Every time I pass a mirror or a reflective surface, I can't help but stare at the bare-faced shem gazing back at me, at the angular cheekbones, the pale brow and those startled green eyes. Who is she? Her silver hair has been styled in the manner of the Orlesian court, a fashion – Creators be damned – cut long in front, short at the back and often pinned up with beads, ribbons and things. No braids. Oh no, braids are for Dalish savages and the like.

But oh, the sweet, delicious irony, that I once bore Mythal's vallaslin in fine verdant lines. Save now I have her well whispering in my head. With little effort I can almost understand what they say. I have traded the obvious for the esoteric; I cannot escape her yet I cannot reconcile her with that witch Flemeth either. Sometimes I fear I've lost everything in the turbulence of revelation upon revelation.

I am a ghost within this mountain fastness that is named Skyhold. Too much has changed and I am adrift, allowing my companions – my friends – to steer me about as if I'm some living doll. They avoid discussion of the missing vallaslin (I mean, really, what could they possibly say?) and they don't deliver any comment on the yawning chasm between me and Solas. Yet they help to move the Inquisitor from War Table to Orlesian soiree to Fereldan noble's hunt then back to the keep on the mountain where I pass judgment on lackwits and addle-pated fools.

I say all the things they need to hear which may not want to be the things they want to hear because yes, I'm still the Inquisitor, despite having had my heart torn away. I am still the leader of what is possibly the most powerful military force in southern Thedas. Some sort of pride keeps me moving, no matter how twisted it is.

He has retreated from me. I am "Inquisitor" in polite Shemlen syllables. He is a stranger since that night he set me free, and I can't help but think of the fledgling, nurtured close to his heart but then flung away out of some misguided notion that it is better for me to try my wings on my own. To leap from the nest. Look, look, I am free now. I have no slave markings on the outside, but let's not speak of that which churns on the inside.

Oh, he has promised we will talk after, that all will be explained, but what shall I do in the meanwhile with my all my hope spilling out like blood? What makes him think he knows what's for my own good? I cannot bear to look upon him yet I ache to meet his gaze. At every opportunity I walk longer routes if it means I'll avoid the rotunda and the weight of his presence where he goes on as he always has, as if nothing is wrong. Everything is wrong.

All the while I pray that he'll stray across my path. He never does.

Then there is the matter of Cullen. Poor, sweet fool of a man. I shouldn't encourage him but for his kindness. Like me, he's broken. He doesn't talk about his past, but I can sense the burden pressing down on his heart. When we walk the battlements, ostensibly to discuss Inquisition-related business – but more that both of us need to feel the sky, have our lungs filled with snow-frosted air – it's inevitable that we'll lean on the crenulations, gaze across the snowfields and discuss other matters. He has his good days, but I'm there when he's taken ill, and calls for me alone. I sit by his bedside, supplement the remedies with what paltry magical healing I possess. That small triumph when the fever breaks, he smiles faintly and that scar tugs at his lip.

Unlike Solas, he wants to know about what life on the Marches was like. His blush, when I tell him of Mihren, goads me to adding fanciful details purely for my pleasure to see him squirm. There is a goodness to the man that warms me, eases some of the hurt, though I can't help but wonder if there's not some small part of me that is seeking Cullen's company in the vain hope that it will somehow hurt Solas.

Later, when I unburden myself to Dorian, the Vint accuses me of being a shameless hussy, but his approval of my attempts at trying to move on strengthen me. After all, I cannot spend my entire life pining after someone who can't make up his blighted mind, or so Dorian says, and I repeat the words as if they will somehow make this a reality. Life is not all bad, I can remind myself at moments such as these.

Yet night-time is an ordeal, however, because then I'm truly on my own. With events winding to what appears to be a nasty, bloody conclusion, I prefer not to dull myself in drink yet I wish for some sort of soporific to nullify the constant ache of the Mark. At my worst, I writhe under the covers. I've even gone so far to bite the affected flesh, to sink my teeth into the skin up until the point where I leave bruises. Anything to distract from the ugly throbbing deep in the marrow that mocks me. Would that I had never been afflicted by magic.

Crying doesn't help, yet in the darkest hours, there is no one to kiss those tears away.

I don't need a seer to tell me that we are rushing to a cataclysmic confrontation with one who'd make himself our new god. I don't expect to survive the encounter and in that possible outcome lies a peculiar kind of comfort. This too shall pass.

How did the Hero of Ferelden feel when she kissed her beloved goodbye for the last time? Did she tell him she'd see him soon? Did they laugh, knowing that she lied, that she was going to her death willingly? Impossible choices. My decision that left Hawke in the Fade, did he carry this burden with the knowledge that his life was measured out in mere minutes as he faced Nightmare? Varric's face when he realised Hawke wasn't coming back. That heartbroken "Where is Hawke?" I'll carry with me to my death.

Will he ask, "Where is Rosala?" Will someone remark on the fresh pain that imprints itself on his features?

I hate this. I am being melodramatic. Nothing is certain.

In one of Varric's stories, Solas cradles the Inquisitor's limp form, his teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Or in another, Solas merely looks upon Rosala's mangled corpse and turns away, his expression inscrutable. Either way, it won't matter to me for my spirit will have fled and I'll be beyond pain, beyond love.

And if I fail, none of this will matter in the least.

And if I live? What then?

Will we scatter to the quarters with the threat removed? Will the invisible filaments that have held us together through calamity and disaster come undone? I expect they will.

Where does that leave me? What are my plans?

Either Cassandra or Leliana may sit on the Sunburst Throne. Varric talks about rebuilding Kirkwall. Dorian dreams of change in Tevinter, now that he sees what we've wrought here. Sera, well… Sera is Sera. As foul-mouthed as she is. She has her Jennies. Bull's loyalty extends to whether we've work for him and his Chargers. Neither Morrigan nor Vivienne will linger, I don't think. Both are too conniving, have too many secrets. Cole will haunt me still, I expect, and in his own awkward manner try to ease my pain – though of late I've avoided him for precisely that reason. Thom… Well, he'd walk blindfolded through the Fade for me if need be. Josephine and Cullen will stand by me until Skyhold crumbles. There is comfort in that.

Solas does not bear consideration.

We will talk.

I hold that much hope, though I doubt the answers I'll obtain will offer me any solace.

And yet I grasp after that particular thread, for it is my slender hope that somehow things will be resolved, that there will be a way forward.

There is no chateau in an enchanted forest.

There is no bonding.

There are no storm-eyed children.

Whatever burden he carries, he feels he cannot share it with me, though I would that he allow me into his confidence, no matter how heavy his troubles. I revisit that night in the glade; I dream it, wondering whether anything I could've said or done would have changed anything. Yet there is no going back, and once the truth has been revealed, to return to the way things were is inconceivable. It's like trying to force a tree back into the seed from which it was sown.

I may call Solas out as a liar, but the well's voices whisper, and I know his words for what they are. The truth – the bare-faced truth.

Oh Creators, let this all be over soon.

If this is freedom, I weep for that Dalish girl who once skipped stones across the mirror surface of Lake Luthias and so innocently teased her apostate mage.