A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

If I Cannot Endure

28 Firstfall, 9:41

Cullen rushed from the armory, his irritation throbbing with the pulse in his head. Of all people, why did she have to show up just then? Who did she think she was, Andraste's Chosen? She said she wasn't, so why was she getting into this situation that was none of her concern?

He hurried past the people in the courtyard, heedless of who might have been there. The only thing he could think was that if he got to his office, he could take the lyrium and have some peace, finally, from the whispers in his head. He could be for the Inquisition what it needed from a commander, and make the pain go away.

Fortunately there was no one in the office when he arrived. Forgetting to close the door behind him, he reached up for the box. The familiar wood felt smooth and cool in his fingers, and he could almost hear the lyrium inside it, almost feel it in his veins soothing the itch and washing away the stabbing pain and quieting the whispers.

He put it on the desk, opening the box, his fingers tracing the edge of the vial. Just looking at it turned his stomach. He didn't want to be that man anymore, the Order's sycophant. But he couldn't stand it any longer—he couldn't shut out the memories or calm the fever in his blood or make the pain stop without it. The Inquisition deserved him in good shape, the best he could be, and didn't he have to admit that the lyrium would make him that again? If Cassandra wouldn't honor the agreement and replace him with someone whole, undamaged, wasn't this the only way?

Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself away from the desk. He wanted it—but he didn't want it. Mostly he just wanted the torment to stop.

But he had said he wasn't going to take it. Hadn't he broken enough vows in his life? Could he break this one, the sacred one he had made to himself, and to the Inquisition? He remembered the day Cassandra had come to him, as he sat in the Knight-Commander's ruined office trying to decide what to do next. She had offered him a new opportunity, an entirely new life, one he could feel good about. An army he could build that would fight without centuries of ingrained hate and fear. He had wanted that then; he wanted it now. Had he overreached to think he could do it without the lyrium? It had been a sudden decision, a decision born of his disgust with Knight-Commander Meredith and with himself and with what the Order had created in Kirkwall, but it had felt right. It had felt like what he wanted—to be someone new, or perhaps to find again the person he had started out being.

Had he known it would be this difficult to endure, would he have had the courage to begin? Cullen turned and looked at the box again. Didn't he owe this to the Inquisition? Despite his vows, could he offer to the Inquisition less than he had offered to the Templars? It was as a Templar that they had chosen him for this task ... perhaps this struggle was contrary to the goals he professed to be working toward. He leaned over the desk again, staring at the box, imagining what it would be like to feel that spreading power through him again, thinking of everything he could accomplish with that power in him.

Power that had never gotten him anything but pain and torture, he reminded himself. Was even the Inquisition worth that again?

With a sudden shout of rage, he picked up the box and hurled it across the room, realizing only after it had left his hands that Antonia was standing in the open doorway. The sight of her ducking the flying splinters of wood brought him back to himself.

"Maker's breath!" What had he done?
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Antonia stepped hastily out of the way of the flying box of lyrium.

"Maker's breath!" Cullen breathed, taking a step backward away from the desk. "I didn't hear you enter. I— Forgive me."

"Forgive you? I wish you'd thrown that thing across the room—or better yet, off the top of the battlements—a long time ago." She moved toward him, shutting the door behind her, deliberately stepping on the fragments of the lyrium vials that had been in the box. The crunch beneath her boots was extremely satisfying. "Cullen, if you need to talk—"