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Red.
Shards protruded from the stone, from the walls and the ceilings like claws of a savage beast.
Red.
Through his veins it flowed and wept from his scars, eyes glowing with the raw mist of its power.
Red.
Poisoned, he smelled of rot, of death. No one was safe from he who called himself the Elder One, least of all they, her followers.
Least of all him.
Red.
A year gone, and everything had gone red. Red with power, red with taint. Cassandra, Solas, Varric, Bull. They were all there beneath Redcliffe, infected.
Dying.
Though Dorian had a plan to see them back to their proper place in time, he and Amallia were stuck in a living nightmare, trapped. And nothing short of death would ever allow her to forget the sight the man in her arms, laying so still in the center of the hallway, dragged from his prison of red lyrium.
Collapsed to her knees, Amallia cradled Cullen, rocking back and forth as she wept. Breath shallow and glassy eyes unfocused, she knew he had few precious minutes left. And she would not leave him until those minutes ran out.
“I am so sorry, Cullen,” she keened, tears streaming down her face. “I am so sorry I failed you.”
A weak smile tugged the corner of his lips as he grasped her arm. So frail, cheeks gaunt and eyes sunken, her commander looked a shell of his former self. Calloused fingers touched her cheek, hand cupping and thumb rasping over the ridge as he wiped away her tears.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Later, when it was all over, she would see just how reckless it had been. But in that moment, when she knew he was lost to her, Amallia kissed him. Damn the red lyrium, damn the Elder One, and damn Alexius. If she survived, if they returned to the correct place in time, then would she care for herself.
If.
But there in the depths of Redcliffe’s dungeons with her commander dying in her arms, she would know him for just one more second.
Everything else could wait.
Feeble lips returned her kiss, insistent, needy, as though it were a lifeline. And as time trickled through her fingers like water through a sieve, Amallia wanted nothing more than to die there with him. Too short had been their time together, scant private moments stolen during the turbulent events following the explosion at the Conclave. Regret pulled him closer, regret of things left unsaid, feelings left unheard. The urge to stay, to tell him everything, battled with her need to leave, to return to her time and set things right.
She parted from him, eyes squeezed shut as she sobbed, body shuddering with each gasp for breath. She forced herself to look into his red eyes, so different from the amber she remembered, and she saw his own tears streaming down the sides of his face.
“I love you, too, Cullen. I’ll fix this, I promise,” she murmured.
Another brief flash of a fragile smile tugged at his lips. “That’s the woman I know,” he whispered. “We’ll see each other again. Don’t worry.”
She could only nod in response, the lump in her throat and the knot in her stomach both grown too large for words. Her arms tightened around him, drawing him closer as she stared into his unfocused gaze. She wondered what he was thinking, wondered if he was at peace, that although he was dying, at least he was in her arms.
At least he was loved.
When Dorian spoke, reality returned, an oppressive weight crushing her heart. Her eyes focused on Cullen’s lifeless face, chapped lips parted and blank eyes staring at the ceiling. Released, he slid from her lap, coming to rest on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, and Dorian dragged her to her feet as she sobbed relentless tears of loss.
“We must go, my dear. You have a promise to keep.”
“Herald,” he gasped. “Is there something you needed?”
It wasn’t as if she had been searching for him. Nor had she meant to linger, watching as Cullen pulled on his boots. But the second she spotted him in his shared quarters, Amallia halted, rooted to the doorway of the room. The nightmare of a memory from Redcliffe, from a future not yet lived, gripped her like a vice.
With a shake of her head, she spoke, voice unsteady. “No, I -- I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I … didn’t mean to intrude.”
Concern clouded his face, brow furrowed. “Are you alright, my lady?” he asked as he stood.
A small scowl scrunched her nose as she replied. “I’m not sure. It … was a rough day,” she murmured, looking to feet, fingers picking at the ends of her pulled over her shoulder.
Booted feet thumped across the stone floor as Cullen approached her, slow strides that echoed down the chantry hall. The sudden touch of his hand at the back of her arm startled her, and she scoffed in disgust as he recoiled.
“Is it … what you saw that has you troubled? This … bleak future?” he asked, worry palpable. “If so, I can assure you, we will do what we can to protect Empress Celene. She’s—”
Amallia shook her head, waving off the subject. “No, it’s not the assassination,” she began. “I saw something … no, I didn’t just see it. I was there. I felt it, lived it. My friends, infected with red lyrium. Forced to live so close to it that it eventually grew from their bodies. And …”
The vision flooded her mind, tearing the words from her throat. He was in her arms again, withering away, dying, his eyes glowing, scar burning, and voice weak.
Red.
“Herald,” Cullen said softly, stepping nearer to her. “What is it?”
Amber.
Beautiful, golden amber.
Not red.
The outpouring of sympathy from his silent gaze set her heart racing. She had to tell him, get it off her chest. Maybe it would stop eating away at her then.
With a deep breath, Amallia began. “You … you died, Cullen. In my arms. Leliana and the others, they all died fighting. But we found you. Your cell was wall to wall red lyrium. You held on for a few minutes. I didn’t leave you, I couldn’t, not when I’d found you in pain, suffering. I wouldn’t let you die alone, not in that—”
“Amallia,” he whispered.
Maker’s breath. No music compared to the song that was her name on his lips. Eyes wide and mouth falling open, she stared into his gaze and found a longing there that she must have imagined. And then he was an inch away, stepping so close, their boots touched, and his hand returned to rub her back with a comforting stroke.
“Know this. You did what you had to do,” he soothed, voice barely above a whisper. “We’re here now. I’m alive, as are the others. You needn’t worry yourself over a future that may or may not come to pass.”
He was right. Of course he was, she thought with a sigh of frustration, so irritated for letting it worry her. “Thank you, Cullen. That helps.”
Calloused, rough, the fingers of his sword-hand traveled down the back of her arm and slipped into her palm, thumb stroking the back of her hand. “Anytime you wish it you can speak with me. I am here to serve you in any capacity you deem necessary.”
His caring smile warmed her heart, and she had to scrounge up every bit of her willpower to part from him. She headed for the door, fingertips brushing along his palm. A smirk hooked the corner of her mouth as she paused in the doorway and said, “Alright. If I have a bad dream in the middle of the night, yours will be the first bed I run to. Until dinner, Commander?”
A pink flush crept up his neck to color his cheeks. “I ah ... yes,” he stuttered, an absent hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Dinner.”
“See you then,” she chirped and left, noting his distinctly flustered sigh following her down the hall. She smiled with a giggle in her throat as she strode through the main door of the chantry, relieved by the feeling of things returning to normal.
Eyes pulled to the sky, Amallia looked above the mountains.
Green.
Well … almost normal.