My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "I said..." the guard hissed, when a new voice growled over top.

  "Show them to me, now!"

  Bolting up, Lana ignored pain in 97% of her body at that voice. That dusky, occasionally awkward voice etched across her soul. "Cullen..." She staggered upon her hands and knees, crawling towards the door, hope dragging her onward. Unable to stand, she stared up muddied boots, pants, and a barely evident green tunic to find his face. Maker, his beautiful, living face. Cullen's deep scowl shattered to be replaced by a grateful shock. He patted his fingers against his mouth before grabbing onto the arm of the guard who'd been harassing her all day.

  "Open the damn door," Cullen shouted. Fumbling around with the chain upon his belt holding only three keys, the guard attempted to do as ordered while casting a glance back at Leliana.

  Lana spotted her friend out of the corner of her eye, but her full focus was upon the man who lived. "You're..." she reached her fingers through the bars needing to touch him. Cullen seemed to feel the same, as he caught her hand and held it tight.

  "Move back, prisoner!" the guard ordered, before a deadly glare from both the Commander and Divine fell upon him. Squeaking, he added, "Please."

  "That isn't necessary," Cullen shoved the man aside and, in one quick move, yanked open the door and swooped Lana up off the floor into his arms.

  Maker, she melted into his embrace, singing praises to the prophetess for guarding him. Mud suckered to her clothes, Cullen coated in it, but she didn't care. "I was so scared I lost you," Cullen whispered, his voice hoarse.

  "Me too," she admitted. Lifting her weary arms, Lana tried to wrap her hands around him, but the manacles snagged together, keeping her bound between their bodies.

  Cullen glared down at them, then yanked the guard towards her. Hissing, he ordered, "Take those off of her, now."

  "Ah but Ser, she..." the guard started before swallowing deep.

  "She what?!" Cullen dared, burning upon the shrinking guard every power at his command.

  Yelping once, the guard picked up Lana's heavy wrists and tried to insert the key into them. His hands trembled so, the key skipped back and forth missing the lock each time before Lana grabbed his wrist and guided it in. Whispering a prayer under his breath, the guard unclasped the manacles and yanked them away. Freed of the unbending weight, Lana glanced her fingers across the pain upon her wrists before wrapping both arms tight around Cullen and burying her face in his chest.

  "They wouldn't tell me anything, I didn't know if you..."

  "I had no idea what happened to you. They said a mage died, and I feared..."

  "Never do that again."

  "Never do that again."

  Both laughed at their synchronized order, tears dripping through the relieved chuckles. Cullen framed his hands around her cheeks when his thumbs glanced upon a sore spot and Lana winced. "My cane, it exploded when I...I'm going to need a new one," she felt like a child requesting another blanket because she accidentally burned the last one.

  Leliana laughed, her fingers clinging to Lana's elbow, "Anything you need. It's no bother. Blessed Andraste, we were concerned."

  "Concerned?" Cullen scoffed. "I was terrified and..." he mashed his forehead against Lana's even while holding nearly all her weight in his arms, "Feared my heart was going to give out."

  "Don't you dare," she ordered, waving a finger near him.

  "Never, not while you need...not while you want me." He didn't kiss her, not while all the guards they no doubt blew through to find her looked on but Cullen brushed his fingers across her lips and she gently pressed against them. He tasted of mud and a bitter ointment, but it was Cullen underneath and that was all that mattered.

  Wrapping his arm around her waist, Cullen began to walk Lana slowly out of the jail and towards the door. She struggled, barely able to move as she shuffled against the filthy floor slowly filling with leaking rain water. Leliana rubbed her back for a moment, her own grateful smile in place before she snapped it away to stalk ahead. The Divine was going to shove any onlookers away to give Lana and Cullen freedom to leave unhassled. Lana limped away from her cell, her fingers digging into Cullen's shoulder when her head turned and she spotted him - the man who nearly crushed her happiness. His limp fingers clung to the bars, wide eyes watching the proceedings.

  Rage enveloped her body, knocking away the pain. Faster than anyone thought possible of the broken mage, Lana snarled forward, her fingers knotting around the false templar's filthy tunic. Magic poured out of her, dragging the man further to the ground until his knees buckled. Hissing like a mountain lion about to rip out a throat, she hauled him tighter to the bars, pressing his nose against it.

