Slow Arrow

by pushtheheart

Sometimes, terrible choices were all that remained. He knew that better than most. Still, his people fell for the one he had to make and centuries of wandering the Fade had forced him to watch the world and its people diminish and die a slow, lingering death. His path was set long before he ever woke, and he never thought to stray from it — until he met her.

17. Hope Becomes A Loss

I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone,
you do not make them tell war stories. A war story is a black space.
On the one side is before and on the other side is after,
and what is inside belongs only to the dead.
―Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

She is a boat docking in from war,
her body, a burning village, a prison with open gates.
She won't let me hold her now, when she needs it most.
—Warsan Shire

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The Breach remained, as it had before — an inexorable, crushing weight bearing down on the world below it.

She could only assume it was the mark which allowed her to sense it so acutely, as no one else appeared to be as affected by it as she was, not even the mages. Where they seemed mildly nervous and uneasy to be in such proximity to the Breach, she was wobbly-legged and soaked in a cold sweat. It was all she could do, to simply focus on staying upright beneath such an implacable force.

The temple ruins were just as they'd left it, though the bodies had long-since been removed for proper burials. Still, she knew that many remained — their ashes were irretrievable from the rubble, and would remain there in the ruins forever.

She tread lightly, and with the knowledge that every step had likely once been a person.

The worst of it were the shadows.

"Carbonization," Dorian informed, his usual grandeur sobered by the images of death which surrounded them. "Given that we're essentially sacks of water walking around, it's not surprising how easily we can be vaporized by, well — that. Though I do imagine this explosion was greater than most. I'm surprised anything was left standing, to be honest."

She couldn't focus on his words, not with the shapes of people marking the walls and staring back in silent accusation.

Would she ever remember what happened here, or was it lost forever as they were?

Tephra shifted from the subject of the dead around them, and asked, "Is your friend still with us?"

"Sadly, no," Dorian replied. "Felix is making his way home to Tevinter, and I will miss him dearly."

"You could have gone with him," she suggested, casting the man a curious glance.

"I could have, yes, but it would have been selfish of me," he mused. The conflict was writ large across Dorian's expressive face as he said, "Stopping this Elder One matters more than any one man's pain."

She looked at the haggard faces of the mages and soldiers around them, and asked, "What are we saving the world for, if not to have more time with the ones we love?"

"Careful, my dear," Dorian chuckled. "If they hear you talking like that, they're bound to write a hymn or two. A terribly dull ballad of the undying compassion of the Herald of Andraste."

Tephra gave a bitter snort, "They had better fucking not."

Dorian gave a hearty laugh, before shifting the subject, "Speaking of loved ones. Do go on about yourself and our dear apostate friend."

To her own credit, she didn't blush. Still, her ears felt a bit warm as she feigned casual disinterest, "I hardly know him."

The lie was certainly unconvincing, given how often she kept his company.

"Well," Dorian continued, with great amusement, "—he certainly knows you well enough to provoke his attention, and keep it."

Her gaze drifted to where the mages had gathered, to where Solas idled, quietly advising them as they prepared themselves for the task at hand. To his credit, he was serving an important role in preparing the mages for what lay before them.

As always, he had the uncanny ability to sense her gaze when it lingered too long. He met it calmly — even expectantly.

Heat seared across her face as she glanced away, and huffed, "This is hardly the place for gossip."

Dorian gave a throaty chuckle, "If you insist. Though do inform me when we happen to be in the right place for such things, will you? All these marches to and fro with the soldiers is terribly boring."

With Dorian taking his leave, she half-expected Solas to take the space he'd been occupying for the better part of the trip to the ruins. When he made no move to and simply returned to counseling the mages, she felt the dull sting of disappointment.

She could hardly blame him, though, given her previous outburst.

And in a way, he'd been right about Redcliffe — it had been undone. As long as they were vigilant, that future would never come to pass.

It was a practical perspective, if not what she'd needed from him.

She didn't even know what she needed, or if anything could truly ease the grief. Perhaps it was selfish of her to expect anything from him, beyond the simple amicable connection they shared. Perhaps it was asking too much of him to share the weight of it, even if just in knowing what had happened.

Perhaps he'd been right, that it was a terrible burden, but that she need not carry it always with her. To let the experience serve as a warning, but to bury it as she had the saplings.

Bury it, and let it be at peace.

They had not spoken since the night before, nor at all during the trip to the temple, though she was certain he wasn't avoiding her — quite the opposite.

Each of his attempts to catch her alone and speak with her was thwarted by a companion or an adviser, as they were often consulting with her or doing their best to boost her confidence for what lay ahead. She also had not allowed herself to be found alone by him, either. It was a purposeful avoidance on her part, for which she could sense that he was becoming increasingly frustrated by, as he likely intended to apologize.

She wouldn't let him, of course. There was nothing for him to be sorry for. She had expected too much of him, had let herself grow too familiar with him, and for it, she had overstepped the boundaries of their companionship.

Still, she also wasn't quite ready for resolution — his cold rebuff had wounded her pride. Perhaps it was easier for him to compartmentalize his own griefs, but it floored her that he would presume to expect her to do the same. Especially with something as incomprehensible as what happened in Redcliffe. Not the loss of one, or even many, but the loss of an entire world, an entire timeline — gone. Erased from existence, as if it had never been, and living on only in her memories.

She had never found it easy to confide in anyone about loss, or grief; she was used to carrying her burdens alone. It had taken a great deal to allow herself to be so vulnerable with him. That he'd shunned her so easily had effectively cut her growing affection for the man at its knees. For that, she was content to let him stew and consider what he'd done.

It was childish, to be sure, but there was still time yet for reconciliation. She felt no particular need for haste when her own pride was still recovering. And hadn't that been what had been bought, with the staggering price of another world's demise? Time?

Time to avert tragedy, and time to cherish what remained to them.

Time, even, to indulge this foolish game of pride and humility, when it would have been far easier to simply sink back into the ease of what had come before the fight. Of when he'd been standing at her back, as he spoke in low tones of frequencies and forces and subtlety. Back to those swollen moments of time that stretched and staggered, where all she could focus on was his acute proximity to her, and the pleasing timbre of his voice.

Perhaps even back to touching him, and how he'd trembled beneath it.

For that, she needed time simply to cool her own head. And she did not want him to catch her alone until her emotions had settled enough that she wouldn't just end up sinking her teeth into him again in her grief.

Tephra flexed and clenched her hands, as though it would soothe her nervous energy. She stared upward, and let the slow rotation of the Breach sap away her foolish thoughts.

Focus on what you need to do, she chided herself. Or none of this will matter, in the end.

"Herald, if I may have a word."

She turned to find the Commander at her side. He seemed, at once, determined and flustered.

"Of course," she granted.

Rutherford put a hand to his neck — a nervous habit she'd picked up on — as he said, "I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other night. I did not mean to undermine your decision, regarding the mages. I only meant to advise, however inefficiently."

"Not at all," she replied, rather quickly. She was not keen on revisiting those arguments, nor dwelling on them. "I have been, perhaps, unreasonable in my expectations of the people here — as well as my own responsibilities. I welcome all perspectives on the matters at hand, as my own is quite limited at times."

"I look forward to assisting in future delegations, however I may," he offered, with an easy smile.

It was another reminder that this did not end with the closing of the Breach, but the sting came less sharp than before.

Tephra could only hope that when it did end, it wouldn't end for her the way it had for Andraste.

She wasn't too keen on the idea of martyrdom.

Solas was at her side, suddenly. "If you're prepared to begin, Herald, the mages await your command."

His tone was theatrically ceremonial, as though this were a performance for an audience that no others but him were aware of. Or perhaps the gravity of events unfolding — something that would inevitably go down in history, for better or worse — was getting to him, as it had the others.

She wasn't sure which was worst; the civilians with their reverent stares, or the insufferable formality of her advisers. It all just felt increasingly surreal to her, no matter how she was reminded of the gravity and reality of the situation.

Tephra turned to face the mages, who stood in rows along the rocky base of the crater where the temple once stood.

She cleared her throat, and did her best to project her voice so that she could be heard. "I thank you all for courage you have shown in choosing to come here, and in helping me to close the Breach. It has brought all of us much misery and loss since it first opened; let us close it, and finish this together."

Even if she felt like an impostor playing at leader, the looks of approval from her advisers at least let her know she wasn't entirely fucking it all up.

No more hesitation.

She turned, steadied herself, fixed the Breach with a hard stare of confidence and readiness that she didn't remotely feel.

There was no room for failure.

Solas spoke up behind her, with a thunderous confidence she couldn't even begin to fake or mimic.

"Focus past the Herald! Let her will draw from you!"

She focused on his voice, and let it be an anchor amidst her doubt and fear.

Even if she didn't quite believe that she could pull this off, he did. And that mattered to her.

The muscles in her arm spasmed and jerked as the mark came to life with a ferocity she'd never felt before. The Breach flashed above, responding in kind. When the magic surged around her, she had all of a single moment to take a breath before the whole of it hit her with full force.

Despite Solas's attempts to prepare her, as well as Dorian and Vivian's attempts at reassuring her along the way, it was startling clear to her that no amount of preparation could have truly prepared her for this.

The surge of power rushing through her was at once disorienting and intoxicating.

As she pushed forward, closer to the heart of the original explosion, the air grew dense with magical energy. Pushing through it became difficult, like wading through a bog. The heavy scent of ozone choked her lungs, and she could feel the magic burning in every pore across her skin, down into every nerve ending, boring deep into the marrow of her bones.

