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Chapter Text

Shrine of Fen'Harel, Tonight

The last Eluvian was closed. Dorian could not have been more than four yards behind the Inquisitor, running after him as he hardly ever ran because he hated breaking a sweat and his armor swished so nicely at a leisurely lope. But he ran, unrestrained—“Amatus, slow down!—” And the Inquisitor jumped through the liquid surface of the mirror and in a second it turned to glass behind him—“NO—!”—and Dorian ran into it face-first. His nose crunched painfully. He fell back. He sat on the hard ground where he landed, rubbing dazedly at his nose, and stared up at the Eluvian. His own face looked back, lost and angry and distorted by the mirror’s old age. The Eluvian was closed, and Dorian was on the wrong side.

Varric jogged up behind him, huffing and puffing. Dorian let the dwarf help him to his feet.

For minutes, they waited. Varric sat down to catch his breath on a tumble of stones where the wall had been smashed by magic. Cole hovered and picked at his hands. Dorian stood, hard and cold and still as marble, in front of the mirror, with his palm flat against the glass, waiting to feel the slightest give. He could see nothing but his own wide eyes.

“He’ll be back,” said Varric. “Give him five minutes, Sparkler. I’ll put gold on it. How much?”

Dorian said nothing.

“How much? C’mon, you’ve bet against him before!” He sounded manic, almost.

“I’m going to die,” said Cole, in the deep voice he used for reading Fionn’s thoughts. “I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m all alone, I’m going to—”

“Stop it!” Varric’s voice cracked. Dorian had never heard him so raw and wounded. “Andraste’s ass, kid. No one’s dying.”

The seconds ticked by. Dorian’s breath was loud in his own ears. He started to shiver. What was the last thing he’d said to Fionn? “I knew you would break my heart, you bloody bastard. ”

Bastard. He’d called his amatus a bastard.

His head tipped forward and knocked against the glass. It would have been a good line too, if he hadn’t been wiping away snot and tears when he said it. But as a goodbye, as an apology? To his Fionn, who shook off insults like a duck shedding water but who’d told him, told him, that he didn’t like to be spoken to that way? Kaffas. Fuck.

It was the night Corypheus died, and Skyhold’s stone walls rattled with the sound of music, laughter, victory shouts. The torchlight created an artificial daybreak. The feast was still in fullest swing. But the Inquisitor was tired. Or rather, “I’m plum tuckered out,” was what he said, when Dorian stopped him in the doorway.

“Not too plum—whatever you said—for a bit of quiet company, I hope?”

“Hm,” said Fionn, with a twinkle. “Sure. Know any quiet people?”

“Alright, amatus.” Dorian raised his hands. “You’ve made your point and stuck me with it. Fine. I am very noisy company. You didn’t think one brief chat would be enough for me, did you?”

“When’s it ever? Matter of fact, got something to ask you. It’ll keep till morning, though. We’ve got all the time in the world now, huh?”

Venhedis, Fionn’s smile could melt winter.

“You say that,” said Dorian, “but I’m not waiting until the sky splits open again.” (Or until I’ve gone back to Tevinter and left you alone here, resenting me.)

Fionn shrugged permissively, and Dorian steered him from the Great Hall into his private stairwell, and up the Inquisitor’s rooms at the top of Skyhold. “See? Much better.”

“Uh-huh.”

And it really was. Fionn’s room was always empty, always airy, and from up here all the winking torches looked like a cloud of fireflies, summery and sweet. Up here, he breathed easy.

Fionn scrubbed a hand over his red-brown beard. He looked nervous, for a man who’d just killed a god and now found himself totally unrivaled, with Thedas sitting in the palm of his left hand. Which he now dropped into the pocket of his dress coat, seeming to fish for something small. He drew it out, and it flashed gold in the dim light, and he said heavily, “Dorian…”

Dorian’s blood went cold. Impulsively, he covered Fionn’s hand with his own, hiding the shiny thing from view, and blurted, “Yes, yes, I’m sure you have all the things to say but first—”

First what? He had nothing to say. He’d been hoping to ask about the Inquisition, what exactly Fionn meant with that whole “lay down our swords” business, and then perhaps crack open a bottle of Flames-of-Our-Lady and move on to softer topics, and kissing, and so forth. He had not braced himself for a proposal. He certainly had not worked up the cruelty to look his amatus in those big brown eyes and say no, he could not marry anyone, he must go back to Minrathous and give a speech about the future and then get torn limb from limb by some nasty old conservative Magister and all their incaensors.

“Festis bei…” Dorian muttered. You’re going to be the death of me. Then, rather shrilly, he said, “Two things in private before you speak. First, you are terribly dull and I hate you.”

“Oh.” Fionn’s face fell. His hand closed into a fist around the shiny object, and pulled away from Dorian’s.

Dorian paused. “What is it?”

”Don’t know why you’d say that.” Fionn’s voice was surly.

”What? That I hate you?” Dorian chuckled. It was so hard to take him seriously, when his grumpy face made him look like a child’s stuffed bear, and of course Dorian hadn’t meant anything by it. “A witticism, amatus. Sarcasm. You know I meant the opposite.”

“I don’t—“ Fionn struggled. “Uh. I didn’t. Didn’t know that. I don’t like it much when you talk like that to me.”

“Like—?”

“Mean.”

”Mean!” Dorian almost laughed again. But Fionn stepped back from him, a frown pulling down the sides of his mustache, and it hit Dorian with a sudden pang.

Mean?

Yes. He rather supposed it had been. Shame heated his face. He cleared his throat, and reached out to Fionn. “Forgive me, amatus. You are terribly bright, and I—” It caught for a second behind his teeth, almost too big to get out. “I love you.”

Fionn stepped into his touch, warily. “What’s the second?”

“The second what?”

“Thing.”

Dorian blinked, at a loss.

“You said you’d say two things. You only said one thing, and I didn’t like it. So you better be sure the second thing is sweeter, or I’m leavin’ you.”

Dorian feigned a gasp. “For who?”

”Bull’s bigger’n you.”

For a split second, Dorian was genuinely blindsided. “Bull’s—Pardon me! Whatever happened to not being mean?”

“We didn’t shake on that yet. You wanna shake on it?”

At the look on Dorian’s face, Fionn cracked up, and after a moment laughter bubbled up in Dorian too, bright and disbelieving. No one could listen to Fionn’s deep, rolling belly laugh and not laugh with him.

“The second thing,” he said through a chuckle, “is: I hope this ends soon.”

Dorian hoped Fionn understood how much he meant with that. The weight of the Inquisition on Fionn’s broad shoulders, the siren’s call of Tevinter in Dorian’s ears, the expectations, the responsibility, the peril, the future that looked as clouded and monstrous as a reflection in an antique mirror—he hoped it would end soon, and they would sleep and wake in a quiet place with no eyes on them, and Fionn could ask, “Will you marry me?” if Dorian didn’t ask first, and Dorian would be free to say yes.

Speaking of. He squared his shoulders, and tried to still the frightened, guilty flutter in his chest. “And what was your… thing?”

“Oh!” Fionn’s eyes widened. “Uh.” He held out his hand and opened it slowly. Sitting in his palm was—not a ring. It was a crystal. Dull yellow, like topaz. Dorian felt ridiculous for assuming—Well. No point in rehashing this string of small humiliations.

He leaned in to get a better look, then quickly said “May I?” and took the stone. It was warm to the touch, probably from the heat of Fionn’s hand, but otherwise unremarkable. “What is this?”

“Stole it from a Venatori. Dagna messed around with it. Then she got bored and gave it to me. It records things. Not as fancy ‘s Calpernia’s. Can’t do real time. Just holds onto one sound.”

“What sort of sounds?”

Fionn tapped the stone. A blare of sound—Dorian startled and nearly dropped the thing. Then he listened. It was the sound, slightly tinny but close and loud, of big band music. Trumpets, Orlesian horns, drums and saxophones, and a deep male voice belting.

Fionn grinned. “Heard it in Val Royeaux. Thought you’d like it.”

“Well. It’s not quite as refined as my listening habits, but—yes. I do.” He did. The song was charming, old-fashioned, joyful and fierce, and Fionn was already swaying his hips as he plucked the crystal from Dorian’s hand and set it down on the mantelpiece.

“Dorian,” said the Inquisitor, in a serious voice betrayed by the upward twitch of his lips, “May I have this dance?”

“Amatus. I thought you’d never ask,” Dorian said honestly, and stepped into frame for the waltz they’d done on the balcony at Halamshiral. But Fionn knocked him off balance with a playful shove.

“Nothin’ fancy. Like this.” He kicked off his boots and began to bop comically up and down, arms akimbo, sticking his feet out one at a time. Dorian snickered. He mirrored the steps easily, though his limbs felt far too long and thin for it. He looked absurd, of course. He’d never dream of dancing like this with anyone else watching. Anyone but him.

Fionn grabbed his hand and led him in a funny two-step across the room, out onto the balcony, then raised his arm and waved for Dorian to turn under it.

“Under—?”

The dwarf’s smile was wicked.

Dorian blew out a quick, hard sigh, then squatted down and shuffled around, under Fionn’s arm. His hip popped as he straightened up again. “Not a word.”

Fionn didn’t tease him. He didn’t need to. He steered Dorian around the floor again, more vigor and less dignity in every step, until both of them were wiggling their hips and jumping around the room in their socks like a pair of circus monkeys. Fionn tucked his thumbs in under his armpits and flapped his elbows. Dorian punched the air and spun on his heels. The brassy music flared and the Orlesian singer scatted and Dorian’s cheeks began to ache from smiling.

When the music ended with a crackle of magic, the Inquisitor folded himself into Dorian’s arms and they simply swayed, back and forth, sleepy and warm, on the balcony, and the sun rose pink in a freshly healed sky.

Fionn was growing very heavy, and when Dorian looked down a minute later his amatus was asleep with his head on Dorian’s chest, snoring softly, dead weight. He must have been exhausted, after that forced march to and from Sacred Ashes, the battle with Corypheus, and a long and festive night. Maker knew Dorian was feeling the length of the day himself. What was the phrase Fionn had used? Plum—? He couldn’t remember. Something very Southern.

He bent and kissed the Inquisitor’s forehead.

“Mea culpa, amatus,” he whispered. “I hope this ends well.”

The Eluvian rippled. Dorian’s head snapped up.

“Is it open?” Varric called, but Dorian was already stepping through it, submerged in magic and then breaking through to the other side with a gasp.

The place he surfaced in—he didn’t know what to call it. A battlefield, though it looked more like a sculpture garden, or a graveyard. Qunari figures littered a sunny hillside, sculpted—frozen?—in poses of violence and fear. There was no movement. No sounds of fighting. No sounds at all, except the faintest scrabbling from somewhere ahead. Then a voice, his voice, reedy with pain: “Varric?”

“Fionn.” Dorian felt a sharp pain low in his belly. He tore across the open space, ducking under the petrified arms and weapons of the Qunari, and found him at the foot of a broken staircase, lying on his stomach, clutching his left arm. Fionn was wounded. Terribly wounded. There was no pool of blood, no sputtering green light from the Anchor, but his amatus was squirming, spasming on the ground, and when he lifted his face it was slicked with sweat and tears of effort. And still Fionn tried to smile.

“Dorian.”

Dorian choked. The night had been long and bloody, and the day hard before it. For hours he had watched Fionn bowing, buckling, screaming at the Anchor, and now Dorian broke down, forgetting to mind his face or body as his knees hit the ground and he scrambled on them closer to Fionn. Sloppy. Undignified. “Show me where it hurts.”

Shuddering, Fionn put out his arm. The skin was gray, tight and shiny, and when Dorian touched it he touched cold stone. He was turning to stone. It looked like the effects of Primal magic, but petrification spells didn’t hurt, didn’t kill, and certainly didn’t carve their way upwards towards Fionn’s heart in jagged, rootlike veins that grew before his eyes. This was a curse, old and sadistic.

“Fasta vass, Fionn.”

“Solas,” Fionn choked out.

“He was here?”

“Uh-huh. Viddasala was huntin’ him. He killed her. He’s Fen’Harel.”

“Solas did this to you?”

Fionn shook his head furiously. “Bought me time. He’s my friend. He’s still—“ His words broke off in a strangled cry of pain and he curled in on himself, rocking on the ground, and Dorian bent over him, as if blocking out the sky for him could help.

“Bene est, amatus. Bene est, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

“It is.” Fionn’s good hand, the one that was still warm flesh, trailed up the curve of Dorian’s jaw. “It is alright.”

“No.”

A crunch of gravel and a quiet “Shit!” announced Cole and Varric’s entrance through the mirror. Dorian didn’t give them time to admire the tableau. “Help me carry him! Now!”

