Chapter Text
Winter in the Frostbacks is relentless. From beginning to end it is nothing but blizzards broken up by days of gently falling snow and the occasional sunny afternoon. It is the work of dozens of mages, daily, to clear the road between Skyhold and the little trading post that has popped into existence halfway down the mountainside at the base of the twisting, narrow road that leads up to the keep. Now that they’re here, safe in Skyhold, and the weather and piled up snow double as several extra layers of defense against encroaching enemies Catheryn can appreciate it. She can stand on her balcony and look out at the snow crusted peaks in the gently drifting snow and marvel at the frozen, breathtaking beauty that surrounds her.
Still, it had sucked absolute ass to try and find the place in the dead of winter.
Catheryn rubs at her arms and sucks in a deep breath, feeling it all the way down to the bottom of her lungs. The cold is a shock to her system, as bracing and sharp as a slap across her face, centering her in the here and now – a small mercy that she is eternally grateful for. It’s too easy to slip away, to drown in a sudden attack of grief or, worse yet, drift off into a soothing black nothingness. In the days – weeks, really – immediately following the loss of her daughter it had been all she could do to remember how to be a person. It took every ounce of effort she could summon to do more than lay in her bed and surround herself with the lodestones of warm bodies, their touch the only thing that could keep the Nightmare’s mocking voice from itching around the inside of her skull. Her friends – her advisors, her inner circle – they were understanding as she grit her teeth and made herself go back to work. How could they not be? They knew her as no one else, loved her in each of their own ways. Indeed, two had been DJ’s father: one in body and one is spirit.
Others had not been nearly so understanding but Leliana, Josephine, and even Vivienne have been unsurprisingly good at running interference. For those that needed a little more convincing… well. Thom will be the first to acknowledge that Cullen has a mean right hook. They don’t tell her the handful of times that it happens but she knows anyway, reading it in the protective set of Cullen’s jaw and the broken skin across his knuckles that she heals without a word. And if the Chargers get into more bar fights than normal and Sera blatantly sets a visiting Orlesian chevalier on fire via arrow from tavern’s rooftop then she overlooks it and chalks it up to the winter weather.
The mind numbing, crippling, bring-her-to-her-knees-in-the-middle-of-the-war-room attacks of grief are fewer and fewer these days and she can’t decide whether she is relieved or whether she hates it. In all honesty, perhaps both. The grief is still there. The size of it has not shrunk, the regret and the sorrow over what-might-have-been is as endless as the night it was born but it is no longer fresh. She has, despite a surety otherwise, grown accustomed to it – just like she grew used to having magic and grew used to living in a Circle instead of with her parents. Just like she has grown accustomed to having the Anchor stitched into the flesh of her palm, feeling it jump and bite and pull when a rift is near.
Catheryn hates it. She hates that the premature birth and death of her daughter is becoming another callus in her life.
Likewise, she is relived. She just wants to be herself again. She wants to laugh at Varric’s stories and giggle over badly written romance with Cassandra. She wants to gossip with Josephine and Leliana over tea. She wants to participate in the dizzying rush that is a discussion on magical theory with Dorian and Solas – an event that despite her breadth of knowledge leaves her giddy and breathless at the depths of theirs. She wants rare stolen nights of laughter and too many drinks over Wicked Grace.
More than anything else Catheryn is so very, very tired of feeling like she is about to shatter into a million pieces at the slightest provocation. She is so fucking tired of being sad.
“Maker’s breath! Catheryn, it’s freezing out here!” Cullen is pulling his coat off of his shoulders before she even fully registers his presence.
“I didn’t notice,” she tells him truthfully as he wraps the coat around her and rubs at her arms.
“You didn’t notice?” he repeats, staring at her. “Your lips are blue! You’re in nothing but leggings and a shirt!”
“Cullen… I’m a mage,” she mutters fondly, wiggling her fingers under his nose. His coat does feel nice though, she’ll concede that. It’s the original one. The one that he’d worn every day since she’d met him until he’d sent it with her to Emprise du Lion. The replacement that Josephine had had made for him while she had been away is warm and comfortable but it’s not the real deal. They both prefer the real deal. “I’m not going to freeze to death.”
A shadow crosses over his eyes. “You nearly did,” he whispers, “after Haven.” His tug is soft but insistent and she yields, letting him pull her into his arms.
“This isn’t then. I haven’t spent a day buried beneath an avalanche and walking through a blizzard,” she reminds him as she rests her head on his chest. His lips brush the top of her head and it’s like the final tumbler of a lock falling into place. This, this is her safe place. “Though I spent the entire afternoon with Lord Cyril and Josephine, which, to be honest, is almost worst.”
