Alistair looked up at his return while Aqun only glared through him, tired of the delay. Knocking back and forth on his feet, Alistair said, "We can try something else. It doesn't have to be the lyrium if..."
"Give it to me," Cullen said, his hand steady as he held his palm out to the king.
"Are you sure?" Alistair asked. Cullen didn't answer him, only glared, and the king dropped the vial into his hand.
It felt heavier than he remembered. How could such a small bottle of liquid feel as if it was full of lead? Cullen's thumb ran along the edge. The last time he came this close he wanted to obliterate every memory of Lana, purge himself of ever knowing her, ever loving her. Now, he prayed to Andraste that he not lose a second of their time together. It was all he had left.
"I cannot see the path," Cullen recited the next verse of the prayer as he unscrewed the top. "Perhaps there is only abyss." The vial's edge sat against his lips shaking with both fear and anticipation. "Trembling, I step forward...in darkness enveloped." Tipping it back, Cullen lost himself in the cold blue liquid oozing down his throat returning to him a part he forgot he lost. It felt as if he grew another arm or leg, an invisible limb that withered and fell off from his three years of sobriety. Why did he even bother? Energy surged through him, the sweet song of duty blanketing down his anxiety until he felt -- no, he knew what he had to do.
Grabbing onto the bars, Cullen claimed the lyrium snaking through his blood as his own and blasted apart the first ward, then the second, and third. This was easy. So much easier than when he attempted it before. How could he have been so blind to give up this strength when it was needed most? The lunacy of it...
Whether through the phylactery pressing next to him, or his own clinging mind, a vision rose of Lana -- her lip quivering -- as she asked him if he'd begun to lose any memories. She tried to wall away her emotions but he could sense it, read it in her in a way he never could in anyone else. Lana was terrified that one day he'd wake and not remember her.
Tears welled up, burning brighter from the lyrium surging inside his body. He wiped them away, digging his grimy gloves into his eyes because he deserved to feel the pain.
"There's one more," Aqun pointed out, her voice breaking through the hushed silence that fell between the group.
When this was over, no matter what they found, Cullen swore to himself he'd never take lyrium again. Gritting his teeth, he obliterated the last ward, wishing he could will the chantry's poison out of his body with it, but the lyrium remained as it would for a few days. Maker only knew how much of his mind it would drain when it went.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Heartbreak
?:?? ?
Damn it! Lana's fingers pinched into her forehead, the thumb screwed tight against her skull as she tried to block her memories from the feasting demon fattening its liver on every flush of her heart. Raising off the ground, she shook her head madly, willing the demon's grasping fingers out of her weeping brain.
"You're growing stronger," it said, as if that was a good thing. Of course she was, with every memory the demon grew indomitable clenching her tighter to this place like a butterfly pinned to a board. "Do not make that face, dearest. I'm helping you. Saving you so we can be together. Isn't that what you want?"
"What I want is to be free!" Lana shrieked, spinning around to glower at the floating form. She knew why Regret transformed itself into Jowan, Duty into Nathaniel, and Curiosity to Wynne -- but it took her ages to determine why this spirit bore no face. There were two logical candidates in the running and yet it chose neither. But then, maybe that was why. This spirit, or demon, was interested in only one thing from her, and to see either face would cause the opposite of what it wanted; heartbreak instead of love. Was it that simple? It couldn't be that easy? Right?
The demon's eyes, little more than shadows against the white smoke, darkened as it sensed the change in her. "Your crafty mind has thought of something, hasn't it? I can feel you calling to her, that...what did you call her? Wynne? But she won't be coming. None of them are strong enough to reach you now."
Lana paced back and forth, her mind flitting through her past but not touching it. She needed something beyond a quick burn to strike back at this spirit. Her body was breaking down out there, losing its fight. If she didn't free herself quickly, there...there would be nothing to come back to. Just like Niall in the tower. A sly smile knotted up her panicked face, and Lana smugly turned to the spirit.