“I’m going to die,” said Cole, wild and wavering, as Varric rushed forward. Dorian grabbed Fionn under his arms. Varric took the backs of his knees. They lifted together. He grew heavier as they did. For a second Dorian thought Fionn was going limp on purpose to protest being manhandled like this, and was just about to chide him for it, when he saw the brown eyes roll back in Fionn’s head like when he was about to make fun of Dorian and then stay there, white and gleaming, as his body relaxed.

Dorian felt the stab in his gut again, worse this time. “Go!” he snapped at Varric. “Go!”

They ran all together through mirror after mirror, Varric and Dorian with Fionn’s weight split between them, Cole flying ahead and cutting down any Qunari stragglers who showed their horns. Fionn was bleeding now, not from the ruin of his arm but from the corner of his mouth, in a slow dark trickle that stained Dorian’s collar and would never ever come out of the cloth, and the pain in Dorian’s belly was throbbing, keeping pace like a heartbeat. He was going to be sick. As soon as he could put Fionn down he was going to be sick all over himself.

They smashed through the first and final Eluvian, into the Winter Palace, and were greeted by a bristle of weapons from Cullen’s soldiers, and then a shout from Cullen himself. He swept in and took Fionn’s body from them without asking and strode off barking orders, all big and golden and perfect and prepared.

Dorian wasn’t sick after all but the nausea didn’t fade. He felt cold and aching all the way through. He sank to the floor a few paces from the Eluvian. He was looking at a dark spot on the green plush carpet when Varric said “Stay with me, Sparkler,” and Dorian jolted in surprise, unaware he had been in danger of going anywhere.

Cole was mercifully quiet. But his voice from earlier echoed between Dorian’s ears. “I’m going to die, I’m all alone.” Fionn’s last thought before the Eluvian parted him from his companions. “I’m all alone.” And who had convinced him of that? Who had made him feel alone with the three people who loved him most in the world right there, steps behind him? Dorian. No one but him. He couldn’t imagine how he’d defiled and deranged it all so badly.

But then, he never had been good at guessing what Fionn wanted. The man challenged and surprised him at every turn. He always had. It rang in Dorian like a prayer or refrain. Fionn always surprised. He would live to again. He always had. He would again.

Chapter Text

The Winter Palace, Tonight

“You’re goin’ too fast for me,” said Fionn, the first time Dorian offered to sleep with him. It had seemed a natural progression of things, a smart next move. Break the tension, settle a debt, get a few embarrassing fantasies out of his system so they could both move on with dignity. But Fionn refused him. Just like that.

“Too fast?” Dorian repeated. “By my standards we’ve been positively chaste.”

“Uh. Not mine, though.” Fionn re-did the button of his shirt Dorian had undone, and his eyes were dark with thought under their long lashes.

Dorian was left bewildered. There was a burning feeling coming up in him, and he couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or glee, or anger, or hope. “What is it you want from me, exactly? A relationship?” He tried to say it in a way they could both brush off as sarcastic, if they had to.

“Why not?” said Fionn, a little gruffly.

Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. He shook his head, turning around to cast his gaze around the room, as if he’d find some helpful counsel in the stained glass, the furs, the fireplace, or the sky outside the windows.

“Stalker got your tongue?”

“It doesn’t happen often,” said Dorian. “I was… expecting something different.”

“Uh-huh.” Fionn dipped his head as if to say, Go on. I won’t run out on you.

“Where I come from,” said Dorian, treading lightly over the minefield of his own thoughts, “anything between two men, it’s… about pleasure. It’s accepted—“ Hardly. “—but never taken further. It’s not that you don’t care, it’s just—“ His voice quavered slightly. “You learn not to hope for more. You’d be foolish to.”

“Hm.” Fionn rubbed at his chin. “So this is—more?”

“This?”

“Love,” said Fionn, and Dorian’s insides roared with fire. “If you think it’s somethin’ greater than sex already, I don’t see how we’re not in agreement. Aren’t we?”

Dorian sucked in a breath, his face blazing. The heat was everywhere, but burned the hottest behind his eyes. “Love. Great love. You say that like it’s a simple thing. I have no examples with which to compare.”

Fionn said, “We are the example.” And the set of his jaw, the flash of his eyes, was all certainty, all glowing. Dorian thought, this is what his enemies see before he shoots them. Why did I ever put myself in his path, and expect to get away unscathed? Then the Inquisitor cleared his throat and looked down to the side and shrugged his shoulders in a rustic, dwarfish way and said, “I mean. I dunno. Guess we could be. If you want.”

Dorian chuckled. He hadn’t even understood before how lonely he had been, how lonely he would have gone on being if this night had progressed as he’d planned on it progressing. A future was opening now, tentative and soft and dangerous. The potential for things he’d never dared to do or say with anyone. Dorian felt the press of more words close behind his tongue, some important, others simply glittering distractions or painted screens he could put up, but he swallowed them all, leaned forward, and kissed Fionn on the cheek. As if to say, I do.

But of course, that would’ve been rather premature, don’t you think?

Cullen came back some time later. He looked pale and sunken-eyed—more than Cullen always did—and his dress uniform was flecked with darker red.

“What’s the word?” said Varric, tiredly. No nickname, even.

“The Inquisitor is alive but not stable. His arm was amputated and the magic dispelled, but there is... other damage. They don’t know how to mend it. If you wish to visit him before—“ Varric made a strange noise that Dorian had not heard before, and Cullen closed his eyes and pressed his lips together thinly in apology. “If you wish to visit him, I suggest you do it now. I can escort you. But if you would prefer your rest—“

“We want to see him,” said Cole, almost tartly, if a spirit of Compassion could be tart. “We’re his family. Lead us now.”

They followed Cullen outside, into an unexpected blaze of sunlight and late spring heat. Dorian shielded his eyes. The Winter Palace was glittering, pristine, pale blue and white and gold and bursting with flowers, looking as always like a doll’s house, but smoke rose steadily in a plume on the horizon. A few barrels of gaatlok powder must have slipped through the Inquisition’s net. Dorian supposed he should worry that people were hurt, but he didn’t. He drifted along after Cullen, dazzled and dull.

Their party of misfits climbed the palace steps. Family was one word for it—the sly little novelist who treated Fionn like a prodigal son, the spirit playing at little brother, the Magister lover (literally, now), and the rigid, worn-out Templar. A nod from Cullen opened the gate and they went into the cool, dark foyer, then turned, not left toward the royal wing as Dorian expected, but to the right.

“He’s in the servants’ quarters,” said Cullen, and then by way of explanation: “The Empress willed it.”

Dorian gave a bitter crack of laughter. “How absurdly inappropriate.” Servants’ quarters! Naturally! Fionn was only the Lord Inquisitor, the First-Thaw, the Herald, the Hero of the South, and Celene’s personal saving grace. But it figured, didn’t it? As soon as he was wounded he became damaged goods, a problem for Celene instead of a shield, and it was straight back to calling him a dirty little dwarf and asking him if he shouldn’t be serving canapés instead of meddling above his station. That, or the Empress didn’t want blood on the good sheets. “I love Orlais!”

Cullen frowned. “I believe it’s easier to get supplies in.”

“Pah.”

Cullen’s attention lingered on him as they passed into the East Wing. He was looking Dorian up and down slowly, measuringly, with his eagle-like eyes.

“Sizing me up now that the Inquisitor is out of the way, are we?” Dorian said acidly. “You’d better not get handsy with me.”

Cullen’s lips thinned. “I was afraid you were wounded. You are not often so quiet. If left untreated, shock can sicken you badly in the long-term.”

“Curly...“ said Varric, but Dorian was already lit, flaring up, going off like the firecracker he was nicknamed for—

“Oh! I see! How gallant of you to worry, Ser Cullen! Am I shocked, do you think? What could possibly have shocked me, do you think?”

“It’s a medical term,” Cullen muttered, to no effect.

“Could it be—do you think!— that the man I love is dying, that you sent him off to die, just packed him off without so much as a brown bag lunch, off you go now, pip pip! Run along and die for us because the most powerful people in Thedas, you and Leliana and all the king’s horses and all his fucking men, couldn’t find a few spies hiding under your noses, in Skyhold , and Maker forbid you tidy up your own messes when you could have a martyr instead!” As Dorian flung his arms out wide for emphasis, he discovered with a sharp twinge that he was , in fact, slightly wounded—his ribs and back went red-hot with protest at being jostled. “But I suppose you wouldn’t know what it is to love him!”

Cullen’s face twisted with anger, looking suddenly much older and less handsome than before. The shadow of Kirkwall swept around him like a cape. “No,” he said. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

Dorian opened his mouth, not knowing what he was going to say next except that he wanted a fight and was going to provoke it—and was stopped by a cold, bony hand around his wrist.

“You’re not mad at Cullen,” said Cole.

“Oh, I’m incensed with Cullen.”

“You’re not, though. You’re mad at yourself. We have to get to Fionn.” Under his hat, Cole’s eyes were wide and wet as a frog’s, and his lower lip was trembling. “He needs us now. He’s—“

Dorian’s anger rushed out of him. “Alright, Cole.”

They broke into a run, taking the stairs in the vestibule two at a time and barging through the familiar blue door into the servants’ quarters. Fionn was in the first room by the archway out to the garden. He was a dark shape, mostly obscured by the bustle of healers, some in Inquisition green and others in the crisp white aprons and blue shirtsleeves of the palace staff. They’d shucked off his armor and laid him out not on a bed but on what looked like a butcher’s work table, and as Dorian approached he saw why.

Fionn’s blood was everywhere. Filling the grooves in the wood of the table. Splashed against the wall. Staining the sleeves and hands of the healers. Dorian couldn’t imagine there was this much blood in Fionn’s whole body. And his arm was—gone . A short, fat stump wrapped in bandages. But he was alive, bucking on the table under two healers’ restraining hands, not awake but twisting with pain. He was losing strength in front of Dorian’s eyes, each thrashing motion weaker than the last.

Dorian swayed. Varric grabbed his arm to keep him upright.

“So the anchor’s obviously gone,” Varric rasped. “What’s wrong with him?”

“They don’t know,” said Cullen.

Instead of a healer, Cole’s voice answered. “The Anchor struck like lightning,” he said. “Over and over. Shocking, burning. The pain was meant to pass. Solas’s stone should ground it. Trapped it instead. It can’t get out. It’s still—” He floundered for a word, flapping his hands in exertion. “It came from the Conductor. He conducts it. Round and round. He’s full of—conduits. Circuits. Paths. Too much magic, green and blue, linger and Fade. Lyrium. Lyrium keeps the pain from leaving.”

“Lyrium?” Dorian echoed. “What does lyrium have to do with—?” Then it made sense: “Lyrium!” He pulled at the nearest Inquisition uniform. “The Inquisitor is lyrium-addled.”

The healer blinked at Dorian, blank and alarmed. “What?”

“He doesn’t have the immunities of most dwarves. He used to work with lyrium and it’s still in his system, mucking things up. The Anchor’s magic hasn’t dispelled or been neutralized by the petrification. Its energy is still trapped under the skin, conducted—”

”Yes!” Cole cried, in excitement and relief. “Clever Dorian!”

He couldn’t raise a smile for the lad. “Conducted by the trace amounts of lyrium. Healer. Have you ever treated a Templar?”

“Uh—Yes?”

”Marvelous.”

”I have a name, messere.”

“That’s wonderful for you. Just pretend he’s a Templar. A very miniature one. Don’t use lyrium. Is Dagna here?”

“She’s Sera’s plus one,” said Varric. “Probably in the tavern.”

“Fetch her. Please.”

“I‘ll go,” said Cole, and disappeared.

Dorian’s eyes were wide open, his breathing so quick and eager it was almost panting, and Varric was pulling down on his arm, easing him down onto a kitchen stool, saying “Easy, Sparkler”—but Dorian didn’t understand the concern. Of course this was a good thing, he’d found the problem, the day was saved. Between Dagna’s mining caste blood, her Circle education, and Samson at her mercy in Skyhold, their arcanist knew everything there was to know about lyrium. She must know everything. She would put Fionn back together as easily as a tool. He would wake up. Dorian could apologize for the last two years and all that he’d said to Fionn the morning prior, his amatus would not die thinking Dorian did not care for him. “I’m going to die, I’m all alone.” He wasn’t. He wasn’t.

“Easy, easy. Hey.” Varric had the gall to actually grab Dorian’s face. “Stop panicking.”

“I’m not panicking,” Dorian tried to snap, but it came out soft and slurring. “I have to tell him I’m sorry.”

“I hate to tell it to you, kid, but we’re here to say goodbye.”

“He must know I’m sorry.”

“For what? He loves you. ”

“All of it, all of it.”

Up close, Varric looked old. The early gray at his temples stood out, and his eyes were red-rimmed and drooping with grief or exhaustion. And/or. Both. It was unusual for him. Dorian knew he owned eye cream.

