Thank you for reading! Particular thanks to suilven for the beta!

Alistair stood, holding Lilias in his arms. He hoped she would sleep for a long time, so that they would be far from here when she was forced to an awareness of what the trip through the Fade had cost.

"Bethany?" Nathaniel Howe asked softly. At Alistair's shake of the head, the dark-haired Warden put his head in his hands.

"It was her choice," Alistair said. "She wanted to be clear about that—she chose to stay behind, to save us all from what was waiting to come through behind us."

"If I had been stronger, it might never have come to this."

"We can all say the same."

"This is her sister?"

Alistair shifted Lilias in his arms. She was so thin, she weighed hardly anything. "Yes. She … she was prepared to stay behind, and Bethany refused to allow it."

"I am sorry about Bethany," Cassandra put in, "but this does not resolve the question of what to do with the Grey Wardens."

Nathaniel nodded. "We are ready for whatever might come. We will accept our fate."

Alistair felt a momentary irritation. Hadn't the Wardens had enough of letting someone else tell them what to do? First the Blight, when Loghain and Celene had kept them out of Ferelden, and then Corypheus, and now the Inquisition? The Wardens needed to learn to stand on their own two feet.

"The dragon has gone. That at least is a good sign," Solas offered.

"Is it truly an Archdemon?" Thule asked, his eyes on Alistair.

"I don't think so. It doesn't look like the one we fought in Denerim, and it doesn't appear to command an army of the horde. Instead, it's commanded by Corypheus. If, as is believed, Archdemons are corrupted old gods, awakened by darkspawn tunneling, I can't imagine a real Archdemon being Corypheus's lapdog."

Cassandra frowned at him thoughtfully. "He is the oldest of the darkspawn."

Alistair shrugged. "I could be wrong." He didn't want to think of the Archdemon now, anyway, about Leyden facing it down, her hair wild around her shoulders.

"I will take the surviving Wardens into custody, Inquisitor, if those are your wishes." That they were Cassandra's wishes was easy to tell from her tone and the expression on her face.

Alistair wondered what Thule would do. He was putty in Cassandra's hands in most things … but not all.

"You have our unconditional surrender," Nathaniel said hoarsely. "But … we have no one left of any significant rank to speak for us all."

"You seem to be doing a fine job," Thule told him. "Warden …?"

"Howe, Your Worship. Nathaniel Howe."

"From Amaranthine?"

"Yes. I …" There were tears standing in Nathaniel's eyes. "I appear to be the only one left."

"I am sorry for your losses, and for the torment that led to them." Thule looked at Nathaniel thoughtfully. "I fail to see how your Order can do any good locked away." He sighed. "I task the Wardens with becoming part of the Inquisition, seeing that the ill that began with their imprisonment of Corypheus is ended once and for all."

"Thank you, Your Worship," Nathaniel breathed.

"After all that, you give them yet another chance?" Cassandra objected.

"The Grey Wardens have stood strong against the darkspawn for ages, Cassandra. I will not throw them away because their own blood was turned against them. We do what we can with what we have, and the Grey Wardens can be of great use."

Alistair was startled, and grateful, and he wished fiercely that he was among the Wardens today, that he could be part of whatever they were going to do. He should never have agreed to leave them, he thought. He looked at Nathaniel. "Someone should get word to Weisshaupt."

Nathaniel looked like a man awaking from a nightmare. "Yes. Yes, they should. I will send someone."

"In the meantime, we need to be getting back to Skyhold." Thule led the way back through the keep.

Lilias stirred, her head against a very hard shoulder. She fidgeted, feeling something move underneath her. Her body was twisted oddly, as well. Was she still in the Fade?

Then she opened her eyes, and found herself on a horse, clasped in Alistair's arms. Without thinking, she pushed at him, and only his quick reflexes and her own kept her from falling off the horse and being trampled by the army behind it.

Alistair grasped her firmly and helped her reposition herself. His armor dug into her in uncomfortable places, but she could smell something familiarly Alistair under the sweat and blood and metal and horse, and between that and the warmth of his body, she was in danger of feeling entirely too at home here in his arms.

"What happened?"

"We got out of the Fade."

"So I gather. But … that spidery thing?"

Alistair looked down at her, something almost scared in his face, and she knew.

"No. No." This time, she did push herself off him and got down from the horse. "What did you do?"

He stopped the horse and got down as well. "I didn't do anything. It was Bethany's choice."

"What was Bethany's choice?"

"She … stayed behind. To cover our escape. She told me to tell you—she wanted you to know that she chose that fate, with her eyes open. She wanted it."

