Author's Note: My attempt at turning Trespasserinto a full story! It was a small labour of love, so I would really appreciate it if you left a kudos and/or comment after you've read it. I hope you enjoy! Inspiration was taken from Lindira's Fearful Thoughts on AO3 for some sections, but no copyright infringement or plagiarism was intended.

The moment the saarebas falls, the accumulated energy from Leas' Anchor burning away his barriers and reaching through to stop his heart and lay him out flat, Leas himself almost falls on his face. Dorian kneels next to him, tries to catch his gaze. "Leas! Amatus?"

Leas gasps for breath and lifts his head off the ground. As the Anchor burns, accumulating energy again at a horrifying rate, he turns himself around so he is facing the last eluvian. Then he digs his fingers into the ground and begins to crawl forward.

"A-Aren't you going to walk?" Dorian protests.

Leas looks up at him, and for a moment, Dorian wishes he hadn't. Leas' eyes are still glowing bright green—not just his irises, but his whites and his pupils. They are not the site of the Anchor, but magical energy pours out of them, too. Down below, out of sight, the Anchor sparks and flares up, and its activity wracks Leas' body with shudders and twitches.

"I can't. Not anymore," Leas says. The words come out from between his teeth, punctuated by gasps.

"Then maybe we should come through with you—"

Leas shakes his head. "No. Don't… ahhh!… don't know what's there." His words slur. "If… I… fail… someone needs to… tell the Council."

"Hang the Council! Amatus, please—" At this point, that bloody green and Leas' agony are far more than Dorian can take. Every minute since they got to the Darvaarad has been a horror. Every explosion of the Anchor—and there have been many—has made him wonder if this moment, or maybe the next, is now the end. That he could let Leas go alone… unthinkable.

But Leas only sets his jaw, even as his face twists with exquisite agony and sweat rolls down his forehead. He cries out as the Anchor flares again. "No. Stay. Give it… half an hour. Or… twenty minutes. If I'm not back… come get. All right?"

Even through the glow of his eyes, Dorian can see his resolve. His willpower crumbles, and with it, the first of the tears he's been holding back for so long makes its escape. "Bloody bastard," he whispers again, stroking Leas' cheek as much to soothe him as anything else. "Come back to me."

Amazingly, despite the situation, Leas manages a chuckle. "You hypocrite," he mutters, and Dorian buries his face in his hands. "Well… kiss me already. If I'm… argh… dying, I want to remember something sweet."

At these words, his throat closes, and more tears escape. But he does as he's asked, leaning down and pulling Leas up into one more kiss.

The angle is terrible, and it's hard to focus over the haze of terror and despair gathering in his head, and a gasp or soft cry punctuates every one of Leas' movements. Still, he can feel what Leas is trying to say as they press their lips together gently. He recalls the words Leas spoke to him several days ago, a lifetime ago: var'lath juros min'vir. In his own tongue, nostri amor hic iter perpetietur. One of the few hopes he has left… but how small it is.

After a few moments, he pulls away, and Leas forces the weakest smile Dorian has surely ever seen from him. Then he collapses to the ground again, crawls away, and soon disappears through the final eluvian.

The minute he's out of sight, it all comes home to him at last, and he slumps back to the ground, paying no heed to Iselen and Bull racing over to him. The Exalted Council looking to tear down the Inquisition, his father dead, his impending permanent return to Tevinter to take his place in the Magisterium, Leas' mark tearing him apart from the inside, the machinations of the Qunari and Fen'Harel… Madness, even by their standards. And in such a short space, too. Has it only been a week?

Bull and Iselen are panting when they join him, and looking up at them, Dorian can see that both are pale and exhausted. "What now?" Bull says. "Shouldn't we go in after him?"

"He said we should wait out here, that somebody needed to tell the Exalted Council what has happened if he fails," Dorian tells him, sniffing. "Hang the Council, as far as I'm concerned, but he insisted. If he's not back in half an hour, then we'll follow him."

Both Bull and Iselen look like they want to argue, but as Leas has already gone, they nod and throw themselves to the ground. Iselen curls up and runs his hands through his hair, the stress etched into every line of his face. Bull, meanwhile, appears as if he could do with the world's largest glass of the world's strongest spirit. Maker knows he wouldn't pass up an offer of some potent wine, himself.

But they won't find anything like that in this ruin, so Dorian turns to face the eluvian, rests his head on his hand, and starts to run through in his mind again just how they'd got to this point.