Tephra reached for the funnel of energy dancing at the heart of the ruins, which stretched up the many long miles to the Breach overhead. It was a direct connection to the massive rift in the sky, and when she felt the mark in her hand connect to it, her whole body stiffened from the shock of it.

Her body felt suddenly and entirely too small, and whatever it was that made her her, felt as though it had become massive. Had become more. Her skin felt too tight, as though it were straining to hold her body together. The magic filled her to bursting, crushing out her every thought or breath. It felt as if an ocean had swelled into her lungs — a strange, heady sense of not-breathing, of drowning on dry land.

It felt as if every part of her was vibrating, humming, singing — with a song older than the world itself.

She could feel the heart — spirit? — of every mage connected to her, beating as one. The will of many, funneled into a singular purpose.

Seal it.

The Veil sang above her, around and through her. She could feel it, in its entirety, stretched out across the world. Barring spirit from flesh, dreaming from waking, song from—

For one brief, mad moment, she realized how easy it would have been to simply tear the whole thing down.

The magic in her hand called to it, sang through her, urging her to reach beyond herself and sunder the world as she knew it.

No, that's—

Another world flashed in her memories; a red ruin which refused to remain buried.

Tephra thrust her hand up toward the Breach, and loosed the magic building in her palm. It shot like an arrow up through the funnel, straight into the heart of the Breach.

The heavens quaked overhead.

Her head pounded with a swollen song — an incomprehensible noise building, pushing against the constraints of her flesh — as she struggled to focus on grasping the rift. She could feel her consciousness dip and sway, as she felt the mark's magic hook deep into the Breach.

Panic swelled, but she stubbornly ignored it.

She would not fail here.

Please work, please—

Tephra gripped the magic tight, and wrenched it back with all her might.

Her sight was drowned out by a flash of burning light, as the shock waves hit her with full force, and sent her sprawling to the ground.

Her ears were still ringing when she felt Cassandra grip her by the arms and hauled her to her feet.

"You did it," the Seeker declared, in awe.

Around them, the soldiers and mages erupted in celebration.

Tephra's head was spinning, as she stepped away from Cassandra.

She stared at the mark in her hand, disquieted. It flickered and glimmered faintly.

It had wanted.

She had never once let herself forget that it was something other, something bestowed — or cursed — upon her. But never once had she felt it exert itself as though it were a living thing, something capable of its own intent.

Whatever it was, or had been, she had little time to consider it.

There was a strange sense of bursting, of breaking, right behind her eyes. All at once, her legs felt boneless and the world tipped beneath her.

It was Dorian who caught her first, gripping her by the arm to keep her on her feet. Cassandra assisted him in bringing her to sit on her knees. She could feel the hot rush of blood running from her nose, spilling quickly down over her chin. It was Vivienne who knelt, and gently cupped her face with hands burning bright with magic.

"Oh, dear," Vivienne sighed. "I fear we ask too much of our Herald."

She felt the Enchanter's magic lance through her head in probing tendrils; it was a profoundly unsettling sensation. Cold as ice, but it did not hurt. On the contrary — it soothed. However unsettling, the magic's touch soothed over the pulsing ache left in the wake of using the mark.

"You did marvelously," Dorian assured, in a gentle tone.

There was still an unbearable sense of fullness crushing her lungs and laboring her breath.

"I can't—" Tephra rasped, as she pulled uselessly at her coat.

"If you would be so kind to assist me, dear."

Dorian pressed a hand to her ribs. Vivienne's magic was cold and precise, whereas his was all heat and flash, but neither staunched the rogue magic coursing through her.

Cassandra stood over them, concern creasing her brow. "Is she—"

There was a sudden sense of euphoria, as the edges of her sight began to blacken.

And then Solas was there, at her side.

While the others were becoming increasingly panicked and arguing amongst themselves of what to do, he was oddly calm. He knelt, and gently cupped her forearm.

Tephra turned her marked hand in his grasp, and clasped his wrist with trembling fingers.

His magic had become familiar to her. How many times now had she come to him, when the mark ached too terribly? She knew what to expect when it slipped beneath her skin, to calm the raging magic embedded there.

But when Solas's magic glimmered against her skin, she felt the mark heave toward him as though it meant to free itself from her — as though it meant to latch onto him. His brow creased, ever so slightly, as she felt the surge of his magic.

Wh—

The chaos stilled, and her breath returned.

—What?

She gaped at Solas, but he avoided her gaze as he stood. His demeanor was entirely detached and professional.

She regained her composure quickly, and batted the other mages' hands away. "Enough," she griped. "No more magic. I'm fine."

"Clearly," Cassandra deadpanned, as she offered a hand.

Tephra grasped the Seeker's hand and let the woman haul her to her feet. Once she was standing, she used the sleeve of her coat to wipe the blood from her face as she suppressed the urge to continue to gape at Solas.

Whatever it had been, she couldn't begin to understand, nor theorize. She knew nothing of magic beyond the simple stealthing glamour she used for reconnaissance, or for fleeing. Even that simplistic trick barely passed for magic, in her opinion.

Whatever it had been, this was not the place to ask.

Not here, surrounded by soldiers — surrounded by ex-Templars.

She would not compromise his safety, not for this.

Not for anything.

That was a sudden, startling truth.

She carefully met his gaze again, amidst the bustle of celebrating soldiers and mages. Solas regarded her with an inscrutable, placid stare. All that gave away his unease was when he clasped his hands behind his back. She had long-since learned that it was a defensive posture for him, one he readily adopted when he meant to distance himself from whatever person or situation had warranted it.

Had he felt it? Had he felt the mark attempt to latch onto him? Was that what had unsettled him so much?

Or was it something else?

There was so much she couldn't remember from the events at the Conclave, and the absence of knowing gnawed at her.

It left room for doubt.

He knew so much of the Fade, and inexplicable things. No matter how he hedged around it, he knew more than anyone else involved with the Inquisition on matters directly tied to the mark on her hand. His theories were often uncanny in their accuracy, and he, himself, was an enigma. Entirely inscrutable. He dodged and parried and diverted questions of himself, of his history, better than Cassandra handled her sword.

Could he have been involved, somehow?

It was a notion too startling, and too dangerous to consider.

He had always been, to her, more than he seemed. More than what he so carefully presented himself to be. Something far more complicated than the simple apostate who so readily volunteered his services to the Inquisition, at his own peril.

She could not imagine that he'd been involved with what happened here. Not Solas, who'd surrendered his own freedom to serve the Inquisition and to do what he could to help bring stability back to Thedas. She could not imagine a single reason why he ever would threaten the stability of the Fade, which he clearly held more dear than world it was separated from.

Perhaps it was the throb of the mark in her hand, or the dregs of magic still filling her to bursting, but when she looked at him now in the waning light he appeared far older than his years.

And tired — weighed down by things she couldn't begin to guess at.

Still, he was not immune to the jubilance and celebration around them. There was relief in his face when he looked at her, and a small smile tugged at his mouth. His smiles were such a rarity, that it was easy to forget that she was still cross with him.

Whatever happened with the mark, or the strange sudden suspicion she'd had, slipped away from her at the sight of him so at ease.

Tephra smiled despite herself, and she thought of kissing him, just then, here among the soldiers and mages and their companions. It was a wonderfully absurd notion to entertain, and it would have been worth their shock — especially his.

An idle thought, but not entirely unexpected.

She had been doing her best to ignore it, but if she were truly honest with herself, she would have to admit that the attraction had been building between them for a while now. And neither of them could plausibly deny its existence, not after that night at the rift. Not after her gratuitous display of touching him, nor his willingness to allow it.

Whatever his original intentions had been — whether he'd simply intended to demonstrate how to better utilize the mark in her hand — all that business with touching and holding hands had hardly been platonic, let alone anything to do with teaching her how to channel magic.

Though she would certainly enjoy seeing him dance around explaining it away as merely educational assistance, or however he might put it.

She knew better than to expect an implicit statement on his part. He guarded himself so diligently whenever the conversation shifted to him, that it was only practical to assume that he was just as cautious with his affections.

And even so, there was no guarantee that he felt any affection for her at all. Her trespasses with his personal boundaries may have simply flustered him. He was an apostate, after all, and a particularly solitary one. Who was to say how long it had been since he'd been touched with affection by another? As guarded as he was, she could only presume that it had been some time for him.

It made her feel almost contrite to have trampled those careful boundaries so carelessly, but it was a concern for another time.

Tephra sighed, deeply, as she looked up at the scarred sky above her.

It was done.

The Breach was closed.

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Leliana stood vigilant, bow at the ready.

The sounds of fighting filtered through the heavy doors sealing off the hall — the clash of magic, and arrows on the door.

She knew how this ended, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

It would end, as it always ended.

"Though darkness closes, I am shielded by flame," the spymaster proclaimed.

Something heavy hit the door. Silence, and then again.

Leliana nocked an arrow.

Dorian chanted somewhere behind her, distantly.

The acrid burn of ozone and magic made her head spin.

She didn't want to see what was to come. She had already lived it, and the endless repetition of her nightmares had worn her down. Like a bone broken wrong, the memories ground together agonizingly in splinters and fragments.

The door shattered beneath the weight of so many demons crashing against it. Leliana loosed, but all she could focus on was the demon dragging Solas's lifeless body by the throat. It threw him aside as though he were nothing more than garbage. He landed in a boneless heap, and did not stir.

The others fell to claws and arrows, and Leliana's faithful petitions went unheeded as the demons took her.

She felt the snap of magic around her, but there was no sickening tumble through the void, no worldless drop into the abyss.

There was only water.

Dark and crushing and rushing all around her, and her brother's small body lost in the current.

