Author's Note: Final chapter! Again, I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please leave a kudos and/or comment. For those who know it, yes, the title is a reference to John Marsden's Tomorrow series.

For the next few days, everything goes according to plan. The carriage continues along the road to Jader entirely unimpeded, stops at infrequent but regular intervals, and for as little as there is to do, the quiet is comforting after all the insanity of the past fortnight. With Halamshiral behind him, his mind shifts more and more to Tevinter; plans begin to form and crystallise in his head, and it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the subject of his father. It still seems impossible, unreal, but, it is coming home, and Dorian spends many long hours caught between grief, fury, guilt, relief, and more emotions that he doesn't care to name. They keep him occupied, but that's not exactly a comfort.

In the evenings, he contacts Leas, talks with him; their conversations are cheerful enough, but even from a distance, Dorian can sense that Leas is putting on a mask. His laughter sounds wrong, he jokes too freely, even the tone of his voice is off. Perhaps he's fallen back into old habits and doesn't want Dorian to worry about him, despite what he had said. Maybe he's trying to act normal, thinking if he does so, everything will become normal again. Or it could be something else. Regardless, Dorian makes little issue of it; Leas is stressed and still sick, and he doesn't want to overburden him, either. They can have the more difficult conversations later. For now, it is enough to hear his voice.

It is on the first day of the new year—the first of Wintermarch, 9:45 Dragon, the calends of Verimensis, 2039 TE—that everything goes wrong.

On the last day of 2038, Dorian had hoped to stay up past midnight and chat with Leas through the start of the new year, perhaps 'share' a celebratory glass of wine with him. But Leas had still been sick, in fact even more unwell than usual, and he had ultimately had to discard the plan when the man had run off to throw up no fewer than three times. (Really, it was getting more than a little alarming: what sort of disease had the man picked up and why wasn't it improving?) Upon his return after the third occasion, Leas had admitted to having a high fever and that he'd barely been able to do anything all day because he was so horribly ill, said that there was no way he could stay up all night—but perhaps they could have their celebration the next night? To this, Dorian had agreed, and he had ended the call with a suggestion that maybe he should find a different doctor because this illness of his clearly wasn't going away.

Now, it is the first evening of the new year, and Dorian sits in the room of the tavern he's resting in for the night, a few days away from Jader. He has a bottle of fine Orlesian merlot on his table, a glass ready in his hand, a content smile on his face. No doubt their celebrations will have to be more subdued than he'd hoped because of Leas' sickness, but they can make do. He holds the crystal in his other hand, murmurs the word to activate it, watches as it glows pale blue, and then holds it up closer and leans back in his seat.

Then he waits.

And he waits.

And he waits.

The time passes by, but not one movement does he hear over the crystal, not a word, not a single breath—nothing. "Amatus?" he murmurs, but even after several minutes have gone by, there is still no response. For half a moment, Dorian wonders if he might be in the lavatory, throwing up into the toilet again, or perhaps he's already gone to sleep, or maybe he's out… but if he were out, he would have the crystal on him, wouldn't he?

"Amatus," he says again, louder.

Still nothing.

After another few minutes have passed, the first flickers of alarm stir in his chest. He holds the crystal still closer, strains his ears to hear something, but nothing comes, except perhaps an odd rustling. "Leas? Can you hear me?" he says, louder again. But still nothing comes.

How odd. He wouldn't be working on the first day of the year, and he wouldn't stand me up. What's going on? With a sigh, he sips at his glass of merlot, which has gone mostly forgotten. A bit longer, then. He could have been delayed.

In the end, 'a bit longer' turns out be two hours, but though Dorian waits and gets through several glasses of wine, Leas never comes. By the time he finally murmurs another word into the crystal, opting to leave a message, Dorian is strangely tired, and his nerves are wrenched tight; some deep anxiety or other has warmed his blood to a sickly heat. A lingering sense of betrayal settles in his stomach even as he knows that Leas must have had a damn good reason for not showing, and try though he might, he can't ignore it. "Amatus," he says, forcing humour. "I'm not sure why you didn't show. I hope you're not sick of me already. Call me paranoid, but if you get this message, please call me back as soon as possible. I'd prefer not to think you've dropped off the face of the earth." When he finishes, he lowers the crystal, deactivates it, and groans.

Leas had said not to worry if you didn't hear from him one day, he reminds himself. The rejoinder occurs to him immediately, however. But it's the first day of the year, and he had said he would 'show'. Kaffas, what happened?