Oh, Orlesians. Never change, he muses to himself while Cyril de Montfort prattles on. This one's rather more obnoxious than most, actually. Seems friendly, better than most Orlesians, but you only need to listen to hear the poison beneath his words. Like most magisters, come to think of it. Why he finds it more obnoxious and grating than usual, Dorian isn't entirely sure, but something about Cyril's false affability—false sycophancy, even—sets his teeth on edge. Maybe it is the contrast between the words he speaks and the intentions he knows Orlais has for the Inquisition, the fact that they all dare to pretend otherwise when everyone else is well aware of what they're trying to do.

"Which is why the Orlesian court is circling it with a net and collar?" he asks Cyril once the man has finished speaking. He's in no mood to engage in the usual doublespeak and rhetoric that so characterises the Orlesian court, and if he's being honest, he'd love to see just how Cyril can respond to his bluntness. There's always something amusing about catching Orlesians off their game.

But out of the corner of his eye, Dorian spots a flash of red and deep blue. He turns to see a far more pleasant sight than the entire Winter Palace approaching him, a small smile on his face visible even from here. Praise the Maker. There you are at last. Well, no point sticking around with Cyril when he now has far better company.

"But you'll have to excuse me," Dorian says, sparing Cyril only a brief glance as he speaks. "I see an old friend I must greet." To his credit, Cyril lets him go without a word, and Dorian steps past him and over to Leas, a small smile of his own tugging at his lips.

"Amatus," he says by way of greeting, enjoying the sparkle he can see in Leas' eyes even as he notes that the man seems paler and thinner than he was the last time they met. "Wading through all the pomp and circumstance, I see."

Leas raises an eyebrow at him, feigning irritation. "You're back after being away in Tevinter for a month," he protests, "and this is how you greet me?" He makes an attempt at a pout, but Dorian can see how he has to fight to keep his smile from showing. He chuckles.

"I have an apology ready," he says smoothly, and he steps forward and pulls Leas off his toes and into a kiss. For once, the fact that the Orlesian ambassador is right behind them doesn't even cross his mind.

Leas giggles, mollified, and kisses back, as gentle as ever. Welcoming, telling him he's glad Dorian is back, even if he wasn't away for long, and Dorian smiles and chases that feeling as much as he chases Leas' lips. It only takes him a moment to notice that said lips are unusually chapped, however, and that Leas' breath comes more raggedly and shallowly than it should. When he pulls away a tad to rest their foreheads together and smile down at him, he sees in full that Leas really is very pale. The shadows under his eyes are darker than ever, his cheeks look a little sunken in, and his hair—usually so well-maintained—hangs limp and lank.

He would ask, but Leas speaks before he can. "Apology accepted, arasha," he says with another giggle, pulling further away now. Then, without further preamble, he gets down to business, and Dorian does his best to shove aside the first hints of alarm he's feeling to explain what he knows. Luckily for him—or perhaps not—that can all be summed up in a few very blunt sentences.

"Well, you don't need to tell me that," Leas says, grinning, when Dorian tells him he can call on him as he likes. It looks normal, but no blood rises to his cheeks, which remain pallid. Still, Dorian tries not to think anything of it. Instead, he smiles at Leas and strokes his cheek with the backs of his fingers—a form of affection he could never have indulged in in public at home.

Leas leans into the touch, but mere seconds later, he winces, and at the same moment, a flash of green grabs Dorian's attention. They both look down and see the Anchor sparking, and at once, Dorian realises why Leas looks so sickly.

"Has that been causing you trouble?" he murmurs.

Leas blows out a breath and casts a basic healing spell, suppressing the Anchor's activity a little. "It has been more active than usual, yes," he says. "But it's nothing healing spells can't handle, I assure you."

Again, Dorian hesitates—he can't do anything else, with Leas' pallor and weight loss right in front of his eyes. But Leas doesn't elaborate, and as it's been a long time since he's had to remind Leas not to work himself to exhaustion or otherwise neglect his health, Dorian leaves it be. "All the more reason to come see me later. I'll find a way to distract you."

Leas grins back at him. "If I can find the time, I will absolutely take you up on that." He then leans back in to kiss Dorian again, quickly. After he pulls away, Dorian strokes his cheek and smiles down at him again, then he leaves, hoping to find the others and see what they've been up to since he last saw them.

