The silence that followed the escape wasn't relief. It was aftermath.
Amelia sat on the cold floor of the abandoned relay station, back against the concrete wall, her pulse finally slowing. Dust floated through shafts of moonlight slicing through shattered windows. Somewhere outside, the world continued, unaware that their skin had almost been turned inside out by a collapsing corridor rigged with sonic mines.
Kestrel was across the room, silent, still bleeding from a cut that traced his temple. He hadn't said a word since he'd dragged her through the last collapsing junction.
Neither had she.
Amelia's hands trembled, not from fear—but from restraint. Something had broken loose inside her when the hallway detonated behind them. It wasn't just fear of dying.
It was fear of what she'd felt when she thought he had.
"Kestrel," she said, barely above a whisper.
He turned, eyes shadowed, jaw clenched like he was holding something back—not pain, but fury. Not at her. At the world that kept trying to kill them.
"You hesitated," he said. "Back there. You looked at me like you were already mourning."
"I thought you were dead."
"Would that have made this easier for you?" he asked, moving closer.
Her breath caught.
"I don't know what this is," she said, voice low.
"Yes, you do."
He knelt in front of her, and for a moment, they said nothing. He smelled of smoke and adrenaline, of something scorched and alive. His hand hovered near hers but didn't touch. He was still giving her the chance to walk away.
But there was nowhere to walk.
The tension had been building for too long, buried under stolen glances, fractured missions, near-fatal confessions. Tonight had ripped it all wide open.
She reached for him.
Fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt as he finally pulled her forward, their mouths crashing together—not in softness, but hunger. A bruising, raw kiss that held months of denial and days of madness. He kissed like a man starved of touch, and she responded like a woman afraid to feel anything at all unless it was this.
Her back hit the floor hard enough to knock breath from her lungs, and he came down with her, lips dragging fire across her neck. Their hands were frantic, impatient—searching skin for proof that they were both still here. Still breathing. Still real.
"Kestrel—" she gasped, but it wasn't a warning. It was surrender.
His hands slid beneath her torn shirt, tracing the fresh bruises from the blast. When his fingers found the scars from Node 2, his body stilled.
"This part of you," he murmured, voice husky, "they didn't get to erase. This is you."
She rolled them over in one fluid motion, straddling him, eyes sharp. "And this is me," she said, grinding against him through their clothes. "You want proof I'm alive? You'll get it."
His eyes darkened. "Careful."
"Why?"
"Because I'll give you everything."
The words sent a shiver down her spine, more terrifying than any weapon. She leaned down, breath ghosting over his lips. "Then do it."
Clothes disappeared in silence broken only by sharp breaths and the rush of blood. Her skin was a map of memory and trauma, but he touched her like she was sacred. Like nothing inside her was fractured.
She wasn't gentle. Neither was he.
Their sex wasn't romantic—it was warfare.
Bodies colliding in the dark, a mess of sweat and heat and unspoken fears. Her fingernails dragged red lines across his back. His teeth grazed her collarbone. Their pace was savage, like they were trying to outrun death by outracing pleasure.
But beneath it—beneath every gasp and motion—there was something deeper.
Recognition.
When he came, it was with her name on his lips—not a cry, but a confession. When she followed, she bit his shoulder to keep from screaming.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Chest to chest. Heart to heart. Breathing like they'd just survived another war.
Because maybe they had.
She didn't pull away when he reached for her hand. Didn't flinch when he kissed her knuckles, slow and reverent.
"You scare the hell out of me," he said.
She smiled faintly, brushing hair from his damp forehead. "Right back at you."
A flicker in her neural band buzzed faintly against her wrist.
Echo. Still silent. But not gone.
Somewhere in her mind, the connection to Solas shimmered like a dying star—muted now, but not extinguished. This was the eye of the storm.
And she had never felt more real.
******
In the shadows of the ruined relay station, a second Amelia watches from behind fractured glass—expression unreadable. She touches the wall where their bodies tangled, and her eyes gleam coldly.