"To die in the Fade? Alone? My baby sister?" Lilias could hear her own voice rising to a piercing screech, but she was powerless to stop it. "How could you?"

"I couldn't let you die!" he thundered back at her. "Not when there was any other option."

"It wasn't your decision."

"No, it was hers! For once, can you try to believe that someone else knew what they wanted out of their own life?" He took a step toward her, and Lilias backed away.

"Don't come near me." She turned her head, seeing two ponies approaching in the midst of the rest of the mass of the army. Varric rode one, the Inquisitor the other. She couldn't bear to meet Varric's eyes, to see in them … anything. Sympathy, anger, grief—any of it would be too much, coming from him. Instead she grasped the reins of the Inquisitor's pony, pulling him to a stop. "We've got to go back. We can't leave her there."

He shook his head. "It's too late. She's gone by now."

"You don't know that! If we go back, you can open a rift and we can go through and get her out. You can do that, can't you? You opened the rift in the first place!"

"I'm sorry. I can't."

"Can't, or won't? Is that what this Inquisition is, you don't care who you roll over as long as you get your way?" She could barely speak through her tears, and she didn't even believe what she was saying, but she couldn't help it. Bethany! The toddler in pigtails, the little girl sobbing because she'd burnt a hole in her best dress, the gangling teenager so shy and scared she hid behind Lilias whenever they went anywhere—the beautiful woman she could, should, have been.

"Hawke, I really am sorry. Please believe me—if there was something I could have done, something I could do now, I would. But there's nothing." There was pain in the Inquisitor's voice, and she wondered who he had lost that he understood hers so thoroughly.

Behind him, she caught sight of a familiar delicate tattooed face, and she let go of the Inquisitor's reins and dashed back to pull Merrill's horse to a stop. Next to her, Solas reined his in as well, looking down on her with compassion.

"Merrill, there's something you can do, isn't there? Can't you—go for a walk in the Fade and find her? Make some path for her through the Fade that she can get out, that she can be safe? Please, Merrill, it's Bethany. Please!"

"Hawke—" Merrill's voice caught in her throat. "I'm so sorry, lethallan. So very sorry."

"You. Solas. You can do something, can't you?" Above her head, Lilias saw Merrill's gaze move to Solas's face, Merrill's eyes narrowing thoughtfully, but Solas said no.

"The likelihood is that your sister was gone moments after the rift was closed," he said. "There were many demons in that corner of the Fade."

"She was a strong mage, a powerful mage. She could have killed them all. She could be alive in there. Couldn't she?" Lilias looked wildly between them, unable to give up. Bethany was all she had left, the only person in the world she had to protect, and care for. If Bethany was gone, then … she was truly all alone. Bethany couldn't be gone.

"I am sorry," Merrill whispered again, and then Lilias knew nothing more.

Behind them, Cullen saw Lilias's knees buckle, and he sped up, wanting to catch her before she fell, but Alistair was there, lifting her in his arms and carrying her on ahead to his horse.

While Cullen would have liked to believe he could have carried her, the truth was that he could barely sit his horse. The pain radiated from his neck down his spine, all the way to his toes, and back up again, occasionally reaching an intensity that was almost blinding.

He needed the lyrium. All he could think of, the only thing that was keeping him on this horse, his teeth clenched firmly against the pain, was the cool blue light of that vial awaiting him back in his office. He had been a fool to think he could rid himself of his addiction to it, a fool to think he could lead this Inquisition's army. Oh, they had achieved a victory at Adamant, but that was once, a chance in a thousand. What they needed was a leader with his wits about him, at the peak of his strength, not a broken down ex-Templar lyrium fiend who couldn't think straight without it.

"Commander?"

Cullen turned toward the voice, squinting a little to try to make out the features. The Iron Bull's lieutenant? "Aclassi?" he asked, his voice a croak.

"Krem, please, Commander."

Clearing his throat, Cullen said, "Of course," striving for a normal tone, something that didn't scream that he was in terrible pain and badly needed lyrium. "You—you and your people fought well."

"So did you." Krem grinned. "The way you scaled that wall, like you do it every day." His eyes were on Cullen's face, frowning a little. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes, perfectly fine." He wasn't; he could feel himself perspiring and the pain was back.

"If you say so." Krem dropped back again. He was riding with Sera, and the two of them resumed a lively conversation that made Cullen's head hurt anew.

When they were back at Skyhold, he would talk to Cassandra, he told himself. She would see him in this condition, she would understand, she would agree that the Inquisition needed a new commander. And then … then he would take the lyrium, the cool blue liquid in his veins spreading its soothing balm through him, taking the pain away.

