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The tremendous fortress of Adamant perched on the edge of the Abyssal Reach like a great bird of prey ready to plunge down mercilessly into the void. The land itself reeked from the taint of the darkspawn, its foul stench extinguishing all life in the Western Approach. The land was barren and unmoving around the strife of the battle that unravelled out of the dusk in front of his eyes.
Dorian felt like he was thrown into the epicentre of this Maker forsaken chaos as he let loose another chain of lightning. He felt his magic depleting from his limbs by the minute as the fighting raged on without mercy. His bones rattled as the dragon spewing red lyrium shrieked above them in the sky, drowning out the clanking of swords and the cries of the injured. Demons materialized from the Fade as they crossed the veil that was torn by a thousand cuts of blood magic and death. He glanced around in the courtyard that was turned into a bloody battlefield. The losses on both sides must have been innumerable. The Grey Wardens fought harder than any opponent they’ve ever faced. He couldn’t let go of the gut wrenching feeling he that they believed that they fought for the right cause just as much as the Inquisition did.
After subduing another rage demon he slumped to the cold stone wall and uncorked one of his remaining elfroot potions. The cool substance soothed his pain but it couldn’t replace his stamina with its artificial restorative powers. He leaned on his staff and his eyes searched for the Inquisitor and the others that were in the company. The sparks of battle caught his eyes on the bridge above the lower courtyards. He squinted to see through the streams of perspiration dripping into his eyes but it seemed that they finally cornered Livius. His chest filled with disgust at the thought of his countryman who oversaw the corruption of the ancient order of the Grey. The Wardens might not have been the best company, like that morose man they met at Crestwood but they were the reasons, as it were, that the world still existed. To corrupt and defile their very essence was an unforgivable crime.
He wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe when the blast that destroyed the bridge bore down upon him with a shattering force. He saw the great lyrium beast sneering and thrashing as it slid down the collapsing construct. His heart drummed in his ears as he saw the Inquisitor and their allies running as the rocks crumbled away from under their feet. He clenched his teeth in a silent prayer but the fall was inevitable. They dropped out of his sight and into the bottomless chasm. Lost. Everything was lost. The hollow thought echoed in his head as the battle continued.
“Charge! Charge! For the Inquisitor!” The familiar voice kindled a spark of hope. He turned his gaze back down and saw the Commander surrounded by a group of soldiers pushing back the hoard of demons and mages up the stairs. He gripped his staff and delved into fray with a renewed force. If they were to die then they were not going down without making the enemy pay for it. Ironic how it was one of the first things he ever heard Cullen say, and it will be the last that he thought seeing him.
He twirled his staff and with a strike to the ground he raised a wall of ice that trapped the enemy behind it and gave a chance for their archers to pick them out one by one as they pushed against the magical barrier. He looked back and caught the Cullen’s eyes who responded with the shadow of an exhausted smile already returning to the soldiers and trying to create some semblance of an order to march on and liberate the next landing of the fort.
Dorian saw it first but his yell came too late. A mage rushed in the door that was the gateway of the Commander’s squad just a moment ago. Her eyes were vacant and her movements mechanical that almost resembled those of the Tranquil. She threw her staff to the side and raised a dagger plunging it into her chest. By the time her body could hit the ground a host of demons pushed and forced their way through the rifts that lacerated the barrier between this world and the next. To Dorian’s utter horror the fallen soldiers, both friend and foe, stirred on the ground as well. How could even Corypheus possess such terrible power?
Fortunately his instincts seemed to work the fire magic that he intended to conjure of their own accord as little flames already danced at his fingertips. He concentrated all his willpower into the attack that cleared a path that was free of Inquisition soldiers by burning a mob of corpses into flying cinders that floated up towards the night sky. The soldiers lashed out against their newly risen enemies and the clatter weapons and armour filled the air yet again.
