An arrow shattered against the shimmering barrier that separated the two groups, making everyone jump.

Everyone but one. "Just checking," said Sera. She drew another arrow smoothly and nocked it. "Andraste's ass, you're worse than a noble. At least when they stomp all over some poor sod, they leave him his mind."

Mythal sighed. "It seems Elgar'nan wasn't entirely wrong. Our people truly have fallen into unworthiness in our long absence."

Sera barked a laugh. "I'm not one of yours, crazy elfy lady."

"Precisely," answered Mythal. She stretched out her unmarked hand in a casual gesture and the bow in Sera's hands burst into flames. She yelped and dropped it as Bull stepped in front of her with a growl. Mythal hardly seemed to notice, staring at her hand in bemusement. "That was supposed to be your head," she murmured.

Hope rose in Cullen's heart, and he got to his feet alongside it, looking for signs of Ellana breaking through. Cassandra, in contrast, was focused on the Nightingale. "This is not what the Inquisition is for, Leliana," she said slowly.

"Isn't it? To fix the world?"

"No," said Cassandra. "To set it to rights, not to tinker with it until it suits our own desires. The Maker did not set us to this task to dominate." She took a step closer to the barrier, and Cullen followed her instinctively, waving the rest of them back when Solas's grip tightened on his staff.

"Perhaps he should have," said Leliana. "You were a good Right Hand, Cassandra. Steady. Stalwart. Safe. You performed the routine tasks and never took a risk. Right hands don't seize opportunities. But I do. This is a chance." She turned to Josephine, and her face softened. "Josie. This is what we wanted. All those nights we dreamed of a Thedas at peace. No more hard futures to fear. Please trust me."

Mythal nodded approval when the Antivan woman nodded. "But the cost," she said, a hint of a question in the words. "I cannot believe you would pay it with Ellana's life."

Frustration flashed across the Orlesian's face, swiftly replaced by anger when Cassandra added, "Justinia would be ashamed of you for this."

Leliana hissed and stepped forward involuntarily. "You know nothing of what Justina would think, of me or of any other. I was her friend long before she was Divine."

"I may not have shared her bed, but that doesn't mean we shared nothing at all."

An animal sound tore from Leliana's throat as the rest of the room gasped, and before Cullen could even think to stop her the Nightingale stepped forward again and struck Cassandra across the face. Cullen wondered briefly that there was no flash of metal in her hand, no hint of the steel that she always wore in her sleeves, but it didn't matter because Cassandra was ready for something altogether different. She gripped Leliana's wrist in a strong hand, grabbing him with the other, then yanked them both stepped through the barrier into enemy territory.

Cullen raised his sword quickly, cursing the fact he didn't have his shield as he caught another burst of electricity on the blade. It danced over his skin, but missed anything that would carry it through his body. He gritted his teeth and prepared for another assault, but it never came. Leliana threw a dagger at Mythal, distracting her just long enough for Cassandra to close her eyes in concentration and send that familiar wave of power across the room.

Mythal and Solas clutched at their heads in agony as the lyrium within them burst into flames. The barriers collapsed, and Dorian replenished the ones at the doors before whipping his own magic through the room. His face was only slightly pained this time.

Cassandra kept crashing her power into them, though he sensed the breaks where she was beginning to tire. Mythal recovered enough inside of one to point the anchor to the ceiling, tearing through the weakened Fade and releasing a torrent of demons into the room. The remaining members of the party stopped their rush to the ancient elves and whirled back to the new threat.

"Take care of them," shouted Cullen. "Don't stop sending, Cassandra." He stepped towards the elves, still curled into pained balls, and knelt to grasp the chain around Ellana's neck.

"No!" she said, shoving him away as her power faded. "You can't. Hold Solas. Contain him."

He didn't argue, though he desperately wanted to, and moved to Solas. His staff had fallen loosely from his grip, and Cullen picked it up before the man had fully recovered, breaking it over his knee at the place where the magic was weakest. Staves had been expressly forbidden in the Circles, and all Templars knew how to break them. He turned back to Solas and raised his sword at the feral, alien look in his eyes. Fen'Harel alone, now.