The rest of the night, Dorian spends in a state of profound unease, the crystal grasped tight in his sweaty hand as he waits for something that never comes. Even when he finally gives up and goes to bed, all the joy of the new year banished from his mind and replaced by a terrible fear, he continues to clutch onto it, and he remains awake for much of the night, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Only one night. But still he fears that something—everything—has gone horribly wrong.

Every day after that, Dorian spends in a state of nervous tension that wracks his frame, chills his blood, and after a while, leaves him feeling like he might burst. He activates the crystal more times a day than he'll ever admit, and he spends the rest of the ride to Jader waiting, waiting, waiting. Once again, his mind has shifted from Tevinter back to Halamshiral, and by the time he reaches Jader and still hasn't heard anything, he's more than a little tempted to turn around and go back again, just to ask what in the Maker's name is going on. But more letters—from Maevaris, from his mother, from a few of the Lucerni—bring more grim tidings of his homeland, and so Dorian boards the ship to Cumberland, committing himself to the course.

The entire journey is almost a month in length, and in all that time, he does not hear from Leas once. Every night, when he activates the crystal yet again, Dorian hears only more of the strange rustling, and the occasional footstep, and sometimes a strange, out of place, suspiciously feminine gasp or cry. This goes on for a few minutes before the crystal goes dead in his hands—deactivated from the other end. In the mornings and the afternoons, there is nothing at all, nothing but silence, and Maker, but silence has never seemed so terrible to him.

Kaffas, what has happened? Dorian wonders for the thousandth time after another night of the rustling, footsteps, and feminine cries. Those sounds are totally out of place, not what he should be hearing at all. His gut twists into knots in his chest as he thinks it over, and he wrenches his hands through his hair, uncaring of the mess he's making. 'Perplexed' does not begin to describe how he feels about this development. Was his crystal stolen? How could it have been stolen? He always had it on him. Has something happened to him? But what? After that, his thoughts inevitably start going around in circles, which ends with him swearing repeatedly and praying that he gets to Minrathous as fast as possible so he can write a letter and learn what's going on.

For a time, the only recourse lies in his dreams, and there's something Dorian never thought he would rely on. When he's in the Fade, the waiting continues, but this time he can do more than sit—instead, he wanders, scans the horizon, looks among the denizens of the Fade for one that seems more real than the others. On more than one occasion, a demon takes Leas' form, but Dorian is not yet so worried that he's lost all his rationality to it, and he never falls for such base tricks. But even so, they are the only glimpses he has of him, for Leas never appears here, either, even though he had said he would.

At this, Dorian's alarm begins to turn into genuine panic. Where are you?! Venhedis, amatus, you swore you wouldn't—don't do this to me so soon after losing your arm! Give me something—where are you? Night after night, day after day, hour after hour, as the sea and Nevarra and southern Tevinter fall away before him, these thoughts and variations on the theme run around his head in a maelstrom, alongside his plans, all thrown into chaos before they even began, and the complicated mess of emotions about his father he hasn't even started to sort through. They keep him from sleeping, distract him from eating, leave him stretched thin and desperate and utterly, utterly helpless. By the time his carriage rolls into Minrathous, one afternoon late in Verimensis, he has already lost weight, and he feels in no state for his first meeting with the Magisterium as a magister, tomorrow morning.

But even in his distracted state, it is impossible not to take stock of Minrathous as he walks the streets, bags slung over his shoulder. The city is as alive as ever, the noise of the crowds rushing over him like a wave, drowning out his thoughts—arguments between merchants and hagglers, masters giving orders to their slaves, commoners talking with their friends about everything and nothing, nobles muttering to each other about the latest Qunari raids. These, somehow, seem to rise above all the others, are probably why the atmosphere in the city seems so tense—why every conversation is so stilted, why the masters are more snappish and the slaves more skittish than usual, why there's an air of palpable dread about the place. Looking around him, the old buildings that have been falling apart for decades appear more fragile than ever, and the number of refugees that much higher, and perhaps it's just his fear talking, but everything feels like it's on the verge of falling over. For all the grandeur of Minrathous, which is the same as ever, it now all looks to him like a mask. One last gasp before the final days, the final attempt at pretending nothing is wrong, a presage of some great doom or other—whether a sign of coming change or the ultimate end of Tevinter, one cannot say.

Paranoia, Dorian tells himself as he makes his way towards his family's estate. You're worried. Whatever's going on with Leas, it doesn't mean… He hesitates, stumbles over the words. Well, you'll find out what it means tomorrow. Assuming the others don't just bury their heads in the sand. Again.