“Varric, you look dreadful.”

“Dorian,” said Varric. “What exactly did you say to him yesterday?”

Chapter Text

The Winter Palace, Yesterday Morning

To say that Fionn was unhappy to be back at the Winter Palace would have been too dramatic. Fionn never arrived at a place unhappy to be there. That wouldn’t be fair to the place. And even if the Winter Palace was full of lying, mean, and ugly nobles shitting in high cotton and backstabbing their friends. Even if it was built on elf bones. Even if he’d been humiliated the last time he was here.

(Spun around and laughed at and confused until he didn’t know which way was up and finally just stuck a knife in Florianne and saved Celene because that seemed like the thing to do. Thought he’d done right by everyone, and went on thinking he’d done right until a week later when Sera—not his actual spymaster, but Sera—told him that Empress Celene was just about the biggest monster in the West, a betrayer and killer of elves, which he mighta wanted to fucking know before he gave her back Orlais.)

But. You know. That wasn’t the building’s fault.

It was a nice place. Lots of flowers. Lots of sunshine. And Dorian. Mother Giselle said Dorian would be here. And Cassandra said—Fionn grinned to think about it. She’d said Dorian was gonna propose. He wouldn’t be surprised if she and Varric had just got each other worked up and there was nothing to it, but if Dorian did ask his amatus to marry him, the Winter Palace was a pretty place to do it. And Fionn had his answer ready. He’d had it ready for the last two years. He even had the ring with him, bundled up with his armor and his arrows (and some scones and trail mix) in the guest room he’d been given. He’d taken to carrying it places, even though that was dumb and sappy and it might get lost. It was like a lucky charm now. He liked to have it close. In case we meet again. Yeah.

So Fionn wasn’t too bowed up. He walked across the gardens smiling, his thumbs hooked in the belt of his dress uniform, except when he reached up to tip his hat to Maryden and Cole, who waved back.

Varric stopped him at the foot of the palace steps, apparently cornered between a fountain and Seneschal Bran. “Hello, Cowboy! Andraste’s ass, am I ever glad to see you.”

Fionn rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Need rescuing?”

“No,” said Bran.

“Yes,” said Varric. “And Bran here needs a little break. Maybe a nap.” Varric’s latest letter had explained the Viscount situation, with color. He acted all ornery about it, but Fionn was pretty sure he liked the job. He liked Kirkwall. And attention. And delegating. As Bran left in a huff, Varric’s grimace turned to a bright, conspiratorial smile. “Anyway. I was hoping I’d catch you before the summit got underway.” He pulled his satchel around from his hip to his belly and reached in, looking for something. “I got you a sort of present.”

“Better not be a title.”

Varric winced and stopped for a second, then drew out his hand, holding a fancy-looking paper. The red symbol of Kirkwall was splashed across it like blood. “Sorry.”

Fionn didn’t take it, just shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, blowing out air.

“Congratulations!” Varric cheered. “You’re a comte now.”

Bran whirled around. “You can’t actually do that without—”

“Too late! Already did it!” Fionn didn’t budge. Varric sighed. He slid the paper back into his bag and stepped forward, leaning in to talk softer. “Listen, I know it’s not your style. It’s more about the house. Thought you wouldn’t mind a place in Hightown so you could, you know, visit… Merrill.”

“Visit you,” said Fionn.

“Alright, visit me. You got me, kid, I miss ya. And it’s a pretty nice house! For Kirkwall, anyway.”

Bran pressed his hands together as if in prayer to the god of bureaucrats. (Which would be Andraste, Fionn thought, if the Surface Chantry was anything to reckon by.) “Proper dispensation of empty estates is supposed to—”

“You were leaving us to talk, remember?” said Varric. “I also got you a seat on the Merchants’ Guild. Don’t thank me. I was just going to give you mine but they got so angry about it. And here’s the key to the city.”

Fionn didn’t take that, either. But as Varric and Bran squabbled over the key and what giant old machines it did or didn’t control in the harbor, he lost his nerve and started to laugh.

“Anyway,” said Varric. “You’ve got a place in Kirkwall if you want to visit—”

“You,” Fionn filled in, chuckling.

“Visit me! Fine! And be a little terror while you’re there. To Viscount Varric Tethras, the Merchants’ Guild and the entire harbor, I guess.”

Fionn hugged him. He knew what Varric was trying to do: give him a way out. From the Inquisition, the Carta, being casteless. And keep him close. Fionn wouldn’t be taking any of the gifts, but he knew, and he hugged Varric tight.

“Aw,” said Varric. “This is nice.” Fionn could feel him fidgeting around, trying to get the key and paperwork into Fionn’s pocket.

“No thank you,” he said, pulling away.

Varric tried to look innocent. “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, old man. You seen Dorian?”

Varric’s eyebrows shot up, then waggled knowingly. “On the terrace over there. Tell him I said—”

“No thank you,” Fionn said again, and was heading off the way Varric pointed when the older dwarf suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Hey.” Fionn turned. Varric was still grinning, but there was something tight and serious around his eyes. “Take care of yourself, son.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wicked Grace before I go back?”

Fionn nodded, and gave the quick tug on the brim of his hat that had come to mean, I promise. Varric let go, but Fionn thought he could feel his eyes on his back until Fionn was out of sight. He jogged up the steps to the terrace. As soon as his head cleared the top he was looking for Dorian.

Arl Teagan hurried towards him, already talking in a thick, angry Fereldan accent, but Fionn shrugged him off with a rough “I hear ya.” He could see Dorian, on the far side of the terrace, leaning on the balcony and talking to some Orlesian. He looked just the same, except he was wearing white now, and with the morning sun on him he looked to be glowing.

“Inquisitor!” said Teagan.

Fionn walked past him. He wanted to call out to Dorian but the words stuck hard in his throat, as they often did, but especially when he was worked up. Two years since he’d seen him. Two damn years. And he never knew what to put in the letters. Dorian’s were always so nice and fancy, with his swooshy script and big words and stories about spies and magic duels, and Fionn could hear his voice as he read them, and the signoff— Your Amatus— felt like a parting kiss on the cheek. What Fionn sent back was short and dull. Mostly lists. “Saw today: tadpole. dragon. daffodils comin up. Sera’s knife collection (too many knives).” Stuff like that. It was a wonder Dorian kept replying at all. Not that Fionn was much of a chatty Cathy in person either, but, well, seeing him was somethin’ different.

Dorian caught sight of Fionn before he could swallow his heart back down. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he told the Orlesian, stepping round him. “There’s an old friend I need to greet. Inquisitor!”

Fionn tipped his hat brim back so he could beam up at Dorian. “Mornin’,” he said.

Dorian brushed his hands over Fionn’s shoulders and down to rest at his elbows. “How long has it been? Don’t actually tell me. I despise feeling old.”

“You don’t look a day over—” Dorian wrinkled his nose in warning, and Fionn let the sentence break apart into laughter. It had slipped his mind, but he wasn’t actually meant to know Dorian’s age. He’d had to ask Leli, way back when. Thirty was the answer. Thirty-two now. Not exactly liable to crumble into dust. Dorian didn’t join in laughing, but he smiled and the crinkle at the sides of his eyes was just like in Fionn’s daydreams.

“It’s good to see you, my friend,” said Dorian.

A scrap of cloud passed over the sun. “Friend?” Fionn echoed, then shook it off. Dorian just liked his teasing. That hadn’t changed, either. “You got here early. Hope all’s well.”

“All’s well. It’s everything I expected so we’ve been spared the burden of surprise. Orlais wants the Inquisition tamed, Ferelden wants it gone, the Chantry meddles, and Tevinter sends but one ambassador. That’s me, by the way. A ‘reward for my interest in the South.’ Thankfully, Ambassador Pavus is a token appointment. Call on me as you like.”

Fionn had got caught up in watching Dorian, the funny way he bobbed his head and shrugged his shoulders and pulled his mouth to the side to show his dimples while he talked. So he didn’t notice until too late that Dorian’s silence was not a pause for breath but a “cue applause” (Josie’s phrase) and that he was leaving.

“Wait?” Fionn said, and then Teagan and the Orlesian were in front of him, jostling for attention, their puffed-up chests right in Fionn’s face. The two big hats talked over him, over his head, and from what little got in past Fionn’s ears, they said just about what Dorian said they were saying—Orlais wanted the Inquisition tamed, Ferelden wanted it gone. Fionn grunted a few times so they’d think he was listening. After a minute he realized he was grunting into empty air. The big hats were quiet, waiting for him to say something. Teagan was tapping his foot.

Fionn looked up into their faces, shielding his eyes from the flare of sun off the Orlesian’s helmet. (He’d introduced himself at some point, but Fionn hadn’t cared.) “Uh,” said the Inquisitor. “Great. Yeah. Good work on that. Fellas.”

“Will the Inquisition be disbanding, or not?” Teagan demanded.

“Yes,” Fionn said. “Yeah. Layin’ down our swords. Think I’ve said so all along.”

“Not to Ferelden.”

“Huh. OK.”

Teagan spluttered. The Orlesian laughed at his expense. It wasn’t a nice laugh, but sort of a high, stupid chortle. If Fionn had a laugh like that he’d cover it with his hand like a sneeze.

“My Lord Inquisitor, I beg you to reconsider this stance,” the Orlesian said, when the ugly laugh was over.

“No,” said Fionn. He looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leli or Josie or even Vivienne to help him out. Finding himself alone, he put his hands in his pockets again, bowed, said “Mornin’” again, and shuffled away quickly, ignoring their cries for more explanation.

He found Dorian on the patio below, along with Sera, Cole, Varric, and a snoring heap of Iron Bull—he’d wasted no time this morning. Varric seemed to be mid-toast, hoisting a cup in the air bravely despite Sera’s heckling.

“As the most eloquent dwarf you know, Sparkles—”

“Speech! Speech! Way too much speech!”

Dorian, backed up against a white pillar, looked pained. “Varric, there’s really no need—”

“Well, now I have to start over,” said Varric. “Here’s to Sparkles! When I first met you two years ago—”

“Boo!” Sera wailed, and threw her cup at Varric.

Fionn couldn’t guess what they were drinking to, but seeing his family back together put his smile back on. Cole and Sera had been around, of course, and Bull dropped by Skyhold to slap Fionn too hard on the back (or ass, when he felt like stooping for it) and tell Charger stories now and then, but Varric and Dorian he’d missed like crazy. “What’s goin’ on?” he said brightly.

“You’re just in time, Cowboy!” Varric saluted him with his cup. “Get over here! Fill a cup and raise it!”

Fionn went to him, but as he passed Dorian their eyes met. Dorian’s face was dark. Dark and cold and cornered. And sad. Fionn froze stiff, his hand outstretched for the cup Varric was handing him. Something was off kilter here. Way off kilter.

“Dorian?” he said.

“Sparkles!” Varric yelled. “The Imperium doesn’t deserve you. Or want you. It may even kill you. But we’ll miss you, if it counts.”

Dorian stood like a spooked halla. Fionn stared back, blank with confusion. Varric looked between them, back and forth and back again.

”Aaaand Fionn didn’t know.”

Sera clapped her hands over her mouth.

“Okay, folks!” said Varric. “Time to take the party elsewhere.” He herded the others away, half dragging Cole and stepping over Bull’s drunk body.

Dorian walked away too, back toward the fountain, but this time Fionn didn’t let him go. He stomped along after Dorian, who seemed to realize he wasn’t escaping and stopped, his back to Fionn, and crossed his arms.

“It’s true,” he said. “I couldn’t stay away from Tevinter. I’m leaving as soon as the Exalted Council is done. For good, this time.”

Fionn’s guts twisted. His throat jammed up.

Dorian turned toward him, wildly, as if afraid of being attacked from behind. “I don’t want to leave, amatus. It came up suddenly. My father is dead. Assassinated, I believe.”

Oh.

Dorian.

He wanted to say I’m sorry but Dorian was still talking, fast and loud. “I received notice this morning. A perversely cheerful letter congratulating me on assuming his seat in the Magisterium. I didn’t even see him when I was home. I had no idea he would leave me everything. This ambassadorship? His doing, I’m told. He must have wanted me away when the trouble began. I have to go back.”

There was a breath. Say “I’m sorry,” Fionn. “Dorian—” he managed.

“So, I am a Magister now. Oh, yes! I can’t wait to degrade the Magisterium with my presence. A new outfit is required!” Dorian was warming up now, or burning up, ‘cause he looked so unhappy he could burst into flame. “Then I find my father’s killers and kill them back. Then I find those giving Tevinter a bad name and kill them. They’re most likely the same people, so that should make the job easier.”

He stopped. Cue applause.

Fionn took his hands from his pockets and sucked in a breath.

