"You're trying now," Cullen continued attempting to convince himself as much as the king, "we can still save her."
"Yeah, save her," Alistair shuddered and wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand. Using a hand upon Honor to help him up, Alistair rose to his feet. He passed the phylactery back to Cullen and scrubbed his eyes with his fingers. "We save Lana, and then she can yell at me for taking so long."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Song
?:?? ?
She waited, her knees pressed against the chantry floor - harder than she remembered the stones in the circle tower. Andraste stood above her, frozen in veneration with her arms extended, the statue framed by the pea green sky. The Black City floated beyond her head, like a crown of ink dribbling evil in its wake. This was the fade, she was certain of that. It didn't take much to see the obvious fact. She walked into the fade -- well, fell into the fade thanks to the Inquisitor -- and never walked out. That, Lana was also certain of. Except...
Her palms broke and she stared up at the Lady's stone eyes. In the fade nothing was certain.
"I know you are here," she said aloud. "You've always been here -- watching me, waiting, hungering, needing. Hiding will not help either of us."
"You are ready to accept my help, my dear?" it oozed around her, the voice smothering the air around Lana until it snapped back to the spirit rising from the ground to match it.
"Help is a loaded word," Lana answered. She wished she could rise off her knees, but the energy in her body was drained, almost beyond touching. A light breeze could topple her over. "First, we talk, spirit."
"Of course, sweetness. Whatever you need," the spirit floated through the pews as if it didn't see them.
Lana dropped her head, her eyes sliding shut as she gathered her thoughts for this final confrontation. "It took me awhile to figure it out, and you did an amicable job of exhausting me so I couldn't think. Couldn't wonder... Why do I see things when I dream? And not just anything, but something specific, static, in a place I've never been. The fade doesn't work that way, doesn't create new, it only steals and repeated as spirits and demons do. How, how can I see something I've never known? Because...my dreams aren't the fade, they're the real world. The real world where my body is."
The spirit flared a white hot light, but didn't attack her. Instead it hovered aimlessly around in a circle, unable to gather a response to her realization.
"You've kept me trapped here, kept my mind pinned to the fade for, Maker, I have no idea how long. Days? Months? Years? Why?" Lana's eyes flared open and she glared at the floating wisp.
"To protect you, to keep you safe. To guard you from those that would hurt you."
"Why?" Lana repeated.
"For your sake, for your own good. If it weren't for me, the demons would have torn you to shreds, feasted upon you. I sacrificed so much to save you, because-because..."
A cold chuckle rolled through Lana's dry throat, "Demons I understand, their hierarchy -- Pride before Desire, then Despair, Rage, Hunger and so on, but spirits... You have a power that terrifies Jowan, that obliterates Nathaniel, and even sends Wynne packing. And you use it all to keep me here."
"I do it out of love," the spirit shrieked, its face blaring in boiling orange.
"Restraining someone is not love. Holding them against their will, against their choice is not love, spirit."
"You never spoke against it."
Lana slapped her hand against the stone ground, "You never gave me the option!"
Edges of the world faded, the bubble the spirit kept her preserved in wobbling as her brittle emotions surged through it. The spirit extended a finger towards it and clucked, "See what you've done, what you're making me do?" Lana tried to twist to follow but exhaustion tugged on her weary body and she plummeted. Cracking against the stone floor, her head bounced twice, the pain dulled from death creeping through her veins. It wouldn't be long now.
"Sweetheart. Please!" the spirit begged her. "Let me help you. Let me love you. If you untether yourself from me, there will be nothing left. I can't lose you. Not after all this time together."
"What are you talking about?" Lana rolled around, struggling to try and rise but there was nothing remaining in her.
A warm tendril of the spirit caressed her cheek leaving a burn in its wake, her skin tender and enflamed from its touch. "Together we can save you, protect you, rebuild what we had before, before they tried to take you away. Let me help you, let me inside of your mind."