The walk from where the carriage dropped him off to the estate takes the better part of an hour, and in that time, he is swamped with enough smells and sights of home that he almost forgets his fear. The merchants hawking their wares, the spices on the wind, the stench of thousands of people pressing together, the streets containing nothing built in the past few centuries, the towers with their striking materials and accents, the statues… he hasn't even been gone all that long, and he still missed it. That he's now back permanently… there is something comforting in that. Even despite…

I'll show you all this one day, Dorian thinks, but that just brings him back around to the burgeoning panic within him, and all his comfort at being home for good vanishes in the blink of an eye.

Some kinder magisters with gentler reputations keep their estates in the poorer, or at least less wealthy, sections of the city, but his family's is situated with most of the others' in the most affluent district, far away from the gathering filth and decay and the stench of the crowds. It's as melodramatic as any other, a mansion of great size surrounded by even more extensive gardens, and it is almost painful to look at after seeing the fragility of Minrathous' grandeur. The perfect place to pretend nothing's wrong with us, he muses. Just wander down a corridor and you can forget everything you saw. Still, its familiarity is soothing, and Dorian relaxes somewhat as he reaches the gate and finds the steward and several domestic slaves waiting for him.

The slaves bow low, some cringing back from him. A common practice, as far as Dorian understands it, when slaves come into the possession of a new master. They will always be subservient, but in the earliest days, as they determine his personality, learn whether he is cruel or kind, demanding or lax, they will be on their guard and more submissive than ever. One of them has bright red hair much like Leas', and Dorian pauses and watches her for a moment—

Much like Leas. Oh. Fasta vass, that will have to be one of the first orders of business, making these people paid servants. But that's not enough, is it? He had been so blind to it, but in one blinding flash, as he understands the power he holds over these people, the fact that Dorian holds their lives in his hands—that he owns them—the horror of it all reveals itself to him. If this had been Leas, as it could have been if not for the Hero of Ferelden… Now, perhaps, it makes sense to him, why Leas had said once he would rather live poor and free than in comfort with his life in the hands of another. These people cannot run from him as he did from his father, and no amount of assurances on his part will ever make them forget what he is.

Something else to change. But that is something he will have to consider another time, though soon. At this moment, the steward, Lucatus, rises from his bow and approaches. A long-standing retainer, if it is even appropriate to use that word for a slave, he is more familiar with Dorian than the house slaves and has much less of the others' fear. In his hands is a small bundle of letters. "Domine," he says, keeping his eyes averted. "I hope your journey from the south was without incident?"

"It was, thank you," Dorian responds. Too much without incident, really, but there's no need to mention that. For a moment, he shifts his attention to the house slaves and gestures for them to come forth. "Take these and bring them to my chambers, please and thank you," he tells them, keeping his voice quiet, not at all commanding. He slides the bags down his arm, and the slaves take them, showing no response to his request. That is no disappointment; he will have to earn their trust—if earn it he can. As soon as they have gone, he turns to Lucatus. "Is there anything I should know about?" he asks, and he gestures for them to walk.

Lucatus bows and falls into step next to him, keeping his eyes downcast as they walk down the path towards the mansion. "You arrived just ahead of Lady Aquinea, domine. She will be here tomorrow. There are also many of your father's old clients clamouring for your attention, some more urgently than others. I have taken the liberty of putting together a list for your perusal. It's in your study. And there are a number of messages that have arrived, mostly from Qarinus. You will want to visit soon and sort matters out on your family's estate there. Domine."

Routine matters, and nothing he was not expecting. "Thank you. Anything out of the ordinary, apart from the obvious?" No need to mention the funeral arrangements. Maker, he's not looking forward to those… nor to seeing his mother again. What she'll have to say about all this…

The steward hesitates a moment then says, "A… letter arrived a few days ago, yes. From the Black Divine."

Dorian comes to a halt and turns to look at Lucatus. "The Black—you mean Divine Victoria?" he blurts.

Lucatus nods, though a vague note of distaste passes over his face at the mention of Leliana's Divine name. "Yes, domine. I almost threw it out, begging your pardon, but the envelope was marked with the word 'urgent' in uppercase, written with such force that it tore a small hole in the parchment. And I know you have worked with her, so even if it had not been so marked, I would have kept it." From the pile of letters in his hands, he plucks one out and shows it to Dorian, and indeed, the envelope is marked with large black letters, ink stains, and a hole.

At once, Dorian takes it. "Any idea what this might be about?"