“Lord Cyril…? Isn’t he…”
“…Gaspard’s liaison and madly in love – or at least lust – with you,” Catheryn finishes dryly. “It’s very hard to keep him on track. He keeps asking to ‘inspect the troops’…”
“…Maker’s breath…”
“… and if it wouldn’t better if you joined us. It wouldn’t,” she adds swiftly, cutting off the question she can feel rising in his chest. “If you were in the same room not only would we get absolutely nothing done but I would undoubtedly be forced to take drastic measures to keep his paws off of you. Gaspard probably wouldn’t care if I electrocuted his representative for being a handsy bastard but the idea makes Josephine squeamish.”
“Possessive, are you?” Cullen huffs even though he knows the answer.
“Yes.” Catheryn doesn’t even bother to deny it. Maybe it’s a by-product of being raised in a Circle or maybe it’s simply an innate character flaw but no one has complained about it yet. On the contrary –
“You have no idea how many times I have gotten on my knees and thanked the Maker for that,” Cullen mutters between peppering light kisses to her hair before adding firmly, “But you are shivering and I am now without a coat so, mage or not, we’re going inside.” Since even with her magic humming softly under her skin she can no longer feel her toes – a fact that Cullen’s comments have now made her aware of – she goes without comment, shutting the door behind them.
Cullen shakes his head in a fair imitation of a wet dog as he walks through their room in an effort to clear the snowflakes from his hair and clothes but the damage is done. His hair, carefully styled and slicked into submission every morning before he leaves their quarters, has broken free of its product induced neatness and turned into an adorable riot of golden curls. Cullen notices as he passes the mirror by the wardrobe and curses as he begins to strip out of his armor in neat, familiar movements.
Catheryn smiles and snuggles further down into the fur lined collar of the coat, content to simply stand and watch as he prowls around the room in nothing but his breeches and a loose cotton undershirt, fingers trailing over their furniture in unconscious possession. Once, the Inquisitor’s chambers had been the height of interior design with graceful, elegant pieces chosen from all over Thedas and pulled together in homage to the person who was – is – supposed to save the world. It had been beautiful and pristine, like a delicate piece of art, and Catheryn had hated it. It had possessed no life, no spark and everything – except the bed – had been uncomfortable.
In one of her more dramatic fits of grief - likely spurned on by the fact that her sleeping companions kept falling out of her too small bed instead of snuggling with her like they were supposed to – she’d dragged all the furniture out onto the balcony – with Bull’s gleeful help, of course – and lit it all on fire. There is still a scorch mark on the stone that makes her grin every time she sees it.
Now the room is decorated much more to her tastes. The furniture is actually comfortable and the vaulted, cool space is grounded by the thick, brightly colored rugs that cover the stone floor. Her desk is actually big enough to spread out and work at – big enough for multiple people to work at, which is helpful as she rarely works alone, and there are enough bookcases lining the walls that Dorian drools a little every time he’s here. The bed, custom made and special ordered from some place in Val Royeux, is not only comfortable but also big enough to host an orgy made up entirely of Qunari. Her quarters are no longer a show piece of finery and richness but a home in which she sees the reflections of all those whom she loves.
“Warm enough?”
Catheryn blinks and finds that he’s right there in front of her. “If I say no will you hold me?”
He smiles and it lights up his face in a way that rivals the sun in the sky. Nearly three years since she first saw him smile and it’s still one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. “Of course,” he rumbles and slides his hands beneath his coat, drawing her flush against his front. It’s easy to tilt her head up so that their breaths mingle and lips brush together in a slow, tender motion.
“I missed you,” she whispers against his lips and he tips his head to the side.
“I’m right here,” he replies, cupping his hand around the curve of her jaw. “I’m not going anywhere.” And though her heart sings at the declaration, part of her wants to growl because for once – for once! – that is not actually what she meant.
Catheryn Trevelyan is no stranger to seducing Templars. She just never thought she’d have to seduce one that is already in her bed.
“Fuck it,” she mutters under her breath and surges upward, threading her hands through Cullen’s curls and yanking his lips down to hers. For a moment his mouth is motionless against hers, shocked at the sudden assault. So she does the only thing she can think of from this position to key him into the program. She bites him.
“Maker’s breath,” he mutters.
