The Exalted March did not come to Kirkwall. When the first Circle rebelled, Cullen feared it was just the beginning. He kept hoping for some word from Marian, but none came. He kept himself busy, Kirkwall would always see to that. He worked with the mages left in the Kirkwall Circle, wanting things to be better for them, wanting them to want to be there. But day after day they heard more and more news of Circles falling, templars hunting down both mages and people protecting mages. Cullen feared the worse. He tracked down Varric and asked the dwarf if he knew where the Hawkes were. The dwarf replied that he knew as much as Cullen and that all they could hope for was that the pair were safe. Cullen did not have as much time to dwell on it, except at night, when he found his brain recited the letter over and over and he pictured the worst scenarios. He worried about Marian until sleep would finally take him. But Cullen did not let this happen often, instead he worked until his body screamed for sleep and finally dropped into bed only to be asleep the second his head hit the cushion. This way he could keep the worries out, drown them out with exhaustion and work.

The Chantry did come to Kirkwall, eventually. Cullen was watching recruits practice in the yard when a woman came up to him; he recognized the symbol on her chest immediately. Seeker. He had dreaded this moment since he became Knight-Commander. They had come to charge him with heresy to the Order, for keeping an apostate secret for years, for collaborating, fraternizing, and helping an apostate.

"Knight-Commander Cullen?" The woman asked, coming to stand next to him. Her keen eyes surveyed his recruits and he believed she saw every mistake his men were making.

"Y-yes. Seeker...?" Behind her, Cullen saw another woman, wearing a hood up near her face; he saw a flash of red hair behind it.

"I am Cassandra Pentaghast. I have come to ask you about...the events surrounding the last Knight-Commander's death. We should speak in private."

He led the two women up to his office and the woman in the hood closed the door behind them. He stood uneasy; not knowing if he was waiting to be clapped in irons at any moment.

"Sit." The Seeker commanded and Cullen sat. She stared at him, glared was perhaps more accurate, her eyes looking at all the secrets he held, at all the ones the Chantry knew and all the ones they did not. She surveyed him for a long time before speaking. "Tell us everything of the events that happened here the day the previous Knight-Commander...died. And if you have any information on the Champion of Kirkwall's location, now is the time to tell us."

He stared at her. "H-Hawke? Garrett Hawke?" She wanted to know about Hawke? Not Marian? She wasn't here to charge him with crimes against the Order? Or perhaps she was and this was simply a method of putting him at ease. No, Seekers did not put people at ease. She could kill him with the snap of her fingers. She could set the lyrium in his veins on fire and he would die. She did not need to put him at ease to get her answers.

"That is the man's name, yes. We want all the information you have on him. On his actions that day at the Gallows." The woman in the hood said.

"We have read this...book." The Seeker slammed a book down on Cullen's desk. "But it tells us nothing of the Champion's current location, and the details...we do not believe they are accurate."

"Book?" He stared at the leather bound parcel on his desk.

"Yes, book. Have you not heard of it?" The Seeker opened the page to the title. "The Tale of the Champion of Kirkwall by Master Tethras."

Cullen's mouth fell open. Varric wrote a book? Andraste preserve him and wake him up from this nightmare. The Seeker was still glaring at him and he shut his mouth with a snap and cleared his throat. "N-no, I have not read...I did not even know of this book."

"Then let us hear the events from your perspective, Knight-Commander." The hooded one replied, smiling at him.

He shook his head, trying to clear it from the shock of learning Varric had written a book, what in the Maker's name did it say? He cleared his throat again. They wanted the events of what happened. He thought back to that day in the Gallows. "You...you know about the-uh-event at the Chantry?"

"We know the mage Anders killed hundreds of people. We know it caused the Knight-Commander to invoke the Rite of Annulment. What happened then?" Cassandra recapped to him.

He took a deep breath. "The Champion sided with the templars. He...he was a templar, so, he knew the dangers of magic...perhaps better than anyone. He agreed to help Meredith." He looked from one to the other. The hooded one was nodding and the other was glaring. "M-Marian..." He felt his throat constrict. Even saying the name hurt. "She was at the Hawke estate when the...explosion happened. With our son. She...should have stayed away, perhaps things would have been different if she had, but she found the mage Anders and came here, to the Gallows, to help Orsino. To protect the mages from the templars."

Cullen looked up and the two women had equal looks of shock, the hooded one quickly concealed hers while the Seeker stared openly at him.

"The Champion's twin sister? The apostate? What does she have to do with...?" The Seeker exchanged a look with the hooded one. "Marian Hawke?"

