Dragon Age Inquisition: Faith

Epilogue

Samson could hear the cheering even in his cell, and he knew what it meant.

He should feel regret, he supposed. Regret that he had bound himself to a failed cause, again; perhaps regret that his master had perished. Instead, he merely felt empty. He wondered how long the celebration would go on, and whether anyone would remember he was there.

To his surprise, when the guard came with Samson’s next meal, the Inquisitor was trailing behind him, her arm bound in a sling.

“Here to gloat?” he asked, setting his food down on his cot and looking the Inquisitor in the eye. “Corypheus is dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Cullen thought you ought to know.” Her mouth twitched a bit. “And I thought he shouldn’t have to be the one to tell you.”

“I didn’t think anything else could cause this much obnoxious celebrating. I suppose now you’ll send me to Kirkwall,” Samson said. “With my master gone I’m of no use to your Inquisition.”

The Inquisitor shook her head. “Your sentence stands, Samson. You are remarkably resistant to red lyrium. Perhaps our arcanist will discover something that could help the other Red Templars recover their minds.” She looked at him closely, scrutinizing his reaction. “I would hope that goal might appeal to you.”

“What do you want from me, Herald?” Samson snarled. “Half of Thedas bows before your Inquisition, and the other half fears that it will have to. Will you really not be satisfied unless I bend my knee to you as well? You’ve won. I admit it. Now leave me be.”

“Cullen told me why Meredith cast you out of the Order. You carried love letters for Maddox,” she said. “Why? Did he offer you coin? Lyrium?”

“I was not always that pathetic,” Samson said bitterly. “I … felt sorry for him. It seemed such a small thing to ask, a few letters to his sweetheart in Kirkwall to let her know he’d survived his Harrowing. So I took them.”  

“You did a kind thing and it cost you terribly,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity, Inquisitor,” he growled.

“I suppose not,” she replied evenly. “Dagna will be by in the next couple of days. You might still do some good, Samson. I hope you believe that.”

Samson merely snorted and turned to his lunch. When he looked over, the Inquisitor was gone.

 *******************************************

Cecily never quite got the moment to breathe that Cullen had suggested. Even with Corypheus dead, the Inquisition did not lack for work to do. Some rifts remained, some cells of Red Templars were still fighting their lost battle, and the Inquisition had acquired a reputation for knowing how to deal with dragons.

But things at the Inquisition were changing. Solas was gone; Leliana had little hope that they could trace him if he did not want to be found. Cecily had the fragments of the orb passed to their most skilled scholars. Something about this artifact had caused Solas to leave, and she suspected it had been for good reason. But not even Morrigan had a good idea of what the orb had been, other than the repository of the power that had opened the rifts. And Solas’s cryptic final message to Cole—something about a path he must walk in solitude—did little to put her mind at ease.

Blackwall was the next to leave. “I would fight at your side as long as you would have me, my lady. But I feel that perhaps it is time for me to go to the Wardens,” he told her gravely about a month after Corypheus’s death. Cecily bade him goodbye with sincere thanks. Two weeks later, Sera had a letter from him—he had survived the Joining and was settling in at Amaranthine. He’d signed the letter Thom.