This corresponds to Silea's memory of dancing in the Fade memory of the Citadelle du Corbeau - or, rather, the time she and Solas spent afterward in the courtyard.

"Solas…"

I look down at Silea, her head resting easily against my shoulder. There are fewer torches here than elsewhere in the Citadelle du Corbeau - which is where I have brought her to spend the night, well away from the nightmares that have recently plagued her. The silver light of two moons washes away all color. I know, from occasionally filling the role of healer while we are away from camp, that Silea's body has been marked here and there by battle, but her face has yet to be touched by either the conflicts she regularly engages in, or by time. She looks even more impossibly young in this light, far too young for the depths of wisdom her eyes betray.

"Have you ever been in love before?"

My eyebrows arch in mild surprise at the question, but Silea seems to interpret my expression as something else entirely. Her cheeks darken, and she looks away hastily. "I mean, that is - if you are - "

If? I am aware that my behavior has not been entirely consistent, but have my motivations been so opaque? Apparently they have - so opaque, indeed, that she doubts me even though I did tell her I loved her.

Once. Weeks ago.

Perhaps that is the problem. My fingertips brush her jaw, and she looks up at me, hesitant, before glancing away again. "Ar lath ma," I reassure her. "I would not have said it, had I not meant it. Ane...u'vun ghilal ma vhenan."

She lets out a breath at my words, relaxing back against me, and the relief I feel both at the easing of her embarrassment, and at having her here in my arms, tells me that, no, whatever I might have believed in ages past, I have never truly loved another.

"I ane emma," she sighs, "sasha u'vun ithan."

And that is a miracle for which I have no explanation. I bend my head and kiss her lightly. "No," I tell her, answering her question. "I suffered through infatuations enough as a young man, as anyone might. A few times my affections settled on someone who might have been worthy," I admit, "but my feelings were not returned. And," I add in a lower voice, wrapping her a little more tightly in my embrace, "no one has ever compared to you." I smile down at her. "Now - should I ask you, or can I assume your answer is similar?"

She laughs and glances away as though embarrassed, and for a moment I wonder if I am wrong - if she has more experience than I have supposed. "Similar enough, I suppose, except - " Her gaze searches my face as I watch her with open curiosity. "Except for the part about infatuations," she admits, and I find myself flattered by the idea that she is not easily impressed, and yet has found something to admire in me. "I - to be perfectly honest, though I sometimes found people attractive - physically - the idea of having to bind my life to someone else's just - just to have sex sounded roughly as appealing as selling myself into slavery in return for well-made arrows. I appreciate a good arrow, but - not that much. The calculation never made sense to me."

Some of the warmth I feel drains away as I realize she speaks in the past tense. "And now it does?" I ask carefully.

She apparently detects the caution in my voice, and gives me a quizzical look. "It's beginning to," she tells me. "I always thought declaring a bond was a sacrifice, but I am realizing that it isn't - or it isn't supposed to be." She looks away. "I - with anyone else I have ever known, it certainly would have been. More than a sacrifice, really. A torture. I...value my autonomy highly."

Is she thinking of me as her mate? Or has falling in love merely illuminated what eluded her before, even though she has not mentally placed me in that role?

Will she? I feel savage at the thought that anyone else would ever occupy it, and yet - how much commitment can I reasonably offer her?

"Don't give away your autonomy for me," I beg her, struggling against my own selfish desire to hoard her affection for myself. This is apparently the limit of my altruism: to recognize what I am doing is wrong, make a token struggle against it, and then leave the ultimate outcome in the hands of someone I have led to trust me.

Silea is speaking - defending herself, or her love for me. I miss the first part, hearing little besides the uneasy confusion in her voice. "...I pause to consider what might be best for you - what my actions might mean for your plans - before I begin arranging things to my liking. It isn't a burden. I like having reasons to think of you."

I close my eyes and turn my face away, hating myself. "You make it sound so simple," I tell her. "So sensible." She is terrified of losing her autonomy - I am terrified of losing my world. She would give up some piece of her autonomy for me, but I...I cannot give up even the smallest part of my plans for her.

Her fingers brush my cheek. "Solas?"

