Maker, what if he had to kill her?
Lana stopped only a hair's breadth from him, her eyes as inscrutable as the moment before he first kissed her. She seemed to stare through time itself while weighing his sword in her hands. Summoning a breath, she extended the sword to him hilt first. Cullen blinked, trying to shake off every horrible thought that stirred in his mind. Of course she wasn't going to hurt him. She wouldn't do that. She was...
He gripped onto his blade, glad to have the heft back in his hand. Lana stepped back, her shoes sliding in the gore upon the floor. Her eyes shifted to his and she nodded her head once. "Do it."
"Do what?" Cullen was unmoored, terrified to twist his sword away while Lana stood unshielded just before the tip of it.
Her stone face shattered, tears pooling at the edge of her eyes. The wobbling in her lip warped her words, "I struck a templar. I know what that means."
"No, no, I can't, no. You were..." Cullen stammered stepping back into the wall.
Lana pressed closer, the tip of his sword nipping across her crimson chest, "I lived in the circle for fifteen years. I know what happens to mages who step out of line. I could have injured you, or worse, killed you. In the end, I impeded your duty."
"Lana, no, you were distraught and...he was important to you," his hand shook as his normally solid muscles melted away. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to stare into those eyes facing down death by his hand.
"Important? I did not think templars took much stock in the excuses of mages. You kill for less. You certainly invoke the rite of tranquility for less."
"Against blood mages and abominations," Cullen said.
"Against anything your Knight-Commander deems unacceptable," Lana threw herself forward bypassing the blade to jump into Cullen's face. "You think I don't know the rumors about Kirkwall's circle? That it's breaking chantry law? Or how mages are fleeing for fear that they could be branded because of some imagined misstep? How many live in terror every day that it could be their last regardless if they passed their harrowing?"
"You know nothing of what the mages in Kirkwall are capable of. They're more devious, more dangerous than the ones in Ferelden," Cullen shouted back. "More blood mages move amongst them than you can imagine."
"Any one of us is dangerous, you know that. You've said as much repeatedly. And you saw what I am capable of!" Her venom subsided and she turned away from him. With her eyes boring into his hand gripping to the extended sword she sighed, "I could kill you. I've had six years to whet myself into a force of nature." Her voice overflowed with regret, the smart little mage honed to a sharp edge. She cupped his cheek with her hand and pressed into his skin with her thumb.
"But you won't," Cullen cried out, biting through a pain crawling out of his heart. He'd been so certain that every mage was dangerous, any mage could turn, but not her. Never her. He needed that fact.
Lana sighed, "How do you know that?"
"You're not like them, not like what they do to people; the horrors, the pain they... You, you could have turned to demons at any time to stop the blight, but you didn't. You haven't," he grabbed onto her wrist, pinning her fingers tighter to his cheek, "You won't!"
"White was a blood mage when he joined the grey wardens," she said, derailing him.
"What?" Cullen glared into her eyes, but they danced away. "That's madness. How can anyone trust a blood mage?"
"We take any who are willing to make the sacrifice, any who can fight darkspawn. Pickpockets, murderers," she paused and snorted, "long lost princes, malifecarum. Anyone." Her shoulders sagged in exhaustion and she pulled her hand away from his cheek. Cullen was glad to let her go as she stepped away from his blade and abandoned her certainty that he would strike her down. Pins and needles erupted down his forearm while he lowered the blade, the muscle unhappy from such abuse.
Lana dipped down to White her knees sloshing up the blood. With a shaking hand she slipped his eyes closed. Silence descended between them as she kept watch over his corpse, Cullen watching her. Only the hiss of the once again green node broke through them.
"Do you know why he turned to blood magic?"
"The same reason as any mage would; power," Cullen shook off her plea. He'd heard all the sob stories before, but at the end of them all the same thread - the mage needed to be stronger than someone else, needed to overpower someone else, and blood was the key.
