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Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes---but not for thine---
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the final hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then;
Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
- William Cullen Bryant, Consumption
Cassandra bent over the figure, fingers reaching for her neck. "Dead," she announced a few second later, sighing in relief. She uttered a short prayer under her breath, closing the red templar's eyes with a swift motion.
Once she was done, she stood up, brushing off what dust and blood she could from her armour. Varric and Dorian were patting down the rest of the corpses to find anything useful, talking to each other animatedly in the process. Cadash on the other hand was leaning against a large stone, breathing heavily. None of them had noticed until now, and Cassandra was immediately at his side.
"Inquisitor, are you alright?"
He waved her off before she could even finish. "I'm fine, don't worry about me."
"You sure, Boss?" Varric was walking towards them now. "You're not lookin' as rosy as you did when we left camp this morning."
“Are you sure you didn’t catch something from that bog?” Dorian raised an eyebrow at Cadash. “Terribly murky place, and the doctors at the camps kept going on and on about a plague, didn’t they?” He shuddered visibly. “Not a place I’d like to spend copious amounts of time in.”
"I'm fine," Cadash repeated with a sigh. "It was a long walk up the hill, and we’ve been fighting for hours now. I’m just tired.”
“Then we should head back to camp,” Cassandra said. The sun was touching the peaks of the mountains now, and there were stormclouds in the distance. Camp was just beyond this hill, and they could see the smoke from the fire from where they stood.
“Excellent idea, lady Seeker. Wouldn’t want to get my clothes wet in that rain,” Dorian said jovially as he pranced ahead, followed by a grumbling Varric.
“Slow down, Sparkler. Tiny legs, remember?”
The two disappeared into a thicket of trees, leaving Cassandra and Cadash trailing behind. The dwarf was still breathing heavily, though he was making the effort to not look like he was in distress. Cassandra caught him taking deep swallows occasionally, as if the air in his lungs was not enough.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Edric?” she asked, turning to him. His eyes were fixed in the direction they were travelling in, not looking at her.
“Maybe I’m a little more tired than I let on earlier,” he said with a sigh. “But we’ve got a whole list of things to do before the ball at Halamshiral. I’m the Inquisitor now, which is all the more reason to be out there, helping our troops, our allies.”
“They can wait.” She stopped walking and looked at him pointedly. “You should rest and save your strength. It would be unwise to continue if you are feeling ill - more travelling might make you worse, and you might not be able to carry out your tasks to the best of your abilities.”
Cadash paused as well, still breathing heavily. After a while, he shook his head and sighed.
“All right. If I’m not well by morning, we return to Skyhold.”
Cassandra nodded at him, unable to help a small smile. “Your stubbornness is infuriating sometimes.”
That made Cadash chuckle. “Good to know.”
She reached out for his hand, enjoying how it made his smile grow even wider. The events at Adamant had allowed them scarcely any time alone with each other; moments like these were precious and far between.
“We should head back to camp before Varric and Dorian start getting ideas,” he said, though he looked like he would very much want to stay here for as long as possible.
“Yes, we should,” she said softly, “but I would ask for something first.”
She leaned down towards him, watching his eyes widen in realisation as she closed hers. His fingers curled around her neck and she could feel the warmth of his skin even through his gloves.
He smelled of leather and sweat and mountain pine, warm and earthy, so incredibly intoxicating. And the kiss was gentle, still hesitant, even after a month of them being together. Cadash never pushed her, never asked for more than she could give, and it never failed to surprise her. She could have never imagined that this, that the both of them, could be…
Cadash pulled away abruptly, dissolving into a fit of coughing. Cassandra frowned, her worry rising, but he stayed her hand with his own.
“Yeah, I think we should get back to camp now.”
She sighed, but nodded.
*
Cassandra was woken up in the middle of the night by an ashen-faced Varric. As soon as she recognised the dread in the dwarf’s eyes, she knew something was terribly wrong. She was out of her tent before Varric could begin speaking.
“He’s been at it for half an hour. The healers don’t know what’s wrong, and neither does Dorian.” The fact that he used the mage’s name caused the fear to stretch tighter around her chest. Varric did not abandon his nicknames lightly.
She tore open the Inquisitor’s tent, and was greeted by the sight of Cadash violently thrasing around. Several scouts were trying to hold him down, but he was too strong for them. His face was bathed in sweat and his eyes were shut tight, teeth gritted.
“Inquisitor!” She knelt beside him swiftly and held his face in her hands. “Edric! Can you hear me?”
“Cassandra…” His eyes opened in a squint, as if the simple motion was a terrible effort. “It hurts. Every breath… fire…”
Dorian’s face was haggard. “We have to get him back to Skyhold. Our people here don’t know what’s going on, but Fiona might. There are spirit healers among the mages there.”
Cassandra looked at Cadash once more, fighting the clawing fear rising in her throat.
“We move now.”