After he finishes reading the letter, Dorian lays it back on the table and lifts his head to stare out the window, though he sees none of what's outside. His mind is almost as blank, and the few thoughts and emotions slugging their way through it move about as slow as snails.

It doesn't seem real. It can't be real. It's an almost uniquely Tevinter fate, but it's not one he ever envisioned befalling his father. Even after he had found out about the man's little plan for him and departed posthaste, he had always seemed larger than life, as parents do. Immortal, even. The concept that he could have been bleeding out somewhere or vomiting from poison while Dorian was enjoying himself on the way south—that is beyond comprehension.

And the ambassadorship… his doing? Was he trying to keep Dorian out of the way, shield from the trouble? Shield him with his own life, even…

His hand comes down on the table, and his gut wrenches inside his chest. Unbidden, he sees in his mind's eye the three different versions of his father: the one who he had idolised when he was a boy and to whom he had compared all others, the one who had tried to change him and who he had still loved but also hated, and the one who had stumbled through an apology that at the very least had been sincere. He had doubted that sincerity, but now those doubts are laid to rest, along with everything else.

So you changed after all, you bastard. Fasta vass, I almost wish you hadn't. Would be simpler. Less anger, less confusion, less mingled love and hatred, less of the first stirrings of grief that are now rearing their ugly head. Dorian sits back in his chair and runs his hands over his face, and he shakes his head. His mind now turns to practical matters. At least they're easier to deal with and comprehend.

First: assuming his seat in the Magisterium. Simple enough; after so many centuries, they've got the inheritance laws and rites of succession down to a science, and his father was as careful about his will as he was about all other things. Not that he'd said anything about keeping me as his heir… Still, so long as he gets back to Tevinter within the next two months, there'll be no problems. Any later, and they'll assign the seat to some distant cousin. Simple. Fine.

Second: whoever did this. Finding them is an obligation as much as anything; a new magister not responding to an assassination in the family is a major sign of weakness. Strange that they would want to get to a man so well-established in the Magisterium and so well-known for being if not conservative, then at least traditional. More likely, he realises, they were going for a target whose talk of reform and association with the fledgeling Lucerni was threatening. Which just brings him back around to the idea that his father had attempted to shield him, and his stomach turns over again.

Regardless, that's double the reason to go hunting for these assassins as soon as he returns. He'll have no more protection the moment he crosses the border again, and it's the principle of the thing. Whoever killed his father to get to him is no doubt one and the same with those giving Tevinter a bad name. A civic duty as much as a familial duty to take them out, even if most of his countrymen wouldn't see it that way. Marvellous, one last obligation to you, he muses with a bitter chuckle, though it sounds half-strangled even to his ears.

All the same, the man had made up for his actions, at least in part. However Dorian might feel about him, however complicated this building storm of emotions might be, the least he can do is acknowledge the change, for what little good it does. There's no more chance for change, for… anything, really. He might as well take what he can get.

Venhedis.

Third: returning home. He'll have to go as soon as the Exalted Council is over, of course. A ride up to Jader, then a ship to Cumberland, followed by a carriage to Vyrantium and another ship to Minrathous. Simple, if expensive. Except Leas—

Oh. And there's the other thing.

Leas, Leas, Leas. How is he going to explain all this to him? And how will Leas take him going back to Tevinter for good, given that he no longer has a place in his clan? And what happens if somebody back home finds out about them and decides to use it against him? No, no, it's nothing to be ashamed of; it can't be used against him. But Leas, even with all his power and resources… he could be threatened. And as much as he's survived…

So much for him coming to Tevinter then, Dorian realises. No, better to keep him away for the time being, however long that might be. He'll be safer in the south—as safe as he can be with his absurd luck, anyway. I know what you'll say about what you've survived, but I don't feel like tempting fate, amatus, he thinks. Besides, you have your dreams. You can come visit me in mine. It'll keep. At least for the moment. Assuming there aren't any dreamer magisters who can find you…

That is paranoia. But the Magisterium requires paranoia. Once they get wind of what he wants to do… they'll try to take his life from him in time, oh yes. But first, they'll take everything else that matters. Leas included.

Unacceptable. He'll stay. The poor man has enough to worry about without needing to watch his back for murderous magisters at every moment.

Ironclad reasoning. Still, as Dorian looks back out the window again and wishes that it was later in the day so he could have a drink or five, he wonders if Leas himself will see it that way. The answer comes to him at once, and he groans and buries his face in his hands. Trust Leas to make things difficult.

