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Sieges are not quiet things. The creaking of the trebuchets, followed by the shuddering thunder of rock connecting with rock, the crumbling of foundations, the rain of rubble and ruin. The shouts of the men and women around him, battles cries and screams of pain, strangled gasps, a dying breath expelled from a pair of lungs. The clang of metal on metal, the crackling of flames from a mage’s spell, the twang of a bowstring and the whizz of an arrow, the thud of a body hitting the ground.
The dragon’s roar is the loudest sound Cullen has ever heard.
It cuts through everything else, the noise and the heat and the pain, and for a moment he’s back in Haven and everything is burning. But this is worse, it’s so much worse, because the dragon is up there and so is she.
It wasn’t supposed to be here. This was supposed to be a battle with the Wardens, with blood mages, with demons. The dragon wasn’t supposed to be here. But it’s here, and it’s tearing down the unsteady peaks of the fortress, and if he loses her now he’s not sure he can keep going.
His soldiers have a hold on the battlements now, thanks to her, and no one will miss him if he charges forward, cutting through the demons like paper, pushing through with a single-minded intensity. He has to get to her.
It takes too long, far too long to reach the courtyard where the remaining Wardens are gathered; none of them seem to mind him, and in fact, have turned against the army they were summoning, hacking through the demons side-by-side with the Inquisition soldiers who have managed to get this far. But she’s nowhere to be seen, and the dragon is still further up, its bellows digging into his frantic heart like sharp talons.
It starts as a slow rumble, one which grows exponentially louder as the whole courtyard trembles and shakes, the shockwave enough to knock several warriors to their feet. He braces himself on a scrawny tree trunk and watches in muted horror as enormous chunks of stone tumble to the ground up above. The source of the destruction is beyond his line of sight, but to be loud enough that it drowns out the shrieks of the demons, to cause such an aftershock…
And then a flash of light, green, ethereal, and it isn’t coming from the rift already torn in the middle of the courtyard.
Something is wrong, wrong, very wrong, and he has to get to her now.
A purely tactical decision, if anyone asks. The Inquisitor needs backup, and so he is backing her up. But the scenarios running through his mind only grow worse as he charges up the stairs, tears across the battlements.
He would have gone straight over the edge if one of his men hadn’t caught his arm.
Nothing but empty air ahead, a gaping hole where a stone floor was once laid. Below, the shattered remains—but it’s the tear that catches his eye, the scar that hangs jagged in the air, stretching across the abyss and glowing sickly green.
The dragon is nowhere in sight, and neither is she. There are no bodies, though he imagines them buried beneath the rubble, crushed, bloodied. But if the ground fell out from beneath them, wouldn’t they be laying atop it?
He stares, uncomprehending, until he realizes the soldier who’d saved him is speaking. A mage, judging by the staff in his other hand.
“The Fade,” he’s saying, pointing meaningfully at the cracked air. His eyes are wide, frightened. “Sir, I believe they’re inside the Fade.”
Inside the Fade. The phrase echoes through his head, and it takes a moment to process, to understand. “That can’t be possible,” he says, automatic, but of course it is. This wouldn’t be her first time in the Fade.
The mage is talking again, but Cullen isn’t listening. Another soldier appears at his other side, accompanied by a third; the demons haven’t stopped attacking, but they’ve come to follow their commander, their Inquisitor.
Inside the Fade. To escape once was a miracle. To escape twice?
“How do we get her out?”
The words come from his own lips. A leader, asking his men what to do. They look to each other, uncertain, uneasy. The third speaks up, a woman.
“I fear the only person capable of such a feat is the Inquisitor herself, Ser. We have to trust that she’s capable enough to do so.”
He doesn’t doubt her ability, not for a moment. She’s proven herself a thousand times over, the most capable woman he’s ever known. But now she’s there, and he’s here, and there’s nothing he can do about it. All he can do is…is…
“Back to the courtyard,” he barks, gripping his sword a little tighter. “As long as that rift remains open, there will be demons. We must keep them contained.”
Before they can respond to the affirmative, a strangled sort of gasping noise draws everyone’s attention back to the gap, and Cullen’s heart jerks and leaps with hope and fear all at once. They missed something, someone, there’s someone down there, a body, clinging desperately to a jagged ledge several feet below.
“M-mercy,” the voice wheezes, distressingly male, but it’s someone to save, someone who needs their help, someone—
The magister. Of all souls to be spared, the damned magister.
“I beg you, my lord,” Erimond croaks, reaching a trembling hand upwards, and Cullen would like nothing more than to let him fall.
But it isn’t his call. The Inquisitor decides whether he lives or dies. And she will return to make that decision. She must.
The soldiers look to him, eyes questioning, and he nods, a jerk of the head. “Retrieve the magister and have him detained. He will be brought to Skyhold for questioning and…and the Inquisitor’s judgment. Make sure his hands are bound, and do not take your eyes off him for a moment. Understood?”
They nod, eager to please. He takes a moment, a deep, shuddering breath, and turns back towards the courtyard. The rift is still open, there. That’s where she’ll be.
———
Every moment is agonizingly long, excruciatingly stretched out. The demons are endless; they come in waves, rage and despair and pride, and they slay both Wardens and Inquisition soldiers indiscriminately. But the courtyard is held, the rift contained, and backup arrives as the rest of the soldiers pour into the undefended fortress.
Perhaps it’s only been an hour, perhaps several, but it feels like it’s been days, weeks. It isn’t the unending melee, nor the ache in his shoulders, nor the throbbing pain from the slash of terror talons that slipped past his shield. Every second she’s trapped on the other side of the veil increases the chance that she will never return, and it’s agony like he’s never felt before.
And then the rift glows brighter for a moment, and several figures emerge. The Iron Bull. Dorian. Cole.
