"Ir abelas." Seth had stopped shaking, but he still clung to Dorian, whispering the same words over and over again. "Ir abelas, 'ma vhen'an. Ir tel'him."

I'm sorry. So sorry, my heart. I am myself again.

"Ir amahn," Dorian murmured. "I'm here."

Seth drew back, his gaze falling to Dorian's throat. Tentatively, he reached out, fingertips brushing the place where he'd held the knife. His touch stung a little, and Dorian realized the skin had been broken after all, if only just. Seth stared at the tiny smear of blood on his fingers in mute horror, and his hand started to tremble again.

"It's all right," Dorian said, though in truth he was more than a little unnerved himself. The man he loved had been a heartbeat away from slitting his throat. No, he corrected himself. It wasn't Seth holding that blade. It was someone else – whoever, or whatever, he had to become to survive down here. "It's all right," he said again, as much for himself as for Seth.

"It's not. I almost…" Seth squeezed his eyes shut.

"But you didn't, so let's leave it there. It won't do either of us any good to dwell on it." They had more than enough to be getting on with as it was – starting with the pain at the back of Dorian's head. Being tackled to the ground had not done his wound any favours; it was bleeding freely again, and he sent another pulse of magic through it. When his fingers came away bloody, Seth paled again, but Dorian made a mollifying gesture. "Don't worry, this wasn't you. Well… Actually, I rather suspect it was, if only indirectly, but we can talk about that later. Would you mind taking a look at it? I'd feel better if I knew what we were dealing with."

Seth rummaged in his pack and retrieved a small torch, lighting it just long enough to examine Dorian's wound. "It doesn't look too bad," he said, snuffing the flame before it drew unwanted attention. "But we should probably wash it out."

"What, in that?" Dorian eyed the little stream meandering through the rocks. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Let's hope so, since I washed in it myself about an hour ago."

A less than comforting answer, but if you couldn't trust a Dalish about such things, who could you trust? Dorian crouched by the water, and Seth used his cup to rinse the back of his head.

"Dorian… How are you here?" A note of disbelief still lingered in the elf's voice, as if he half expected Dorian to vanish like a mirage.

Dorian hesitated. Should he tell it all in one go? Seth was obviously still fragile. How would he react to the news that his sister was in the Deep Roads? "It's a long story," he said carefully. "The most important thing for you to know right now is that Sera and Rainier are safe, and we hope Varric is, too."

"He is," Seth said, gently plucking a bit of dried blood from Dorian's hair. "Or at least, he's managing. I check on him as often as I can. They've got him working at the dig. I can't get near him, but I think he knows I'm out there. Watching. Waiting. Trying to slow the enemy down as much as I can. What they're doing down here, Dorian…"

"I know. And we'll discuss it in detail, I promise, but can we just… take a moment?"

The elf lapsed into silence, filling the cup again and pouring it slowly over Dorian's hair. The water was cool and soothing, and the fingers drifting over his scalp sent little shivers down his spine. Dorian closed his eyes, goosebumps rising along the nape of his neck. It had been years since he felt Seth's touch – really felt it – and he was completely unprepared for the ache of longing it kindled inside him.

Perhaps the elf sensed it, because his next words seemed designed to nip those feelings in the bud. "I'm sorry about the kiss. I was… overwhelmed."

Dorian sighed inwardly. He'd known this was coming. Even in the moment, he'd known the kiss didn't change anything. That it was an outpouring of emotion, an expression of relief as much as anything else. Things between them stood just as they had before all this began: mired in regrets and bittersweet memories, stranded in the place where love is not enough.

He'd known it, but it still hurt to hear it.

"I quite understand," he said airily, sitting up and squeezing the excess water from his hair. "I'm irresistible at the best of times, and here you've been alone for however many weeks. I expect you'd have kissed Rainier, if he'd been the one to come along."

Seth didn't seem to know quite what to say to that. He glanced away awkwardly.

"In earnest," Dorian said, dropping the false breeziness. "I can't imagine what you've been through these past few weeks. To be alone down here, amid all this horror…" He shook his head. "Unimaginable. I don't know how you stayed sane."