  "Pathetic worm. I know your kind, I can see it in my mind. Weak, worthless, incapable of creating anything of your own. You think your only way of making a mark is destroying what others have. What others have worked their hands to the bone to create, to preserve." Heat gushed out of her, wrapping across the man's body. At first a flush charred his cheeks a bright red, sweat pouring free, but as she kept holding him the fire ramped up, burning across the first layer of his skin.

  "What are you...?" the guard began, but the Divine snapped up at him, cowering him back to the corner.

  "You have failed. Everyone you commanded is dead by the hand of that pet mage you couldn't tame. The one unable to stand. Dead, broken, and all that remains is you. Do you know why I left you alive? Because you weren't worthy of killing. You'll bear the blame for attempting to kill the Commander, while your little rebellion is smothered in the crib. You have nothing to your name, nothing to your arm, your little group will burn from inside, all will scatter like ash on the wind, while you hang stretched by your neck before a jaded audience that won't even bother to know your name."

  As the smell of burnt hair reached her nose, Lana released her hold and the man fell backwards, trying to scatter away from her vengeful stare. So cock certain that he'd won even after being captured, his entire world crumbled before him while the tiny woman he'd taken as nothing glared victory down at him. Her eyes traveled down to a puddle rising up beside his boot. "Look upon the great iconoclast who wets himself before dancing to the gibbet's tune. None shall remember you, none shall care."

  Having finished her diatribe, Lana turned from the man who tried to take everything from her and all her rage vanished. She buckled towards the ground, but Cullen scooped her up. Unable to even manage part of her weight on her abused legs, he pulled her fully into his arms snuggling her tight his chest. Lana pushed her face against him as she began to tremble, the anger and heartbreak retreating quickly from her body. Walking crisply, Cullen carried her past the other cells, most empty, to the front room. He whispered a soft question into Lana's ear, "You didn't actually look into his mind?"

  "No," she admitted, shaking her head, "I only said that to scare him. He was ranting and raving for hours before and it didn't take much to size him up." Cullen didn't physically sigh in relief, but she watched him sag a moment.

  "Your Worship," one of lead guards stood before Leliana and tried to catch her fingers to kiss a ring, but she kept them wound up tight to her elbow. "Forgive us, we had no idea that this was a friend of yours."

  "And that gives you fair excuse to mangle her, leave her nameless and alone to freeze upon a water logged floor?"

  "Leliana," Lana cut into her friend's anger. "Let it go, please." She sneered once at the guards, all of them cowering, but obeyed Lana's wishes. More than exhaustion and pain beat against Lana's body and heart; the despair she'd destroyed the others with lapped across her own soul. Burying her face into Cullen's chest, she whimpered, "I want to go home."

  "There's a carriage outside," he said, his lips pressed close to her forehead, "it'll take us back to the apartments."

  "No," Lana shook her head against him, "I want to go home. To Ferelden."

  "We...uh," he glanced over at Leliana who bit her lip and glared at the ground, "we'll do our best, but right now we should get clea
ned up. Okay?"

  He clung to his nursemaid routine, but she could hear a crackling in his words, a tremor to his lip. Cullen was clinging to a thread himself. Cupping his cheek, Lana stared into those amber eyes she nearly lost and smiled, "Of course it's okay."

  Without saying a word, Leliana threw open the door only to be greeted by the mabari forced to wait outside. Honor tried to bark but a stick, easily four feet long and a good two inches thick, rested in her powerful jaws. "Where did you...?" Cullen began.

  "It seems Honor found me a new cane," Lana said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Betrayal

  Leliana opened the door to the apartments, perhaps her first time turning a knob since she became the Divine but Cullen had his hands full helping Lana. Not balking for a moment at having to perform a moment of manual labor, Leliana ran her fingers across Honor's scruffy head. She'd driven the carriage as well, nudging over the patient driver and often glancing back as if to make certain Lana was still alive.