When she reached for him, her arm was nothing more than green fire burning away to bone and ash.

Tephra woke with a start to Cassandra's firm grasp on her shoulder. Her heart pounded in her chest, and panic crowded her throat.

"You were—"

"I'm fine," she insisted, ignoring the cold slick of sweat coating her skin and the fear crushing her chest like a vice.

Tephra remembered having just sat down in the corner by the fireplace, taking refuge in one of the few plush chairs that had been set there. She had only meant to rest, to catch her breath — she had not meant to fall asleep. She had been avoiding sleep, avoiding the nightmares, which seemed to come in waves now that she'd faced so many horrors in the last months here among the Inquisition. She knew that she could not put off sleep indefinitely, but she had hoped to be very drunk before that time.

She didn't mind the nightmares so much when she couldn't remember them the next morning.

"Of course," The Seeker conceded, though the tight expression on her face highlighted her unease. "I only meant to inform you that Solas has assured us that the Breach is truly closed. He confirms that the heavens are scarred, but calm. He's dreamt of—" Cassandra frowned, stopping short to consider her words and reconcile her own misgivings and faith, before correcting herself, "He has walked the Fade to confirm that the seal holds from both sides. The Breach is sealed."

"Something good, then, after so many terrible things," Tephra mused.

She did not voice her unease, on how simple it had seemed. Unsettlingly so.

Not in using the mark, or the closing of the Breach, but in that they had faced no opposition in doing so. There hadn't been a single red templar in sight of the ruins, least of all the "Elder One". After Redcliffe, she had expected that a move would have been made against them, something to slow their advance or to stop them entirely, but there had been nothing.

That it had been so easy left her with a nagging unease.

"We've reports of lingering rifts and many questions remain, but this was a victory. Word of your heroism has spread."

It had begun to spread even before they'd left the ruins of the temple. Leliana's agents had packed an entire wagon full of cages, and when the Breach had been sealed a whole host of ravens had taken flight carrying news of their success. Merely a formality, as there would be few in all of Thedas who could not simply look up and see it for themselves.

"We all did this; you know how many people were involved. It was only this which put me at the center of it all," she replied, as she gestured with her marked hand.

"A strange sort of luck," Cassandra conceded, face set grim and thrown into stark relief by the firelight. "I'm not sure if we need more or less of it, to be honest. But you're right. This was a victory of alliance — one of the few in recent memory. With the Breach closed, that alliance will need new focus."

Solas's words came back to her, in ominous clarity.

"You will always be this to them — you will always be known as the Herald."

"I have taken enough of your time tonight," the Seeker said, sensing her unease. "Enjoy your rest. You have earned it."

She gave an amused huffed as Cassandra left her. It was a feigned gesture, but if the Seeker had sensed that as well as her unease, she gratefully did not show it.

Tephra heard the laughter of her companions, still sitting where she'd left them at a game of Diamondback. It took considerable effort to keep their company lately, to feign some semblance of normalcy, when every time she looked at them she could still see their dead faces. Blighted with red lyrium, and savaged by demons.

She had stayed as long as she could, until she was too tired to keep up the farce. It had been too emotionally draining to ignore the memories of Redcliffe lurking behind each innocuous statement or gesture, and she had already been too physically drained from sealing the Breach. She had sought refuge by the fire, and had only meant to take a brief reprieve. She'd removed her boots and curled up in the oversized armchair, and watched the logs burning in the fireplace.

She had not meant to sleep, to surrender back to the nightmares which plagued her waking hours.

That she could not shake her grief — or at the very least, put it out of mind — troubled her. It followed her like an unwelcome companion, slowing her in combat, and putting distance between herself and those who'd grown to become friends and companions. She was starting to wonder if it would begin to affect her judgment, her decisions, which those who depended on her could ill afford.

It was a strange thing, to be haunted by the deaths of those who still remained.

Could the ghosts of an unmade world have followed her back here? Was that such a thing that could exist?

She had only just begun to lace her boot, when she noticed Solas in her peripheral.

It was almost as though her unvoiced questions had summoned him, somehow. An amusing thought, to think that all she had to do was think of preposterous questions to bring him running to answer them.

Solas watched her work the laces with an almost disdainful expression.

Tephra sighed, "Of all the things to provoke your disapproval, I didn't think boots would be on the list."

"Our people—"

"Our people? Is it that now?"

Solas looked as if she'd struck him.

Pissing hell.

She had meant to jest, to poke fun at his earlier preclusion of her people from whatever constituted as his own, but stress had worn her thin. Even her softer tones came sharp, and quick.

Contrite, she averted her gaze, "Unlike you, Solas, I can't magic my feet and I would rather not get frostbite."

He recovered quickly, but his relaxed posture had shifted into a rigid defensiveness as he locked his hands behind his back and said, "It is a simple ward. I would not mind—"

"I've had enough with magic lately, and these work just fine," she replied, knotting her laces. "Besides, your magic is better spent elsewhere than on my feet."

His brow furrowed, as he lapsed into silence and watched her pull on the other boot.

"I had hoped to speak with you," he said, after the staggered pause.

The careful softness in his tone brought out her ire.

"Are we not now?"

The muscles in his jaw gave a twitch at her purposeful obtuseness.

"I had meant—"

She knew what he had meant, but she wasn't ready for his apology. Not with the dregs of Redcliffe still lurking in her head, nor his rebuff at the rift. She was still nursing her wounded pride; it was something he knew all too well. Or he should have, as he was very much the same in that it wasn't easy for her to allow herself to be vulnerable with anyone, such that when she did open herself up to another, it was a particularly painful affront to be shunned.

Still, the look on his face — the softened brow, the drop in his guard — reminded her of the other him. The broken one she'd kissed.

I should have—

"Perhaps later," she conceded.

She could, but later. She was too frayed in the moment to trust herself to not snap at him like a wounded animal.

Guilt nagged at her when she stood and headed for where their companions still sat at a far table. He followed without a further word on the subject.

Part of her wondered why she was putting off resolving this meaningless charade of being cross with him, yet still, part of her felt it wasn't quite fair to expect him to understand her burden, let alone share in it. Wounded pride aside, it had been unfair of her to expect him to, no matter how familiar they had become with one another.

Varric and Sera were where she'd left them, and had been joined by Dorian and Blackwall. They were several bottles deep in mead, and quite engrossed in some debate or another while playing a round of Diamondback. Cassandra lingered in the periphery, and was soon joined by Solas.

The two of them were almost comical in their separateness — two lonely islands, drifting in the periphery.

She would have bid them to join — for all the good it would do — but she had no intention of staying. She wanted fresh air, and a long walk to shake the grief out of her bones.

However, her departure did not escape her companion's notice as she attempted to skirt around the table and head for the door.

"Ah, good, you're here," Dorian announced, cheerily. Tephra was almost certain he noticed her on purpose. "Perhaps you can settle a bit of friendly debate."

"Must I?" she asked, attempting to sound more weary than she actually was. Perhaps they'd let her go if she could manage to be pricklier than she had already been since her return from Redcliffe.

"You'll love this one," Varric assured, with a chuckle and tone that told her she probably wouldn't. "Sparkler here thinks your gods and the old gods of Tevinter are related."

Her head throbbed immediately at the notion.

"Not simply related, but perhaps one and the same," Dorian mused. "We did have the rather nasty habit of claiming a few Elvhen things as our own."

"A few?" Solas echoed, in a flat tone.

Dorian coughed, and had the good grace to look a bit ashamed.

"This all sounds rather tedious for a friendly debate," Tephra observed, and saved her companion from whatever embarrassing retort he may have conjured in defense of his people.

Seizing on the change of subject, Dorian merrily informed, "Well, if you'd prefer a different subject, there has been some rather interesting chatter among the rabble on whether or not you're our new Andraste."

For fuck's sake—

"That is exactly the opposite of anything I would have wanted to hear from you," Tephra replied, with a long-suffering sigh.

Dorian beamed. "Truly, my pleasure."

"I do think that I hate you now," she informed, rather cheerfully. "Just a little bit."

Dorian slapped a hand over his chest, and feigned distress.

Sera was working her way through a rack or ribs, all while somehow handling her cards with ease, as she said, "I always wondered what the deal was about our Divine and the Black Divine was. Besides the whole bit about having a cock."

Dorian gave a laugh, "Cocks and magic tolerance just about sum up the major differences, really. And we have better pageantry, of course."

Cassandra huffed in disagreement.

"Ah, yes, I had almost forgotten that the Imperial Chantry is considered heretical to you Southerners," Dorian mused. "Vast orgies, blood magic, and whatever else your Revered Mother told you as a girl to keep you firmly in line. Still, haven't we all been deemed heretics here, or have you forgotten?"

"I had not," Cassandra conceded. "I do not care what the Chantry names us, all the while as they huddle in their churches and do nothing for the common people. If acting when no others have makes heretics of us, then so be it."

Dorian gave an amused huff, "It seems we share that sentiment, dear Seeker."

"I'm not sure why I'm being consulted to settle a debate on Andrastian faith," Tephra mused, almost entirely to herself.

"To be honest, I know little of elven faith and haven't a clue what proper Dalish prayer actually looks like," Dorian admitted. "I imagine it has less to do with dancing naked under the moon than the locals would have me believe — which is rather disappointing, I must admit."

"We only shuck our clothing when we're roasting human babies," she deadpanned, as one of the servers navigated past her to deliver mead to the table. "It can get rather messy."

Cassandra made a strangled noise, and the server dropped the pitcher she was carrying in shock. When the server attempted to gather up the fragments of shattered porcelain, Varric shooed her away with promises of cleaning the mess himself.

