The letter arrived a bit later. Jacquelyn was out on some mission or another, Siara being left behind to try figure out what she actually wanted to do with her life. Whether she wanted to stay with the Inquisition as one of its members or if she wanted to return to her previous life as a mercenary. Except solo, this time. She'd been weighing her options for a while now, and on top of that she was trying to work out the new markings growing on her skin. And they were growing.

Slowly, admittedly, but they were definitely growing. Almost like veins, except larger. Running from lyrium blue to lyrium red. The thought made her feel uncomfortable. The substance she hated most in the world looking like it was growing on her skin. The thoughts were swirling around in her head as she stood on the balcony outside her room, looking out over the people scurrying around below her. Watching the people of Skyhold work was strangely calming for her. Didn't actually ease her mind, but it made her body relax more. That was when someone knocked on her door, breaking her from her thoughts.

"Siara? Are you in there?"

She sighed, shaking her head as she walked over to answer the door, opening for Cullen before walking back into her room.

"What is it now, Commander? Got another job for me?"

"Sort of," he paused before taking a hesitant step into her room, leaving the door open. "I have a letter for you. From King Alistair."

"Burn it."

"I can't do that," Siara glared at him. "It relates to your idea. Of revealing who Mara truly was."

Siara looked away, playing with a piece of string in her hands as she sat down on her new mattress.

"What does he want?"

"He wants to speak to you. In person."

"That's not going to happen."

"That's the condition he has for helping us with this," Cullen told her, frowning slightly. "Why aren't you willing to speak with him?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"Look, Cullen, trust me in that you wouldn't. You have the perfect family. Siblings that love you, people here that trust and depend on you. I have none of that. Everything I had is gone, all right? This is… this is no different."

She refused to look at him, actually looking truly broken in front of him for the first time ever. Cullen frowned, quietly closing the door and taking a seat on the one chair in the room, turning it so he was looking at her.

"I've seen a fair bit too, you know," he told her. "Talk to me."

Siara looked up at him, not even trying to hide the pain in her eyes, chewing on her bottom lip slightly.

"Did you know what Mara was?" she asked eventually.

"There were rumours that she was a blood mage. I never wanted to believe them, though."

"Want to know why she became one?" Cullen nodded. "She wanted to protect Jacen and me. We were just kids when we left our clan. A bit after that we were attacked. Templars had heard stories about an Apostate elf. Doesn't take a genius to realise that it was Mara. Since we'd left the clan with her, she didn't want to leave us behind. Otherwise she might have gone with the templars to the circle perfectly willingly. But we did, and she didn't. We ran. Just… kept running. I'm not exactly sure how we managed to get away, think it helped that we were small, and they were in bulky armour. After that she decided that she had to do what she could to keep us safe. Somehow managed to find a book on blood magic. I'm not sure where or how, and she never told us. Neither Jacen nor I were happy about what she was doing, but we knew why she was doing it, so we didn't try very hard to stop her."

"You blame yourself for her becoming a blood mage?"

Siara nodded once.

"Yes. And for her dying. We started looking for jobs not long after that. And it was great. We became the best Mercenaries in Fereldan when we were still really young. Made a lot of enemies, but nothing we couldn't handle. The last job she ever went on was the one at the Circle. When she escaped, templars went after her."

"I know. I knew the men that were sent after her. Not nice men."

"Understatement of the century," Siara growled, taking Cullen vaguely by surprise. "They killed her in front of me. Or I thought they did. She survived and became the bloody Hero. Didn't do anything to help me, though, did it? Not when I needed it," Cullen frowned, confused. "They took me captive," she explained, "saying that if my sister was a mage then chances were, I was, too. It was a while before Jacen figured out what had happened and hunted the bastards down. I killed them, more than happily."

"That explains why they never came back," he didn't sound too angry about it. Siara scoffed.

"Yup. But that's not the point of me telling you this," she looked away. "Mara decided to go off and leave me to them. Never looking back. And now the guy that she left me for wants to talk to me, and I don't know if I can do that without ripping his throat out."

"I know what the templars they sent after Mara were like," Cullen started, slightly hesitantly. "Did they… do anything? To you?"

Siara slowly turned her eyes back to him, not saying anything. Cullen's blood ran cold, though he couldn't fully explain why, and then he was just plain pissed off. There were reasons he was glad he'd left the order other than the getting off the lyrium. Men like the men who took Siara were what disgusted him most.

"They can't hurt anyone else," Siara shrugged, suddenly seeming very uncomfortable. "They got better than they deserved."

He didn't know how to reply, just sat there in silence. Siara seemed content with that, just playing that that piece of string.

"What if someone went with you?" Cullen asked suddenly, Siara looking around at him, a confused look on her face.

"What?"

"What if someone went with you to see Alistair?" he asked. "To stop you from killing him if it came to it."

Siara scoffed, a half smile on her face. Definitely not a real one.

"What, you volunteering, Rutherford?" she asked, an almost teasing note to her voice.

"If you want."

For a moment they just watched each other, the smile slipping from Siara's face.

"He really won't help unless I see him?"

"It's Alistair. Hard to tell. He might, but it would take a bit of convincing from Josephine or Leliana."

Another sigh escaped Siara and she looked back to the string.

"Okay," she agreed, "I'll see him. But I won't talk to him alone. I can't risk losing it, can't risk what I'd do to him. I don't want to hurt him, I just… Don't have the best anger management."

"That's a bit of an understatement," Cullen joked, Siara half smiling, still with that sad air around her. "When do you want to leave?"

"You probably have a bit to get organised, so a few days? I can leave at a moment's notice, but you have an army to run. I'll leave it to you to decide exactly when we go."

"All right," Cullen stood up to leave, pausing with his hand resting on the door handle. "Siara?"

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for what happened to you. And I think I understand why you hate templars so much, now. I'll make sure that the templars give you your space."

Siara smiled at him, a genuine smile.

"Thanks."

He nodded, and then was gone, Siara leaning back against the wall, leaning her head against it, biting her bottom lip again. She closed her eyes, trying not to let tears slip out on her cheeks, the brisk breeze from outside making goosebumps on her skin. She hated opening up to people. It always left her feeling weaker than she did before, reminded her of old wounds, of old emotions. But she hadn't seen any other way to explain it all in a way that Cullen would have fully understood, even if it did mean he now knew what it was that had been done to her.