But it has to be done. For once, he cannot give way.

This had absolutely not been his plan, Dorian muses as he holds his drink in his hand and shifts from foot to foot. He doesn't mind the idea of a farewell party—he approves, actually—but he'd wanted to wait until the Exalted Council was over. That way, they'd all have the burden of it taken off their minds and something else to celebrate, and Leas would have had a few days to process things. That would have been ideal.

But really, he should have known better than to mention his impending magister-dom to the biggest gossip in all Thedas. He and Varric had been confiding in each other about their new titles (he still can't comprehend that Varric is now a viscount), then one thing had led to another. Now, here he stands with Varric, Sera, Cole, and Bull, the latter already shitfaced to the point of unconsciousness. (Here, Dorian can't help but think this is something worth aspiring to.) And knowing his luck, it will spread, because none of these dear people can keep their mouths shut, and Leas will find out from someone other than him, and then there'll be hell to pay.

Varric chooses this moment to start on a speech, because of course he does, and Dorian is of a mind with Sera that he's talking too much. "Varric, there's really no need," he says, while he continues to shift on his feet. He clutches his drink like the mug could break apart at any moment and looks around for any signs of Leas' impending arrival. Thus far, all he's seen are two of Leas' former clanmates, Telahmisa and Taralen, speaking with a few servants in a corner, in a manner he believes is rather conspiratorial. (But maybe that's just paranoia again.)

Except then he catches a flash of red and deep blue out of the corner of his eye, as he did yesterday.

This time, his stomach sinks to his feet, and he turns to watch Leas approach them, accompanied by Adhlean, now a gangling, acne-scarred boy of thirteen. There's only curiosity in his expression, nothing more, but still, Dorian's blood chills. This is not a discussion he wants to have in public, where anyone can overhear…

"What's going on?" Leas asks, and at those words, panic erupts within him, because Varric will answer that question and say far too much and then—

As predicted, Varric does so. But, naturally, he doesn't give the game away until the final sentence: "But we'll miss you, if it counts."

A pause. Dorian forces himself to look back at Leas and Adhlean. The latter's eyes flicker between him and Varric, then he says, "Miss him? What d'you mean?"

Ohhh, venhedis. Venhedis kaffan vas!

For a long moment, Leas stares. Dorian, however, can see the precise moment when it hits him, for his brow furrows over his eyes, and he clenches his jaw, and he turns to give Dorian a look as questioning as it is angry. Dorian cringes back from him, blood draining from his face, and then, though he knows it's not Varric's fault that telepathy doesn't exist, he turns and glares at him too.

"Aaaand you didn't know," Varric says, getting the hint and visibly deflating. The party breaks up from there, all sans Bull, but he's in such a deep alcohol-induced sleep Dorian suspects they don't need to worry about him interrupting, anyway. He lays his drink aside and walks away from the couches, and after a few moments, he hears Leas following just behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adhlean running off to talk to Telahmisa and Taralen.

After another, longer pause, the words start tumbling out of his mouth, explanations of the letter and his father's death, too-flippant answers even for him to Leas' softly delivered questions about his new status and his future plans. While he's talking, he watches Leas, watches how he looks down at his feet before snapping his head back up the moment Dorian tells him of the assassination, watches the changes in his expression that are too minute to tell him anything. With every moment that passes, the dread for Leas' inevitable response builds in his chest. And then—

"You'll need help," Leas says, after hesitating briefly. "I don't know what'll happen after… I could go with you."

"Not this time, amatus," Dorian says at once, shaking his head. Then he remembers Adhlean, and as much as he detests using emotional blackmail, he knows he has to bring this up. "Besides, don't you have Adhlean to worry about? I hardly imagine he'd want to move to dread Tevinter."

Leas lets out a laugh that is strange in its bitterness. "Only for half the year, Dorian, remember," he reminds him. "Six months with me, six months with the clan, as we agreed. I won't bring him to Tevinter, but I could spend the half of the year he's with the clan with you. I see no reason why I shouldn't."

Dorian grimaces and shakes his head. "I… can't allow that, Leas," he says, hating the way Leas' face falls at the words. "The situation in Tevinter is… too unstable. And as soon as anyone finds out who you are and what your connection is to me, there'll be a target on your back. You've got enough to worry about without having to look over your shoulder at every turn—as you would be in Minrathous—and I will not put you at risk and possibly deprive your son of his father." He speaks pointedly, even as his voice cracks and old memories rendered painful flood his mind. Leas takes the point, or seems to, but like Varric, he visibly deflates. That's not even the full reason, but it's easier to win arguments with Leas when he brings up Adhlean, as manipulative as that may be.