  Taking her time, Lana filled Leliana in on what she could remember of the attack, how both organized and sporadic it was. For her part, the once spymaster only nodded grimly and said little beyond asking for clarification. No doubt, she intended to keep her findings away from Lana for fear of endangering her friend or causing a relapse. That idea caused Lana to smile internally to herself while she clung tight to Cullen's hand. They both held each other without letting go, as if they shared the same fear that either could vanish in smoke at a moment's notice.

  With the use of Honor's stick, Lana hobbled into their room, her eyes upon the divan. Cullen kept a hand softly smoothing up and down her back as he guided her. She tried to ask about the wadding of bandage around his other arm, but he dodged the question, barely pausing to take account of his pain in favor of hers. Leliana entered first, widening her arms and smiling. "I don't know about you, Lanny, but after the events of the day I could use a stiff drink."

  Lana snorted, "Tempting, believe me, but with my mana so low it'll not end well." She felt her friend's eyes watching her limping across the floor, trying to gauge how deep the scars reached this time. It was exhausting at times to have her friends know the price the full fury of her magic could cost, but Lana wouldn't trade their love for anything, even if it did reach beyond overbearing.

  "As you say..." Leliana said watching Lana and Cullen slide together deeper into the sitting room. "But I happen to have a bottle of Tevinter gin that might change your mind." She smiled wide at her friend, that old bard wickedness drifting across her face when a soft cough drew both their attention.

  Detan stepped out of the bathroom, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She bowed once to the Divine before speaking, "I drew the bath as you requested, and I left as many ointments and salves on hand as I could find upon the counter."

  "Thank you," Leliana said, tipping her head to the assistant as well.

  "Do you..." Detan's murky gaze drifted over the pair of people who scraped by with their lives before focusing back on the Divine, "require anything else?"

  "I'm not certain," Leliana turned back towards the pair of them. "Lanny? Cullen?"

  "A long rest is all I intend, perhaps for a few days," he grumbled. His hand slipped away from Lana's back to dig into his eyes, mashing the mud stains nearer to his waterline.

  "Hm..." Lana wrapped both hands around her stick turned cane, and in an exaggerated fashion she limped towards Detan. "Let me think..." hobbling closer, Lana smiled at the elf nearly her same height. She leaned back upon her heels and glanced heavenward, as if contemplating before snapping her fingers, "Ah yes, I know."

  Swiping her stick fast, she smashed into the back of Detan's knees causing the elf to buckle. Cullen and Leliana both shouted a moment in surprise, while Lana grabbed onto the back of Detan's hair and yanked. Shrieking, the elf tried to claw herself free, but Lana gritted against any attack. With a force aided by both magic and seething hatred, Lana jammed Detan's face against the counter. She did it twice more until a crack reverberated through the suddenly still air only to be replaced by the elf's whimpering cry.

  "Lana!" Cullen shouted. "What are you...what's going on?" He tried to reach out to free the elf from her grasp, but Leliana waved him back, her lips twisted up in thought.

  "You almost got it right, Detan, or whatever your name is," Lana hissed near her ear. She tried to struggle, but Lana shoved her broken nose flatter against the counter causing pain to silence the fight. Blood pooled across the marble top, staining it for life.

  "I," Detan swallowed, then coughed out a spray of crimson, "I don't understand." Her words were rimmed with tears, no doubt genuine from the pain burrowing through her sinuses and into her brain. "What's going on? I did as you asked."

  "Yes, you did, exactly as asked. And then you sold us out."

  "What?" Cullen struggled, shaking his head. "What happened?"

  Lana didn't look over at him, all her wrath was focused on the traitor squirming below her fingers. "She knew your schedule, your movements, and they'd planned to attack today in, I'm guessing the square. Hundreds of people around to cause a panic ensuring that the assassins can fade away and the blame is passed to, who else, but mages come to murder the Commander of the Inquisition," Lana summed up, her spittle slapping against Detan's pointed ears. "But something went wrong."

  Now she turned away to Cullen, "The soldiers you met up with, they changed the plan. While you were off with them, this one," she wrung her fingers tighter against Detan's hair yanking strips out in her anger, "approached me in a fright wondering where you'd gotten off to. She needed to know where you were located and quickly."