Lana snorted and blood bubbled across the stones. Cold seized up and down her body, her arms and legs drifting away from her as the smell of fossilized air blown from a crypt filled her nostrils. If she screwed her eyes tight she almost saw a strip of green light waiting beyond her. Maybe this was the answer, this was how she had to break out. Let herself die in the fade and then... Except, she'd never heard of it working that way. People escaped the fade, returned to their bodies, they didn't slit their own wrists and wake up fine. Perhaps it was over. She struggled for so long, hoped with every beat of her heart to find a way, but there came a time and place for accepting the inevitable, laying down and letting the others win.
"No!" the spirit shrieked, red light hissing through its ethereal form as if all of its veins caught on fire. "I will not let you go! If you'll not give me what I need, then I'll take it for myself!"
Before Lana had time to throw up her defenses, the spirit dug deep into her brain and unearthed an old memory.
"Alistair, what are you doing?" she folded up her arms and tried to maintain a straight face as the man struggled to balance himself upon a downed tree. Unsatisfied with nearly impaling his body on jagged branches by using both feet to stand on the log, he was now lifting one up.
"I was thinking when all this is over, I could join a circus," he said, promptly slamming his foot down to keep from falling over.
Lanny's cool eye slipped up from his foot to the rest of him, "It'll be the quickest act in thedas."
"Well," he hopped off the log and dropped in front of her, his feet sinking into the mossy forest floor. They were supposed to be hunting for werewolves, but somehow the two grey wardens kept finding any excuse to wander off alone together. It was a true mystery of the Maker. Alistair wrapped one of his sap coated hands around her back to pull her close, then brought the other together to close off the embrace. "If you came with they'd be certain to sign us on the spot. You could throw fire."
"I'd set the audience on fire," she whispered against his cheek. By dusk's light, his hair seemed to glow like the pyre of Andraste - an eternal golden flame.
"That'll just make it a more exciting show," Alistair shifted her over to his side as he waved an arm out, "Come, if you dare, to watch the fire spitting mage. People in the first five rows will lose their eyebrows."
"You are bonkers," Lanny said. Then she grabbed onto his cheek and took him into a kiss. "But you're my kind of bonkers."
"I don't deserve this," Alistair sighed in joy.
"What? Being called bonkers? I'd rather think you do..."
"I meant you," he chided, before wrapping all of him around her, enveloping her body. It was strange how quickly she grew used to the bite of his armor against her chest, even came to enjoy it. "Having you be this amazing you, and with me of all people. I mean, look at you!"
"That's rather difficult to do without a mirror."
"Should I describe every inch of your body? I bet I could, though there might be the danger of drooling in the middle."
She playfully swatted at his armor with a discerning toss of her head but internally Lanny swam in joy. In her nineteen years she'd never felt anything like this, never had a man grab onto her hand and hold it tight while they crossed a bridge just because he missed her. Never had someone whisper every wild idea in his head because he loved watching her laugh. Never had a person give so much of himself without a second thought for what the world expected of them, didn't care about duty or the rules because he was
that far gone for her. Alistair held nothing back, even if he took the round about lamppost way of telling her he cared.
"Why the circus?" Lanny asked. "Why not something more interesting, like the Antivan Crows?"
"Sure sure, Zevran makes it look fun what with all of his fancy accents and leather things, but I bet half of the time you're stuck filling out paperwork and polishing your knives."
"Polishing your knife, eh?" She couldn't stop the smirk as Alistair's cheeks lit up bright red.
He stammered against her, struggling to pull in a breath as she clung tighter to him. "That wasn't what I...You know, I didn't... Oh, you are evil. So evil, super evil with an evil sauce drizzled on top."
Shrugging, she placed her head against his chest, the metal a sharp cold against her skin, but she didn't mind. Sometimes she wondered if she could fall asleep like that, held tight in his arms, his steady breathing and warm body gently rocking her away.
Alistair's chin butted against the top of her head as he snuggled into her. In a soft voice, he whispered, "It doesn't matter how evil you are to me, I'll always love you."
"What?" Lanny broke from his hold and stared up into those amused eyes, now slipping to bemused at her, "Did, did you say you love me?"
"I, uh, um," he swallowed a few times, bit down on his lip, and squinched up half his face as if he swallowed a bee. "I guess so?"
