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After the judgment, Thalia finds him in the barn. He is bent over the workshop table she ordered kept there, all tools exactly where he left them. Not one thing out of place. He leans heavily on the wood, back hunched as if in pain. Her fury licks and lashes at her, not allowing herself to find this pitiable. She storms up behind him.
“Why did you do that?” she demands.
He stays still as a statue. Still as the dead.
Thalia takes a breath. “I said—”
“Heard you the first time.” His voice has lost its volume and the bluster he employed in the hall. He straightens, slowly, and turns to her, face a mask. “Why’d I do what, my lady?”
Hearing him use her title after the spectacle at the judgment is too much. “Don’t you dare,” she snarls, pacing in front of him. She wants to overturn the table. She wants to hurl bales of hay at his stupid stoic face. “You walked into that room, in front of all those people, and you— you—”
“Told the truth?” He raises his heavy brows.
“Insulted me.” Thalia holds up a hand, ticking grievances off on her fingers. “Questioned my authority, proclaimed me capable of summary execution, accused me of criminal corruption—”
“I fail to see the inaccuracy of those statements.”
Thalia isn’t sure whether she wants to laugh or burst into tears. “I saved you. I risked everything — everything! To get you out of Val Royeaux. To give you a second chance.”
“Yes, and how is that going for you?” He crosses arms over his broad chest, lip curling into a sneer. “Was it worth it, to soil yourself and your organization, for me? A traitor who should have been hanged years ago?”
“Don’t — no, no, don’t call yourself that. Please.” She can feel it all slipping away from her, the whirling madness of what she’d witnessed at the Val Royeaux gallows taking hold again. She can feel the roar in her ears, as if the crowd was still around her, looking up at the man she knew to be noble, and loyal, and great.
He scoffs. “You ought to see now, my lady. Who I really am.”
I am Thom Rainier, he’d said. And Thalia thought, Who?
The name bore no weight for her; he sounded like a stranger. Ever since, however, the shade of that stranger has grown larger and larger, threatening to engulf the man she knows in her heart to be real. She sees them both before her right now. The light from the fire pit casts a large, dancing shadow on the wall behind him, ghoulish and depraved.
“I don’t believe you,” she breathes.
“Well, you’d best start.” The flickering flames cut his chiseled face at disturbing angles. He looks mean, dangerous. She tries to imagine him without the beard, hair cut short, a fat coin purse weighing down his pocket on a dark nighttime road. She can’t. “Nothing will change it. Not any number of lovely lies, nor your so-called mercy.”
He speaks with such contempt, it makes her feel violated, unclean. Is this what she bought with her ignorant pride? A man so bent on destroying himself in darkness that he despises any ray of sun?
“Is that how it’s going to be, then?” Thalia asks, her voice clogged with tears. “If you truly hate me so much, you can leave. I’ll release you from your servitude.”
“Ah, ah, not so fast.” His smile is grim. “You can’t do that, and you know it. Think about it. They’re already talking, every single one who was in that room. Whispering to each other. That you were too lenient. That you looked upon me too favorably. You put on a good show, my lady, but everyone saw.” He tilts his head, voice going gravely and low. “If you let me walk out of here, you might lose them completely.”
Thalia’s knees begin to shake, her palms sweaty. He’s right.
Of course he’s right.
“You are only as powerful as your people allow you to be,” says Thom Rainier. “I thought I taught you that, but it turned out you were a pretty fool after all.”
With a frustrated cry, she launches herself at him, this much taller, much stronger man. She swings her arm — to strike or punch or claw, she isn’t sure. He snatches her easily by the wrist, staying her. His grip tightens and tightens. She feels the small bones at the base of her hand grind against each other. Impassively, he pulls her toward him, holding her up so that she must stand on tip-toes, off-balance.
“I thought you would be grateful,” she whispers, wincing.
He brings his face closer to hers, eyes narrowed. She is aware he is a man who is so good at killing he’s made a career of it. His voice is as low as a threat. His voice is as low as a threat. “Know then, that I would gladly be the Icarus to your certainty.”
Icarus, of course: the old Tevinter myth. A man with wings of wax, flying too near the sun, and plummeting. She feels herself melting this close to his lips. Pain shoots down her arm.
“You’re— you’re hurting me.” She sounds weak, afraid.
He releases her. Thalia stumbles back, hand tingling. Her whole limb smarts. She cradles her tender wrist close to her chest and stares at him without comprehension.
He turns his back on her. “Now. Get out of my sight.”
It is fully dark outside. Thalia trudges across the courtyard. The crickets have never been so loud.
She sits alone in the war room, watching the slanted sunlight creep across the floor.
“Inquisitor?” Cullen’s voice, from the hall.