"Herald, please," the Seeker entreated, with an exasperated sigh. "We have enough trouble quelling rumors of the Dalish without your helping to legitimize them."

"No one's going to forget what I am any time soon," Tephra shot back, in a sharp tone. "The least I can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all."

She had not meant to snap at Cassandra, nor to appear so defensive, yet her anger came so quickly these days. There was no justification for it, only the growing distance she felt between herself and those around her.

Grief crowded out everything soft in her.

"Do you not have faith in your own gods?" Cassandra asked, thankfully saving her from further dwelling on her own useless grief.

"I have faith in you," she replied, with a crooked grin. A bit of truth, cloaked in humor.

Still, Tephra was startled by the look Cassandra gave her — a faint smile, and eyes that were bright with a strange sort of pride.

"The Elvhen gods are gone, are they not?" Dorian asked. "Who do you pray to if your own gods are absent?"

"They were taken," she replied. "Or tricked away somewhere in the Beyond by the Dread Wolf, as it's said."

"A misconception repeated many times makes it no less true," Solas remarked, with annoyance.

Sometimes, he could be so tiring. Did everything have to be a debate on validity and history?

"It seems our Fade expert is also an expert on this matter," Tephra declared, gesturing at Solas. "Perhaps you're better off asking him."

"I don't recall asking him who he prayed to," Dorian mused, not letting her off the hook.

"I don't pray to anyone, least of all them. They're just as likely to answer me as your own Maker is," she relented. "It hardly matters, though. If they were ever real, only the immortals know the truth of it, and they left us long ago."

"You don't suppose there might be any left knocking around somewhere in the world? There's certainly enough places left unexplored in Thedas," Dorian mused. "Though I suppose you could hardly tell the difference, even if they decided to mingle with their modern descendants. How would—" It took him all of a moment to realize the implications of what he'd said. Dorian coughed, and politely declined to finish his train of thought.

It was heresy in Andrastian culture to consider such a thing, a thing of folklore and myth. It afforded power to the powerless, to think that once their ancestors ruled this world.

"Even if any remained, they clearly do not care for us," Tephra replied. Or perhaps, just not enough to do anything about it. "Dreadful, isn't it? Their own children, left to suffer in their stead."

"And what do you know of the immortal elves?" Solas asked, with a curious frown.

There was an unspoken tension there, in the stiff line of his shoulders.

"Little, and less than the scholars of my people," she confessed, noting his unease. She could only wonder what truths of it he'd seen in the Fade, but it was a question for another time. Pushing it aside, she continued, "But they must have left us. Arlathan fell, and then we quickened, yet little is said of the immortals who remained. Did they simply vanish, or die away? Or did they all enter uthenera like cowards, and leave us to face this world alone?"

It was a scathing accusation against those who'd come before the Dalish, before all of the mortal elves. There were no gods left to answer for the plight of her people, none left to hear their pleas for deliverance from subjugation and persecution.

It was unfair to lay such at his feet, but he was an other, undefined — neither Dalish, nor city elf — and stood apart from everything she knew of their people. Much of his knowledge was beyond anything she had ever known; he knew more of the elves than any she had ever met, and could possibly answer better of whether or not any immortals remained, given how frequently and thoroughly he traversed the Fade.

Had he never met any in the dreaming world? Or, perhaps—

When she fixed him with sudden scrutiny, he pointedly avoided her gaze.

It wasn't the first time the notion had occurred to her, but she had never dared to ask such a preposterous thing of him. The accusation alone would bring him trouble, if only more scrutiny to who he was, and his place in the Inquisition.

But if it were true? How many people would tear the world apart to get their hands on an immortal elf? How many more would kill him on sight, if only out of superstition?

Tephra diverted, "Besides, if they had survived, whether they had stayed to help us or not, there would be stories of it."

"Ah, yes — stories," Solas remarked, in a clipped tone, still not quite meeting her gaze.

He was, at times, infuriatingly set in his opinions when it came to her people, and she was perhaps entirely too defensive of them — a poor combination for even the simplest conversations on the subject between the two of them. Like tossing at match at a barrel full of pitch.

"Yes, stories," Tephra replied, sharply. Her previous compassion withered, as she continued, "For all you mock the Dalish for its lorekeeping, it is the only thing we have had — a living, breathing history — passed on as best it could be through the generations. For however flawed it may be, it is all we've had. That, and the continued loss of all we've held dear. Mock us all you want, Solas, but I imagine that victory is as hollow as what we cling to."

The silence which settled amongst her companions was palpable, and all attention laid between their bickering.

She had not meant to bring down the mood, but this subject was never one that could be treated lightly. She could not speak of these things without teeth in her words.

"Does the Southern Chantry not provide relief to the elves?" Dorian asked, looking to the Seeker as he poorly attempted to divert the subject. "Those in my country often seek asylum within the Chantry, and find honest work there. The clerics are always charitable with the slaves."

As fond as she was of Dorian, there were times when she honestly considered the best angles in which to deck him in his pretty face. Repeatedly.

"My people don't need charity, they need justice," Tephra snapped, eliciting an uncomfortable silence among her companions. Her jaw clenched, as she attempted to rein in her anger. "But such a thing undermines the Chantry, and those in power in the existing system. As long as they stand, there won't be any justice for the elves."

"So much for an easy night of Diamondback," Varric grumbled, doing his best to ignore the politically charged conversation going on around him. He laid his cards down, and reached for his book to better ignore the rest of them.

Tephra sighed.

Why was it that every time she was pushed to speak of her people with them, it was like going to war? There wasn't a single subject that wasn't a trap, that wasn't barbed with the weight of historical injustices beyond counting.

"The Dalish tell stories to keep the past alive," she said, finally. "We speak to the gods, even if they can't answer us. We don't ask things of them, because they're in no position to help us. Ours is not a culture of worship, it is a culture of remembering."

If Solas had any further opinions on the validity of memories passed on from one generation to the next, he kept them to himself, and simply watched her as all the rest were.

"It's difficult to keep a written history when, generation after generation, you are driven from one corner of the world to the next. When your people are robbed of their history, of artifacts, of anything that speaks to what came before," she continued. "When you don't have a pen, you have your words. You have what you remember. You pass it on, as best you can. Whole clans can disappear in a night, lost to raiders, or slavers, or disease, or any number of weird shit that happens in this world. If someone dies, you mourn them, but you remember them as well. What they knew, and how they lived. You remember them by the lessons they learned and try to pass those on to as many people as possible. You keep them alive in as many ways as you can."

"Maker knows there's no end to weird shit happening," Varric agreed.

It should have made her laugh, but it didn't.

She thought of her parents, lost in the mountains to raiders. How her clan had remembered them better than she did, how she learned more of them in their death than she ever had while they were still alive, and how precious those stories were to her.

"All that matters is what we leave behind us when we go, even if it's just a story," she said, thinking of her brother. All that was left of him were the stories in her head. "No one is left forgotten."

The silence was deafening. Not even Sera bothered to crack off a quip at her, perhaps out of pity for the state she was in.

Pissing hell.

"I'm—" Tephra stopped herself from apologizing for speaking at length, of matters that were far too important to her to diminish with catering to the sensibilities of her non-elven companions. "I'm tired," she managed, and stood to excuse herself. "I'm sure you all will manage without me for the rest of the evening."

"If you insist," Dorian sighed, feigning the complaint with far more gusto than was needed.

As she headed for the door, she ignored her growing embarrassment.

She could only imagine how she must have appeared to them — angry and sullen, thoughts running too hot on subjects better left neutral. Herald or not, she wasn't so certain how long they would endure a mouthy knife-ear before losing their patience and throwing her back into a cell, no matter if she had closed the Breach or not.

Amidst the chatter of her companions, she heard Sera sigh sharply, "She needs to relax, that one. Friggin' unclench once in a while."

Sera was right, of course.

She just didn't know how to.

None of them understood, and really, how could they? None of them had been there in that terrible future. They couldn't even begin to comprehend the horror, and her paltry descriptions would never do it justice if she tried explaining it to them.

And why bother?

The one person she reached out to speak of it had turned her away; the others were just as likely to as him. A few might have tried to listen, but they would never truly understand and it would only further widen this gap between them.

It was a kindness to them to keep it to herself.

When she moved to exit the tavern, she was startled by the sudden impact something small colliding with her shoulder. It sent her stumbling, bewildered and fumbling, as she watched the creature swoop past in a frenzy. It landed on a empty table in a agitated flutter of feathers and screeching.

Tephra's heart was still racing as the realization set in. It's only an owl, she chided herself.

It flapped its wings and ruffled its feathers as it settled, head darting as it looked about the tavern before fixing its large dark eyes on her.

She was never particularly superstitious, but still, the stories amongst her people carried weight with her. Even a myth could hold wisdom, if parsed well. Among her people, owls were often viewed as ill omens — specifically death omens — especially when found in places they did not frequent naturally, such as inhabited areas.

They were Falon'din's creatures, and never heralded anything good.

An uneasy feeling settled in her gut as she watched a maid shoo it off into the rafters.

Tephra turned and headed out the door, a bit more hurried than she had been before.

She startled once more when she felt a hand at her elbow, tugging her to a stop just outside the door. Tephra turned, and was met with Varric's concerned face.

"You alright there, Teph?"

She gave him a terse nod, "Just startled me, that's all."

He seemed to consider his words for a moment, before sighing, "You don't have to carry it all yourself, you know. That's what we're here for, kid."

