From his study he heard Commander Cullen and Leliana make their way through the hall. Their debrief had run late, most of Skyhold now slept. The heavy closing of the door to Inquisitor Trevelyan's wing sounded soon after and he felt the all-too-familiar sensation of dread settling on his chest like a hot stone. He had only meant to provide comfort, in that first dream. Hadn't he? Perhaps he had been doing a bit of showing-off, something to impress her. He was so very eager to impress her as of late, for reasons he had found embarrassing and best left unexplored.

Solas pushed himself from his sofa and threw open the door before pausing in the hall. He had to explain himself. Apologize, do something to stop the course of action before things went too impossibly far. Every day since Haven was this same empty ache. Every day another leaf fell from the tree in the center of the herb garden. Every morning he stood at the great dining table with his breakfast growing cold before him, staring distantly at a future that grew ever more hazy and indeterminate. Every evening the big and the little words that passed between them, all spelling out raw desire that he knew would boil over at any moment. Every night the fear of being alone pressed up against the fear of giving in and telling her. Time was passing, slipping away from them both, and he had remained this unmovable object, helpless against the limitations and insecurities closing in around him like walls. Then she had kissed him. Such a simple thing, that kiss, chaste and innocent and sweet before she pulled away. Meant to shock him perhaps, or as a thank you. He would never know the intention behind it due to his own brash behavior. He had taken a moment meant to be an offer of trust and broken that trust so thoroughly. Then, without giving her time to process both his behavior and the events of the Winter Palace, he'd done it again. Why did he have this compulsive need to thrust himself into her thoughts? Her dreams? He wanted to give her something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than his clawing desperation. The options, however, seemed equally repulsive.

Dear Inquisitor, I'm sorry I cannot meet with you any longer.

Dear Inquisitor, I'm sorry I came to your room and seduced you, left you bruised and ruined, you poor exquisite thing.

She needed a better story. Who wouldn't?

This was a story he could easily tell. The things he thought, the things he dreamed. Of her. With her. Love in every place he imagined and more. Love to wake the dragon, flames consuming them both. Not that he was the dragon, oh no. In this story, he was the innocent. She would be the true danger.

One of the soldiers stared at him from across the room, and he realized with a slight panic that she had asked him a question. "I am sorry. I was lost in thought." The woman nodded and carried on with whatever she was tasked with during these late hours, a small shake of the head as she made her way to the courtyard.

At least this wasn't a lie. He was lost in thoughts too shameful to be expressed. Desiring to walk through her dreams, pick apart her mind, open her skull and delve inside until he knew everything there was to know about how she thought, how she breathed. He wanted to invent an entire future with him by her side. He knew this was a sinking ship, that he would have to abandon her, his dreams, his future at some point. Dangerous how easy it was to forget that part. Stolen kisses in hazy dreams, lingering glances, slight touches when they passed one another; this was the legacy they shared up and until this moment. Solas knew that it was rising to a boiling point, and that eventually one of them would cross that line.

From the courtyard, voices. He heard his name mentioned. It wouldn't do for him to be seen entering her chambers this late. Skyhold was a place rife with gossips, with rumormongers. Among them are those who would use such damaging knowledge to facilitate her downfall. Remove her from the throne… with her head intact, if she's lucky. Solas had spent years developing what he had long considered an iron self-control. The reserve he wore like a warm cloak had served him well, protected him from making many of the same pratfalls his younger self fell into. It was this reason he thought it best to wait until morning. It was this reason he turned from her chambers without hesitating. It was this reason he fumbled through the door to his study without betraying the way his hands shook. It was this reason he managed to make it the fifteen steps to his desk before the reserve crumbled away completely and he turned back around, his steps quickening as he grew closer once again to her door.

Rumors be damned.

She stood from her chair the moment he entered, the blanket across her lap falling to the floor, forgotten.

"I am sorry to disturb you. I know it is late." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his arms folded across his chest.

"You aren't disturbing me."

"Yes… well. You do not know why I am here. What I have to tell you might be quite disturbing indeed."

Something in the way she stared caused a great undoing within him, a tiny tinkling as the last vestiges of his icy reserve broke apart, leaving behind nothing but the realization he was not there to apologize. No, he could see it was far too late for apology, which left only the unsaid. Neither of them moved, standing nearly two yards apart, neither willing nor able to come any closer. He spoke again, his words uncharacteristically hurried, distracted. "I keep thinking you know, that you already know everything. As if the letters I write you inside my head, as if I've sent them…" he trailed off then, his hands hanging loosely at his side. She closed the distance between them, stopping just within arm's reach.

