.
But the world spoke for him.
The walls vibrated.
Their bones vibrated.
Their thoughts vibrated.
"DIMENSIONS BLEED."
"SCROLLS BREAK BARRIERS."
"THE FADE WILL BOW."
"A WORLD FOR A GOD."
The words were not sentences.
They were concepts forced into sound.
Corypheus lowered his head.
Not as a servant.
As an equal being offered a crown.
A movement behind them.
Serana froze.
Harkon stepped out of the dark.
Whole.
Unburned.
Unrepentant.
He dropped to one knee.
Only to Molag Bal.
"My daughter," he said.
Not with love.
With ownership.
"Return what is mine."
The reply was a single word.
Not loud.
Not quiet.
Just—
"Patience."
Every torch in the chamber died.
All three of them looked at Ciri.
Not at her body.
At her soul.
"Open her," Corypheus said to Harkon.
"It is time to claim the dragon."
The memory shattered.
Not gently.
Not because Solas pulled them out.
Because the realm beyond the memory had noticed them.
Coldharbour closed its hand.
The force that hit them was not magic.
It was a rejection.
Like reality itself expelled them.
They were thrown back into Skyhold.
Bodies hitting the floor.
Breath ripped from their lungs.
The ritual circle collapses into ash.
Solas fell forward, blood at the corner of his mouth.
"The connection—" he gasped.
"—was severed from the other side."
The Wanderer stood at the edge of the chamber.
Still.
Watching.
Then the air above him tore open in shadow.
A dragon's silhouette — vast, starless — descended without sound.
Not flesh.
Not spirit.
A memory of a dragon.
It folded into him.
Into his body.
Into his spine.
Into his eyes.
For a moment—
They burned gold.
Ancient.
World-ending.
And then it was gone.
He was just the Wanderer again.
"The ritual is complete," he said quietly.
"You have seen what you needed to see."
Behind them—
Ciri's body lay still.
Unmoving.
Eyes closed.
But her fingers twitched.
And for the first time since she had been brought back—
she breathed in —
And somewhere far away, something answered.