“No pity, please,” Dorian snapped, and Fionn felt himself shrink back like a scolded child.

“OK,” he said. He tried to lift his smile up again. “It’s good. Your plan. Tevinter needs you.”

“Naturally.”

“You’ll need help. I’ll come with you.”

“Not this time, my friend.”

Friend. He remembered when they’d got Dorian’s amulet back from that merchant, and Dorian said “He’s not my friend, he’s my—” and looked at Fionn with such naked love and terror. Nothing had changed for Fionn since then. How much had changed for Dorian?

Dorian folded his arms over his chest again, barring Fionn out. “I won’t be entirely without support. Maevaris has gathered other Magisters who feel as we do. We’ll be an actual faction in the Magisterium. I’ll teach them manners. Take them shopping. It’ll be fun!” Then, when Fionn didn’t say anything, he repeated himself: “I have to.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Are you asking me to give up a golden opportunity for martyrdom?”

Fionn looked up at the clear sky, so light blue it was almost white, and let the hot sun soak into his face.

“You’re angry with me,” said Dorian, returning to the sofa where Sera had been and sitting down, crossing his legs ankle over knee, as casual as if they were back in Skyhold and everything was fine and dandy. “Now there’s a novelty. Careful, someone might see that face and put it on a statue. Then you’d be sorry.”

And oh, Fionn was angry. He was mad enough to spit. Dorian was talking about leaving Fionn alone and killing himself. The nerve it took to be flippant about it. But Fionn wasn’t selfish enough to have it out with Dorian now. He wasn’t.

Halward Pavus was dead, and he’d died without ever apologizing to his son. Fionn felt sure of that. He‘d only met Halward once but it was enough to tell that Dorian’s old man was not what you’d call an apologizer. Now he’d gone and died and missed his chance. The wound would never close. What would Fionn losing his temper do to fix something like that?

He just needed a minute. Just a minute to chew and swallow what Dorian had told him, so he could be happy for him and not make it worse.

But Dorian didn't give him a minute. He just kept talking. Talking nonsense, far as Fionn could tell. Gossip, travel plans, some awful things about Qunari pirates and Leli’s Divine robes.

Fionn was having trouble breathing steady. In and out. Keep it civil. It felt like he had steam in his lungs, like he was liable to blow it out in puffs through his nostrils like a dragon if he didn’t settle down. His own anger was shocking to him. He remembered Varric’s first draft of a nickname for him—Sunny—and how he’d faced down everything from Cassandra to Hakkon without raising his voice once. Had something gone wrong in him? Had he weakened so much since then, that he’d be mad at his Dorian, after he’d just lost his father? Or was it Dorian that had changed? Or just the years and oceans in between?

“It has been too long,” Dorian said at last, into the angry silence. “How long?”

“Two years.”

“Too long.” Dorian really did look sorry. Then, the smirk: “Did you miss me?”

The clouds burst inside Fionn. “That ain’t right, Dorian,” he growled. “That just ain’t right to ask me.”

“What?” Dorian spread his hands helplessly. “I certainly missed you. ”

“I went to pieces,” said Fionn. “I rode out to the Wastes and didn’t tell anybody. I…”

Fionn couldn’t find the words for the rest of what he’d felt. He hadn’t acted up again after the day Dorian left. He’d just hung on to the folks he had left like he was drowning, and come up with all excuses to ride out in the middle of nowhere slamming shut rifts or shooting things. He’d lost track of time. Not from drinking or anything morbid like that. He’d just sit down to do some work for Leli and then he wouldn’t get it done. He’d stare at windows or bookshelves or walls or the flat of his desk, making up stories in his head. Stories about Dorian coming back and sweeping him off his feet and begging for his help in Tevinter. Stories about evil Magisters killing Dorian and sealing his body inside a wall so Fionn never found out what happened. Also some about pirates and stuff. He’d get into a daydream (or day-nightmare) and then Leli would be touching his shoulder and he’d startle, look up and see that the light had changed, hours were gone, and he was shivering. At night the quiet, without the weird, inaudible drone of Dorian’s magic, would wake Fionn up like a fever.

“It was real bad,” he said lamely.

“Well, yes,” said Dorian. “Being deprived of me for so long would test anyone.” Fionn glared up at him, working his jaw, and after a moment Dorian threw up his hands again. “And how was I to know? It’s not like you shared much of your doubtless rich and ever-changing inner life in those letters. What was it that last one was about—daffodils?”

And there it was. Fionn had been right. Dorian hated the letters. And he was bored of Fionn. He’d finally caught on and realized he wanted better than a stupid dwarf and that was why Fionn couldn’t come with. He was being thrown out. Again. And he’d really thought Dorian would want to marry him. For a second Fionn was afraid he’d cry from anger, but his eyes stayed dry, just burning.

“Dammit, Dorian. You didn’t warn me. About going away. About being here. About when you’d leave the first time or how long.”

“And give you time to hide your other lovers?”

“I’d never,” said Fionn, lividly. “Would you?”

Dorian scoffed. “No. As a matter of fact it never crossed my mind. And I never would have thought you the suspicious type. But I suppose I had time to forget some details, didn’t I?”

Every one of Fionn’s nerves lit up at once. He was suddenly aware of his whole body, how much strength was restrained in it, how easy it would be to smash apart the sofa or the chess  table or scream in Dorian’s face or strike him—  

Or—

Fionn quailed.

“Amatus?”

“Gotta go,” Fionn muttered, and shouldered past him roughly. He didn’t know where he was going, but he ended up in a storage closet, dim and small and musty and full of stacked crates and shrouded furniture that made monster shapes in the dark. He put his back against the wall and slid down to the floor and covered his face in his hands.

How could he have gotten so mad at Dorian?

The weather was hot but the closet was cold, and the way the chill numbed his hands and settled into his chest and the smell of dust and old riches reminded him of a thaig, of the tombs and crevices he crawled into for the Carta, of scraped hands and knees and being very small. He wished, with a sudden violence that scared him, that he could slam the door shut and seal it and stay inside here forever. In the dark where he belonged. Alone. With all the other thrown-out things that weren’t good anymore.

Then the absurdity hit him. He hadn’t even yelled at Dorian. He hadn’t broken anything. He hadn’t said a thing except the truth. He was hiding in a closet from just the fact that he’d got angry. When Dorian was leaving Fionn, and trying to be funny and breezy and make Fionn feel bad about it — why did Fionn have to punish himself?

So he was alone again. Alright. He could bawl his eyes out about that later. But not about the fact that he was mad.

And the truth was, he’d been madder at Dorian before. Back when they first met and Dorian tried his big speech out on Fionn, about how being poor in the South was worse than being a slave in Tevinter, and Fionn, who’d been both in Orzammar, just about strangled Dorian. He’d been madder than a puffed toad then and he wasn’t wrong either. He was allowed to feel anything he damn well pleased.

Fionn heaved himself back onto his feet, brushed the dust off his uniform, and wrenched his hat around to its proper jaunty angle. Then he stormed out of the closet past an open-mouthed Varric, and went to give the Council their damn speech.

Chapter Text

The Deep Roads, Yesterday Afternoon

He didn’t talk to Dorian again until the Deep Roads. Sure, Dorian tried talking to him plenty of times, but it was mostly hot air, and Fionn was busy trying to figure out the Viddasala’s game and prime explosives and not get tripped up and fall down a mine shaft (happened every day, even to lyrium crawling old timers like him). Anyway he’d admitted he was angry, so nothing Dorian said could get a rise out of Fionn now.

Almost nothing. Dorian’s suggestion that they sleep together in the Winter Palace guest suites while they still had the chance—well, that got a wordless grunt of disgust. Dorian knew full well he’d spent his chance already, just as he knew—or should know, but maybe it was one of the details he’d had time to forget—that Fionn would never pop a single button on his shirt while he was unhappy, and boy was he unhappy now.

His hand wasn’t helping. It had started with a nasty tingle, like he’d been laying on it too long and the nerves fell asleep, except no amount of shaking it out and flexing his fingers would wake it up. Then it was a prickle. Then a burn. He took to flapping it when the others weren’t looking, hoping the rush of cool air over the skin would soothe it, but it didn’t help. It was annoying .

He was glad he’d brought Varric along, at least. The other dwarf was happy to keep up a stream of complaints all the way through the Deep Roads. Between his grousing and Cole’s laughter—a loud, joyful squawking that always sounded startled by itself—the tension never got too bad.

And then the Road caved in.

It wasn’t Dorian’s fault. It was his spell that hit the gaatlok barrel but it wasn’t his fault. In the end it was Fionn who made the ceiling fall.

Fionn and Dorian were locked in combat with a Qunari assassin. She’d jumped them with so little warning that Fionn had had to drop his bow and fight back with a knife. He wasn’t good with knives, and Dorian wasn’t good at using his staff to hit things without room to cast. She had them backed against the wall in seconds. Her blade whistled through the air an inch from Fionn’s nose. The next swipe, aimed at Dorian, made a ripping sound that stopped Fionn’s heart—and then Dorian said, "Kaffas! My nice armor, too!" and Fionn came back to life, just in time to clumsily parry a blow.

“Hang on, boys!” Varric yelled. He was far ahead with Cole and trying to fight his way back to them.

The Qunari turned at the sound of his voice, giving Dorian just enough elbow room to pop off a spell. A lightning spell, on a Deep Road lined with gaatlok.

Fionn’s eyes tracked the angle of Dorian’s casting. He saw the explosion coming.

“GAATLOK!” Fionn roared. Varric and Cole high-tailed it backwards down the tunnel but Fionn and Dorian still had the Qunari on top of them. They couldn’t move except to shield their faces with their hands. The barrel exploded in a column of flame, close enough to singe hair. The force of the explosion blew out like a hot wind.

The Qunari was knocked off balance. She stepped backwards off the edge of the Road. On instinct, Fionn reached out to catch her but Dorian stopped him with an arm across his chest and their enemy fell, her arms windmilling, into the pit. Fionn watched the dark swallow her. He was sorry. He’d seen people fall before. Some were his friends. Other casteless kids crawling the Deep Roads, following their ears to lyrium veins and making maps for the Carta, like him. When Fionn was little and too scared to venture far from Orzammar he used to run into others pretty often. They were small and tough and smart on their feet, like him, but they slipped up. And his arms hadn’t been long or strong enough to catch them and haul them up back then. The Qunari was trying to kill them, but he could have caught her. Dorian should have let him.

Suddenly Fionn’s stone-sense went off like a flare. Cracks, overhead. The explosion had punched straight up into the roof of the Deep Road. It was breaking inside. The fissures were deep. They moved fast above them. One loud noise, one hard hit to the wall, even a heavy footfall in the wrong place, and the Road would be buried in rocks.

“Hey, Sparkler! Cowboy! Are you alive back there?”

“We’re cherry!” Dorian called back, releasing Fionn.

“We’re coming back!” said Varric, and Fionn remembered—he was a Surfacer. He wouldn’t sense the danger.

“No, Varric! DON’T MOVE!” Fionn bellowed. Too loud. The ceiling began to crack apart.

Chunks of rock smashed into the Road, big as horses. Black dust rose in spouts and jets around them. Dorian swung his staff in a wide arc, casting something. Right under a weak point. Not again, you don’t. Fionn tackled him to the ground.

The spell misfired, hit the fragile, ruined ceiling as a bolt of raw energy. The Stone howled in pain. With a deafening noise, the whole section caved in around them.

Fionn lay on top of Dorian, hands over his ears, shielding as much of the mage as he could. Something hard struck Fionn’s head. He grunted with pain, eyes screwed shut.

After a minute, the Stone quieted down and the dust settled. They hadn’t been crushed flat or knocked into the pit. They were still alive. But all around them were jagged sheets of rock going every which way, a jumble where the Road had been. Fionn felt dizzy. His head throbbed in time with the Anchor on his hand.

“Fionn!” Varric shouted. “Fionn! Fionn!”

He shouldn’t be yelling. There were still faint creaks and shudders in the Stone all around them. Maker, this was what Shaper Valta was all uppity about. Being stone-blind made you act dumb as shit. Fionn didn’t dare raise his voice to answer. Better to be assumed dead and left behind to pick his own way out than to bring the mountain down on Varric.

He lifted his head with some difficulty, but he couldn’t see Varric or Cole. The reason was obvious: a dark wall of debris, three stories high, between the split halves of the party.

“They’re alright,” said Cole on the other side. “They are close. We should be quiet. Fionn says noise makes the Stone upset. We should go around the way we came.”

Thanks, Cole.

Dorian seemed to wake up with a jolt. Fionn didn’t know if he’d been knocked out (worry snagged in his stomach) or just very still, but rolled off him so quick it made his head spin.