"I need you to tell me." Her eyes were heavy, hooded, standing so close to him in the near-dark. "Say it."

"Ma emma lath, ma vhenan, ma vhenan'ara. Ma'arlath," he watched her expression, her eyes darting as she struggled with the words, tried to fully decipher. The kiss came before he quite realized what he was doing, her muffled gasp against his lips as he pulled her to him roughly by the waist.

She stared up at him then, her eyes ablaze with the invitation that he had both hoped and feared for so long. Her fingers found his in the dim, entwining their hands tightly together, and her lips parted, the words he desired waiting just behind teeth and tongue. Solas leaned forward then, pushing his forehead into hers roughly. "Please," his voice was only a whisper. He shook his head, eyes lowering from hers. "Please do not ask me."

When he looked up at her again, the gaze she returned was one of hurt confusion. "It is not because I do not want you, believe that. I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my long life. And if you ask... if you request it, I can not deny you. That is why I am begging you to please… please just stop. Do not ask this of me."

For a long while there was nothing but their soft breathing as they stood like this, locked together but afraid to move closer. Their fingers grasped, his nose bumped against hers once, twice, and then he withdrew, slowly pulling his hand from hers. "If you invite me to your bed, I will go willingly. But you have duties, duties of a higher calling and I cannot allow myself to be a distraction." He heard the choked laugh/snort of derision she gave and he shook his head again. "No. You are not listening. If you invite me to your bed, neither of us will leave it again. This will consume us. I cannot let this fail. Not because of me."

The fire crackled in the otherwise silent room. When she spoke, her voice was clipped, quiet yet angry. "You said you were concerned you would ruin me completely."

A lump formed in his throat. "I did say that, yes."

She took his hand again, held softly in both of hers. "And?" she breathed.

"And? And what, exactly?"

"What if I wanted you to ruin me completely?"

Solas stepped back slightly. "You should not say things you don't mean."

She gazed up at him, pulling him closer. "And if I do mean them?"

"I can't," he whispered as she snaked her arms around his torso, no longer timid. Her dressing gown so cobweb thin he worried it would tear beneath his fingers as he gripped her hips.

"You can. Stay."

There were fingers on his chest, he conscious of this even while he lingered in half-sleep. "What did that word mean?" Solas opened his eyes. The first glow of dawn was still hours from the horizon, the entirety of the fortress asleep, still. He covered her fingers with his own.

"Which word?" he pulled the coverlet up over one of her bare shoulders.

"Alath'ma."

"Ah. That word."

"You said it, more than once." Her cheeks flushed scarlet and she looked away from him then. The night was still a heavy blur of image and sensation. His scandalous confession, her closing in on him, his fumbled pleas for mercy, her absolute refusal to yield, his slow slip over the edge of reason and then no other words needed. She had pulled him to her bed and in the tangle of limbs and clothes most of her bedding had ended up on the floor. Whispered apologies, whispered instructions that became insistent demands, needy whimpers, contented sighs.

He had no doubt he had spoken it aloud, more than once.

"It is a word that evokes a feeling, not a common elvish word, I'm afraid."

"Is there no translation?"

"I think the closest would simply be, 'mine.' A sort of absolute, definite mine. All-encompassing."

She shivered, her leg twining over his beneath the voluminous blankets. "Alath'ma," she whispered, her lips grazing this forearm as she lifted their hands together.

With one fluid movement she was turned onto her back, his teeth at her neck as she held him close. "Alath'ma," he responded.

The next morning, a wayward glance from one of the kitchen maids caused Solas' stomach to knot. How well did sound carry in that courtyard? He watched Evelyn push her own breakfast around her plate, staring out the leaded window with a distant expression. He would ask her about this later, in the tiny study beneath the great hall. She would only smile mysteriously in response. He backed her against the bookcase and she laughed quietly.

"Alath'ma."

Their secret had an equally secret name, only ever whispered to one another. In the garden, as they passed a little too closely on the path. In the library, pressed against the wall so no one peering down would see. In the fields of Crestwood, while she examined a carving on a rocky face, his lips against the hollow of her ear, just out of sight from their traveling companions.

"Alath'ma," he would whisper, and she would breathlessly respond, "Yes."