  "That doesn't..." Cullen began, but as his eyes washed over the scrabbling spy his confused face melted to a sneer. "What did you do?" he hissed not at Lana but the elf.

  "I did nothing, your..."

  Lana pounded her head flatter, her chin splitting open against the edge. "Lies are getting you nowhere. She was the one who warned them to prepare for a mage with fire and ice capabilities."

  "Maker's breath!" Cullen cursed, beginning to pace in agitation at being tricked.

  "But..." Lana leaned closer, putting all her weight against Detan's back, "for all your clever tricks, your playing along, bobbing and bowing, offering discretion when needed, you missed so much."

  "You weren't supposed to be there," Detan hissed. "Alone, unarmed, unaided. That was the deal."

  Lana twisted her fist, ripping out more hair and causing Detan to shriek. "How dare you! How dare you fucking act as if what you were doing was a mercy? Only one needed to die? Tell that to your friends, all of them save one pulverized and burned to a crisp, by me. That mage you ignored." Her anger mutated into a raspy laugh, "Right in front of you the whole time and you missed the obvious."

  "The obvious what?" Detan gurgled, but Lana didn't answer her. If she couldn't see the Hero of Ferelden under her nose then she wasn't such a great spy after all.

  "I should kill you now," Lana hissed. "Do you know how many ways I could? Form a spike of ice upon my fingers and drive it up your bloody nostrils into your brain. Collapse your ribs, each jagged bone popping your lungs as you slowly suffocate, aching for a breath." The anger of betrayal folded with the depthless fear of losing Cullen, each pushing Lana to seek the most depraved vengeance she could manage. Casting an eye upward, she caught a duplicate hatred in his face. He thought he'd lost her the same as she feared losing him. Both wanted to burn Detan alive.

  Luckily, there was a cooler head remaining. "Lanny," Leliana whispered, her fingers glancing across her shoulders.

  "Let me finish this..." Lana said, trying to roll her friend's hand off her.

  "You already have."

  Slowly, Lana's shoulders dipped and the fever in her soul broke, leaving an ache in its wake. She knew she could kill Detan without a thought, assassins and spies deserved little, but it wasn't her call anymore. Leliana nodded her head at Lana, spotting the change in her demeanor. She didn't rele
ase her grasp on the elf but did lift her face off the counter enough so the Divine could look the traitor in the eye. Blood smeared across Detan's lips like rouge out of control and pooled down her throat from the gash in her chin.

  Barely flickering at the gore, Leliana leaned into her face, "What you have done to me, to my friends, to the chantry and the Inquisition is inexcusable."

  "I..." Detan's head folded downward, unable to take the Divine's disgusted stare.

  "What say you for your actions? For guiding the death of a man who fought to save the world from destruction, for caring little of a woman who..." Leliana gazed over at Lana who pursed her lips and shook her head. Detan didn't deserve to know the truth, "who did nothing to harm you?"

  Detan sucked in a watery breath, blood bubbling as she blew it out. She could have spat at Leliana, coated her white robes in a crimson stain, or cursed a storm, perhaps raged the same way the false templar did. Instead, a whimper rolled up her throat, and tears washed the blood off her cheeks.

  "I see," Leliana grabbed onto the elf's arm, the strength of a woman who fought for her place every day pinning her tight, "for now you will reside in our keep, until we decide what to permanently do with you."

  Dragging Detan with her, Leliana whistled and the two guards who always accompanied the Divine appeared from outside the door. She barely gave any orders beyond telling them to lock the woman up in their thickest chains. Dejected and broken, Detan's head lolled about staring at the carpet. Cullen slid closer to Lana, wrapping his hands around her shoulders. Exhausted, she nearly pitched forward now that the danger was abated, but he caught her, steadying her as they watched the traitor be hauled away. For a second Detan's eyes glanced back at the two, almost as if a whisper of an apology flitted about her lips, before she shook it away and faced a future of little hope.

  * * *

  Cullen clung to Lana's arm as she leaned against him for support. After making a sweep of the apartment, some of Leliana's better trained guards declared nothing amiss left by the spy in their midst. Lana sneered at them even looking, whispering with certainty that if she survived, Detan knew she was made. How could he have been so blind? To miss all the signs and in the process risk her to...