"You think we need a staff to destroy you?" Magic gathered in his hands, but before he could release it a demon bore down on them, attracted by the scent of power and desperately hungry. Fen'Harel turned to it with a snarl and began to attack it instead, and Cullen spared a look at Cassandra.

She was on the ground, wrestling with Mythal in Ellana's strong new body. Her own sword was far away, but he could see from the pained looks on Mythal's face that Cassandra was still sending bursts of her Seeker's power into the woman. And Mythal may have been strong, but she clearly had little hand-to-hand combat skill. Cassandra was elbowing and punching and kneeing in all the right places, and without consistent magic the elf was slowly but surely losing ground.

While he watched, Cassandra gripped the scales, no longer protected by its shield. She yelled triumphantly, and a new terror crossed Mythal's face. "No! Cassandra, don't! Please!"

Cassandra wavered and stopped, almost certainly hearing what he did. Ellana's voice, desperate and strong. Not so resonant, not so old, but somehow even more powerful than Mythal had been. The command of the Inquisitor, and they were all sworn to obey.

Cullen saw the moment when Cassandra decided to ignore it, too afraid of a trick, and Ellana pushed her anchored hand out again in a twisting motion. The Fade screamed around them, twisting with her motion. Cassandra's hand opened as she flew back into the wall with a grunt.

Cullen made to run to her, but Fen'Harel had finished with his demon and another bolt of magic sent Cullen reeling, stumbling to his knees in front of the Inquisitor. The sword fell out of his hand and slid away, but he was too close to the searing power in front of him to notice. His eyes locked with Ellana's, familiar and pale. They were so terribly sad that he almost cried out. Then they slid past him, and Cullen felt rather than heard the mage's furious denial behind him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and somehow the sound carried throughout the room. Everything stopped. Even the demons turning to the feeling of her magic as she closed her glowing hand around the scales. "I'm sorry," she said again and pulled the chain so hard it broke. The glow intensified and a woman's scream of rage and pain filled them all to the breaking point. The demons fled back into the Fade, along with something much larger, and when Ellana opened her hand a river of liquid gold dripped to the floor.

She sank back to the ground with a long sigh. Her entire body seemed to deflate, her eyes closing in infinite weariness. The last thing she did before she went limp was send another ripple of power through the room, sealing the rift and leaving them all in silence.

Indecipherable elvish words broke the silence, and the growling voice tore Cullen out of his stupor. He scrambled behind him for his sword, but the elf had already picked it up and was advancing on them both. Fury lined his usually placid face, and Cullen tried to find a way to shield both the Inquisitor and Cassandra.

Terrifyingly, the other man didn't even seem to see him. "She's gone," he said in an even voice threaded with the promise of violence. "You sent her back into the Fade. After centuries of waiting." Sparks crackled and died on his fingers, and he snarled a curse that held Solas's name. He gripped the sword more tightly, with a surprising familiarity. "I helped you. You allowed me to hope. You bitch."

"Solas," said Cullen. "Stop." He stood and reached for the elf's free arm, then ducked as sharpened steel swung at his head. "You love her. Stop him!"

Uncertainty played across his face but vanished when another sword swung past him. Darren slid in after it and brandished his weapon in a high guard. "Get everyone out of here," he said. "Get the guards. Dorian, drop the barriers and -"

Fen'Harel snaked his sword - Cullen's sword - past Darren's defense, slicing him deeply across the side. Darren hissed softly in surprise as his shirt turned a sickening red. Blood poured out of the wound and fell to the floor in a crimson waterfall.

The room exploded into chaos once more.

Dorian's agonized cry came first, and his protections flew away from the door to settle over Darren's now-ashen form. Cullen noted mechanically, approvingly, that he settled the barriers so close to the skin that the one over the wound partially stanched the bleeding. The rest of Cullen's mind was taken up with catching his brother and lowering him to the ground as gently as he could. Cassandra moved next, slower than her usual speed but still faster than anyone else in the room. She held her sword once more, and when Fen'Harel found his blows glancing harmlessly away from his original threat he turned to her with a dizzying grace.

