Ciri had rehearsed the question three times before she went looking for Elyanna.
Not the words — she never struggled with words in battle —
but the tone.
Something that did not sound like a soldier reporting.
Something that did not sound like a child begging.
Something that sounded like a woman who understood what she felt.
She found the answer in the corridor outside the commander's office.
And stopped.
Because the door was half open.
And Elyanna was not alone.
Cullen's back was to the light from the window, his hand against the stone wall beside her shoulder as if the world had narrowed to the space between them.
The kiss was not hesitant.
Not political.
Not careful.
It was the kind that came from surviving too many wars and finally choosing something for themselves.
Ciri did not mean to watch.
But she did.
Long enough to understand something she had never been taught.
Love could be certain.
It could be returned without fear.
It could be chosen openly.
Her chest tightened in a way no wound had ever managed.
She stepped back before the floor could betray her with a sound.
And walked away.
The garden behind the battlements was the only place in Skyhold where the wind sounded like Skyrim.
That was why she went there when she needed to remember who she had been before all of this.
She did not hear Elyanna approach.
"Was that a tactical retreat?" the Inquisitor asked gently.
Ciri did not turn.
"Is love supposed to feel like a battlefield?"
Elyanna did not answer immediately.
That alone made Ciri look at her.
"I always thought," Ciri said, the words rougher than she intended, "that if I ever had it — really had it — I would know what to do. That it would be simple. That it would stay."
Her gaze dropped to the frost-dusted grass.
"Serana looks at me like I am the only real thing in her world. And then she steps back like she's already mourning me."
A breath.
"I don't know if she's afraid of losing me — or of having me."
Elyanna leaned against the stone beside her, close enough to be present, not close enough to command.
"Love," she said quietly, "does not remove fear. It makes you choose someone in spite of it."
Ciri almost smiled.
"Cullen does not look afraid."
Elyanna did smile then.
"He is," she said. "He just decided I was worth it."
The words settled into Ciri like warmth.
For the first time since Val Royeaux had entered the war council's reports, she looked less like a weapon and more like a girl trying to understand her own heart.
The messenger shattered it.
He did not wait for permission.
He did not bow.
He ran.
Mud and blood and ash ground into the stone of Skyhold's courtyard.
"Val Royeaux," he tried to say, and had to start again because his voice had broken.
"Val Royeaux is under attack."
The war table filled faster than any battlefield.
Not only the inner circle.
Everyone.
Cassandra.
Varric.
Cole.
Solas.
Inigo.
Sofia.
Serana standing so still she looked carved from ice.
Meridia's light is already bleeding into the stone ceiling above, watching without form.
The air tasted like iron.
Josephine read the report.
Once.
Twice.
A third time as if the words might rearrange themselves into something survivable.
They did not.
The paper slipped from her hand.
Not dramatically.
Not with a cry.
It simply fell.
And Josephine — the unbreakable diplomat who had turned wars into conversations and enemies into allies — pressed her fingers to the edge of the table as if the room had tilted.
"My people," she said, and that was the moment she broke.
Not for the Inquisition.
For Orlais.
For the city that had taught her to dance and scheme and survive.
"They will blame you," she told Elyanna, her voice trembling and precise at the same time.
"They will demand prisoners. They will demand blood."
The room turned toward Ciri without meaning to.
Not accusation.
Not yet.
But the connection existed.
And she felt it.
Every life taken in the city.
Every illusion that had fallen.
Every scream.
All of it pressing against her ribs.
"I will go," she said.
Not loudly.
But it stopped every other voice.
She looked at Josephine.
Not at Elyanna.
Not at Cullen.
At Josephine.
As if asking permission to step into a battlefield that was not made of steel.
Josephine did not answer immediately.
She looked at Elyanna.
The Inquisitor held her gaze.
And nodded.
"You will not stand alone," Josephine said at last.
The door opened.
The Wanderer stepped inside like a man who had always belonged there.
Travel-stained.
Quiet.
Anonymous.
Ciri moved before anyone else understood.
The distance between them vanished.
She stopped just short of touching him — not because she did not want to, but because she did not know if she was allowed.
"You came," she said, and for a moment she was not Dragonborn or prisoner or accused.
She was a girl who had found a familiar shape in a world that kept changing.
"Should I tell them?" she asked softly. "Who you are?"
Not a challenge.
A plea.
I need you.
Not as a god.
As someone who stands beside me.
His eyes — ancient and tired and immeasurably patient — rested on her.
And for the first time since he had arrived in mortal form, something like pride crossed his face.
Light exploded across the chamber.
Meridia did not wait for an invitation.
"I will attend this court," she declared, her voice ringing like a blade drawn across crystal.
"I find mortal judgment… instructive."
Everyone in the room knew she did not care about mortal politics.
Ciri did.
And Meridia turned her gaze toward her champion with unmistakable focus.
The decision formed not as a command —
but as a convergence.
They would go to Orlais.
Not as conquerors.
Not as diplomats.
As the accused.
Outside, the bells of Skyhold began to ring.
Not for war.
For departure.