‘Will this ever end?’ Dorian thought, though he knew that it was in vain. It was only a matter of time before too many demons poured through the fissures of the veil and their infinite army drowned the all of them in blood. He reached into his pocket in search of a vial of potion but a torrent of razor sharp icy crystals knocked him on the floor. He held out his staff in front of him and conjured a barrier but the despair demon’s unrelenting blizzard chipped away at it at an alarming speed. Still, it bought him enough time to scramble to his feet and shoot a beam of flash fire that toppled the creature over in the midst of ear splitting screams as it dissolved into nothingness.
He was still gripped by the lingering desperation that accompanied the fight with the twisted spirit when he touched the side of his temple where it was throbbing in pain and realized that he was bleeding. The warm drops trailed down the side of his face and stained the silk of his collar. He looked around the bloodshed in search of a blond haired figure until he noticed the commander who was fighting with a terror that towered over him not a stone’s throw away. Dorian desperately tried to wade through the bodies of the fallen and the struggle of those that were still able to swing a sword. He was but a few feet away when he saw it happen. The demonic beast threw Cullen through the air as if he weighed nothing. The Commander clashed against the wall with his back and fell on his hands and knees. Dorian never knew if he in fact made it to screaming or he only intended to but his rage propelled him forward and he hit the monster with all his remaining force. Before it had any time to recuperate he conjured a static cage that evaporated the monster when it tried to lunge after him.
He rushed to Cullen’s side who tried to lean on his sword and regain his footing even as blood was dripping from the corner of his lips.
“No. No, no. Cullen. Don’t try to stand up-” Dorian fell to his side to look at his face. “I’ll get a healer--just stay here and--” he hoped he didn’t sound as panicked as he felt.
“Dorian” Cullen smiled through his pain. “You’re here.” That was all he managed to say before his legs gave out under him and he collapsed on the blood covered floor. Dorian caught him and cradled him to his lap. The commander reached out and bunched up Dorian’s robe in his fist holding on to it like a lifeline. “I’m glad.”
“Don’t you dare-- Cullen, please” Dorian begged but the soldier’s eyes were already closing, their focus slipping away. The mage looked up frantically for someone, anyone to help but the rest of the world hasn’t noticed them at all. ‘Where was Vivienne now, when they needed her the most? Where were any of their mages?’ he thought furiously.
He snapped his head back as the grip on his clothes loosened and reached a hand up to hold his dying love’s face. His thoughts raced at the speed of lightning searching for a way to undo what was happening in front of his eyes. His mana was depleted and he was no spirit healer. He was never versed in the school of creation magic as it was despised in the Circles of Tevinter, looked down upon when there were much superior arts, like necromancy and blood magic. He could siphon life force from the enemy if they weren’t spirits and undead. That left him with the singular choice of blood magic. He squeezed his eyes shut and sunk his fingers into the fur of Cullen’s cape. The powerlessness made him cry out in rage. He leaned down and touched his forehead to the other’s.
“I’m sorry, amatus.” he whispered into his lover’s lips.
***
Cullen’s eyes blinked open at the night sky that was visible through the torn roof of his loft. He rubbed a hand over his face and gingerly turned to the side to curl around the warm body under the furs. It’s been two months since Adamant and his ribs that were broken still ached although they’ve been magically knit together. He pressed his nose against Dorian’s neck and grazed it with a small kiss.
“You still can’t sleep” he stated and the mage only nodded not turning around.
The last few weeks have been strenuous for them both. The memory of Adamant was still hanging above them. Cullen remembered being broken and dying on the field of battle...and then waking up to Dorian collapsing by his side. The mage exhausted himself by using spells he never did before and it nearly cost him his life. After the Inquisitor returned from the Fade and ended the siege with a gesture of a hand they were both taken to the healers’ tent. He remembered turning his face towards Dorian on his cot and seeing the other’s face pale, bloody and tear stained but he never saw the other man cry. He had too much pride for that. For a reason that was evaded by both of them even after they recovered their conversations were strained until the day they got back to Skyhold. Cullen had to tend to the issues of the army and lost sight of the mage for the entire day only to find him with a bottle in hand between dusty crates in one of the back rooms of the Herald’s Rest. The question whether he was okay was rewarded by a stinging slap and unexpected anger on his lover’s face. Dorian was not drunk. He hadn’t been since... since he didn’t need to forget his life into the depths of a goblet of wine. Cullen asked again this time with more consideration:
“What happened in the Approach was dreadful” he paused as the mage finally raised his head to look him in the eyes. “What brought this on after all this time?”
