They placed her in the great hall because no one could agree on where else she should be.
Not the chantry — that felt like a lie.
Not the infirmary — she was not wounded.
Not her room — too small, too private for a grief that belonged to everyone.
So they laid her on a stone bier beneath the banners of the Inquisition, where the light from the high windows fell in a pale, unmoving square across her face.
Candles burned day and night.
No one remembered who had lit the first one.
Serana never left.
Not when they tried to persuade her.
Not when they brought blood she did not drink.
Not when Sofia knelt beside her and wept into her shoulder.
She sat with Ciri's head in her lap, one hand always in her hair, smoothing it back the way she had done after battles, after nightmares, after long roads.
Her voice, when it came, was a whisper meant for only one person.
"You promised," she said once, so quietly the hall almost swallowed the words.
"You promised we would go home."
She did not cry in front of them.
That was worse.
The fortress moved around the stillness.
The armor was repaired.
Orders were given.
Messengers came and went.
But every path in Skyhold curved, eventually, toward the hall.
Soldiers entered with helmets in their hands and left without speaking.
Servants placed flowers and fled as if afraid to make a sound.
Even Sera came once, stood at the edge of the light, and left without a joke.
Josephine tried to speak on the second night.
She had prepared something — a remembrance, a structure, a way to give shape to the loss so that it did not swallow the Inquisition whole.
She stepped forward, hands folded, voice composed by sheer will.
"Lady Cirilla of—"
Her voice broke.
Not faltered.
Broke.
The parchment slipped from her fingers.
For the first time since any of them had known her, Josephine Montilyet had no words.
She bowed her head and stepped back, shoulders shaking in silence.
Cole came and sat cross-legged at the foot of the bier.
He did not look at the body.
He looked at the space above it.
Listening.
Reaching.
Trying.
His face twisted in a way that made even Cassandra turn away.
"There's nothing," he said.
Not empty.
Not gone.
Nothing.
"No hurt. No fear. No hiding. No trapped place. No echo."
He pressed his hands to his temples as if the absence itself caused pain.
"She's not there."
The hall felt colder after that.
Days passed.
The candles burned lower and were replaced.
The light shifted.
The mountain winds howled outside.
Inside, time refused to move.
Ciri did not change.
That was the first thing Serana noticed.
Then Sofia.
Then the healers.
There was no scent of death.
No stiffening of limbs.
No fading of color.
Her skin remained warm beneath Serana's hand.
Her chest did not rise.
But it did not sink into the stillness of a corpse either.
It was as if her body had paused.
Waiting.
On the fourth morning, Cassandra called for Solas.
On the fifth, the entire inner circle stood around the bier in silence while the healers spoke in hushed, frightened voices.
"This is not decay."
"This is not preservation magic."
"This is not anything we understand."
Meridia stood at the far end of the hall, light dimmed to something almost mortal.
She had not approached the body once.
Not until then.
She moved forward slowly, every step deliberate, as if the stone itself demanded reverence.
For the first time since her arrival in this world, there was no arrogance in her posture.
She looked down at Ciri.
And said nothing.
The light around her flickered — uncertain.
The wanderer stood in the doorway.
He had not been invited.
He had not needed to be.
For days he had remained outside the gates, a silent figure on the battlements or walking the lower paths, watching the sky.
Now he crossed the hall.
No one stopped him.
He came to the bier and looked at the girl who had called him guardian in another life.
For a long time he did not move.
Then, very slowly, he reached out — not touching — his hand hovering just above her brow.
The air shifted.
Like the moment before a storm breaks.
His eyes closed.
When they opened again, there was something in them that had not been there since he had arrived in human form.
Recognition.
And something deeper.
Relief.
"She is not dead," he said.
The words fell into the hall like a spark into dry grass.
Serana's head snapped up.
Solas stepped forward instantly.
Meridia turned, light flaring in sharp, sudden brilliance.
Cassandra's hand went to her sword hilt as if hope itself were a threat.
"She is not here," the wanderer continued, voice quiet but carrying through the stone and candlelight alike.
"Her body remains. Her soul has been taken beyond — but not consumed."
He looked at Solas.
"For that, your ritual may yet succeed."
Solas stared at him — truly stared — as if the shape of the man finally aligned with something he had only sensed before.
Serana bent over Ciri again, both hands framing her face.
"Come back," she whispered, the first break in her voice since the fortress had gone silent.
"Wherever you are… come back."
And for the first time since they had carried her through the gates of Skyhold,
The hall did not feel like a tomb.
It felt like a breath being held.