To assuage the blow, he offers reassurances about Maevaris and the other junior magisters, and more flippancy, but judging from the grimace creasing Leas' features, it all falls short of the mark. Not that he's surprised—his glibness isn't doing anything even for him.

"All that aside," Leas says after still another pause, "ebalan i'na. I know it was complicated, but… I'm sorry about your father." Dorian looks away briefly, the elven phrase and the slight tremble in Leas' voice rending at his heart. I grieve with you. Leas had said it to him before, after Felix's death, and now he says it again. He's just as sincere now as he was then, even though he only met Magister Halward once, in some… very awkward circumstances.

Maker, but this is why he loves the man. "Thank you," he murmurs. "It still doesn't feel real." What will happen when it does start feeling real… he'll worry about that later.

"And… what of us? This is it, then?" Blast it, those eyes of his have got that puppy-like look in them again, big and shining and pleading, and it's just as effective with golden irises as it is with vibrant blue ones, Dorian realises.

"Nonsense," he blurts. "There will always be an 'us'. We'll just be… farther apart, for a time." A very long time, admittedly, but a time nonetheless.

Leas, however, does not appreciate this distinction. He looks away, lower lip pushing out into a pout and visibly quivering. Oh, Maker preserve me. Dorian can feel his willpower crumbling from that alone. If Leas' eyes had been wet, he might well have given in right then and there.

As it is…

"Now, now, don't pout," he chides, hoping to lift Leas' mood even as he knows that nothing will lift his mood, unable to think of any other response. Such emotions as these went out of fashion among the upper echelons of Tevinter back before… Darinius, probably. "They'll put that expression on a statue, and then you'll be sorry."

Heartbreak turns to hurt. Leas can conceal nothing, the poor little naïf, though Dorian knows he deserves that look. "You think this is funny?"

"Nothing about this is funny," he admits. Time for sincerity, he thinks. One more flippant remark and he'll probably be bawled out. "I am sorry, for what it's worth." But Leas doesn't respond, so in some desperate attempt to salvage this entire conversation—damn you, Varric, and come to think of it, damn you, Father—he pulls the sending crystals he'd got Josephine to acquire for him and offers them to Leas. Leas looks down at them.

"A present," Dorian says, with a slight smile. "A going-away present." He explains the crystals, or at least the basic principle, and naturally, he slips back into his glibness and insouciance even though the expression on Leas' face isn't changing at all. He considers it a small triumph when Leas plucks one of the crystals from his hand and places it in his pocket, though the action seems rote and mechanical even to him.

"You are the man I love, amatus," he says after he's babbled on long enough. A better attempt at sincerity than anything else he's managed thus far, to be sure. "Nothing will truly keep us apart. We'll always find each other, even in our dreams." And one day, one day, when Tevinter has been set to rights and is no longer the resident bogeyman of Thedas… then he might let Leas come to him in more than just his dreams. One day…

Returning his own crystal to his pocket, he takes Leas' hands in both of his and pulls him into his arms, and while he can feel Leas' heartbreak and even reluctance radiating off him, the man doesn't resist. Indeed, as soon as their lips touch, he returns it with fierce desperation. It seems more like the kiss of a man who might die tomorrow, rather than one who's being left behind, but Dorian is so relieved that Leas isn't pushing him away that he thinks nothing of it. It's a sloppy kiss too, but that matters little. When Dorian pulls away, Leas remains close, staring into his chest.

"Now let's finish the good wine before the others get back," Dorian suggests, but Leas does not move.

"You want to keep me safe from the magisters," he murmurs. "Not just for Adhlean, but for you. You fear they'll use me to get to you, and you can't have that. You can't give me up for Tevinter… even as you are giving me up for Tevinter." Dorian catches the double meaning, and his heart clenches. Leas' voice is flat, but there's a slight hint of accusation in it.

"That's… more or less it," he says, stroking Leas' cheek again. "They'll pounce on anything they can use against me when it becomes clear what I'm doing. They'll try to kill me eventually, but they'll take everything that matters to me first, and you'll be top of the list. I can already see it: I'll spend half my life worrying about you, and I'll get nothing done. I don't want to hide us, amatus, but far better if I don't give them more ammunition to use against me, and as you've already figured out, I won't risk you for anything in Tevinter. For your sake as much as mine and Adhlean's."