Dorian shook his head and laughed a little bitterly.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you” he said, his gaze darting away to the bare wall above Cullen’s shoulder. He rubbed a hand over his face and let his head fall back against the wall. His eyeliner was smudged but just enough to make it noticeable for an eye that has been studying their artful lines so often.
“I’m sorry that you had to go through that” Cullen looked at him and tried to convey with his eyes what he was unable to do with words.
Dorian’s head snapped back with a defiant gaze. “Well I’m not sorry to have been there. If I weren’t then you would have…” he took a deep breath as if his resolve wavered. “I saw the Inquisitor fall and I thought that it was all over but then I saw you and then you fell too. I was there by your side and my abilities were useless, I couldn’t do anything…” he trailed off.
“But you did. I am here, Dorian”
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know until they found us, and I thought I failed you, that I did the wrong thing, that I lost you.”
Cullen’s words of promise died in his throat, unsaid. How could he promise that they were not going to lose each other in the war that threatened to swallow the world? Dorian shook his head but he raised a hand to cup the side of his face.
“Are you alright?” he asked softly.
Cullen answered with a rueful smile of his own turning to press a kiss to the warm palm and taking it in his own hands. He rose and pulled Dorian off the ground as well and embraced him burying his nose into the neck of the other just as it was buried there now on this cold night of his quarters.
“You are still hurting” it was a statement again greeted with another nod. “Please, tell me.”
Dorian turned on his back and his eyes were faintly shining in the muted luminescence of the stars. He hesitated.
“When you died in Adamant, I had to make a choice” he started his words hanging in the air unfinished. Cullen’s brows knit in confusion but he remained silent.
“I had to choose between giving in to temptation or losing you to my own ignorance. I could use blood magic and surely save you as both blood and demons were aplenty. Or I could try to dabble in the school of creation that even I despised as a young apprentice” he exhaled heavily. “I chose the latter.”
Cullen hands found his under the blankets as he entwined their fingers. Dorian couldn’t know that he read the Inquisitor’s report on the events of the Fade, how they found tombstones for them all. A terrifying vision created by the Nightmare to twist their deepest, darkest fears against them. Only one word was etched under Dorian’s name. “Temptation”.
“You acted with integrity” he willed his vocal cords to function.
“But I couldn’t have known--” he started but was silenced with a firm but chaste kiss on his lips. Cullen pulled away and Dorian rose from the pillow to follow him.
“Don’t--” Dorian pleaded but Cullen pressed a hand against his chest and leaned over him to reach under the straw mattress. He pulled back a simple ring that reflected the faint radiance coming from the outside. His voice resounded with the hesitance that inevitably filled it when he was nervous or embarrassed, and Dorian knew so well from the initial stages of their acquaintance.
“May I?” he asked for Dorian’s hand and he let him take it without a single second thought.
The band slipped on his ring finger and fit perfectly.
“Cullen…” he started but he faltered as he felt the ring surge with a breath of magic.
“Can you feel it?” Cullen asked his voice hopeful but still so very soft.
“What is this? How…” he asked but stopped when he felt that the faint arcane energy delicately seeped into his hand and filled him with a sense of serenity, almost like the steady calmness of distant heartbeats. It bore a semblance of the feeling when he rested his head on Cullen’s chest and listened to his steady pulse. “Is it…”
“It’s a promise...and a question.” Cullen assured him. “A promise that you will always know. And a question that will you--”
“By the Maker, yes.” Dorian leaned up and Cullen didn’t hesitate to meet him. “In eternum, amatus” and although he didn’t understand the words he knew their meaning.