Dorian pushed himself up to sitting and looked around at the wreckage, then at Fionn, sharply. “You pushed me. I was making a barrier.”

Fionn shrugged.

“It would have protected us.”

“Pushing you worked fine.”

“Oh, did it? You’re bleeding, amatus.”

Fionn touched his head where it stung. His hand came back smudged with red. But not soaked or anything. It was fine.

“Got worse than sparring with Sera,” said Fionn. “You OK?”

“Me? I’m seaworthy.”

“Thought you mighta been hit. You weren’t moving.”

Dorian quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps I was just enjoying you pinning me down.” Unexpectedly, the snark went out of him, and he trailed off. “Kaffas. I’m sorry, Fionn. I’m out of line, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. I mean. A little.”

Dorian sighed, then scooted closer to Fionn, lighting up his hand. “I can heal it.”

“You’re shit at healing.”

“Yes. Well. It’s tricky for necromancers in some pretty basic ways, so I get double points just for trying. But I think a bump on the head is within my capabilities.”

Fionn just frowned and drew his knees up to his chest. Dorian pinched his fingers together as if putting out a match. The glowing stopped.

“Are we safe here?” Dorian asked.

“If we’re quiet. Best not move around too much. Wait for Cole n’ Varric to find a way around to us.”

“Or for the Qunari to barge in on us first.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Amatus.”

“No,” said Fionn.

“Inquisitor,” said Dorian, sounding strained. “We argued today. Didn’t we?”

Fionn looked straight ahead, not at him but at the solid wall in front of them. Didn’t he know? Couldn’t he tell when he was in a fight? Was he so braced for it all the time he couldn’t tell the difference anymore? Or was Fionn just that bad at speaking his mind? “Yeah. We argued.”

“Did we… end things?” said Dorian.

Fionn clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to work out the lump in his throat. This time, Dorian sat quietly, giving him time.

“Yeah,” Fionn said, eventually. “You’re going away from me. Nothin’ else to say about it.”

“There is.”

Fionn risked a sideways glance at him, and was startled to find his gray eyes full and glittering and pinched at the corners.

“There is a great deal more to be said about it. I told you I was leaving. I never meant to say that I was leaving you. I thought, we’ve made it this long, why shouldn’t we go on forever with the wistful sighs and chance meetings and nice letters, like star-crossed lovers in a ballet? Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?”

“I’m not a cake,” said Fionn.

“No.” Dorian chuckled. “No, I’m afraid you’re not much like one at all, besides being an occasional risk to my health. And.. and sweet.”

Fionn didn’t smile. “You…” He cleared his throat. “You thought the letters were... nice?”

Dorian laughed in disbelief. “They were darling! Who in the Imperium would talk to me about flowers, or nasty wet animals, or Sera, or how large the moons look in the Hissing Wastes? I treasured them, Fionn. They smelled like you.”

Discreetly, Fionn sniffed the collar of his armor. It didn’t smell great. Kinda sweaty. He wondered if he should apologize.

“But you laughed at them,” he said instead. “The daffodils.”

“I—” Dorian sounded lost. “Venhedis, Fionn, I was worried about you after I left. I was afraid you were miserable, or angry at me, or throwing yourself at rifts and high dragons and all sorts of things that could kill you—”

“I was,” said Fionn, confused.

“You were,” said Dorian. “But I didn’t know. You didn’t give me a clue in those letters as to how you were feeling. Just… daffodils. I wanted more. And then I convinced myself I was being paranoid and greedy and fussy and dull, just silly old tiresome Dorian, surely nothing’s the matter! And then today you confirmed all my fears.”

Fionn looked down at his hands. “Sorry.”

“Will you tell me now what’s wrong?”

The Anchor burned, spitting out green light like a fire with copper flakes thrown in. Fionn hid it away in a fist. “You’re goin’ away from me,” he said again.

“You are the man I love,” said Dorian. “Nothing will truly keep us apart.” And he lit up his hand and reached over and smoothed his thumb lightly across Fionn’s hairline, and with a blue wink of magic the stinging and spinning stopped all at once.

“This will.” Fionn’s voice was fighting him again, trying to stop him, but he had things to say. “It was… hard. Being alone again. I’m bad at letters. I want to see you. If I can’t, I don’t… I don’t want… It’s OK if you don’t want me around but you can’t have me and… and not have me. You better just say you’re throwing me out and that way we both know what’s what.”

“Throw you out? Perish the thought . Of course I want you around.”

“Then let me come with.”

“No.”

Fionn balled up his fist tighter. Heat came up in his eyes and cheeks again.

“Why not? And don’t say I’d do all the work for you. You know I wouldn’t. I could lay low, do my own thing. I’d help you. Me. Fionn. Not ‘Your Worship.’”

His hand sizzled skeptically. He did have a plan though, really. He’d talked it out with Sera earlier. He’d be a Jenny, and Dorian’d be knocking heels with the Magisters, and they’d barely trip over each other. He’d thought about it.

“No,” said Dorian. “Of course. You wouldn’t be him. Not on purpose. But it—that’s not really it. You’re right. It’s that—cicaro, it would get you killed. I can’t—I couldn’t endure it!” That wasn’t true. Dorian seemed to read something off Fionn’s eyebrows. “Yes, alright, I could. But I don’t want to. So I won’t, Fionn. I won’t endure it. Disapprove of my cowardice if you will. My mind is made up.”

Fionn swore in Dwarven. He wanted to stomp away or punch the wall, but he couldn’t—how had Cole said it?—he couldn’t upset the Stone. They sat in silence for a while.

“If it helps,” said Dorian, at length. “I brought you a present. A going away present.”

He pulled a crystal from the leather pouch on his belt. It sat comfortably in his palm, about the size of a chicken egg, milky white. It looked sort of like Fionn’s recording crystal.

“It’s a sending crystal,” said Dorian, like he could hear Fionn’s thoughts to correct them. “Amazing what friendship with the Inquisition gives you access to. We can still talk with this, even from the far ends of Thedas. If I’m in over my head, or you’re overwhelmed with sorrow for lack of my velvety voice—magic!”

Fionn took it, and rolled it in his hand. It was kinda pretty. Maybe it would be better than letters. A little. Maybe. “Thanks,” he said dubiously.

“What?” said Dorian. “You didn’t think I’d just leave and you’d never hear from me again, did you?” After a second, his face fell. “Oh. You did, didn’t you? I am sorry. I never would have left you with nothing.”

Fionn shoved the sending crystal into his pocket. “It’s… better than nothing .”

“Faint praise.”

“Yeah. Don’t wanna talk to a rock,” Fionn said. “I want to come with you.”

“Out of the question.”

Fionn looked Dorian dead in the eye. “I know I look slow,” he said, low and thundering. “And… and maybe it’s true sometimes.”

“But…?”

“But,” said Fionn. “Don’t forget who I am. Plenty of folks made that mistake before. Did you ever think maybe this isn’t up to just you?”

Dorian watched him for a minute, as if struck with wonder by something Fionn couldn’t see. Then he said softly, “Pulling the Inquisitor card after all, Your Worship?”

”Took care of myself just fine before the Conclave,” said Fionn. “Magister.”

”Yes, yes, your life of crime down there, moving rocks from hither to thither without permission and shivving little dwarves with little shivs. I know. This... isn’t about your prowess in combat, or your being clever. Our enemies in Tevinter wouldn’t be the kind you’d see coming. I can’t downplay the danger because…”

”My shiv was plenty regular sized,” Fionn said. Then it was his turn to prompt Dorian: “Alright. Because…?”

“You recall my friend Maevaris?”

Fionn nodded.

“She married a Tethras.”

“Like Varric Tethras?”

“A—” Dorian wrinkled his nose. “No! What? Not Varric. Why would she marry—? Far beneath her standards, I assure you. And too old. Probably. I suppose I don’t really—No. I’m talking about Thorold Tethras. Varric’s cousin, of some sort.”

“That’s what I meant,” Fionn said gruffly. “Like… a Tethras like Varric Tethras.”

“We’re in the weeds, Inquisitor. May I go on?”

Fionn tipped his head.

“Thank you. Thorold was well-connected. Merchant’s Guild. Ambassadoria. Mountains of coin. Incidentally, a redhead! Or so I’m told.”

Fionn’s hand went self-consciously to his auburn hair.

“He loved Maevaris,” said Dorian. He was getting that frantic look again from Varric’s farewell party. That expression went straight to Fionn’s stomach. “He wanted to help her reform Tevinter so he went to Minrathous, and then he had an accident. He is dead. And when I returned to Minrathous from the South, full of grand ideas and talking too loud, my father had an accident. He is dead. And you…”

Fionn couldn’t stand to see the wildness in his eyes. He reached out, and took Dorian’s hand. “I’m not dead.”

“You would be.”

“And you don’t worry about these bad guys makin’ accidents for you?”

Dorian looked down. “They might. Someone tried already.”

Fionn’s breath hitched. He tried to speak, to protest, because someone tried? Had they hurt him? Were they still out there? And sure, he got it now, why Dorian was acting so strange, but it still didn’t make a lick of sense. How could Dorian go so far to protect him and still not get that Fionn wanted, needed, to return the favor? Hadn’t they both said before that they couldn’t live with a debt like that? How come Dorian’s fear for Fionn mattered so much more than Fionn’s for Dorian? How come Fionn was a baby or a damsel or a breakable shiny thing in this discussion and not Dorian’s partner? How come they didn’t talk about it? But the words were lodged in his mouth, really and hopelessly. All he could get out was, “Need to talk.”

“I have, Fionn.”

Yeah. Dorian had. But they hadn’t. But fine. Okay. Fionn figured it was his fault for not being able to speak up.

Dorian slid his hand out from under Fionn’s larger one, and cleared his throat. “So there it is. You can’t join me. And if that means I can never call you ‘Amatus’ again, then I’ll be sorry all my life. But my mind won’t be changed. Besides—” Dorian smirked. “It’s like I told you back at Skyhold. If you came with me you’d do all the work of redeeming Tevinter on your own, brilliant as you are, and I just couldn’t stand to share the glory.”

Circles. Fine. Fionn nodded once, stiffly. His mouth felt full of rocks and his hand hurt something fierce.

They sat in silence until Cole appeared, picking his way delicately over the debris, and led them back to a safe part of the Road. They took the longest, most careful way round to find the rest of the gaatlok. Fionn didn’t complain. He said nothing at all.

Varric had them covered in that department, anyhow.

Chapter Text

The Winter Palace, This Morning

Even with Dagna supervising, the healers nearly lost Fionn four times. The rhythm of it would stick inside Dorian and alter his heartbeat forever, he thought. It went like this. Dagna would say, “I think we got it,” and the healers would stop their casting and poking and prodding at Fionn, slump back in exhaustion. Fionn would lie still, sighing as if in sleep for a moment, and then his back would arch, Dagna’s runestone alarms would light up and whistle like tea kettles, and Dorian would have to rush in and restart his amatus’s heart with webs of electric magic stretched between his fingers. Four times. Four fucking times. Kaffas!

Dorian wished he could say that in between those moments of panic he was the picture of a patient’s lover, that he sat on the kitchen stool with his head in his hands, suitably brooding, quiet and lovelorn, and gallantly let the healers work. He wasn’t that. The truth was, Dorian managed to pick a fight with everyone who stepped foot in that room. He didn’t want to but he couldn’t stop himself. The sight of anyone walking and talking and breathing and glancing his way would set him off like gaatlok. How could they have the nerve to be upright when Fionn had one foot in the Fade? Dorian could find an excuse to snap at anyone.

With Dagna it was “Some expert you are, I’m so glad we had Orzammar’s best and brightest on hand, what other tricks will she perform after ‘Irritating Noises’ and ‘Cardiac Arrest!’” With the healers, it was mainly tapping fingers and the odd Pah! to let them know he thought them useless. Sera and Harding were pessimistic shrews for coming to say their goodbyes. Cullen was an oaf. Leliana was cold. Bull was drunk. Josephine was faking tears. Vivienne was only here for optics and Cassandra wasn’t sorry enough.

Varric looked half dead but it didn’t stop Dorian from jumping down his throat too—“Why are you still here, Varric? What do you care? You can’t even say what he is to you, can you? He’s not your son. He’s not your Champion. He’s not a little copy of you that you can train to be miserable in all the same ways. And he’s not some pet to make you feel better without Hawke. So what claim do you have?”

And that made Varric cry, a rough, deep, rasping cry that he tried to hide in the crook of his arm as he left the room.

It was Cole who finally told him off. He said, “Dorian, you’re being very horrible,” in a firmer voice than he’d ever used before.

“Not now, Cole,” said Dorian. He already felt wretched. Filthy and mean. They should all leave him to it and stop clawing at his nerves. His stomach churned.