He kisses her like a man starved, descending on her lips with a ferocity that sucks all the air from her lungs. Catheryn groans and opens her mouth to him, beckoning him in with teasing little flicks of her tongue. A growl rumbles beneath her fingertips and she twists them in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. Fingers tangling in her hair, Cullen nips at her lower lip and slides his tongue in alongside hers. He tastes a bit of garlic and beef but also of peppermint and chamomile from the tea he's been drinking. Mostly, he just tastes like Cullen and it is the best taste in the world. And she’s the Inquisitor so she can totally make a formal declaration on that matter.
She’s not even aware that they’re moving until Cullen hits the settee and goes down. “Catheryn…” he growls, half in demand, half in warning as he sprawls across the furniture and stares up at her. Chest heaving, lips swollen and slick, his face is flushed with desire, the molten gold bubbling with heat as he drags his gaze from her face and on down her form.
The sound of her name in his mouth, wet and desperate, is enough to make frantic little noises whine in her throat as she straddles his lap, rocking against him in a movement that makes him growl and clutch at her hips. He’s thick and hot beneath her, his erection a hard line nudging at the inside of her thigh. Close, so close, but so, so far from where she wants him. “Cullen, please.”
Maker, Creators, and all other absent gods in the world she is not above begging.
Cullen’s fingers are gentle as they slip beneath the hem of her tunic, the callused fingertips dragging against the soft skin of her stomach. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want to do anything before you’re ready. We can wait.”
Catheryn groans softly, pressing her forehead to his. “It’s been three months.”
“I would wait three decades if that is what you needed.” He smiles at her, a quick little quirk of the corner of his mouth that pulls at the scar bisecting his upper lip. Between the words and the smile she doesn’t stand a chance. Catheryn can feel her sexually frustrated heart turning into a great big puddle of goo in the middle of her chest.
“Cullen…” she shakes her head and opts for actions instead of words. Wrapping her arms around his neck she weaves her fingers through his curls and peppers his face with kisses. He lets her, for a moment, before catching her lips with his own.
“I don’t want you to rush back into this because you think that you must. I don’t want to be a chore or a task that you must accomplish,” he admits. It is a quiet, fearful thing.
“Never,” she vows fiercely, clutching his face between her hands and staring into his eyes. After all they have been through together that he might doubt what he means to her is ridiculous – and devastating. “You will never be a chore,” she spits and if her grip gets any tighter she’ll leave bruises on his jaw but she can’t make herself relax, can’t make herself let go. She can’t lose him. It will break her, utterly and completely. “I want you,” she growls. “I want you because I love you. I want you because you’re mine. I want you because being with you doesn’t fix me but makes me feel like I don’t need to be fixed. I want you because you’re gorgeous and wonderful and kind. I want you, Cullen.” She turns her lips into the curve of her ear, close enough that she can feel the heat of her own breath brushing against her face. “Is that enough for you?”
“Maker’s breath… yes,” Cullen groans and then he’s got his hands around her, underneath her tunic, trailing across her skin with touches that make the blood in her veins bubble and little static bursts break across her skin.
“Fuck,” she breathes softly, the pinching roll of his fingers around her nipple enough to tear her away from the mark she is sucking in to the curve of his neck. “Don’t stop… don’t…”
A high sharp whistle pierces the air and before she can hardly register the noise Cullen’s pulled her off his lap and shoved her behind him, hand reaching underneath the settee for the short sword he keeps stashed there.
“Maker’s breath…” he growls and a familiar chuckle echoes through the space followed by methodical applause.
“Good for you, Curly,” drawls Varric as she tips her head enough to catch a glimpse of the dwarf standing at the top of the staircase. He looks amused. “Hey Kitten,” he adds with a smirk. “Sorry to interrupt but I don’t think Curly or Hero would let me keep my head if I saw… things.”
Cullen’s growl is enough to make Varric take a step backward, brandishing his hands before him in a placating gesture. “Whoa there... I said if. If,” he stresses pointedly. “I saw shit. Well, no, that’s a lie. I saw nothing more than I’ve seen at least a dozen times before because you’re both discreet but not that discreet…” Catheryn grabs at the back of Cullen’s breeches as he tries to take a step forward. “And really, Kitten and I have roughed it for weeks on end so there’s not a whole lot of mystery left…”
“Not helping, Varric,” Catheryn mutters as she gives Cullen’s leg a light smack. “Let me up.” Cullen doesn’t. In fact he shifts so that she’s completely shielded from view again. “Really?” she mutters to herself but she can’t stop the warmth that spreads through her chest.