"He did it to save a friend. He was years past his own harrowing when his friend took ill, a disease no healer could find an answer to. So he did it, he did what every circle mage should never do and turned to a demon for help." Lana glanced over her shoulder at Cullen, "All to save a templar's life. Of course they found out what he did, one can't cure the un-curable without raising questions. So White ran. The circle nearly caught up to him before he stumbled into a warden scouting party."
"The templar?" Cullen asked, his voice cracking beneath him.
"She recovered, then they told her what happened, loaded her with lyrium and...and she was the one sent to track down White. They," Lana paused and tipped her head back, "they assumed he wouldn't harm the person he fought so hard to save. As demented as it is, they were right. The wardens had to conscript him against his own will. He would have let himself die by her still living hand if it weren't for them."
"I...I'm sorry," Cullen threw out, unable to think of anything profound.
Lana wiped at her eyes and rose to her feet. "That's what they do," she cursed not at Cullen but the world itself, "pit us against each other. Us versus them. Bound against our will, terrified to step out of line. What choice do we have but to slaughter each other when the time comes, when the breaking point is reached? We never even had a chance."
"What do you propose we do then? Give mages free run of the cities? Turn our backs to abominations? The poor chained mage is a heart wrenching image but what is the solution to freeing them without risking others?" Cullen spat at her, dragging back the same dozen arguments probably being shouted through the streets of Kirkwall at that very moment.
But Lana didn't snap with her own retorts. Her eyes softened and her lips parted with a gasp. "I wasn't speaking only of mages." Pointedly, she turned to look at the empty bottle of lyrium broken across the ground.
"That...I," Cullen dashed away from her pitying look. The lyrium was necessary, everyone knew it, and it helped to squelch the aspects of templar life that haunted his thoughts. He willingly yoked himself to the chantry; to blanch now because the waters turned foul was unfair to those taken in the line of duty. Even if Meredith wielded the brand with an alacrity that by light of day unnerved him. She kept people safe, that was what mattered. A means to justify an end.
"You want answers, everyone does, but I have none," Lana folded in on herself, her head slumping to her stomach. "I've never had any. Kill one person to save a hundred, sacrifice a city to preserve a keep. Send a man to his death for the good of the order. I've been making those choices since I was nineteen. Never even seen the world and they pinned it all on me to stop a civil war and save it. Do you know how pathetic it is for me to order around a fifty year old veteran? I'm not some great hero, a warrior ordained by the Maker to save us all. I'm stumbling through every day hoping that I can live with myself to the next moment..." she stared down at White, "and I keep getting it wrong."
Sacrifice one to save a possible hundred. That was his life, but without the epic songs to accompany his battles. Instead he had to scrutinize every mage that passed him, listen for every whisper of disobedience, hone his blade to strike the most innocent face. And if he failed, if he let one of them slip by unnoticed, countless people suffered. It was a war of attrition, he only had to miss once, sympathize one time, to fail. It gnawed upon him in a way that he thought no one else understood. Cullen wiped his blade clean of White's blood against his rag and carefully sheathed it. He felt Lana watching him as he kept his movements slow and methodical, taking the time to secure his weapons properly.
Now unarm
ed, he extended a hand to her. Her eyebrows knotted in confusion as she stared at it. He wanted to explain it to her, assure her that she wasn't alone, but his voice sunk into his chest unwilling to lift. Admitting his own defeats aloud gave them a power, a voice he feared he could never face down. All he could do was offer her his hand. Lana slipped her fingers into his, as cautious as a wild animal accepting food. Cullen shuddered at the contact, his heart trying to pour itself out through his hand. It was doubtful Lana understood an inch of it, but she didn't try and pull away. She wrapped her fingers tighter into his, and he shielded her hand with his own. He wished he could do more, but she revived from his unspoken promise, the flush of anger and sorrow upon her cheeks fading.
"We...we can leave, once I shut down the node. I should close up the thaig too so darkspawn don't stumble back in," Lana mumbled while wiping away the tear stains on her cheeks. She still clung to his hand with her other.
Cullen nodded, back to the unequal footing they began on. Then he glanced down and stared at the man he ran through. In death, White looked even more fragile than before, his thin hand stretched upon the ground as if waiting for someone to grab it. "I could carry his body up to the surface for a proper funeral."