Cole moved between Dorian and Fionn, pale and unsteady and untouchable as a column of steam. Blocking his view. “Stop hurting them. It’s not their fault.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“You’re scared of the dark and you’re hating people who carry a light. You think you have to put them all out so they’ll feel like you. You’re just making it darker. You have to stop.”

Dorian hugged himself. He was sick with self-pity.

“You didn’t kill him,” said Cole. “He was sad and angry because of what you said but he wasn’t running from you. He was only running forward, not away.”

Dorian squeezed his eyes shut. I could have stopped him. I could have made him promises. I could have given him hope instead of driving him away. I could have held him back, could’ve held him safe against me.

“You couldn’t,” said Cole. “No one could hold him. He is himself.” Then, in the low and rumbling tone reserved for Fionn, Cole said: “Don’t forget.”

Something critical gave way inside Dorian. He stood up and left the room, finally conceding to the healers their space to work, his ears full of rushing. Outside, in a kitchen garden, he sat down. His dams and levees crumbled. He wept like a child with his back against the door.

When his energy was spent and his face felt shriveled and raw to the touch, he felt a touch at his shoulder. He swiped at his eyes to clear them and looked up. It was Dagna.

“It’s over,” she said. “He’s stable. And I’m sure it’s an inappropriate time to say so, but I really learned a lot! Want me to send you a copy of the notes later?”

Dorian cleared his throat. “You know, normally I’d be delighted, Dagna, but—”

“But it’s data harvested from your dying lover,” Dagna said, understandingly. “Kinda icky. Yeah. Good thing he’s not mine!”

“Later, yes?”

“Sure. Later.” She fished around in the pocket of her blood-soaked leather work apron, and drew out a handful of small objects. “He was carrying some stuff in his armor. Thought I’d grab it out before the healers got it lost in the laundry or burned it all up.”

Dorian put out his hands, and Dagna gave him Fionn’s lockpicking tools, the silver coin he wore for a pendant, a small knife Dorian thought was Sera’s. A recording crystal, cloudy from use, which reminded him of a silly dance on the roof of the world—had Fionn really kept the same one since then? The sending crystal. And a ring box.

Dorian’s heart seized up. He thought, crazily, Perhaps he just brought some extra cufflinks, though of course Fionn had never worn a cufflink in his life and possibly wouldn’t know what cufflinks were. Fionn had a favorite joke when Dorian asked if he knew what something from the Surface was—“I dunno, is that somethin’ to eat?” he’d grumble, and if Dorian said “Really? You’ve never heard of cufflinks?” (or whatever the thing in question was) Fionn would say “Nope. Never heard of clouds neither,” then look up at the sky and pretend to startle, his mouth a little ‘o!’. Varric thought it was hilarious every time. Dorian supposed it was, a little bit, though he didn’t like feeling foolish. What he wouldn’t give to hear that old joke now.

He opened the box.

It was an engagement ring. Plain as day. And plainly meant for him. Crafted by the Avvar of polished wood, worn so smooth it shone like metal, and shaped like a twisting snake. The contrast to Fionn’s usual gift-giving—which was mainly of pinecones, leather goods, broken weapons (“Could be magic!”) and ugly woolen socks—was piercing.

Dorian shut the box with a loud, sharp crack, and said under his breath, “Andraste forgive me.”

“Yikes,” said Dagna, looking over his shoulder.

“Right,” said Dorian, higher-pitched. “Thank you, Dagna.”

One by one the healers left and the Inquisition straggled back in to the room where Fionn was. More than one of them shot wounded and wary looks at Dorian. Sera stuck up both middle fingers at him. If this had been Skyhold instead of the underbelly of the Winter Palace, and had they been feuding over something typical like Sera replacing all the books in his library alcove with copies of Hard in Hightown , and Dorian trying to drop them on her head the next time she walked through the rotunda below him but accidentally hitting Solas instead and getting a face full of ice magic—if it was something normal like that, and not Dorian trying to make her cry while her best friend lay dying on a table, then Dorian would return the gesture and give her some words as well. As it was, he just bowed his head and let her pass, across the room to Dagna. Sera wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s shoulders and rested her chin on Dagna’s head. Dagna sighed happily and reached up to touch Sera’s cheek. Jealousy fluttered up in Dorian like a waking cicada, then died again.

Varric was talking boisterously when he came in. “You should have seen the size of this Saarebas, the guy had horns like a druffalo! He’d slam the ground with his fists like he was throwin’ a tantrum and we’d all go flying— boof! Haven’t seen a Qunari like that since the Arishok, which reminds me, have I ever told you about the duel that got Hawke named Champion of Kirkwall?”

Harding walked at Varric’s side, holding his elbow so he looked like a man escorting his daughter to cotillion. His eyes were still swollen. His voice had a rasp in it that Dorian wasn’t used to.

“I’ve heard that one a few times, Mister Tethras,” said Harding. “From you, and the book, and the Lord Inquisitor.”

“You read my book! Always knew you had taste.”

Dorian did not want to speak to Varric, and Harding’s glance was forbidding, but the chill of Cole’s presence was close beside him, keeping him guilty.

“Varric. About what I said—”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, Sparkler. I’ve got a thick skin. You barely stung me.” With that easy lie spread out like a picnic blanket, Varric sat down next to him. Dorian thought that might be the end of it. But Varric was Varric, and he never really dropped a subject. “Besides,” he said. “You obviously didn’t know what you were talking about. ‘Course Fionn’s not really my kid. If he was, I’d never inflict the Merchant’s Guild on him.”

Oh! The Merchant’s Guild! How perfect. How charming. Just what Fionn needed, another parcel of things he hated (rich dwarves and paperwork) and another resemblance to Mae’s dead husband. Good move, Varric! But Dorian held his tongue this time.

“And you know,” said Varric, “as far as ‘what he is to me,’ don’t you think that’s up to Fionn? He’s a sweet kid, but he’s tough as rocks. I wouldn’t try to tell him his business, and I know pretty much everything. Something for you to think about.”

Did you ever think maybe this isn’t up to just you?

He is himself.

Don’t forget who I am.

Dorian sighed. “Consider me chastised. Between you and Cole, it’s a wonder I’ve made it this far without reforming totally and joining the Chantry lay sisters.”

“Never too late to pick a new vocation, Sparkler. If the whole ‘evil Magister’ thing doesn’t work out for you…”

“Truth be told, it’s not working out so far.” Dorian rolled the ring box over and over in his hand. Varric’s eyes tracked the movement. He didn’t seem shocked.

“Did you know about this?”

Varric shrugged. “Had a feeling. Cowboy never said anything, and he’s not easy to read, but I figured… Well. Tell you the truth, I’d have bet gold that you were gonna ask him and carry him off to Minrathous. Hell, I think Cassandra tried to give him the Talk. Andraste only knows what put that into her head.” He cleared his throat defensively. “You caught a lot of us off guard yesterday, Sparkler. But hey, I get it. I guess.”

Dorian had the distinct impression that Varric didn’t get it. But he thought that maybe, he himself was starting to.

As much influence as the Inquisitor held, Fionn had never been comfortable making orders or demands. When Fionn said “I’ll come with you” so firmly yesterday morning, he hadn’t been asking for permission. His convictions didn’t spring to life like most people’s. They were turned over and over and smoothed out like river stones before he ever spoke. Which meant Fionn must have thought about it. Long and hard and serious. Perhaps as long as he’d been holding on to the ring. Dorian had thought only of proving he was right to be going back to Tevinter, right that he was needed, right that it was dangerous. He had not thought to wonder if Fionn already knew all of that , if he’d weighed the danger on his own scales, if he wanted or needed to choose. When he said they needed to talk, what had Dorian cut him off from saying?

Dorian didn’t have to apologize for not getting down on one knee when the future was uncertain, or for loving Tevinter, or fearing for Fionn. He had only to apologize for not letting his amatus speak. Next time—praise be, they had a next time— he would listen quietly. Well. As quietly as Dorian could do anything.

But Fionn did not wake up for a week, and fear crept in.

Chapter Text

Frostback Basin, Two Years Ago

Even after a year of traveling with him through the Southern wastelands, watching Fionn in combat had never lost its charm. He was reckless and joyful. His sudden bursts of alchemy lit up the battlefield with reds and yellows. The twang of his bowstring and zip of his arrows would be cheerful music on their own, even without Fionn’s habit of whistling while he fought. And he was clever, too. He’d disappear in a puff of black powder and when he showed himself again a second later he was never where your eyes expected. He’d announce himself with a whoop, launch an arrow or break a flask of fire in his hands and then vanish again. Always moving. Uncontainable. Deadly. Happy.

The Inquisitor was a marvel, but an Avvar god-dragon didn’t make for an easy fight. Particularly not with a party of four rogues (Fionn, Varric, Harding, and Cole) and one unhappy mage who was going stiff from cold. Because of course it was an ice- breathing dragon. What a creative way to ruin an evening! In any case, Hakkon didn’t seem bothered by Cole’s dinky little daggers or the rain of arrows from Fionn, Varric, and Harding, which meant its attention was focused on Dorian alone.

Dorian swung his staff overhead, casting nets of lightning over Hakkon. The god-dragon thrashed against his magic, screaming like a snared animal, then broke free in a cloud of steam. It lunged for Dorian. Its jaws yawned open, showing teeth as long as he was tall. Dorian cast once more and then ran, slipping on the ice-slicked ground. The dragon’s breath rolled like a fog bank around him. It was right on his heels.

Harding and Varric dashed by, firing over their shoulders at the monster’s eyes and under-wings. Cole zipped in and out of focus. He couldn’t see Fionn. A few months ago that would have scared him, but by now he knew his amatus could handle himself and that the real time for worry was when you could see Fionn for more than seconds at a time, because that meant he’d run out of energy for exploding around. He hadn’t so far. And then there was the matter of the god-dragon about to swallow Dorian whole. All in all, he was more worried for himself. 

Dorian hit a patch of ice wrong and his feet shot out from under him. He landed hard on one elbow. His staff jarred loose from his hand and spun across the frozen ground. Hakkon’s teeth hung above him like icicles. He felt frost on his face and hair. It was so close.

He slammed his empty hands against the ground, charging a barrier. For what good it would do against a snap from the literal jaws of Hakkon. “A little help for the mage, please!”

Fionn was there beside him suddenly, with a sharp-smelling puff of smoke. His bow was slung over his shoulder. He was holding a flask in each hand. As Hakkon roared above his head, Fionn pulled the first flask’s cork out with his teeth, spat it off to the side, and dropped a piece of twine into the lip of the flask. “Got a light?” he said.

Dorian snapped fire into his hands, and held it up. Fionn lit the makeshift fuse, and threw both bottles down Hakkon’s throat. Then he grabbed Dorian’s staff with one hand, Dorian’s arm with the other, hauled the mage to his feet, grinned like a lunatic, and took off running.

“Get down!” Fionn called to the other rogues, cheerfully, and they scrambled to cover.

Fionn and Dorian skated around behind a thick wall of ice, and no sooner had they collapsed behind it than Hakkon exploded.

It looked like a fireworks display. The god-dragon flew straight up in panic, belching sparks and gouts of flame in red, yellow, vivid blue, poison green, even a rather charming pink. It flexed its wings. They filled up the sky, rippling with multicolored light. And then, with an almighty bang! and an explosion of warmth, the god-dragon died.

Harding let out a joyful hoot from the other side of the frozen battlefield, and Fionn echoed. His face was glowing. Not just because of the flecks of luminous alchemical stuff that had gotten in his hair, but from pure exhilaration. The flush brought out his freckles and the darkness of his eyes. Dorian found he didn’t at all mind having been used for dragon bait.

He leaned over and kissed Fionn deeply. Fionn responded without a shadow of his old shyness. Harding cheered. Cole asked something too soft to carry, and Varric laughed and said, “Ask Maryden.” Dorian didn’t really want to know.

Fionn’s hand cupped the back of Dorian’s head to pull him closer and his long lashes tickled Dorian’s cheeks.

The moons were vast and close in the blue-green sky.

As the night went on, the Inquisitor just glowed brighter and brighter. The Avvar of Stone-bear Hold were a heavy pour with the honey wine, and as soon as Fionn had two drinks in him he was climbing up on tables, boulders, and statues to recount the battle to anyone who’d listen (and all the Avvar seemed happy to listen, as many times as he’d tell it). His version of the story was so shamelessly exaggerated that even Varric sat back and let him go with only the odd interjection of support. The older dwarf looked a little misty-eyed, in fact.

To hear Fionn tell it, each member of the party had lured Hakkon around with gimmicks (Dorian had, apparently, taunted Hakkon by magically turning his cape red and flapping it around) and tricked it into swallowing, not two flasks, but a cask each of liquid explosives, until finally the god-dragon lost patience and ate Dorian whole. From inside the beast’s belly, Dorian had ignited a fire spell that “blew poor Hak to smithereens.” How had Dorian himself survived? With the precious lifeward amulet, of course, given to him by his lover just before the fight!