Her heart pounded fervently in her chest, terrified and ecstatic, confused and amazed. In her time at the tower, she never thought that anyone would come to her like that with his whole heart extended in hand. They'd only known each other, what, four or five months? And in that time suffered and shared in death and loss on an unimaginable scale. Alistair was the one she turned to, searched for when her heart languished in the bitter depths, and he took her hand, combed her hair back, and held her tight. A lightness enveloped her heart filling a hole she didn't realize was there.
Rising onto her toes, Lanny cupped his cheek in her hand, pulling his bashful eyes to hers. With a certainty that could crack a mountain she told him the truth, "I love you, too."
9:44 Anderfels
Cullen steeled himself for the next test in this gauntlet of horrors, his mind churning through what other possibilities the demons could dredge to tempt and taunt him. Sensing her master's ill ease, Honor growled softly, her head whipping back and forth at any noise. Normally, her snout would be buried in the ground as she ran around chasing anything potentially fun or food, but she ignored the tempting smells buried below the water - maybe dipped down once or twice for a drink, and nothing more. Behind him strode Alistair, the man's cheeks drawn more than normal, his skin a ghastly pallor as he kept digging his fingers into his forehead, trying to claw the memories out.
It'll never work, Cullen thought, shaking his head. He wished it were that simple. Ahead of them waited Aqun, the qunari tapping her foot impatiently as if she didn't have her soul inverted out of her body and rubbed raw with steel wool. Whatever effects the Fade had upon her wore off the moment she left the room of emerald eyes.
"Templar," she called, jerking her spear staff in his direction, "we have a situation."
"What is it?" Cullen struggled to lift his steps higher, shaking off the memories clinging to him like rising dead wrapping putrid hands onto a person's legs. He could let them stain him later, when there was time. A small part of him warned that if they failed, if they didn't find Lana, then those false memories could be his undoing. His only moment of happiness he willingly walked away from.
"Wards," the qunari interrupted his thoughts.
Sheathing his sword, Cullen prepared himself to dispel another batch when he skidded to a halt. They glittered over every surface of the room beyond a small portcullis, but it wasn't ice or fire that would impale whoever trespassed. Red as blood and black as the void, death wards coated the walls and floor. If anyone crossed it, erupted it, they wouldn't have a chance to move before their body hemorrhaged blood from every orifice, every pore.
Alistair stumbled into the back of him and looked up. Then he whistled long and slow, "That's not a good sign."
"You recognize them?" Aqun spoke to Cullen.
He nodded his head before turning to the man who was also once a templar. "That requires powerful magic," Cullen said.
"Yeah, the slit your throat, pour all the blood onto the floor kind," Alistair agreed. He wrapped his fingers around the bars separating them from undeniable death.
"I am uncertain if I can remove them," Cullen said. He'd struggled through the ice ones and persevered, but these were another level entirely. In his old days they would require a full regiment to dispel, every templar taking one.
"You don't need to do them all," Alistair said. "Just make a small path we can walk through. Not too small, but that's what? Three?"
"Four," Aqun answered.
"Maker's breath, you are bad at counting," Cullen mused to himself, then he grimaced at his faux pas. He hadn't meant to dig up Lana's words, never wanted to think about that version of her ever again even as his traitorous mind preserved her voice and pregnant form. "I'm sorry, I didn't wish to..." Cullen caught himself, trying to apologize.
"Yeah, I get it. I mean, it...forget it, I'm fine. Good. But I'm not the one facing down that. So, best get templaring fast," Alistair spoke quickly, stuffing his pain away.
Sighing, Cullen chased the void inside of him, shifting reality to try and blot away the stains magic left upon the world. He glared upon the first ward, its mutilating runes daring him to try and defeat them. A headache beat in an arrhythmic pattern against the stem of his brain, but Cullen chewed through it, his hands gripping to the bars as he focused everything inside of him upon it. Clinging by bare knuckles to the blankness, he snapped his eyes tight to struggle against the blowback. Exhaustion rose out of the void, bringing with it the vision of Alistair and the qunari both peering over at him. He didn't notice the sweat across his brow until a fetid breeze blew past, his slick hands sliding down the bars as his grip fell limp. He failed.
