When Magister Tilani stood on the senate floor and moved to nominate Dorian Pavus for a seat in the Magisterium, just one month after Corypheus's defeat at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, the ensuing debate was so heated as to nearly come to blows. Nearly all of the dissent and quarreling in Tevinter happened behind closed doors, and sessions of the senate were dull, previously-agreed-upon affairs—so when a public session actually managed to stir a discussion at all, it was news.

And as for this session? Magister Sidonia had called Magister Valroy a callow, talentless hack to his face. Two magisters pulled out staves and threatened to duel, until some magisters with better sense pulled them apart. Accusations and denials of former Venatori affiliation were flung across the chamber like so many arrows. That was more than just news—soon as the session adjourned, tongues were set flapping all across Minrathous, and word of the audacious meeting traveled across Thedas like wildfire.

Of course, Sister Leliana's ravens traveled faster than any fire.

When she informed Dorian of the news, he puffed up like a peacock. "Magister Tilani has remarkable nerve, I'll give her that. I always did like that woman." He rummaged through a nearby shelf, pulling out a cloak and shrugging it over his shoulders. "Red's quite the fetching color on me, don't you think? Like the magister-robes. Though, I always thought the trim on those things were hopelessly tacky, I wonder if I could have them altered…"

Dorian smiled broadly. Leliana didn't smile back. "You may wish to see this as well," she said, proffering a small bundle of parchment.

"Mm, what's that?"

"Some correspondence my agent intercepted between a few magisters, shortly after the session convened. They worry that you are both too popular and too radical. Several of them are entertaining threats on your life."

Dorian rolled his eyes. "Please. Let's see here." He took the parchment, scanning through—all the usual suspects, and a few new names as well. "Of course Ponticus would say that, he loathed my family even before I dragged our fair name into disgrace—and it's cute when Iravus says things like this, as though anyone thinks his opinion actually matters. How he ever got his seat, I'll never understand." He handed the papers back to Leliana. "Rather toothless, I think. What a lovely fuss they're making, though."

"Then will you be returning to Tevinter?" Leliana asked, her tone carefully neutral—but her eyes belied her interest.

Dorian laughed at that—but not so boisterously as usual; this laugh had an edge to it. "Going? Hardly. Not yet, anyway. Let's keep them wondering. More fun that way."

Leliana arched one cool eyebrow but said nothing. The following week, more ravens poured in—magisters and altuses of every stripe, inquiring after Dorian's intentions, inviting him home or warning him away, and more reports from Leliana's agents. She passed them all along to Dorian, but Dorian scarcely looked at them. Busy on Inquisition business, he claimed.

And a week after that—that's when the dreams started.

The first night, it was a simple nightmare. He woke, gasping, in the darkness, and it took a long minute for him to slow his breathing again, to release the vicegrip he had on his pillow.

Dorian hadn't had something so mundane as a nightmare since he was an apprentice, too inexperienced to properly control the shape of his dreams, his time in the Fade. And it was odd for him to have so much trouble remembering a dream. He snatched at the fragments in his mind, but they all slipped away: a familiar face he couldn't quite name, a Circle he'd been to long ago, a strangely-colored bird.

Odd, very odd. But it had been quite a few weeks. Saving the world and all the aftermath that entailed. Probably he'd just been run more ragged than he'd thought. He shrugged it off.

The next night there wasn't any nightmare, but his dream was—off. Just a bit off, some small things tweaked, things a lesser mage might not have noticed at all—etched motifs of the Tevinter heraldry in decidedly non-Tevinter buildings, an odd tilt to the floor. The sort of details that mere demons didn't tend to tweak. But Dorian shrugged at that, too—the Fade was strange in the best of circumstances, so what was just a little more strangeness?

Then: another nightmare. Dorian couldn't remember how or why he came to the Grand Plaza in Minrathous—rather, the fade-touched version of it—or who the bright-eyed hooded mage was, how they met, why they were fighting, why were they fighting? Dorian raised his hands in defense, but the mana wouldn't come to him, and his feet were too sluggish to move. The bright-eyed mage threw a blast of ice and he was freezing, freezing—

And he woke. He woke, shuddering, as if from cold, though he was still underneath three layers of blankets. He blinked slowly as awareness crept back to him, but still felt so cold—the blast had struck his hands first—he pulled his left hand toward his face, squinting to see by the dim torchlight.

And his hand was coated, coated in little flakes of ice crystal. The crystals were melting fast onto the bed sheets, but the edges were still distinct.

That—that should not be possible.