This was utterly a lie—on the two or three occasions when Fionn found a lifeward amulet it always went straight to Varric who, Fionn said, had a bad back.

Fionn caught Dorian’s suspicious look and gave him a hammed-up (adorable) wink. Dorian pulled a face.

The Avvar celebration was not at all the kind of party Dorian was used to. For one thing, the dancing wasn’t scheduled and seemed to have no predetermined steps. It started in bursts of savage joy all over the hold and then ended again just as quickly, in laughter and rough embraces. The music, too, was haphazard—gusts of drum beats or singing that swept through like a shower of rain, then died down, drowned out by laughter and the clatter of drink mugs and stew bowls. For another, there was fighting—not the sort of elegant mage duels that might break out at a Tevinter party, or a knifing on the dance floor like Orlais, but unarmed, bare-chested brawling. (Dorian tried not to look too openly appreciative.)

For a third, his amatus was enjoying himself. It was good to know he could be fun at parties. And oh, he was fun. Spinning yarns. Good-naturedly ripping through opponents in the Trial of Hakkon fights. Dancing like an absolute madman.

Funny thing—Dorian had called Fionn a unicorn, months ago, for being an optimist. He’d meant it sarcastically. He’d fully expected that once you cracked the Inquisitor’s shell you’d find something sad and bitter underneath, that Fionn Cadash was the same as every other glad-handing, smiling, powerful man—shriveled inside. And then Fionn did crack. And there was loneliness and fear and deep, deep down, a spark of temper… but most of what he showed to Dorian was joy. Joy that made no sense after the life he’d had. Joy almost too bright and baseless for Dorian to bear. Tonight it shone out of him in rays for everyone else to see. Inquisitor First-Thaw, made of sunshine.

Fionn hugged Svarah in full view of everyone, when she gave him that name. He jumped into it, so fierce and sincere that he almost knocked her over. Dorian wondered if Svarah knew what she’d done for Fionn tonight. Giving him a name that was not owned by the Carta. Calling him kin.

Dorian watched Fionn stomp in circles with the Avvar and smirked to himself. Such a rare and clumsy and merry little creature he’d discovered. “Unicorn” was generous. Fionn was more like a dodo bird. Dorian stood there smugly until Fionn ran up to him panting and grabbed his arm to draw him into the dance.

“C’mon! They want to see you!”

“No, no thank you—Pardon me!”

Scout Harding snatched the mug of wine from Dorian’s hand and gave him a rather too encouraging kick in the legs. He stumbled forward, yelping, and the loose circle of dancers closed around him.

And Dorian found that the Inquisitor was no longer the only person he could dance in front of, without knowing the steps before he took them.

Svarah let them stay the night. Harding tried to protest that they could easily make it back to the Inquisition’s Basin Floor Camp and not impose on the Avvar, but then she hiccuped and seemed to think better of a wine-sodden hike in the dark. Fionn was given a sleeping place of honor, high up on the mountain. Varric and Harding were to be put up with the Master of the Hunt, Cole and Dorian with the Augur. Dorian’s scalp prickled at the thought of sleeping in the Augur’s hut, surrounded by spirit-gods and noxious smells, and of finding out what Cole did when everyone else was sleeping.

Salvation came in the form of Fionn, padding up beside him, quietly for a dwarf who’d drunk as much honey wine as he had, and taking Dorian’s hand in his. It still sent a zap all the way up Dorian’s arm, every time, like when he’d first started learning the storm magic forms and gave himself static shocks with every spell. Fionn’s hand was big and warm and calloused and scarred. Dorian had rarely met people with such textured hands.

Fionn rubbed his thumb over Dorian’s knuckles, smiled at the look on Dorian’s face, then gave a hopeful tug. Dorian followed. They climbed the blocky, rough steps of the hold, up past the traders’ huts and the fighting pit and that offensive-looking statue of a frost giant, to the place Svarah had given Fionn. It was a solitary hollow in the face of the mountain, open to the air but sheltered from it, piled high with soft furs. The stone walls were painted with colorful pictograms—Avvar figures hunting, fighting, dancing with their spirit-gods, performing magic, courting each other, having sex in various positions. From the looks of it, tonight was only the tame version of an Avvar celebration.

In Tevinter these images would be thought primitive and shameful, quickly scrubbed away. But they were beautiful. They went all around the alcove in bright spirals, up to the hole high above them where a fire’s smoke would vent. Dorian trailed a hand along the wall as they stepped inside the alcove, tracing the story of a young man who was hunted by a giant wolf. Each time the monster nearly had him in his jaws, the spirit-gods would transform him into a new animal to help him escape. A deer, a fish, a hawk, a mouse, a moth.

Fionn tugged his other hand again, and his concentration shattered.

“Come to bed with me?” Fionn said.

“Of course, amatus.” Dorian kissed him, and sat down to take off his boots. They slept side by side every night, lately—Mother Giselle’s frowning and Varric’s commentary be damned. Dorian had not been able to fall asleep like that at first, his nerves too frazzled by Fionn’s breath in his ears, his big arm draped across Dorian’s hip, his broad warm shape against Dorian’s back, a casual intimacy he’d been afraid to even daydream about in Tevinter. Not to mention that Fionn snored and gave off heat like a wood stove. But these days Dorian felt cold and unsettled without him there.

Venhedis, he was getting sappy. Waxing poetic in his head. What was in that Avvar wine?

He tossed his boots aside and moved on to unbuckling the top layer of his armor. Fionn stopped him with a light touch on the wrist.

“What is it?”

“Uh.” The Inquisitor was looking very flushed. He worked his jaw for a second, avoiding Dorian’s eyes, then knelt down in front of him and said very softly, “Can I?”

It took Dorian a second to understand, because it was weeks since they’d even talked about sex (not counting Sera’s nosy questions) and Fionn had been red-faced and reluctant, then. He was blushing now too, but in a pink and hopeful way. Oh. How sweet he is.

Dorian moved his hand aside and let Fionn fumble with the buckles and ties. It was nothing like when Dorian had undressed or been undressed by Circle paramours—that was hurried, greedy, seductive. Fionn moved slow. He unfurled each layer of Dorian’s armor carefully and put it aside, as if following the steps of a ritual. The night air against his naked skin made Dorian shiver.

If Dorian was honest, it wasn’t sexy, or not in the way he was used to. But oh, it was ever so endearing, that nervous smile, those gentle hands, and Dorian kissed Fionn while he worked, on the forehead, along the hairline, on his temples, his cheeks, his nose, his chin, and finally, slowly, on the mouth. He could feel the heat coming off Fionn’s face when they were so close together.

Dorian was bare to the waist now. Fionn shrugged off his overcoat and raised a hand to the top button of his plaidweave shirt, and now it was Dorian’s turn to reach out and stop him.

“Amatus, are you certain?”

Fionn nodded.

“You’ve had quite a lot to drink,” said Dorian. “I don’t want to take advantage. And you must be tired. Are you truly certain?”

Fionn swallowed hard. Then, at last, he met Dorian’s eyes. The look of pure, shining affection in his eyes made Dorian’s breathing hitch. ”Yeah,” said Fionn. “I’m happy, Dorian. I’m real happy tonight. I’m over the moons. I want to celebrate. With you. If you want to.”

He did.

Fionn took off his shirt. It was not the first time Dorian had seen him but it felt like it. His armor was light but it hid everything. Underneath it, Fionn was fat and muscular. The strong swelling curves of his arms and stomach, the shadowed dip above his collarbones, spoke of great strength always held back. His skin was furred with fine red hair and cross-hatched with scars. Some Dorian recognized from all the times he’d fought at the Inquisitor’s back. Others he could only guess the stories of. There were so many. Too many. A sudden heat of love and fury came up in Dorian, along with an electric tingle of excitement.

He eased Fionn back against the bed of furs with his palm against his chest. His thumb circled lightly over Fionn’s nipple and he responded. He looked startled, then pleased. Dorian kept going as he ghosted his other hand down over Fionn’s belly to his hip. Fionn surged up and kissed him. Dorian grunted in surprise, then kissed him back, lips barely parted, soft and chaste, then again with tongue. Fionn sank down, tipping his head back against the furs, and pulled Dorian down against him.

“This is nice,” he said, in a tone of wonder.

Dorian chuckled. “Oh, good! May I—?”

“Yes.”

Dorian eased Fionn’s pants down over his hips and touched him. Fionn closed his eyes. He was smiling. It didn’t take much to warm him up, and then Dorian led him through the rest. They did nothing rough, that first time. Dorian was used to feeling want as pain. This time it was a pleasant tickle, a warmth low in his belly. Every inch of him felt soft and melting. He was used to swearing at a partner, not laughing with him. But just before the climax they were laughing about something, before his senses contracted to a sharp point of light and then dissolved in a warm, soft haze.

Afterward, Fionn combed a hand through Dorian’s hair while they kissed and then, with a happy sigh, the Inquisitor fell asleep. Dorian nestled into the furs beside him and listened as his breathing turned heavy, slow, and even, then lapsed into snores. It was very late, or very early, and Dorian felt weary and contented all the way through. But he lay awake.

The heat of their bodies and the heavy furs pressed down on his chest, while the chilly mountain air moved over his face, and something about the temperature difference made him feel wistful, almost sick inside.

Birds began to wake and whistle. The sky was gray. Nearly sunrise. Dorian breathed in. The world smelled like Fionn (dust and sweat) and like his own cologne. He thought, I could marry him later this morning. I want to. I will.

I will marry him tomorrow. I’ll marry him today.

For long minutes he indulged in the fantasy. He wanted things he’d never dared to want before. The kiss of gold on his ring finger. Crowds of well-wishers. A wedding dance. Company, years of company that never tired of him, never laughed as a formality, said little but slept beside him, warm and heavy, every night, and slowly ruined Dorian’s vocabulary with his Southern turns of phrase, and blushed and grumbled when Dorian called him pet names, and would insist on drinking coffee from a clay mug at breakfast, even if Dorian offered him the finest china in Minrathous.

Minrathous... The pillars. The arches. The bright frescoes and loud markets and dark shadows of palm trees. The drone of horns from the rooftops, calling for prayer. The open display of magic and technology. The humid evenings that smelled like tea. He wanted to take his amatus by the sleeve and lead him all through the city and watch his face as he saw it for the first time. He could picture it now, the same soft, awestruck smile he’d given Dorian tonight. Dorian wanted to see that expression over and over until they were old.

But it was impossible, all of it a crazy dream.

Through the cave’s mouth, Dorian watched the sun come up on the far side of the Basin. It was red, and lit up the faces of the mountains and trees and, on the slope directly opposite Stone-bear Hold, a manmade ruin. The bloody light shone on broken walls and crooked spires and glass-less windows like eyes in a dying animal, watching Dorian. It was another Tevinter outpost. Even from an outline, Dorian could tell. No other people in the world built walls like that, smooth and black and topped with magic-spun steel. Only his people. Only the Tevene.

Dorian looked at the fine, fallen geometry of his homeland, and it looked back in judgment.

Behind him, the Inquisitor shifted in his sleep and reached for him, mumbling in Dwarven.

Dorian’s heart sank down burning. Who was he kidding? Married? Now? He couldn’t. He couldn’t bind himself. He couldn’t make promises. He couldn’t tempt fate by falling in love with the South, becoming fat and happy here, until Tevinter was just a memory.

And he couldn’t take Fionn home with him. It did not matter if he was the first and last of his kind, a man outlined in fire, carrying Thedas in his left hand and a bow in his right, a man in love with Dorian. Minrathous would destroy him anyway.

Dorian couldn’t lift up his homeland with one hand while shielding Fionn with the other. And he couldn’t watch Fionn die. No. When Corypheus was dead, Dorian would go back to his country, and as he’d already told his amatus, he would be going alone.

The Winter Palace, A Week after the Exalted Council

Fionn woke slowly over the whole afternoon, blinking and then dozing again. Each time his eyes opened, Dorian squeezed his hand and said his name, but the Inquisitor wouldn’t or couldn’t focus on him. He was drifting like a body in a river, with only his mouth and nose above the water.

Dagna and the healers said it was normal. The Anchor’s magic, Solas’s “assistance,” and the surgery had all hurt Fionn deeply, and his body was protecting itself with sleep. He was safe and steady enough that they’d moved him back to the guest wing, to a golden room with an armchair by the bed just for Dorian. It was a peaceful space, filled with sunlight and the heady smell of clematis blooming on the trellis just outside, and far more comfortable than a wooden stool in the servants’ wing. Still Dorian felt impatient. He wanted to see Fionn’s brown eyes bright and watchful again. He wanted to hear the gentle rumble of his voice.

