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Cole is the first to know. He’s listening to the wisps of thought, the little hurts that heal themselves and don’t need him, watching for worse. And then he’s screaming.
Sera and Iron Bull are racing up the stairs before he stops, part from care and part because Cole doesn’t scream. Krem doesn’t need an order to know to stay down on the main floor and try to settle the civilians, already on edge.
The door to the battlements is wide open and Sera and Bull barely pause before following Cole out. He’s halfway to panicking, clutching his head like it’s going to burst, staring out over the valley.
Sera is the first to notice why, archers eyes beating Bull’s attempts to get Cole to speak instead of mumbling thoughts that aren’t his. She swears, once, then bolts for the main hall faster than she’s ever run.
The soldiers are screaming now. Calling half heard orders and pleas to the Maker and just shouting. Bull squints out and sees the smoke from the refugees fires on the road, that there’s too much for small fires, and his heart sinks. He hesitates, hating it, and then he charges back down into the tavern calling for Krem to gather the Chargers.
Down in the valley, on the road to Skyhold, bodies litter the burning ground and blood splatters the snow. Armoured feet crush tents, belongings, toys, bones; marching unstoppably onwards. Red Templars march with Venatori and captured Wardens, mingling unafraid with demons complex enough to willingly follow and others bound to. There’s no sound from the army but the screaming of the dying and the scared and the crackle of fire in its wake, and at its head Corypheus walks in burning silent rage.
Sera almost trips over Varric, careless in her panic, gathers herself up and keeps running and calls attack! Varric tries to believe he’d misheard, that this is another of Sera’s jokes, that this won’t be Kirkwall burning around him again. Bianca is a comfortable weight, familiar and earthing, and he wishes more than ever that Hawke were beside him.
On the balcony Vivienne hears the growing panic and closes her eyes, allows herself the smallest moment of fear. There’s no trace of weakness when her eyes open; ice and stone and certainty. She gathers her anger and her magic together and walks for the stairs with steel in her spine.
The alarms are ringing now and Skyhold swarms with troops gathering arms and herding civilians into the hall to safety. Josephine swears and refuses to be escorted back inside despite the tremble in her hands and the horror in her eyes, and Leliana reaches out and takes her hand and tells her it’s okay.
The inner circle gather in the courtyard with the other soldiers, grim faced and swallowing fear, some better than others.
There’s no time for speeches but Cullen gives one anyway. He stalks the battlements with the Inquisitor, telling his troops he’s so proud and they can do this: save Skyhold, their families, the world. He sounds like he believes it. It’s only the Inquisitor who’s close enough to see the same set to his jaw there was at Haven, that this is spite and a last stand, and the Commander doesn’t care if he dies as long as it isn’t in vain. Quietly, to the Inquisitor alone, he says it’s been an honour. We’ll make him pay for this, Inquisitor, he swears.
The Inquisitor steps down and meets the eyes of the inner circle, and there really isn’t time for speeches or goodbyes or promises but they come anyway.
Leliana smiles, sad but unafraid. She’s been here before and she knows what to expect. She fought an archdemon, she reminds the Inquisitor. She survived that and she will survive this. They all will.
Josephine still hasn’t retreated to the hall. She clenches her fists to fight the shaking and demands the Inquisitor come back safe and kick Corypheus back into whatever hole he crawled out of. She finally lets herself be led away, slipping on a brave face as easily as any Orlesian mask.
Cassandra swears this won’t be goodbye, not if she can help it, her jaw set and her eyes hard and her fear shoved deep down to be dealt with when the danger is past.
Varric smiles as best he can, says he hates goodbyes and tells the Inquisitor this can’t be another tragedy, he’s written too many as it is. Anyway, he says, Hawke would kill him if he died now.
Solas’s face is unreadable and eerily calm. When asked, he says he has seen this play out a thousand times and that this time the hero will win. He doesn’t let his voice shake.
Vivienne’s eyes are full of fire and there’s already a flickering of it in her fists, but her face is cool and calm. Don’t let that monster beat you, my dear, she says. Burn him.
Sera laughs, nervous and high, and asks herself why she didn’t run when she had the chance. She doesn’t say goodbye, won’t face the possibility there won’t be chance later.
Blackwall says it’s been an honour. He’s stared death in the face already, made his peace with it. He tries for joking, asks if it was worth saving the hangman the price of rope, laughs when it falls flat.
Bull grins, broad and fearless, says he doesn’t regret a second in the Inquisition. You find the best fights, boss, he laughs, clapping the Inquisitor on the shoulder. Krem elbows him in the side and asks who’s buying drinks later, and Bull promises him every ungodly creation in the Inquisition’s cellar.
Dorian smiles as easily as ever and wonders aloud why he ever left the Imperium. His smile turns brittle when the Inquisitor starts to say goodbye and he demands a promise that they live, unless they want him to bring them back and make them apologise.
Cole can’t stand still, pacing back and forth, head swimming with a thousand fears, a thousand prayers, a thousand hopes on the Inquisitor’s shoulders. You’re scared too, he says; a fact and not an accusation. That’s okay.
Morrigan shares a brief and knowing look with Leliana and says let him come. She helped stop a Blight, saved the world, with less of an army than this. She clenches her fists when the Inquisitor moves on, telling herself Keiran is safe inside. She will be dead and cold before anyone can harm her son.
Overhead the false archdemon circles, out of range, a lurking, snarling threat.
The archers on the walls start shooting as the army comes into range, but no matter how many fall it doesn’t stop. The bodies of the fallen are stepped over, forgotten, ignored.
And the gates buckle in and Corypheus’s army swarms forward and the magister himself stalks slowly, unhurried, and the Inquisition braces itself to meet both.
And inside the hall, among the terrified and panicked packed together and trembling, someone starts to sing.