Thalia starts, thinks absurdly of hiding under the table, but the heavy wooden door swings open and the Commander pokes his head through. He spots her immediately, slips in through the narrow space. “There you are. Josephine’s been trying to locate you all afternoon. We’ve no meeting today, but there’s a number of reports that need your…”
He trails off, getting a good look at her face. His brow creases. “Are you all right?”
She must look a fright. The skin around her eyes feels hot and puffy. Her eyes itch from crying. Her red hair is gathered low at the nape of her neck, a poor show for someone of her calibre, but this morning her wrist throbbed when she tried to do one of her usual elaborate plaits. She swallows and averts her gaze. “I’m fine.”
Cullen wavers in the doorway. His hand moves to the hilt of his sword, as if he could use it to slash at her emotional distress. “I’ll tell her it can wait.”
“Good. Thanks.” Her voice is faint. Her head pounds with humiliation.
The door closes. She waits to hear the heavy tread of his boots recede. Instead, they move toward her. She looks up; he’s pulling out a chair, sitting beside her. Her chest tightens. He’s so handsome in the soft glow of the afternoon light, hazel eyes soft with concern, that it’s difficult to look at him.
“Would you like to talk about it?” he asks quietly.
“Not really.” She stares at the map spread across the table before them. So many tokens laid across the map, each representing obstacles she had tried her best to overcome. “I’m just wondering where I went wrong.”
“With what?” he asks, though she suspects he knows. She’d spied him in the crowd at the judgment, way in the back, wearing a grim expression.
“Thom Rainier.” The name scalds her tongue.
Cullen’s face hardens. “You showed him great mercy. If he cannot handle it, that’s his problem.”
Thalia snorts. Leave it to Cullen to have such a straightforward view. “Did he have a point, I wonder?”
“About?”
“He called me corrupt. A criminal. Just like him.”
Cullen narrows his eyes. “Thalia, with all due respect— I don’t think you ought to pay such prattle any mind. He was goading you. Trying to drag you down to his level. That’s how men like Rainier operate.”
“Men like Rainier.” Everything about the distinction feels foreign.
“Bruisers. Thugs. Men who’ll do anything if the price is right.”
He’s not like that at all, she wants to say. He’s noble and good, I know he is, I just don’t understand why he’s so intent upon proving otherwise.
“Do you think I did the right thing, freeing him?” Thalia asks quietly.
“That’s not for me to say.” Cullen’s response is immediate, voice resolute. She forgets, sometimes, how much of his life he has spent answering to others.
“It is, though.” Thalia shifts in her seat, fixing him with a stern look. “You’re one of my top advisors. I take input from you every day.”
“I think…” He pauses, eyes skittering across the wide, worn map. “I think nothing was going to stop you from giving him another chance, whether he deserves it or not.” Cullen locks his gaze on hers, fierce and electric. “What Rainier chooses to do with it now is up to him.”
Thalia’s heart thumps. She feels self-conscious, this close to him, alone. Something between them has been intensifying since that terrible night in Val Royeaux. She’d opened the door in the jail and there he stood, ready to fix this, whatever the cost. He rode all night. Left as soon as he heard, Josephine told her later, Thalia’s mouth open in a tiny o of surprise.
“Thank you, Cullen.” The gratitude wells in her. He’s been here all along, unwavering, despite fighting demons of his own. She smiles, painful at it is against her chapped lips. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He clears his throat. Is the color rising in his cheeks? “You’re the Inquisitor. You’d be fine, I expect.”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m serious. I don’t think I’d’ve got this far if I didn’t have you. Your support. I just… I wanted to thank you.” Maker, now she’s blushing. The war room has gone terribly hot.
He reaches over and takes her hand. Stunned, Thalia stares, then slowly lets her fingers thread through his. He wears soft, downy gloves, and she wishes he might remove them, so that she would feel his skin on hers.
She twinges her wrist, and pain reverberates up her arm. She winces.
“What?” Alarmed, Cullen loosens his grip. “I’m sorry, did I—?”
“No, no, it’s nothing,” Thalia says. “Don’t worry about it.”
But he’s watching her with careful eyes, measuring the way she’s holding her arm. He’s a warrior, no stranger to injury. He leans forward and gently slides up the sleeve of her cobalt blue tunic, revealing beneath the ring of grey bruises. He studies them, turning her hand over to get a better look.
“Did he do this?” Cullen asks in a low voice, devoid of tenderness.
Thalia shivers and pulls away. “Cullen…”
“Did he do this?” Urgent now, sharp and dangerous.
Thalia presses her lips together, swallows the affirmative. Cullen’s face changes from open and expressive to the visage she spied on the night Haven fell, and at the battle for Adamant. The corner of his lip by his scar twitches. All at once he’s on his feet, storming away, to the heavy wooden door and out into the corridor.