*
Cadash went through the next few days in a feverish haze. It was a week’s trek back to Skyhold, and most of the way he had to be supported by his companions. The burning under his skin fluctuated, and he found himself shivering even as sweat beaded down his forehead. Every breath was a struggle, and ever so often, there would be a sharp pain in his ribs, as if somebody were dragging a white hot dagger through his lungs.
As soon as they stepped foot into Skyhold, Cadash was lifted from the ground by four soldiers and rushed to his quarters. Leliana had heard about his condition as they reached the Frostbacks – of course she did – and had prepared accordingly. The curtains in his room were drawn tightly and there were two mages and a Tranquil by his side once he had been stripped of his armour and laid on the bed. A crowd of people hovered around him, but he could barely comprehend anything beyond the pain.
“You have a fever, that is obvious enough.” One of the mage lifted her hands, now aglow with a soft blue light, and waved them slowly over his body. Moments later, they paused over his chest, where the pain was worst upon breathing. “There is a sickness in your lungs. It’s cloying and heavy; I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”
“We travelled to the Fallow Mire a fortnight ago. Could it be...” Cassandra’s voice was strained. He wanted to turn to her, to reach for her hand, but his limbs felt like lead and screaming fire and all he could do was grunt lamely in response.
“It is possible,” Leliana said. “Many of the Inquisition’s soldiers have been falling prey to a mysterious illness in the mire. I have received more than half a dozen reports begging to double the camp’s shipments of elfroot.”
“Elixir,” Cadash rasped suddenly, a half-thought surfacing in his mind.
“What is it, Edric?” Cassandra’s voice was closer now, and he swore that through the feverish haze of his mind, he could feel a hand on his forehead.
“Inquisition doctors in the mire… found a cure… an elixir…”
“Of course!” Dorian piped up. “We ran around the bog collecting the flesh of the undead for hours. The doctors we spoke to had been experimenting and they say they’ve found a cure to whatever it is that’s making those soldiers fall ill."
“That’s probably when he caught whatever it is he has,” Varric said, and then added, almost to himself. “Has to do everything himself, the damned fool.”
“We will need to act quickly. Cassandra…” Leliana’s voice faded slowly as the haze thickened in Cadash’s mind, pulling him into unconsciousness.
*
It was several days before Cadash could even open his eyes. The fevers came and went, along with the sudden stabbing in his chest. There were times where he would wake up screaming in pain, his lungs twisted and raw with each breath. But there was always somebody there when he awakened, to sponge his forehead and to feed him foul-tasting concoctions. He would fall unconscious soon after, the pain waning, but ended up right back in the middle of his nightmares.
It felt like forever, but he eventually came to his senses. His mind was still clouded, but not as thickly as it once was. Thoughts and flashes of memory came more frequently than before; shadows and shapes around his bed, speaking in hushed whispers. The pungent taste of the liquids that he had been fed, they still burned at the back of his tongue, sour and heavy. Long periods of silence as he lay thrashing, screaming inside his own head, until the pain grew softer and softer.
Now he could hear the chirping of birds, punctuated by the occasional caw of a raven. There was also a scruffling noise, and slow quiet breaths. The weight of many blankets pressed on his body was slightly uncomfortable, but not unwelcome.
He opened his eyes gradually. The sunlight was blinding and he had to squint as he got used to it. Slowly, he began to make out a shape at the end of his bed, a shape wearing a very large, very familiar hat.
“Hello.”
“Cole?” Cadash’s voice was raw from screaming, and it still hurt to talk. As if on cue, there was a bowl of water at his lips. Cole’s hands cradled his head gently as he drank his fill.
“I could hear you waking up. I was in the courtyard, but I heard you.”
Slowly, his eyes came into focus. Cole was looking at him with his head tilted, his hat casting shadows over his eyes.
“Sickness clawing, cloying, clustering. It wants to reach for your blood, swarm your body, but it cannot. Soft blue fingers touching, healing. It stays in your lungs for now.”
Cadash sat up slowly, grasping onto Cole’s forearm for support. The first thing he realised was that it was much less painful to breathe now. A dull ache remained in the middle of his chest, but that was it. No white hot pain, no fire. He was close to sobbing in relief.
“They gave you a potion. Tasted like honey and death, made you retch, but they made you drink it. The sickness doesn’t like the potion, makes it shrivel and shrink. It’s why you woke up.”
He looked up at Cole, frowning slightly.
“How long have I been unconscious?
“A week. Everybody’s been so worried. They keep coming into your room, waiting, hoping you’ll wake up. They leave things here sometimes.”
Cadash looked around. Cole was right, his other friends had definitely been here to visit. His room was significantly more full of things than he last remembered. There was a small table and a couple of chairs set up in a corner, a new stack of books on his desk, dozens of bouquets of flowers. Cole reached down to the floor and carried up, of all things, a nug. So that was the source of the scuffling.
“Leliana brought him yesterday. He likes it here. I thought you’d like him too.”
He sighed and leaned back into the pillows. Sitting up had taken up what little energy he had, and his eyes were already slipping shut. The last thing he heard was Cole’s voice.
“You should rest. I will tell the others you’re awake.”