Dorian felt a second chill seize him, the chill of realization. Of course Dorian had heard of Dreamers, he was descended from Dreamers, he knew the theory. But the sort of Dreamer who could reach past the fade? who could touch the physical realm, even so slightly? There hadn't been a mage like that for—well, a century at least, maybe longer.

At least, not one that anyone knew about.

Dorian didn't fall asleep again that night.

Seeing Dorian awake before noon was enough to give anyone pause; seeing him awake before dawn was enough to halt Leliana in her steps entirely. She'd been on her way to the war room when she caught sight of the mage, hunched in a corner of the library, a wild scatter of papers before him and a deep furrow on his brow. More striking than the hour, even, were the papers themselves—looking more closely, she saw that they were the letters from Tevinter, the letters he'd been letting pile up, ignored, for weeks.

"Anything of interest?" she asked, with forced casualness.

Dorian blinked—he hadn't noticed Leliana was there—but then plucked a letter seemingly at random, announcing in a breezy tone: "An old classmate of mine made Senior Enchanter while I was away. Brielle Bellarous. Nearly as brilliant as me, without even an ounce of the manners; apparently she's caused quite a fuss by accusing one of the Prandreo boys of using blood magic. She's right, of course, but it'll be most interesting to see whether her rank holds over his family's considerable piles of gold and influence."

"Ah." Leliana paused, waiting for more. "By 'interesting', I rather meant—"

"Right. That was the pleasant bit of interest," Dorian said, sighing. "The unpleasant bits of interest are sorted by their type." He gestured to each pile of letters in turn: "Suspicious invitations to remote estates just outside the Inquistion's proper area of influence. Letters politely dissuading me from trying for a seat in the Magisterium. Letters impolitely dissuading me from aforementioned seat. Several concerned friends wondering at my intention to return, a few rather shady enchanters asking that I lend my power to theirs, and one rather frighteningly neutral letter from the Archon himself." He pressed a hand against his temple. "I rather envy the Fereldens, at times like these. With them, at least, finding the man who's trying to kill you is as simple as looking for whoever's holding a sword."

One letter remained curiously unopened. Leliana's eyes went to it instinctively—then she noticed the seal on it. House Pavus.

She looked back to Dorian, and placed a hand on one of the larger piles. "Might I examine these? My agents may have some use for them."

Dorian blinked and stared. Perhaps she was being too intrusive. But after a moment, he laughed. "Certainly, certainly. I'd rather expected you'd steamed them open already, to be honest; what a polite spymaster you are."

Leliana smiled at that. Some of them she had steamed open, of course. The rest had simply seemed easier to ask for.

When Dorian went to the Skyhold alchemist, Elan, asking for what should have been a perfectly mundane potion, he had to repeat himself three times: "Draught of Dreamless Sleep."

The elf wrinkled her nose and frowned.

Dorian sighed. "Do you have any? You've heard of it, yes?"

"I haven't ever heard of something called that, no. Is it anything like the sleeping potions we keep back there? Made with elfroot and dawn lotus?"

Southerners. Dorian bit his tongue on a cutting remark, since it wasn't poor Elan's fault that alchemical education was so hopelessly lacking here in the south, but really, this sort of potion was something even a middling Circle alchemist knew how to make, back home. "It's an old Tevinter brew," he explained. "I might, hm, I've got a text in my belongings that should have the process outlined, if you could go off of that?"

Elan nodded slowly. "Sure. Send it my way and I'll see what I can do."

See what I can do. Really, just the reassurance Dorian needed.

He found the old text, eventually, after an hour's searching and scouring and coughing from dust. He certainly wasn't an alchemist himself, but once he had the book, he turned to the recipe and went over it with red pen, double-underlining all the tricky bits and adding exclamation points for emphasis. Wouldn't do the have her bungling the recipe on top of all this other mess.

Elan told him it would take her a week to brew the draught. No matter; alcohol worked for killing fade-dreams almost as well as any potion. Or. Well, no, not nearly as well as a potion, but it at least made him feel less anxious about not having the potion, and it wasn't like Dorian wandering about with drink in hand was an unusual sight around Skyhold.

He was milling about in the main hall when Cullen came by, his face darkened and his stride all bluster and fluster. Dorian cast a glance toward the dungeon's entrance—from what he'd overheard earlier in the day, the commander must be on his way to see that ward-slash-prisoner of his, that Samson fellow. Somehow, the old templar still clung to life, despite both the death of his former master and all that ghastly red lyrium business. Dorian couldn't imagine what use the Inquisition was getting out of the man, at this point. By the look on Cullen's face, he supposed that Cullen didn't know, either.

