The noble from Val Royeaux refused to sit.
He stood in the middle of Skyhold's great hall as if the floor itself might betray him, gloved hands held rigidly away from his body, like a man who had once touched fire and no longer trusted the world to be harmless.
The object lay on a velvet cloth at his feet.
"I was told," he said, voice tight with controlled terror, "that the Inquisition deals with… unusual matters."
Josephine's smile never faltered.
"We do our best, my lord."
"I do not care what it is," he continued quickly. "It hums. It burns. It whispers when I sleep. I will not keep it in my home another night."
Ciri saw it.
And the world stopped.
A sphere of pale gold metal, carved with lines that caught the light like a blade's edge.
She took a step back before she realized she was moving.
"No," she said.
Not loudly.
But with absolute certainty.
Serana turned toward her immediately.
Sofia followed the direction of Ciri's stare — and then groaned.
"Oh, that thing," she said. "I know that face. That's the 'I once made a terrible life decision' face."
Inigo's ears flattened.
"Is it… going to explode?"
Ciri didn't answer.
Her hands had curled into fists at her sides.
Elyanna noticed everything.
The shift in posture. The tightening of Serana's expression. The way the four of them — the four who had fallen from the sky — suddenly looked like veterans recognizing a battlefield.
"You know this object," she said.
It was not a question.
Ciri forced herself to look away from the Beacon.
"Yes."
The word came out like a curse.
"It is a… relic," she added. "From my world."
"What does it do?"
Ciri met her eyes.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "If you don't touch it."
Sofia snorted.
"That's a lie."
Serana elbowed her.
Later, in the rotunda, the Beacon had been placed on a stone table under guard.
No one had gone near it.
No one except the four of them — standing at what they clearly believed to be a safe distance.
"It followed you," Sofia said, pointing accusingly at Ciri. "This is your fault. You angered a god and now she is sending you glowing presents."
"I did not anger her," Ciri snapped. "She—"
And then she stopped.
Because even here, in another world, she could hear it in her memory.
—A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON—
She covered her face with both hands.
Serana tried — and failed — not to laugh.
"You never told us it was this bad," she said.
"She talks," Ciri muttered. "Constantly. About purity. And light. And destiny. And how I am chosen and blessed and—"
Inigo tilted his head.
"This sounds like a marriage proposal."
"It is worse."
"How," Sofia wondered, "does a screaming divine artifact from our world end up in this world ?"
No one had an answer.
Not a real one.
And that was what frightened Ciri.
By evening, Skyhold had turned the Beacon into a problem to be studied.
Solas had examined it from a distance for nearly an hour without touching it, his expression caught somewhere between fascination and deep discomfort.
"It is not of the Fade," he said quietly to Elyanna. "Nor of any known spirit. It exists… outside our structure of understanding."
"Another object that does not belong," she replied.
"Yes."
That word settled heavily between them.
Another piece of the same impossible puzzle.
Ciri had avoided the rotunda entirely.
She had gone to the battlements instead, standing in the cold wind and pretending she could not feel the presence below her.
Serana found her anyway.
"You are afraid of it," she said gently.
"I am not afraid," Ciri replied automatically.
Serana raised an eyebrow.
"You are pleading with Elyanna not to touch it."
Ciri looked away.
"I know what happens when someone does."
"And?"
Ciri hesitated.
Then, reluctantly:
"A very loud voice."
Serana laughed.
It was long past nightfall when Elyanna came to her.
Ciri was sitting on the edge of her bed, boots still on, staring at nothing.
"I need information," Elyanna said.
Her voice was formal again.
Not cold.
But distant.
The Herald of Andraste, not the woman who had walked beside her in the Hinterlands.
"The Scroll. The red rifts. If this object is connected—"
"It is not," Ciri said immediately.
Elyanna watched her.
"You are certain."
"Yes."
A pause.
"Then there is no danger in examining it."
Ciri stood up so fast the chair behind her fell.
"Do not touch it."
The words came out raw.
Not an order.
Not even a warning.
A plea.
For the first time since they had met, Elyanna saw fear on her face that had nothing to do with war.
"Ciri," she said quietly, "I cannot lead by superstition."
"It is not superstition," Ciri insisted. "It is a mistake. A very loud, very glowing mistake."
There was a long silence.
Elyanna nodded once.
"I understand."
She turned to leave.
She did not go to her chambers.
She went to the rotunda.
The guards stepped aside.
The Beacon waited on the stone table, perfectly still, perfectly harmless.
A relic from another world.
A key to a mystery.
A test.
Elyanna removed her gauntlet.
For just a moment, she thought of Ciri's face.
Of the fear there.
Of the trust that had begun — fragile, incomplete.
Then she placed her hand on the metal.
The light erupted.
The sound was not heard.
It felt.
Through the bones of Skyhold.
Through the air.
Through every mind in the fortress.
Ciri bolted upright in her room.
"Oh no," she breathed.
And from the rotunda, a voice of impossible radiance filled the world:
"A NEW HAND—"
A pause.
A flicker of something like confusion.
"—HAS—"
Longer now.
As if reality itself had made an error.
"—TOUCHED… THE BEACON?"