“If Tevinter continues to push the front and overtakes us, you won’t have the luxury of consideration. I’ll be killed in combat or captured and vivisected by the Venatori.”

Silence works, in this instance. He has plenty to say on the subject and still more that he skips neatly over with a drag at the corner of his mouth and a glance down between them -- trace evidence of a cruel thought discarded as unnecessary.

“You were not this bleak about my prospects when I asked you about it a year ago.”