Cullen felt its touch, like it was purest burning fire along his back. It ran from the very base of his spine, trailing up along the curving whip of his back until it twisted and pulled around his neck. He couldn't breathe! He gagged, desperately trying to draw air in past the painful, terrible obstruction keeping him from the simplest act.

"Submit, or we'll do this again."

Cullen wheezed in a single breath. Then another. His throat burned raw, so that every gasp of air into his abused lungs was hard and cruel. He fell forward onto his knees, choking, "Stop. Stop it."

"Then submit!"

He dragged in some more breaths, before raising up his head to blink through bleary eyes into the cold blankness that was once the mage called Uldred. The thing he was now grinned back at him through the mage's pale-lipped mouth. Cullen shuddered, feeling the dread and fear of it that filled his belly. His body ached. Every muscle felt like it had been pulled and yanked, like the sweet candy the cook sometimes made in the kitchens below.

But this wasn't anything sweet. Not this. He shook his head, so that the soft blonde curls against his temples fell forward to shield his eyes. He looked down, looked away from the thing's cold, dead gaze. Cullen knew. Uldred was already gone, already consumed by the thing. He'd rather die outright, than become a vessel for another of its kind. He managed to moan out, "You … submit."

"Oh, but I have, young Templar. I have! Now, it's your turn."

Cullen frowned down towards the floor, where the dark stones were splattered with droplets of blood. One, then another. Who was bleeding, he wondered, dazedly. Then he wiped against his mouth, examined the wash of bright red blood on his fingers. He realized he was bleeding, that the wetness on his mouth wasn't the spittle and mucous that came from screaming so loudly for so long. The blood ran from his nose in a steady stream, ran strongly.

My mind's breaking apart, he thought blearily. "You have not. You are not Uldred, not really. So you submit." He felt the whipping heat of the thing's displeasure, the rage it felt. His back burned again, then his sides, around to his ribcage. It was squeezing him, compressing his body roughly, hard. He distantly heard the snap of one rib, the thing snarling nearby. Cullen felt himself arching, trying desperately to get away from it, to move. But he was held hard in its grip and he screamed, screamed.

He screamed, while the thing that used to be Uldred raged at him, "You will submit! You will! All it takes … is the proper incentive!" And everything stopped. It all went away.

"Cullen? Oh, please, Cullen … you have to wake up. Please!"

Cullen rolled his head, looking over at her. He whispered her name as her face drifted into his line of sight. Her eyes were shimmering, so brightly blue he wondered for the last endless time how such beautiful eyes were even possible. Like the most extraordinary gems, is what he'd thought whenever he caught her peeking at him through the fall of her black hair. Or like the deepest sea, far beyond the reach of anyone who might look twice at them for their brief and sweet flirtations. Because a Templar didn't look at a Mage and smile when her pretty eyes twinkled towards him.

For a moment, he wondered if she would let him kiss her. Just once. Before the things came back and the burning started again. That made him remember, and he tried jerking upright, tried fighting upwards to face the terrible torment of those things … Was she really there? But the pain sliced through him, like the most incredible fire. And he fell backwards, screaming again.

"You never touched me, Cullen. You should have, I wanted you to." He looked over at her, at the trembling arc of her pointed ears as they rose up through the fall of her beautiful ebony tresses. She always pulled her hair back into a thick, loose bun on the back of her head. But her pretty ears only extended above the styled curtain of hair, and he watched them now, watched the gentle tips trembling with desire.

"Templars aren't supposed to touch the Mages, Rion. You know that. It's not right." He explained it to her, saw her pretty eyes shimmer again. She pulled her curved lip between her teeth, pinch the plump line of flesh the way he'd always wanted to catch in his own mouth, wanted to kiss. Always.

"Why so many rules? I don't understand." She shook her dark head, almost angrily confrontational.

"I wouldn't … I wouldn't hurt you, Rion. When I couldn't be there for you, as you needed me to be. I can't allow you to be mistreated. Especially not by me." Cullen sighed, morose as he looked over at the girl-woman he'd watched over, guarded and protected as she moved about the Circle Tower.

He remembered the sound of her laughter, the peels of her delight lifting up into the rafters of the tower's rooms, below. She'd twirled around the edges of the room laughing brightly through Petra's direction, learning to dance to the tune of Finn's piping songs. Her robes flew around her soft ankles as she'd laughed and laughed.

He remembered the quiet contemplation of her studies, the way her gaze would move against the soft vellum pages of the books in the library as dust motes rose in the air around her dark head. She had a particular habit of chewing on the feathered end of the quills she used to write with, and he'd smiled gently whenever he found one that she dropped behind her as she hurried along the corridors. He remembered that her very favorite food was pears, sliced and soaked in a honeyed sauce. She cherished the treat whenever the Tower's rotund cook prepared it.

But mostly he remembered the way she'd look for him, the way she'd smile when she saw he was the one posted to watch during those times she went about her work. He remembered those quiet feelings that warmed his stomach every time he was near her.

Now she only looked down at him, sad and angrily disappointed. "How can such pleasing be incorrect, Cullen? I don't understand you at all. You have to, Cullen! Just give in, submit and you'll feel so much better!"

And it burned again, raging fire that raced along every nerve ending he had, could call his own. Cullen felt his body bowing under the pain of it, the pressure. He yelled, "You can't trick me! It's not her, it's not! And I won't hurt her!"

"Cullen, it's not real! Whatever they're forcing you to see, it's not real! I'm right here!"

His head snapped around, and he saw her. He saw her eyes wide and surprised. Shimmering blue, with the trails of tears that ran down through the dusty smudges that lined her scraped cheeks. Like someone had dragged her along the stone floors, leaving her skin abraded and torn. She held up her hands, her fingers crusted with blood that she'd gathered under her nails as she clawed against her attackers, reaching out for him. He groaned, seeing how afraid she was, how scared.

The thing was holding her up, because her legs had been broken. They'd broken her legs, shattered them, and he moaned like a pitiful animal at the sight of it. At how much it must hurt her, with the thing holding her up and shaking her back and forth like it might some broken doll. Like a pathetic creature, Cullen whimpered past the horrible pain that ached in his chest.

The thing was angry again, snarling at Rion. "Won't let us in, little Mage. That makes you worthless to me. Worthless!"

Cullen grasped for air, dragged in a breath. Enough to beg it, beg it. He begged! "Please, don't hurt her. Please … I love her." But the thing only laughed, then. Cullen heard her one last time. He heard her scream out, one last desperate call to him. His name. She called his name.

"Cullen!"

Then he heard a loud cracking sound. And her eyes stopped shimmering.

The things – the demons that were once mages he'd guarded, protected – the things exulted in his terrible screams, then. In the surfeit of emotion he gave them, as his heart broke, as every soft dream and hope he'd held whenever he watched her disappeared forever. He screamed and screamed, cried when they tossed her slender body over at the wall and she crumpled into a pitiful heap. He screamed.

Because she was the best thing in his world. What he fought for, fought to protect and to guard. They'd stolen her life and left him with nothing. Nothing. Except the promise he'd never let it happen again. Never again.