"No, domine. But there have been rumours swirling about elven disappearances in the south since the beginning of the year. It may have something to do with that."

Dorian looks at him again. "Anything about the former Inquisitor?" he asks before he can stop himself.

"Inquisitor Lavellan? No, nothing. At least, not that I've heard," Lucatus says. He bows and shoots him an apologetic look, keen brown eyes widening as he does so. "I've been too focused on matters here and at the Qarinus estate. Handling matters after…" Again, he pauses.

"After Father's death, of course," Dorian finishes, nodding. "Thank you, Lucatus." They set off down the path again, and Lucatus hands him the remaining letters—a sizeable pile in and of themselves. Going through them will take time, but that's no surprise. There's always a flurry of activity when a new magister joins the Magisterium, especially if an assassination has taken place beforehand. And honestly, this might be the easiest part of his accession.

As they walk, they discuss further matters of administration, and Lucatus touches upon many of the issues his father's clients are squalling about. He also mentions the agenda for tomorrow's meeting of the Magisterium and a few developments in the Qunari situation, some of great concern. By the time they reach the mansion and head inside, Dorian's head is full of tasks, things to note down and keep in mind, and far more besides. Again, not unexpected. Magisters always get thrown in the deep end when they come into their titles. Come to think of it, he's not sure Tevinter has a shallow end to begin with.

After dismissing Lucatus, Dorian retreats to his chambers to find the redheaded slave waiting with his bags. She shifts from foot to foot as he enters and stares at the floor as he gives her instructions, again unaffected by the gentleness of his voice and the fact that he says 'please'. The resemblance between the two is shallow but for the hair, yet the more Dorian looks at her, the more he sees of Leas, and his head spins. In another life, Leas could have been this demure, this quiet, and while he would have been an incaensor, not a domestic slave, the principle is still the same. All at once, he remembers Leas' jokes about the Tevinter noble taking the Dalish elf, how submissive he always in bed, and he abruptly wants to throw up.

What was so funny about that to you? In another life—!

In another life, Dorian could have raped him.

It might be meet, some part of him realises as he struggles to get away from the turn his thoughts are taking, to ask the girl's name. It could make her feel more at ease, even if only a little. But—he has much to do, and for all he knows, she might misread his intentions. Perhaps it would be better to save getting to know his household for later.

But if he's going to be halfway decent, or at least marginally less horrible than his fellow slave owners…

He chances a glance at the girl. She seems tired, even a little thinner than she should be. Why that might be, he has no idea, but he can enquire later. For now… "After you've done, feel free to take a break," he says, and her eyes briefly flash up to meet his before she remembers herself and looks back down again. "Get something to eat."

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Gratias tibi ago, domine," she says.

A start, the larger part of him thinks as he leaves and heads for his study.

Nothing at all, the more sensible part realises. Do you want a prize for common decency? As Dorian crosses the cold marble floor and rounds the corner, his hand reaches up, grasping for the crystal and a chance to ask Leas what he should do about all this. No doubt Leas will have some idea…

Then he remembers, and his hand falls, and the sickly heat floods his veins again.

Entering the study does not help his mood. Much as he'd said he would, the second he steps through the door, Dorian halts where he stands and looks to the chair, expecting to see his father working, hear the scratching of his quill against parchment. But the chair is empty, and everything is as his father presumably left it—neat, organised, nothing out of place. Of course, Lucatus could have sorted things out, but…

Unbidden, two memories rise to his mind. The first is unclear, faded, coming from years long gone. He was only a boy, just starting his studies and possessing no comprehension of the meaning of a closed door, and he'd entered this room while his father was busy. His father had indulged him and his childish prattle, smiled, laughed, showed him what he was working on—a report for the Magisterium far beyond what Dorian could understand. But his father was working on it, so it had seemed like the greatest and most important thing in the world. That much is all he recalls.

The second is too clear: the day he found evidence of his father's plan, right on that same desk where the man had once sat with him, showed him his reports, and indulged his babbling even though he was busy. He doesn't even remember what he was looking for that led him into the study in the first place, nor the exact wording of the plans, but it matters little in the face of everything else. The confusion, the dawning comprehension, the shock, the fury, the betrayal, and one word, one concept to guide him through the mess—run. It's nearly as clear now as it was years ago, and he almost turns around and walks out the door again.

But he stops himself in time, and when he realises what he's doing, he lets out a bitter chuckle. If those two memories don't sum everything up…

And that's it. Gone forever. No chance for anything more, no opportunity for change. No more memories to make. That's it.

