My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "Um, Lana? Hello?" he asked the thin air.

  "What?" her voice exasperated what sounded inches from his ear. Cullen jumped, twisting his heel across the slick stone while searching for the source.

  "Where are you?"

  "Where am...oh for the, did the illusion snap back into place? Hang on."

  He didn't have much to add to the bodiless voice, so Cullen gripped tighter to his sword and stared at the air. She cursed a few times under her breath and then, as if she'd always been standing there, Lana appeared inside what had been solid rock.

  "Old magic, elven I suspect, not that the college would ever listen to me," she muttered and pulled her hand away from a device. As she broke contact, the wall reformed around her.

  Cullen cried, reaching out to save her from a stone suffocation, but Lana touched the panel again and she snapped back into sight. "It should be maintaining but the spell's breaking down. Here, take my hand." She grabbed onto his fingers and pulled him close to her. Perhaps she expected him to put up more of a fight, or the mage didn't know her own strength, but Cullen slid across the floor. His body plowed into hers. By the Maker's grace, the true wall kept her upright and not sprawled out below him. Cullen threw his hands flat against the wall beside her head to try and keep himself balanced as he glared down at his traitorous feet.

  "Sorry about that, I, uh..." all semblance of thought vanished as he fell adrift into those bemused eyes.

  "You're not one for subtlety, I see." Lana broke her hands from the panel and wrapped them around Cullen's back. The stone wall shimmered into place, but he was too lost in the heat of her body to notice they were trapped in a false tomb.

  "I did not intend to, that is...you know."

  "Not really, no," she smiled, peering into him. He tried to form a response but the lithe body clinging to him pulverized all his words into a gooey mush of ums and uhs.

  In almost crushing her beneath him, her hair had slipped across her right eye. Cullen pushed the strands back behind her ear, her warm skin beckoning him to explore further but he flattened his hand to the wall beside her instead. Why do you unnerve me so?

  "People grow twitchy when they learn I killed an arch demon," Lana said.

  The color drained from Cullen's cheeks and he whipped his eyes at the mage pinned beneath him. "Did I speak that aloud?" Her eyes narrowed and she nodded her head.

  "Oh," a combination of relief that she hadn't skimmed his thoughts and mortification that he spoke without realizing stampeded across his face. "I, it's not your combat skills that..." he swallowed a sigh and stared down at her shoulder. It was the only part of her body he suspected wouldn't cause him to blush. "Even before you became a warden, I found myself, um, that is to say- Maker, I'm making a fool out of myself."

  Her fingers dusted along his jaw and chin, pulling his face to her. "It's a very handsome fool, if that helps." She had to feel the burn bright under her fingers as he tried to shrug away her compliment. It didn't matter what mages thought of his appearance. It shouldn't matter for his duty, but he secreted her words deep into his heart to listen to again later.

  "I've been bumbling around you ever since the first time we met," Cullen admitted, daring to let his memory drift back to Ferelden.

  Lana screwed her eyes up, "I don't remember that."

  "The blueberry bushes outside the tower during the storm when I almost called you by your preferred name, not that I should have used any name." The confession burned on his tongue. He feared he needed to recite a few canticles afterwards to appease Andraste for his sin.

  Lana shook her head, "We met long before that. I remember it. The mousey templar with the Orlesian name was giving a new knight the tour around the tower. He always took a perverse joy in stomping unannounced into the bathing area."

  "Oh Maker," Cullen squeaked, his own memory jogging in line with hers. How did he forget that?

  "Ah," Lana smiled, "I take it you also remember a rather impertinent apprentice who covered the entire room in watery suds."