"Off to see your little charge?" Dorian called, teasing—hardly the first time he'd teased the commander, he made it too easy—except, instead of just shrugging it off, or smirking and going on his way, as he usually would, Cullen planted his feet and turned to glare at Dorian, shoulders pulled tight, the sort of glare Cullen generally reserved for particularly meddlesome recruits. "Something to say, Dorian?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. Might not want to let that Samson fellow see your face like that, though."

"Might not want to…" Cullen shook his head, and dismissed Dorian with an exasperated wave of his hand. He went on to the dungeons, and as he went, he slammed the door so hard behind him that Dorian nearly dropped his flask.

"Touchy," Dorian muttered, wiping off a bit of the brandy he'd spilled. Maybe he should've offered the commander a bit of drink. Take the edge right off.

The edges are hazy but the warmth is real, too real, like he's had too much to drink. Probably he has had too much to drink; that's why he's sprawled on this bed, why his head feels so heavy. There's a dull roar downstairs—Dorian Pavus, skipping out on the party early, the guests must be so disappointed—and the air smells thick, like lyrium, like—like the smell of the Fade.

The Fade. Where he is, right now. Dreaming. He'd forgotten for a moment. Why had he forgotten?

A shape enters the room. He knows this room. From where? The bed is so soft beneath him, soft Antivan velvet on a thick plush mattress, he could sink into it forever—is sinking—no. He pulls himself up, presses his back against the headboard. How did I get here? he asks himself. He can't remember, he can't remember because he's in the Fade, and something's off, it shouldn't be this hard to move—

He turns to the shape again, the shape in the doorway, gliding toward him now. The shape has a form, then a figure, then a face—and the name startles out of him like a bird, how many years has it been since he last saw that face: "Rilienus." And it's a trick, Dorian knows it's a trick, but for a half-second he's too startled to move, and it's in that half-second the dagger flashes.

Dorian shouts and scrambles back. His feet get tangled in the blankets and the swipe misses him by a narrow inch. He half-tumbles off the bed, throws his hands in front of him, shouts something arcane—fire leaps out, but the figure shrugs and the fire rolls off him—

Dorian knocks the figure back with a quarterstaff, a quarterstaff he's just conjured. He can shape the Fade, too. Maybe not as well as this, this… this thing. But enough. Dorian rushes for the door—but it's locked. Slams into it, blasts fire at it, nothing. The thing's getting up and, oh, not good, not good.

"Wake up," he hisses to himself. The figure lunges again, Dorian dodges, but it's stronger and Dorian can't keep jumping away forever. So all he's got is the frantic thought, over and over, wake up wake up wakeupwakeup—

—and he wakes, gasping.

The shock of it feels like being stabbed, the damned night-air is so cold and the waking so sudden. He's clutching the bedsheets, clutches them tighter, lifts his head a few inches but everything still feels so heavy. Slowly, painstakingly, he pulls himself upright, starts pooling his mana around him. His eyes jump from the door, to the walls, to the ceiling, watching for movement, watching for shadows, watching for anything, ready to strike.

The Inquisition flag in the corner is the thing that convinces him he's back in Skyhold. Safe. For now, at least. Probably. He lets out a long sigh, and lets himself fall back.

Dorian knows demons. Demons talk, they wheedle, they plead and tempt and lure. But that—that was no demon.

A miss. A very near miss.

His body is aching for sleep, but he can't let it. Not now. With a groan, he forces himself out of bed and into the halls, staring hard at the shadows as he passes by.

In the predawn hush, throughout the stark towers of Skyhold, the only moving thing was Leliana.

This precious hour was the only time in her day she spent truly alone, and she always spent it the same way. As she crept up the old wooden stairs to the rookery, the steps creaking beneath her, she could hear the low answering croaks from her ravens, trained by experience to waken at her slight steps. She heard them shaking their feathers out, heard their little feet click-clacking, well before she turned the last staircase-spiral to see them.

And there—someone new.

She nearly jumped at the sight; no one had ever been here in the morning before her. The man was turned away from her, but the outline was unmistakable—Dorian, slumped against a post, his hair mussed into an ignoble snarl. She stared for a moment. No movement. Asleep on his feet, perhaps?

She watched a moment longer, before venturing, "Dorian?" Then, more loudly: "Dorian?"

He started at that—yes, he'd been sleeping—and he jerked his head around, blinking dazedly. She waited, patient, as he took in his surroundings, but when he finally saw her, he managed a broad, groggy grin. "Leliana, my dear. Just the lady I was hoping to run into."