"Okay, well, we wait awhile and then you try again," Alistair tried to encourage him. "I can maybe add a bit to it, though I'm far out of practice."
Cullen shook his head, "No." He'd felt the ward staring back, chuckling at him that he'd never wipe it away, never be able to remove the powerful magic some malifecarum infected the world with. "I cannot remove it. I didn't even draw close." Cullen brought his forehead against the bars cold as a gravestone. The thought drove nails into his heart. He failed her too.
"I may have a solution, but..." Alistair reached his fingers into his satchel and rummaged through it. The noise was so cacophonous it drew Cullen's attention, his exhausted face turning to watch as the king extracted a bottle.
What could he... No! Cullen felt it singing in the air before the king opened the amber bottle and a vial of pure lyrium dropped into his hand. "What are you doing with that?" Cullen hissed.
"Originally, I thought we might need it for trade purposes. You know, if you give us the keys to your fortress you can have this shiny blue liquid," the man shrugged, clinging to the lyrium as if it was nothing. "It might be enough for you to be able to clear the wards."
"I..." Cullen shuddered as he found his fingers reaching towards the vial, "I can't. You don't understand what you're asking of me. I cannot, will not. If this is your plan, you take it."
"I, uh," Alistair glanced over at Aqun either made aware of his near templar heritage or already having known it. "I've never had the blue stuff before. And there's just the one vial so, if - when - I screw it up, we don't have a plan B."
He was correct. The first sip of lyrium was that, little more than a drop cut with wine so initiates could build up their resistance to it. That much lyrium would kill him dead. But, no, he couldn't fall back into that endless abyss. Cullen shook his head, the trembling rising in his hands. "No..." he sputtered.
"Look, if there were a bunch of templars singing songs in passing, I'd drag them down here to do it,
but--" Alistair tipped his head, "I don't hear any out on a meadow walk, so it's this or..." He swallowed deep, his red eyes brimming in tears, "or we don't reach her."
Damn him! Damn him for even bringing it. For making it an option. "I will not leash myself again!" Cullen shouted. Throwing himself off the bars, he stomped through the flooded, body-less catacombs trying to find an answer when he knew there was none. Lana needed him, he was never more certain of that in his life. Needed him with a greater urgency than when they fought through an army of darkspawn, or when they faced off against the harlequins, or when she...
Watching her scream at the grey warden's corpse while her own blood dripped down her robes into the water chipped away at his soul. He froze, uncertain what to do as the woman who ended a blight, who built an army from nothing, who stormed a tower full of demons, crumbled before him. She'd begged and pleaded with the Maker or anyone else to fix things so her Nathaniel hadn't attacked her, so she hadn't killed him. Cullen had no idea what she needed, so he chose to do what he in that moment did and clung tight to her. As if his body could somehow protect her from the pain of losing a friend, worse than that, the betrayal of someone she cared for, helped to train and grow. It was a foolish thought, and Andraste save him, he had no idea if it kept her with him, convinced her to stem her own bleeding. Holding her while her magic took ages to knit together abused flesh, Cullen made a promise in his heart that no matter what it cost him, he'd do anything he could to keep her safe.
Anything...
Maker, guide me. Give me the wisdom to decide. Cullen grabbed onto the crumbling brick with his fingers and in ragged breaths whispered part of a prayer, "Through blinding mist, I climb. A sheer cliff, the summit shrouded in fog, the base endlessly far beneath my feet..." Panting, Cullen turned his head up to stare at his fingers dug deep into the bones of this vile place. "The Maker is the rock to which I cling."
Releasing his hold, he stepped back from the wall itself and a wash of light burst from his pocket. Red as blood, the light coated the surface in front of him highlighting a small carving low along the wall, as if done by a child. "Lana," Cullen's fingers fumbled for the phylactery, glancing across the surface. He tripped across that tattered picture the king gave him. Gazing at it by the light of her phylactery, his heart constricted into his throat. She was so perfect there, preserved behind ink and vellum, incorruptible, her doe eyes gazing to some great beyond. Bringing the portrait to his lips, Cullen whispered, "Please forgive me."
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