  "You had good reason," he said. He'd never told the then nameless woman how grateful he was to have her blanket the area in opaque foam. It was obviously some sort of hazing ritual, Charnell chuckling at the new knight about to melt into the floor from their bursting upon where they should not have been. The mages hustled for towels and robes while Cullen wished he could spin his helmet around and walk out of the room. And then, a smile plastered across her face, one of them obliterated a block of soap. Water and suds erupted through the room shielding every naked surface and soaking into both of the templar uniforms. Charnell grumbled for days about the mess while Cullen was ecstatic to have escaped. The Knight-Commander had a few half-hearted words with the templars about minding their manners, not that it amounted to much officially. But the templars who didn't wish to stand around for a day with their smallclothes sopping wet gave the apprentices their rightful space.

  "How did you know it was me?" Cullen asked. "I was wearing the helmet at the time."

  Lana chuckled, "You really think we didn't know who was who under all that metal? We lived with you, same as you knew us. I could spot your amber eyes from a hundred feet away. Plus," her hands slipped around the back of his neck and she lifted on her toes to meet him eye to eye, "you kept stuttering when I asked a question. That made it easier to find you."

  "I'd assumed that you, you wouldn't have even, that is..."

  "See, that stutter." She curled into him and gently kissed his lips. Her tongue dipped into his mouth leaving behind a cooling sensation from her frost spell that melted inside him. Cullen froze for a beat, his own mind trapped back in the circle. Every touch from her still drew forth the same question 'Could this really be happening?' Did he deserve this? Lana broke away and pecked once more against his lips. She brought her forehead against his, and her fingers twisted around one of his short curls trying to draw it forth from the mass. This shouldn't be happening, he had no right to impose himself into her life like this. Whatever this was. What could truly come of it after, anyway? He may be on unsteady ground in matters of the heart but he wasn't naive. That finger twirling in his hair could burn deepstalkers alive. Those hands that caressed his skin could freeze darkspawn solid. She was a mage, she could become corrupted, she could fall. And the only way to rid herself of the curse of magic would be to give up everything that made him love her, everything that made her Lana.

  "Charnell was the reason I was at your harrowing," Cullen spoke trying to douse his enflamed body. "He drew up the list, selected me specially. At the time, I did not realize why he chose me. I'd thought it an unlucky draw of the Maker, not that he'd try to punish us both."

  Lana's fingers slipped out of his hair and down his sides. She didn't push him away, but that barrier flared up between them, that reminder that they were forever opposed like water to oil. "Funny how the harrowing was the least worst thing to happen to me that day. Not all mages are so lucky."

  "I'm sorry," he said, uncertain what to say.

  "Never mind." Her cheeks sunk down and her smile lines folded away, leaving her face as stark as frozen snow. For the first time Cullen saw the Amell resemblance. "We should stop White before he hurts anyone else. I never imagined he'd be capable of so much..."

  Cullen nodded his head. "Blood mages are vicious and unpredictable. Once a mage dabbles in the forbidden, it's only a matter of time before they kill."

  She twisted her head towards him, her eyes narrowing. "I know that blood mages can come from anywhere. It took a friend, ex-friend to teach me that." Lana slipped out from under him and pointed to a staircase hidden on their side of the illusion. After adjusting her robes, she started up the stairs.

  The pillar was not a friend to people of the long legged variety, the stairs being just close enough together to make climbing one at a time difficult, but far enough apart to render two a test of flexibility. Lana handled it well for awhile, twisting higher away from Cullen, but even she seemed to slow. Her labored breath ec
hoed through the stairs above him. He knew he was making even more death rattling noises, but something in her struggle pulled at him.

  "Are you all right?" he called out. Rounding up the stairs he found her leaning against the tight wall, her head tipped down in thought.

  Lana nodded and pursed her lips. She rose from her lean and forced a smile, "Waiting for you to catch up."

  "I've felt woefully out of practice for this trip," Cullen admitted. He wasn't prideful enough to feel an ego sting from following her commands -- she knew the deep roads and the darkspawn, but he wished he could add more beyond slicing up a few monsters and waving his blade at the blood mage from across a ravine.

  Her fingers skimmed across his gauntlet, "You will be of great use soon enough, we've almost reached the top."

  "I suppose now's a good time to ask what makes this spire so special."