Leliana quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I've got a bit of a problem, I'm afraid," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Those magisters who want me dead? Seems as though one of them has the gall to actually do something about it. I went through the papers you gave me, and a letter from an old friend in Minrathous, and—"

"Magister Valerius."

Leliana smiled at Dorian's baffled expression. "I, uh, yes. Him."

"I'd already made a note of his interest," she explained. "My agents apprehended an assassin of his near the Orlesian border."

"Really, now." Dorian fidgeted and glanced to the side. "Ah—what sort of assassin, if you don't mind my asking—the stabby-blades sort, or the mage-with-mysterious-powers sort? Or some exciting new variety I hadn't thought of?"

Leliana stared at Dorian for a long moment. He wouldn't quite meet her eyes. "Blades," she said finally. "What's this about?"

"It's… nevermind. Just, I don't think that's the only one Valerius sent after me, and the other might not be so easy to apprehend, you see—"

"Would you like me to have Magister Valerius himself taken care of?"

Taken care of. How delicately put. Dorian considered a moment. He wasn't fond of entering into all that assassination business; it was a bit to Tevene, even for him. But he remembered the dream, that very near miss, and felt a slight shudder.

"Please," he said at last. "And quickly, if you could. I'd rather like to sleep at night."

Leliana nodded, and brushed past Dorian, toward her ravens. She picked up a bucket of grain and began pouring it into the ravens' feeding-bin, just as she did every other morning. Dorian nodded, as if to himself, and moved to leave—but then, Leliana sighed and set the bucket down. "I suspect Valerius is not the only one among your enemies willing to resort to such means," she called to his back. "I could look into the matter, if you like."

Look into the matter. Dorian laughed, turning to face her. "Fun as that sounds, Sister, if I discredit or kill every backstabber or blood mage in the Magisterium, there shan't be anyone left to handle matters of state. Who would dictate the lyrium tariffs, or decide on the color scheme for the next Grand Ball?" He gave a disapproving cluck of his tongue. "Anarchy."

"Perhaps that would not be unwelcome," Leliana countered, an edge creeping into her voice. "You do wish to see change in Tevinter, yes?"

Dorian startled at that. The way the words curled around Leliana's lips, cold and hard—they sounded too close to an accusation. He hadn't heard that tone from Leliana before, removed as he was from all those messy war table chats, from those hushed meetings with her agents—but it reminded him of what he'd seen of her in the future-that-never-was.

Leliana gazed back at him—despite the harsh words, she remained utterly unassuming, one hand folded over the other, that modest Chantry hood hiding her hair. But watch her hand turn, and fate turned with it. Andraste bless, this was the lady who was nearly named Divine.

"Things back home are… delicate," Dorian muttered, dropping his gaze to the ground.

"I have delicate hands."

"What's your interest here, anyway? Tevinter's no business of yours."

"My interest is the good of the Inquisition, of course," she said. Most of the truth. Part of the truth. "The Ventatori are in retreat now, and largely discredited—but I must keep an eye on things. And," she added with a smile, "you did come to me, Altus."

"Right." Dorian reached a hand to the back of his neck, fidgeting. "Look into it, if you would—but don't do any, ah, alterations of the course of Tevinter politics without consulting me first, if you don't mind. It's… it's delicate."

"As you wish," Leliana said, and turned back to her ravens, a soft sort of dismissal. Dorian lingered a bit before departing, trying to read something in that inscrutable expression of hers. Why did that little smile of hers make him feel so uneasy?

As dusk fell, outside the stark walls of Skyhold, the mage stood alone.

Four layers of clothes on and she still felt the cold. She didn't care how many times that merchant had told her that cold was nothing so long as she had the right preparations. She had furs and the best boots money could buy and she still felt the cold, felt it at her core, the kind of cold that seeped under her skin and made her breath soggy.

For the fiftieth time, she wondered why anyone lived in the Andraste-forsaken south. And for the fiftieth time, she wondered if Valerius really wanted her dead, instead of Pavus. The task certainly seemed suicidal enough. She'd been evading the Inquisition's patrols by skulking around in a handful of obscure caves, on the edge of the territory, but that wouldn't last forever. Already, there had been some close calls—a scrap of dried meat she'd dropped had had scouts combing the area for hours. This Inquisition, whatever else it was, was certainly alert.

The last patrol had passed by a half hour ago, and there was no sign of them returning. She sighed, and turned back toward the little cave she'd scouted for herself in the pale cliffside. Sleeping made her vulnerable, but she couldn't finish the job without sleeping.

She wasn't particularly Andrastian, but she whispered a little prayer to herself just the same: let me find him tonight.

And she slept, and as she slept, she dreamed.