“Cullen. Cullen, wait!” Thalia dashes after him, panic seizing her.
She doesn’t know what he’ll do, but she feels the promise of it welling around her, threatening to shatter the brittle peace that has gripped Skyhold. By the hole in the stone hallway, she grabs his elbow. “It was me. It’s my fault. I tried— I was so angry, and I tried to strike him—”
Cullen whirls on her. “And so that justifies hurting you? A man three times your size?” He shakes his head, lets out a wry laugh. “There are a dozen ways he could have deflected a blow without leaving bruises, Thalia.”
He sidesteps her grip, as if to prove his point, and keeps walking. His strides are long and sure, and she’s left scrambling to keep up. “Cullen, please. You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly.”
The door to Josephine’s office lies open, and mercifully she is not present. In the light cast from the fireplace, Thalia again reaches for his arm. “Cullen, please, where are you going?” She fears she already knows, and that she won’t be able to stop him.
“I need to have a word with Rainier.”
She shakes her head frantically. “Please don’t. Please. You’re just going to make it worse.”
“How can it be worse?” He takes her gently by the shoulders, bends down slightly to look her in the face. “Listen to me, Thalia. None of this is your fault.” She sees every facet of his hazel eyes; this close, they look flecked with gold. “You have done nothing but give that man grace, and all he’s done is spit it back at you. That ends now.”
Cullen releases her, leaving the impression of warmth on her skin. He strides out into the Main Hall, and Thalia follows him. There’s no other way. If she thought she could run down a secret stairwell and beat him outside, she would, but there’s no time.
Everyone sees: the visiting dignitaries, the soldiers on watch, the servants and the refugees looking for a meal, Varric snug in his seat at his writing table, watching over the top of the manuscript he’s proofreading. Vivienne stands at the balcony above, one hand curling on the balustrade. They all see the Commander marching through the hall, face stony with determination, and the Inquisitor running after in terror.
The cold outside air hits them. Cullen does not even slow. Down the stairs, past the landing, deftly dodging a masked Orlesian admiring the view. Thalia is right behind him, eyes darting about, praying she might spot Blackwall first. She could run to the barn and warn him — and then what?
Cullen reaches the grass of the upper courtyard. When the Commander arrives, people stop what they are doing and stand to attention. He’s been counting on this, it’s clear. He searches the crowd, looking into the eyes of soldiers and citizens alike. He raises his voice, projects with authority. “Have any of you seen Thom Rainier?”
“Er, he went into the tavern a little while ago, Commander,” says Scout Harding, from her usual resting spot near its entrance. Her green-eyed gaze travels from Cullen to Thalia, and the pleasant expression freezes on her face. Her brows furrow, as if aware she may have made a mistake, but not sure why. By the training dummies, Cassandra and the Iron Bull abandon their battle stances, straighten, and stare.
“Cullen,” Thalia tries once more. “Please. Leave it alone.”
He turns to her, and she thinks that perhaps she’s finally gotten through to him.
The door to Herald’s Rest opens, and Blackwall steps out, head ducked to clear the low threshold. Cullen steps forward, jaw set. “Hey, Rainier.”
Blackwall looks up, and Cullen punches him in the mouth.
Thalia gasps. Blackwall’s head snaps back. He rocks on his heels from the blow, recovers, and faces front, strands of hair knocked loose into his face. Blood drips from his lower lip as he fixes Cullen a look of icy hatred.
The courtyard is silent.
“Touch her again,” Cullen says, “and I’ll drag you back down to the dungeons myself. Is that understood?”
Blackwall turns his head and spits blood-tinged saliva into the grass. He straightens, eyes narrowed. “Yes, ser.” His voice is steely, unyielding.
“Good.” Cullen turns on his heels and walks away.
Blackwall wipes his mouth with the back of his gauntlet, squares his shoulders, and returns to the tavern.
The people frozen in the courtyard begin to thaw. Heart thudding, Thalia tries to rush forward, but someone grabs her arm. Cassandra is by her side, a grim expression on her face. “I wouldn’t.”
“But—” Thalia shakes herself away. “I’ve got to talk to him.”
“Who?” Cassandra arches a brow.
“Blackwall. Cullen.” Thalia huffs. “Both of them.”
“Inquisitor,” Cassandra says, exasperated, “were you never taught not to kick a hornet’s nest?”
Thalia swallows hard. “Cullen, he… he shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, he should not have.” Cassandra fixes her with a shrewd eye. “But I have never known him to act without cause.”
Thalia chews her lip.
“You ought to go get some rest, Inquisitor.” Cassandra’s gaze travels over the courtyard, at the spectators awaiting any sign of an encore. She angles Thalia toward the respite of the keep. “It has been a trying few weeks for us all.”