  Lana continued to trudge higher up the stairs and Cullen noticed she was using her staff as a walking stick again. The blade bulged from where she strapped it to her back, ready to be knotted back on the end in the event of a fight. "As you probably determined already, this spire was once part of the defenses for this thaig. We think there were four in total just like it, along with a fifth one that housed the golems and other ancient dwarven traps that'd spring at the most unexpected of times. Two of the pillars collapsed, most of their treasures submerged into the lake."

  "The third one?" Cullen asked. He paused in his steps as an unexplained dread settled in his gut. His skin hummed the way his armor would when mages practiced their lightning spells. The smell of the air during a summer storm hung thick through the staircase. He licked his lips and a spark shot off his tongue.

  Lana sighed, "Darkspawn," then turned around to watch more sparks erupting from his mouth. "Ah, that's a good sign, sort off." She drew her hand so close across his face her palm glanced upon his lips, but no energy chased out to sting her skin. The humming across his body fell silent. "It's the reason we were drawn here. One of the reasons. Come on, it's easier to show than explain. Probably because I'm still not certain how it works."

  Finally, they emerged at the top of the spire. Another iron ball sat in the middle of the room, turbulent green light circling its surface. It sunk to chest height into the floor, only the top half visible while the rest was submerged into the tower. Someone took the time to try and set up a short ring of boxes around it as if to keep anyone from accidentally knocking or falling into it. "What is it?"

  "We have no idea, even any mention in the memories is more hearsay than record." Lana placed her staff on the floor and turned to gaze out through the windows. The spire overlooked the rest of the thaig and was so close to the ceiling they could reach out and touch it. They were also now eye level with the ball that first erupted with the green magic across the entire thaig. So close, in fact, Cullen realized that while the one at their feet could crush a battalion, the one overlooking the cavern could kill an army.

  "White called it the node because it was better than big green metal ball thingie. Each smaller one located in the security spires is, or was, connected to the main node located above us," Lana pointed to the massive thing screwed into the ceiling above their heads.

  Cullen watched closer and realized that the light didn't burn off the metal as he'd thought but drifted across it like a verdant fog. Hazy shapes formed upon the surface of the giant node, leaving behind glimpses of things that burned his eyes. "What does it do?"

  "This should impress the templar. It negates nearly all magic in the area. Watch." Lana spun on her heels and raised both hands. Her eyes glittered as she moved through the familiar motions of casting a fireball, now aimed directly at Cullen. He threw his shield up, instincts twisting his body into place, when she shoved her hands forward. Fire should have pounded into him and scattered off the edges of his shield, but only a whiff of smoke trailed off her fingers. "See."

  He stared at the unmarred metal of his shield and then back to her, "I've never heard of anything like this. And the dwarves have it? Had it? But why?"

  "That was my thought too, why would they need to protect themselves from magic if they cannot cast it? Were they in conflict with someone who could, or did dwarves once have a connection to the fade that was then lost? Imagine the possibilities if that were true?" Her eyes lit up even more than when she cast her fire smoke. Cullen felt an overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her after each ecstatic sentence as she explained every theory in her mind. Instead, he massaged his neck, the hiss of whatever was blanketing magic coating his body anew.

  "What were you and White actually looking for here?" he asked.

  Lana's smile faded as reality snapped back, "It wasn't this, we stumbled upon it purely by accident. I wish we could send a real team down here to study it, but it's not safe for circles to attempt through the horde and wardens don't have time for such frivolities." Her wistful gaze turned away from the node and she faced Cullen. Lana squared her shoulders as if to present herself before an assembly, "We'd been trying to unravel the secrets of the blight. Our hope is, was to one day find the exact location where the darkspawn began and believed that knowledge would lead us to the how."

  "We know how. Tevinter magisters breached the golden city turning it black. The Maker turned his gaze away from us and blighted the world."

  "So says the chantry," Lana said diplomatically.

  Cullen rounded upon her, "Are you saying you don't believe in the chantry?"

