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"You have to go down there."
Gorim looked down at the river of lava, far away in the basin of the old thaig. Even at this distance, its red glow reflected off the ruddier strands of his beard. He scratched at it, more vigorously than its stubbly nature truly required, and Sereda had to smile. Gorim was sixteen, just six months older than she was, and yet he tried so hard to seem like a responsible elder. She had to admit it worked for him. "I'm not so certain that I do, my lady."
Sereda nudged his shoulder with hers. "I thought that was the point of accepting a dare," she said. "Besides, I'm the princess. I could order you to do it."
He twisted around and raised an eyebrow at her. Most people couldn't get away with giving Sereda Aeducan the stank-eye, but Gorim was special. "You wouldn't," he said, his authoritative tone coming from certain knowledge.
"I shouldn't need to," she pointed out. "I dared you, that's enough. What did you think was going to happen?"
"There was another option, my lady," Gorim grumbled. "The game is called 'truth or dare', after all."
Sereda giggled. "And you really thought I might ask for truth? You know me better than that." She nudged him again, harder this time. "Besides, you already tell me everything."
"Not everything," Gorim muttered as he turned to face the lava fields again. He sighed. "I can't believe I'm really going to do this. Well, tell my father I died bravely."
"You aren't going to die," Sereda said with a snort. "Honestly, Gorim, when did you get so stodgy? You're sixteen, not sixty."
"Am I stodgy?" he asked, twisting around again. "Or are you reckless?"
"I prefer adventurous." Sereda stepped behind him on the path and poked him in the small of his back with the hilt of her dagger. "Now stop stalling."
Gorim held his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine." He took a deep breath and started down the rocky trail. After a brief pause, Sereda stuck the dagger back in its sheath and followed him, picking her way around boulders and debris.
As they walked, she looked around, taking in the high vaulted ceiling, a row of graven pillars in the distance. She and Gorim often came to this long-abandoned thaig, picking through the ruins for any sign of why the previous inhabitants had left. Had they been driven out by the darkspawn, lava then bubbling up through cracks in the disused cobblestone floors? Or had the lava come first, an incursion that had rendered the thaig unsafe even before the First Blight? She and Gorim had spent hours arguing over it, looking through the scant evidence here and in the Shaperate, but getting a close look at the lava flow seemed the only way to be sure of the answer.
It was a short walk down the cliff face. With each step, the heat from the lava got more intense, along with the sulfurous miasma that wafted up from the floor and from the cracks in the rocks. Stepping around a pile of deepstalker bones, Sereda got hit full in the face by a blast from a vent, and she reeled back, coughing.
Gorim stopped. "My lady?"
"I'm fine, I'm…" Talking sent her into another round of coughing, and Gorim was at her side, balancing her with a hand to the shoulder. When she finally straightened up, he was shaking his head.
"You shouldn't be here," he said. "It's too dangerous."
Sereda cleared her throat to get out the last of the heat and the stink. "I won't get any closer than I have to."
"Which is back at the top of the cliff." Gorim crossed his arms with a glare. "Your father entrusted me with your safety. What would I tell him if you fell into the lava?"
"Probably nothing, since you'd have jumped in after to try and save me and we'd both be dead." His scowl deepened, and she had to laugh. "Come on, Gorim. We'll be fine."
He sighed, again, the weight of Orzammar's ceiling resting on his drooping shoulders. "Why did I agree to be your second again?"
"Because you're my best friend in the entire world," Sereda said, "and I wouldn't have anyone else. And no matter how much you complain, I know you love it."
His face went blank, almost fast enough for Sereda to miss the flash in his eyes as he turned away. "Let's get this over with," he replied, quietly, and then started down the path again.
Sereda stepped around the next vent, eyes still fixed on Gorim's back. That look, the one she had just glimpsed, told her that she'd gone too far this time. She'd been seeing the look more often, lately, exasperation mixed with tenderness and something she could only describe as longing. She usually only saw it on his face when he thought she couldn't see, but how could she miss it? She had known Gorim her whole life; did he really think that she hadn't noticed how his feelings were changing?
She was almost positive he was falling in love with her. Of course, she loved him, too: as a best friend, as another brother, closer and more dear than either of her blood siblings. But she didn't think she was in love with him. Her heart didn't beat faster when she looked at him, and she didn't dream of holding him, kissing him, pulling him into dark corners. Not like the armorer's son Perron, with his wide mouth and gleaming blond hair, or the new serving maid at Tapsters, who winked at Sereda every time she came in for a pint, or Fingan the fencing master, or...
