by the frequent sparring in this spot, and reached out for the sense of magic that tingled upwards from the earth. Distantly, she could hear what sounded like Cullen refusing to step back with the rest.

Under her breath, she murmured a prayer, quoting from Transfiguration 12:

“My Creator, judge me whole: find me well within Your grace. Touch me with fire that I be cleansed. Tell me I have sung to Your approval.”

Some of the nearest templars to her looked her way, noticing, but soon, the command came.

All around her, the templars lit up: far from the yellow warmth of the chantry candles, this light was cold, a pale blue-white of lyrium-sponsored power, filling metal-clad hands on every side of her. Her heart quickened, panic suddenly finding her. She had to clamp desperately down on the immediate, childish urge to run to Cullen’s side and hide against his front. Or Dorian. Dorian, I’ve made a mistake -

The light burst forth, rushing through the space like a silent explosion, blowing back the soil away from the blast, dust covering her boots. She braced…And felt nothing.

Blinking, shocked, the Inquisitor looked around. Hope sprung forth. She had known she was safe, that she was no demon, but she had still expected that to be far worse - Something that would hurt, or they could misinterpret, something she could fail - 

Another order came.

It was as if a rift had been torn in the Veil directly over her head, except it was no green light, but blinding white.

For a moment, that white was all Aredhel knew. It was so bright that it blocked out all else - that it felt as though it was behind her eyes, engulfing from within, not without. It seared with heat and ice, impossible to tell which, her body pulled taught, rigid beyond her control. For one suspended moment, the pain felt infinite, and then she fell.

In front of the crowd, the Inquisitor's body crumpled, collapsing to the ground of the training square.  The last clear thing she heard was Cassandra's voice, distinct above the rest; "The Inquisitor!" Panic tore through the crowd, the bark of several familiar voices attempting to quell it. 

Darkness took her.