"You want to revel in every love to cross my path? Have this."
Camp. Maybe the last one before the end. No one spoke much after they set out from Denerim for Redcliffe. No one needed to. They knew what was at stake, an entire years worth of buildup for the end. An end she never thought they'd reach. She should be happy, or at least grateful to come to a conclusion, but... Lana stood perched upon a log staring deep into the hooded forest. To the handful of soldiers traveling with their strange group it looked as if she was on guard piercing through the darkness for potential danger. To those who knew her...well, at least they hadn't said anything yet.
"Eamon's reporting some sightings of darkspawn near the Hinterlands."
Her back tightened at the voice trying to wedge itself back into her life. "I see," Lana responded, hoping he'd catch on and return to his own royal tent.
But Alistair was always slow. "Lucky thing we'll be there tomorrow."
"Uh huh."
"And there was a bird, or squirrel, or something from Riordan. He's off scouting the darkspawn to figure out where the horde is. I think. I was never very good at deciphering the Grey Warden code. We should get special rings to help with that."
He continued flinging words into the air as if an incessant babble would somehow blind her to what happened after the Landsmeet. Make her forget the choice he made without including her, without even raising the question to her before he decided. Unable to take anymore, Lana interrupted him, "Why are you here?"
That threw Alistair off, his ideas on an official grey warden handshake evaporating into the night air. "To fight darkspawn...?"
"You don't belong with us. You should be with the royal regiment surrounded by guards sworn to protect you, not traipsing through Ferelden's backwaters with a slapped together crew of murderers, witches, sisters, and whatever Oghren is," Lana gestured towards the people who somehow became the friends she could most count upon. Turning around to face him, for the first time to stare into those eyes since he broke her heart, Lana spat out, "Your highness."
"I..." Alistair banged his limp hands together, "I will see this through."
"Oh, you'll see that through, but not--"
"Lanny, is now the time? I, we have to stop this blight. To finish what was started over a year ago, do what wardens do. You can yell at me to your heart's content after. Okay?"
Maker damn him, but he was right. Her skin burned as she oscillated from a tearing-his-limbs-off rage to crumpled-in-a-heap sorrow, but somehow neither appeared on her face. To the rest of the army, she looked stoic, concerned, but prepared to throw herself fully into battle -- which was what they needed. A year, a fucking year they traveled up and down Ferelden knotting together every farmer with a pitchfork, city elf who carved himself a shiv, and branded dwarf willing to risk the surface all to create an army. The army necessary to stop the blight. To let it all fall apart now would...would make every sacrifice moot. She couldn't do that, not after all their work, not when thedas needed her to be strong.
Lana turned back to the woods so he wouldn't see her cry. She'd learned how to silence her sobs years ago in her bed at the tower, to curtail the tremble of her shoulders and the gasping of breath, but those cursed tears always fell. The man didn't deserve to know that he'd gotten to her. Alistair bounced back and forth on his feet, not wanting to leave but also not wanting to stay. Realizing there was nothing there for him, he turned to leave when Lana spoke up.
"When I was in the circle tower, we... Love is a luxury, relationships are a luxury.
You can't afford to become invested because there is nothing beyond the few stolen moments. No marriage, no children, no growing old together. I thought I was, I could play the game same as any other mage. Keep my heart locked away, to not get emotionally invested in...a bit of fun. Not two weeks out in the world I meet you, obliterating everything I put in place to protect myself."
"I..." his voice whispered through the howling winds, the solitary word thudding to the ground.
She wrapped her arms around her chest and glared through the shadows, but all her attention was upon the man staring limply at the ground behind her. "Tell me, I... when you, all of it, every touch, every kiss, every- If you were playing with me, then, then I can hate you and move on. If it was your own game, your way of testing the waters, getting your feet wet before settling down, then...then I, I-" She needed to know and yet didn't want to ask, but Lana spent most of her life doing things she didn't want to, "When you told me you loved me, was it a lie?"
