this guide has a very specific walkthrough (in the week 7 tab) to choosing all the correct answers in your gisette convo, i'd also recommend looking in the guides and resources thread if you're struggling with something
I know, that's the guide I used. I did all the right answers for both different ways to peace. 1 rejected. 2 (sayra/jarrod) dead
according to that page of the guide i need less than 30 rivalry (+2 wrong if not) and at least 50 friendship (+1 wrong if not). If I get +3 wrong there's an auto fail at the point I'm struggling with. I have both. And I need help knowing how to prevent gisette's rivalry from getting that high and how her friendship could be higher than it is because I did everything I know about. The only way to get her rivalry down would be perfect acquittal but my warfare knowledge is too low to achieve that without starting over.
EDIT: i was not friends with zarad
I think you misunderstood some parts of the guide, let me help you.
In your w7 Gisette convo, you don't need a good relationship with her to convince her to peace. The choices during the Gisette relationship check are "Yes, I do" and "Best not", choosing the latter will let you avoid the check. Now, before that choice, if you have 30 or more rivalry with her you will get +1 WRONG (or +2 if 40 rivalry, or +3 if 60 rivalry), but if you haven't pissed her off much beforehand it should be fine.
(For the record, saying your goal is Katiya's legacy gives +10 rivalry, not having all aquit for trial and just most aquit gives +20 rivalry. Katiya's Legacy pretty much requires all aquit so you probably should redo it if that's your goal.)
And yes, Zarad will help you before the trial if you're romancing him or have 25 friendship with him. Tell me if you need help on befriending him.