No one follows.
The Shade that descends upon Cullen is dispatched in an instant, a scream of fury tearing from his throat as he slices it in two and rushes forward.
“Where is she?!”
Her companions seem confused, looking to each other, then back to the rift. “They were just behind us!” Dorian insists, more shaken than Cullen’s ever seen him.
There is no chance to watch, to wait. They are forced into action, turning their weapons on the remaining demons, but every stab of his blade is a stab into his own heart.
She was just behind them. She was with them. She’s coming. The rift is still open. She has to be coming. They wouldn’t have left her. A momentary diversion. She’ll be here in a moment. She wouldn’t fall so easily. The Maker sent her, Andraste chose her. She must return. She must. Without her, he is lost.
Another flash of light, and the Champion of Kirkwall steps through the rift. And for a single agonizing moment, Cullen is sure that’s all. His entire chest clenches up, his sword and shield tremble in his hands, and he can’t breathe, the world has gone dark, the very stars blotted out—
Her feet land on solid ground, and within seconds, the remaining demons are writhing, falling, drawn back into a rift that seals behind her like a door being slammed shut.
A great cheer goes up among the soldiers, their Inquisitor returned, the demons vanquished, the battle won. She doesn’t smile. She only stands, chest heaving, pain and weariness etched into the lines of her face, the crease of her brow and the turn of her lips.
And Cullen is rooted to the ground, eyes only for her, hardly daring to believe he is seeing the truth. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.
His sword falls from his hand and hits the ground with a great clatter, a sound that draws her gaze immediately. The expression she wears now is immediately recognizable—yearning. She wants to run to him, just as he wants to scoop her up, to cradle her in his arms, to shield her from the fear that still lingers in her eyes.
But she is the Inquisitor, and she must stand firm before her men. And she does, strong and proud, addressing those who would surely follow her to the ends of the earth.
He doesn’t hear much of what comes next. Hawke speaks to her, and then a soldier, one who’d dealt with the magister. She looks particularly saddened for a moment, and he realizes that she’s speaking of Stroud, informing them that the Warden had stayed behind to help them escape. He makes a mental note to add Warden Stroud to his prayers, to thank him for his sacrifice. Without him…
The remaining Wardens will stay and fight, she decides. He finds that he doesn’t care either way, not in this moment. All he cares about is the moment the others disperse, the speech done, the soldiers’ attention turned elsewhere. The moment her eyes return to his, and his feet are moving of their own accord, his shield carelessly tossed aside, and neither one cares about decorum any longer as she throws her arms around him and he pulls her close to his heart.
She finds the gap in his armor, the vulnerable hollow of his unprotected neck, and buries her face against the warm skin there. Her whole body is shaking, and he can only imagine the terrors she must have faced to have wrecked her this badly. He grips her tighter than he’s ever gripped anything, afraid that if he lets go, she will be gone.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers, the words nearly getting caught in his throat. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He can feel her heartbeat through two layers of armor, quick and stuttering, like a frightened jackrabbit. She lets out a held breath, cautious, tremulous, and he wants to take her away from all of this, from all the hurt and the fear, he wants to hold her close and safe in his arms forever.
They stand like that for a long time, longer than they should, until he feels that she may just collapse, and only then does he loosen his hold on her. She won’t let herself be carried, won’t let her soldiers see her like that, but she hovers close to his side and he guides her forward with a gentle hand on her back.
———
By the time they reach the camp, the darkness has begun to bleed out of the sky, black replaced by a fainter gray, the first sign of a new day approaching. But with the battle having raged all night, not a single person is in any condition to depart without a few hours of sleep; and at that point they’re better off waiting until late afternoon, when the hot desert sun has passed its peak intensity and begins to sink down again. Cullen lets this be known, loudly, to anyone around who may be listening, and the soldiers sag in relief. The desert may not be forgiving, but they’ve set up in a cluster of ruins, and that’ll be shelter enough for some rest.
The Inquisitor’s tent is the most distinguished, naturally; larger and sturdier than the rest, furnished with something that almost resembles a real bed. He knows he must leave her here and continue to his own. But she looks at him, and he doesn’t need words to know what she’s asking.
“People will talk,” he murmurs, brushing a gloved thumb along the sharp line of her cheekbone.
“Damn them and their talk,” she answers, and there’s more than just want in the way she’s looking at him. There’s desperation, too. Don’t leave me alone.
And he couldn’t, not ever.
He follows her in, as he’d follow her anywhere.
Her hands are still trembling as she tries to remove his armor. He lays his atop hers, steadies them. The gloves first, then the arm guards, the shoulders, the mantle. The chest plate is always a relief to discard, and next is the belt, the leg guards, the boots.
In handling her, he is exceedingly gentle. Each article removed is a caress, soft touches, careful fingers removing one layer, then another.
Neither goes past the final layer. It isn’t the kind of intimacy either of them needs tonight, and judging by the way she sways on her feet, steadied only by his grasp, her exhaustion outweighs any more primal desires.
Still, he gathers her close, settles them both down in the makeshift bed. It shouldn’t be big enough for two, but when he holds her against his chest, warm skin on skin, they fit just fine.
And it’s here, in the darkness, in the privacy of her tent, that she finally allows a sob to break free from where it had been caught in her throat. But he’s here, too, and he presses his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, her hair, her eyelids, her mouth. Each kiss is a declaration, a promise. Anything she wants, anything she needs, it’s hers. She is safe, and loved, and the Nightmare will not find her here.
Best of all, she is alive.
Tomorrow, they will be the Inquisitor and the Commander, strong and respectable, infallible, unbreakable. Tonight, they are soft, they are vulnerable, but they are together, and that is enough.