The sound of Alistair sucking in his breath broke so strongly above the winds a few of his guards glanced over. It seemed as if she managed to kick the air out of his lungs with only a question. But he had to know she'd suspect it. How easily he swapped her away for the crown with nary a shred of loss on his face as he denounced her. Not even worthy of a single tear. She thought she knew him, thought he was better than that. Believed Alistair wasn't one to toy with her for his own gain.
"No, Lanny. I..." he swallowed again. She could feel his hand hovering just above her shoulder as if he wanted to touch it but was terrified to get near her. "I love you."
He could lie now, but what would be the point? She'd hate him either way, whether for using her like his play thing and discarding her the moment she became inconvenient or for idiotically throwing away something she never thought herself capable of. Love had been beyond her, a pretty ideal in books and songs that intrinsically meant nothing. Pain was life, the tower taught her that, and losing people hurt in varying degrees. If that was all love was, the pain of loss, then who cared? Every person in the circle could be swiped down at a moment's notice. It wasn't the sorrow tearing up her veins and wrapping its tendrils deep into her brain that concerned her. It was the fact that, in spite of him ripping out her heart and crushing it below his crown, she still hated the idea of hurting him. She still loved him.
"That's a pity," Lana whispered to the forest, "because I love you too."
"It wasn't, I..." Alistair struggled to find a word to say, anything to somehow wipe away the fact he drove a hook insider her chest and gutted her clean through. Through a mumbled breath he whispered, "There's nothing you can do."
"No? What if I made you wear frilly trousers with embroidered cats upon them?" Her words were light hearted, but her voice choked through a sob.
"I'd still love you," Alistair gulped behind her.
She shouldn't be dragging this out. He made his choice, his peace, he had a future to look forward to and she had...she had a blight to finish. "What if I filled your bedroll with moldy potatoes? Or if I hid ants in your porridge? Or if I had Oghren spit in your gloves? Or..." Every 'or' grew higher and higher in pitch, her voice panicking as she spoke them. If she could find the right one, the reason he'd give up on her then maybe, maybe she'd find her reason to stop loving him too.
"Lanny," the first man she ever trusted with her heart, ever let not just inside her body but her mind, to know her thoughts, her dreams, grabbed onto her hand. She didn't turn around to face him, couldn't -- just watched as he ran his fingers over her skin. His voice cracked from tears dripping in his words as he whispered, "There's nothing in thedas, the fade, or beyond you could do that would make me stop loving you."
Lana closed her eyes tight, willing away the pain burning behind them. As she pulled her hand away from his to let it dangle in the cold air, she said emotionless, "What if I made you king?"
"AH!" the spirit shrieked in her ear, the voice rattling across every stone below her. Lana opened her eyes against a burn as the tears from so many years ago dribbled free. Her heart crashed the same as it had at that last campsite, the memory pouring all the emotion into her with it, but Lana smiled at the spirit. A grin of malevolence twisted up her cheeks as she gazed out at the demon's domain crashing apart. The statue of Andraste rotted away, the head tumbling backwards into weeds twisting up through the stones of the chantry, dead vines claimed the Lady's body. It was working.
"What's the matter, spirit? Don't enjoy that love as much?" Lana taunted. She struggled to rise from where she landed in a pew, the energy unhappy to flood into her depleting veins. A bone curdling cold swept across her skin, inexplicable in the fade.
"If. You. Do. Not. Stop. You. Will. Die," the demon spat out, clinging to its head as if suffering from a splitting headache.
"So you say, and yet I'm still here," Lana mocked, savoring this narrow victory. She had more, so much more inside of her. An entire lifetime's worth of heartache to throw at this creature. "Give up now, let me go and I'll stop."
The spirit chuckled, "You know I cannot do that. I cannot let you injure yourself the way you dream of, the pictures of how you'd end it flitting through your mind." Lana's victorious smile fell, her throat clutching at the spirit's taunt. "You cling to them sometimes, press them into the pages of your memory in case they're ever needed. But I will not let you accomplish it. I will save you."