“What do you want?” he snaps instead and really, given that half a second earlier there was still a growl rumbling around in his chest he sounds remarkably calm. She doesn’t really trust it. Varric doesn’t either. Considering Cullen still has a naked sword in his hand that is probably wise of him. Cullen doesn’t like be surprised. He likes it even less when he’s let his guard down. He likes it least of all when she is vulnerable too.
“I just thought you might like to know that I’ve found the main source of Corypheus’ red lyrium.”
And that most definitely gets their attention.
“Where?” Catheryn asks as she shoves Cullen away, moving him just enough that she can swing her legs over the edge of the settee and stand up. For the moment her sexual frustration is forgotten in the rush of finally, Maker, finally being able to eradicate this evil that has been haunting her nightmares – waking and sleeping. “Who?” she corrects, face pinching as she remembers what she had seen in Redcliffe and later found in Emprise du Lion.
Varric shakes his head. “Not who,” he promises fiercely, with a wincing look that tells her he understands. “The legitimate origin point – the spot where they are mining it from the earth – is a thaig inside Valammar.”
Catheryn is up and moving before he finishes speaking, going up on her tip toes to reach a large scroll of parchment shoved on the top shelf of the bookcase nearest her desk. “Show me,” she commands as she spreads the map, weighing it down with books and bottles. It’s not as big as the monstrosity that they have covering the war table but it’s at least half a foot larger than her desk in all directions.
“The nearest entrance is here, in the Hinterlands, not far from our camp by the lake,” Varric stabs his finger into the middle of western Ferelden.
“Really?” Cullen is as surprised as Catheryn feels. “Our scouts have been over that area a thousand times.”
“I know.” Varric takes a deep breath and looks at her, his mouth pressed in an unhappy line. “You remember when we cleaned out that Carta operation?”
It takes her a moment but then she does. It’d been after they’d cleared out the mercenaries that had made themselves a den in that abandoned villa in the very outreaches of the Hinterlands. It’d been a key dropped on the floor during the fighting and a stray bit of parchment sitting on a table that had led them there, led them to a small company of Carta who had been attempting to set up a lyrium mining operation. “Son of a bitch,” she growls, slamming her palm onto the desk. “There? It was fucking there the whole time?” She stares at the map, the careful black ink of the cartographer half covered with her own notes and symbols, the last three years of her life scrawled in quests, camps, and missions across its surface. There at the upper lake, just above a notation that reads Recruited Warden Blackwall is a list: Attempted Carta mine, Royal Elfroot, Iron deposits.
So close, she thinks as she stares, so fucking close. How had she been that close and not realized it? How had she not known? Red lyrium is worse than darkspawn – it’s a discordance ripping the air and the Fade that she can taste like thick syrup stuck to the back of her throat, an anomaly that the whole of creation rebels against. Even then, in the early days before Haven fell, how had she not been able to find it? How much could she have prevented? How many lives could she have saved if she’d just delved further? Would the Templars have been lost? Would Haven have been destroyed? Would all of this already be over and done with?
“… Catheryn?” Cullen’s touch is gentle as he pries her fingers open, soothing out the fist that she has clenched so tightly that little scarlet beads of blood are dripping down onto the map. “Breathe, love, breathe.” The great inward suck of air is loud enough that she can hear it over the rushing of her blood in her ears. “Breathe,” Cullen prompts again and she obeys until her chest isn’t so tight and the hazy black spots in front of her eyes begin to fade away.
“…fine,” she gasps out as she Varric wordlessly wraps a small strip of cloth bandaging around her hand. “I’ll be fine.”
“Sure you will, Kitten,” he murmurs.
“I will,” she repeats more firmly, glaring at him. When the dwarf drops his gaze with a shrug she turns her glare to the map. “I just…” she sighs, the biting edge of her anger and the despair of what-might-have-been leaking away beneath Cullen’s touch at her back. “I can’t help but wonder what would have been different if we’d found it the first time. Would I have been able to save Sahrnia? Therinfal Redoubt? Haven?”
“Those aren’t on you,” Cullen chides sharply. “None of those are your fault.” His grip on her upper arms is nearly tight enough to be painful. She welcomes it, head tipping back against his chest as she grounds herself in his living, breathing presence.
“Not my fault, perhaps,” she agrees, “but I might have prevented them anyway.”
Varric grimaces. “You can’t save everyone. Things don’t work that way, not even in stories.”