*
Over the next few days, Cadash’s quarters were flooded with visitors and well wishers, so much so that the doctors had to put up a notice at his door. ‘Only three people inside at a time’ it said, ‘the Inquisitor needs rest.’ But that didn’t stop his friends from barging in at all hours of the day. Bull and Krem told him dozens of stories of their conquests around Orlais and grew so loud and boisterious that they were soon unceremoniously kicked out of his room. Sera would chatter nonstop as she cleaned her bow, pausing occasionally to smile lopsidedly at him while she thought he wasn’t paying attention. Vivienne didn’t stay for long, but took his hand and told him how glad she was that he was alive.
Varric on the other hand had planted himself at Cadash’s desk and refused to leave. “I’m the best medicine for the Inquisitor. Go one day without looking at this devilishly good face and he’d start coughing again,” he’d say, grinning over at his friend. The doctors and guards, despite their best efforts, couldn’t make him leave, and eventually gave up.
And it was true, Cadash thought. With the other dwarf there, leafing through the drafts of his book and making comments about life in Skyhold that Cadash himself couldn’t see for himself, worked as much as that horrible elixir was. Not to mention that trash-talking Orzammar always helped with his mood.
The only time he would leave was when Cassandra came to visit.
She had been noticeably absent from the usual crowd in his room. Varric had told him how she led a small force into the Fallow Mire to bring back the elixir. Varric and Dorian had tagged along, unwilling to let the Seeker run herself to the ground looking for supplies. Cole, who was apparently in the corner the whole time, piped up suddenly. “Twisting, tearing, fear in my throat. He cannot die, not like Anthony, not like Regalyan. I cannot lose him. I cannot.”
She was supposed to visit tonight.
“I’m heading down to the tavern for a pint,” Varric said that evening. Cadash looked up from the book he was reading – he wasn’t allowed to even touch any paperwork before he was fully recovered, Josephine’s orders – and met his friend’s eyes.
“Alright then, I’ll see you later.”
Varric winked at him before walking out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him. Cadash heard muffled voices from the corridor outside, and then the door was pushed open slowly.
Cassandra looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her normally neatly-braided hair was coming undone, and her lips were stretched thin in worry. As soon as she saw him, her shoulders slumped.
“Edric,” she breathed, kneeling at the bed. Her hand brushed his forehead gently, and she bit her lip, looking like she was holding back tears.
“Hey,” he whispered, leaning into her touch. “I’m fine, I’m getting better.”
“You didn’t see yourself when we brought you in. I…” I thought I was going to lose you. She didn’t have to say it, he could read it in her face.
“But I’m better now,” he said firmly. “The doctors say the elixir is working better than they expected, and they think I should recover fully in a couple of weeks.”
He was met with silence. Turning to her, he was surprised to see her eyes squeezed shut, tears falling silently down her cheeks.
“Cassandra…” His fingers brushed her cheeks softly, wiping away the tears.
“I should have noticed that you were ill earlier. We could have sent our agents to the mire instead of going there ourselves. Why did I not notice?”
“You couldn’t have seen this coming. Nobody could have.”
“I just…” She looked at him, “I could do nothing. I just stood there while you almost died. Useless, I felt so useless…”
Cadash pulled her into his arms before she could finish speaking. She buried her face into his neck, her embrace fierce but gentle, careful, worried about hurting him. His heart burned, but it wasn’t from the pain, it was from those aching emotions that rose from the deepest parts of him, for the incredible woman in his arms, the woman that would have reached into his body and dragged out the sickness with her bare hands if she could. And yet she blamed herself?
She unlocked her arms slowly, her fingers trailing gentle patterns across his back as she looked at him.
“The thought of losing you is unbearable,” she whispered, her voice on the verge of breaking. “I thought I could deal with anything, but this…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said fiercely.
When she didn’t respond, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her trembling lips, tasting salt and relief, willing her to see that he was here, he was alive. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw almost involuntarily as he kissed the tear trails on her cheeks, her closed eyes, brushing their noses together as he pressed his forehead to hers. After a long silence, she spoke again.
“I’m sorry. This was a moment of weakness,” she said softly. He snorted at that, louder than he’d expected it to be, and she look at him in confusion.
“You know that’s bullshit right?” he said tenderly. “I’m not going to accept that.”
The corner of her lips tugged upwards despite herself, and she sighed, relenting.
He patted the bed beside him. “You can stay with me for a while longer. Varric’s usually gone for an hour at least.”
Hesitantly, she sat on the edge of the bed, not sure what to do until Cadash wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her close. There was a little awkward shuffling and near-bumping of heads, but by the end of it, she was pressed against him. Her breathing tickled his neck but he didn’t mind.
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
He knew she wanted to deny it, so he shushed her, pressing a kiss to her brow.
“Sleep, love. I’ll watch over you.”
And that was how Varric found them, tangled in each other and fast asleep, book tossed aside and blankets on the floor. Typical, he thought fondly. Smiling and shaking his head, he placed the blankets back over the sleeping figures, gathered his notes and quietly sneaked out again.