"I'm not sure I did. I've been going through the motions for a long time now. Acting purely on instinct." Seth's gaze fell. "As you witnessed firsthand. I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

"Yes, Maker forbid you should actually show a little vulnerability once in a while." Dorian regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Bloody Void, Pavus, where did that come from? The last thing either of you needs right now is to start reopening old wounds. "I apologize," he said. "It's been a rather trying few days." Even that felt like the wrong thing to say. As if anything he'd experienced could compare with what Seth had been through.

"I couldn't afford to be vulnerable," Seth said. "I didn't dare. All those people… I couldn't help them. Couldn't do anything but listen to their screams…" He closed his eyes, shuddering.

"We're vulnerable whether we like it or not," Dorian said, a little more sharply than he'd intended. "We are mere mortals, Inquisitor. Even you. Fear and pain and all the rest of it – you can't simply will it out of existence. The best you can do is defer it for a time, but that debt will come due eventually. It always does. In your case, with interest."

"Maybe so, but it was necessary. I had no choice."

There's always a choice. You didn't have to venture into the Deep Roads with a skeleton crew. You didn't have to take this on at all. You could have let someone else take responsibility for a change. Let their loved ones lie awake in fear every night… Dorian could feel black clouds building inside him, and the last thing he wanted was for his own storm to break. What a hypocrite you are, he thought bitterly. Lecturing him about letting his repressed emotions boil over when you're about to blow yourself.

He shoved himself to his feet. "We should go."

Seth blinked, taken aback. "Hold on a moment. You still haven't told me anything. How did you—"

"I'll explain on the way. There are people waiting for us."

"But—"

"Ellana, for one." So much for breaking the news gently. Pulling with all oars today, aren't we, Pavus?

Seth went very still. "Dorian, what is my sister doing in the Deep Roads?"

"She's fine. She's with Cassandra and Maggie."

"Ah. You brought Maggie, too." He nodded slowly.

"I'll tell you all about it while we walk," Dorian said coolly. "In the meantime, one thing I do not recommend is any suggestion that I'vebeen reckless."

Seth stared at him for a long moment. Something flickered through his eyes – anger, or possibly hurt – but it was gone too quickly for Dorian to place. He rose and fetched his pack. Then he tore up a handful of deep mushrooms and offered some to Dorian.

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry."

"They're to see by," the elf said, his tone utterly flat. He stuffed his in a sort of makeshift basket fashioned from the ribcage of a deepstalker, making a lantern of it. Then he shouldered his pack and turned away.

Dorian sighed. "Seth…"

"Just leave it, Dorian. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. Look, I'm exhausted and sore and I've spent the past three months wondering if you were alive or dead, so I trust you'll understand if I'm a little frayed at the edges. Can we please just start again?"

Seth glanced at him. "At the part where I held a knife to your throat?"

He said it cool as you please, knocking the wind out of Dorian's lungs.

"No, damn it. This part." He took Seth's face in his hands and kissed him – on the forehead this time, chaste and gentle, but full of feeling all the same. "You're here. You're safe. That's enough." For now, at least.

He felt some of the tension go out of Seth's shoulders, and they stayed like that for a moment, foreheads pressed together, recalibrating. "Thank you," Seth whispered eventually.

Dorian drew back. "For what?"

"You came for me."

Tears pricked Dorian's eyes. "Of course I came for you, you stupid man." Blinking furiously, he added, "Your sister would have murdered me otherwise. Now let's go. She's been through the Void and back trying to find you, and she shouldn't have to wait one minute longer."

Seth led the way through the darkness, the glow of his mushroom lantern glinting off walls slick with moisture. He moved with confidence, as if he knew every inch of these tunnels – which he probably did. Not only did he know them, Dorian realized, he'd made them his own: They hadn't gone far before he said, "Careful here," and sprang, graceful as a deer, over an innocent-looking patch of ground. At Dorian's querying look, he reached down and lifted the corner of an animal skin concealed under a layer of dirt, revealing a pitfall lined with spikes made out of sharpened bones.

"So this is what you've been up to, is it?" Dorian did his best to keep his tone light. "Laying cunning little traps all over the Deep Roads? Rather glad I didn't blunder into any of these myself."

"They're mostly set around places I camp. Anywhere the ground is soft enough for digging. A bit like setting wards, I suppose."

"How did you even manage it? I don't see any tools on you."

"I stole a spade from the dig site. It's hidden away at another camp. I keep my things dispersed, just in case."