“Watch me try,” she mutters rebelliously and Varric laughs, a great barking chuckle that fills the vaulted space, and she finds herself smiling in response. He’s right, of course, and she knows that he’s right but that doesn’t mean she has to lie down and take it. “Provided that we don’t wake up to a blizzard we can leave in the morning. There’s nothing on my schedule that is more important than this.” Josephine probably won’t be happy to reschedule the various meetings she has with ambassadors and merchants but she’ll understand. Anything short of Corypheus knocking on Skyhold’s door or Samson announcing himself in the Great Hall can wait until the red lyrium is taken care of.
Cullen shifts a little, leaning over her shoulder to trace their likely route with his finger. “Leliana has been looking for this information for the better part of a year and hasn’t found it. How reliable is your source?”
Varric hesitates for a moment, his fingers scratching at his exposed chest hair. It’s a nervous tic of his, the equivalent of Cullen’s Thedas-wide recognized neck rub. “Very,” he finally replies. “Bianca sent me the information.” Catheryn feels her eyebrows climb clear off the top of her head. She’s not stupid. The amount of time she and Varric have spent talking about his crossbow – everything from how it looks to where he found it (at last count she’s heard three different stories about its origins) – is borderline ridiculous. Talking about Bianca, among other things, is what kept her from a full blown panic attack on the day they met, Varric’s easy conversation and respect keeping her head in the game as they fought their way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
Suffice it to say, she knows enough. Enough to know that the beauty of a weapon had been a gift and that he is more than willing to lie – and more – to keep the giver anonymous and safe. Enough to draw her own conclusions of how the crossbow had got her name. Enough to know that Varric is aware of every thought flitting through her head as she watches him.
“Maker’s breath, Varric, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to believe that your crossbow…”
“…not his crossbow,” Catheryn interrupts, staring at her friend as shuffles nervously on his feet. “The woman his crossbow is named for.” Varric jerks his head in assent.
“She’s… an old friend,” he finally explains, dropping his gaze back to the map. “And she wouldn’t steer us wrong. Not with this shit. But she’s… impetuous. The main reason I interrupted is because she’s decided that she needs to help with… this.” He motions at the map. “It’s too dangerous for her to come to Skyhold but she’s already left Val Royeux and writes that she’ll wait for us in Valammar.” The downward twist of his lips tells Catheryn exactly what he thinks of that – though which part, exactly, he disproves of she’s not sure.
“Doesn’t do things by halves, does she?” Catheryn comments instead, shoving back all the questions that are trying to do a swan dive off of her tongue.
“No, she doesn’t,” Varric says with a huff of amused laughter, but there’s something else there, something sad and bitter hanging around the corner of his eyes and tugging at his lips. He doesn’t say though so Catheryn doesn’t ask and she bites back the instinctive apology that rises in her chest.
“I know you’ll be in a hurry to get there, but do you think you could spare an extra day on the trip out?” Cullen’s quiet, almost reluctant, question snaps Catheryn back into the room and away from her thoughts about the mysterious Bianca.
She blinks and twists to look at him. He’s still got his finger on the map, tracing the route between Skyhold and the Hinterlands. “… probably, but I'd rather just get it over and done with,” she says slowly, watching. “Why?”
A faint blush of pink fills his cheek and he ducks his head away, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I… um. I’ve been meaning to take you away for a few days. I figured you wouldn’t mind getting out of Skyhold for a little bit and there’s someplace I’ve wanted to show you. I was hoping to go at the end of the week but with this…” he clears his throat. “By the time you get back though we’ll need to start seriously thinking about our assault on the Arbor Wilds.”
Catheryn swallows. The Arbor Wilds, where they’re hoping to have their final confrontation with Corypheus’ forces. The Arbor Wilds, where – if they’re lucky – they might have their final confrontation with Corypheus himself. Truthfully, where she might have a final confrontation with the blighted magister, because she knows that between the Anchor and everything else she’s done to piss him off that he’s going to aim himself straight at her and her alone. She doesn’t expect to survive. She just hopes to take him with her when she goes.
“I was thinking that I might join you for part of the journey to the camp and if we take a day…” Cullen sighs and shakes his head. “No. Maker’s breath, I’m sorry. This is important and…”
It passes silently and unspoken between them, all these thoughts that are flying through her head. She’s never spoken openly of her expected demise but Cullen knows. They keep no secrets from each other. So the ‘I want it to just be us, just once’ goes unsaid but she hears it anyway.
She should say no. She should refuse. A day... a day could mean a hundred lives, a thousand, or it could mean none. But she doesn't know. But his quiet words, spoken and unspoken, are true as well. If she doesn't take the time now when will she possibly have it again?