Lana smiled from his offer, "No, that won't be necessary."
"Why?"
She slipped her fingers out of his hand. "Dying alone and forgotten in the deep roads is a proper grey warden funeral." Cullen started at her stark response while she dropped to her knees and whispered against White's ear, "Hahren na melana sahlin emma ir abelas. In death, sacrifice."
Chapter Eleven
Back Where We Began
It would have been more poetic if a sunrise greeted them as they emerged from the depths of the deep roads. Instead, the afternoon sun blazed down through the red cliffs crowded around them. If he'd stepped out an hour earlier or later, the light would have been blocked by the rocky precipices instead of into his eyes. They'd only been in the darkspawn lair for a day and a half but it felt a week passed. Cullen glared at the sun when he should have felt ecstatic at seeing it again.
A hand gently tapped his arm and he turned away from the sky. Lana had remained silent through their climb out of the deep, only gesturing to some danger or drop off and trusting he'd remain close enough without losing her. He had only the drum of his shoes upon the ground to keep him company through a mile of climbing back to the surface. By the summer day light her cheeks appeared wan, her eyes blotted and strained. She thinned her lips in a restrained thought, probably one he didn't want to hear. He'd tried to think of something to say to her as they walked away from the mage's body, but every idea warped in his mind into only renewing their buried argument. After a time, Cullen decided that if she wanted to talk she'd say something and it was best to let sleeping mabari lie.
"We can continue along this dried riverbed," Lana said, her voice rough as the rocky edge. "There's no need to climb the cliffs."
"No?" Cullen rolled his shoulders, trying to waken his strained muscles. At this point, the best his arms could offer was a meager shrug, scaling anything was out of the question.
"No death defying leaps off crumbling stairs this time," she sighed and tapped her fingers against his arm.
"Oh, that's almost. I mean, it wasn't so..." She wanted something, she needed something from him. For the Maker's sake, say it!"Where are we?" Not that.
Lana didn't catch on to the internal war ravaging behind Cullen's eyes. She slipped ahead of him and waved a finger that he should follow. Silently, she led him down the dead riverbed while limping over the red clay cracked like broken eggshells. It wasn't until they'd stepped out of the tower that Cullen realized she'd been injured in their fight against White. Lana silently tied up her ankle and relied upon her staff to support her. She didn't turn to him once for help.
Pausing at the edge of the riverbed where the land fell away as if a giant snatched it up, Lana pointed a finger below them. Cullen sidled up beside her and a southern wind blasted sea salt into his eyes. Gulls shrieked above the clouds while dipping in and out of masts of ships decorated with the flags of Nevarra, Kirkwall, and Ferelden. Despite over five years in Kirkwall, his knowledge of ships reached somewhere in the 'that's a big one, and that's a little one' range. There were a lot of big ones bobbing along the sea, most glinting in the glare of the sun off the calm waters. A handful of the smaller ones took up near the coast itself, the wooden docks extended like a complicated maze into the sea.
"Cumberland, or near enough to count," Lana said. She peered over the edge down at a dozen dock workers scrabbling against cargo. Two elves held a box between them, the crates marked with the symbols of every port they'd ever landed in, while a qunari of all things stood stone still watching over them. Lana pinched her nose and sighed, "I wonder sometimes if they have any idea how easily all of this could fall. Without the grey wardens maintaining the seals on the deep roads..." Her thoughts trailed off as she watched a box slide off the ramp and bowl through the elves. The qunari tipped her foot up and stopped the box without shifting.
"I..." Cullen understood her message and why she brought him here without her having to say it. He threw his shoulders back to stand in attention in the hope that would blot away the regret blooming in the back of his mind. "I can...shall take a ship back to Kirkwall."
Lana turned from her vigil and that ornery spark of hers twinkled in her eye, "You know I'm going to need that armor back. The wardens get very particular and grumpy when people 'not of the order' wear it."
"Oh, I..." He patted down the steel griffin that'd been horribly abused in the short time he wore it. "I hadn't thought..."