It all comes home at last, right when Dorian had said it would, and he spends his first day of work as a magister caught somewhere between numbness, relief, and agony. He hadn't thought he could ever feel so exhausted as he did after the elven ruins, but by the time the day finally ends and he retreats to his chambers to read Leliana's letter and have a much-needed drink, the tiredness is in his very bones.

You would know what to say, wouldn't you, amatus, he thinks as he collapses onto his bed and flicks open the letter. You always do. Venhedis, where are you?

With a sigh, he scans the letter. Leliana's handwriting is more hurried than usual, and it seems to tremble here and there, as if she was writing while gripped by a great fear—not a good sign. With his blood chilling, though the night is warm enough, Dorian takes a larger-than-is-polite swig of his wine and starts to read the letter properly.

Dorian,

I wish I had better news to share, but something terrible has happened. It is dreadful, almost absurd—none of us has had time to catch our breath after the Exalted Council, but another disaster has already been visited upon us, and what the consequences may be, even I cannot say.

Leas has gone missing. He was last seen in the company of his clanmates, Telahmisa and Taralen, late in the last evening of 9:44. I am told his illness was worsening, that he had been violently ill that evening, and that Telahmisa and Taralen were caring for him, or purporting to, anyway. In the morning, when the palace doctor came to see him, he was not in his rooms, and though the palace and Halamshiral have been searched from top to bottom, we could find no signs of him.

Our only clues as to what has happened lay in the other notable disappearances: most of the elven servants in the palace and, more critically, Telahmisa and Taralen. All are assumed to have vanished around the same time he did. What's more, when my people investigated Telahmisa and Taralen's rooms, we found correspondence from the servants who we now know are agents of Fen'Harel. This, at the very least, links them to Solas, if it does not outright prove that they are also his agents.

Even worse than that, after we concluded our search, the palace doctor demanded the chance to examine Leas' medication, and when he did, he found that it was not truly medication at all, but magebane. When we examined Telahmisa's room, we found a considerable quantity of the substance—all of which, I realised, must have been snuck into the palace on the Inquisition's supply manifest, much like the gaatlok barrels. As I now realise far too late, Leas' fever, vomiting, limited mana pool, and weaker spells were not because of disease, but this. My current suspicion is that Telahmisa poisoned him, that she had the servants sneak it into his food and drink before the Council, and then took advantage of his weakened state afterwards to give it to him directly. None thought to question her, for he trusted her.

So much for that. We do not know where Leas is, but we have an inkling of where he may have gone; we found several of his hairs in the room outside the eluvian. Given his illness, the fact that he was still recovering from his surgery, and that his armour and staff were still where he left them in his room, it is obvious he did not leave by choice, to put it politely. Indeed, seeing as that Telahmisa went to the trouble of poisoning him, it is clear she and Taralen have been planning this for some time. I guess, if they are agents of Solas, then they know that Leas intended to stop him, and they removed him from the picture before he could act. Whether they acted on their own or under orders from their master, I cannot yet say.

Naturally, as soon as we had worked out where they had gone, we sent some of our remaining soldiers and scouts to the eluvian to pursue them. But they found the eluvian had gone dark, and try though we might, we could not open it again. I have sent a few of my people back to Skyhold to see if they can go through Morrigan's eluvian, but I fear they will not be able to. It appears, then, that we have been shut out of the network, someway, somehow. Not that it matters—the Crossroads are vast. Even if we found our way in, there is no way of knowing which eluvian Leas might have been dragged through.

Thus far, our only hope lies in Leas' ability to reach us in our dreams and the sending crystal you gave him. If he has said anything to you, Dorian, or if you have seen him in your dreams at all, I insist that you write back and tell us at once. We do not have any other leads right now, and with the situation being what it is, we must find him as soon as possible. Nobody else can keep the peace between the humans and elves while elves keep disappearing, and nobody else stands a chance of stopping Solas, and it is not fair that he should have to fight for his life again so soon after having almost died.

I am terribly sorry I have to tell you this, Dorian. Please write back soon—your knowledge may well be our only hope.

Leliana

The letter falls from his grasp.

The weeks pass by and soon turn into months. It does not take Dorian long to re-acclimatise himself to Tevinter, to carve out his own niche within the Magisterium; even less time to establish a reputation as a voice of reason among the infighting of the nobility. Most think him insane, others see him as a source of inspiration, many believe him a threat. Attempts at assassination, bribery, blackmail, threats—every weapon in a standard magister's arsenal—come thick and fast and as regular as clockwork. They never surprise him, but they soon become utterly dull to him—and all this against a backdrop of Qunari raids, slave revolts, and even more internecine conflict than usual. The task he has set himself is next to hopeless and of crushing weight, but it is not one that can be refused, not for anything in the world.