Anyone would love her, I believe, if she chose to bestow her attention upon them, and so my feelings only reveal that I am not utterly heartless. Indeed, in a sense, my adoration only serves to illuminate the full depths of my selfishness: I can feel so deeply, and yet resist the urge to lay out everything I am, everything I have done, and everything I intend to do. "Ir abelas, ma vhenan," I apologize, swallowing the truth I will not offer. "An...old wound - and no fault of yours that this conversation reminded me."

"Will you tell me about it?"

"No," I respond entirely too quickly, and I am forced to backtrack as much as I can: "At least not tonight. That is...not the aim tonight."

"Why not?" she demands, shoving me playfully with her shoulder. "If I'm thinking of your problems, I won't be thinking of mine."

I look at her and cannot help smiling at how sweetly earnest she is. "Yes, but you would feel mine at least as deeply as your own, and I would spare you that burden. Especially now." If we were speaking of the sort of problem she believes we are speaking of, it would likely even be true. How she retains so much empathy doing what she does, while remaining one of the only harbors of sanity in this entire mess, is an impenetrable mystery. Impenetrable to me, in any case.

The beginning of the final, grand display of fireworks interrupts whatever argument she might have offered, and I wrap her more tightly in my arms, pulling her back against my chest. We remain in that position as colors light the sky, and I wonder how long I can continue lying to her - and what will happen when I must finally tell the truth. I cannot entirely quell the faint, flickering hope that she will understand why I must act, but she is Dalish and I fear she will lose all faith in me when she learns who and what I am.

Still, for a moment I allow myself to picture what it might be like to live with her in a world restored. If she were to become a mage, I could train her myself, showing her the wonders of the Fade and introducing her to spirits who would engage her curiosity, offering her agile mind a wealth of subjects to explore. Her charm and skill in debate would win me political support I would not be able to command on my own, and in private her quick eye for poorly-reasoned arguments would ensure I was always honest with myself regarding both likely outcomes of my plans and my motivations for choosing them. Together, we could make the world a more just place than it has yet been.

And at night, I would have her in my bed.

If. If she can forgive me for lying, for the original fall of her people, and for the actions I must take to restore them. I hold out little hope of it. One day, perhaps soon, I will almost certainly lose her - an outcome whose inevitability was set in motion by my own actions long before she existed.

I push away my regret, and bend my head to kiss her neck. For this moment, her love is mine. "Have you enjoyed tonight, arasha?" I ask.

Only a few minutes remain before dawn, and it is her habit to wake at first light. When she turns to me, to take advantage of our last moments together in the Fade, I consider objecting - I know I ought to object. But then her lips touch mine, and my will to do anything other than what I desire seeps away into the energies of the Fade. If there were time, there would be no stopping - one of her hands falls to the front of my breeches, stroking me through the fabric, and one of mine finds her breast. Even through layers of velvet, samite, and linen, I can feel her nipple harden at my touch, and her breath stutters - but then morning comes, and she is taken from me by her own stubborn habits.

I have already promised to breakfast with her, and so I force myself to wake. But despite my promise, I am so consumed with lust that I must spend a few minutes dulling the edge somewhat before I can rise and begin my day with anything approaching equanimity.

By the time I reached Solas's memory of our night dancing at Citadelle du Corbeau, I had left behind the need to do anything so literal as touch the markers to manipulate them. Seeing his vision of what our future might have been had his orb not been destroyed saddened me, and I both understood and shared in his desperate lust - but neither of those things were what I wanted to experience directly.

I spread the scene out, drawing it from our shared memories, and started it at the moment when the last of the fireworks began. Myself, I placed in Solas's embrace, and his arms wrapped around me, warming me as he held me tight. It wasn't the same as being held in reality. It hardly even began to make up for what he had done the night he stole into my room. It was, in the end, utterly hollow.

Even so, I couldn't help but come away a little comforted.

At least he had left me this - this memory I could draw on whenever I needed to be held. It wasn't enough, but it was more than I had ever had in the the past.

Ane...u'vun ghilal ma vhenan: You are...the star that guides my heart

I ane emma, sasha u'vun ithan: And you are mine, the only star I see