She hadn't been a "kid" in a long time, and she didn't know how to put her griefs down, but there was at least one thing she was sure of.

"I'm glad you're here, Varric," she said, and cupped his broad face between her hands.

Her chest felt tight when she reached down to embrace him, but she felt some measure of tension slip away when he returned the gesture. She let out a shaking sigh, and straightened, trying to not think of the other version of him she'd left behind.

Varric huffed, and gave her a bemused smile, "What was that for?"

Because you're the best of them.

"No reason," she replied, and brushed past him.

"If you say so," he called after her, with a laugh.

.

.

.

.

.

.

By the time he left the tavern — a staggered wait, so as to not arouse any undue notice from his companions — there was no sign of the Herald.

The streets were choked with revelers, civilians and soldiers alike. The atmosphere was refreshingly free of the tensions it held previously, though it did little to ease his own. He should have been celebrating the victory — however small, it was a victory to be had — but caution stayed his mood.

The Elder One and his people were still a threat, and Solas would not rest easy until they were dealt with and his orb was returned to him.

And if he were honest with himself, his disposition would be entirely different if the Herald were not avoiding his company. He preferred hers above all others now, even when she was cross with him. For too long he'd been starved of true companionship — to be seen as an equal, as a person, and not simply for what he was or what he could do. She saw him for the person he was, and asked nothing more of him than his company and conversation.

Her growing familiarity with him was no true indication of intent — of interest. It was absurd of him to expect anything more than what simple companionship she sought with him. It was his own loneliness that had set him on this path of wretched hope and longings. He was grateful for whatever time she chose to spend with him, regardless of intent. The tumult of his emotions weren't her fault, nor her concern. Neither a burden, nor a bother, but a reminder that he was still alive, that he was something more than his duty.

For that, she had become important to him, and now the loss of her company — however temporary — tore at him. He had sought to rectify the situation multiple times, but she continued to rebuff him.

He knew that she needed to be consoled, to speak her grief, and in denying her that he had hurt her, but the intimacy of the moment had driven him away in fear. The touch of her hands on his had entirely dismantled whatever defense he may have attempted.

It was truth he'd given her — that she could not afford to be distracted by her grief — and truth was rarely kind. Still, he could have used a gentler hand, and he could have chosen to listen and let her air her griefs. In speaking them, perhaps she would be able to release them.

It had been his mistake in turning her away, and his panicked retreat had done nothing but hurt her. Her silence and distance had been thoroughly earned, and he had nothing to account for it but himself. A panicked retreat in the face of a truth far too real to accept.

"That's easy for you to say, Solas. You haven't killed a world."

Regardless of intent, her statement had found its mark with devastating accuracy.

Because he had.

A real one, not just a potential one — a living, breathing world full of real people. Now the world was blighted, and unnatural, drawn in schism and prevented from becoming whole once more.

Not that he could debate the nuances with her, nor even admit that truth, however she might have the capacity to understand his position now.

I had no choice.

Perhaps it would not ring so hollow, with her.

Perhaps she would understand being put in an impossible situation and having to make an impossible choice — unconscionable, even.

Or perhaps she would see him as all the rest had — as monstrous, as a betrayer, as irredeemable.

How could she not, when she was agonizing over the decision she had made in ending a future before it could come to pass. Unmaking that which would never be — a hypothetical, a potential — rather than a world that was? How could she not look upon him with anything less than disgust, if she knew what he meant to accomplish?

Restoring the world to what it had been before — making it whole once more — meant unmaking what it was now. The power structures that currently existed would crumble as easily as the treasures of Arlathan had when the Veil had risen. When the Veil fell, it would take much of this world with it.

It was a monstrous thing — duty.

"I did not believe in much when I left Minrathous."

Dorian's statement effectively pulled Solas from his thoughts, as he turned to consider the human with an inquisitive frown.

"Shocking, I know," Dorian continued, with amusement. "Yet, ever since I've come to the south, I have seen one impossible thing after another. If I'd known the south was so exciting, I would have left Minrathous years ago."

"I suppose I could say the same, in a manner of speaking," Solas remarked.

Dorian gave a laugh, "Truly there must be little outside of the Fade that could compare to the wonders you've seen there. Breach aside, of course."

"Perhaps," Solas replied in a noncommittal tone, as he thought of Lavellan. How could he not? It was as the spirits had said — she was the brightest thing in this world, and often he could not tear his sight away from her. Even the terrible wonder of the Breach seemed to pale in comparison. "The world is full of impossible things. Closed minds rob us of the ability to expect it, let alone accept it."

"I must admit, it's rather fascinating to meet a true somniari — a dreamer," Dorian mused. "It was thought they had died out ages ago, and those who remain do not make themselves readily known as you have. A pity."

"Could you truly blame those who do not? Hypothetically speaking, of course," Solas replied.

"In the South? Not at all, given how these barbarians treat mages. Still, in the north, they would be revered," Dorian informed, with a whimsical sort of nostalgia. "In those days, you might have been a king, or perhaps a priest. Certainly more than just—"

Dorian cleared his throat, and politely did not finish his thought.

"A chain is still a chain, whether made of iron or gold," Solas remarked.

Dorian laughed. "You're delightfully pessimistic, Solas."

"Or pragmatic."

Amused, Dorian continued, "Forgive my interrogation, I've simply been fascinated by the subject for some time. I had never thought I would meet one in my lifetime, and there is few historical texts covering the subject in detail. I'm certain I've read them all. Though, the language on the subject is often rather guarded, of course. Even in Tevinter, mystery abounds."

"Written history is rarely free of bias, or narratives reflecting what those in power desire it to," Solas informed.

"Predictably," Dorian agreed. "Still, I have a few rather interesting texts on the matter, if you were so inclined to peruse them. Perhaps you can dispel some of the mystery for me."

It seemed that he was attempting to bridge the distance between them, in his own fumbling way. However much Solas appreciated Dorian's attempts at something resembling companionship, he was presently much more interested in Lavellan's company.

"Another time, perhaps," Solas replied.

"Of course," Dorian conceded, graciously. As he turned to leave, he feigned remembering something rather important, before cheerily informing, "I do believe I saw our Herald heading towards the chantry, as it were."

With a cheeky grin, Dorian excused himself and returned inside the tavern.

Agitated, Solas followed the road towards the chantry, leaving before anyone else decided to engage him in conversation.

He did not care what Dorian might have assumed regarding Lavellan and himself. What it was, or what it might become, did not belong to Dorian or to any of the others. And for her sake, and what little remained of her privacy among the Inquisition, he would stoke no flames of gossip if it could be helped. He had not intended to follow her, as she had made herself clear on speaking with him at a later time, but his concern for her state of mind overrode his hesitations. He was not the only one aware of how frayed she'd become in the last few weeks, but none had acted beyond a word or two of concern — which she continually shrugged off, and stubbornly carried on as if she were immune to the trappings of her own mortality.

She had not slept much since leaving Redcliffe. Scant hours, at best, any given day. Some nights, her mind never touched the Fade, and when it did she was never in the dreaming long enough for him to intervene, to still the nightmares which plagued her. If she were a dreamer, he would offer to teach her to master her dreams and banish the needless grief hounding her sleep. As it were, the best he could do was to dispel what he could when the chance presented itself.

The grounds surrounding the chantry were sparsely populated, as most were gathered down beyond the gates in celebration. He expected it would last well into the early morning hours. Still, there were a few here absorbed in quiet work, and a group of children at play in the courtyard. None bothered him as he moved to find a quiet spot near the entrance of the chantry, to wait for when the Herald would inevitably leave the building.

As he often did, in quiet moments free of distraction or immediate obligations, he found himself thumbing through the journal she'd lent him. Her secrets were still safe from him, as he had not cracked the cipher, but even their unfathomable knot-work of ink had become familiar beneath his fingertips. But most of all, he enjoyed the simple sketches which inhabited nooks and corners of the pages.

He turned to where he'd tucked the drawing she had made for him, so many months ago. The black which signified the blanket of night covering the woods were not simply a wash of ink, but a careful repetition of lines in ebb and flow, which gave life and movement to the image. It made the stark white absence, carefully shaped as moths, all the more striking.

Solas traced the lines with his thumb, as he had before, admiring her work. It was neither poor nor terribly remarkable in skill, but it was hers — her perspective — and that made it dear to him. Fortunately, she had chosen to draft the image in ink, rather than charcoal, which would have long ago yielded beneath his repeated tracings in private moments to himself.

It was a foolishly sentimental thing to do — to fondle the lines as though they were somehow her, and not simply ink. Or that it could convey his sentiment to her, the way he could reach through the Fade to still her nightmares and calm her dreaming.

Only now tracing the lines turned his thoughts to the memory of her hands, to the lines that creased her palms — to the intimacy and comfort of touch she'd so readily offered.

Heat pooled in his stomach, at the memory of her skin against his, and at the liberties he'd taken with her — his fingers straying up the length of her arm and spurring her to take him into her arms.

Despite his overwhelming caution and hesitation with her, the smallest touch she offer drove him to return it tenfold. That experience alone was something he would cherish in his memories for rest of his existence, but it was the thought that she might touch him again that had haunted him since that night.

Had her hand lingered a moment longer on the nape of his neck, he was certain he would have kissed her. Or, more true to his nature, he was certain he would have unraveled on the spot with the unbearable hope that she would kiss him.

It was a strange dance between them, this ebb and flow, of orbit and gravitation — where he waited in the lull for her to act first, to permit him to respond in kind.

It sent a shiver through him to think that at her smallest bidding, he would have given her everything of himself. And if he was certain of anything, it was that he would be little more than simmering ash long before he could ever know the touch of her mouth to his — if ever.