On the other hand, those were just crushes. Not the solid friendship she had with Gorim. Wouldn't that be a better basis for a relationship? A relationship, she reminded herself, that couldn't last. Someday, her father would bring her a marriage contract with some noble house or another, and that would be the end of it. Maybe she'd take a lover on the side, but that couldn't be Gorim. It wouldn't be fair to anyone.
Sereda shook her head. There would be plenty of time to worry about her eventual betrothal. Shouldn't she enjoy her freedom while she still had it? And maybe, if she tried, if she gave Gorim a chance... She'd never kissed him before, not really, just a few playful pecks on the cheek or the lips. What if a real kiss was different?
Lost in thought, she barely noticed that Gorim had stopped, and she almost crashed into him, her hands slapping his back. She held her breath, waiting to pitch face first into the hot river of lava, but he had braced himself. "Oof!"
"Sorry," she said. "Well, I guess this is where we stop. Want to take a look?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "'Want' might be too strong a word, but given that we're here? Sure, might as well learn what we can."
"Right." Sereda stepped out from behind Gorim to the side of the path and looked down the lava flow. "So, the lava it fills the entire floor. Some fresh source must be feeding it -- otherwise it would have cooled off long ago."
Gorim peered into the distance. "Looks like it has a current," he said. "See the ripples around that column? As if the lava is flowing."
"Yes." Sereda knelt down, careful to avoid the stones with rough edges. "But here, at the edge, it's still. I wonder if that means it's bubbling up underneath on that side of the floor, and flowing in the other direction?"
"Could be." Gorim turned to face her. "It's not like I know any better than you. Why did you bring me here, and not a geology expert?"
She looked up at him, saw his wry smile, the light in his eyes. Was the warmth on her cheeks just from the lava, from the exertion of the walk? Or was it more? Slowly, she got to her feet. "Because with a geology expert, I couldn't do this." Resting her hands on his shoulders, she leaned in close, and kissed him, hard on the mouth.
First he froze, and then he leaned in, lifting his hands to her arms, sliding them around to her back, pulling her closer. He vibrated beneath her touch, the soft hair on the back of his neck rising as though it had scented a vein of lyrium. She closed her eyes and let his feelings wash over her: his hungry hands stroking her back, his needy mouth hard and soft at the same time, pressing so close, as though he would devour her whole, hold her with him for all time. As she nestled into his chest and kissed him back, she waited for her own desire to rise, hot and dark, responding to the waves of relief and joy that rippled off him.
But it never did. She was comfortable, she was safe. His kiss was pleasant, but that was all.
He pulled away, and looked into her eyes. His glow ought to have warmed her down to her toes. "Sereda," he murmured, brushing a hand through her hair, and her heart broke. Why now, why did he finally have to use her name again now? "I've waited-- I've wanted--"
"Shh," she said, catching her hands in his. "I know. And I wish-- I wish I wanted it, too." She stepped away, their hands still wrapped together, further words lost in a tangle of conflicted emotions. Keeping her eyes on his to watch his joy replaced by confusion, and soon, she suspected, despair, was the hardest thing she'd ever done. She wanted to turn away from him, from herself, from the pain she was about to cause them both. "I do love you, Gorim. But not, I think, in the same way as you love me." She bit her lip to keep from flinching. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He looked away instead, dropping her hands as though they'd been coated in the lava. "Oh," he said, a tiny little word, shrinking inside itself. "I see."
"It's better this way, it really is." Sereda plead with him to understand, just as she plead with herself. "You're still my second, and my best friend, and now you always can be. It won't matter who else we have crushes on, or sleep with, or marry eventually. We'll have each other for the rest of our lives."
He stood perfectly still, the red glow on his face sinister now, not welcoming or warm. And he said nothing.
Sereda wanted to reach out to him, reassure him with a touch on the back or the arm, but that was probably cruelest thing she could do. "I guess -- well, I understand why that's not much comfort right now. I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."
"I know you didn't." His voice was scratchy, broken, as though he'd been weeping for a week. He glanced in her direction, but still did not meet her eyes. "But--"
She nodded, and looked away. "Do you want to be alone?"
"Yes," he said, almost too softly to hear. "But I can't leave you here, or let you go back without me. So--" he gestured toward the lava. "Should we continue looking around?"
Sereda shook her head. "I think-- I think I've spend enough time in uncharted territories for one day."
He snorted, almost a laugh, and the tight hand around Sereda's heart unclenched, just a little. They'd be fine. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But someday soon. "Let's get back then." She turned, started up the cliff face, and felt the lack of his eyes on her back the whole walk home.