Whatever else Fen'Harel may have been, he was an excellent fighter. Cullen had always wondered why Solas's body was so wiry, where the strength in his arms came from and what its use was for a scholar who spent most of his time in the Fade, but must have been for this. The Wolf, keeping himself in form. He had an aggressive style, defending by striking, and Cassandra was more than a match for him, but she couldn't find an opening of her own. Bull and Cole moved to flank, Cole with sounds of deep distress every time the clash of blades rang through the room. Fen'Harel felt them coming and spun to catch their weapons with his own broad sweep. But even an excellent warrior couldn't stand against so many and hope to survive.

Cullen watched with dark satisfaction, still kneeling over the bleeding form of his brother, as Cassandra took advantage of Bull's feint and slashed her sword in a killing blow. Kill them both. It was the only way to be sure.

Her blow never landed. A barrier snapped into place around Fen'Harel, wrenching her arm as it absorbed the full force of the strike.

Cullen looked incredulously at Dorian, but he was busy whispering Tevene words to Darren in an encouraging voice. His hands dipped inside the barrier to apply a faint healing glow to the wound. He barely seemed to be aware there was a fight, much less helping anyone. Perhaps Solas had intervened, to save his own life. But even as Cullen thought it, he saw a stunned look cross the Fen'Harel's face, and the elf looked down at the still body of the Inquisitor.

It wasn't still anymore. Her eyes were open, exhausted but clear. "Solas," she said. Her voice was melodious over his name, a song of longing older than any ancient civilization. "Help me."

Cole was suddenly beside her, in a movement too fast to see, and he echoed her softly as he stared at the man who seemed to be warring with himself. The elf breathed in once, sharply, and changed. His violet eyes changed from feral to agonized, and his familiar green magic flooded out of him into her. And into Darren, who stirred under their hands. A relieved sob shook itself from Dorian when the soldier opened his eyes briefly before slipping away again.

But Cullen stayed focused on Solas, who still poured magic into the room. Too much, he thought. He's draining himself too much. But it seemed to have an effect. Ellana sat up hesitantly and rose to her feet. Cassandra tried to stop her as she stepped closer to Solas, whose magic was slowing to a trickle, but Ellana shook her head in silent command and reached out to touch the man's face through her barrier.

"My love," she said, and Solas shuddered under her fingers and her words. "Stop. I'm here."

"It's not enough to keep you."

"No," she said. "But it's enough for now. Don't burn yourself away."

The magic stopped flowing, and Solas put his forehead to hers. Tears tracked down his cheeks, though his body was still taut with a warrior's tension. "Why did you do it? You'll die. I can't keep you alive now."

"I wasn't alive. I was only existing," she said. She didn't turn around, but Cullen knew she was speaking to all of them. "And the price of even that was much too high."

"He still wants to kill you," said Solas. "The Wolf is so strong."

Ellana smiled softly. "You won't let him. You're stronger."

Solas leaned back and shook his head. "I'm not. He's been a part of me for too long," he said. He reached down with effort and clasped the wolf's tooth that still hung around his neck. He held it out to her. "You are."

"No," she said, suddenly afraid. "It will kill you. Even faster than me."

"Vhenan," he said, curling his free hand around her waist. Her own tears began to fall as he stroked the fabric there in calming waves. "Without my heart, how can I live? Please. Free me." A murderous look crossed his face before he fought it off. "Please," he added desperately.

Ellana reached out with a shaking hand and took the tooth from him. He whispered a goodbye as she grasped it in her palm. Once again the Fade opened and closed, a swirling torrent of sound through them all, and another feeling of power swept away. But this time, when she opened her hand, the wolf's tooth was still intact.