"That's not love, demon," anger knocked over any shame, sending Lana barreling towards the creature, "I'd rather face death at the thousands of spiders you keep at bay or live for a brief second in the real world than face eternity with you."
Twisting its head back and forth, form began to take substance across the demon. Not much, only a glimmer of opacity, the creature's head knotting upwards into two streaks almost like horns. "How do you intend to stop me?" the demon asked.
Crossing her arms, Lana tipped her head back and shouted, "Jowan? Get in here, because I'm going to give you the memory you've always wanted."
The last of the smoke curled around the pyre creaking in the winds upon the sands of Seheron. Varric and Isabela both left a few minutes into lightning it but he stood there, his chin pulled to his chest, watching silently as the flames consumed Maric's body. Alistair's only family wafted away like ash on the breeze.
Lana curled her hand inside his, clinging tight. He'd been quiet after they found Maric, the real Maric outside of the fade. Sullen wasn't Alistair's way; when something bothered him he walled it up tight and distracted anyone prying apart the bricks with jokes. But silence was all he could manage while they tried to do right by the one great king of Ferelden, barely a word slipping through his lips.
She tried to shake the fade's memories from her mind -- how easily she'd fallen into its trap, imagined that-that, it didn't matter. None of it was real, nor could it ever be. Maker only knew what havoc it would wreak upon Alistair, had already shattered inside of him. He reached his free hand out towards the ashes which were still blisteringly hot. Lana threw ice around them, struggling to cool it before he burned himself on accident. Barely slowing at the flare of magic, Alistair picked a pinch of the ashes between his fingers - the same amount they'd used to heal Eamon so many years ago. He released his hold on her to cup his father's ashes in both of his hands, staring down at them trying to mourn the man who created him, the one he never knew.
"Alistair," Lana tried to guard him from hurting himself, "it's been a...a long day. We should get some sleep first."
He looked about to agree with her, to return Maric's ashes to the pyre so they could collect them all later, to follow her to the campsite with the qunari, to cry against her shoulder as they figured out their next step. Slipping her hand back into his, Lana tugged upon him to follow, when a sigh groaned through Alistair's body.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It's not your fault, you...you had to do it."
"No, Lanny," he opened his hand letting hers hang alone in the air. Straightening up, he turned his empty fa
ce towards her. "I am sorry for misplacing your honor, for taking advantage of you."
No. He couldn't be serious. Not again! She snapped her hand back, tears bunching behind her eyes. "Don't you dare," she threatened, jabbing a finger at him.
"It was my mistake, my failure, my weakness," he moaned as if he wanted to be punished, wanted to make himself feel as miserable as possible by taking her down with him. "I think it's best if we-if we return to what we were before."
"You bastard," she stated the fact, glaring coldly through his Maker damned, white knight bullshit. "You spineless, cold hearted, feckless bastard." Alistair flinched with every word, but he shuddered as she threw bastard at him, not because the word hurt but because it struck back at her. If he wasn't a bastard, if he hadn't been some king's hidden son, then he wouldn't be breaking her heart again.
"Lanny..." he began, "I know this isn't--"
"Know? You don't know a Maker given thing, Alistair. You've never known because you don't want to. You run the moment something falters, fails. Tuck your tail between your legs and scamper on home while the rest of us pick up the pieces alone!" She tried to fight down the hurt in her voice, the tears burning her eyes, but she wasn't strong enough. Damn him! Damn him to the void!
"I'm doing what's right for--"
"Oh no, don't you dare give me that noble bullshit about how you're sacrificing yourself for the better good, for my sake, for the fucking kingdom. You don't give a nug's ass in winter about the gentry, about any of that shit. You'd have given it all up in a heartbeat if you could," she shouted, gesturing at Maric's pyre. "All you care about, all you've ever cared about is yourself."
My Love Page 84