  "I'm a mage, the chantry doesn't particularly believe in me."

  That wasn't true. Magic should serve man not rule over him, yes, but the chantry didn't call for a purge of mages. Just to watch over them, keep them safe from themselves. Any mage could be a danger so they had to be watched, but... "What of Andraste or the Maker?"

  "Oh, for the love of...I found the ashes of Andraste." Lana threw her arms wide and glared at him, "This isn't about my beliefs! I...grey wardens have a reason, a personal reason to want to find the truth, to bring light to the darkness about the blight. Whatever the chantry does and does not claim to have happened is no concern of mine. I want answers, not comforting songs."

  "I, I shouldn't have pushed it. I'm sorry. I'd just, given all you seem to suffer through traveling in this desolate abyss had hoped you..."

  "Had someone to confess my sins to after?" Lana snarled.

  "Had someone to find comfort in," Cullen shrunk down, uncertain why he kept picking at this. All mages in the circle were raised Andrastian by chantry law, but he knew plenty who turned from it. Some of the elves picked up the creator gods of the dalish, but just as many turned from any gods. The latter took a perverse joy in taunting the ones who stayed within the embrace of Andraste. It made for loud discussions and louder explosions when matters of religion arose in the eating hall. Cullen kept himself away from all the old arguments, the question of free will versus sin, the Maker's plan, but he trusted in Andraste. In his darkest days, when he feared each breath would only bring a fresh pain through his body and soul, when everyone turned from him, all he had to cling to was his faith. It kept him buoyant before he could find a purpose to guide him.

  "Cullen..." Lana gripped onto his forearm, drawing him out of his sulk, "I'm not alone." She tried to smile in reassurance but he knew that lie well, told it to himself often enough. He was never more alone than when he was surrounded by his own knights. They needed orders, not a friend. His own hand covered hers and he wrapped his fingers tight as if to shield her. For a world's heartbeat they stared into each other, waiting to see who would break away first. It stung Cullen to realize how often he kept finding pieces of himself reflected back in her as if they were two sides of the same coin, bundled together in a never ending flip of fate.

  "We should prepare for White," Lana spoke. She slipped her fingers out of his grasp and wound them around her staff.

  Cullen nodded, "Of course, but don't we have to find him first?"

  Lana sneered, "He will come to us."


  "Why?"

  "Because when I lit up the node the defenses awoke. A barrier's locked off the entire thaig. The only way out is by destroying the node. And the only way to destroy the node is by getting through us."

  Chapter Ten

  Confrontation

  Her plan was -- he wished he could call it sound but he barely understood the intricacies of it beyond stopping White. The green node continued to cast its magical interfering qualities through the air. Lana stood beside the window, gazing down at the lake below. She'd only break away from her vigil to inspect the node, clucking her tongue at some impenetrable change in the magic, or anti-magic, or however it worked. The device unnerved him. With each passing minute, Cullen found it increasingly difficult to stare at the node. He tried to keep his back turned and guard the staircase that White would have to take, but movement kept drawing him back to the shifting light across the mottled iron. At first it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, the buzzing upon his skin increasing. But as he continued to stare at it, he found himself able to peer inside the solid ball. The inner working pulsed with an unexplainable heartbeat, slower than a living person's but far more powerful - as if pulsing with the world. He wanted to reach out and touch it, merge his fingers into the inner-workings.

  Lana grabbed onto his extended fingers, pulling Cullen back to the real world. Pain stung his watery eyes from the lack of blinking while he fell into whatever compulsion the node produced. She tried to catch his sight while Cullen scrunched his eyes up, "Are you all right?"

  "It's difficult to look at," he said.

  Her forehead wrinkled, and she whipped back to the node, "What do you see?"

  "Ah," he wiped at his eyes with the back of his glove and stared back at the clearly solid ball. Whatever vision it produced was just that, an illusion probably brought on from exhaustion and ancient magic hissing in the air. "It was like seeing a mana clash instead of feeling it"