He could think of worst ends, than this slow self-immolation.

"You've grown fond of her."

Solas did not startle at Kazem's sudden observation, and kept his sudden annoyance reigned in. "And you have grown bold with your opinions," he replied in a clipped tone, as he tucked the drawing back into Lavellan's book.

"When have you ever known me not to be?" Kazem fixed him with a brief look of amusement, as he added, "My lord."

"You were much more hesitant to voice them when you were still slightly taller than a dwarf," Solas remarked.

"Most green-eared youths are," Kazem agreed, with a laugh. He settled against the wall of the chantry, as he took in the sight of Haven around them. "A bit of peace then, for the civilians. They're certainly enjoying it. Do you suppose it will last?"

"Of course not," Solas replied. "The Elder One has been shamed too many times since her original intervention. Reprisal is inevitable, but ego will drive him to act decisively to retain his position amongst his followers. A god cannot afford to suffer the appearance of weakness, lest they risk losing the devotion which makes their position possible. I expect his next move will require personal intervention."

The jovial agent was suddenly quite serious, as he asked, "Do you expect it so soon?"

"Do you not? Only a fool would bask in such a minor victory," Solas advised. "This matter won't be resolved until the Elder One is dealt with directly. Until then, expect reprisal. See that our scouts double their patrols."

Kazem gave a sharp nod, and departed swiftly to carry out his orders.

He'd only just tucked away the journal, when Seeker Pentaghast exited the chantry.

A quick glance confirmed that his agent was far enough away from him as to not arouse her curiosity, or any particular inclination of either being known to the other. Simply a passerby, and nothing of interest to her.

Instead, she was immediately and entirely focused on him, much to Solas's exasperation.

Perhaps it was a jest, on Dorian's part, to send him off on a fool's errand for the Herald. And it was, of course, far more likely to find Cassandra in the proximity of the chantry than it was to find Lavellan. Beyond the meetings and debriefings, she spent as much of her time away from there as she could.

Or, perhaps, forces beyond him conspired to throw all but her into his path that evening.

Wherever she'd been heading before was quickly forgotten, as the Seeker moved to stand beside him. Gazing up at the scarred sky above them, she mused, "It is written that the Maker created the Veil when he made this world for us, separate from the Fade."

It was clear there was more on the Seeker's mind than simple Andrastian history.

Solas clasped his hands at the small of his back, as he noted, "It is said — that is true enough."

"Have you seen differently in the Fade?"

Her curiosity surprised him just as much as his own slip.

Much of his time in uthenera, as well as the previous year in the waking world, had been spent poring over his memories, over every moment it had taken to craft and enact the spell which had raised the Veil. He had done so while still in the dreaming dark, and even after he'd awakened, looking for answers, looking for where his spell had gone awry. In the end, fundamentally, the spell had served its precise purpose — it had locked away the evanuris and prevented them from further destroying the world.

It had already been in peril in his time — on a slow path to dying — but had he left the evanuris to their own devices, it would have long since have perished. The Veil was by no means a permanent solution, it had meant to buy him time, to consider a better way to deal with the evanuris and to heal the world of the damage they had wrought. He had anticipated that blocking the Fade from the waking world would cause a great measure of havoc; raising the Veil had not been a decision lightly made, and the increasing frenzy of bickering and war between the evanuris had driven him to drastic measures to save what he could of what was left of a crumbling world — just as removing it would cause panic and destruction in this world.

None of which he could readily tell the Seeker.

Nor the irony of her faith centering on the idea that their Maker created the Veil for them — however pervasive Andrastian faith was now, it originated with humans. That it had ultimately benefited the humans in taking power in Thedas had not been his original intent, merely one of many unintentional byproducts of a spell cast in desperation.

"I have not seen your Maker raising the Veil in any memory I have found, no," he replied, carefully.

Of all in the Inquisition, there were few others he guarded his words and intent with as much as he did with Cassandra. Her spirit-touched mind had an uncanny aptitude for sensing deception in others, and it often kept him on his toes and dancing around truths he could not afford to give. If those of her order were on par with her skill, then the Seekers were a formidable force to be reckoned with.

If Cassandra was disappointed, she did not show it. Instead, she lapsed into silence as she followed wherever the path her thoughts took her to. After a time, she asked, "Do you think they were once joined? This world, and the Fade?"

It was a question he would have expected from the Herald, and not Cassandra.

So much of this world, and its people, continued to surprised him.

"I think that is a logical assumption, Seeker," he mused. "Just as a dam might separate a river from itself, it once was and always will be a river."

"How very different it must have been," the woman mused.

He regarded Cassandra with curiosity. "Does it not shake your faith?"

"No," she said, and he believed her. "There is much we don't understand of this world, and it is likely we never will. Faith demands itself."

It amused him that she was correct in that, in regarding spirits of faith.

"Before the Breach, I had not considered how fighting in our world might affect the Fade. Is it always thus, Solas?"

"The scope and magnitude of the Breach is unprecedented in our history, as no other event has come close in the scope of how many spirits have been pulled through against their will," he informed. "But, yes. Every war, no matter how just, leads to hunger and rage. And so come the demons."

"It is often said that generals should avoid fighting in the same battlefield too many times, lest they provoke the appearance of demons," Cassandra said. "I had once thought that simply superstition, but since the Breach opened I have learned the truth of it."

"The deaths, the rage — all of it weakens the Veil."

It had never meant to be a permanent structure — if one could ascribe it as such — and he doubted that he ever could have had the strength to do so, nor would he wish to. It had nearly killed him raising it in the first place, and he had always intended to bring it down again. He would never had intended to subject his people, or any other, to such a permanent fate.

As it were, he could not do such without reclaiming the Anchor, nor without reclaiming his strength. It would take time to for that, and even now, the Veil was too unstable to bring down. Repairs would have to be made, and the artifacts he'd left to insure its integrity would need to be reactivated, so that he could do so as safely and as measured as one could.

Still, it was a matter for another time.

"But nothing is ever said of the effect war has upon the world of spirits, what we might be doing to them," Cassandra mused, almost casually.

It floored him to hear the Seeker consider — even briefly — the state of the Fade and its inhabitants. As a human, and an Andrastian, he had not expected such consideration, given how central the demonization of all spirits was to the Chantry's belief system.

"Every war has unintended victims. All too many go unnoticed," Solas replied. He considered Cassandra for a moment, before adding, "You surprise me, Seeker. I had not thought you one to express such nuance on subjects such as these."

Cassandra was not one to endure compliments, and simply frowned as she turned her attention out to the revelers bustling beyond the courtyard. "Whatever we were before all of this, we have all become agents of change within the Inquisition. What I know of the world is constantly challenged by the things we face, and the decisions we make. The Chantry has historically resisted progress that did not benefit itself, over the people it served. The Divine was all too aware of that, before she died. Much of the Chantry's teaching of spirits is rooted in fear, and much harm has been done because of it. I refuse to fear wherever truth and change will take us, in the end."

"Well said," he commended.

An admirable goal, as any could be.

Flustered, she shifted the subject from herself as she asked, "And our Herald? If not an agent of divine providence, then what do you believe her to be?"

Endlessly stubborn, much to his annoyance. And a fixed point in all of the uncertainty and chaos of this world, to which nearly all of his waking thoughts turned to.

"The hinge upon which all our aspirations turn — whether divine, or not," he replied, simply.

"I had my doubts, in the beginning," the Seeker confessed.

"As anyone reasonable might have," Solas agreed. He'd certainly had his share of them. "And now?"

The look of certainty on the woman's face was enviable. For him, everything was cast in doubt. Certainty, on his part, was a fool's errand. Hubris had ruled him, once. His path now had no place for it. But the Seeker had faith, and it would carry far beyond doubt.

"I believe in her," Cassandra replied, seemingly affirming it to herself as much as she was to him. "Whether it was the will of the Maker which put her on this path, I cannot say. Regardless of her—" the Seeker cast a quick glance to Solas's ears, before looking away once more "—origin, she has acted with more grace than those of the faith, and for it she has my respect. She has acted where others have not, she has acted while the Chantry continues to fight amongst itself, and she has given shelter to those others have ignored. Wherever this path ends, I will follow her. I have given my word that I would, and I mean to keep it."

"It must speak to her character, to have risen from being your prisoner to gaining such admiration in such a short time," he noted. "An admirable goal, nonetheless. I as well intend to see this through until its end, and am pleased to be led by one such as herself."

"It was my failing to let suspicion and obstinance rule my better judgement," Cassandra replied, chiding herself. "But it was her character that proved itself true. I am proud of where she has led us so far. I have confidence in her, and hope that she leads us all into a better future."

"Hope is a precious thing, but nothing is more dangerous than the loss of it," Solas cautioned. "Take care how you reach for it, Seeker."

"Ever the optimist," Cassandra huffed, in amusement.

"I did not live this long without being pragmatic about the world, and its people." It was that same pragmatism that had allowed him to move between alliances, and to belong to none but his own.

"Perhaps that is so," she conceded. "Still, I have faith."

"An admiral thing, in these dark times."

"You are mocking me," Cassandra sighed.

"On the contrary, Seeker," Solas replied. "I admire the purity of your principles, and I believe your Maker is unworthy of your faith. He must do vastly better to earn it, as far as I'm concerned."

Flustered, the Seeker complained, "I had not thought you one to stoop to flattery, Solas."

"I meant it sincerely," Solas assured.

"Just as well," Cassandra conceded, flushing despite her frown. "If you will excuse me, I have other matters I must see to."

