The night was barely over, the sky still dark and grey when Sina jolted awake and gasped for breath. As always, her small tent was lit an eerie flickering green by the shard, the pain of which felt as though it was crawling into her very bone marrow. Still laboring to breathe, she pressed her hand to the mark, her own magic seeping in around it to gently open the airways and encourage her heart to beat more regularly. It had to be done periodically; she hated when it happened in the middle of the night, but at least there was never a chance she wouldn't be awake to deal with it before it took her.

Now fully awake yet still exhausted, Sina drew up her blanket and scooted to the edge of the tent, peering out at the pre-dawn grounds of Skyhold. She leaned her sweaty head against the tent pole and concentrated on taking measured breaths, though her mind began to slip in the direction of Nahariel on her mission and her clan, so very far away. Her thin hand clutched around the glittering shard protruding from her sternum; she wished she could just tear it out and go back to normal, return across the sea, be with her people. Instead, she was being slowly killed by a force nobody understood or had any way of controlling.