Leas lets out a weak chuckle, shoulders slumping. "As you say… 'ma vhen'an," he says. Not arasha or ara lath, Dorian notes. Interesting. "Var'lath juros min'vir," Leas adds, as if he were speaking a solemn vow, but the words are entirely lost on him.

Before he can ask, Leas looks up at him. "You want to keep me safe. I suppose I appreciate your concern, but…"

Dorian raises an eyebrow. "But?"

"But you should know by now that it's a futile task, keeping me safe."

Then, without another word, Leas disentangles himself from him and walks towards the couches, while Dorian's heart sinks to the ground.

The next day, after the Exalted Council begins and is disrupted just as quickly by the dead Qunari, and after Leas rushes through the newly discovered eluvian with Vivienne, Cassandra, and Varric in tow, Dorian paces about his room. It'll be a few days at least before he has to go, but he's already packed and written the requisite letters to his associates back home. For the moment, little else remains that he can do; the real work will begin as soon as he returns to Minrathous. One less thing to worry about, but it also leaves him with nothing to keep him distracted from thoughts of home, and wherever Leas might be right now, and whatever's going on with the Qunari, and other, equally unpleasant things. Dorian signs, runs a hand over his face, and paces another lap of the room.

At that moment, there's a knock at the door, but before he can take so much as a single step in its direction, it opens, and Adhlean peeks his head in. "Hey, Dorian."

Dorian jumps back. "Fasta vass, Adhlean, you might have waited for me to open the door," he chides. Even to his ears, his voice sounds curt and ragged, but Adhlean doesn't seem at all bothered by his shortness. If anything, he's giving Dorian a look strangely reminiscent of the one that Leas gave him yesterday.

"Sorry," Adhlean says, not sounding sorry at all. The boy's grown into a rather typical teenager—and so quickly, too. Not that he doesn't have much to be stressed and grumpy about, Dorian notes. "But I wanted to talk. Is this a bad time?"

Dorian grimaces. He can already guess what it is Adhlean wants to say to him. But he'll not back down from a thirteen-year-old, so he inclines his head and beckons for Adhlean to enter. "What is it?"

Adhlean comes in and stands before him with folded arms. He's not much older than he was the last time Dorian saw him, but he bears little resemblance now to the shy, anxiety-ridden boy who his clan sent to Skyhold several years ago. "It's about Babae," he says, and Dorian's stomach drops yet again. "Why are you breaking up with him?"

Dorian stares at him. "What? We're not—what gave you that idea?"

Adhlean blows out a long breath that might have been meant as a snort. "Babae didn't tell me what you two said to each other after Varric ran his mouth off yesterday," he says. "But he was up crying most of the night. I mean, the Anchor's been a lot worse than normal, and the Exalted Council's swooping in like vultures and trying to tear everything he's done apart, but he never seemed worried about that before," he adds, oblivious to the alarm on Dorian's face. "If he was crying, it had to be you. Why are you leaving him?"

"Oh, Maker," Dorian groans, running a hand over his face. "I'm not, Adhlean. Meaning, I'm not ending things with him. I am going back to Tevinter—to assume my father's seat in the Magisterium. And I told him he can't come with me. That's all." His grimace belies the last two words. As if separating himself from Leas for years could ever just be 'that's all'.

The teenager stares at him, cocking his head to the side, his mouth twisting in a grimace now eerily reminiscent of his uncle's scowl. "So Babae's going to be dating a magister?" he says bluntly. "For real, now?"

"That's right."

To his credit, Adhlean doesn't object to this. "But long-distance? How's that going to work?"

"I gave him a sending crystal," Dorian says. He takes his own crystal out of his pocket and shows it to Adhlean. "It'll let us speak to each other, however far apart we might be. It's not the same as being physically together, I know, but while I'm off trying to wrangle with my countrymen and show them another path for my homeland, we'll be able to interact just the same as if he was with me. Almost just the same. Do you understand?"

Adhlean does not look mollified. "So he'll be less alone than he was? You talk to him whenever you deign? And you don't have to worry about his safety by keeping him out of Tevinter, but he can worry about yours? Is that it?" he asks. The words are cutting, and Dorian looks askance at him.