"We'll have to wait until Bianca gets there," Varric puts in mildly. "She's the one that knows the way."
Catheryn swallows.
“Sure,” she agrees hoarsely, blinking back the sudden swell of tears that pricks at her eyes. The gratitude in his eyes is so heavy that she would have sagged beneath it were it not for his hand wrapping around her waist. He presses gently and she goes willingly, curling against his chest as he presses his lips to the top of her head.
“I’m going to steal this shit for a book, just so you’re aware,” Varric warns lightly, a flat out smirk spreading his lips and lighting up his eyes as she glares at him. “Cassandra will sigh very dramatically over it.”
“You’re not putting us in one of your bloody books,” Cullen growls.
“You can run it past her on the way out,” Catheryn warns. “If we’re going to be messing around with red lyrium I want someone who is immune to it in the party.”
“So me and Seeker – who else?” Catheryn wrinkles her nose in thought. Not Dorian, because trudging through the snow for a week and then having to poke around underground for Maker-knows-how-long is just a recipe for trouble where the warm blooded mage is concerned. Not Sera because after Emprise she had pointedly asked to not be involved in missions that require her to be around so much of that ‘bloody red shite’. Cole could hear the lyrium so he is probably a good…
“…Thom.” Cullen’s voice breaks through her thoughts and makes her shiver. It’s his Commander’s voice. The one he uses when he expects to be obeyed. “Take Thom with you.”
“… or Tiny. He’s a good match if we run into any alpha darkspawn,” Varric counters smoothly, catching Cullen’s gaze with a look of his own that she can’t quite decipher. “The Kid’s a good lyrium hound or Chuckles is full of all sorts of tricks that might be useful…”
Cullen tilts his head, nothing but calm on his face. “Of course. Whoever will be the most beneficial to the mission.” There’s something else though, something that moves silently beneath them that hits Varric like the strike of lightning, making his eyes widen almost comically.
She watches them for one beat and then another and then, “Varric, Cassandra, and Thom,” she acknowledges, well aware of the vibrant duality of anticipation and fear that is coiling through her gut at her words.
Thom Rainier, formally known to her as Warden Gordon Blackwall: ex –Orlesian military Captain, pardoned murderer, exemplary warrior, stalwart companion, honorable man, and former lover to the Herald of Andraste and the biological father of her deceased child. Once they had been close, not just lovers but intimate friends as well. But then had left the Inquisition, left her and his mask of Blackwall behind to save a man who had once followed his command. He had taken up his own name again and stepped up to the gallows, had done the right thing, and had told her nothing. Eight months later and she still wakes in the middle of the night, screaming and crying with her heart thundering in her chest and tears streaming down her face from nightmares where she has arrived too late to save him from the noose.
Though things have greatly improved in the past three months she would be lying her face off if she tried to claim that her relationship with the older man is not strained. Because it is. It doesn’t matter that he shares her bed half the time, helping Cullen ground her amidst the nightmares. It matters, perhaps more than it should, that she can’t look at him without reliving that heart stopping moment of seeing him walk across the gallows, or the instant of blinding, consuming rage when she had discovered that he had murdered children. It matters because despite what he has done she still loves him. Loves him in a dizzying rush of emotions that blindside her every time she looks at him – just like they did the very first time she laid eyes on him. Loves him with the same ferocity and desire that she does Cullen, even if the exact nuances of the emotions are slightly varied.
She loves him and she's lost him and it fucking hurts.
Cullen smiles at her, the calm on his face melting away to genuine nervous pleasure. Catheryn’s not sure how to interpret that.
Varric clears his throat meaningfully. “Well, then… I’ll just go share the joyous news with Hero and Seeker. I’ll let you guys break things to Ruffles.” He pauses, looking meaningfully between the two of them. “Do you need me to come back in a little bit? Or send for one of the others?”
Catheryn smiles at his concern. “I’ll be fine,” she reassures gently.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” the dwarf encourages with a wink that makes Cullen turn bright red. It’s not until Varric is at the top of the stairs that something occurs to Catheryn.
Stupid, she tells herself. You’re slipping.
“Varric?” He pauses at the sound of her voice and turns to peer over his shoulder at her. “Do you need to come back later?”
The smile on his face is supposed to be reassuring, as is the “Nah, Kitten, I’ll be fine. Enjoy the rest of your evening!” but Catheryn doesn’t buy it.
Varric is an expert storyteller but, all things considered, he’s not a very good liar.