Solas stared at her, clearly shocked, and she smiled a little as she let the talisman fall back to him. "Just a little. A few weeks. Enough," she said. She kissed him gently. "I won't let you travel into the Fade alongside him."

"You know that's not how it works," he said disapprovingly, but she was already turning aside.

"The Inquisitor passes judgment on all crimes that occur in these halls," she said formally. "But this is a crime without precedent or equal, and I am complicit in its workings. Any evil that happened here was my own doing, in a selfish effort to retain a life that was less important than I wished to believe. I am no longer worthy to be called your leader. And I will die very soon."

They all winced, but she ignored them. "I relinquish my title, in front of you all. In front of my family. I am Ellana Lavellan alone, and I present us both for your sentencing. My only request is that whatever judgment you render applies equally to each offender."

Cullen rose and looked at Leliana, completely off balance. He knew with dreadful certainty that only Darren's labored breathing below him was stopping him from executing Solas where he stood. But Solas had been the one who saved him. And Ellana had saved them all from herself, possibly at the cost of both of their lives. He studied them closely and realized with a start that they both expected to be killed.

Leliana nodded to him, giving him her blessing to choose. As he swept his eyes over the rest of them, exhausted and drained and covered in demon remnants, they didn't speak. Josephine was crying silently, her dress torn and ripped where she'd tried to fight. Sera had bloody, scored knuckles from punching and kicking without her bow, and bruises bloomed across her face. Varric sat on the ground where he'd fallen, nursing a shallow wound. Bull and Cole looked untouched and impassive beneath their usual masks. Cassandra waited patiently, support in every line. Only Dorian was a white-hot rage, a fire in his eyes that demanded not just justice but vengeance.

That decided him. "Revenge serves no one. All execution will do is create fear of the Inquisition and doubt among our followers. The true threat is passed. And I accept your resignation, Ellana Lavellan, as their conspirators, but I believe you've already passed final judgment on yourself. The last act of the Inquisitor," he said with a hitch in his throat. He cleared it and continued. "To prevent the Inquisition from further suffering, I sentence you to pass your remaining days under guard, in confinement. You'll both be restricted to the Inquisitor's chambers until the end of your days."

Ellana curtsied deeply, holding the corners of her breeches out like a skirt. Cullen remembered the day Josephine had taught her that, before the Orlesian ball, patiently and carefully showing an uncoordinated mage how to sink without falling, rise without wobbling. From the suddenly shining eyes of the room, they all did.

"Will you escort us, Commander?"

He nodded, then gestured to Bull and Cassandra. Slowly, quietly, they opened the door back into the Great Hall, which was still full of people talking and laughing as though the world hadn't ended.

They all spent time with the new, secret prisoners in the time after the end of things. As Cullen had predicted, Ellana weakened quickly and likely wouldn't have been able to be moved from her room anyway. He told the guards they were keeping people out, not in, but the effect was the same. And it hardly mattered in the end. Ellana couldn't leave, and Solas wouldn't. He seemed less unhealthy than she was, but the undercurrent of anger and focus that had seemed to sustain him was gone. He was vanishing in front of all of them, like a slow version of Cole's disappearing trick.

When Cullen talked to him now, he studied his face, looking for a scared little boy, afraid, taking a curse onto himself that he didn't understand. An aching loneliness was etched there once more, and he pitied the man. Just a little. Just enough.

Even Darren and Dorian eventually visited them, the injured man walking gingerly and leaning on the other. But when Cullen watched them leave their positions were reversed, and the poisonous rage that had been Dorian's constant companion since their return leeched out through the tears on his face.

Cullen spent more time in the Hall than he would have liked, taking care of the details Ellana had always attended to. Meeting dignitaries with Josephine, judging, granting favors, navigating arguments. Cassandra took over most of his duties, and he trusted her with it implicitly but also envied her as she sat in his office, far away from so many headaches. He also missed her desperately. When they saw each other they were as they'd used to be, loving and warm, but she spent every night in the Inquisitor's room on guard. His soldierly side approved, but his lover's side most certainly didn't, and he woke often in the night wishing she were there.