Still, at any one time, only half of his heart is in the conflict. Were it not for the fact that he cannot fail his country and Felix's memory as he failed Leas himself, that he cannot turn his back on what little he and the Lucerni have achieved, and that he suspects his southern friends will need an ally on the ground when the real chaos breaks out, Dorian already would have returned to the south. Even as he knows that he can likely do no more than the others, who send him a regular stream of increasingly frantic letters without a shred of good news in them, still, he turns the possibilities over in his head. Perhaps some of his Tevinter magic will unlock the eluvians, or all of them together can, or…

It matters little. As the weeks and months wear on, as he waits and waits and waits, the question of why he had left so soon torments him ceaselessly. He could have held out a little longer, could he not? He had time, and his mother would have delayed any attempts to steal his seat from him. Why had he left so quickly? Why had he not followed up on his suspicions that Leas' illness was not natural or checked his medication? He is Tevinter; ought he not have known better than to trust blindly?

Useless, he knows, to ponder such things now. It has been too long, it is set in stone, and hope is dwindling. Every day, morning and night, he activates the crystal, and he waits. Every night, he wanders in the Fade and he looks for a flash of red hair, a glimmer of golden eyes. But the actions seem perfunctory now, continued out of habit rather than because he still has hope. Judging from their letters, the others are just as despairing, and though it is never said, Dorian ultimately knows that they must trust to Leas and his abilities—presuming he still lives—or, failing that, to the Maker Himself. And why not? At this point, it seems as if nothing else could salvage this situation.

So much for the good work of the Inquisition, Dorian muses to himself as he reviews another report of the casualties in Carastes one evening. All that they did, all that Leas did, and now it's getting ripped apart by forces entirely outside of their control. And if Solas succeeds, then they may as well have not bothered fighting Corypheus, too.

There comes a night shortly after this one when he again wanders the Fade and watches for something he no longer has any hope of seeing. He is outside the simulacrum of Minrathous, in a part of the Valarian Fields that is dotted with villages, but there is not a soul in sight, not even a demon, at least as far as he can tell. He almost does not bother to keep his guard up as he wanders without purpose, watches, waits, endures without realising that he is enduring. It is another long and empty night, and he hopes the morning comes quickly, that he might have something to do.

Near the coast opposite Minrathous, Dorian spots a figure in ragged robes wielding a crude elm staff. He stares out at the sea, seems distant… but also solid. There is no trace of demonic power about him, that much is clear even from far off. Indeed, he seems to carry a power about him that Leas always did when he visited him in his dreams… diminished, but more or less the same. His hair is red, though it has been cut short, and his ears point out through it.

Almost before he knows he is doing it, Dorian has cried out, and he is running towards him. But somehow, no matter how far he runs, Leas always seems to remain distant, out of reach, a lonely and untouchable figure. He reaches the shore, but now Leas is further away, even though Dorian did not see him move. He calls out again, wordlessly, and Leas turns to look at him. From a distance, his eyes are gold and sparkling, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a barely visible, serene smile.

They say nothing to each other, and Dorian suddenly finds himself rooted to the spot—whether that be by some magic, some trick of the Fade, or by his own will, he knows not. He stares at Leas, wild hope surging anew in him, and though he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. Leas does not even do that, but even so, Dorian starts to hear murmurings in the air, whisperings of words half-forgotten. Nothing shall truly keep us apart. Var'lath juros min'vir. Nostri amor hic iter perpetietur. It sounds like Leas' voice, somehow, impossibly.

Where are you, he tries to call out, yet again. For the love of the Maker, tell me where you are! But Leas only keeps smiling that strange, peaceful smile, and a few moments later, he turns away and disappears, and the encounter ends.

After, Dorian searches ceaselessly, calls out until his voice is hoarse, is almost driven to ask the spirits he encounters where he might find Leas in the Fade. The whisperings and the promise of the words they spoke so long ago drive him forward. But his dreams give him no more.

Translations

"Gratias tibi ago, domine.": "Thank you, master." (lit. "Thanks to you I give, master.")

Author's Note: Thank you for reading all this way! I hope you liked it. While this is the final entry in the series so far, I do hope to keep writing more Dorian/Leas stories in between now and DA4. It's not completely over yet!