Dorian wasn't sure whether he was impressed or disturbed. How many camps did the elf have hidden in these tunnels? How many caches of food and weapons? He'd have his preferred spots for drawing water, or bathing. For hiding the bodies of the men he'd killed. He'd learned to live down here, a creature of the dark. That ends now, Dorian vowed. Time to come back to the light.

"You said you'd explain everything," Seth said over his shoulder as they walked. "I'm listening."

So Dorian took him through it – a journey of three months, thousands of miles, oceans of tears, and several buckets of vomit.

He'd just got to the part about the fire at the inn when a dark beast hurtled out of the shadows toward them. Dorian cast a barrier just as the thing flung itself at Seth, practically bowling him over, but even the strange buzz of the spell wasn't enough to keep a Knight's Guardian from her long-lost master. Maggie yipped each time her paws crackled against the barrier, but she was undeterred, jumping up over and over, whining and dancing, turning excited little pirouettes that had Dorian laughing even as he dismissed the spell. Seth was scarcely less enthusiastic, wrapping his arms around the wolf's neck in something that looked more like a wrestling move than a gesture of affection – and then it was wrestling, and Maggie was growling and play-biting his shoulder, and then she peed.

"And here I thought our reunion was emotional," Dorian said dryly.

"At least neither of us soiled ourselves," Seth observed.

"It was a near thing."

Seth was still ruffling Maggie's fur, perfectly happy to let her lick his face. "I'm glad to see you, too, you goofy girl." Sighing, he added, "And I dearly wish you weren't here."

"In my defence…"

Dorian never got to mount his defence, because a gasp at the far end of the tunnel drew both of their gazes. Ellana's bow tumbled to the ground, both hands flying to her mouth. For a second she just stood there, shoulders shuddering with silent sobs. And then she flew into her brother's arms, and Dorian couldn't see the rest because there was something in his eye that caused them to water uncontrollably.

Cassandra had something in her eye too, and the two of them stood there, wiping their cheeks and sniffling while the siblings embraced and whispered to each other.

"I have always been allergic to animals," Cassandra said, feigning an accusing look at Maggie before smiling fleetingly at Dorian. She squeezed his shoulder. "You did it."

"Blind luck," he said with a shake of his head.

"Not luck. The will of the Maker."

And where was the Maker when all those people were being tortured with Taint and red lyrium? Dorian kept that to himself. It would rather spoil the mood.

Ellana drew back, her face wet with tears. And then she punched Seth in the ribs, hard enough for him to grunt. "Dirthara-ma. I thought you were dead, you bastard."

"Hang on," said Dorian. "If I'd known that was allowed…"

Seth just shook his head and reached for Cassandra. "Your Holiness."

"Stop that, or I will punch you for real." She hugged him tight.

Ellana must have thought Dorian was feeling left out, because she wrapped her arms around him next. "Thank you," she whispered, her breath still hitching. "Thank you."

"Should we hug next, Cassandra?" Dorian asked.

"If you wish a knee in your groin, by all means."

"Glad that's settled. And what about the others – did you see them on your way here?"

Cassandra nodded. "We agreed to meet at the underground lake. When we left them, Cullen and the others were pulling apart the wagon to make litters. The weakest of the prisoners will be carried the rest of the way."

"You freed some of the prisoners?" Seth looked surprised – and then understanding dawned. "The elven camp. That was you?" He sighed and pushed both hands through his hair. "Thank the gods."

"Yes, the old gang's nearly all back together," Dorian said. "Now we just have to work out what to do about Varric."

"As to that…" Seth's features hardened, and Dorian caught a glimpse of the predator again. "I've had a long time to think about this. But until now, I couldn't do anything about it."

"Does that mean you have a plan?" Cassandra asked.

"Wait a minute," Dorian said languidly, examining his fingernails. "I thought I was in charge of this operation? I don't know that I'm ready to give up command just yet."

Seth arched an eyebrow. "You were in charge?"

"Don't look so surprised, Inquisitor. I'll have you know I make a fine commander."

Seth laid a hand on the side of Dorian's face and patted it gently. "No," he said, and started walking. "Just no."

Ellana laughed and threw an arm around Dorian's shoulder. "Well, I thought you were brilliant. If you'd like to mount a coup, I'm with you."

"Thank you, but this arrangement suits me just fine. Things are finally settling into place."

"Careful, Dorian." Seth glanced over his shoulder, his expression somewhere between grim and sheepish. "You might feel differently when I tell you the plan."