"Of course," Solas replied, inclining his head in acknowledgement as the Seeker took her leave of him.

He did not want to think of the Veil, or the Fade, or what lay ahead of him — least of all his duty. Not tonight.

All that wanted, and hoped for, was simply a moment with her to apologize for hurting her the other day. He wasn't foolish enough to hope for anything beyond that, but the greedy ache in his chest beat out a terrible longing for another stolen moment of connection with her. A look, or a word, or a touch — anything that she would see fit to give him.

The mission was not simple by any measure, but it was a direct path. It did not call for detour nor distraction, only practicality — to pick the battles he could win, to remember his goals, and to do nothing which did not further them. Which made dealing with her all the more difficult, as she was both central to his mission, and an increasing distraction from his goals.

Somewhere along the way, things between them had become vastly more complicated than he could have ever anticipated.

And now, his emotions were locked in the flux between risk and reward, and proximity was an indulgence he could scarcely resist.

You truly are an old fool, he chided himself. To be led so easily astray by the slightest touch of her hand.

Still, he could not help but consider another matter as he waited there for her — that her interest in him might be artificial, as was the Veil, with both originating from the same source.

Was it the Anchor which drew her to him — the magic simply seeking its source — or was her interest in him purely of its own volition? Had his magic altered her in some way? Was the woman he knew now the same woman who walked into the sacred temple, unmarked and free of the Anchor's magic? Or was she something else now?

The implications otherwise were concerning.

He could not bear to think of her under the influence of the Anchor, of her affection for him being born of compulsion.

A fool would cling to the waning strands of hope and ignore the fraying rope, and the inevitable fall to follow. It would be so easy to get lost in a dream, as many unwary young dreamers in his day found themselves, much to their peril. But he needed certainty; he needed truth.

Of course, the only certainty was that he would surely find the answer alongside trouble. And ever the fool, he was drawn toward seeking the truth, regardless of the peril nesting with it.

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She had never meant to return to this place, and yet she was drawn by the knowledge that they'd confined the magister in the very prison they'd once imprisoned her in.

A strange sort of irony, that he was charged with a crime much as the one they had initially thought her guilty of. One she was certainly guilty of now, even if she was the only one who seemed to think so.

It seemed so far away, now — waking chained and bewildered — and yet the resentment was fresh in her bones as she walked the halls of the chantry prison. It wasn't the damp chill that permeated the stone masonry that made her skin prick and crawl, but the memories of the inhumane treatment she'd endured from her captors.

What use was a faith, if its foundations stood on such a place? On such practices? What god would ask such things of its people?

She carefully avoided the low hanging brazier, which she had once been intimately acquainted with; she was half-certain there was still a bump in her skull from that earlier collision, so many months ago. Just looking at it made her head throb.

Tephra found the magister sitting slumped against the wall of his cell. He wasn't afforded the privacy her cell had — simply three walls forming an alcove, and a row of bars to keep him in.

Alexius did not acknowledge her approach, simply continued to stare at his own hands in his lap as he asked, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Your son is being escorted safely back home to Tevinter with a full guard of Inquisition soldiers at his back," she replied, simply. " I thought you should know."

"What is safe, to one who is already dead? He is no safer there, than anywhere in this world." The magister's brow furrowed, as he sighed heavily, "He would have been safe, had I not failed. Had you not—"

"Had I not let you break this world?"

Alexius met her gaze, finally, and sighed.

It was a broken, quiet thing, just as his submission to defeat had been.

He looked on her with pity, as he asked, "You think yourself above making such choices? Wait, dear Herald, until a day comes and you are faced with losing someone you love. When you're offered even the smallest shred of hope to save them from such a fate, you will see what you are truly capable of." He looked away again, "Then we will talk as equals of the terrible choices this world forces on us, and those we love."

She did not want to feel empathy for this man who would have ruined a world to save one life, but still she felt its stab deep in her chest as she thought of her brother. Of what she might have done, if it meant saving him. Of what she'd done to save those who dwelt around her now, who called themselves her companions. Of Solas, and the memory of his blighted kiss stinging across her lips.

But mostly of Tern, who had died too young — whose loss had worn holes through every part of her heart. Whose memories still echoed in those hollows, and would never leave her.

"And what have I now, but a slow wait to an inevitable end?" the magister lamented, in a ragged tone.

"You have no right to grieve your lot," Tephra seethed.

She was outraged at his audacity to still feel sorry for himself, after what he'd done — after what he would have done.

"Not after what I saw in the future you and your people would have made," she continued. "You speak of ends as though your path did not lead you to another ending itself. I can assure you that anything you face here will be far kinder than what awaited you there."

"Your lies will not torment me, Herald," Alexius warned. "There is nothing greater in this world to me than the loss of my son. Your words are nothing more than the chill in the air pricking at my ears."

Tephra scoffed, "What use would it be to lie to you? You've already lost, and I'm not cruel enough to try."

"Perhaps that is so," he conceded. The magister lapsed into to silence, for a time. When he spoke again, his tone was soft with emotion. "It is simply that I love my son. It is everything, and nothing, and matters no more. When he dies, so shall I — even if this body persists."

And with that, the rage of her emotions snuffed out like a candle wick.

"The future you thought your Elder One would bring was nothing but ruin," she informed. Her tone was an almost gentle, as she added, "You didn't save him there, no more than you could save him here."

He gave her a wounded scowl, as he demanded, "What do you gain in telling me such things?"

"Nothing," she replied, simply.

Not even the lessening of her own burdens.

Why had she come here? To torment the magister, as he had accused her of doing?

There was no point to; his own grief would see to that.

She moved to leave, but hesitated and said, "Mourn your son, not your lot. It's the only honest thing left to you, Alexius."

With that, she left the man to stew in his own failures.

"Have a care, Herald," the magister called after her in warning. "Gods do not fall graciously."

Whatever he is, he is no god — only a coward who hides beyond the battlefield.

Tephra did not know what had prompted her to seek out the magister, let alone to speak with him. The grief and dread in her gut was no better for it, and had only deepened and soured.

She was supposed to be celebrating with all the others, and yet she could not shake the impending sense of something terrible coming. Something worse than what they'd left in that aborted future. The air was heavy with a stillness despite the clamor of celebration — like the calm before a storm. She felt it and knew it to be true, the way animals knew to take shelter long before the winds began to pick up before a big storm.

She wanted to shake it off, to dismiss it, but nothing seemed to alleviate it.

Tephra knew that she would seek him out before she left the chantry, and it didn't surprise her to find him waiting just outside the entrance.

Stubborn as always, and worse — patient.

He'd endure her punishment as long as she was willing to dispense it.

It was a strange dance between them, this push and pull against the other's boundaries — whatever this was.

It was selfish to seek him out when stress wore her spirit threadbare, to depend on the simple calm she felt in his company. Even when she was cross with him, she preferred his presence to the others.

Hands locked together at the small of his back, Solas was the spitting image of a man trying very hard to hold himself apart from the world around himself. Yet he was here, waiting for her, despite how much of a shit she'd been to him since their spat at the rift the other night.

What had hurt him in the past so terribly to have driven him to such distances?

She had been, for some time now, acutely aware of the loneliness he carried and how carefully he guarded himself from those around him. As though he'd been alone for so long, that one kind word might destroy him entirely, but he sought it out nonetheless.

It made her feel worse, for having spent the better part of the day sending him away and avoiding his company.

Perhaps that had been what his other self had meant? That this "path" of loneliness was wrong. Perhaps that had been why he'd called himself a fool, and acted like a man dying of thirst when she'd kissed him. But given that it was Solas, she reckoned it was something far more complicated than that.

Solas considered her a moment, before he asked, "Did you speak with the magister?"

"Would it matter if I had?"

"You should not court grief," he advised, brow furrowed. "It makes for a terrible lover, and so often is corrupted into despair."

Tephra recalled, briefly, the demons she had encountered who bore that name. Pitiful, if incredibly dangerous creatures.

"You say as though you speak from personal experience." She shot him an arch look, and asked, "Do you court many spirits, Solas?"

A cough caught in his throat, and she nearly laughed at the look which crossed his face.

She kept her amusement tightly reigned in, but could not help the smile tugging at her mouth as she watched him flounder with embarrassment.

"I—" he began, and promptly stopped. He considered his words a moment, ears flushing a delightful shade of red, before starting once more, "It is not—"

"The sky is never going to look the way it did before, will it?"

Her questioned relieved him of finishing whatever explanation he might have had on whether or not he had, in fact, ever wooed a spirit. She owed him at least that small mercy, for having been such a shit to him.

Though given his fixation on the Fade, she wouldn't have been entirely surprised. That a person could, if one were so inclined — yes, that would have surprised her. But Solas having done so? Solas, who often spent much of his time speaking at length of spirits and their many nuances when he wasn't actively exploring the Fade itself?

Not so much.

Who could begin to guess at how deeply his interests ran in such things?

Tephra swallowed a laugh at her own absurd humor on the matter, and moved to stand beside him. She mirrored his body language, and locked her hands behind her back as she looked up at the sky.

"Calm once more," Solas replied. "I cannot say with any certainty what it will look like a year from now, nor a century. It may heal, or it may remain as a reminder of what one man's hubris can accomplish."

"But it'll still come down some day, like you said before," she said, thinking of their previous conversation on the subject and how he had confirmed her fear that one day the Veil would come down, regardless of whether or not she closed the Breach.

She fell into a brooding silence, as she thought of Redcliffe and the shattered skies and all of those terrible red rocks. But he had said that had been the work of the Elder One, that it had been torn down.