Yes. That's what he would do. The horse stumbled a little, jarring him, and Cullen held back a curse with difficulty. It was going to be a long way back to Skyhold.

The ravens had told her everything. Leliana had wept and prayed for Bethany, although she had not been surprised. Bethany had been certain of her fate, and ready for it, and from all accounts, had finally taken charge of her own life, the way she had wanted to. Leliana was proud of her.

As for the reports that the party who had gone into the Fade had encountered the Divine … Leliana wasn't certain if she wanted to know that they had truly touched the spirit of Dorothea, or if she was angry that some Fade spirit had coopted the form of her beloved Divine for its own purposes.

She looked up from a field report to see Cassandra standing awkwardly in front of her desk.

"You do not look the worse for wear after your trip into the Fade, my friend."

"I … do not feel the same. In many ways."

Leliana stood up. "You dealt Corypheus a significant blow, you and your Inquisitor."

Cassandra cut a sharp look from those grey eyes at her. "You heard, I suppose, that the woman in the Fade with him was not Andraste, but Divine Justinia? I …" She looked down at her hands.

"Is there truly so much difference? Would Andraste's presence have made his contributions to the world, his work as Inquisitor, more meaningful, somehow?"

"I … do not know." Cassandra waved an impatient hand, not wanting to talk about it further.

"There is not much time for contemplation. We may have taken an army from Corypheus, but that will matter little if we lose Orlais."

"Yes, the threat against the Empress. What do we know?"

"I believe she will be in most danger at a ball in Halamshiral, later in the winter."

"A ball?" Cassandra groaned. "I hate balls."

Leliana smiled. "I love them. There is nowhere else where you can learn so much in so little time."

"I am not going to wear a dress."

Letting her smile broaden just a bit, Leliana said, "Maybe the Inquisitor won't take you. Just think, all those beautifully dressed Orlesian ladies, fawning over him, stuffing their tokens in his pockets …"

"You are impossible."

Leliana smothered a chuckle. Cassandra turned to go. As her hand touched the top rail of the stairs, Leliana couldn't hold the question back any further. "What was she like?"

"Justinia?"

"Yes. Her soul, or the spirit that took her form. What … what did she say?"

Cassandra looked off into space, measuring her words. "She seemed … calm. Serene. And she guided us the whole way through before sacrificing herself against the nightmare demon."

"She would."

"Yes. She also asked us to tell you something. She said, 'Tell Leliana I'm sorry. I failed her, too.'"

The words were like a dagger to the heart, thin and sharp and striking at the deepest, most vulnerable part. Dorothea was the only person Leliana could think of who had never failed her. Never once.

Cassandra's eyes were soft, sympathetic. "I will leave you now."

"Thank you, my friend."

Long after Cassandra was gone, Leliana leaned on the railing, her eyes and her thoughts far, far from the Inquisition, thinking of those who had gone into the Fade before her.

Thule's heart pounded as he climbed the stairs to Cassandra's rooms over the blacksmith shop. Since the Fade, since the Divine's revelations that he wasn't touched by Andraste and his decision about the Grey Wardens, she wouldn't even look at him. He didn't know how much he had counted on being able to glance at her and get her opinion from one eloquent look from her grey eyes until he didn't have it any longer.

He hadn't deceived her, he told himself. She didn't have any right to be angry with him. But she did, too, because even though he hadn't known what the truth was, he had let her believe Andraste had been with him in the Fade, he had come to half-believe it himself. He should have kept a clearer head, a stronger sense of the impossibility of what everyone believed, and by letting himself be drawn in, he had let her down.

He knocked on her door, finding her sitting at her desk, a quill moving laboriously over a piece of parchment. "Trying to challenge Varric for the title of Skyhold's most famous author?" he teased.

The silence hung heavy in the air. She was clearly not ready to be teased.

"What are you writing?" he asked in a more serious tone.

She gave a harsh sigh, throwing the quill down and spattering ink across her parchment. "I am trying to write the account of our time in the Fade, but writing hardly comes easily to me, as I'm sure you can imagine. But historians will want to know what happened to us, and it should be written down before we forget, before time makes us … think things were different."

"Just … be careful what you write."

Cassandra glared at him. "I will write the truth." Then, in a more measured tone, "Do not be concerned. I may be a poor writer, but I am aware of the weight my words will carry. I will write nothing to the Inquisition's discredit." She got up from the desk, looking out the window. "I still don't know what to say about the spirit of the Divine. Was it truly Justinia? I saw her there, heard her voice, yet I cannot claim with certainty that it was really her. I … want to think so, but … " She frowned. "The Chantry teaches us that the souls of the dead pass through the Fade, so it could have been her, but even so …"

"Do you really think there's a possibility?"