"So, unless you plan on traveling back to Kirkwall naked, I think it's best I stick with you." Her tone was flat, but for a brief second her eyes flickered down his body.
"That would be preferable to...the, uh, sunburn I'd have to explain," Cullen stammered. "And other things too."
Lana didn't laugh at him, her energy seeming to be already spent. Instead, she gestured to a path dug into the cliffside that led right into the heart of the port. "I know where we can rent some horses. Shouldn't be more than a days travel back. And no brontos this time, I promise."
Cullen smiled from her jibe, but the edges stung. Her lighthearted nature was buried under the mask of command, the glint in her eye matted and her sharp smile dulled. She shielded herself and her pain behind the grey warden banner. He wished he could find some way to speak to her, to get her to speak of whatever weighed upon her heart, but he knew he was too incompetent to manage such a feat. And, a dark part of him taunted, he did the same damn thing with the templars as she did the wardens.
Lana was true to her word, seeming to know everyone on the docks of not-quite Cumberland. They procured two of the better horses and rode away from the setting sun towards Kirkwall. She kept far enough ahead perched upon her bay that Cullen was left alone with only his thoughts and the sturdy horse below him. He found himself missing the bronto.
By the time they broke into the outskirts of Kirkwall, the sun was rising. It was mostly farmland, save the occasional stand and ring of houses. She did not offer for them to stop, and he did not challenge the idea of riding through the night. Lana dismounted from her horse and let it slip off to a creek for water.
The city woke below them. Smoke poured out of the foundry in Low Town mutilating the pinks of the sunrise into a foggy grey. He knew the sounds of Kirkwall - peddlers belting their lungs out until it rang in your ears for days - the smells of Kirkwall - there was a delicacy to detecting the scent of various fish rotting on the docks - and the pain of Kirkwall. But here with only untamed grass wafting in the breeze and a few herds of sheep chomping away upon it the city looked deceptively peaceful. Dare he think it, even inviting. To his right was the Waking Sea, more of the biggest ships sliding through the opened locks to drop off that rancid fish. And in between them lay the gallows. He could just make out a few of golden statues, their heads clutched in their c
hained hands.
"Well," Lana stood alone, her own inscrutable eyes canvasing every inch of Kirkwall. "Back where we began, and the city isn't aflame."
"It's a wonder," Cullen commented. "I'd have assumed at least a dragon attack." Lana scrunched her face up and touched her shoulder as if in a memory. He caught the familiar pain and remarked, "You've fought dragons as well?"
She shrugged her perhaps once dragon mutilated shoulder and continued to gaze across the city. "A couple...dozen."
"Andraste's tears," he exclaimed. Why didn't she rant and rave? Thunder from on high to every man or woman who dared to rise against her the terrors she'd clipped away from Thedas? That her opposition might as well turn around and head home before she turned her wrath on them? If anyone deserved to retire to the quiet life away from the pain and blood it was the hero of Ferelden.
"Well," she said, turning to face him, "you might as well strip."
"Beg pardon?" He tried to not whip his eyes to the gallows and what felt like hundreds of eyes judging him from across the water.
"The armor," Lana said, her hand breaking away from her staff to point at it.
"Oh, right, uh..." He should be able to take it off in his sleep, but his fingers slipped against the buckles yanking the chest piece tighter than it already was. Lana'd been the one to pull it off him in the...Cullen swallowed back that memory trying to stuff it deep into his mind. So deep he could almost trick himself into thinking it never even happened. It was only his imagination playing him the fool.
"You can put it in my bag," she said, only glancing over him as he struggled through undressing himself. She kept a vigil across Kirkwall, her eyes piercing the movement of a waking city the way a distant hawk would.
Cullen stuffed each bit into her pack as it came off until he stood in only the blue under layer, the starched collar tight upon his neck while the deep cut exposed his nearly translucent chest hair. A cool breeze wafted through the thin linen freezing his skin before the summer sun rose. He grabbed onto the hem of the tunic when Lana's fingers wrapped around his.
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