Would the result be the same, if the Veil wore away on its own?

Tephra turned her attention back to him, as she asked, "What do you suppose that will be like?"

His brow furrowed, as Solas considered her words. "I presume that would largely depend on the mechanism of how the Veil is removed, whether by the slow erosion of time, or by violent artificial means. There is likely a multitude of factors which may affect the outcome. As it has yet to be done presently, it is difficult to say with any certainty on the matter."

When she said nothing further, Solas shifted a step closer and she watched the previous tension return in the hard lines of his shoulders. As though he were preparing himself for however she might respond; as though he were bracing himself for impact.

Put the poor man out of his misery. He's suffered enough.

Tephra felt a sudden shame, for having turned him away. So often, and so consistently, since that night at the rift.

All of it could have been resolved sooner, had she not been so ridiculously stubborn and prideful, or perhaps so distracted by grief. What she had with him was closer and deeper than anything she had with any of her other companions, and arguably with anyone back home in her clan. Would she have really risked its loss over such a petty thing as his discomfort with her airing what troubled her?

"I wanted to speak with you," he said, as she expected him to. "Of our last meeting, before the Breach."

"I know," she replied, remorse sobering her tone. "It's alright, Solas. You don't have to apologize."

The rigid set of his shoulders eased, and the soft look which crossed his face was almost too much to bear.

She hoped that she would never make him feel as though his company were unwanted again, neither intentionally, nor by mistake.

"It was my fault, anyway. I overstepped, and assumed that—" Tephra gave a short, sharp huff. More useless words. Fault didn't matter, not really. A pressing sense of urgency thrust her towards all that she hadn't quite had words for, until now. "Whatever reasons you have for keeping to yourself as you do, Solas, they're valid. And I respect your right to privacy, I truly do, but I don't want to keep anything from you. And I can't do this Herald thing if I can't trust anyone. If I can't just be myself with you."

That still felt like laying blame at his feet for how that argument had transpired.

"I mean that without expectation of reciprocation, or any obligation to endure whatever ridiculous things I might put upon you," she corrected, still feeling like a rambling fool. Her ears were burning, as she continued, "It's just that I feel like I can trust you, even with the hard things. I do trust you. All you've done to keep me alive, to look after me, to challenge my perspective, to keep me—"

—myself.

There was a complicated knot of emotion, tight in her chest.

Solas said nothing as he watched her, but his presence was enough — there, just so. She let the gravity of him pull her, as she leaned into reassurance, against him.

Arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, just enough to confirm that he was still there — still alive.

Still Solas.

"I just hope that you know you can trust me, too," she managed, finally, after a moment of staggered silence.

"That means more to me than you may know," Solas replied, a bit hoarsely, as though some knot of emotion clutched at his chest as well. "Whatever you have need of me, you need only to ask."

Side to side, arm to arm, she could not bear to meet his gaze. Instead, she shut her eyes a moment, and focused on breathing and simply being beside him. Of all the things she had no control of in her life now, this was something she could. At least on her side of the matter.

Whether he reciprocated or not was out of her hands, yet still, she was compelled to be honest with him. However she could, even if it was just this — even if she didn't know, or feared examining the depth of what this was.

Still, she could not help but tease him as she said, "Careful now, Solas. I might start thinking that you care about me."

The sudden seriousness in his tone drew her gaze, as he replied, "If I have not been implicit enough on the matter, that is my own failing."

She had not meant to incite him to prove otherwise, and when he reached for her she felt her stomach plummet to her ankles. The edge of his palm brushed hers, ever so slightly.

An act of reassurance, however covert.

The gentleness of his touch elicited something sharp and clutching in her chest, and there was a heaviness that weighed on that small point of contact between them, in what remained unspoken. She could feel the tension in the air around him, as surely as she felt it in her own bones.

Fear, apprehension — expectation.

Both of them halted and stalled, in that small space, waiting for the other to act, or to possibly flee.

Despite his perpetual calm and composure, the stiff lines of his posture betrayed his tension, and his rapt attention to even the smallest of movements she made, betrayed—

Hope?

—as he awaited whatever decision she might make, beyond this simple point of contact.

It was terribly indulgent of her to savor the tension between them, and she wasn't cruel enough to draw it needlessly out for vanity's sake, but he spoke before she could formulate even the decision to act.

"You are right, of course," Solas continued, his tone contrite. "What happened mattered. Matters, still. It was not my intention for it to seem otherwise, or to hurt you in dismissing the subject out of hand. I had only meant to spare you further pain attempting to put into words what words fail."

Her grief warred with the sudden appreciation of acknowledgement — of someone finally looking at her and seeing that she wasn't fine, wasn't capable of shouldering all of the ridiculous amounts of terrible things she had to carry without breaking, without avoiding it or politely looking away.

His acknowledgement was a lancing needle to the festering wound, drawing out its poison — even if just a bit.

"You were all dead," Tephra confessed, suddenly and with too much emotion. She bit back the other griefs scrambling to spill forward in an ugly heap, afraid that she'd crossed that line again. That he might react as he had before.

She had expected him to withdraw, to admonish her as he had the night before, but he kept his silence. His hand shifted against hers, moving as though he meant to take it in his own.

Tephra took a sudden breath and sighed sharply, before abruptly stepping away from him.

It was too much — the pain still too fresh.

He was alive, here, but in her mind he was boneless on the floor, dead and gone from the world, and it hurt her in a way she couldn't begin to quantify. She could not reconcile the reality of both, existing, together and apart.

"You were all dead, or close enough. The world was dead," she continued, in a raw tone. "Whatever remained, I killed it coming back here."

"Yes," Solas replied, simply. He rubbed at the hand that had been touching her, as though preoccupied with the memory of her touch. "And you had no choice. It was the only path left to you."

Acknowledgement — confirmation — shattered inside her, brittle and hollow.

There was no going back to fix it, or to do something differently. She could only carry it, and perhaps one day let it go.

There was only now, and with sudden clarity she realized that it would always be the only thing she ever truly had in this mad, unpredictable world they lived in.

Only now.

And if all she had was now, she needed to stop wasting it by not doing the things she'd promised to do.

"The path is wrong," she blurted, without hesitation. Without any knowledge of what his future self had meant by it, or its implications or possible repercussions. With only the knowledge that he'd pleaded with her of its importance.

His brow furrowed, and his eyelids fluttered, as he said, "I don't—"

She barreled on before she lost her nerve, or before he could form a coherent protest, "Whatever that means, for better or worse, you insisted that I tell you that, here. It was the last thing you said to me there. It was worth dying for. It mattered to you, so it matters to me."

A numb silence settled between them, and Solas was visibly stunned by her words. He looked as if she had physically struck him.

She didn't know if it was the right thing to do — telling him what his other self had confessed — but she could not keep it secret, not with so many other griefs burdened away in the hollows of her self. She had no room for it. And she did not wish to keep anything secret from him, even if it was a hard truth.

He'd asked her to. How could she not tell him?

Solas held his silence, as panic and fear seemed to seep away from his expression as he regained his composure. It shifted toward something more inexplicable, and guarded.

Careful, practiced distance.

"I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear that, Solas, but I can't carry your death alone. It's too much," Tephra confessed, before taking a deep breath. It shook and shivered through her chest, clutched tight with emotion.

She felt as though she were bleeding out over everything in her life, as though she were wounded in a way that could not be patched nor staunched.

Tephra looked out over the darkening town, still full of life and celebration. It felt remote to her, and too close all at once.

She wanted to be away from the noise and the merriment.

She wanted something to match the intensity of her grief, to drown it out.

"It was as real as this one. As real as you and me. And I killed it," she said, quietly. "You said it, before, that anything can die. Even the world. And I can't—"

Lose you.

"I can't do this without you — this Herald thing, it'll swallow me whole. That's all I am to them, most of the time. But you keep me myself. You keep me rooted, and I need that. I need—"

The answer to that was vast, and unfathomable.

Something had begun between them — something fumbling and precarious — something she would gladly chase into the next frightening unknown, but why was it so hard to admit, even to herself?

Perhaps it was because that every person she had ever loved had left this world and it made her feel cursed, it made her fear ever getting close enough again to anyone to risk the inevitable loss.

Solas moved to stand beside her once more, and said, "If my behavior with you the other night was untoward, I apologize. I did not mean offense. But I do wish you to know that your reciprocation was not unwelcome."

His statement relieved her of continuing her fumbling confession as he effectively changed the subject, however clinical and distanced he phrased it.

Tephra snorted in amusement, "You don't have to apologize for letting me touch you, Solas. Especially when I'm the one who started it."

A smile tugged at his mouth, breaking the carefully calm demeanor he was projecting. Despite that, he said, "I am not sure that I should have encouraged it."

She couldn't help but to tease him, "Is it too dangerous for a solitary apostate? To be caught holding hands with—"

"The Herald of Andraste," he reminded.

Truth took the wind out of her sails.

Solas almost looked contrite, "I'm—"

"Yes, I know," she replied, flatly.

"Not for that — your title, your position is unavoidable. You cannot afford to forget it," he clarified. His gaze swept across her face, briefly, before reconnecting with hers. "No, I am speaking to the previous night, for having dismissed your concerns before. For that, I am truly—"

The deafening sound of horns filled the air, and drowned out what else he might have said.

Tephra turned in the direction of the main gates, frowning, "Those are—"

Why would they sound the horns?

Was there a scouting party departing that she was unaware of?

She could think of no other reason for them to sound the horns, unless perhaps for—

An attack.

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Author's Notes: No one is happier that I finally finished this chapter than I am. Fight me on that.