One day around the War Table, discussing yet another round of brush fires to put out, he finally snapped. "This is ridiculous. We need a new Inquisitor. Someone to deal with all of these things to leave the rest of us free to do the work."

Cassandra, Josephine and Leliana all exchanged glances. "We agree, Cullen," said Josephine.

Ominously, in his opinion. "When did I stop being Commander?" he asked, only half-joking. Anything but that.

Anyone but him.

Leliana dashed his hopes, as usual. "It must be you."

He was already shaking his head. "No. I like deployment schedules. Troop assessments. Training recruits. I don't like being nice to idiots who can't solve a simple dispute on their own terms without bringing in one of the most powerful organizations in Thedas," he said. "And I certainly don't like smiling. One of you should do it."

"Smiling is not a requirement," said Leliana. "Only competence is. And respect. In the absence of a divinely authored leader, we must choose carefully. Josie lacks the respect of the troops. I lack their trust. Justifiably."

Josephine placed a hand over hers, and the spymaster smiled sadly. "If things had not progressed as they had, if she had not chosen lies when it was time for truth, manipulation when it was time for honesty, death when it was time for life, I might have chosen Mythal without qualm. I wanted her power. I wanted…" She trailed off, then began again. "I am a good spy, but I am not a good leader. I am a good Hand, but not a good mind. You saw what was right, Cullen, and we all survived impossible odds. Our men love you. Other nations respect you, our allies and our enemies both. If you're our face, they will listen."

"Listen to what?" he asked warily, but they didn't answer. She was right, of course, and the battle was already almost over, but he still had to try. "Cassandra, then. She sees right even more than I do. And the Inquisition is her child."

She stood, eyes still beautiful and dark in sadness. He longed to reach out and run his hand over her hip. Then he realized if he was going to be the Inquisitor he could do whatever he wanted, so he did. A spark of laughter overtook the sadness, and he looked up at her. "You're the right one for this," he said. "Not me."

"No," she said. Her own hand covered his and traced his fingers slowly. "If the Inquisition is my child, then I'm the last one fit to lead it. A parent protects too much for too long. She must know when to step aside. Please do this for me."

And that was unfair, because he could never deny her anything. Especially not when she was so close, when she was looking at him in a way that made him want to clear the room and lose himself in her until they were both breathless.

He considered. "Very well. I'll be your Inquisitor, for now, until someone better presents themselves. But there is a condition," he said. The women looked at him politely, and he gestured to the door. "Leliana and Josephine leave. Right now."

Both of them smiled and stood to comply while Cassandra narrowed her eyes. "That's hardly appropriate."

He rose to kiss her thoroughly. "Neither am I," he said when he was finished. He smiled crookedly when she couldn't hide a flash of desire.

"We'll reconvene in one hour, Com- Inquisitor," said Leliana meaningfully. The door closed, and he heard the snick of a lock falling into place.

Cassandra's eyes never left his face. "What now?"

His need waned under the enormity of the question. He curled his hand around the back of her neck and breathed deeply while he watched her. She matched his movement, and they stood still for a long minute, letting their tension drain.

Eventually he whispered, "Ellana is dying. Ferelden, Orlais, Antiva, Tevinter will all see it as a sign of weakness when we lose our symbol. We will be weaker without her heart. And the Inquisition is about to have a leader who's barely competent to hold the title." He closed his eyes. "Tell me that you trust me to do this. To hold what you built without breaking it."

"I trust you with everything that's mine," she said quietly. "I always have. This is no different."

"I'm terrified I'll disappoint you," he said, almost too softly to hear, but the soothing motion of her fingers told him she had. He thought of Nevarra, the place she still wanted to help. "Don't leave me."

"I won't," she promised. Her lips brushed over his, and he left his eyes closed, relaxing into the kiss that was comfort instead of flame. "You won't do this alone. I love you, Cullen. Let me show you how much."

And for the next hour, in quiet ways and heated moments, she did. And the world began again.