"A remnant of her hopes and memories, her lingering will to do good … Perhaps. I cannot say for sure. The spirit helped us, as Justinia herself helped you."

"About that—"

"I feel like such a fool, believing that you, a dwarf, could have been touched by Andraste. And you—you allowed me to think so! You encouraged me to believe it." Her eyes were dark as slate, her face all hard lines.

"I know." Thule nodded. "I let you believe it because—because I wanted you to see me as special. Because I wanted to see myself as special. I'm as Andrastean as you are, despite my dwarven blood, and I wanted to think that I had been chosen. Me, a petty Carta thief." He laughed bitterly. "I should have known better." He looked up at her. "I … failed you. I let you down. I encouraged you to think I was something I'm not. I'm sorry."

As Cassandra looked down at him, the hard lines of her face softened, her eyes losing that flintiness and truly seeing him, searching his face. "You mean that."

"I do. I never meant to lie to you, not really, any more than I meant to lie to myself. I didn't remember what had happened, and when everyone said it was Andraste I didn't know any better; I was as willing to believe that as anything."

"I understand." Her voice was softer now.

"You do?"

"Yes. I thought … I was thinking only of myself, of my own disappointment, but … whether it was Justinia or Andraste who saved you doesn't change what you have accomplished, what you have made of yourself. I … As you know, I admire you."

"You do?" he asked again, feeling utterly idiotic, but unable to find any other words.

Cassandra nodded. "I do." She swallowed visibly. "When I realized that we were physically in the Fade, I was—terrified almost beyond reason."

"You didn't show it."

"I couldn't. But all I could think was that the last time such a thing happened, we created darkspawn. We created Corypheus. But you—you weren't afraid at all."

"I was with you," he said simply.

They looked at one another for a long moment before Cassandra turned back to her parchment. "The world needs to know the truth this time. No more legends lost to the ages. If I can only find the words …"

"You could practice by writing something else."

"What do you suggest?"

Thule tried a grin, and when she didn't glare at him, he said playfully, but with meaning, "Love poetry?"

This time she did glare, but there was a lift at the corners of her mouth that warmed him straight to the heart, and points south. Cassandra shook her head. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to."

"You can do anything if you want to."

She tsked in the back of her throat at the compliment. "Poetry takes finesse. It takes … grace."

"You think you don't have those things?"

Cassandra shook her head. Her face was set and emotionless, but he glimpsed something in her grey eyes and wondered how hard she had fought as a young girl to be comfortable seeing herself as someone without grace.

"I think you have grace."

She watched him warily, as if waiting for a punchline. Thule leaned across the table, his face close to hers.

"I think you are as graceful as a rose. Slender, elegant, beautiful … but with thorns."

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but couldn't help a small, pleased smile that tinted her cheeks a delicate pink. "Do not be ridiculous."

"I'll try." He grinned at her again, and took his leave.

Varric lay back in the bed, luxuriating in the softness of the sheets beneath him, the mattress, so firm in some places, so soft in others. Lying here eased pains he hadn't even known he had.

The faint crackle of the banked fire, the smell of the burning applewood, the lavender scent of the sheets, the smoothness of the sheets on his body … He stretched his limbs out as far as they could go, letting his head settle comfortably in the pillow, feeling himself begin to drift off into sleep.

The only thing that could make this better, he thought, was Bianca. He imagined her strong, scarred fingers weaving their way through his chest hair and down, lower and lower, her soft lips at his ear, whispering to him all the things she intended to do to him. Involuntarily, his hips arched into the phantom touch, the cool soft sheets against the luxurious soft cotton of his smallclothes feeling almost as erotic as the real thing. Her lips on his nipple, her hand curling around him just so, one of her legs thrown over his ...

His eyes opened to assure himself that she really wasn't here, much as he wished she was, and he caught sight of Bianca the crossbow on her elaborate stand near the bed. "Sorry, old girl," he said, as always feeling vaguely guilty when he couldn't quite let the complicated contraption stand in for the equally complicated person. "It's been a long time," he muttered to the empty room, the silent crossbow, the absent lover.

Suddenly the bed seemed less comfortable, almost too warm, even a bit confining. Groaning, Varric threw back the covers and got up, taking his dressing gown from the back of the chair next to his bed and swinging it on, sliding his feet into his comfortable slippers. At his worktable in the corner of the room he lit a candle, and sat down, sifting through the papers there until he found the one he wanted. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well see what kind of trouble Donnen Brennokovic wanted to get into.