In the end it was Fionn who woke Dorian up. Dorian had fallen asleep at his vigil, slumping forward to rest his head on Fionn’s chest, and then someone was stroking his hair, slowly but persistently, and he startled upright.

“Mornin’,” said Fionn, rustily.

“Amatus,” said Dorian. His chest heaved. He made a sound in between a laugh and a sob and threw his arms around Fionn’s neck, drawing him flush against himself. “Amatus, amatus.”

Fionn buried his face in Dorian’s shoulder, and didn’t correct him.

Chapter Text

Dorian rang the servant bell and ordered two cups of coffee from a tiny elven girl in Winter Palace blue, who said “Right away, Magister!” and curtsied low. Dorian winced. He’d never be used to that. Or at least he wasn’t yet. He was wondering whether it would be inappropriate to suggest first names or at least a different title—Mr. Pavus? Messere? The Wonderful Wizard of Minrathous?— when the girl’s eyes suddenly popped out of her head. She was looking over Dorian’s shoulder at Fionn, sitting up in bed. “The Lord Inquisitor!”

“Oh, yes!” said Dorian, aiming in tone for ‘nonthreatening peacock.’ “You didn’t think the coffees were both for me? Dear me. Do I look that tired?”

Fionn smiled at her too, raising his bandaged stump in greeting. The servant’s face went white. She flew from the room like a startled halla.

“I forgot,” Fionn said dully, letting the remains of his arm drop back to his side. “I keep forgettin’.”

“Oh, pish. She was scared of the evil Magister, not you,” Dorian lied. He sat down on the bed beside Fionn, and brushed a clump of red-brown hair off his forehead. Fionn had been awake less than an hour but he seemed very alert, and aware enough of what had happened to him for his face to go stiff whenever he looked down at his arm. Dorian didn’t know how to approach that subject. He couldn’t imagine the pain or the shock of absence. And… Fionn was an archer.

Dorian had kicked his bow and quiver under the bed so they’d be out of sight at least, but Fionn wasn’t stupid. He would know exactly what he’d lost.

It seemed cruel now to bring up their disagreement and Tevinter. Fionn was hurting, grieving, and stripped of his only weapon. He couldn’t even argue, now, that he’d be able to defend himself in the Imperium. Dorian sat with him quietly, holding his remaining hand, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles like Fionn sometimes did for him. A few tears slipped out the corners of Fionn’s eyes and he shrugged his shoulder up, awkwardly, to wipe his face on his shirt collar, then sniffed loudly.

“Is there anything…?”

“Books,” said Fionn, his voice thick. “You bring any books?”

“Nothing to suit your tastes, I’m afraid. I was halfway through Laghari’s Compendium of Cyclonic Magic.”

“Sounds like a dictionary.”

Dorian puffed up his chest, feeling ruffled. “I like to think my pleasure reading is rather more engaging than a dictionary .”

“Prove it,” said Fionn.

Dorian sighed and fetched the heavy book out of his steamer trunk, which he’d moved in here to avoid leaving Fionn alone. He found his dog-eared page, returned to his spot on the bed, and began reading out loud from the Compendium— names, histories, effects, and casting instructions for advanced storm spells. Fionn fell back against the pillows and closed his eyes, but the pressure of his hand on Dorian’s and the occasional sniffle told Dorian he was still awake. That, and the slight, wistful smile that teased at his mouth when Dorian started, halfway down the page, to read in a phony Orlesian accent and a shrill falsetto. Laugh, he willed at Fionn, pushing his voice still higher, really hamming it up. Please laugh for me, amatus.

The door opened.

“What a lovely accent you’ve picked up, Dorian,” said Leliana, stepping inside with a tray of three steaming coffees. “I hope it’s not supposed to be mine.”

Dorian snapped the book shut. “Divine!” he yelped. He cleared his throat, then said, much lower, “Divine Victoria. I take it that sweet little serving girl was one of your spies.”

“Everyone here is one of my spies,” said Leliana, pleasantly. “Even the flowers are listening for me. I came to see that the Inquisitor was alright. You wanted coffee?”

“Oh, yes.” Dorian received it gratefully. Fionn sat up to take the second cup.

Leliana perched herself on the arm of Dorian’s chair, ankles crossed in front of her, and sipped from the third cup. “Are you well, ami?”

“ ‘M fine,” said Fionn. “The Inquisition?”

“Disbanded, as you wished.”

(And venhedis, had that been a fight. Josephine had made the near fatal error of calling it Fionn’s “last wish,” and Sera had leapt at her like a wild cat, just barely held back by Dagna and Dorian himself.)

“Good,” said Fionn. “There’s been enough bleedin’ for the Inquisition.”

“Yes.”

“And Solas?”

Leliana was unreadable. “We have tracked him to Tevinter. So far, my agents have been told only to observe. We only know what Dorian was able to pass on: that he is Fen’Harel and an enemy of the Qun. But if you wish him dead—“

“No!” Fionn sat up, sloshing his coffee and almost spilling it on the bed. “No. He’s our friend.”

Leliana pursed her lips. Her eyes looked shrewd, unconvinced. But she nodded, set her half-empty cup back on its tray, and rose, smoothing her Divine robes down as she stood. “I will have Josie arrange passage home to Skyhold for you, Inquisitor, a few days from now when you are healed. Dorian, will you be wanting to...?”

Her voice lilted up, letting him fill in. Wanting to come? To go? To leave Fionn like this, an Inquisitor with no Inquisition, an archer with no arm, his amatus alone? To stay and let the Imperium go on festering without him, while his enemies made plans and the Magisterium filled his father’s seat—his seat—with somebody’s flesh-dealing, glad-handing son-in-law?

“I don’t know,” he said stiffly. “I’ll speak to Josephine… later.”

Leliana dipped her head. “That’s fine, Dorian. I love to see you both so well. Maker guide your healing.” She left in a rustle of fabric and a whiff of rose perfume.

Dorian waited a moment in case she was eavesdropping, then said, “Shall I keep reading?”

“Uh.” Fionn frowned down into his coffee, then suddenly threw it back in one gulp and set the empty cup down on the nightstand, hard. “I don’t want to go to Skyhold. Everything I need is in Tevinter.”

Dorian's breath hitched.

“I’m your partner,” said Fionn. “Or. You know. I was your partner. I wanna be again. But that means I get to have your back as much as you have mine. Remember? No debts. You said that. You said you’d rather burn than live in debt. Well. Me too.”

“Amatus—“

“I can’t shoot anymore. I can’t blow shit up with my hand. But I got eyes. I can watch out for you. And I can learn to fight some other way. I can’t make you do a damn thing you don’t wanna do, Dorian, but I think you do want this. I think you’re scared to say it, and I think you’re scared you couldn’t live with it if somethin’ happened to me same as it did to Thorbert—“

“Thorold.”

“That’s what I said. You think you couldn’t live with it. I reckon you could. You’re tough as anything, Dorian.”

Dorian shivered, feeling stuck under Fionn’s gaze like a live moth under a pin.

“I’m… Uh.” Fionn sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve, looking away for a second so Dorian could breathe. “I’m pretty tough too but if you go off by yourself and get martyred, and I can’t apply myself to somethin’ worth being applied to, I dunno if I can… Nah.” He shrugs off the hopeless thought. The truth is he’d keep going, even then. He could live without Dorian. He just doesn’t want to.

“Hell,” he said frankly, “I’d find somethin’ for myself. I could get a Red Jenny cell goin’ in Orzammar. Gave that some thought. Could help the old man up in Kirkwall. We’d both die doin’ good, and we’d both be fuckin’ miserable til the day. Is that our duty? To be fuckin’ miserable? Or could we just…” He couldn’t say. “I dunno. I dunno. I don’t wanna be alone again. And I don’t want it for you, Dorian. Not ever.”

“I think that’s the most words you’ve ever strung together,” said Dorian, and Fionn gave a tearful, hiccuping laugh. Dorian rose from the bed and walked around, slowly, to kneel in front of Fionn. “Coming with me, knowing everything… Amatus,” he said, the words well-practiced but heavier this time than he ever thought they’d be, “are you certain?"

And Fionn said simply, “You’re the man I love.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t easy to find a caravan that would go from Orlais to Minrathous this close to the start of the Tevinter monsoons, especially after the long days waiting for Fionn to be strong enough to travel, the parting games of Wicked Grace and prolonged goodbyes with Varric, Cole, Sera, Harding—and apparently everyone else who’d ever spoken to Fionn or gotten a smile from him across Skyhold’s courtyard. (And then one last extra secret goodbye for Varric, out of Dorian’s earshot. He couldn’t guess what they said to each other but it left both dwarves red and puffy round the eyes.)

But nothing, it seemed, was beyond Josephine’s talents or gold. She got them the caravan, with only one hiccup—they’d have to ride out themselves to the Western Approach to meet it.

They left on a Friday morning. Dorian’s black horse, Keshi, trotted restlessly as Cassandra helped Fionn up onto Maple Sugar Candy’s back (Dorian had expected Fionn’s old mare to be dead, two years on, but here she was, ugly and bony and stinking as ever). Cassandra double-checked every strap of Fionn’s saddle and saddlebags, tucked a few extra weapons in with his bedroll just in case, and otherwise fussed and fumed like a mother dragon. Fionn patted her head reassuringly. She grunted, then said, in a gruff, unsteady voice, “Maker be with you, sadiqi.”

“ You too, salroka.”

Cassandra turned to salute Dorian and said bluntly, “Pavus.” Dorian let it go. No need to reduce the Seeker to tears with a well-worded farewell. It would be too easy. There’d be no sport in it.

They rode out together with the sun behind them, the Magister and Inquisitor. Dorian resolved himself not to look back. A dramatic exit should come always before sentiment. But as they passed through the Sun Gates of Val Royeaux, he did, and saw the Inquisition watching from the Palace portico, far above and behind them, their figures dark and dwindling against the rising sun.

Fionn was quiet as they rode. Fionn was always quiet, but it had settled on him different since he lost his arm. New lines were showing around his eyes, drawn by pain. His head seemed heavy. He slumped in the saddle, looking ahead. Always before his eyes would have been roving, delighting in the sunlight, the rise and fall of the Exalted Plains, the short glimpses of flowers, foxes, aravels in the distance. Dorian found himself doing the work of "moon-eyed optimist" on Fionn's behalf.

“Look,” he’d say. “Crystal Grace is in bloom.” Or, “Do you think those are the same Dalish we met? Shall we call them over for scones and coffee?” Or, “It’s quiet here without the rifts. Perhaps we should start a wildfire or a two-man improv troupe, just to add some spice.” Fionn would smile at whatever he said, then fade again. Dorian hoped Minrathous would lift his spirits.

It took five days to reach the eastern boundary of the Approach. Keshi and Maple carried them up a steep rise, tufted with dry sage scrub, and the desert yawned before them, the Plains behind. Hundreds of miles of Orlesian wasteland in every direction. No sound except their horses’ heavy breathing and the hiss of air over sand. It was simply barbaric. To think that Dorian had almost missed the South.

They kept going west. The sun was white and punishing, the wind sharp with dust. Dorian was wilting. Fionn was worse. He rode hunched forward against Maple’s neck, shivering despite the heat. When they camped at night he fell asleep by the fire right away, wrapped in every blanket they carried and Dorian’s cape for good measure, and cold sweat beaded on his face. But he would never ask to turn back.

Another five days to cross the Approach. It passed in a haze of red hot rock, sand, heat, worry. Their pace was steady.

On the last night before they met the caravan, they made their camp in the Hissing Wastes. The silence was huge. The stars were millions and far away. The moons were close, both of them full, so wide and white that the dunes turned silver and the sand sparkled like lyrium dust wherever it was stirred up. For the first time since Val Royeaux, Fionn stood away from the fire, breathing deeply and happily. He was looking up at the moons.

Dorian went to him. “You love it here,” he said softly. “Isn’t that what you wrote to me? Your favorite place in Orlais.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I can’t fathom why. It’s a great cold pile of dust. I’ve never been anywhere more lonesome and dull.”

Fionn leaned to the side, and tipped his head gently against Dorian’s arm. “Look at the moons,” he said.

“I can hardly avoid looking at the moons. They’re crowding me.”

Fionn chuckled.

“You’re awfully chipper tonight,” said Dorian. “Is the pain—?”

“It’s on its way out.” His face was soft, relaxed, glowing in the moonlight. “Think I’d like to take an evening constitutional.” He offered his elbow. “C’mon with me.”

Dorian took his hand instead. They walked into the desert. Not far from camp, but it didn’t matter. There was no one else here. Their little fire was the only sign of life for miles. They hiked up a sand dune, bleached white by the moons, and it felt like they were walking up straight into the sky.