"Uh," said Bull.

"Ah…" said Adaar.

"What were you two doing?" yelled Cassandra, looking at the remains of the salle, which was littered with bench parts, splotched with blood, and had some very dead dummies.

"Er…" said Bull.

"Um…" said Adaar.

She followed Cassandra's gaze and discovered that they'd left a fairly impressive blood stain on one wall, and a truly magnificent one on the floor.

"Sparring?" said Bull hopefully.

"Yes! Sparring. Very…um…vigorously. With…err…"

"Each other."

Cassandra finally looked at them and her eyes went even wider. The two Qunari had drawn together instinctively in the face of the enemy. Bull's eye had swollen to a slit and there was blood leaking from under his eyepatch. Adaar's lip was cracked and the skin over her horns had been shredded. Blood had dried down both sides of her face like a crimson vitaar.

Both of them had split knuckles, Bull was favoring his busted rib, and Adaar had just discovered that her left knee was swelling up like a ripe fruit.

"This was from sparring?" said Cassandra, in absolute disbelief.

"I…uh…"

"Berserker fit?" said Adaar. "It's—um—a Qunari thing?"

"Absolutely!" said Bull. "A Qunari berserker thing. We were—uh—trying to induce one."

"I read about it," said Adaar. "In a book."

Cassandra had to know they were lying—everyone had to know they were lying, the salle stank of sex, which smelled about the same no matter what species you were—but she still said "Oh? What book? Have I read it?"

"Uh…it's…uh…in Qunlat."

"I translated," said Iron Bull helpfully.

"May I see it?"

"No," said Bull. "You see—uh—"

"I ate it," said Adaar.

Krem, in the doorway, put his hand over his face.

"You…ate…a book…" said Cassandra.

"It came at me and I panicked?"

Even Bull paused a moment at that one, then carried on gamely. "Well, you know how Qunari books are."

There is a peculiar moment that sometimes occurs in the interactions between two people, where one of them is lying, both of them know it, and both of them are waiting to see if the other one is going to call them out on it. The Antivans have a word for it, and it is possible that the elves once did as well, but if so, it has been lost.

The words for this, in other languages, mostly boil down to really dreadfully awkward.

Cassandra started to say something, stopped, started again, looked at Adaar, who was the Herald and the Inquisitioner and also lying through her teeth, and finally said: "Have you both gone mad?"

"Yes," said Bull. "It was the berserking. It's hard on the mind. We'll just…um…go and see the healers, shall we?"

With Adaar's knee going rapidly bad and Bull's foot never being in the best shape to begin with, they slung arms around each other's shoulders and hobbled out of the salle together like contestants in a full-contact three-legged race. Cassandra's gaze bored holes in the back of Adaar's neck as they passed.

"That could have gone better," said Adaar.

"Are you kidding? That went beautifully. She will never bring it up again because it'll make her sound crazy."

They limped toward the infirmary. Krem circled around them warily, waiting for one of them to fall over.

Somehow they got to the healers, more or less upright.

The surgeon looked at them. She looked at Krem. She looked at them again.

"What in the Maker's hells did you do to your knee?"

"I…uh…" Adaar couldn't even remember what she'd done to it. She gave it a puzzled look as if it were attached to someone else.

"I think I got a horn tip under it for a second there," said Bull. "Shouldn't be permanent, but man, is that gonna swell."

"Oh, nice job!"

They fistbumped one another over the surgeon's head.

"You're out of your minds," said the surgeon. "I'd refuse to treat you, but you'd think that was funny!" She moved her hands violently, as if she wasn't sure whether she wanted to put them on her hips, her face, or wave them angrily in the air.

She stomped away to get poultices or stitches or whatever arcane things surgeons used on Qunari. Maybe long poles with elfroot on the end.

"It does hurt," said Cole, sounding puzzled, as he appeared between them, "but the pain is the right pain? There's no tangle. It's supposed to hurt like this?"

Adaar laughed.

"Hey, Cole," said Bull. "I give you permission to do the creepy thing for five minutes. Who do I serve?"

Cole retreated into his hat. From inside, Adaar heard "To lead is to serve. Horns pointing up. The woman who smells like a dragon. Dragon horns point up, too."

Adaar let out a long sigh.

Cole peered out from under his hat. "She doesn't know what the word means, kadan. Should he teach her? What if it tears everything instead?"

"Okay, that's probably enough."

"What does that word mean, the Iron Bull?"

"I'll tell you later, kid."