"He'll be able to talk to me whenever he pleases, you know," he says, trying not to snap. "And—" But then he stops, realising that in the other two cases, Adhlean speaks nothing less than the truth.

Kaffas.

Unable to think of a better response, Dorian half-glares at the boy. "If you're worried about him being alone, why don't you stay with him after this is over?"

"I'm not Babae," Adhlean says. "I can't stay away from the clan forever, and I still have a lot of magic to learn. And it's not my fault Keeper Deshanna won't allow one extra mage to stay in the clan." Bitterness laces his words, and he folds his arms and looks away. "I need to go back, and so does Iselen. But everyone else here is leaving, too, and Babae told me he doesn't know what'll happen after this. Where's he gonna go, if not Tevinter? I wouldn't go there with him, but I think he'd be happy there with you."

The guilt tries to strangle him, and it is some moments before Dorian can speak. "I won't risk your father's life in my homeland, Adhlean," he says. "He would be a target as soon as anybody learnt of his connection to me. And the last thing he needs is to be spending every waking moment looking over his shoulder for assassins, slavers, and hostile magisters. I won't do that to him—and I won't deprive you of him. My father's just been assassinated—do you really think I want the same for yours?"

Adhlean's expression softens a little, but his posture remains tense. "Okay, that… makes sense. And I'm… sorry about your father. Truly. But… how are you going to keep him from worrying about you? You'll be a target too."

A fine point. "The crystal," he says patiently. "And letters, of course. And he can always visit me in my dreams. It wouldn't be the first time," he adds, fondness creeping into his voice.

"Yeah, okay. I just don't see why you get to play the martyr while he's not allowed to do anything. Don't you trust him?"

"Of course I trust him," Dorian protests, stung. After a moment's pause, the words rise easily. "But I want him alive. The poor man's done enough for the world, and apart from being concerned for his safety, I don't want him running himself ragged for Tevinter. Wouldn't you agree he needs a rest?"

Adhlean sighs. "I guess. But he could rest and lie low in Tevinter. He can't stay in Wycome because the clan's staying there, and that would count as breaking his exile or something." The bitterness returns. "And he's got no interest in Kirkwall. So I don't know where he'll go after this. So I thought he'd go to Tevinter. But you don't want him to come. So I don't know where this leaves him. So he's going to end up alone, and you know he really doesn't enjoy being alone."

Dorian looks away, insides twisting as he wonders if he's made the right choice. "I know," he admits. "But I'd rather him lonely and alive than dead in my homeland, and I want him to have at least a few years of rest from being in danger all the time. I'm hoping it won't be forever. One day, when Tevinter is set to rights…" He trails off, well aware of how much like a pipe dream that sounds.

"You can't even let him visit?"

A long pause, then Dorian exhales. "Perhaps I could," he says carefully, "but I would have to make the arrangements. The situation back home… precludes foreigners travelling freely, especially elves. Between the Qunari, the conflict on the Nevarran border, the bandits, the slavers, and I don't know what else—do you get the point?"

Adhlean nods, but it's clearly reluctant. "All right, but I hope you're not looking for excuses," he says, earning him another glare. Maker, but the boy has developed some cheek, hasn't he? Much like his uncle. "He was talking a lot a few days ago about how much he wanted to see Tevinter in the flesh. And with everything else about to end—he'll be alone. But I don't want him to be. I want him to be happy. And he won't be on his own. Do you get that?"

"I understand," Dorian says tiredly. He can feel his shoulders sagging. "But why do you think I'm going back? I'm trying to change Tevinter, at least in part so we can have a future."

At last, Adhlean cracks a smile—a weary smile, but a smile all the same. "All right, but if you get yourself martyred trying to change things, I'll revive you and sic Iselen on you."

Dorian laughs. "Good luck with that," he says. "I'm sure you won't be the only one."

Adhlean opens his mouth to respond, but he hasn't even got a word out when a guard pokes his head through the door. "Lord Pavus? The Inquisitor and his party have returned," he says. "They've got tidings. From what I've heard, they seem grave."

Dorian's amusement now dies as fast as it began. "Thank you," he says. "I'm on my way." The guard nods and disappears, and Adhlean looks at him, shrugs, then follows him out. Dorian takes a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose and wonder just how exciting this Council will be before he also leaves, heading in the opposite direction.

It's not until he's back outside and heading towards the room where Leas' advisors have set up the war table that he realises he forgot to ask Adhlean what he meant when he said the Anchor had been causing Leas more trouble than usual.