"But what of your escape?"
Cullen's voice was strained but calm, although his eyes searched her face frantically, betraying his attempted facade. She laughed, small and shallow.
"It's the only way," she said simply. "Someone has to distract that dragon, or archdemon, or whatever it is so that everyone else can get out of here."
"But why you?" Anger flashed through his tone, thinning his lips in the effort it took to contain it. His mask was cracking.
"We can't just send a scout out there," she replied. She, too, was struggling to speak evenly. "I'm the Herald. It's my duty-"
"Exactly!" he seethed. "You're the Herald, you can't sacrifice yourself, not now!"
"Why not?" Her volume was rising. "The hole in the sky is all fixed! Wasn't that my job? Why bother keeping me around anymore?"
His hands were on her shoulders now, his grip painful. "Have you lost your damn mind?" he shouted. "What kind of question is that?"
She opened her mouth to yell back at him but she stopped short. His hands were shaking. He was afraid.
She curled her fingers around his wrists, held onto them for a beat, but then gently pried them away from her. She gathered his hands in hers, not without difficulty as his were so much larger and hers had started to tremble as well.
"I have to do this," she whispered, eyes down, distracting herself from what she was about to do by memorizing the lines in his hands.
He took a shuddering breath. "I know," he finally said. "Maker be damned, I know. But I don't have to like it."
They stood in silence, neither of them willing too look at each other but neither willing to move away. Words dripped into the space between them, filling the air like a lake with everything that was still unsaid, all the moments they might never get to have. It hung over their heads in the shape of storm clouds that refused to rain.
Something like lightning crackled through her skin and she jerked her head up to see his face, his eyes as he cautiously watched her back.
He chewed on his tongue until he had carved out a proper sentence. "If you do this, you must promise to return. Alive."
She tried to smile but her mouth would not carry it out. "I promise."
When she finally turned to face the Chantry doors, his footsteps were still thundering in her ears, though the sound had long subsided.