The surgeon came back. The spirit, and his hat, faded into the scenery. But it didn't matter. Adaar had her answer.

Something felt strange and light inside her chest, as if something that was broken and had healed wrong had been broken again, and finally had a chance of being whole.

The surgeon kicked them out about an hour later, when they were arguing over who had gotten the most stitches.

"I can't do the stairs on this knee," said Adaar. "I mean, she wrapped it, I could if I had to, if Skyhold was on fire or something, but I'm not going to do it just to prove a point. I think she'll yell at me again."

"See, this is how strong young Qunari grow to be old, cunning Qunari," said Bull.

"Lack of stairs?"

"Not pissing off healers. Also, I've got a bed."

"You sure you want to share it?"

"Yeah, but if you're expecting more than sleep, you're out of luck."

"Think we covered that already," said Adaar, and snickered.

"Also, I've got something for you. I mean, you don't need to take it, but…"

"Is it alcohol?"

"No, but that's a great idea."

They limped together to the barracks. Bull's bed was low to the ground, made of three mattresses jammed together, and had a backstop of pillows on one end so he could recline without slamming his horns into things.

"…I gotta build me one of these…" muttered Adaar.

She sat down on the edge, stretching out her leg.

Bull opened a chest beside his bed and took out a small wooden box. He sat down beside her on the bed.

"The word kadan," he said, gazing at the box. "It means the center of your chest. The place where your heart is."

She looked up, startled.

He opened the box and handed it across to her. "When two Qunari's hearts beat in each other's chests, it is traditional to exchange…well. These."

Adaar reached into the box and took out a dragon tooth on a dark red thong.

She stared at it for a long, long moment, and then she began to laugh.

Bull raised his eyebrow. "If you're not ready for—"

"No," she said, gasping, "no! I mean—I mean—oh, dammit. Krem! Krem!"

The door cracked open and Krem peered through, looking very suspicious. "If you're about to go another round, get someone else to watch. I'm surprised the Seeker didn't clap me in irons."

"Krem," said Adaar, stifling her laughter, "I need you to go up to my quarters. There's a box on the nightstand. About…well, about this size, actually."

"Oh, you're shitting me…" said Bull under his breath.

"Is this another book you're going to eat?"

"Don't start."

Krem threw a salute that probably qualified as insubordination and sauntered off.

"I asked Krem," said Adaar. "About a month ago. And he told me this was how real Qunari did it. And then I didn't know if you'd take it from me, and then…well..."

"Off the dragon we killed together?"

"Yeah. I had to go to where Josephine had the skull displayed and get Sera to climb the wall and steal a damn tooth out. Of my own dragon's head!"

"This one is too," said Bull. "I took it right when we killed it. I mean, I didn't know if you'd…well…" He huffed a laugh. "I figured it's never a bad thing to have a dragon tooth around. But then…"

She bumped her shoulder against his. It was probably about the only part one either of them that wasn't stitched up or bandaged. They leaned together.

"If the silk bothers you—" Bull began.

"No," Adaar said. "No. I think it will be okay." She gazed at the dragon tooth in her hands.

"You trust me?"

She snorted. "We just beat each other bloody and neither of us broke. I think maybe I can learn to bend, just a little."

Krem reappeared with the box. Adaar took it, with an ironic twist of her lips. "And did you know…?"

"Know what?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets and attempted to look innocent.

Bull opened the box and took out a dragon tooth. It was nearly identical, down to the carvings, except that the thong was…pink?

"Kadan," said Bull, clearly amused.

"You've got that thing for dawnstone. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Cole appeared, apparently out of Krem's shadow, and said, sounding very puzzled, "The world is small, so it needs big people to save it?"

"Cole, out of the bedroom. Go with Krem."

Krem muttered something about being a warrior, not a nursemaid, and herded the spirit out. The door shut behind them.

Bull clasped the dragon tooth necklace behind his neck.

"You'll have to do mine," said Adaar. "If I pull out these stitches, the surgeon will have my teeth for a necklace."

He put his hands around her neck. She didn't flinch away, and he closed the clasp.

"Kadan," he said.

"Kadan."

They climbed into bed as best they could, balancing assorted injuries and two sets of horns. Adaar was just glad to be able to stretch out her leg completely while she slept, for the first time in a very long time.

"Think we'll survive?"

"Damn straight we will."

"Then that's all right then."

Outside the window, the first birds started to sing and Krem threw a rock to shut them up and let the Qunari finally get some sleep.