"You said 'our son'." The hooded one said quietly. She glanced at the Seeker and then turned her attention back to Cullen.

He felt his mouth fall open again. "The b-book...you said it talked about—does it not mention Marian at all?"

"Only in passing." The Seeker confessed. She flipped to the page and read: "The Hawkes escaped Lothering in the nick of time, outrunning and fighting through hordes of darkspawn beasts. The Champion, his brother, and his apostate twin sister fought desperately to save themselves and their mother. Along the way, they befriended a rather formidable woman, the kind who can easily lift oxen and cut down trees in one blow, her name was Aveline." The Seeker closed the book and looked at Cullen. "She is only mentioned again in a passing note that the Champion kept her a secret from the templars while in Kirkwall."

"But clearly, there is more to the story." The hooded one looked sharply at Cullen.

He shook his head. The dwarf had been smart. He had kept Marian out of the whole thing and Cullen's big mouth had put her back in. He rubbed his neck and looked from one woman to the other. He sighed and began again. "Marian Hawke is my wife." Both women looked taken aback by his statement, but he continued. "I married her to keep her out of the Gallows, to keep her safe from Meredith. It was...it was the Champion's plan and I owed him a favor. It started as a political...arrangement. Meredith wanted me to get closer to Hawke, he was gaining influence, this was before he was Champion. And Hawke...he wanted someone to watch his sister and help him keep her out of the Gallows. But..."

"But then you fell in love." The hooded one was smiling at him.

Cullen blushed and nodded. He had always been in love with her, but it had taken months for him to realize it and even longer for him to admit it to himself. Now he could look back and know that while keeping an eye on an apostate had been one of the reasons he had told himself he agreed to the marriage, the large part was wanting so desperately to get close to Marian. He told them briefly of his relationship with Marian, that he continued with his duties as Knight-Captain, that they had a son together, that at one point they had lived in a house by the dock, but later that she moved back in with her brother. He told them what happened that day in the Gallows, the day Knight-Commander Meredith turned to lyrium. When he was done the two women exchanged looks.

The Seeker turned to him. "We need the whole story."

He sighed and rubbed his face. "I am not a story-teller, Seeker. If you want a more detailed account, find Varric Tethras. He can normally be found at the Hanged Man. He would know more about the Champion than I. I-I only knew Marian."

"Do you know where they are?" The hooded one asked, she was looking at him rather sadly now.

He shook his head. "I wish I did. Marian...she was with child when she left. I do not know..." He felt pinpricks of hotness against his eyes and he rubbed them.

The two women were silent for a long time, he did not look at them as he tried to get himself under control. He should not have told them that. He should have kept his mouth shut about Marian from the beginning. But it had always been about Marian to him. Hawke was only a side story, his story was Marian's beautiful blue eyes, her mischievous smile, her wit and charm, her sense of humor, the way she could be so stubborn one second and tempting the next.

"Thank you, Knight-Commander. We will be back."

He looked up to see the two women leaving his office. After they left, he dropped his head into his hands and felt the overwhelming sadness consume him.

Three days later the Seeker came to Cullen's office. He was musing over a report on lyrium supplies when the woman came into his office as if she owned it.

"We need to talk." She declared, standing in front of him, her arms folded.

He sat back, worried that this time she would arrest him. "Did you find the dwarf?"

She contemplated her answer. "Yes. He gave us enough information to fill the gaps in the story, but we are still no closer to finding the Champion." She shook her head. "But that is not why I am here."

He swallowed. "Why are you here, Seeker?"

"Because we could use men like you. Men who hold true to the values of the Order, who believe in peace and not chaos. Men who are capable of knowing right from wrong without being told and who can command others. You possess all of these qualities, Knight-Commander. I am here to recruit you to the Inquisition."

Cullen stared at her, he wondered if he had finally broken and gone insane under the stress of restoring Kirkwall. "But I married an apostate." He said dumbly.

Cassandra surprised him by laughing. "Do not think you are the first templar to think with your heart when it came to the person they loved. You are also not the first to marry an apostate, not even the first to have children with one. But you command your templars with loyalty, and you should know they are loyal to you. And if templars will follow you, soldiers will as well."

"The...Inquisition?" Was he seriously considering it?

"We are going to bring peace to Thedas, Knight-Commander. We will stop the war between the templars and mages. We will stop the madness before it harms more people. If you do not join for yourself, join for the knowledge that we will build a better future for your son."

He glanced down at the report on lyrium. Lyrium. The drug of the templars. The leash the Chantry used to pull them. He crumpled the parchment and met Cassandra's eyes with determination. "When do we leave?"